Another helping of delicious, please.

I HAVE to tell you about this because OMGIAMSOEXCITEDABOUTIT!!!!

I am not an adventurous cook, generally. I very diligently pick my recipes every week and stick very closely to what they tell me to do. I don't usually pull out measuring spoons and sometimes not even measuring cups, but I generally don't mess around with ingredients. If it says red bell pepper, I buy a red bell pepper - no substituting something I already have in the fridge. But for the first time, really, on Tuesday night I thought outside the box and prepared a dinner using NO RECIPE AT ALL. I can sense some of you yawning - "ho, hum - what's the big deal." This was a huge deal for me because 1) it turned out to be one of the most delicious things I've ever made, in my opinion and 2) it means, to me, that I am starting to graduate to that next "level" of cooking, where you just start to instinctually know which foods go together and taste great together. Believe me, it's taken many, many moons to get to this point and, frankly, I'm pretty darn excited.

So anyway, without further ado, I would like to share with you the "recipe" for what I am going to call: "GREAT BIG BOWL OF DELICIOUS". I will acknowledge that I'm sure this recipe has been made a million times and can probably be found in countless cookbooks, but in my mind, I have invented it. Please let me continue to believe that.

I started with a TJ's bag of mixed grains - Israeli couscous, orzo, red quinoa, and split peas. I cooked it in chicken broth according to the package instructions. Then I added minced garlic, chopped roasted red bell peppers, olive oil, chopped green onions, garbanzo beans, and chopped parsley. I crumbled goat cheese over it and called it done. Oh, it was so easy to make and so flavorful and, for a really professional description, yummy in my tummy! And SUPER healthy to boot. All those grains and beans and herbs and olive oil and a hint of cheese. Perfect. And I found that it takes a lot longer to chew a mouthful of really small different grains, which lets your stomach relay the message that you're full before you overeat. In short, it helps you eat a little less. But really, it was all about the taste. I had leftovers for lunch today and it almost tasted better - like the flavors had melded even more over time. I hate to toot my own horn, but by golly was I excited about this one. For a little more protein in there, you could add tofu or shredded chicken.

The thing that inspired me to think about the whole foods that I had in my cupboard - grains, legumes, vegetables, etc. was another book that I want to share with you. I know, I keep pushing all these books at you. I'm a book-pusher. Shameful. But I just get so excited when I read about these things - it's like whole new worlds are opening up to me. This one is called, "The Jungle Effect" and it's written by a doctor who started studying 5 "cold spots" for chronic diseases (cancer, diabetes, heart disease, depression and bowl trouble), meaning that there are very low instances of these diseases in very specific parts of the world. For instance, in certain parts of Mexico they are relatively few occurences of diabetes in populations that still eat the indigenous diet. In all of these cultures/geographical locations, the health of the people can be tied pretty directly to their traditional diets. So the author traveled to these locations to research the diets, analyze why they are so beneficial and then snag a few recipes to bring back to her patients. It seems that our ancestors spent thousands of years developing diets that were optimal for our health in so many ways. Through centuries of trial and error, they discovered what worked and why. Even if they didn't know the scientific reason for why it worked, they knew that it did. Then the industrial revolution came along and we threw all of that out the window and replaced it with fast and highly processed foods. Genius. Now the grocery store is just a giant land mine and we have no memory of what we traditionally ate to know what we should return to. It's especially difficult for Americans who are usually "mutts" and have no cultural heritage to speak of anyways. I have no idea where I come from, really, and so even if I wanted to return to eating the way my ancestors did, I wouldn't even know where to look. Anyway, the author explains it so much better than I could, so it you're at all interested in the history of food, check it out. Even if you don't use the recipes in the book, or follow her recommendations, I found it a extremely interesting account of what we all used to eat before we could just walk a block to the corner market.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!!

all tuckered out

My best friend Krista and her husband James came to visit this week. They arrived on Sunday and we had 5 whirlwind days together exploring the city and then they departed on Friday. We had an extraordinary time together, full of good sightseeing, good eating, and good friendship, but I have to admit that I'm completely worn out. The weekend was spent recuperating from more excercise than I've had in a long time and I still feel a bit zombie-like today. We toured the Marina, Chinatown, the MOMA, Golden Gate Park, the Castro, our neighborhood, and wine country all in 5 days. I think we covered most of the city by foot. But we all seemed to enjoy ourselves and I think it's always refreshing to see your humble abode through other people's eyes. I discovered, while they were here oohing and aahing over everything, that I do actually live in a pretty cool city. It helped that we had sunshine and 70's all week long, as well. It's summer here in the City.
On Thursday we headed up to Sonoma County for a day in the wine country which, as always, was perfectly fabulous. We hit three wineries, Jacuzzi, Martinelli and some German-sounding one that I can't pronounce. Hold on, I'll look it up....
Gundlach Bundschu Winery. Say that three times fast, I dare you.

All the tastings were really interesting and informational. I find sometimes, that if you appear to be 30 or under and enter a winery for a tasting, you can get the cold shoulder. All the pourers who served us were full of answers and very engaging. My favorite tasting was at the Martinelli winery, which we've been to before. They grow the same grapes, but in different vineyards, so when you taste, let's say two pinot noirs, you really get a sense of the whole "terroir" thing. We tasted two Chardonnay's from different vineyards first and it was striking how completely different they were. I found it absolutely fascinating. Usually, you taste 5 different wines and so you don't get a chance to compare on that level. We repeated the process with pinot noirs and zinfandels. It really was fun. And they usually have very expensive wines, but their Zinfandel was affordable and so I got to come home with a bottle! 

After the full day of tasting and touring (we started in Sonoma and ended up in Healdsburg, so we really covered a lot of distance) we were famished and headed to Sunflower in Potrero Hill. If you ever visit San Francisco, be sure to check this place out. It's a Vietnamese restaurant and they have the location in Potrero and then two other little storefronts in the Mission. It's is delicious, light, fresh food that is really affordable. I'll admit that I've never had Pho before, but had it here for the first time a couple weeks ago and was blown off my feet. What flavor!! On Thursday I had the vermicelli with chicken and imperial rolls and savored every bite. Fantastic. I have nothing but praise for this place and we've been to both locations and the food was equally delicious at both. And the ambiance at the Potrero location is really quite nice. The Mission locations are more hole-in-the walls but that's fine.

On Saturday, after we slept in until 11:30, I made it my garden to finally plant it. The garden did a bulk dirt order a couple of weeks ago, and my dirt level was kind of low in my plot and needed an infusion of good dirt, so I participated. For $28 I got beautiful, luscious composted manure to top off my plot. And, guess what? When I spread it all on, it acted as a weed-killer. So I don't have to dig it all up and lay down cardboard or newspaper for the weedless gardening. I just need to be careful not to disturb the soil too much. I put the dirt on almost three weeks ago and I visited the plot yesterday to plant and not a weed in sight. YAY! It probably ended up being about 4-5 inches of dirt. So yesterday I put in peas, lettuce, spinach, cilantro, radishes, carrots, broccoli and onions. I know - all that in an 8x4 foot bed? Crazy, right? It's amazing what you can squeeze into such a small space. And then I watered everything and wow - the new soil just soaked up all the water like a sponge. With my old dirt, the water would just sit on top in a big puddle for 5-10 minutes before soaking in. It would take a while to water, because I didn't want to completely flood the plot. Yesterday was like a dream, I just continually watered in a circle around the plot and when I had arrived back at the beginning of the circle, the ground already looked parched again. Perfect.

To accrue the 12 community hours I have to do every year, we are allowed to attend some classes at another local community garden and get credit for that. So I'm taking three classes in April which I think will be really interesting, all relating to organic gardening. It will be an easy, entertaining way to get the hours taken care of.

Here's hoping that something grows!

Ahhhhh-sparagus

I have been in the midst of a sickness for the last 6 days, and so activities have been minimal. Mostly I have been crashed on the couch watching LOST for the first time. I never got involved in it when it was actually "happening" and it's one of those shows that you can't really tune into at any time - you need to know the backstory. But I'm totally sucked in now. It's like crack - I constantly need a fix. Luckily, my immune system was willing to cooperate and put me in a situation where I could mainline it for 5 days straight. I would watch an episode and then, yep, sure enough at the very end, there would be a twist and then I would "have" to watch the next episode to find out what happened. Man, it would have sucked to watch the show in real time and have to wait weeks or a whole summer to find out what happened next.

Anyways, I'm coming out of the sickness now and I did a quick visit to the Farmer's Market on my lunch break yesterday and!! Lo and behold, asparagus was smiling up at me from the asparagus tent. Of course, the asparagus tent has been the potato tent for the last 8 months because there was no asparagus in season but - IT'S BACK!! I'm so excited. I took home a bunch and steamed it then sauteed it in butter and lemon juice and it was simply devine. Crunchy and snappy and fresh - it tasted like springtime in my mouth! There was a time when I was sure that I hated asparagus, even though I had never actually tasted it. I think there's all these urban myths out there about which foods taste bad or good, and we buy into these myths in childhood without doing any investigating for ourselves. Or else, the foods were prepared improperly for us when we were kids, leading us to believe that they weren't tasty. Asparagus can be absolutely disgusting if it is overcooked for even a second, so I suppose it isn't all a myth. But, anyways, I've tasted asparagus properly cooked now, and I adore it. I'm looking forward to completely overloading on it in the next few months. Then, just the time I'm getting sick of it, it will be over!

The other thing I wanted to tell you about was a book that I'm reading right now called "BottomFeeder". It's about the seafood/fishery industry and the tolls that it is taking on our oceans and fish supplies. It's a really, really depressing book, but I feel like it's something we all need to know, and all need to be aware of. Basically, we are fishing our oceans to extinction and no one is really doing anything about it. I know it seems ridiculous that we could ever pull all of the fish out of the ocean, but, for many species, we're really on track to do that, amazingly enough. So the book gives kind of an overview of the whole state of the oceans, and then explores different species and the problems and threats to that specific fish - like cod, bluefin tuna, etc. One of the species that it talks about in depth is shrimp that are now being farmed in third-world countries where there are little to no regulations on the farms. It was just horrifying. Basically the shrimp are being raised in cesspools of pesticides, chemicals and antibiotics which is, obviously, unhealthy to humans, but is also hugely destructive to the environment and the communities surrounding these farms. I opened my freezer last night and noticed an old package of shrimp from Trader Joe's that I haven't finished using. I looked closer at the label and, sure enough, it said "Farmed Shrimp - Product of Thailand". Of course, I don't have the details of what kind of farm this shrimp came from, or the state of the shrimp farming industry in Thailand, but based on the info that I just read in that chapter, that bag of shrimp went directly into the garbage. Technically, it was pretty gross-tasting shrimp anyway, before I even noticed where it came from - it was flavorless and rubbery. Sure, it was really cheap, but what's the point in saving money if it tastes like crap? Anyway, if you are at all interested in educating yourself about what is really going on out there on the high seas - I highly recommend this book.

A review on Amazon that I thought was well-put:

"Bottomfeeder is an excellent read on a critically important topic. The book documents the massive overfishing that combined with environmental pressures is driving many fish species to the point of extinction, and that much of the cheap seafood on our plates is not safe or sustainable for humans or the planet. Unfortunately, this issue has gotten limited coverage outside the environmental media and for many readers Grescoe's book will be an eye opener that explores new territory.

Marine biologists estimate by 2040 a large number of species will be decimated. If whole sections of the aquatic food chain go the way of once plentiful Chesapeake Bay oysters and blue fin tuna, what will happen? Grescoe jokes about fish and chips being replaced with jellyfish and chips as a lighthearted way to highlight the issue. As he points out, fishing is the only large scale hunting activity still carried out in the wild. Decades of massive, industrial scale fishing are an uncontrolled experiment, upturning species in every ocean, turning predator into prey and destroying environments and human health through questionable fishing techniques, unsafe farming practices and black markets.

Nobody escapes responsibility for this mess, but Grescoe turns what could have been an angry polemical rant into a globe trotting adventure and keeps Bottomfeeder enjoyable to read. His love of food shines through on every page as he talks to fishermen, scientists, bureaucrats and chefs. By the end of the book, the root cause of overfishing is shown to be the familiar toxic brew of greed and ignorance familiar to the environmental genre, aided by ineffective government oversight and often compounded by chefs whose promotion of a tasty fish can spell disaster for a species.

The tragedy is that Bottomfeeder may be too late to have a large impact. Chesapeake Bay oysters will likely never return and the race to the bottom is well under way around the world. The book does however give some excellent suggestions on fish to enjoy and species to avoid, leaving the reader a small part to play in turning back this "tragedy of the commons".

Even if you don't read this book, check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium website for "Seafood Watch", a handy guide on sustainable seafood."

Butter Fish

I went to Farmer's Market on Sunday with Fresh Crab on the menu. I spotted Dungeness Crab for $8/lb. a couple of weekends ago and have been working up the courage to try them at home since then. Mostly because Neil seems scared of the idea of me cooking crab. But I had decided to give it a go, for better or worse. But, when I got to the fish stand - no crab this week. Bummer. So I perused the other offerings and spotted "Butter Fish". Being totally intrigued by a fish named after butter, I asked the fishmonger what it was like. He said it was like a Ling Cod but meatier and richer. I liked the sounds of that, and plus it was locally caught in the Monterey Bay and one of the cheapest fishes on the menu. Cool. Having never heard of butterfish before, I did a little bit of research on the Monterey Bay Aquarium's website (it's got a great guide to eating seafood, you should check it out) and I found that it is also commonly know as Sablefish, or Black Cod. Here is the blurb from the website:

"Sablefish, also known as black cod, is found in the cold waters of the North Pacific. Favored by chefs for its silky-smooth texture and heart-healthy fats, it can be baked, grilled, pan-roasted or eaten raw. It's a great alternative to freshwater eel, which is on the Seafood Watch "Avoid" list."

I found this info at the Environmental Defense Fund's website:

More About Sablefish (CA, OR, WA)

Although sometimes called a black cod, the sablefish is not a cod species. The wide-ranging, long-lived sablefish is popular in Japan, where most of the catch is marketed. This fish produces oil rich in vitamins A and D. It can live as long as 62 years and grow to a record of 4 feet (122 cm).

Commercial Sources
Sablefish are found in the North Pacific Ocean. In the eastern Pacific, they occur from the Bering Sea to central Baja California in Mexico. In the western Pacific, they are distributed from the coasts of Kamchatka in Russia to southern Japan.

The main source of sablefish is the United States followed by Canada.

Capture Methods
Sablefish come from marine fisheries, not fish farms. They are primarily caught with longlines and handlines. Additional types of fishing gear include trawls, pots and traps.

Buying & Eating Guide
Flavor and Texture
Sablefish has mild, soft-textured white flesh with a high fat content.

Buying Tips
Sablefish is sold whole, in fillets or steaks, and fresh or smoked. It is sometimes marketed as smoked black cod.

Apparently, Black Cod/Sablefish caught in Alaska or Russia is preferred, because the fisheries in WA/OR/CA aren't very well managed. But it is still a fairly good eco-choice, and a good alternative to Chilean Sea Bass, which is, I guess, severely over-fished.

Anyways, I ate the fish before doing any of this research, so I guess even if it had been on the Monterey Bay Aquarium's AVOID list, I wouldn't have known it until after fish was already in my belly. But I'm really glad that it's okay to eat because, boy, was it delicious. They weren't fooling when they named it "ButterFish". The thing practically melted in my mouth. I fried the filets in butter and lemon juice and sprinkled them with salt and pepper and to be honest, the butter was almost over-kill. The fish is so ridiculously rich anyways, that it's almost redundant to put butter on it. If I were to cook it again, and I most certainly will, I would fry it in a little olive oil and then drown it in lemon juice and just touch it with a tiny bit of butter at the end to soften the lemon juice. But I think it really needs the strong acidity of lemon to balance out the richness. I usually don't like white fish very much, but this one was different - it didn't taste fishy at all, it was more meaty and silky. And I would imagine it would be a really great blank canvas for all sorts of flavors, because of the lack of fishiness. I served it with sliced red potatoes sauteed in butter, with garlic and thyme and broccoli raab, sauteed in butter with lemon juice, salt & pepper. Yep, I really bought into the whole "butter" theme. Mmmm. Butter.

So, anyway, if you come across this fish sometime in your local market, give it a shot.

We had a lovely day here in S.F. on Sunday. Sunny and bright and clear. Neil and I walked down to Duboce Park with coffee and pastries and just sat on a bench for an hour or so, drinking in the sunshine and watching all the parents out playing with their babies. We spotted a baby Tiger (or who's a good golf person these days?), baby Steve Prefontaine, baby Pele and baby Peyton. Got to get them started early, I guess. There was also a french bulldog who was trying to steal basketballs and skateboards. He was pretty funny.
Today, we are back to the rain, but that's okay - Spring is in the AIR!!