Rubbed the Wrong Way

Wines by Bea:
Samsara 2003 Syrah
Kosta Brown 2005 Pinot Noir Rose

Bea joined us for dinner. We decided to cook prime rib. It is something we have never cooked before.

On Monday night we ate at Campanile like we do every Monday night. They have a different family dinner each Monday. That night they had roasted duck. It was great. We asked at the end of the meal for a piece of duck to take home for our cats Parsifal and Polenta. When they gave us a container it had a whole duck breast in it. Much more than the cats could possibly eat.

We had an idea to create a duck salad out of the remaining duck. Cathy found a recipe for duck salad in the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook. The recipe is for a Warm Duck Salad with Green Olive Relish. It turned out great. On Friday I happened to stop by La Brea Bread to purchase some pastries and bought some green olives there. They made a great relish. The recipe taught us a cool technique we had never used before. We have a metal shallow salad bowl that we use all of the time. After we dressed the salad we actually placed the bowl directly on the stove and over a medium heat heated and wilted the salad. It was a great technique an we will use it in the future.

The New York Times had a recipe for Spice-Crusted Prime Rib with Mashed Potatoes by David Burke on December 28, 2005. The article was entitled: Ringing in the New Year With Luxury and Ease. We had placed in the back of our mind the idea that some day we would make it. The trick was to get dry aged Prime Rib. We purchased one from Harvey Gussman.

He serves it with a home made steak sauce and mashed potatoes. The Rub was TOO Hot! The crust of the Prime Rib was VERY spicy, next time we will cut the pepper way down! The steak sauce is great, sweet and tangy. We are especially interested in the use of the Rib Bones in a future meal. We saved the them to make Deviled Ribs. Here is what David Burke says about Deviled Ribs…''I love these deviled,'' broiled to a crisp with mustard, he said. So did James Beard, who called deviled ribs ''one of the most satisfying gastronomical experiences I know.'' We found James Beard recipe and are going to make them.
For desert I had picked up both Apple and Cherry Tarts from La Brea Bakery. We also had Pomegranate and Chocolate Chip Ice Cream by Sheer Bliss.
Following that we served Tequila and Drambuie. We then walked Bea home - it was a spectacular night.
SPICE-CRUSTED PRIME RIB WITH WHIPPED POTATOES
Adapted from David Burke
Time: About 2 1/2 hours

For the roast:
13-rib portion of prime rib (6 to 8 pounds, preferably dry-aged), trimmed of excess fat (reserve it) and tied
1/2 cup ground cumin
1/3 cup ground cayenne
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/3 cup freshly ground black pepper

For the steak sauce:
2 cups Worcestershire
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons Tabasco
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened2 teaspoons sesame oil

For the potatoes:
3 pounds baking potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 scant cup whole milk
3 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil.
1. Remove roast from refrigerator 2 hours before cooking. Heat oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl, combine cumin, cayenne, salt and pepper. Set roast fat-side up on counter and rub a thick layer of spice mixture over entire surface. Transfer roast to a wire rack in a shallow roasting pan and place in oven for 13 to 15 minutes per pound.
2. While meat roasts, prepare steak sauce and potatoes. In a medium-size pot, combine Worcestershire, ketchup and Tabasco and set over medium heat. Reduce for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until mixture has thickened. Lower heat to warm and whisk in butter and oil. Transfer to gravy boat or bowl and allow to cool before for serving. (Stored in an airtight container, sauce will last in refrigerator for 2 weeks.) 3. While sauce reduces, place some trimmed fat in a small, heavy-bottomed pot over low heat until it melts. Place potatoes in a large pot, cover with cold water, add salt and place over high heat. When water boils, lower heat to medium and simmer until potatoes are soft, about 20 minutes. Shut off heat.
4. After roast has cooked for an hour, check temperature by inserting a meat thermometer deep into its thickest part, away from any bone. For medium rare, remove from oven at 125 degrees. Allow to rest 15 to 20 minutes before carving.
5. While roast rests, finish potatoes. Place a small pot over medium-low heat,add milk and garlic and simmer for 10 to 12 minutes. Shut off heat and discard garlic. Drain potatoes in a colander. Pass them through a potato ricer or sieve back into pot in which they were boiled. Add butter, milk, salt and pepper, place pot over low heat, and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon or whisk. Add olive oil, stirring, and a few tablespoons of rendered fat. Season with salt and pepper. Reduce heat to warm.
6. Carve roast. Remove bones by slicing down their sides: reserve for later use or serve in a bowl with meal. Carve an inch-thick slice per person. Place on plate with whipped potatoes and sauce on the side.
Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

Moroccan Chicken

Wine: Chateau Maris La Touge Syrah 2003 Syrah Minervouis

Spring vegetables are appearing all over the farmers market. We always think, when you see Asparagus Strawberries will shortly follow! We concentrated on asparagus again repeating Asparagus Florentine Style by Giuliano Bugialli.

Paula Wolfert gets the Nobel Prize for: “Greatest cook who doesn’t have a restaurant”. Actually now that I think of it maybe it should be named the Julia Award in honor of Julia Child. I don’t think she ever had a restaurant. We like many of her recipes and have cooked many of them. For this dinner we made: Moroccan Chicken with Olives and Preserved Lemons from The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen. It is a wonderful dish with lots of olives and preserved lemons. We made the lemons from Kazue Lemon’s (our neighbor) who had dropped off a beautiful bad several weeks ago. NEVER buy preserved lemons they are simple to make. Lemon’s, lemon Juice to cover and salt, top with a little oil and stick in the fridge till you need them.

Couscous is, of course, the side of choice with almost any mid-eastern dish. It is also one of the easiest dishes in the world to make. The previous week we had made a Pea Puree and had some left over. It made a perfect topping on the Couscous. It is great to be able to use a leftover in a new way and this was just great!

Pasta, Peas and Passover

Wine: Chateau Maris 2003 Minervois Syrah from Silver Lake Wine

We started with the Radicchio Salad from the Zuni Café Cookbook. When we lived in San Francisco this was our favorite restaurant. (Think chicken for two, French Fries, Cesar Salad, Martinis). In the book, Judy Rodger’s states this salad is there second best seller. We have never seen it on the menu! However it is great! It is always fun to have a salad without lettuce and this one is a winner!
It is made from Radicchio, Anchovy Dressing, croutons and chopped egg. The radicchio was young in the market and small, but was excellent.

I have been volunteering at KCRW Radio Station working on Friday’s on To The Point, a great current events program. Last Friday as I walked out they had some give away recipes from another KCRW program, Good Food. I grabbed one of the collections of the Top 10 Recipes of 2005, and brought it home. One of them caught Cathy’s eye and we decided to make it. It was Mint Postcards with Spicy Lamb Sausage and Minted Pea Puree Pasta made with Merguez sausage. It is a signature dish of Mario Batali’s

So on to the Hollywood Farmer’s Market to buy fresh young peas. We bought a huge bag of them on Sunday, and Monday I got to spend the an hour listening to KCRW’s To The Point, while shelling and shelling and shelling peas.

The question for us was where do you buy Merguez sausage. We started calling around to no avail. I decided to Google for it, and found Jeff's Gourmet Glatt Kosher Sausage Factory & Deli Meats. We were out to have dinner at Lucques on Sunday Night (like we do every Sunday night) and we decided to stop at Jeff’s first purchase the sausage and head on to Lucques. I expected Jeff’s to be a Kosher Market. I was wrong! In the middle of a very Jewish area of Los Angeles, Jeff’s is a sandwich shop with their own made Sausage, Pastrami, great smells of French Fries etc. I never knew it was there. They had two types of Merguez a pre-cooked Moroccan and a raw Tunisian. Of course we bought both so that we could have a Merquez sausage-off. The Tunisian was spicier. We declared the sausage-off a draw and used both. The Pea Puree was a very smooth and flavorful. For the assembly of the dish, pasta mixed with homemade tomato sauce and both sausages, topped with a large dollop of pea puree and then pecorino cheese. This is a spicy pasta. I think we will make it again, but with a different sausage. Turns out Jeff’s is closing for 2 weeks due to Passover holiday. I never thought about it before, but I guess a Glatt Kosher sandwich shop is out of water during Passover, if they can’t serve bread. It would be hard to eat a sausage sandwich on Matzo. However, in 2 weeks, when they are open and I am returning from KCRW on Friday, I am going to stop and have a sausage sandwich and fries from lunch! Chris at the Cheese Store of Silver Lake sold us some new pasta, Tagliatelle by St. Cerdito. It was very good, and packaged as one of the biggest packages of pasta I have ever seen!

Spring is Green

Wine: Celius Toscana 1999 Indicazione Geografica Tipica from Silver Lake Wine

When Spring arrives we always make two of our favorite dishes. We started by making Fava Bean Puree. At the Hollywood Farmer’s Market, fresh young fava bean appeared and we purchased several pounds. Fava’s require lots of peeling, first the bean from the large shell, then par-boiling the beans, and finally peeling the bean itself. There is a slippery skin that easily slips off after the boiling. Then you can start to make the puree. We simmer the beans in Olive Oil, garlic and Thyme then remove the thyme and puree. We served the puree with pita bread that had been toasted in the oven. It brought back all of the tastes of spring. We will be making this some more this spring and summer! Fava’s have a fairly long season. This recipe was modified by Cathy from the Chez Panisse Vegetables cookbook.

For the second course we made a new dish for us. It was from an old cookbook that we had, The Fine Art of Italian Cooking by Giuliano Bugialli. The recipe is called Asparagus Florentine Style. The asparagus is sautéed in butter, parmesan cheese is added then for the complete cholesterol hit, a fried egg is served on top! Pass the Lipitor with it! It is wonderful! Double click the scanned image from the book and you should be able to read and make it.

For the pasta course we make Asparagus Pasta. This is one of my very favorite dishes. The dish is simplicity itself, with great flavors. Browned butter, Asparagus, Parmesan Cheese and great Pasta are the keys. Cathy adapted it from a recipe in Chez Panisse Pasta Pizza & Calzone by Alice Walters. We got all of the cheese, of course from the Cheese Store of Silverlake. We also got the curly pasta from the Cheese Store.

Moroccan Dinner

Sake with Gold Flakes Sho Chiku Bai Kinpaku was gift from Kazue our Japanese neighbor. It is a traditional Sake served at Japanese New Years. The gold flakes are totally healthy and give a shimmer to the sake. The bottle was so enormous we decided to save it for a party with many guests. This was the time! Like all good sakes it is served cold.

Robert Foley Claret 2000 this was a BIG bottle of wine from Chris at the Cheese Store of Silverlake. It was given to me as a present on my 60th birthday. I was looking for an appropriate gathering to open it. It went perfectly with the dinner.

Chatau Longueville Pauillac-Medoc – 1982 Bordeaux was brought by Les and Linda. 1982 is the gold standard for Bordeaux, we were lucky to get this bottle, after a little trouble with the cork we served it to a happy table!

Cathy and I had wanted to repay our neighbors for some past dinners and finally we got a date and a menu that worked for all.

Neighbors: Bea, David and Shelley, Mike and Terry, Les and Linda

There is a Lebanese Restaurant that we occasionally go to named: Marouch. It has absolutely the best Baba Ganoush we know of. The flavor is amazingly Smokey. We couldn’t resist it as an appetizer that would go with the Moroccan dinner we were planning. In addition I went to Joan’s on 3rd Street for their peta toasts that are crunchy and buttery.

We used the Casa Moro Cookbook. We had eaten at their restaurant in London and its combination of Spanish and Moroccan food was typical of the food we like to eat.

We made an additional appetizer: Carrot Puré with feta from the Moro Cookbook. It is fairly easy and has a taste that is just great.

For a first course we made: Lentils with Beets and Preserved Lemons from Deborah Madison’s cookbook Vegitarian Cooking for Everyone. It is a favorite of ours. Preserved lemons are easy to make, and months before we had bought the lemons and preserved them. All it takes to preserve them is: Lemons, lemon juice, salt and olive oil. Store them away, shaking them for the first week, then refrigerating them. No reason to ever buy them.

We made the Lamb Tagina from the Morro cookbook. We purchased the lamb shanks at Gus Meats and they were enormous! Last time we were in San Francisco we purchased two clay cooking pots and we wanted to use them for this meal. The have to be soaked overnight before their first use. We soaked them and then prepared the tagina. The meat and sauce are sealed in the pots and then they cooked for 6 hours at a low temperature. We wondered if the pots would make it, but they did and the meat fell off the bone. It was flavorful and tender.

We served it with couscous.

We once went to the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite for a dinner prepared by Stephen Pyles. One of his great recipes is his Apple Cake. We decided to make it, and cooked it on Thursday before the dinner on the Saturday. The cake only gets better with age! We served it with Sheer Bliss Ice Cream and Carmel Sauce from Recchiuti Confections in San Francisco – YUM!

Later we served some Drambuie Liquor.

It was a great night with talk of Opera, Politics, Senior Activities and maybe the start of Bea’s re-election campaign to the neighborhood council.

Masked Meat Loaf

Wine: Chateau Margaux Premier Grand Cru Classe 1989 – John had given us this wine years ago, and seemed appropriate to serve it back to him.

John Carpenter finally arrived from San Francisco. He was supposed to come last week but got sick. We had a Provencal dinner for a cold night. We cooked two recipes from Paula Wolfert Cookbook: Mediterranean Grains and Greens.

The previous weekend Lynn Friedman and Beth Rimby from San Francisco stayed with us. They work for KGO-TV in San Francisco. Beth is a producer and Lynn an edior for the I-Team that does investigative reports. They had produced a series that won an award about the Egg Industry and the conditions that non-free range chickens live under. They came to Los Angeles to receive their award at the Beverly Hilton. They brought to us from San Francisco some truffle products (truffle oil,truffles sliced in oil and truffle salt. They also brought Dessert Sauces (Carmel and Chocolate). We decided to work both the truffles and the chocolate into this dinner.

Farro and Chick Pea Soup a very thick soup. It was a little bland but with the additional of sliced truffles the soup became a declicious first course.

Potato with truffle Salt, Olive Oil, Cathy created this dish and it was great, lots of small fingerlings roasted and crisp with the truffle flavor from the salt.

Provencal Meat Loaf this is really more vegetable then meat, with Chard, Spinich, Artichoke bottoms (that are a pain to cook) and prosciutto, sausage, ground pork, etc. The entire mixture is made the day before so the flavors meld and then wrapped in cabbage and cooked as a single giant stuffed cabbage. It is very rich.

The second day we made a tomato sauce from scratch and served it over the room temperature meat loaf.

The meat loaf has a very complex flavor due to all the ingredients and went well with the tomato sauce.

There is a gourmet ice cream we have been buying: Sheer Bliss, we had the vanilla flavor with the Extra Bitter Chocolate Sauce from Recchiuti Confections. The chocolate sauce is like fudge, it is fantastically good and only available in San Francisco at the Ferry Building or via the internet. We served Chocolate Covered Dipped Tozzetti from Buona Forchetta with the ice cream.

Great Dinner!

Wine: Ortman Family Vineyards 2003 San Luis Obisbo County Syrah


With the first spring peas every year we make Risi e Bisi. The recipe we use is from Bugialli’s Italy by Giuliano Bugialli. We bought a large amount of fresh peas at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market. On the afternoon that we made the Risi e Bisi it took over 1 hour to shell the peas. All of the pea pods are retained and boiled to make the infuse the water used to make the rice and peas. In addition the recipe calls for Parmesan Cheese and Prosciutto – we purchased them from The Cheese Store of Silverlake. The dish was wonderful and perfect for the cold night.

For the first course we decided to make a tart from Sunday Suppers at Lucques. We made the pizza like tart: young onion tart with Cantal cheese, apple wood-smoked bacon, and herb salad. Though the tart called for puff pastry, Cathy decided to use some Vicolo Corn Meal Crusts that we had to make it less rich. The tarts turned out wonderfully.

Great winter – spring meal!

Onion Soup and Fava Pasta

Wine: Domaine Des Relagnes 2003 Cote-du-Rhone Vieilles Vignes

Onion Soup and Fava Bean Pasta


It had been very cold in Los Angeles so we decided to make two of our favorite winter / spring dishes.

We started with Onion Soup Gratin. We use Julia Childs recipe from her first cookbook: Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It is very rich with lots of Gruyere Cheese and a splash of Cognac.

It warmed us up!

Once in San Francisco we ate at The Slow Club. They served fava bean pasta. We loved it and asked for their recipe. They gave it to us and we have continued to make it every spring when the fresh fava’s first appear. There is a lot of peeling and double peeling of the fava’s but it is well worth the effort.

Great leftovers!

Don't Make This in Los Angeles!

Wine: Empreinte du Temps Carignan Vid de Pays Des Cotes Catalanes 2003


Cathy and I decided to make Short Ribs from the Sunday Night at Lucques Cookbook. We have had them many times at Lucques.

We also made an amazing spring soup from Paula Wolfert’s Mediterranean Grains and Greens Cookbook. The soup’s name is: Farro, Leafy Greens, and Potatoes as Prepared in the Marches. It is a wonderful thick soup. It is served with Olive Oil and Parmesan cheese floated on top.

On Monday I went to Guss Meats to pick up the short-ribs. They need to be seasoned overnight.

We had shopped for all of the vegetables at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market on Sunday.

On Tuesday I started peeling peas at Noon and basically the rest of the day was taken making the Short Ribs, the Soup, the mashed potatoes, the swiss chard, the horse radish cream, etc. We didn’t eat until almost 9pm!

The food was fabulous and we are looking forward to the leftovers. Now as to the question of “Why you shouldn’t make this dinner in Los Angeles”. I think this is one of the messiest meals we have ever made. Many, many pots, utensils etc. It really is an effort. It is VERY worth it, except if you can get this by just being in Los Angeles it is probably better to just go to Lucques and eat it there! However if you can’t easily get to Lucques this is just like eating there. Fabulous!

Jar B Q

Wine:
DeRose 2002 Cedolini Family Vineyard Cienega Valley Zinfandel
Shotfire Ridge 2003 Barossa Cuvee

First Barbecue of the Year!

One of our favorite restaurants in Los Angeles is JAR. With love their Char Sui Pork. We have asked the chef: Suzanne Tracht for the recipe for the marinade. She never got around to writing it down for us, but wonderfully she would always just give us a large container of marinade to take home and we would use it.

Our neighbor Bea informed us that Bon Appetite March 2006 had an article with Suzanne’s recipes. Wow! There it was. The mystery Char Sui Pork recipe was no longer a secret. We immediately knew we would be making it!

We bought a copy of the magazine, ordered some pork chops from Niman-Ranch and awaited Fedex to bring us our meat.

We made the recipe for the marinade (we cheated and left the Red Dye #3 out). We grilled them outside and they were great. We used our new Rice Cooker to make Japanese Rice, to it we added a Mushroom Mixture we purchased at a Japanese market. We have no idea of the name (it is all in Japanese) but it is very tasty. Kazue our neighbor introduced us to it. When we go to the market we take the empty box to identify a replacement! The rice can easily the next day be turned into fried rice.

There was a recipe in the New York Times for a Squash Soup. We made that as a first course. We substituted some Japanese kabocha squash from the Hollywood Farmer’s market. The soup was very rich and good. Will make again.

Roast Squash Soup With Brown Butter
Adapted from David Kinch
Time: 1 1/2 hours

A medium-size butternut squash, 2 to 3 pounds, halved, seeds removed
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
2 tablespoons plus 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
Salt and freshly ground white pepper
3 cups vegetable broth, approximately
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Pinch cayenne.

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil. Place squash halves on baking sheet, cut side up, and into cavity of each put a tablespoon of brown sugar and a tablespoon of butter. Season lightly with salt and pepper and bake until tender, about 1 hour.
2. While squash is roasting, place remaining butter in a heavy 1-quart saucepan over low heat. Have ready a big bowl of ice water to accommodate pan. When butter is almost melted, increase heat to medium-high and allow butter to come to a boil and start to foam. As foam subsides, when butter turns a hazelnut color and acquires a nutty aroma, immediately place bottom of pot in ice and water to stop cooking.
3. When butter is no longer hot but still liquid, pour it through a very fine mesh coffee filter or strainer into a container to remove solids. Clean saucepan and return butter to saucepan.
4. Scrape out flesh of squash and place in a blender with any juices from baking sheet. Purée. With machine running, slowly add half the broth. Gently warm brown butter. With blender running, drizzle in warm butter.
5. Transfer soup to a 3-quart saucepan and heat slowly until not quite simmering. Whisk in enough of remaining broth until soup is no thicker than heavy cream. Season with vinegar, lemon juice, salt, pepper and cayenne and continue to heat. Do not allow soup to come to a full boil because it may separate. Serve at once.

Dessert: German Chocolate Cake from Perfectly Sweet.

Spring Lamb and Fresh Strawberrys

Wines:

Mc Price Myers
2003 Santa Ynez Valley Sirah Larner Vinevard
JC Cellars Syrah 2003 Fess Parker's Vineyard
Lingerfelder Satyr Brut NV

Spring Leg of Lamb

We decided to make Mark Peel’s Leg of Lamb with Rosemary, from Mark Peel & Nancy Silverton at Home. Mark serves this at his restaurant, our favorite: Campanile. It is a great recipe. Basically you bake the lamb surrounded by rosemary twigs. At the end of the cooking you take the roasting pot outside, open it up, set the rosemary on fire, let it build quickly to a roaring fire then place the top back on to extinguish the fire and smoke the lamb. It is a great recipe and very easy.

We made a potato gratin to go with it from Biba. The recipe was originally in Gourmet April 1994. It is very rich!

CHANTILLY-MASHED POTATOES BIBA

6 russet (baking) potatoes (about 3 pounds)
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter,softened
3/4 cup milk, warmed ^
3/4 cup chilled heavy cream
1 cup grated Gruyere cheese (about 3 ounces)
3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Salt

Preheat oven to 400° F.

Wash potatoes and prick several times.
Bake potatoes on oven rack /45 minutes to 1 hour, or until they can be easily pierced with a fork.
Halve potatoes lengthwise and cool until they can just be handled. Scrape out potato flesh and put through a ricer, in batches, set over a bowl.
Add butter and milk and salt, stir until smooth. Spread potatoes in a shallow 3-quart gratin dish.
Increase oven temperature to 500° F.
In a bowl with an electric mixer whip cream to soft peaks and fold in Gruyere. Spread cream mixture evenly over potatoes and sprinkle with Parmesan.
Bake potatoes until heated through and topping is golden brown, about 10 minutes.

Serves 6.

Reheat Covered 350° for 10 minutes.



For dessert we had Strawberry's with Balsamic and Vanilla Ice Cream.

Bea joined us for dinner and provided the wines.

Caviar-a-Thon

When I retired from Bank of America, my team sent my a gift certificate for a complete Lobster Dinner to be flown in from Main Lobster Direct.

We decided to use it for our anniversary. We arranged for it to be delivered on the day we wanted it. Our plan was to take the Lobster only to Campanile and let Mark Peel cook it anyway that he wanted. A BYOL (Bring Your Own Lobster). When it arrived, I took the lobsters to Campanile around 10am and left them. That night he cooked them and they were fabulous. He grilled the split lobsters on the grill, stuffing them with Bread Crumbs and Bacon. He cooked the claws separately, poaching them in butter. We had a bottle of Pierre Peters Champagne and Chateau Y’quem with desert.

The next night we decided to have ALL of the other things that came with Lobster that we hadn’t taken to Campanile and the left over Lobster we brought back. We invited Bea over to join us. We had purchased additional caviar and decided to make a night of it.

Bea arrived with a bottle of Piper-Heidsieck Champagne Extra Dry.
We also opened a bottle of Pierre Peters Champagne.
With desert we opened Muscat De Baumes-de-Venise Paul Jaboulet 1997 that Tony had given us.

We started with the left over lobster. It retained it smoky taste and was just as good as at the restaurant we served it at room temperature.

We had defrosted some potato pancakes and served them with smoked salmon, cream fresh and caviar.

We then had the Lobster Stew that came with the Lobster. It was very rich with lots of chunks of lobster.

We had planned to serve the caviar in a recipe we use for caviar pasta. By the time we were ready for that course we decided we were getting so full that we would eat the caviar straight. So we put out the caviar, onion, chopped egg and lemon and dug in! We couldn’t finish it! Ah to have caviar as a left over!

For dessert we had two separate desserts from Perfectly Sweet: a Dulce de Leche mouse and terra misu.
We then had two different chocolate truffles that came with the lobster.
We would definitely recommend the lobster dinner from Maine Lobster Direct.

Moroccan Dinner

Wine: mil piedras Malbec 2003

We wanted to use the rest of the Roast Pork and Cathy had a lentil recipe we used to make with left over ham. We substituted the Pork from Willy Ray’s and added lots of spinach and lemon juice it was very tasty.

We had purchased a new Moroccan Cookbook: Moroccan Modern by Hassan M’Souli. We cooked Oven Bag Chicken with Couscous Stuffing. The chicken was seasoned with preserved lemons, olives, etc. It was our kind of food! Very moist and the couscous stuffing with almonds and raisons went well with it. Lots of left overs.

Mac and Cheese Party

Cathy wanted to have a lunch for her fellow workers at the American Film Institute Catalog. The AFI top 10 had been completed, and it was time to have a celebration.

We decided to cook Mac and Cheese. As an appetizer, we purchased from the Cheese Store of Silverlake. a Spinach Spread they sell. You heat up in the oven and serve warm with chips. It is a crowd favorite. .All of the cheese and prosciutto were also from the Cheese Store.

We also had a Roast Pork from Willy Ray’s shipped in.

Finally we decided to make a retro Salad with Green Goddess Salad Dressing. We had never made one before and used the recipe in Sunday Night at Lucques by Suzanne Goin. The salad was great and the dressing stayed fresh in our refrigerator for several days, giving us additional salads.

Pat provided the pastries for dessert. It was a delicious lunch, Page insists we freeze some Mac and Cheese for the next time she cat sits. Our cats: Polenta and Parsifal won the gang’s heart.

Rice Cooking!

On our walks, we have grown friendly with a neighbor Kazue who was born in Tokyo. We always stop and talk to her if she is in front of her house. We asked her if she would be interested in taking us on a shopping tour of Japanese markets. We had been to Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles, and we knew about Sawtelle on the West side of LA, but were unaware of any other Japanese areas.

Boy were we wrong! Gardena and Torrance we found out from Kazue were where there are large Japanese communities and many large grocery stores.
We spent the day there and had lunch at Sanuki no Sata in Gardena and went to several stores. We bought a Sanyo Rice Cooker.

Kazue was invaluable in showing us many vegetables and ingredients we would never have tried. She insisted on coming to our house later in the week to show us how to cook rice.

We had purchased rice from Japan, you had to repeatedly wash it before use. Once it was cooked in the rice keeper it would stay warm for over 12 hours. The rice was like no rice we had ever made, it was the short grain rice that is sticky that is similar to the rice in Sushi. You keep the uncooked rice in the freezer.

She also made a curry to pour over the rice. She refused to use our Japanese knives saying they were too dull. She went home and brought her own knife over and proceeded to dazzle us with her use of the knife. She made a shrimp curry from scratch. She took all of the shrimp shells and vegetable peelings home for her garden. The curry and the rice were great.

Feeling chastened Cliff finally watched the video that came with his Spyderco Triangle Knife Sharpener. It is a very weird contraption. Now the knifes are sharp and we won’t let them get dull again!.

This Could Be Me!

Wine: Domaine De Fontssainte Corbieres - 2003 from SilverLake Wine

We are working our way through Suzanne Goin's new cookbook: Sunday Suppers at Lucques. Besides Lucques she also co-owns another excellent restaurant AOC. and her husband owns The Hungry Cat (soon to be open for Lunch – Yea), which is the best restaurant that is close to Silverlake. It is a great fish bar with surprisingly the best Hamburger in Los Angeles! One day hopefully one of them will open a restaurant in Silverlake where we live (and Jessica Goin). It would be closer for mother also….

At any rate we go to Suzanne’s restaurant: Lucques every Sunday night and on other nights also (Think Steak for 2 – better yet order it!)

It had been cold and chilly so we were focusing on winter food.

1st course was Coleman Farms Treviso with Gorgonzola, walnuts, and Saba. When we think of Lucques we also think Suzanne’s ever changing Salads and first courses are exceptional, always changing and challenging. This salad was a combination we don’t remember having. It is wonderful. Sharp trevisio (a cousin of radicchio), sweet saba, crunchy walnuts, smooth cheese (we substituted St. Agur from Cheese Store of Silverlake for the recommended Gorgonzola). This is a salad we will come back to.

Main Course: bouef a la nicoise: Braised beef Stew with red wine, tomato, olives and buttered noodles

Talk about comfort food. When the dish was almost complete and was sitting in pan completely filling the house with great aromas, Cliff stated: “This could be me!) Boy was it! Everything you want in a Stew: Caramelized Short ribs, Olives, Tomatoes etc. We purchased the Short Ribs at Whole Food. We had them cut the ribs into 2 inch cubes (gives more caramelized sides of meat.

It was FABULOUS. Oh the meat! Oh the Pasta! Oh the Leftovers.

For desert: Perfectly Sweet - German Chocolate Cake.

Afterwards retired to living room to continue reading: Golden Boy, a charming memoir of an young English Boy growing up in and discovering exotic Hong Kong. Cathy had finished it and also liked it. She is currently reading the very fantastic: Kafka on the Shore.

Mac and Cheese

All wines from Silverlake Wine
All Cheese from Cheese Store of Silverlake

Wines:

Mil piedras Malbec 2003
Le secret ivre – vin de pays dec collines rhodaniennes -2004






We decided on a winter menu.
We started with a Cesar Salad from the Zuni Cookbook our favorite.

Macaroni and Cheese from Paris Bistro Cooking by Linda Dannenberg.

This is the BEST Mac and cheese recipe we have ever had! We make it several times per year.

Gratin de Macaroni a l’Ancienne
(Old-fashioned Baked Macaroni)


12 oz Elbow Macaroni
7 oz Prosciutto cut in Strips
3 oz blanched bacon
1 ¼ Cups Crème Fraiche
Salt and Fresh ground black pepper
6 tablespoons Grated Parmesan Cheese
1 ½ cup Grated Gruyere Cheese

Preheat the oven to 425

Cook the macaroni in salted boiling water until still quite firm.
Drain. Mix the macaroni with the prosciutto, bacon, crème fraiche, and milk and adjust the seasoning. Add about ½ cup of the grated Gruyere.

Spread in a buttered shallow ovenproof glass or earthenware casserole.
Sprinkle the remaining cheeses on top.

Bake for 25 minutes, until the cheese is browned on tap and liquid is completely absorbed. Let sit 5 minutes before serving.

Dinner at Bea's Bath House

Wines:
Champagne Drappier Brut Carte-d-or
August Kessleler Riesling 1995 Rheingau
Moscat

New Year's day continued our saga of a broken sewer main. So while the plumbers unsuccessfully sought to solve our problem, we wondered when and if we would ever be able to take a shower. Fortunately Bea invited us to take a shower at her house, so we packed towels, and headed over. We had Champagne, cheese, pasta leftovers, and cakes from New Years Eve, so we packed our stuff and went to Bea’s.

Bea had purchased some Alaska King Crab legs. We had reservations for New Years Day lunch at Hungry Cat, but unfortunately had to cancel because of the plumbers. However, Cliff was inspired by the King Crab at Hungry Cat and tried to reproduce it. He made a sauce of: Butter, Shallots, Basil, Salt, Pepper, Green Onions and Dijon Mustard. It worked out well. We had both Chocolate Cake and Pomegranate Cake for desert with Moscato wine. It was a good start for the New Year. But when are we supposed to diet?

New Years Eve 2006

We invited our neighbors in Silver Lake to go to a Chinese Restaurant in Monterey Park named New Concept. They created a 10 course banquet for us. It was great. Lobster, Crab, Sea Cumber, Squab, Chicken Salad, Thai Fish, Shrimp, etc. We had lots of wine and closed the restaurant. The group:

Shelley & Dave
Terry & Mike
Les & Linda
Bea & Tony (an honorary neighbor)
Bea her daughter Midge and Midge husband Randy

Returned to our house for Champagne from Silverlake Wine and two cakes from LA Bread, a wonderful flowerless chocolate cake, and a white cake covered in pomegranates. Shelly brought cookies for that extra sugar rush!

We closed out 2005 and are ready for 2006!