Cathy Birthday

Cathy’s Birthday week.

Cathy’s birthday had a arrived and we decided to combine a trip to San Francisco with the general celebration of her birthday.

Tuesday we planned to cook a pork roast for dinner and then have leftovers on Thursday. When Cliff went out to get the paper we discovered a large Fed-Ex box. Michael and Tamara had sent Cathy steaks from Lobel’s in New York as a surprise birthday gift.

The pork went into the freezer for another night. There were four steaks, 2 porterhouses and 2 New York Strips. We decided to bar-b-que 1 of each and then cook the other two on Thursday night.

Tomato season was coming to a close so we decided to make a last papa-al-pomd or (Tomato Bread soup) as a first course. It was excellent.

We grilled corn on the grill. In addition we cut up potatoes added butter, and wrapped them in aluminum foil. We tossed them on the grill also. They really turned out good, crispy and buttery with some of the taste of the grill.
Wine: Cimicky 2004 Shirza Trumps, Maurer Weinviertel 2003 Gruner Veltliner.

From Whole Foods we bought German Chocolate cake.

Cathy’s birthday was on Wednesday and we decided to eat at Campanile.

On Wednesday Mark Peel cooks a special tasting meal. It looked excellent but was huge. We decided to compose our own meal there.

1st course: Lobster cooked in butter with first shaved white truffles of the season
2nd course: Risotto with duck confit
3rd course: Whole grilled lobster with cherry tomato and garlic
Desert: Nectrine 3-point Tart

It was an exceptional meal, and made a great birthday.

Thursday we grilled the remaining steaks.
We sautéed the corn grilled corn with shallots.
Wines: Mantra Rose Bliss 2004.

Cross Over Dinner

Wed. Night September 22, 2005
Wine: 2002 Syrah Ampelos Santa Barbara County from Silverlake Wine
Guests: Cathy & Cliff

It was the end of summer the beginning of fall. So we had a dinner based around the last heirloom tomatoes of the season and the first fall pears. We do hope to squeeze out one last tomato dish: Papa al Pomadore next week. We will see.

On Tuesday night we wentwith Bea Landen to a fund raising dinner for Huricannne Katrina. It was held at a restaurant that we always like but go to very rarely:AOC. Owned by the gang from Lucques it centers around small plates and Spanish – Moroccan dishes. The dinner and wine was great.

Wednesday Cliff went with Cathy to the American Film Institute, where she works. Looking for volunteer work he assembled File Dividers for them while Cathy viewed a movie.

Afterwards we decided to go out to lunch. We wound up at Gingergrass, and had a wonderful Spicy Pork Sandwich. It was huge and we split it. They had a chocolate coconut desert on the menu and we planned to have it for desert. By the time we were ready for desert we thought we would be better served if we took it to go and had it for desert with dinner.

We planned to take our regular walk around the neighborhood and then cook dinner. About 5:00pm we saw on the internet that a Jet Blue airplane was having difficulty and would be making an emergency landing at LAX. We started watching TV news, and until it made its safe landing we watched its plight. Interestingly enough, we could watch it live on TV or lookout our window and actually see the plane as it flew over for its landing.

We had bought heirloom tomatoes from the Hollywood Farmers market on Sunday. On Tuesday we prepared them for the pasta we were going to make. A great recipe for tomatoes from: Lynne Rossetto Kasper: Oven Candied Summer Tomatoes. Simply slice into wedges coat with olive oil, salt, pepper and place in a 400 degree oven. Every 30 minutes reduce heat by 50 degrees until the tomatoes are brown around the edges. They are wonderful, in a great oily sauce.

We had purchased a chicken from Gelson’s after the eating the Pork Sandwich for lunch. We cooked the whole chicken according to a recipe from:

While the chicken was cooking we watched the premier of “My Name is Earl” which we had recorded the previous night. Jason Lee, the star of the show, had just moved into a house around the corner from us, that he rented from Beck. He appears to be an ok neighbor, playing on the front lawn with his wife and new baby.

For the first course we had a delicious pear salad. It was made with sliced Pears, candied walnuts and Basque Blue Cheese from The Cheese Store of Silverlake. We drizzled Saba over the salad. It was excellent. Can’t wait to have it again tonight!

The chicken recipe was Roast Chicken with Ginger, Macaroni with Roasting Juices from the cookbook: LuLu’s Provencal Table by Richard Olney. Cathy augmented the recipe by baking the tomatoes according to a recipe from The Italian Country Table by . Once the chicken was baked, we made pasta, combined the tomatoes with fresh Garlic and Basil, pored all of the chicken juices over the pasta, sliced the chicken and added to the pasta and served. It was a fabulous recipe.

We had the coconut chocolate dessert from Gingergrass. It came with a chocolate sauce and coconut cream.

Exceptional dinner!

After the dinner late a night we took a walk through the neighborhood, it was very quiet and very pleasant.

John is Missing!

Tuesday Night, September 13, 2005

Wines: from Silverlake Wine
Duca Della Corgna Divina Vill Transimeno Gamay 2000
Salomon Hochterrassen Gruner Veltliner Kremstal 2004

John Carpenter, a friend from San Francisco was coming to Los Angeles to sell wine. He owns a The Wine House, a wine store and importing company in San Francisco. He often stays with us.

We decided to cook at home at John said he would bring some wine. We were looking forward to having a nice dinner with John.

John called us from the LA airport at approximately 7pm to tell us although he had arrived in Los Angeles; he had lost his California Drivers License on route and could not rent a car. John after several calls determined his best course of action was to fly back to SF and get a replacement license. So John left and Cliff and Cathy dined alone. Cathy showing great restraint, returned the cookies planned for desert to the freezer for another time.

We decided to start with a great green bean salad from the cookbook: The Food of Campanile. Campanile is our favorite restaurant in Los Angeles. The salad is made with fresh green beans that have been steamed, mustard, walnuts and shallots. It is a great salad.

We only have about 2 weeks of fig season left, so we decided to make a chicken and fig dish from The Zuni Café Cookbook. The dish was served with cous-cous and had a great sauce. When we lived in San Francisco, Zuni was our favorite restaurant. We enjoyed the dish, and look forward to leftovers!

Day on the Green

Wines:Noir

Bea:2004 Robert Sinskey, Vin Gris, a rose Pinot from Silverlake Wine
Cliff / Cathy:

Guests: Bea Landen (hostess), Cliff, Cathy, Greg Stone, John Conaty, John’s mother: Kay Conaty.

Bea Landen had invited us to join her on Saturday to join her to go to hear a performance of Leonard Bernstein and related Broadway show music at Festival on the Green. It is an outdoor venue in Arcadia at the Los Angeles Arboretum. Her friend Tony has a season subscription with great parking and a table for 6.

Bea had never been to Clementine so she spent part of Saturday with us as we picked up food for the big night. Cliff and Cathy had preordered food from Clementine and Cheese Store of Silverlake.

Cliff and Cathy picked up Bea and first we drove to Gallery of Functional Art one of our favorite places owned by our friend Lois Lambert. We have furnished our house with many items from GFA. From there we drove to Clementine to pick up our food. We had lunch there, and had several varieties of salads. It is always good. From there we went to Boule on La Cienega where we picked up some pastries for Sunday morning. Very fancy very pricey store. We like their Sticky Buns but for the rest of the pastries, for our tastes Clementine is better.

From there we went to the Cheese Store of Silverlake where they had created a , cheese platter with 6 different cheeses (Goat, Camembert, Grapes, olives, etc.). There was a huge basket of Breads and crackers to go with it.

Bea picked us up and we drove to the Arboretum. Tony not only had a great table for us, but VIP parking that made it very easy. He also provided a well stocked picnic basket.

After being led to our table, Cliff / Cathy / Bea proceeded to set the table and start on the Champagne. Greg, John and Kay arrived shortly after. Kay had baked John’s favorite desert Lemon Meringue Pie.

We started on the Cheese Course. From there we had a great salad from Clementine of Tomatoes, buffalo Mozzarella and basil.

For the main course we had Grilled Chicken breast slices and a faro salad. The chicken was a little dry, but good. The faro was excellent, Greg especially liked it!

For desert we pigged out! Clementine had provided us with an assortment of cookies, brownies etc. We also devoured Kay’s wonderful Lemon Meringue Pie.
The performance by the California Philharmonic was fun. Most of the music were war horses from Broadway that we knew. In addition they had two singers: Teri Bibb, soprano and Kevin Earley, baritone. Kevin has a huge big voice and overpowered Teri. West Side Story songs of course were wonderful as was Les Miserables.
As the night progressed under the stars it started to cool off. John and Greg had brought a magic pillow that converts to wine holder or a blanket. They had two of them and gave them to Cliff / Cathy. We appreciate it. A very nice night under the stars.

Labor Day 2005

Wine from Silverlake Wine
Prosecco Sparking Wine (3 bottles)
2003: Santa Lucia Vigna del Melograno (2) (red)
2004: Bisson Ciliegiolo Rose
Calvados

Guests: Barbara Follick, Bea Landen, Greg Stone, John Conaty, Ty Woodward, James Anderson

We had been given a subscription to the Rosengarten Report by our San Francisco neighbor Jill Dilley. He had an issue where he talked about Texas Barbecue. In addition Slate Magazine had a survey of barbecue. They both agreed that Texas had the best barbecue. Specifically they liked the barbecue from Lockhart Texas that is served dry style with a rub. We decided to order in a variety of barbecue and make our own decision. Apparently we ordered too much. So we have lots of leftovers.

We started on the deck with drinks and guacamole and our favorite chips from the Cheese Store of Silverlake. We also had a great Artichoke and Garlic spread that we heated in the oven. Bea brought great crab cakes that she had made. The weather was perfect and it was a great sunset.

After appetizers we went in to the dining room.

For dinner we had:

Grilled Corn on the Cob
One of our favorite dishes an Asian Pasta we made from Barbara Tropp’s: The Art of Asian Cooking. For the Noodles we had to go to Thai Town to find fresh Chow Mein Noodles.
We made a cole slaw from Slanted Door in San Francisco. It is a Vietnamese recipe and very good with a tangy sauce, Thai Chilies, Jicama, Carrots, candied pecans, red cabbage, and we substituted Pixie Oranges for Grapefruit due to the curse of Lipitor.

We also toasted Hot dog buns from Gelson’s.

Now to the barbcue!
From Kruez Market we them ship: Ribs and Pork Sausages. We got so many sausages we gave several links to Chris at Cheese Store of Silverlake.

From Willy Ray’s we had a Roast Pork. All of the articles said that Willy Ray’s was the ultimate pork.

For Greg, who is a vegetarian we had chicken sausages from Gelson’s.

Everyone, except Greg, who didn’t get a vote, agreed that the pork was exceptional. The ribs and sausage were good, but we wouldn’t get them again.
The Pork is a keeper!

Cathy had made a fabulous white nectarine crisp. It is her recipe and excellent. We served with docle de leche ice cream and calvados.

We had an enormous amount left over. We gave lots of doggy bags.

After all of the sadness of the New Orleans flood it was nice to indulge with neighbors and friends and enjoy our selves with good food and drink! It is the way the do it in the Big Easy. We will keep up the tradition until the city comes back!

Brunch with Barbara

Brunch with Barbara Follick and Polenta

Barbara had come down to Los Angeles to stay with us for Labor Day 2005. On Sunday, we picked up Bea Landen and went to the Hollywood Farmers Market. With the end of summer, fruits were at there best, especially tomatoes. After we shopped we went to the Cheese Store of Silverlake and bought burrata cheese and salami.

We made a great salad of heirloom tomatoes, burrata, Greek olives, basil, chives, balsamic vinegar.

Served it with sausage and bread from LA Bakery.