Finally, we get some cold weather and rain in this new year. That rising crave for warm dishes and soups is unstoppable. 2018 was a veg heavy year; (that’s a good thing), when my mind is firing on veggies everything falls into place.

Last night was similar but I made another play at one of my favorite beef dishes. I pound beef tenderloin thin, lay it on a warm plate, top with grilled and braised short rib, grilled asparagus tips and one huge gnocchi. Then it gets waterfalled with boiling cabernet jus so the fillet gets barely cooked ala pho or sukiyaki. It went well. This years proteins were strangely steady. Fresh grouper and grilled prime beef were always pairing beautifully, but fall saw a lot of duck breast and thresher shark.

This new year I will continue with dishes like the fish course. A classic example of why I use spontaneous market menus. Dover sole wrapped portobello with broccoli nage, sweet potato, kohlrabi and mushroom marinade reduction. No one is going to order this off a menu unless it checks their dietary boxes. Hell, I’m not even going to come up with it as a concept unless I’m standing in front of it. But when it’s presented as a course, and you know other flavors and proteins are coming. It allows you to relax and enjoy it for what it is. Something new and delicious.

Having chickens is fun but is a lot of work. I guess like anything cool.

Team building exercises were something I was a part of often when I worked in the Bay Area. Not as much down here but that might be my marketing. I like team building exercises. They’re fun, exciting and rewarding; and getting work mates together outside of work is always a hoot. The last group I did was actually two years in a row. Not a third as they moved to Canada, but it was fun both times. The hosts were foodies so we did alot. It got crazy with 15 people in a medium kitchen :-o, but we it got done with smiles and laughter.

Appetizer cheese dish
Chicken wings of some awesome flavor
Lightly smoked fresh fish
Ceviche or shrimp cocktail
Ribeye with umami mushrooms
Curry sauce for naan
Grilled carbs–naan as mentioned, pizza, panzanella salad

Although they can get crazy and busy, my goal is always to keep everyone involved, engaged and eating a delicious meal at the end.

I remember one time we broke everyone into teams with a knife and cutting board. They got to choose ingredients from a big table and utilize anything else in the room. There was a sink, microwave and dishwasher. I got to taste all the entries and it was awesome. The winners used the dishwasher to steam some salmon :-)Grilled veggies that are not usually seen on the grill

Vacations can be crazy and tiring, especially if you’re coordinating people and especially if you have kids. Staying in “vacation mode” is real and important. Ever had the feeling you need a vacation after your vacation? That’s where I come in. You already rented a great house. Having me come in to cook a mind blowing dinner while you throw the kids in the pool and refill cocktails is a smart decision.

Let me paint a picture for you…

It’s vacation night 3 of 4. You’ve already done Legoland and the beach, but you spent this day at the zoo. You pull back to your rental around 3:30 and as you carry in the sleeping children, you realize you only have an hour or two to chill before you need to start getting everyone ready to go out for dinner. Feeling hungry, you attack some of the leftovers from the night before in the fridge. A cocktail sounds nice but you have to drive and wrangle the kids in a little bit, so you forgo.

After showers, getting ready, travel and parking; you’re 10 minutes late looking at your phone. There’s a message from your mother-in-law, wondering where you are. Dinner was some good, but mostly, “just ok”. Full, you pile everyone back in the car and come back home to have the kids still be hungry. Bummed you missed the sunset on your deck, you put the kids to bed, pour a glass of wine and finally exhale together on the couch with your love.

Or…I arrive at your place and create a memorable and highly delicious dinner with apps and dessert, served at your leisure. You get to relax; relax with your kids, relax with your parents, relax with your love, relax in the pool, relax chatting up the chef whirling around your kitchen. Don’t worry, I’ll remind you to watch the sunset.

What’s old is new, and what’s new can sound old. Reliving past menus is fun because I still stay true to form.

I was introduced to fresh fava beans by Chefs at Mr A’s and I’d like to tell them, thank you.  It took a friend hosting a friend from Taiwan who curiously purchased them to play with; but never got around to it. Then, months later the host was cleaning out his pantry in effort to streamline his new gluten free lifestyle. He brings me his box of “here ya go’s”, and I gladly accept. (Side note- my house is the dumping ground for random scraps or ingredients unknown.)  Chickens get the scraps and I experiment or utilize the unknowns.

In this box

…was a bag of dried whole fava beans. I have been successfully avoiding whole dried favas since the first time I saw them 20 years ago at a Mediterranean market. But when I saw this random, lonely, forgotten bag. I saw it as a sign that now was the time to slay the bean.

Whole dried fava beans never seem worth the effort because they are not worth the effort. I mean, if that’s your only bean…cool, it’s good enough to enjoy. But shucking each bean is an extra step I like to reserve for fun and special foods that taste delicious, like a fresh fava. Now, if you purchase peeled and split dried fava’s, it’ll be faster and easier to process. But I’d still rather have the taste and texture of other beans, rather then a starchy mellow lima bean.  I made a cumin and garlic flavored dip that was pleasant and filling enough to overcome the pleasure dome.

Recipe:

2c dried favas
salt
1/4c olive oil
1/4c sesame oil
1/4tsp chile flake
2T garlic
1 tsp ground cumin
2T lemon juice
2T minced parsley

Cover the beans with water by one inch and bring to a boil. Cover and turn off heat to let sit an hour. Strain and cover again with water and add a tsp or more of salt. Simmer for 2 hours, strain and keep some of the water. Shuck the beans and discard the soft shells. Heat half the olive oil with the chile flake, garlic and cumin. Once everything starts to bubble and fry, remove from the heat. Place the beans in a food processor with 2T of the reserved liquid and all other ingredients. Puree until smooth and season to taste, adding more liquid or oil if too tight.

*Departed on a plane, not dead.

I’m sure Thomas Keller would title this, “The Importance of Salt and Pepper.” I’m somewhere between that and titling this, “Salt ‘n Peppa.”
Proper seasoning is a simple but major difference in restaurant vs home cooking. Seasoning is a general restaurant term for salt and pepper or salt alone; specifically fresh ground black pepper and clean salt, (clean meaning no iodine). If you want to know way too much about salt, read Salt: A World History. A fascinating but not riveting read that I got halfway through before I had to return it to the library :-|

Salt will blow up your taste buds and pepper will tickle ’em. Too much salt and you over expand, things get uncomfortable. Too much pepper is like too much tickling…shudder.
The balance between salt quantity and timing are like anything else in food. Care and intuition will take you a long way, but it takes time and experience to be great. Like anything in life.

Luckily with food, even failures can be good and/or easily fixed. It’s innate to learn from them because all your senses are in play with food. You aren’t trying to memorize a chapter; you’re smelling, seeing, feeling, touching, hearing and retaining…without trying.
You just have to keep cooking.
If someone really wants to be a cooking machine; make a drum of pico de gallo and see what happens. Seriously, if you made a drum of pico de gallo, knowing, that the result needs to make someone want to marry you? (meaning, it has to taste good)

You would learn

Knife skills for life; including sharpening and blade maintenance, dicing, brunoise, mincing, knife variance and preference
5 integral vegetable variants, and specifics of their structure
Salt maceration and pickling
Seasoning and flavor balancing with salt, sweet, spice, acid and oil
Oil maceration and garlic processing are optional :-)

Simple favorites have a magic balancing point. That point when the taster is forced to close their eyes and contemplate the pleasure blanket they were just wrapped in. This can happen with pico de gallo, or mashed potatoes, or fried chicken, or steak, or salad, or a hamburger. This level of pleasure is quite difficult to attain without salt. That being said; I don’t love salt on the dinner table unless we are serving plain tomatoes or boiled eggs. I also don’t love auto salters. You know who I’m talkin’ about…shaking salt on their food before they’ve glanced at their plate much less tasted anything yet. My cousin is an auto salter and it irks me. I imagine shaking her but never do, because I’d probably get salt everywhere.

Like the title says. Be adventurous and brave, don’t let curry push you around. The ingredients are cheap, so have fun and experiment.

Most of us don’t make our own spice rub or curries and we tend to make one of two curries.  They add curry powder to coconut milk or curry paste to coconut milk.  Done, dinner served.  There are definitely times when these pre-made curries are a life saver, I get it.  

But…if you have an extra five minutes, creating a fresh curry is cathartic and rewarding.  The complexity brought from fresh toasted spices is always a smell that makes you give a smiling, closed eye, moaning exhale.  One ingredient can change the outcome of a curry but will almost never ruin it; so always feel free to riff or alter.  It’s always about the sum of its parts being stronger than any one ingredient.  

Below is a simple curry made with spices you can get anywhere.  I hope this allows you to take a creative breath and add a little spice to your culinary lexicon.

Basic mix

½in cinnamon stick
1T coriander seeds
½T cumin seeds
1tsp cardamom seeds
1tsp whole black peppercorns
½ tsp fennel seeds
½tsp mustard seeds
½tsp fenugreek seeds
3 whole cloves
2-4 dried red chiles, broken in pieces
1T turmeric
1tsp kosher salt

Toast the coriander, cumin, cardamom, peppercorns, fennel, mustard, fenugreek, cloves, and the chiles in a small dry skillet over medium heat just until they smell fragrant, about 2 minutes; let cool. In a clean coffee grinder or spice mill, grind the toasted spices together to a fine powder. Stir in the turmeric and salt and you are done.  If you omit the turmeric you will have a lovely and spicy Garam Masala.

Making a spice mixture is the first step of a curry and can be made days and weeks ahead of time. The remaining steps are universal to most curry recipes and should never be fussed over.  Sauté aromatics in plenty of oil over a medium heat until everything breaks down, and softens.  Add in a liquid and boil until perfect, season to taste and add meat as you see fit. Measurements and aromatics below:

A spice mix

2c grapeseed or avocado oil
1c sliced shallots
2 small chilies
2T minced ginger
2T minced garlic
1c chopped tomato
1c chopped cilantro
2-3T prepared curry powder
4c water or coconut milk

Happy New year; and if you live here, happy grilling season. A 365 day grilling season is convenient and it shouldn’t be taken for granted. It would be nice to build a big outdoor grilling station, but right now, time and sweet moolah are required elsewhere.

That doesn’t change the fact that a grill was needed. Not looking at anything to drop major coin on, but not a piece of crap that brings regret. After researching new grills, there was nothing worth buying under $250, but $350 was at the peak. Being a charcoal enthusiast, I had needs. Being married to someone that appreciates the simplicity of gas was also important. I wasn’t torn, I just new my parameters and was confident there was an answer.  And there was…

Market choices

The  Char-broil, Gas2Coal Hybrid Grill. At $250, it had a good rating, good company history, easily found parts, heavy iron grates, a side burner and the option to use charcoal. The only question was. Would it produce the heat to suit my needs, and did the charcoal insert work as advertised?

Aside from the lame red stripe and the needed panel modifications, I’m very happy.  The back burner rages away nicely, the grill grates retain heat and the charcoal insert is easy and awesome. It’s also the easiest lighting and cooking of charcoal I’ve ever dealt with. The lack of flare ups while cooking fatty hamburgers was a game changer.

Grill mods

The panel mods entailed unscrewing some bolts and attaching a magnet. The front panels are not designed to open, which was forcing me to access the grill from the rear. Inconvenient and irritating, but somewhat easily fixed.  After that fix, I did the same with the red panel.  I highly recommend this grill for anyone not wanting to invest long term and wanting a charcoal option.

New ingredients are the best Jerry…the best! Platforms for new textures and flavors beget new textures and flavors.  As soon as I pull in a new ingredient, old standbys become fresh fodder for new avenues.  Stumbled upon these barrel cactus fruits and whipped them into a “Desert Salad” that was high on interest and flavor. Along with the cactus, which I boiled in lightly salted water until tender then nipped the tops. I tossed in 4 different types of date, pickled radish and boiled peanuts; dressed with lime/peanut water vinaigrette.

Along with the cactus and dates, I lucked out on my first green peanuts, which has been on my mind. Boiled peanuts can easily become a new obsession, after all, I love beans and I love peanuts and I love simple. I boiled them with water, salt, sugar, toasted/charred dried red chile, vinegar, garlic and onion. So good and addictive. Unfortunately I didn’t make anymore at home as I underestimated green peanuts perishability.  I also wanted to touch on a trip I took to the Colorado river recently. On our way there we passed some gigantic date farms which plugged dates into my brain for a week before I came upon my salad dates; hence the “Desert Salad” theme.  The river also supplied some tasty treats.  The kids fished and  pulled in some little Blue Gills.  The next day we sauteed up the little fillets and they where shockingly delicious…like whoa!

Ahhhhh, the fall season is upon us and it feels gooooood. I know I’ve done a blog or two on seasonal change, but San Diego weather always finds a way of making me feel better than before. This fall I created a new look with two small changes that have nothing to do with food, or eating. I made some new business cards and am enjoying the wood look so much, I thought I’d share.

I guess it’s just in my personality to attempt originality. I don’t like following the crowd and I feel uncomfortable with trends. Ordering a stock business card is another example of it as  the thought of a basic white card makes me itch. I work for myself and mostly by myself, so I want my marketing to reflect that.

An allergic reaction to titanium  zirconium  on my wedding ring forced me into a new one. I stumbled upon this Kentucky bourbon barrel cut ring.  Still takes some getting used to because I loved my old ring, but, it’s nice to have one back on.  Three weeks without a ring feels like a piece of your hand is missing :-(   

*Update-the ring lasted a month before it broke :-| Super lame, I really loved the look.