What a Cook Wants, 8

(I got sick of the Roman numerals.)


A Little Something To Go With The Vanilla Beans
Yes, dear reader, this would be the *perfect* accompanying gift for those lusty vanilla beans! Everyone wants a shiny KitchenAid on their counter, I don't care if you're Michelle Myers or Leona Helmsley (who only stomped into the kitchen to yell at the cook!), that gorgeous standing mixer makes all your gastronomic shenanigans legit, even if you've only got a packet of ramen boiling on the stove.
Furthermore, it turns out you don't have to get married to actually own one of these! I had no idea (the oppression of the patriarchy is so sneaky!), but it turns out the wedding police won't stop you at the store exit to check for a ring~ a week ago a bunch of us chipped in to buy one for our fantastic friend Nina's birthday. She's still working for the Mean Girls and is an amazing, exciting baker who wows our Cooking Club month after month. We got her a shiny red KitchenAid, it was awesome. And admittedly, a bit self-serving...
If you get one of these powerful workhorses for the baker in your life, what a fragrant and delicious new year awaits. Go on, get shopping!
$349 for the Artisan 10-speed Tilt-Head Stand Mixer in Empire Red. Comes with a flat beater, dough hook, wire whip, wide chute pouring shield and 5-qt. stainless steel bowl. It can make 4 loaves of bread, 9 dozen cookies, and 7 pounds of mashed potatoes... let me know if you need my number to invite me over :)

Food Just Tastes Better in SoCal

Look at the latest wonders from my Cooking Club's Greek Feast:

(That's my roasted cauliflower hummus in the middle there, lord it was lovely.)
What I'd like to point out to my readers elsewhere in the country is that this photo was taken outside. In March. Do you see the gentle sunshine? The comfy lawn chairs? Every time I miss living with seasons, the ebb and flow of nature that reminds me time is moving, I remember if I were almost anywhere else I'd be shivering and forced to wear a hat (which I hate, too many winter hats forced on me as a child).
Eating food in the sunshine makes it taste better, and in LA we can do it most days of the year. Not that I'm trying to convince you to move to LA... but look at the flatbread Nina made (from scratch! bakers amaze me) that we grilled:

Tell me this isn't the good life here~ I don't know how I got so lucky. Join me, friends. It's a big table.

No Love, But Soup

"Of soup and love, the first is best." -Spanish proverb

So it is Valentine's Day, and I have no Valentine. sigh However, I did have some excellent soup, so perhaps there's still hope. This weekend my Cooking Club met for grand French cuisine; I let go of my hostility towards the Frog who stood me up last fall and made a rustic soup I'd never eaten before, Aïgo Bouïdo. It's a roasted garlic soup thickened with toasted breadcrumbs and almonds that I ground into a paste before whisking into the chicken broth and white wine. Then I whisked in the pureed garlic and caramelized onion-shallot mixture. Yuuuum.
At first it seemed thin and I had a total meltdown (I try to bring my A-game to Cooking Club and also have impossible high standards for myself). At Susan and Wylie's place I reduced it a bit and also calmed down. In the end the flavor was great, though in retrospect I wish I'd done a better job of pureeing the toasted breadcrumbs/almond thickener. The soup was a little gritty, but otherwise tasty. I'd make it again.
I had it for lunch today, a beautiful bowl of soup.

Oh l'amour.

Si se puede, or MexiCAN!

On Sunday night the Cooking Club convened again, this time for a Mexican fiesta. Que bueno! Que rico! Que sabor (flavor)!
One of the wonderful lessons I've learned as an Angeleno is that Mexican cuisine is not comprised of boring, heavy bean and cheese "chimichangas" (not a real word, by the way). My exposure to la cocina Mexicano growing up was limited to the horrendous chain restaurant Chi-Chi's, which is about as authentic as the Olive Garden's "Italian" cooking, ugh. While eating the boring salty food my dad always insisted on wearing the kids menu on his head (designed to fold into a paper sombrero), oh the horror. I wanted to crawl under the table with my stale chips... bad food and public shame? I'm out.
When I moved to California I thought I didn't like Mexican food; turns out I'd never really tried it. Ten years, no embarrassing Dad-hats, and many gentle tamales made by abuelitas (grandmas), multicolored moles prepared by folks from Oaxaca, and $1 tacos in the middle of the night: today I'm a full-on convert. My dear friend Ray's gift with the puerco has been an inspiration too, gusta mucho!
So Sunday morning I prepared my excellent puerco verde stew. I seared, then slowly braised 3 pounds of pork shoulder in my awesome slow-cooker with a sauce of pureed tomatillos, onion, garlic, chiles, some white wine (not a legit component of this dish, but I think it makes it better), and my deliciously authentic sauce thickener: I toast a couple corn tortillas over a gas burner, rip them up and then whiz them with a half cup of chicken stock to make a corn slurry of sorts. Sprinkled in some Mexican oregano, cumin, and ground fennel and let it stew for 6 hours. Then I removed the pork, shredded it with forks, let the whole thing reduce a bit and served it as tacos with corn tortillas, crumbled queso fresca and snipped scallions, yum! Many folks asked to take leftovers home, always the best compliment.
On the menu also were delectable sopes (a cousin to Venezuela's arepas) see example to the right, buttery cheese tamales, machaca (eggs, shredded beef, onions and peppers, a real champion's breakfast), homemade red rice and beans, and two kinds of enchiladas. Wow. Nina, our resident Baking Goddess, made a Mexican-style chocolate bundt cake- the last slice will rock my afternoon, if I can wait that long!
Susan, ever the elegant hostess, made me a lovely margharita which I enjoyed for both of us as she is great with child, uhh, nino :)
Ahh, Mexico, mi amigo, mi plato grande... gracias! Muchas, muchas gracias! Que delicioso, mi amor.

Matzoh Balls, Brisket and Babies! Oh My!

On Sunday night my fabulous Cooking Club convened for a comforting evening of Jewish cuisine, and I made my beloved matzoh ball soup. Beloved because
a) I render the schmaltz (chicken fat) myself; the purity of chickeny flavor that results is the best I've tasted. I think Canter's, Jerry's and all the other Jewish faux-deli's in L.A. use margarine in their sodden, salty lumps. Wretched. The other reason my matzoh balls are beloved is
b) they remind me of these German dumplings my Pop-Pop (grandfather) made for soup when I was small. Elaborate discussions always followed the meal on how heavy or light they were that day: was it his gentle blending that made them so buoyant? Was it the humidity that made them doughy rocks? (Surely it couldn't have been his cooking, oh no.) My matzoh balls achieve the same feathery lightness his best efforts produced; when I eat them I swear Pop-Pop is next to me, nodding in admiration despite himself.

The Cooking Club has been one of the best parts of my year. Every month or so a group of foodies as insanely into eating as I am gathers at our friends Susan and Wylie's place to put our best fork forward for a different cuisine. We started with a Spanish noche of paella, divine despite its blanket of peas, and have chopped, stirred, nibbled and baked our way through Persian, Italian (you know the pasta was homemade), Indian, Vietnamese (God's food), Carribbean, White Trash BBQ (I cannot deny my heritage), a Brunch when we were tired, and Jewish food. We've scoured Indian markets, Chinatown grocers, bodegas and Iranian mini-marts in search of authentic ingredients and the best cooking advice.
The passionate opinions in the flurry of e-mails as we decide which dishes will star in the next feast, the intensity in Susan's kitchen as we finish the last bit of prep (I'm forever behind schedule) and the hearty good cheer around the table have produced stellar results, both in my belly and out in the world. We were featured in The Christian Science Monitor and on the Bon Appetit blog (which included a photo of the torso and spring rolls of yours truly). All we need now is a series on Bravo. Hmm, I'll make some calls...

This past feast was especially sweet because two of the ladies announced they are pregnant. We toasted to the tiny members-to-be, then dug into meltingly tender brisket, a sweet and nearly healthy kugel, some Sephardic couscous-stuffed eggplant, and rounded out the meal with Nina's stupendous chocolate-cherry rugelach (thanks, Hashem) and Josh's first attempt at chocolate-dipped macaroons. You'd never guess he was a novice, that one. My matzoh balls compared favorably to several folks' grandmas, high praise, and I thought my belly might pop by the time I rolled home. I left with block of kugel and three more rugelach, score!
In December, we're throwing ourselves a party filled with holiday treats and sparkly drinks to celebrate our excellent year of eating and good cheer. We have plans to compile a cookbook and heck, who knows what's next. Maybe Inuit cuisine? I always wanted to try Polar Bear...