Cukes and Cukes Alone

Dear reader, I'm back! And I missed you. I'm sorry I was gone so long, if I were a lover I'd totally break up with me. Fortunately, I'm just your friendly food writer and intrepid eater... hopefully we can rebuild our delicious trust!

In LA we're at the tail end of a heat wave, ugh, and the only food I can think about while sweating is... cucumbers. Cool and refreshing, our long green friends came originally from India or Thailand (locales that know unrelenting heat!) and have been cultivated for thousands of years by grateful panting people.

I like that these humble, low-cost veggies can be transformed into fancy finger sandwiches for wedding showers.

Some friends and I hosted a wedding shower tea for our friend Tanya. It was a delightful soiree:










Because Tanya is of German descent, I also made tea sandwiches with very dark pumpernickel bread: I smeared them with whipped cream cheese (it's easier to spread), draped some smoked, wild-caught Alaskan Sockeye salmon (wild-caught has a brighter color, tastes better and lived a happy fish life until it got hooked) and topped each with a dill sprig.

(That's me worrying that I didn't make enough... and I always make too much.) The colors popped and livened up the fairly monochromatic cucumber sandwiches, they tasted great, and I like including elements of people's heritage into shower celebrations. That stuff matters when you're creating a new family.

So thanks for checking back in, my friends! I've got plenty more to say and eat as soon as it cools off. We'll be chowing down again soon.

What a Cook Wants, VII

Real F***in' Vanilla
I am not a baker. Not even close. I can bake a chocolate cake with milk chocolate frosting for your birthday, the family brownie recipe, passable banana bread and this past Thanksgiving, God help us all, fancy pants biscuits that were nearly tender. But I am not a baker.
However there was a time in my life when I made crème brûlée once a week, during that Nantucket summer of love. I encountered a *real* vanilla bean during that first terrifying custard experience. It was weird. It looked like a shriveled up monkey finger a witch would throw into a smoky cauldron, but the scent! Totally different from my mom's small bottles of alcohol-drenched vanilla extract. The fragrance was creamy and rich, with a slight green vegetal note at the back and whispers of jasmine. I was shocked such a creepy object could smell suspiciously like the love of God. When I cut one open and scraped out the itsy bitsy flecks with the tip of a knife, I finally understood the value of the speckles in the "fancy" Breyer's French vanilla ice cream of my youth. Ahhhh.
So if you love a baker, spend the $7 for three beans at Penzeys (check out all their spices while you're there, they rock). Tahitian beans are on the fruity/spicy side, Madagasgar beans have creamy, orchid notes and Mexican vanilla beans are darker, woody and very mysterious. You really can't go wrong, and you might be rewarded with ambrosial delights!
$7 for 3 beans, or $27 for 15 beans. Be sure to take a sniff before you hand them over!

June: The Tastiest Month I

Oh dear reader, I am touched we are still together! This is a level of love and devotion (and probably grumbling tummyness) I cannot imagine, you are the *best* dear reader ever. Thanks for sticking around, I missed you guys!

So then where did I go? Basically, I worked almost every day in June and very nearly killed myself in the process. Some fantastic food came out of my manic over-achievement, but I'm still exhausted. How exhausted? Here's an actual photo of me taken July 1st:



But today I took a long nap, shaved (that fur was out of control!), and am ready to share June: The Tastiest Month, which shall come in 3 installments. We can pretend it's a Dickens' novel, except I won't make you cry with boredom nor will I demand a useless 'compare and contrast' report at the end.

Part I will largely be told by others: it's hard to say nice things about myself, and luckily I don't have to! Mid-June I had the good fortune to teach a cooking class for the birthday party of Len Wein, a super-cool and jolly guy who, among other things, created the Swamp Thing and New X-Men comic book series. I had such a good time reading Swamp Thing as a kid... it is remarkable how the Universe operates, isn't it? What a gift to be able to offer some fun back to him. Christine Valada, a devoted foodie and Len's lovely wife, hired me as a surprise for his party. Their kitchen is mid-remodel, so she wisely chose the class, "You Can Grill That?"
Yes dear reader, you *can* grill a salad! We were outside the whole time and grilled appetizers, a main course, salad and dessert. And pizza, check it out:

Christine and Len wrote flattering things I am incapable of saying, please check out their blogs for a full report. Len offers a thorough review of the menu and I think felt and perfectly expressed my whole purpose in pursuing this delicious path: food has magical power to bring people together (and at times heal them too). He totally picked up on that, yay! I feel successful. Christine took great photos and detailed the course of event beautifully! Check 'em out, and stay tuned for Part II: an English tea!

Whew! I'm back.

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.