Latté Love

My friend Eve made me this delectable item today:



Her employer, Square One, uses Intelligentsia coffee and does hardcore training for its staff. I overheard some of it; I believe there were advanced calculus problems involved and I realized~ yet again~ many things I love I actually know very little about. *sigh*

I find very very good espresso doesn't give me the jitters. I don't know why; I'm sure there's the same amount of caffeine in a great or terrible shot, but this latté went down smooth and mellowed me the heck out. Maybe it's because you just can't gulp the good stuff. Like a nibble of exquisite cheese or a chunk of serious chocolate, when there's serious umami a little goes a long way.

What a Cook Wants, 3

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More Exquisite Cheese

There is a lady named Sally Jackson who lives on a 140-acre farm in the Okanogan Highlands, which are in the eastern part of Washington state. She and her husband Roger have been making cheese from the sheep, goats and a Brown Swiss and two Guernsey cows they raise. American artisanal cheese making has exploded in the last decade, and these days it's a bit of a foodie race to find the newest, loveliest specimens.
At the end of an astonishing meal at Providence, I had the pleasure of a slice of Sally Jackson's chestnut leaf-wrapped raw cow's milk cheese. It was semi-soft, the color of Irish butter and complex with a mere hint of funk. I wanted to cry, but I was too happy. You could serve this to most folks, it's not too intense and really pleasing, and totally wow your foodie-est friends.
Sally Jackson Chestnut Leaf Aged Cow Cheese. They don't make it until you order it, heaven.

What a Cook Wants, 9

A Cheese Cave in Your Fridge
This paper is designed for storing cheese. According to the manufacturers, it recreates the conditions of a cave for cheese-aging right in the cold cut drawer of your refrigerator, and keeps other odors from invading your sacred wedge.
I haven't tried it, but I do love cheese and it's a good gift for your favorite fanatic. I'll admit I'm a little heartbroken each time I pull out the drawer to discover the last tasty morsel has turned a hostile shade of blue. Save the cheese!
Formaticum Cheese Paper, $9 gets you fifteen 11x14-inch sheets and labels.

The Perfect Omelette

Dear readers, check it out: a three minute dinner with class... and my small screen debut as a Kitchen Coach! Please, tell your friends and fellow eaters :)



Many thanks to the ever-talented LJ: director, producer, dear friend and omelette-lover rolled into one!

What a Cook Got!

It's a Christmas Miracle!
Dear reader, Santa came for me this year! My lovely sister Jen and friendly brother-in-law P.J. are avid readers of my blog (God bless them!) and live in the Boston area. When I waxed on about Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge they went to check it out, and Hooray! sent me a fabulous selection of five French cheeses from the Western Loire Valley. They were divine; I had to use all my willpower to not polish them off before Christmas! And they arrived with smoked salt-- a few grains went a long way, and made each cheese really pop. The smoked salt was also superb on the roast beast I made for Christmas dinner (along with the fabulous spinach lasagna for the vegetarians!).
As usual, Brendan showed up early to work his magic with the green beans, and I pressed my dear friend LJ into service arranging the glorious cheese platter. That's some serious Christmas magic right there.

What a Cook Wants, 14

Ridiculous Amounts of Exquisite Cheese
I find cheese to be one of life's better pleasures, both satisfying and revealing. A bite of great cheese tells its own story: a beginning that delights, a middle that surprises and an end that soothes, much like a sip of lush wine. It's a decadent, sensual experience that requires no lover and only a bit of money. When I've been lonely and broke I'd buy a small piece of phenomenal cheese, and it reminded me that I was still ok, there was still new pleasure to be had and decadence within my reach.
Formaggio Kitchen is one of the best online retailers of superb cheeses, oils, grains and pastas. They're the real deal, with a retail store in Cambridge, MA, and the internet for the rest of us. The offer a Cheese of the Month Club in 3-month intervals; maybe, just this once, some money spent can bring you happiness. Or your generosity will.
$180 (shipping included) for each 3-month stretch, delivered to your door with special packaging to keep it pristine and fresh. What they send is determined by what's in season, but it'll be about 1.75 pounds each time. Enjoy!

I Came, I Comme Ça, I Chowed Down

I recently attended the opening of Comme Ça, chef David Myers' newest venture. (see above and below)

Myers has beautiful eyes and a smoldering intensity (but perhaps more pertinent to this blog!) is a cuisine-forward, thrilling chef to behold. This is his second venture after Sona, a restaurant I love dearly. What I like about his cooking is that it gracefully dances that razor-thin line between
1. advanced, intellectual dishes and
2. food that is actually delicious and accessible.
Most chefs who fall into category 1. completely forget about 2. I love having my brain stimulated while I eat, but ultimately the pleasure that matters most is in the mouth.
But I digress, dear reader, back to Comme Ça!

The focus of all restaurant openings, oddly, isn't the food. Openings are basically an amped up catering experience (seriously, there was a catering truck out back, though to his credit it did belong to Myers), which is ok because the purpose is not to dazzle the palette but rather convince everyone there that This Is The Place To Be! Look at all the cool kids! So hopefully they'll tell their friends, and more cool kids will come (like these gals).

Standard-issue LA Hotties, exhibit A






Comme Ça's opening was quite successful to that effect: it was crammed with hipsters young and grey, well-cut suits and too-cool-for-school $60 t-shirts, a few dedicated foodies, other talented chefs, and a lot of folks eager for free drinks.
And the drinks were superb, oh my goodness. I'd never had scotch with anything other than soda (P.S. I hate scotch, the smell makes me want to hurl), but their fabulous 'Penicillin' with scotch, ginger, lemon and honey made a believer out of me. Sweet Lord, it cured all my ills. Likewise, the 'Rumble' with rum and bruised blackberries was its own modern art, gorgeous in the glass and jiggy on the tongue.
The restuarant will be an LA brasserie, something this city sorely lacks, though I can only assume (and hope!) Myers will put his own tasty twist on the classic French dishes. I was delighted by his Salad in a Spoon. Frisee (I like to think of them as thistles), lardon~though they seemed suspiciously like tiny cubes of pork belly, yum~ and a delicate hard-cooked egg, all in one perfectly assembled bite? Tory heaven.
There were also crusty, lusty breads from Boule, Michelle Myers' gift to the LA pastry (and chocolate!) scene:
But perhaps my favorite part was the 3 cheese stations: goat, cow, and bleu! Excellent cheese is always the right answer:
That tasty bit had butter, a nutty bleu who's name I forget (somebody had one too many Penicillins!), and was drizzled with honey. Decadence of the finest sort.

Let's see, final credits... all the photos here were taken by Victor Rodionoff and pilfered by yours truly from MetroMix (thanks guys!). And look, I even made it into one of them! Yes, I am famous now, very exciting.
>Slightly-more-eclectic LA Hotties, exhibit B

I'm the juicy one, second to right. I can't wait to eat there for real, they open their doors to all tomorrow. Bon Appétit fellow Angelenos!
Comme Ça
8479 Melrose Ave.
323.782.1104

The Best EZ Cheese Recipe Ever

Dear reader, please enjoy. And be sure to follow the instructions closely... have your crackers ready!
My lovely friend Brendan just purchased a Blendtec blender, I'll give a full review as soon as he's foolish enough to leave me alone with it!

Not Well

Hello, dear reader.

This is an apology note to you. My plan was to write up a big Thanksgiving review on Sunday night, detailing how awesome my soup was, and how Ray's brined turkey was succulent and moist. Instead, I had the most horrible food poisoning from some French cheese-- yes God, I hear you, abstain from all things French (cheese, men) for a while. I think I threw up 7 times in 8 hours. So the thought of food is still a little eeeccccccchk for me right now.

Maybe tomorrow I'll have something clever and delicious to say. For now, it's all Gatorade and crackers. I need a nap. sigh.

Cheese Fight

Let me preface this by saying I rarely get into fights. I'm a lover all about finding peaceful solutions, personally and globally. However, this doesn't mean I stay silent in the face of evil.
Today I went with two friends for lunch in the Hollywood & Highland tourist trap. (Time was short and it was walkable.) We decided to eat at a little spot called the Green Earth Cafe. Makes you think avocado, sprouts and 9-grain bread, right? I enjoy a well-made hippie sandwich, but it turned out this was just a standard sandwich joint run by what appeared to be a family who had recently arrived in the States. Which is also ok.
I ordered the ham & swiss sandwich on a long roll ($5.89 with tax, no pickle), and watched as the lady behind the counter began. She sliced the roll in half and laid down some curly lettuce and bright red tomato slices. Excellent. She carefully layered the ham on top, and then took two solid white squares of cheese and laid them over. They looked like Kraft singles in need of a tan.
"Excuse me," I said in my polite little girl voice, "I asked for Swiss cheese please." The lady looked confused and said, "This is Swiss cheese." She had a strong accent and I thought, she must not know.
"No," I replied, "it isn't. Swiss cheese has holes in it. That looks like American cheese. I don't like American. I'd really like Swiss please."
"This is Swiss cheese," she said again. "May I try it?" I asked. She handed me one of the white squares. It was horrible, gritty with no dairy flavor (let alone a discernable Swiss or American vibe), the kind of cheese that were I alone, I would spit out and look at with disgust. This is the fake food killing the American palate.
However there was a small crowd of customers watching now, and the Mom-lady running the register had wide eyes. The teenage guy (I presumed the son) behind the counter disappeared into the back. My friends looked concerned. I handed the rest of the evil imposter slice back to the sandwich-maker and said, "Look, I'll take cheddar, or whatever else you've got. I just can't eat that cheese."
"We only have Swiss cheese," the lady replied. Then the son reappeared, two bright pink spots on his cheeks and a log of food service cheese held high. "See," he said loudly, brandishing the log before the crowd, "it says 'Swiss.'" I had insulted the family's honor. My face flushed, but I couldn't help myself, "Well, it doesn't look or taste like it." $5.89 is too much to pay for fake Swiss without a fight. I took my sandwich and walked away with my shoulders square.
A few minutes later my friends joined me at the table. "What was that about?" the lithe Frenchman asked as he bit into his sandwich. I used to go to this guy's parties solely for the cheese plate, and I wondered what he would think. He stopped mid-chew and stared into his food.
"This cheese is an outrage."
I love the French. So what is my peaceful solution? It occured to me the owners may never have tried real Swiss cheese. Next weekend I shall return to the dreadful Green Earth Cafe with delicious slices of actual cheese, and I will share them. To hope for better quality might be too ambitious (there's great profit to be had in fake food, sigh) but perhaps they'll understand when the next grumpy eater starts a cheese fight.

Tomato Glory

Tonight was wonderful. I swear, I am my own best date. The other day I bought a pound and a half of beautiful organic heirloom tomatoes at Whole Paychec- uh, Foods. They were only 2.99 a pound, a minor miracle right there, and oh the smell. I buy all my tomatoes by scent. Try it next time you're shopping: pick one up, hold it to your nose, and inhale deeply. Sure you look weird, but you'll know immediately whether it's a tomato worth eating. Most grocery store tomatoes smell like nothing, it's like sniffing a photograph. But these heirlooms, oh my Goddess. They smelled flush with tomatoness and green leaves-- I knew they had to be mine.
Tonight I invited several people over, all of whom had plans. I carried on anyway. On my way home I picked up a ball of luscious fresh mozzarella and let the games begin.
I blanched three garlic cloves in the water I boiled for the perciatelli (a thick spaghetti with a skinny hole in the middle), then minced them up. I sliced the tomatoes into chunks: dark purple Brandywines, a heavy golden one running with juices, a small firm Green Zebra, and what I suspect was a Supermarmande because it was bright red, oddly shaped, and tasted more nuanced than most wine.
I plucked some basil from the plant I'm slowly killing (I murder one each summer, it's terrible), slivered it and tossed it in the bowl. I drizzled a fantastic Greek olive oil over all of it, sprinkled on some flakey Welsh seasalt, and cracked some of my floral Tazmanian peppercorns into the mix. Then I cut hunks of the fresh mozzarel (as they call it in my hometown) and stirred them into the tomato madness.
Using tongs, I swirled some hot pasta into a pretty white rimmed soup bowl, and then spooned some tomato-mozzarella mixture over top. I swirled it into the pasta, added a sprinkling of salt and pepper, drizzled a bit more olive oil, and voila!
Tomato Glory.
I lit a candle, opened a bottle of Syrah even though I'd only have a glass or two, turned on some music from Mali (so beautiful, and great with tomatoes), and sat down to the best date I've had in a while.
You've got to try this before the tomatoes are all gone. There's only a week or two left when they'll be good enough for an uncooked sauce... and really, why not have a sexy tomato date with yourself?
Even if you share them.