about new city, a new kitchen and styrofoam dishes

I have not written a word in a really long time. This time, I do not blame my procrastinating lazy self so much, but instead logistics: I have been working my butt off since March, when I got accepted into a Masters program in Culinary Anthropology at NYU. That's right, I decided to move across the country and deal with all that comes with moving. I had to edit my belongings to what I wanted/needed to keep, give notice at the most fantastic job I've had so far, Range, leave my beloved rent controlled Victorian home with awesome housemates, say goodbye to longtime friends and break up with my boyfriend so that I could move to the east coast. Yeah.

I have been living in Brooklyn for a week and a day. And frankly, it's been the hardest week of my life. I miss the Bay everyday and I even wonder whether I just made a huge mistake. New York is busier, angrier, dirtier. I also don't really know my way around it. But I also don't have my stuff yet.

Cooking is one of the things in life that grounds me the most and brings me peace and calm. And since I moved to this new apartment north of Prospect Park, I have felt so challenged it has threatened my sanity. First, I had to deep clean the ENTIRE kitchen, since there were inch thick lines of mice droppings around and in the stove. YUCK. Second, no gas for five days. No bueno. And then, despite the fact my movers had promised to deliver my stuff within the week, it has been no such thing. I had prepared to live minimally for a few days until my things arrived, but since eating out adds up, I have had to purchase surrogate cookware, a $5 knife, plastic silverware and styrofoam dishes so that I can use my new kitchen.

This sucks.

I know it's all a matter of perspective. I know that once my homebase looks and feels the way I want it to, the rest of the world will be seen through the same set of lenses. I know NYC will rock my socks off, but until I have proper dishware and cutlery, I will only resent the city for keeping from me the things that give me sanity. I want my blender, my baking stone, my fucking favorite coffee cup, my fruit baskets. And though I am trying to practice the Buddhist principle of non-attachment, this time I think I am warranted an exception: I just moved cross-country, left my loved ones and my comfort zone---could my kitchen be the way I want it?!

Yet tonight, I made risotto. Comfort food at its best; direct access to carbohydrates, or happiness. I went to the Park Slope farmer's market last week and bought an assortment of king trumpet, pioppini and crimini mushrooms. A little white vino, a little parmesan. Done. Yum. Happy. Drunk. Sloppy blog.

I am starting to feel different about my kitchen.

Superbowl or Sushi Bowl?

I love it when business owners admit that sometimes staying open is a waste of everyone's time and money. so I loved it when my bosses decided to close the restaurant for superbowl sunday. It is a rare opportunity when all of my co-worker friends and I coincide having the same day off. We had to celebrate it. The question: what do a bunch of women who care next to nothing about football do on the most glorified football day of the year? How do we rebel and have the most anti-football day celebration?

Thanks to Jiwon Park, sous chef at Range, pan-Asian food lover, and come to find out, ex-sushi cook, we got everyone at my house for a sushi making party. I did not have the slightest idea on how to go about making sushi, but I guess that's why one follows the suggestions of such an immensely talented woman.

I joined Jiwon on a shopping trip to a supermarket in Japantown, where I felt so alien and illiterate and she navigated the aisles with graceful ease. We purchased dehydrated shrimp shells for soup stock, glazed unagi, fresh dungeness crab, raw yellowtail, nori, red miso paste and Kiri Ichiban (on sale!) along with assorted veggies. Back in the kitchen, I could only help in the neutral tasks: cutting avocado and cucumber, or handling Jiwon stuff from pantry (rice vinegar, sriracha) or random tasting for too much heat.

Once we had everyone gathered and all the food prepped, we got to rolling. And though it looks easy enough, it isn't. I have never been good at rolling a burrito, or a joint, for that matter. I always overestimate how much filling they can hold before the wrapping falls apart under pressure. I wanted to learn how to do it right. I wanted the bonding experience of friends assembling their food over a table. But I could also see how much more effective (read: how sooner could we get to eat) if we just let Jiwon do the rolling. So we did. We still gathered over the table while we oohed and ahhed over Jiwon's food.

I loved this rare opportunity to dine with my co-workers; they are wonderful, intelligent, solid women who love food as much as I do. Move over Tsunami!

A note on picky eaters

Those who know me are aware that I have a distinct aversion towards picky eaters, though I do forgive those who justify their dislikes with a strong argument. A good friend of mine explained that she did not like olives because when she was a child she chewed on a pitted olive hidden in a dish and chipped a tooth. She was traumatized and now is weary of olives. It is not that she dislikes their inherent saltiness but that there is a disagreeable emotional component to the way she sees olives.
A few nights ago at work, a diner asked me if we could remove the bones in the chicken dish, because she "did not want to touch it." She said our menu was short and limited because she didn't eat pasta, she didn't eat fish; steaks are too fatty and the soup sounded weird. When her date, who seemed to ignore her fastidious behavior, asked what exactly was escarole and then ordered the escarole soup, she ordered one too.
I struggled with this table, not only because I dislike fussy people but because I am uncomfortable seeing people's awkward incompatibilities over the table. Especially while on a date, I think it a serious shame when a couple rules out the flirtatious element of sharing food: "my fish is decadent, would you like a bite?" Though he ordered three courses, and she a soup and a salad sanz dressing or cheese, I proposed an off-beat pacing of their food so that both were eating at the same time.
I wondered why this woman was such a picky eater: did she ever chip a tooth on a bone, or once choked with her lunch that she is now a reluctant eater? Or is this bigger, the product of a damaging self image wherein food is just a necessity, not a pleasure? I then wondered about the man, and how important could food be to him that he seemed not to notice or care when his date proved to be such a picky eater?
Either way, I know I'm getting too wrapped up in someone else's issues, but it got me to thinking about the choices we make when we decide to eat or not eat a certain food. About the restraint and discipline it takes to avoid and decline a food we have decided we a) don't know, b) don't like, c) can't eat, or d) won't eat. I think whoever picks option A is lacking the human gift of curiosity, but I'm open to hearing the arguments behind why people don't like, can't or won't eat certain foods.



Sure, my nephew and DW, the Picky Eater, are allowed up to a certain point to be picky eaters because they are children: their palates are simple and like MFK Fisher said, kids "can taste bland delight in dishes that would sicken [read: bore] older men." But grown adults better have an articulated sophisticated argument to why we eat the way we eat. There is nothing wrong with saying "I'm on a diet" or "I don't like the mushy texture of oysters" or "I will not eat a previously living being," but since we made such a choice we are responsible for defending it and for doing a little research before we take ourselves out to eat. More importantly, we are required not to make our waitress feel responsible for our choices.

That said, I'm thinking of another Communion, one where guests have made a choice of diet and lifestyle they must uphold everyday of their lives. I would love to get some vegans around the table, but I think I would be an utter failure as a vegan cook, since I can't live without butter, cream and cheese. But a vegetarian Communion sounds like a true possibility. Now, where are the self-professed vegetarians?!

i want cookies!!!

Everyone in my family is a cookie monster. Isa, my sister, is the cookie making instigator in my family. If I could use one adjective to describe her, it would be 'ambitious'; she woke me up today in a cookie frenzy, ecstatic about all the goodies she wanted to make, despite their difficulties. She wants to make the old-school candied fruit and pecans 'slice & bake' cookies we used to make when we were children, taken from a November 1985 edition of Woman's Day; the more traditional chocolate chip cookies, to which my sister always thinks the more chocolate chunks, the better; oatmeal and cranberry cookies, my favorite; sugar cookies with sparkly sprinkles; and the fastidious marmalade trenches, which though they are good and like shortbread, they crumble a bit too much for my liking. She even wants to make these peanut butter surprises, chunky sugar cookie sandwiches with a peanut butter center, ALL IN ONE DAY, but I will try to convince her not to.
So then, Isa wants to make cookies, and because we all want to eat them, we let her go nuts. My mom and I sit around the kitchen, handling eggs, and sifting flour, giving advice, reminiscing on what went wrong last time we made these or those cookies, or like me, mostly sitting on the side acting like the supreme cookie judge. What happens is that like me, Isa is a scattered, distracted, too-ambitious baker/cook that once she starts and sees how much work she really has to do, and how high the pile of dirty dishes will be, she wavers. We all try to pull it together, watching the oven when she takes off to talk on the phone or to attend her laundry, or chiming in when the sugar cookie dough isn't as elastic as she'd like it to be or when she thinks she didn't put it enough chocolate chips.
The conversation is pretty hilarious. Gossip. Bitching. Plans. Cooking related chit chat. Gossip. Bitching. Sometimes all at once. We are often interrupted by my father, raiding the recently stocked cookie jar, or my brother-in-law being an affectionate husband, or a ringing phone.
But eventually we all get back to baking, with Isa's ambitious plans seen through by the collective whole.



I can't say it any better than the Cookie Monster:

November's Communion: Thanksgiving with a twist

This month's communion was very very different. First of all, a very special diner and guest cook flew out here all the way from Venezuela and owned the execution of two of our courses. She not only provided in-depth chocolate knowledge but also spoiled me rotten, which makes me assert once again that my momma is seriously the best. She came to spend Thanksgiving dinner with me, and since she has been wondering what these Communion dinners are all about, I decided the best would be to host Communion a few days before turkey day so she could see for herself. Second, our rule about having strangers at the table didn't really pan out this time: we were joined by another amazing mother-daughter duo, a significant other, two good friends and a housemate.

The theme was 'thanks' in honor of the coming holiday, but I reckoned no one wanted to eat thanksgiving dinner twice in one week any more than I wanted to cook it. Instead, our menu was comprised of things I love so much I thank God they exist: bread, cheese, broth, pork, fried dough, ice cream, chocolate. Devising the menu was a pretty hard task, not only because I love many things, but also because deciding how to present them and in what order could have easily been overkill.

Our first course was a plate of bread and charcuterie: lightly toasted New York Rye bread with slivers of jamón serrano and picnic ham and slices of a sharp Pecorino Romano and Murcia Drunken Goat. We served them with some wild arugula tossed in olive oil and lemon juice and a couple of meaty Gordal olives. We shared glasses of an Alfonso Jerez Oloroso and tossed around ideas about the word 'thanks': gratitude, graciousness, gracias; appreciation, value, recognition.



Our second course: a brothty soup for the soul and a glass of Vigneto Tsasco Vermentino and some tales of when our soul was thankful. I don't think there is anything better than a cup of warm broth on a cold day, when sick or when indigo blue. (I believe a good hearty broth may just be the cure for almost everything.) Here, my dear friend and diner revealed that her recent precarious health condition has been cleared and that she is 100% healthy. Our glasses raised to celebrate her health and the topic moved to our failing and flailing health care system, our experiences and frustrations and what alternatives can we come up with. If only those in congress could have heard us... But from here on, the prompts on the menu no longer guided our conversation. It was purely organic.



Our third course was an apple cider braised pork shoulder with root vegetables and a glass of Beaujolais. This course proved to be the trickiest of all because though I knew I wanted pork on the menu, I was unsure of how to present it: an herb crusted tenderloin, a braised short ribs ragú, fennel and coriander seed sausages, or bacon?



Our fourth course: donut holes, milk ice cream and a coffee caramel sauce with a glass of Suri Gramella Moscato d'Asti. And this is where my mom shines. When I was in elementary school, every Friday afternoon a grade would hold a sale to gather funds for upcoming trips or projects. The main school hall would be filled with sale stands of lemonade, brownies, cookies, empanadas, and, whenever me or my siblings were involved, doughnuts. They were sure winners not only because fried dough is just irresistible, but because my mom's donuts are simply the best.
So in this course were five of my most favorite things: fried sweet dough coated in sugar, ice cream, coffee and caramel and my mother orchestrating how they all came together. Below is a picture of her hands at work.



Our fifth and final course were bittersweet chocolate truffles made mostly by mom. I had an basic acquaintance with the makings of chocolate, so it was truly enlightening to see her at work. Here we are trying to make the little round balls of heaven.



And here are other things else I am thankful for: Help. Advice. Unconditional love. Sometimes it is really hard to ask for them, even to accept them, but there is something truly heartwarming when someone, especially if it's your own mother, intuitively knows what you need and just steps up to the plate, whether we want it or not. I have to say I was so happy to have her in my home for the holiday and to have shared the intimacy of the kitchen and of the dinner table. ¡Gracias, mami! Here are a happy mom and daughter duo, exhausted after days of cooking, indulging on a dinner out.



I don't know when the next Communion will be. It has proven to be a time and money consuming endeavor that I don't know whether I will be able to continue. It needs to be seriously re-considered and re-designed to be a feasible long-term project. I welcome any suggestions you may have. As I write this, I am in Venezuela, sitting on my mother's kitchen table while the rest of the house sleeps. I am officially on vacation. But, since all the women in my family will gather in the kitchen this holiday season, know I will come back with more stories to share.

¡Felices Pascuas!

October's Communion

October, at least in San Francisco, is a month of remembering: it marks the anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake, 20 years to be exact this past October 17th. In line with the commemoration, I've been thinking a lot about emergencies, especially about what would we eat in case of an emergency. I'm always careful to freeze a batch of whatever I cook, so that not only will I have ready-made food in case of lazyness, but so that in the case of food ever being scarce, my household will be able to sustain itself for at least a week, until other arrangements come through.

With that in mind, this month's Communion was about emergencies and the ways in which we cope, or not, with them. I think that for the first time in Communion's short life, both the menu and the theme walked the same lines, so we were pretty excited about not only sharing stories and tips about previous crises, but also for creating dishes that were the gourmet approximation of survival food.

This month's guest cook and helper was none other than my dearest Oscar Manuel Trujillo---dancer, performer, activist and bad-ass extraordinaire---who added his fierce touch to the decor, the pacing in between courses, and making this overworked cook chill out. Below is a surprisingly calm picture of Oscar and me taken from the dining room. (And a note about pictures: I've already claimed I'm a bad, sloppy, forgetful photographer, so the evidently better pictures in this post are by a fellow diner, NickSantan, who was kind enough to email me some of his textured glossy shots.)



Our first course was a "ramen" noodle soup, because, who hasn't had a ¢99 packet of soup when flat-broke? And, isn't being broke a crisis in it of itself? Our conversation navigated around our descriptions of what exactly entails a crisis, an emergency, or being in a pickle. It all depends on perspective and on how quick action is needed. At the same time, some of us asked questions of how our perception may be conditioned to see a situation graver than it is: last week was fleet week here in the Bay, and the Blue Angels were flying really low and really loud. Have we been trained to think of a terrorist attack as soon as we hear the too-close-for-comfort roar of a jetplane's engine? Why do we see an emergency when there isn't one?

And here is a pic of our first course, noodles in a vegetable broth with dino kale, before being carried to the table.

Our second course: anchovies and crackers (or flatbread, really) along with stories of being caught with our pants down (metaphorically.) We made a sautée of onions, garlic, thyme and rosemary in butter, very much in a Pissaladiere style, with anchovies, black olives and watercress. Sure, this sure beats having anchovies and saltines, but it's the thought that counts, no?



One story is of a 17-yr-old girl who threw a house party while her parent's were out of town. The party went on till the wee-hours of the morning, and she was careful to wake up early to clean up before having to pick up her father at the airport that afternoon. She expected beer bottles, cigarette butts and random trash, but what she found was a house robbed of all electronic equipment. She freaked out, not so much for having her house broken into while she slept, but because she now would have to confess to throwing a raging party the night before.

The third course: a chunky beef stew, like the ones you buy in a big can, only better. We browned a chuck roast, cut into one-inch cubes, in olive oil. As they rested in a bowl, we added diced onions, shallots and garlic until softened. Then, added diced carrots and potatoes for sweating. Add a bottle of good red wine (we used a Montirius Côtes du Rhône), and about two cups of beef stock. Bring to boil, reduce heat to low, and cook covered for about 2 hours, until the meat is super tender. I made this stew two days before Communion, and I gotta say, it was perfect. We served it with some homemade rosemary breadsticks and a full-bodied Anglianico.

I think everyone at the table was too busy chowing down, because no one remembered to take a picture. Below is what it looked like in the pot, before it reduced a few inches.

Conversation centered around what our survival modes look like. "Turn to stone" was one that resonated with me, not only because it implies separating panic and fear for the sake of being practical, but also because it captures how in the moment when one realizes the urgency, or the gravity, our hearts stop temporarily turning us into stone. Mine is more like denial, until I can't look away any longer, and others are more like improvisations.

For dessert, we served vanilla wafers, marshmallows and a drizzle of bittersweet chocolate. I put to test my new scorching equipment, and I have to say it was very rewarding. (Crème brûlée, here I come!) We shared tips onto how to deal, prepare and/or avoid any future predicaments: know CPR and the Heimlich maneuver; have a first aid kit handy, and if applicable, an earthquake kit; always keep $20 in your pocket, though some savings and health insurance wouldn't hurt, and best of all, give yourself permission to not do the right thing. But, despite how afraid we might be of a crisis, we are never to avoid bungee jumping, surfing, riding a bike, laughing really hard or falling in love.

Our fifth and final course was a poached pear with Camembert. The inspiration there was that perhaps, in the case of an emergency, the most likely fruit source will be canned fruit, kind of like the canned poached peaches I was addicted to when I was kid. And if there will be cheese (which I hope) it will most likely be a soft spreadable triangle, like the Laughing Cow. But since we are not in an emergency situation (yet) we might as well poach some ripe Bartlett pears with a super sweet gerwerstraminer, cloves and cinnamon; reduce the juices to a syrup, and drizzle it over the fruit and a slice of the creamy goodness.

But if we were in an emergency, what would be the first thing we'd reach for? A pair of shoes, a picture, or nothing at all because we'd be too stunned to choose. If there is anything emergencies do, is put life into perspective: what is really important and what is inconsequential, or transitory. Our survival, and of those around us, is what matters. But how is survival linked to happiness? Are they a one-way street? And, as the picture below shows a pseudo-equation to the survival/happiness paradigm, there is another. Yes, emergencies are unpredictable, unavoidable.

Does that mean they are dangerous? Or can they be a blessing too?



Next Communion is Tuesday, November 24th, featuring a very special guest cook!

Lessons on patience, and pizza.

Regardless of how intimidated I have been with yeast, pizza dough was one of the first things I tried when I started cooking. I must have been about 17 or 18 years old, when I was either trying to impress a boy my freshman year of college or trying to prove to my mother that I could handle myself once I moved out of her roof. It just doesn't get any easier than pizza, or rather, pizza just has that quality of making amateur cooks feel welcome. How could you ever mess pizza up? The very first recipe I used was from my mom's Betty Crocker cookbook from 1979, but since then, I've gathered that pizza dough recipes are pretty standard: about a cup of warm water for a tablespoon of dry active yeast; stir in a teaspoon of sugar and a tablespoon of oil and wait about five minutes until foamy. Add about two-plus cups of all-purpose flour, teaspoon of salt, and if desired, other add-ins (ground white pepper, dried rosemary, paprika.) Mix, then knead until it forms a smooth, elastic, cohesive ball. Cover with saran wrap and a towel and let rise. Piece of cake, right?

Well, for this impatient cook over here, not really. After I leave the dough to rise for the first hour, I'm usually pretty hungry. So, I roll the dough out, place it onto a pizza tray and go to town with fixings. 20 minutes later, I'm enjoying a pretty satisfying meal.

What I've been learning lately is the superior quality, airyness and texture of a pizza dough that was let to rise for a significantly longer amount of time. If one has the will to wait, the results can be marvelous. (This lesson of patience, though it started with pizza dough, has permeated onto other facets of my life, so let's see what happens, no?)

For reasons involving this month's Communion, I am playing with pizza dough and rehearsing several versions for a flatbread dish. I took the old tried-and-true Betty Crocker recipe and a newer one from the Bon Appétit Cookbook. They were pretty much the same, except Bon Appétit asked for olive oil, instead of vegetable oil. I let both batches rise for one hour; punched dough several times, and let rise for another hour; rolled out onto pizza stone, and let rise for another hour. Though I rolled the dough pretty thin, it rose to an airy thinness, and I was delighted with my efforts to wait.

I wanted seafood based toppings, and since I had two kinds of dough rising, I decided to rehearse two visions of flatbread:

One, a sautée of fennel, red onion, shallot, garlic, parsley, with sardines and lemon zest. Over medium heat, sautée thinly sliced onions, shallots and garlic in olive oil and a 1/4 of a stick of butter. When translucent, add about half of a fennel bulb, sliced. Season with salt, pepper, a bit of dried oregano and a dash of red wine vinegar. Reduce heat to low and stir occasionally until fennel is soft.



The other, a Pissaladiére-esque slow sautée of onions, garlic, butter, thyme, rosemary with anchovies. In a 475 degree oven, place an oven-safe sautée pan with half a stick of butter until melted. Add thinly sliced onions, along with several springs of rosemary, thyme, bay leaf. Sprinkle salt and pepper, and a dash of olive oil. Return pan to the oven and stir every once in a while for about an hour. In the end, the onions are soft and translucent, but still holding their ringed shape.



The crusts were rolled out and placed onto baking surfaces to raise for an hour longer. The fennel sautée was spread onto the Betty Crocker dough. On went canned sardines with some of their oil, a sprinkle of chopped fresh parsley and some grated lemon zest. The Pissaladiére was spread onto the Bon Appétit dough along with canned anchovies. (Note to remove the stalks of thyme and rosemary before.) Both went into a 425 oven and took about the same amount of time, around 15 minutes, until the crust had a golden hint.

Let the flatbread rest when out of the oven, and sprinkle chopped thyme onto the Pissaladiére, and chopped parsley onto the sardine flatbread. Here is where my impatience took a hold of me again: Once the flatbread was out of the oven, I dug right in. I was wolfing down my first slice when I realized: shouldn't I take a picture before it's all gone?



Bad, bad cook (and photographer.) Good eater, tho.