Chef of the Jungle/Chef of the Northwoods

Foraging in a Blizzard

2012-01-17T13:16:00.000-08:00

Here we are in the second day of being snowed in and the third, (or is it the fourth?) day of snow and I am learning why it is that we have a winter garden, a good storage shed, and, naturally, a freezer. While the snow comes down sideways and the vehicles remain anchored in the ice, I am inside making the most, yet again, out of what we have put away for a rainy/snowy day. And yes, we are both praying prayers of hope that the power/water stay on.

The household foraging began a couple of days ago when I pulled a ball of pizza dough from the vast and icy deep and made a pizza with homemade sausage, garden onions out of the storage shed and tomatoes we had dried ourselves. Kathy had made a small provisions run when we heard the snow was coming and we had a nice combination of cheeses to make the pizza really sing.

Yesterday was chicken stock day and the house was filled with the aroma of nicely roasted bones simmering with their attendant and complimentary vegetables and the house still has that roasty rich smell hiding in different corners and down the back hallways. I've always contended that, rather than the"smell of chocolate chip cookies baking" theory that realtors proscribe to for selling homes, that the "aroma of homemade chicken stock" would work even better.

While the stock hoozled and goozled happily yesterday morning we went to the freezer yet again looking for food to feed unexpected lunch guests. Kathy's daughter, son in law and granddaughter made the trek up the hill to visit us, (but mostly to play in the snow) and we needed a cold day meal for them. We went deep into the freezer and came up a container each of chile and a multi-bean soup, made long ago, and along with some homemade biscuits we had just the meal for hungry and rosy cheeked sledders.

Today we woke to a healthy six inches of snow on the ground and the first flakes of another heavy fall just beginning to fly. I had pulled a chunk of chuck roast from our neighbor's last cattle harvest out of the freezer and the plan was for pot roast. I had, however, used all the carrots in the chicken stock and Kathy, who had promised for the last several days to pull up some carrots from their winter bed, was now faced with having to do it in the teeth of the blizzard.

And like the true Oregonian she is, she threw on a parka and hat, got down on her knees at the edge of the raised beds, dug through a half a foot of snow and yanked up carrots. Meanwhile I was making another treacherous run to the shed for the garlic and onions harvested lo, those many months ago, to accompany the carrots in their support of the chuck. Moreover, we had the remains of an old funky bottle of red in the back of the fridge that was just what my recipe called for.

The snowfall is thinning slightly and it appears that we will be able to venture out away from this property tomorrow. But the scent of the pot roast is alluring and serves as a reminder of the beauty of stored food. There are times when the thrill of finding those hidden chanterelles or fiddle head ferns under the scruffs of fir at the base of tall trees is a forager's dream. Other times, however, and these are those other times, the best foraging is done by rummaging at the bottom of the freezer, digging beneath the snow, or rootling around boxes in the shed for the last of the summer's harvest.

BURNT ONION GRAVY, and the nature of stocks and roux

2011-12-21T19:46:00.001-08:00

Is Burnt Onion Gravy really made from burnt onions? And if it is, how the heck does that work?

A perfectly viable question and one made even more real to me when I posted a picture of a recent batch of the aforementioned gravy on my Facebook page and a friend asked, "So, was this a a mistake that you had to throw away?"

I explained to her, as gently as I could, that no, it was not a mistake, and that it was, rather, the name of the sauce/gravy. I also felt that I should mention, that I rarely posted pictures of my cooking errors on Facebook, although once I thought about it, the notion kept me rather entertained.

And so it struck me that perhaps I might write a bit about the nature and history of this Burnt Onion Gravy (from hereon out known as BOG), but also take the opportunity to discuss stocks and roux and how they go together to make sauces and yes, gravies. It does take a plan and a pretty good recipe as well to make something with the word "burnt" in the title taste good and I'm going to tell you how to do it.

I learned to make BOG from a friend and mentor, Philipe LaMancusa, while we were working in what was, at the time, a very hot San Francisco restaurant called Embarko. Philipe is, along with being a man who has a very real feel for food and what makes it taste good, also a man with a droll wit and a good vocabulary. We had dishes on our menu with names like "Jamaica Mistake?" (for a jerked pork dish), and fish dishes described as being served "with a squeeze and a pat" (lemon and butter, natch).

BOG was a the sauce that went on a pan fried pork medallion dish that passed through our menu for a brief while. The dish came and went, but the sauce, it's composition and, of course, its name, lingered with me right up to this very day. This sauce is the very essence of a series of ingredients coming together to make a huge flavor with the use of some classic and some not so classic cooking techniques (and a little imagination).

So let us leave this amusing story and its colorful folk, and talk about sauces and stocks, and what gives them the flavors that make one better, or at least different than, another. Really, what this is all about, and what I seem to write about more than almost anything, is FLAVOR. How to capture it; how to enhance it, and how to bring it out when it seems most elusive.

The first building block of flavor, not only in this particular recipe, but in so many, many more is the making of stock. In this case we're talking chicken stock. I know all of you are nodding your heads in abject boredom and saying, "yeah, yeah, yeah, Chef we know all about chicken stock", but none the less, at the end of this I will provide a recipe for chicken stock (the way I do it) and for everything else that we discuss in this particular blog post.

In the interest of creating and building flavor, however, we are going to take our chicken stock one step further and make chicken stock squared, or, "dark chicken stock". This richly flavored dark chicken stock is some killer stuff and can be used to bump the flavor level up in a great many of things you cook. It's a simple enough process, too, it just requires patience.

What you need to make this liquid gold is take all the ingredients you would put in your first chicken stock (which you need to have already made and cannot make this second batch correctly without), that is to say, bones, mirepoix, spices, etc., and put them in a roasting pan in a hot oven (400) until the are nicely browned and caramelized. You will then pull them from the pan, put them in a stock pot, deglaze the pan with a cup of two of your previously made chicken stock (taking GREAT care to really scrape up all the good browned bits off the bottom) and pour that and the remainder of your first batch of chicken stock over the nicely browned bones and veggies.

Got it? Now cook it like you cooked the first batch of stock and you will be amazed at the results. What you get by the time you have cooked it for several hours, strained it and refrigerated it so that the fat congeals on top (for easy removal), is a dark, rich and extremely flavorful nearly sauce-like stock that will bump up the flavor of anything to which you wish to add it.

What we are going to add our dark chicken stock to in this recipe is a roux that is made from the oil that a batch of onions have been cooked in until they are just past the point of caramelization and are definitely crunchy, if not exactly "burnt". Got that? Onions, oil/butter, flour. A roux, you say, you ask, you posit; isn't that just flour and oil mixed together to thicken something? Yes, I say, true indeed, but more than just being a thickening agent, a carefully cooked roux can influence, carry and change the flavors of sauces and soups to which it is added.

Roux was invented by the French and used, yes, almost exclusively as a thickening agent. In the French kitchen it is rarely cooked past a point of pale blonde and only then so that it will blend more easily and not separate in the liquid to which it is added. In fact, beurre manie, used to thicken a number of sauces, is merely softened butter and flour mixed together and never cooked at all.

There is some evidence of darker roux in some Swabian dishes of Southwest Germany, but it was the Creoles and the Cajuns in Louisiana who originated long cooked dark roux and created the dishes in which a dark roux would become flavoring agents rather than just thickeners. Gumbo, of course, and etoufee for another, are dishes in which the long cooked roux takes on a nutty subtle flavor that becomes an undercurrent in the final flavor of the dish.

Additionally, as the roux is cooked and the flour begins to change color, it loses much of its glutinous characteristics and becomes more a flavoring agent and less a thickening agent.

Now that we have our dark chicken stock and an understanding of roux, we can return to the cooking of our BOG and that starts with onions; lots of them, thinly sliced. For a batch of this gravy that will use 1 Qt. of dark rich chicken stock, use 5-6 large yellow onions. These onions will get cooked in a heavy skillet with high sides first in just oil and later with butter added until they begin to brown (the full recipe for this will appear at the bottom of this blog). The onions will, of course, have to be stirred, but not so frequently at the beginning as at the end.

While the onions are browning, bring the dark chicken stock up just short of a boil and hold it on a low flame so it stays warm.

Start the onions in the oil, but once they have begun to take on a nice golden color, add the butter to hasten the browning process. Now you will have to watch them closely because the whole butter that you are adding contains milk solids that will brown (and even burn) very quickly. I use a wooden spoon for stirring the onions so that I can easily scrape them off the bottom as they begin to stick and become darker and crunchier.

And at last you will notice the thinner of the onion strands beginning to look dark, short of black, but definitely becoming darker. They will try to stick to the pan but be diligent; keep stirring, but watch them very closely, you are almost at the point where they will need to be removed from the pan. As we move beyond caramelization into a cooking to crispy of the onions, reduce the heat under the pan and remove them to a colander placed over a bowl using a slotted spoon. Some of them should be decidedly crunchy and nut brown to nearly black.

Now you have a heavy pan with onion flavored cooking oil and it's time to build the roux. Classically, a roux is made with equal parts of flour and oil, so if you have used two ounces of oil (plus a bit of butter) add two ounces (and just a bit more) of flour to the pan, turn the flame back on fairly low and whisk the flour into the oil in the pan. At this point, also, pour the drippings from the drained onions back into the pan.

The flour should immediately pick up a bit of color from the cooking oil and will be a muddy kind of brown. Keep whisking it in the pan over the low flame and you will notice two things about it. You will hear it beginning to cook, but you will also start to feel it cooking, as it will begin to thin a bit in the pan and will whisk more easily. This is an important part in the development of the roux and it means the flour is cooking in the roux, the glutens are breaking down and the roux MUST be kept moving in the pan; not fast, not necessarily briskly, just moving, always moving.

And now the roux will begin to become seriously brown, first to a color nearly like peanut butter and then closing in on chocolate. This is the all critical moment. It is time to add the stock to the roux. This is thrilling, but a bit dangerous, so it is important to do two things (once again): Add the stock to the roux slowly with a ladle waaaay over to one side of the pan, and; whisk continually on the side of the pan away from where the stock is being added because it will spatter. The sauce will thicken immediately with the addition of the first ladle of stock, but keep ladling and whisking until all the stock is incorporated. Now and only now, raise the heat below the pan and bring the gravy up to a slow boil.

Now wasn't that fun? You're almost there. You've mastered dark roux and you should have a deep rich brown (and slightly thick) gravy simmering in the pan. Pull the pan over to one side of the flame and once it is at a low boil, lower the heat again, stirring as you do. As the liquid bubbles on one side, it will push the impurities in the gravy to the other side and you can skim them off with your ladle. Add the onions back to the pan and now you have everything in your BOG. Allow it to continue to cook on a low heat for up to half an hour, but at least for 15 minutes, stirring it occasionally and skimming it as needed.

Check your gravy for salt and add it if you like. I like. And I also like to add a dash or two of hot sauce, a little bit of L&P (Worcestershire Sauce) and pepper. This gravy is great to use right now, but will refrigerate (and freeze) quite nicely. When you bring it back to heat (particularly if you have frozen it) you can add a third volume of water as the gravy will have become very concentrated and rich in flavor. I serve this gravy over roasted pork loin, roasted chicken breast, or I add it to soups and stews. It is also wonderful poured over a big bowl of garlic mashed potatoes. Now there's comfort AND flavor in a bowl.

BURNT ONION GRAVY

5-6 Large Yellow Onions, thinly sliced

2 oz. Canola Oil (or other light cooking oil)

1/2 Stick Unsalted Butter

3 oz. Flour

1 Qt. Dark Chicken Stock (hot)

S&P to taste

In a heavy and high sided skillet heat the oil and add the onions. Cook the onions over medium heat stirring occasionally, until they begin to turn a golden brown. Add the butter and keep cooking, stirring more often as the onions darken.

As the onions begin to take on a very dark color and change texture from soft to crispy, lower the heat to as low as it will go, and lift the onions from the pan with a slotted spoon and transfer them to a colander placed over a bowl.

Add the flour to the pan along with the juices from the onions and whisk until a paste forms. Raise the heat slightly and cook the roux until it begins to turn first the color of peanut butter and then reaches a shade just short of chocolate.

Very carefully ladle the stock into the roux, whisking continually. Keep adding the stock until it is entirely incorporated. Raise the heat again and, stirring continually, bring the thickened gravy to a low boil. Move the pot to one side of the flame, lower the heat (while still stirring) and allow the gravy to simmer. Skim what ever foam comes to the top and return the onions to the gravy. Allow to cook for 15-20 minutes and check for seasonings.

BASIC CHICKEN STOCK

5# Chicken Bones, rinsed in cold water

2 Large Carrots, cut in discs

2 Yellow Onions, cut in large dice

4 Stalks Celery, cut in 1/2" pieces

2 Heads Garlic, cut in half equatorially

2 Leeks, sliced in thin rings (optional)

Stems of one bunch parsley, rough chopped (optional)

5 Bay Leaves

1 Tsp Dried Thyme Leaves (or 7-8 stems of fresh thyme)

12-15 Whole Peppercorns

1 TBS Salt

Place bones and vegetables in a stock pot and cover with 6-8 quarts of cold water. Bring to a rapid boil and then reduce heat to a simmer. Skim foam from top of pot. Add spices and return the liquid to a boil. Once it is boiling, reduce it to a simmer and move the pot so that only one side of it sits over the flame and the liquid makes a small bubble up one side of the pot (this allows a film to form over the top of the liquid, trapping the flavor, rather than cooking it away). Cook slowly, maintaining the bubble at the side of the pot for 5-6 hours, replenishing water if it drops below the level of the chicken bones. Do not stir or mix the stock once it as this point!!!

Strain the stock carefully and refrigerate, taking care not to agitate the liquid. Allow stock to cool overnight and when ready to use, remove fat from top.

Purple Hulled Peas

2011-12-07T10:16:00.000-08:00

I lived in Austin, Texas for a year and in that time became awfully fond of fresh field peas. Butter beans, crowder peas, lady peas, creamer peas, even black-eyed peas; these are all part of this family of peas, taken fresh from the field in their hulls, and traditionally cooked with a pork product, some broth and veggies. Yes, they are called "peas" and yes, for the most part, they more resemble "beans" in their dried form. Most of the field peas I have cooked are oblong, like a bean, and have that telltale dark (if not black) eye, off to one side of their center.

Of course, it's easy to find the dried version of these in a lot of stores and some of the specialty markets will even carry the more obscure varieties. But really, there is no substitute for the freshness of flavor of these peas when they are cooked right out of the hull. And my first admission, right from the get go here is that is not what I did, or should I say, not what I am doing, because the pot is simmering away even as I type. I am cooking purple hulled peas that my sister Barbara, who lives in Austin, was kind enough to bring me (in their frozen form) on her most recent visit a few weeks ago.

Most of the articles I've perused on the internet tell me that field peas are the sure sign in the South that Summer has begun. But it appeared to me, while I was living in Austin, that there are a number of varieties that produce well into the fall and it would seem that purple hulled peas are one of them.

One of the great delights of cooking field peas is one that I experienced as well in Costa Rica when I cooked frijoles tiernos (translated as, "tender beans) which are also fresh from the hull. They cook in an amazingly short period of time. While the frijoles tiernos took a whopping 35-40 minutes to cook (because, after all, they were real beans) my purple hulled peas have cooked to a lovely tenderness in the time it took me to write these rambling paragraphs. So now all I have to do is turn the heat way down and let them slowly simmer and marry their flavors with the ham hock I took from our Thanksgiving feast, the chunks of homemade chorizo I used and the aromatic vegetables and spices. And yes, the house is filled with the smell of the cooking soup mingled with the smell of burning oak from the wood burning oven. Take that freezing weather!!!

PURPLE HULLED PEA SOUP/STEW

1.5# Bag Fresh or frozen Purple Hulled, or any field, Peas

1 Big Yellow Onion, chopped

2 Carrots, cut in medium dice (1/2" X 1/2")

2 Stalks Celery, cut in medium dice

6 Cloves of Garlic, smashed and chopped

1 Meaty Ham Hock

1 Spicy Smoked Sausage (chopped)

1 TBS Bacon Fat or a (sigh) canola oil

2 Bay Leaves

1/2 Tsp Dried Thyme (or 2-3 sprigs of fresh)

1/2-1 Tsp Louisiana variety spice mix (I use Kitchen Witch, produced by a friend of mine, but you could use any blackening-type spice mix, I suppose

32 ounces Chicken Stock, boxed broth or water, plus 1 Cup Water

I use a heavy cast iron dutch oven to make this in, but any heavy sauce pan will work.

Heat the pan and add the bacon fat and the chopped sausage. Simmer them until the sausage begins to color and is yielding its fat.

Add the chopped vegetables, the dried herbs and the spice mix. Stir and cook over medium high heat until the vegetables begin to wilt and give off an aroma.

Add the peas to the pot along with the ham hock and cover with the broth and water.

Bring the soup/stew to a slow boil and then turn it down to simmer for 20-30 minutes until the peas are tender. At this point I like to turn the heat down to the lowest simmer and let the soup/stew sit on low heat to allow all the flavors to marry into absolute deliciousness. This will be good today, better tomorrow and better still the following day. And it freezes quite nicely.

SHORT RIBS; or, Heading Into Winter in a Big Hurry, Slowly

2011-11-21T09:13:00.000-08:00

Short Ribs; or, Heading Into Winter in a Big Way, Slowly

Are short ribs the answer to the pre-winter blahs? Well, on a deeply economic, sociologic and psychic level perhaps not. But cooking and subsequently consuming a batch of short ribs certainly can be good for what ails you. It can warm your kitchen and your belly and your heart, and it can give you a little of that free time that you need to read or go for a walk while it is in one of its long developmental processes.

This recipe is all about braising and I love to braise. I am a braising fool. I braise beef, lamb, pork and even chicken and duck. I am smitten by the way tough cuts of meat are rendered mouth wateringly tender by a long oven bath in herbs and wine and vegetables.

Short ribs represent to me the pinnacle of braising and braising is all about steps, or processes, if you will. The rewards, that culinary pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, is, to me worth the steps. But I tend to like the steps along the way as well. I cook for a living yes, and it helps me to just barely pay my bills, but I also cook because the process makes me feel good. The acts of food preparation beginning with the procurement, through the chopping and searing and all the way up to forking that first bite into my mouth are all part of the reward I get when I cook.

Short ribs are cut from the rib and plate primals and from one end of the chuck so tender all on their own, they ain't. Short ribs are generally cut into either English or "Flanken" cuts which involve the fatty but meaty heavy end of the ribs being cut into 1 1/2-2" sections. There is also a Korean cut of short ribs, but it involves the ribs being cut into long ribbons of meat and bone and isn't what we're talking about here. Short ribs are held together by intercostal muscles and a lot of tendon and what that means to us, the cooks, is that they will need to be cooked for a long time to break down all that connective tissue and render the meat what we know as "fallin' off the bone tender".

Braising is essentially two cooking methods in one; dry and wet heat are both used. First the meat involved is browned in a pan to provide that caramelization both on the meat and in the pan that provides a strong burst of flavor. Secondly the meat is entirely, or partially, covered in a rich liquid and cooked slowly in the oven so as to break down those collagen holding connective tissues and turn them into a deeply flavored gelatinous sauce.

Okay, enough science talk; let's cook. Well, no, first let's shop. I look for short ribs that are cut about an inch and a half and are not too overly fatty (this is sometimes just not possible). If you need to go to the butcher to order them a day in advance, remember, this is all just part of the process. It used to be, perhaps 20 years ago, that short ribs were something the butcher would beg you to take off his hands, but, as with all cuts of meat "rediscovered" by the foodie revolution this is no longer so. I just paid $2.99/# for some short ribs I thought were pretty nicely cut and trimmed, so you might want to use that as a bench mark (or not).

Something to note as well, AND THIS IS IMPORTANT, before beginning, is that this is not a recipe for a dish you are going to eat the first day it comes out of the oven, and if I had my way, you would not even eat it on the second day. Short ribs will taste their best after 48 hours of refrigeration have allowed them to "settle in" to their sauce, open up a bit, and absorb the cooking liquid.

Braised Short Ribs ala Chef of the Jungle

3# Beef Short Ribs, cut 1 1/2" (two good pieces per person will suffice)

1 Bottle Red Wine (as good as you feel comfortable cooking with)

1 Onion, cut in medium dice

1 Medium Carrot, cut in 1/2" dice

1 Parsnip, cut in 1/2" dice

1 Turnip, cut in 1/2" dice

6 Cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped fine

3 Bay Leaves

4-6 Sprigs of Fresh Thyme

2 Oz. Cooking oil

2 Cups of Chef of the Jungle Roasted Tomatoes (see other posts), or, 1 14 Oz. can of chopped tomato product

1 Qt. (this may be excessive) of Homemade Stock or, broth from a box

The first thing I do is season the short ribs with a good hit of sea salt and black pepper and then I sear them. There are two way to go about this searing process (yes, another process); the first is to sear them on the stove top in a heavy dutch oven or whatever vessel you plan to do your braising in. This works nicely, although I am not a big fan of the splattering grease involved. The second method, and the one I prefer, is to heat the oven to 400 degrees or so and put the short ribs in for about 35-40 minutes or so. You may want to turn them once.

There are two things you are hoping to accomplish by doing this. The first is that you want to render away some of the fat that coats the outside of your ribs. There can be a lot of fat. The second (and to me, more important) thing you're trying to accomplish is to get the ribs to brown and stick to the pan. That stuff that sticks to the pan (the French call this the "fond") is the source of a tremendous amount of flavor.

And now we are going to deglaze; ready? You will need red wine. When your ribs have gotten a nice brown color and they are sticking to the bottom of the pan, remove it from the oven, move the ribs to a plate, pour off the fat and put the pan on a lit burner. When the pan begins to sizzle and pop pour in about a cup of red wine and start scraping. Reduce and scrape for about 30 seconds or so until you have gotten all the good bits off the bottom of the pan. Pour your "fond" off into a cup or bowl.

Wipe the cooking pan clean (relatively speaking) with a towel and heat the cooking oil up in the pan. When it is hot, add all the vegetables (with the exception of the tomatoes) and let them saute. Go ahead and stir them around a little, but you want them to stick to the pan a bit; vegetables have flavor, too, you know. When the vegetables are starting to brown add the second half of the red wine and stir up whatever has stuck to the cooking pan. Let the wine reduce by half and add the tomatoes, your prized "fond" from the meat deglazing, and the herbs. Stir to mix, then return the short ribs to the pan, nestling them down into the vegetables. Add 2-3 cups of the stock, or enough to nearly cover, but not quite cover, the ribs.

Return the whole pot, uncovered, to the oven and adjust the heat to 35o. And now, get out of here. Got take a walk, read, make love, do something that will take your mind off the masterpiece that is beginning to form in your oven. In an hour come back and take a look. The tops of the ribs should be browning, so turn them over to get more of that brown flavor into the sauce and return the pan to the oven for another hour and a half. If the liquid has reduced to the point where over an inch of the ribs are showing, add a bit more stock. And remember, relax, this is a process, I told you that.

After two and a half hours, take the pan from the oven, put it on a cooling rack or a trivet and let it come to room temperature. When it has cooled down sufficiently, cover it and put it in the refrigerator and just walk away. The next day, when you take a look, all the fat will have hardened into a reddish (this is from the tomatoes) layer over the top of the pan and you will be able to remove it and dispose of it quite easily with your fingers, or, if you're just that way, a spoon.

Now at this point you can reheat the short ribs (very very slowly, please) and serve them and their amazingly rich sauce over buttered noodles (Chef of the Jungle's favorite), risotto, polenta, or any of the mashed root vegetables, solo or mixed (I am particularly fond of celery root and yukon golds). It will be wonderful, ethereal, comforting and just the very thing for a chilly evening. BUT, and I tell you this in all sincerity and seriousness, if you can wait another day, it will be SO much better. Really, trust me on this. It's all about the process.

Enchiladas Verde

2011-11-17T17:57:00.001-08:00

This week I followed up the roast chicken from my previous blog by picking the carcass and turning he leftovers into Enchiladas Verde. Verde is, of course, Spanish for green and the green for the enchiladas refers to the sauce and the sauce comes from tomatillos. Tomatillos, oddly, are not at all related to tomatoes, but are, rather, in the gooseberry family as their little husks may indicate. And, as luck and seasonality will have it, this is harvest time, at least in this area, for tomatillos.

The tomatillo has a bright, slightly acidic flavor and is a wonderful foil for the richness of the melted cheese, sour cream, avocado and all the things that make enchiladas a wonderful and perfect winter meal. And while I made these particular enchiladas with chicken as the main part of the filling, I absolutely LOVE this sauce with Dungeness crab enchiladas, a seasonal treat in my family for years.

My friend Lynda Lee Wieland, who used to pick me up hitchhiking in Costa Rica while she was VERY pregnant has been kind enough to ask for this recipe. So, Lynda, here we go.

ENCHILADAS VERDE

For The Sauce

12-15 Ripe Tomatillos

1 Jalapeno Chile

1 White Onion

3 Cloves peeled Garlic

1 Anaheim or Poblano Chile (optional)

1/2 bunch cilantro

Husk the tomatillos, and rough chop the other vegetables. Cover all of them with water (except the cilantro) and bring to a low boil. Cook for about ten minutes or until the tomatillos are tender. Using a slotted spoon transfer the cooked vegetables to a blender, add the cilantro, and pulse (careful, this is hot) until you have a smooth sauce. Save the cooking liquid in case the sauce seems too thick. Pour 1/4 of the sauce into a baking dish or casserole large enough to hold 12 enchiladas

For The Filling

2 Cups Cooked Chicken

1 Large White Onion, cut in strips or half moons

2 Large Anaheim Chiles cut in strips

1 Poblano (Ancho) Chile cut in strips

1 Oz. Canola oil

1/2 Cup Chicken Broth

1/2 Bunch of Cilantro, rough chopped

2 Ripe Avocados, cut in strips

1# + 1/2# Grated Monterey Jack Cheese

4 Oz. Softened Goat Cheese (this is my secret ingredient and is, of course, optional)

12 Corn Tortillas

Preheat your oven to 350.

Heat a skillet with the oil and saute the onions and chile strips until just soft. Add the cooked chicken and toss to mix. Pour in the chicken broth and allow to come to a simmer. Heat the chicken and vegetables just through and add the cilantro.

Heat a second heavy skillet and heat on tortilla on both sides until it softens. Put in two tablespoons of the chicken filling, a sprinkling of grated jack cheese, a little dollop of the goat cheese and two avocado slices. Carefully roll the tortilla around the fillings and place it in the casserole. Do this with the remaining tortillas and filling taking care to make sure you have just enough of everything left at the end. Pour the remainder of the Salsa Verde over the rolled enchiladas and top with the second part of the grated jack cheese.

Bake the enchiladas for 30 minutes covered with aluminum foil. Remove the foil and bake for another ten minutes. Serve carefully and with love, topped with sour cream and more avocado.

Brussels Sprouts; Somebody Likes 'Em

2011-11-16T07:53:00.000-08:00

The other day I stopped in at one of our local farmstand markets and there on a long low table were giant wands of green; full stalks of brussels sprouts in their natural state. And I, of course, had to buy one, a nice full one, nearly three feet long, with sprouts both small and large.

Brussels sprouts are one of those classic things you either love or hate. There is very little middle ground when it comes to them. And the faces people make to express their dislike for these cute little round members of the brassica family are among the classics in the annals of food dislike.

I happen to like brussels sprouts, but it wasn't always so. In my household when I was a child, they were, like most vegetables of the 50's, cooked into a grayish mush that guaranteed that no child alive could or would like them. I am sad to say that in this particular era in food history my mother took similar approaches with zucchini, asparagus and anything else green from the garden. Fortunately her tact changed as he children grew.

Recently I have cooked brussels sprouts two different ways that were well loved in our household and not just because the both involved the contribution of bacon or pancetta, although it never hurts, does it? These are both incredibly simple recipes. The first involves shredding the sprouts as if one were making mini-cole slaw out of mini-cabbages and sauteing them; the second just calls for them to be halved, but then roasted. Try either of them with pork or chicken on a chilly Fall evening.

Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta

2o Brussels Sprouts; halved and then sliced thinly

3 oz. Pancetta; diced fine

1 oz. olive oil

S&P to taste (but I like a lot of black pepper on my brussles sprouts)

Water or chicken stock

Heat a heavy saute pan over the flame and add the olive oil and pancetta. Cook until the pancetta begins to crisp slightly and throws a bit of oil. Add the shredded sprouts and toss with the liquid in the pan until they begin to wilt slightly. Add about two ounces of water of stock to the sprouts and toss again. Cook for a minute or two until the liquid is nearly absorbed and serve.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

20 Brussels Sprouts, halved

2 Thick slices of smoked bacon cut into 1/2" pieces

S&P to taste

Water or chicken stock

Pre-heat the oven to 400 while you are halving the sprouts. Put the cut bacon into an oven proof saute pan and add the sprouts. Cook in the oven until the bacon begins to render, then toss to mix. Return to the oven and cook until the bacon is almost cooked through. Add an ounce or two of water or stock, toss and return to the oven for another three or four minutes.

The sprouts will have lost a bit of color, but are, at this point, ready.

Roast Chicken Redux

2011-11-13T16:27:00.000-08:00

The last time I wrote about Roast Chicken and the very act of roasting a chicken, the circumstances were significantly different. I was living in a house at the edge of, or perhaps right in, the jungle on the south Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The weather was tropically gorgeous; and the doors (doors? We had doors?) and windows were all open so that the sounds of the birds and the noises from the early evening habitues of the jungle were a soundtrack for the browning of the bird. I was wearing shorts, perhaps a light, and if so, unbuttoned short-sleeved shirt, and I was definitely, very definitely barefoot.

I wrote about the gently meditative quality that roasting a chicken offers to one's existence, even in a nearly equatorial environment. The simple act of seasoning the bird, placing into the hot oven and then drifting away into a book and some jazz was as close to cooking serenely as I could possibly imagine. The rich and comfortingly familiar smells of roasting chicken, coupled with the gentle sounds of a jungle evening were, at that time, the very definition of comfort.

This afternoon, one in which the sun is already so far gone it feels like evening, I am preparing another bird for roasting. But this is Oregon. And more specifically, Fall on the Eastern side of the Willamette Valley; right up against the slopes of the Cascades. The temperature is in the low 40's and the birds have all hit the skies for the south. The colors of the trees, at least the ones that are still in possession of their leaves, are golden, scarlet and rust made all the more striking by being set against the dark green of the firs.

In Costa Rica, I kept the accompaniments simple, not really much in the Roast Chicken canon goes with the tropical weather, and in truth, a good deal of the chicken ended up served over a neighbor's lovely creekside grown watercress. Here, I've got the weather on my side to create the full-on roast chicken experience. I've got a stalk of locally grown brussels sprouts and smoked bacon. I've got fat golden potatoes and pungent heads of garlic from our own gardens. And best of all, I've got a supply of rich chicken stock for the gravy that should so rightfully come from the pan once the chicken has vacated it.

I still have the jazz, oozing and snaking from the speakers, but this time the music wafts up into the smell of the smoke from our wood burning stove (not to mention the early scents from the chicken arising from the oven). The fading light from the jungles has been replaced by a wonderful steam on the windows and rather than easing into a cooling jungle evening, we are cozy and warm here in our wooded house on a cold Fall night. Best of all, I am not alone for this roast chicken, and it is SO much better to have someone with whom to share such a simple but basic realization of pleasure and yes, comfort.

TASTING; Or, How We Sell From the Kitchen

2011-11-08T09:06:00.000-08:00

One of the interesting (to me, anyway) and occasionally entertaining things I do in my job as Chef of a catering company, is present tasting meals/plates to prospective clients. Recently I've had the occasion to present two of these meals, which in many ways, demonstrated the differences in the way these mini-events can go.

Over the last several months in my new-ish position, I have written numerous menus representing the different seasons, different price points, different styles and blends of all three. Generally our prospective client will take a look at these menus and make some choices that appeal to them. Or, they will say, "We want a simple menu that is going to appeal to everyone, including Uncle Ralph, Aunt Maxine, and all the scampering children". There are also times that they will have some very strong ideas of their own about what they want for their blessed event. We, being caterers (and wanting their business), will, of course, bend over backwards to accommodate their needs.

Last Friday we did a tasting for the parents of a Salem woman who had just flown in from Chicago (where, incidentally, it was warmer than it was in Salem). We encountered some interesting problems in feeding them their "tastes", in that they were in the middle of a feeding frenzy that had begun over in the Willamette wine country town of Dundee for lunch and was going to carry on into dinner. Our tasting with them fell somewhere in the middle of "full" and "overload".

Additionally I was faced with the interesting task of presenting a tasting of summer foods for what would be a summer wedding in the middle of a late Fall afternoon when it was 38 degrees in downtown Salem. Our guests wanted to taste a grill-smoked salmon in a summery sauce of roasted red peppers and sweet grilled corn; gnocchi (?) in that summer style "Caprese", with heirloom tomatoes, garden fresh basil and mozzarella; and, oh yes, a "Classic Ratatouille" of summer vegetables.

Through the miracle of West Coast markets, clever freezing a few months ago and my "find" of a farm stand that had the last of their heirloom tomatoes still hanging around, I was able to put out two plates, one for either parent, of the three items requested. But they would be going to dinner in just over an hour, and had eaten lunch late. They choked down a few bites, decided it would be all right for their daughter's wedding and asked a lot of questions about how the meal would be delivered, whether or not it would be cooked on site and how it would be served. But they did agree on the menu.

My second tasting was two days later with a "plate" time of noon on a rainy Sunday morning. It was chilly once again, and wet as well, but this menu was one that fit perfectly into the season. I would roast filets of local fresh salmon and serve it with a Pommery (grainy) mustard beurre blanc, to be served with local wild rice. There would be a bacon wrapped roast chicken breast served with a wild mushroom cream sauce. And lastly, Pinot Noir braised short-ribs. The second and third entrees would both be served with a celery root-yukon gold puree. This was food after my own heart which worked out perfectly, as this was a menu I had written.

I soaked the wild rice the evening in advance so that it would be ready to cook when I arrived in the morning and decided, since wild rice is a little daunting (not to mention one dimensional) on its own, to serve it half and half with barley. I love the combination of the grass and the grain. I also browned and braised the short-ribs with the wine, onions, lots of garlic, carrots and parsnips the night before. They would be so much better after having rested in their braising liquid overnight.

I had picked up some beautiful and huge chanterelles from a forager in Silverton, the town nearest where I live, and the first thing I did when I arrived Sunday morning was to cut them in thick slices and saute them slowly with a big chunk of butter. I cut a couple of branches of fresh thyme from one of our herb pots and added them to the saute pan; thyme throws in a nice subtle flavor in combination with the chanterelles.

Next I peeled two gnarly knobs of celery root and a couple of yukon gold potatoes. I cut them into 2 inch cubes, put them in salted water and quickly brought them to a boil. It occurred to me that I probably would need a bain marie to hold the puree, the rice/barley mix and the sauces until my tasters arrived, so I boiled water and poured it into a 4" hotel pan. While this was heating I put the pan of short ribs in their sauce into the oven to bring up to heat slowly. They already had that "fallin' off the bone" look to them.

I seared off the chicken breasts and wrapped them with partially cooked bacon strips and I cut the salmon into five ounce filets. By this time the potatoes and celery root had become tender so I mashed them with butter and added some cream and a pinch of salt. I love the flavor of this puree and I equally love how easily it comes together. I scooped the puree into a small stainless insert pan and placed it into the bain marie with a bit of clear wrap over the top to keep it moist.

I started the beurre blanc by reducing a cup of sauvignon blanc along with a splash of apple cider vinegar and a drop or two of sherry vinegar. Normally I would use a vinegar with a bit less character, but since I was going to flavoring the sauce with the Pommery mustard, I wanted it to have enough body to carry the flavors through.

Once the wine had reduced to practically nothing I added a dash of heavy cream and reduced that to the bottom of the pan before adding the chilled butter, a couple of chunks at a time. I stirred in a couple of teaspoons of the mustard, checked the flavor and added the sauce to a container in the bain marie.

Our guests were due to arrive at noon so at 11:45 the chicken and the salmon joined the short ribs in the oven. I got out three of our square white plates (the better to show the colors of the food) and laid them out. The call came down that only the woman guest would be joining us. It turned out that her boyfriend/fiance was working nearly 24 hours a day during the grape harvest and had chosen to sleep in rather than eat. Understandable.

I plated the food, angling the salmon up onto the wild rice/barley mix with a spoonful of the beurre blanc over it; dolloped the puree on two of the plates and then arranged the chicken with it's fat slices of chanterelle and the short ribs and the chunks of vegetable on top of the yellowish puree. Scott, my boss's husband was watching me with his eyes wide open and I said, "Just like food porn" to him as I took pictures of the arranged plates and he could only nod.

I arranged the plates on the table in front of our client and loved her reaction to the way the food looked (and smelled). "My fiance is going to be SO sorry he missed this" were the first words out of her mouth. I did my brief spiel and went back downstairs to clean up. It turned out the second words out of her mouth (after she had taken two bites of the salmon) were, "Where do I sign?" And that's the way it's supposed to work.

Fall Flavors at Lunch

2011-10-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

This week I was called upon to cook a special lunch for the owner of Willamette Valley Vineyards. It seems that the relationship between the catering company I work for and the Winery has become a bit tenuous and some derision had been cast in our direction regarding the quality of the food we had been serving there. And that was where I came in; new chef, new guy, new ideas, new food.

I have been creating a few seasonal menus to Jean, the owner of Willabys, and she in turn has been sending them out to prospective clients. And so it was with restrained joy that when the menu for the aforementioned luncheon came into my hands it was one that spoke particularly and directly to my affinity for the flavors of Fall.

The salad was not such a seasonal choice, but still a good one:
Grilled and Chilled Hearts of Romaine w/Shaved Asiago, Toasted Almonds and Green Goddess Dressing

  I first saw romaine hearts grilled in Berkeley by Chef Daniel Malzhan at the Dakota Grill in the late 80's and have hung on to it as an effective treatment of the oft boring crisp head of romaine for lo, these many years.

  The head is cleaned, halved, brushed with olive oil and simply grilled, cut side down, until the innermost leaves brown and wilt slightly. It can then be rechilled until serving. I love shaving rather that shredding the cheese; the long sheets of Asiago lend a fine architectural and dimensional look to the salad. The sliced, skin-on almonds get toasted for crunch and texture and then there is the Green Goddess Dressing. While none of that is the essence of "Fall-ish", at least if felt like Fall when I went outside, fired up the grill put the proper markings on the lettuce halves and the leaves swirled.

Green Goddess is a dressing on the rebound these days. It was devised in San Francisco in the 20's by Chef Philip Roemer to celebrate a play that was passing through the City, named, appropriately, The Green Goddess. It is mayonnaise based, which may explain it having fallen from fashion for a time, but it is, when laden with the proper and fresh green herbs wonderfully zesty.

The classic recipe calls for a mince of chervil, chives, tarragon, black pepper and the all important capers and anchovy to be blended to the (presumably) homemade mayonnaise, but turns and twists on the original can be taken. I like to add both parsley and green onions (chives not being as readily available on a daily basis in our part of the world) and I occasionally have been known to substitute basil for the tarragon. In any case, the blend is lovely; rich, green and creamy, particularly with the addition of a bit of sour cream to take the denseness out of the mayonnaise.

The rest of the menu said nearly everything about Fall that I like:
Roast Cider Marinated Pork Tenderloin with Pear Chutney.
Fall Squash Gratin, and,
Braised Greens

I had seen some locally made cider vinegars that had some unusual flavorings, and I thought this might be a nice time to try one out. I had already made the chutney (see previous blog entry for the recipe) with a fair amount of ginger so I decided to use the one that was ginger flavored to carry through on a theme. These are vinegars meant for consumption (as a digestif, or health aid, I can only presume), but I figured it would work wonderfully as a marinade, if used half and half with some local apple cider. I added some shallots, grated ginger and a splash of oil, and poured it over the pork. I let that sit for 24 hours.

I also wanted to serve the pork with a stock based sauce to both moisten it and make it so the chutney was not the sole flavoring agent. I had trimmed fat, silver skin and a little meat from the tenderloin before it went into the marinade, and these I browned with some cooked chunks of bacon (I wanted a little smoky/salty thing going on). Once the meat was brown and the bacon had rendered a small amount of fat, I deglazed the pan with another good splash of the ginger-flavored vinegar and then put in a cup of veal stock. This I allowed to come to a boil and then I dropped the heat to let it reduce slowly and cooked it down to about half a cup.

The second part of the menu, the gratin, would be fun. I love making (and eating!) gratins and I hadn't made one with fall/winter squash in some time. I chose butternut, as it's grown right near us at Lake Labish by Schlechter Farms and has just come off the vine; nothing could be more local or seasonal.

  The first thing I did, naturally, was peel and cube the squash (3/4" if you're measuring) and toss the cubes in a bowl with some olive oil and S&P. I roasted if for about 20 minutes at 350, just to soften a bit, with some whole cloves of garlic and a dice of onion. When that came out of the oven, I tossed it with just a bit of heavy cream and some crumbled goat cheese and put it into the casserole. I made a topping of garlicky bread crumbs, toasted hazelnuts and parmesan and sprinkled it over the top.

My greens selection was a bit limited, Oregon not being a hotbed of Southern cooking, but chard is in season here and I was able to get red and white. A simple tearing of the leaves off the spines got it ready to cook. I was ready to come back the next day and take everything to the winery for some "a la minute" cooking.
~~~~~~~~~

The next day the wind was howling through the Willamette Valley and the winery, perched up on top of the ridge overlooking the Valley was a chilly, chilly place. The first thing I did upon arriving was crank up the convection oven to get some heat in their open drafty kitchen and popped the gratin in the oven.

I heated a heavy saute pan on the burners with a bit of oil and once it was good and hot I dried off the pork tenderloin and plopped it into the pan, not just to brown, but to caramelize some of that marinade. When it was nice and crisp on one side I turned it and put it into the 400 degree oven to join the gratin.

I plated the salad, that was easy; I halved the romaine half so it was a quarter, spooned the Green Goddess over and around it, propped the shavings of Asiago up in strategic places and sprinkled the toasted almonds over the top and then put the crostini off to one side. Nice. That was easy.

While the pork t-loin and the gratin were cooking I heated olive oil in a medium sized sauce pan, added some garlic and when it was just cooked, added the wet (from washing) torn chard leaves. I sprinkled in a bit of salt and pepper, lowered the heat and covered the pan. Keeping it simple.

I took the foil top off the gratin to allow the top to brown and took the pork loin out of the oven, covered it with foil and allowed it to "repose". I deglazed the pork roasting pan with yet a bit more of the ginger-flavored cider vinegar and added the reduction I had made the previous day. It smelled so good mixing with the caramelized flavors from the pork loin. And at this point I took the salads to the dining room, introduced myself and served the first course.

Back in the kitchen the chard was nicely wilted and the gratin was bubbling under its crisp topping. All the was left was to plate it all. The a nice rectangular slice of the gratin, topping intact, went at the top of the plate and the drained greens in the middle. I sliced the pork loin into nine nice medallions and arranged them on the three plates in an overlapping curve around the greens. A dollop of the pear chutney went on the top of the middle medallion and a gentle pour of the rich reduced sauce went around and over and under. Yes, it was lunchtime.

The table got kind of quiet when I served the entrees, except for one hushed, "Beautiful". While they ate I returned to the kitchen and plated my All Oregon dessert; half a peeled and sliced (perfectly ripe!) Bosc pair, a sprinkling of Oregon Blue cheese, candied Oregon hazelnuts, and a squirt or two of locally made Oregon blackberry honey. Such a lovely combination.

When I went back out the plates were clean and I delivered the simple dessert. That was it, no hanging around. I packed it up and hied back to the kitchen. I had to come back that same evening with dinner for 30, but that was another meal and a story for another time. (And by the way, I heard later that the bigwigs at the winery had LOVED the lunch.)

PEARS PEARS PEARS

2011-10-21T16:07:00.001-07:00

Pear season in Oregon; treasured fruit from cultures both past and present. Sensual in ways both culinary and visual; pears are crunchy and suave, juicy and fragrant, luxurious yet simple. They have been prized and cultivated by Northern cultures, primarily because they are one of the few tree-born (apples, of course being the other) fruits that thrive in cooler climates. From Scandanavia, through Northern China (the People's Republic of China is the largest producer of pears in the world) and Japan and across into the Northern states of the US, pears are grown and loved for their versatility.

Although I have grown to love pears, it is something that has happened mostly in the second half of my life, a bit like beets. When I was very young pears meant that either I was hiding from friends in the pear orchards near where I grew up, dodging the rotting, sweetly pungent, yellow-jacket covered fruit as it lay on the ground; or, my mother was serving them from a can, alongside cottage cheese, as an alternative to a green salad next to our dinner. Neither of those experiences did a lot to enhance a childhood love of pears. The part of the East Bay in Northern California in which I spent my youth, the Lafayette-Moraga area, was a prime pear growing region up into the 1950's, shipping thousands of pounds of pears a year back to the East Coast, but property and houses proved far more lucrative. Where there were once thousands of pear trees, there are now hundreds of million dollar-plus homes.

Here in Oregon, the pear is the State Fruit, and while the two main growing regions are Hood River to the north and the Rogue River Valley to the south, here in the Willamette Valley they do produce quite a large crop of the Pear that Oregon is known for, the Bartlett. It is red and green and irresistibly juicy. The Bartlett is a huge canning pear and the one that you see in those Harry and David fruit ads where they advertise "pears so juicy you can eat them with a spoon", or something like that. Fewer, but also wonderful are my favorite, Bosc's; brownish-gold skinned, firm, flavorful, and elegant. The Bartlett has the juice, but the Bosc has the crunch.

It was clear that in doing what I do I would connect with pears on one level or another and it was when I first tasted an ethereal pear-almond tart at Chez Panisse that I realized what I had been missing. And I credit Mark Miller when I worked with him at the 4th St. Grill in Berkeley for showing me the wonders of the Comice pear. But pears remained mostly a pastry item in my world, despite my working with chefs like Bob Kinkead at the Harvest in Massachusetts who introduced me to those damn tiny tasteless Seckel pears that he made us peel and serve with pork.

I finally reached an understanding of how pears could work in savory dishes when I began grilling and roasting them to serve in both salads and alongside meats and poultry. As with almost any fruit of vegetable, the grill serves to concentrate the flavors and/or sugars in pears and kicks their flavor to another level, one that can stand up to the rich flavors in reduction sauces. One of the dishes I created was a Roasted Guinea Fowl Breast with Roasted Pears and Thyme that I served with a rich Sauvignon Blanc-poultry stock reduction sauce with braised greens and soft polenta. The flavors of the pear proved so complimentary to the bird and the roasted stock and really helped to make the dish.

Pears had been off my radar for quite some time while I was in Costa Rica (go figure), although one does see pears from Chile in the markets occasionally. It wasn't until I got a care package from Kathy last winter just before Christmas that had several bags of dried pears in it that I had even thought of them. What a revelation! They were like candy; sweet and chewy, with just enough of that elusive minerally tang that the fruit is famous for.

So this Fall, at my urging (and because her entire family loves them) she has become the Queen of Dried Pears yet again. She has already peeled, sliced and dried an entire lug (42#) of Bartletts and is working her way through a lug of Boscs. I loved the Bartletts last year, but this year realize that the Boscs seem to have even a richer, deeper concentration of flavor. When Kathy gets bored with the drying process she has been vacuum packing and freezing fresh wedges of peeled pear after dipping them in a bit of sweetened acidulated water.

I, on the other hand, am working on my pear chutney recipes, trying roasted, poached and grilled pears for different flavor and texture feels and flavors. I have a tasting this week for a prospective catering client and am going to serve he and his party a cider-marinated pork tenderloin topped with pear chutney. This is the recipe I will use:

PEAR CHUTNEY

6 Bosc Pears, peeled and cut in 1/2" cubes; tossed in lemon juice and sugar;

1 Red Onion, peeled and cut in 1/4" dice

I Red Bell Pepper, cut in 1/4" dice

1 1" piece fresh Ginger; peeled and grated

1/4 Jalapeno Chile, seeded and cut in very fine dice
1/4 Cup Golden Raisins (or for the holiday, Dried Cranberries) plumped in white wine

1 Cinnamon Stick

4 Whole Cloves

Pinch of freshly ground Cumin

Pinch of freshly ground Nutmeg;

1/2 Cup White Wine Vinegar

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

Juice of 1 Lemon

Bring vinegar, brown sugar and lemon juice to a boil (this chutney base is called a "gastrique") and add all ingredients except the pears. Cook for five minutes, or until the vegetables have softened but not lost their color. Turn off the heat and stir in the cubed pears. Let cool and pack in glass jars. This chutney will hold in the refrigerator for several weeks and is delicious on pork or roast fowl and also on turkey sandwiches (!).

PEAR ALMOND TART

And as no writing about pears would be complete without a recipe for a pear tart, here is one that my sister, Barbara, has used over the years. It originally appeared in Cook's Illustrated.

I am particularly fond of this recipe as it combines pears with one of their most natural and traditional complimentary flavors, almonds. This recipe although lengthy, is actually quite simple and so very, very delicious.

Not all pear tart recipes begin by poaching the pears, but a significant number of them do. You can decide for yourself what you like, but here is a basic poaching recipe for pears for this and other desserts. These pears sliced, by themselves, are delicious over ice cream, and the poaching liquid, if reduced to syrupy consistency is, as well.

POACHED PEARS

6 Peeled, halved and cored pears; Bosc or Bartlett;

1 Bottle of White Wine (I like Sauvignon Blanc)

1 Cinnamon Stick

4 Whole Cloves

2/3 Cup White Sugar

1" Segment of Vanilla Bean, split and seeds scraped into liquid

10-12 Black Peppercorns

Pinch Salt

Juice+Zest of 2 Lemons

Add all ingredients to a non-corrosive sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 10-15 minutes. Place pears gently into poaching liquid and return heat to just short of a boil. Reduce yet again, and simmer pears until the can be pierced easily with a wooden skewer, but are not falling apart. Turn the heat off under the pan and allow the pears to cool in the poaching liquid.

This recipe calls for a classic Pate Sucree, or Pastry Dough, that incorporates egg, cream and sugar into a basic flour and butter mixture.

PATE SUCREE

1 Large Egg Yolk

2 TBS Heavy Cream

1/2 Tsp Good Quality Vanilla Extract

1 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour

3/4 Cup Powdered Sugar

Pinch of Salt

1 1/4 Cubes of Unsalted Butter, very cold, cut into 1/2" cubes

Whisk together the egg yolk, cream and vanilla. Place dry ingredients in food processor and pulse briefly to bring together. Scatter the butter chunks over the mixed dry ingredients and pulse the processor several times (up to 20) to incorporate the butter into the mix. With the motor running pour in the wet ingredients and run machine for 12 seconds. Turn the dough out on to plastic wrap, form into a disc, cover and refrigerate for at least an hour (or more if necessary).

ALMOND FILLING (FRANGIPANE)

4 Oz. Blanched Slivered Almonds

1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar

Pinch Salt

1 Egg

1 Egg White

1/2 Tsp Good Vanilla Extract

1/2 Tsp Almond Extract

6 TBS Unsalted Butter, cut into 6 pieces, at room temperature

Pulse the almonds, sugar and salt in a food processor until powdered. Add the egg and egg yolk and the extracts and process. Add the butter in chunks and process until smooth. Scrape out into a bowl. Refrigerate if you are not going to use immediately.

ASSEMBLY

Remove pastry from refrigerator and roll out to about 12 inches. Lay over the top of a fluted tart pan and press the pastry down into it. Cover the filled tart pan with clear wrap and freeze for 30 minutes. Spray a sheet of foil with "non-stick" food spray, or brush it with cooking oil and lay it over the pastry. Fill the foil with rice or dried beans and bake at 375 for 20 minutes, rotating once. Remove from oven to cooling rack, gently remove foil and weights and allow to cool for 30 minutes.

If you have refrigerated your Frangipane, remove it from the refrigerator and whisk it a few times to soften it. Using a palette knife or a small plastic spatula, spread the Frangipane evenly and gently over the bottom of the tart shell.

Remove the pears from their poaching liquid and dry them very well on paper towels. Either slice them and lay them in a nice pattern on top of the tart; or, lay the whole pears on the filling, slice them and gently press them into place on top of the tart.

Lower the over temperature to 350 and put the tart in the oven on a baking sheet. Bake for about 45 minutes or until the crust is puffed, brown and crisp to the touch. Allow to cool on the baking sheet. If you wish to glaze the tart, heat about a 1/4 cup of a clear jam like apple until it liquifies and brush it gently over the top of the pears.

Allow the tart to cool for two hours. If you have used a ringed tart pan, remove the outer ring at this point, cut the tart into wedges and serve.

PUTTING IT BY

2011-10-12T16:19:00.000-07:00

We are in the process, at our house, of (nearly) desperately trying to capture lightning in a bottle. Or, more realistically, preserve some of the tastes and memories of a summer that wasn't nearly long enough. Same thing, I guess. In any case, we are filling our freezer and cupboards with stacks and stacks of bags (thank God for zip-locks) filled with goodies that will help us to get through a long and rainy winter of tasteless vegetables and virtually no, good fresh fruit.

I have never really been a preserving, canning, drying, jarring (well, I can be a bit jarring) kind of guy. I've always worked in restaurants and being in that position can easily create the illusion of plenty. Sure there are no more asparagus, but we're going into green bean/snap pea/hell, brussells sprout season. Or, what, no peaches? Okay, we'll change that recipe up and do it with pears, or mangoes, or papayas or something. This is just the way it is in the restaurant biz, particularly when one is working in, or is close to an urban center (or better yet, living in the tropics where things just GROW).

But now things are different, far different. Kathy and I live at the Eastern edge of the Willamette Valley, nearly 25 miles from Salem, the nearest "large" city, and hardly an urban center. Even the "good" grocery stores here are not exactly hotbeds of produce bargains and while during the harvest season it is possible to eat locally, most of the food here comes from far, far away. Our summer here lasted about six weeks and we are at the tail end of a growing season that gave us late season tomatoes and squashes, but now is down to apples, pears, cauliflower and cabbage.

When I got here at the end of last winter I saw green beans for sale in the local supermarket for as high as $3.49/#, and the cheapest thing around was broccoli at $1.99/# and oh boy, did we ever get tired of broccoli. So our answer was to blanch and freeze as many of the green things as we could and we've now got bags and bags of our own homegrown beans and peas flash blanched and safe in the freezer. Sadly, I've got to admit, we absolutely BLEW through our own homegrown broccoli; what a difference!!

When it came to tomatoes we were of two schools of thought. Kathy is a dryer and she is the undisputed Queen of the Dehydrator (more about that later). As a result, we have several bags of dried tomatoes ready to contribute their concentrated flavors to everything from salad dressing to pesto to sauces.

I, on the other hand, am a freezer, and to me this means getting those tomatoes into a frozen state so that they are ready to contribute flavor immediately. I like roasting halved tomatoes in a hot oven (425 or so) along with sliced onions and whole garlic cloves on sheet pans in olive oil until everything is just taking on the edge of caramelization. The cooled and concentrated product is then rough-chopped and stored, flat, in ziplock bags. And we now have 12 large ziplocks filled with roasted concentrated tomatoes in the outside freezer. I will use these in braises, bean dishes, soups and any number of other applications. The only caveat is if we lose power and the freezer goes down.

Also helping to fill up the outside freezer are 20# of frozen local blueberries, 12# of frozen local raspberries and a couple of ziplocks each of peeled and chunked peaches and nectarines. And yes, the Willamette Valley does surprisingly well in the peach and nectarine department. I pretend that some of these fruits will end up in pies or crisps or cobblers, but truth be told, they lay in wait for several months worth of my morning smoothies. I use bananas and yogurt as a base, but the real flavor comes from the berries. My mornings are not complete without them.

Right now the previously mentioned dehydrator (and I can here it doing its slow turns right now) is filled with thin slices of Willamette Valley Bartlett pears, doing their drying out thing. Kathy brought home a 42# lug of the beautiful ripe fruit and she is doing her utmost to make sure that we have at least the taste, if not the whole effect, of those sweet pears all winter long. Her regimen involves peeling, coring and slicing and is indeed a labor of love. Last winter while I was still in Costa Rica she sent me several bags and I fell in love with their minerally and slightly grainy texture and their sweet expression of pure pear flavor. And now that the Bartletts are done, dried and in their bags, we're going out for a lug of Bosc. One can really never have too many dried pears.

Our last mission in the process of putting food by will be the last harvested vegetable in this valley, cauliflower. These too, will be flash blanched in boiling salted water and frozen. Fortunately I've found a woman who loves cauliflower as much as I do and we've both been watching the fields right near our house with great anticipation of the harvest.

I made the Fall's first cauliflower gratin early this week and it was wonderful, but even more, I love simply tossing big chunks of florets (1/4-1/6 head or so) in olive oil and sea salt and simply roasting them in the oven. I never, ever got passionate about cauliflower until I ate it this way. It is an amazing expression of pure cauliflower goodness, but if you feel like sprinkling a little grated Reggiano Parmesano over it just as it comes out of the oven, I certainly couldn't fault you for it.

And as much as I would like to think that this frozen and dried bounty is going to take us through the winter, I know better. Sadly, most of this will be eaten within the next three months leaving us, somewhere in the middle of January or so wandering the aisles of the supermarkets eying over-priced and underloved produce from far away. Kathy will hate me for saying this, but we'll just have to make the garden bigger next year.

As much as I would love for this frozen and

So Many Years of Sausage

2011-10-09T16:28:00.000-07:00

In recent days I have become reacquainted with a kitchen passion of mine, sausage making. After a bit of cajoling from their new Chef (me), the owners of Willabys have bought the grinder head we needed to complete our Hobart mixer and I am in business. Not only is owning a grinder a good move financially, it opens up a whole new arena for charcuterie on our catering menus.

There is nothing difficult about making sausage. Oh yeah, you do need the right equipment; grinder, stuffing cone, a few different sized dyes (they determine the size of the grind), and a smoker should you so desire. And you do need the right supplies; meat, fat, spices and the casings. Naturally, and lastly, it goes without saying, you need the interest, the desire and ultimately the passion for doing it right.

Sausage making doesn't convey the art of so many other parts of the culinary world. It is essentially taking the bits of meat that aren't wanted for anything else, grinding them up and shoving them tightly into a pig's intestine. There are jokes about how one doesn't want to see sausages being made and other unkind and untoward remarks on the subject. However, when you place a wonderfully made and perfectly cooked sausage in front of most people, the level of happiness and satisfaction is unrivaled. Sausages are simple yet remarkably flavorful and represent the one of the most basic and joyful relation people can have with food.

Thirty years or so ago, I was one of those cooks who had never seen sausage being made and I gazed, no gaped, in wonderment as we actually ground our own meat and stuffed into casings our very own selves at the 4th St. Grill in Berkeley. And not only that, we made two types which we affectionately called (in the kitchen, anyway), red dogs and white dogs. The red dogs were all pork with a mix of dried red chiles and the white doggies were pork and chicken seasoned in a southwesterly (as my Indian friend Anthony used to call it) direction with fresh green chiles and cilantro. It was here in Mark Miller's kitchen that I first grasped the concept and the technique for making sausages and it remained with me, although somewhat deeply imbedded.

I made a few stabs at sausage making up in the Napa Valley and even turned out what was a pretty decent Moroccan spiced lamb sausage while working for the California Cafe Corp. I went down to LA to help a friend of a friend open a restaurant called Gilliland's in the summer of '84 and I ran into the Venice Beach sausage king, Jody Maroni. He had been content vending sausages he was buying, the usual Coney Island, Kielbasa, etc, and over a grinding machine at his uncle's butcher shop and a small payoff, I showed him a number of different styles of making fresh sausage. He now has a sausage kingdom.

I moved back up to the Bay Area and became Executive Chef at Tourelle in Lafayette, CA, where we made a few different types of sausage, but the one I remember best was the Duck Pepperoni. I ended up on Cape Cod for a summer season shortly after Tourelle closed for major renovations and representing the Ocean Edge Resort, we knocked the socks off a tasting event on the Cape with a variety of sausages, including Duck with Roasted Garlic and another version of the Moroccan Lamb Sausage (with plump currants and plenty of cumin).

In 1990 I found myself as the Chef at an unlikely and very early champion of "American Regional Cuisine" called the Mackinaw Inn in North Lake Tahoe. We were way ahead of our time and most of Tahoe was still stuck in the Steak and Lobster phenomenon of the 70's, but we forged ahead nonetheless, with a kitchen built around a mesquite grill, a giant wood-burning rotisserie and a wood-burning pizza oven.

At the Mackinaw we cut and cured our own hams (and this was 1990, remember, way before it was hip to do "whole animal butchery"), roasted whole chickens, lamb legs and the hams over the rotisserie in front of the dining room and made yes, countless sausages and even our own hot dogs (for the bar menu). I couldn't have done any of this without my friend and sous-chef Jim Miller wielding his razor sharp butcher knives, and we nearly drove ourselves crazy trying to keep up with making game sausages by boning out pheasant hind-quarters, a fat-free chicken sausage and three or four different kinds of pork sausages, utilizing the by-products which the pig so generously gives. And oh yes, we perfected the hot dog.

Tahoe was not for me, nor was I for Tahoe, and I returned to San Francisco to try to make some headway into what was, for me, the Mecca of restaurant life. I started off as a sous chef at Embarko, a brilliant shooting star on the Embarcadero that flared out far too early, and after a couple of low level Chefs jobs, found myself, in 1994, at San Francisco's bastion of Creole/Cajun cuisine, The Elite Cafe. The Elite was still packing them in by blackening redfish, filets and anything else they could find, but the allure was running thin. I was hired, essentially, to drag the place kicking and screaming into the 90's and to give it some kind of connection with the direction food in San Francisco was going.

We didn't muss and fuss with the menu all that much, but instead added specials; lots of them. And one that I added that became a hit and got me back into my sausage making ways was a "fat-free" spicy smoked chicken sausage that we made right there in that tiny little kitchen. The recipe was delightfully simple: boneless chicken legs, skin and all; heaping piles of thrice (yes thrice) blanched garlic, mustard seeds and red chile flakes; all ground together and stuffed into a casing. And that was it. The garlic served as the binder and the only fat in the dish was the not insignificant amount contained in the chicken skin.

We stuffed the sausages on a grinder that was crammed into a back corner of the kitchen at the end of a narrow aisle-way that was the only path to the downstairs (where most everything was stored) and somehow managed to find the time and space to crank out about 200 "bird dogs" a week. We also devised a method of smoking them which involved turning off the oven pilots, setting wood chips afire over the stove burners in saute pans, and heaving the smoking pans into the ovens where the sausages had been placed on racks. It was madness and it was, in its own funny way, brilliant. We served two of the grilled smoked "bird dogs" over creamy polenta topped with a roasted tomato-mushroom ragout.

I left the Elite after nearly three and a half years, my longest tenure ever as a Chef anywhere, for another position in another Creole/Cajun style kitchen. This time, however, rather than inheriting an operation that had been up and running for 14 years (and found change to be uncomfortable) I would be writing my own menu, creating my own recipes and even naming the place myself. The owners of Cobb's Comedy Club, passionate New Orleans diners had made me an offer too good to refuse and I jumped.

Jumping along with me to Belle Roux (the name I'd suggested that was adopted) was my recipe for the "bird dogs", but now I had the opportunity to do something I had wanted to try all along, which was create a smoked Creole "style" sausage of my own. I had been quite happy using Hobb's venerable Andouille sausage for all of my "red" pork sausage needs (jambalaya, gumbo, etc...), but I wanted to make my own, to see what I could come up with creating my own recipe. Frankly, it was a huge success. Both of the subsequent reviews of Belle Roux mentioned the rich spicy smokiness of this sausage and I even posed for the photos accompanying one of the reviews with garlands of sausages wrapped around my neck and arms.

It was here, at Belle Roux, where I had reached my highest peak yet with sausage. I was making over 150#'s a week of two sausages, both my own recipes; I was featuring the two of them in our best selling appetizer, a sausage "sampler" and I was using the Creole style pork sausage successfully in both our jambalaya and our gumbo, as well as featuring it, grilled, over red beans and rice. Best of all, Hobbs Shore, a man I considered a "guru" of sausage and meat curing had even asked me for my chicken sausage recipe. Hot dog!!

But the restaurant business is a funny animal, and I found myself moving along again and leaving my passion for sausage making behind until now, at this most recent (and hopefully long term) stop at Willabys Catering. It seemed to me that in this Pacific Northwest environment homemade sausages as both an appetizer and in pastas would be a winner.

Additionally, it seems that no one in our Salem/Willamette area is doing anything remotely like this and the potential exists for us to perhaps take our dogs to the public and see if we can generate some interest. I do hope so. My excitement for sausages has been re-kindled after having been kenneled for so long and I can see that it may be something that brings us acclaim above and beyond our catering.

CHEFS NIGHT OUT

2011-10-04T10:07:00.000-07:00

Chefs Night Out

This Sunday past was the Chefs Night Out benefit for the Polk and Marion county Foodbanks at Willamette Valley Vineyards, just outside of Salem. As any of you who have attended one of these events know, a donation is made, a wine glass and plastic plate are offered and the feeding and drinking frenzy is on. This particular rainy afternoon we shared the main tasting room (and outside tent in our case) with 17 other restaurants/caterers and 18 wineries.

The general battle plan for a company such as ours is to prepare a massive amount of "bites" or "tastes" (in our case 850) which can be easily transported and assembled on site. In the past I have tried to do more ambitious productions and it has never ceased to cause complications. Simple is better; simple and good is best.

Since we are just at the tail end of a great season of local sweet corn, I decided to feature Willamette Valley corn, grilled and made into little corn pancakes. Our topping would be a bit of corn (grilled again) and black bean salsa and we would top it all off with a dollop of roasted poblano chile/cilantro sour cream. Simple enough, but still no simple operations when one is trying to run a busy catering kitchen around putting together 850 hor's d'oeuvres.

The Saturday before the event we had two lunches that needed to be delivered along with buffet dinners for 66 and 125 that evening which were, fortunately at the same location, the aforementioned Willamette Valley Vineyards. Naturally there was a whirlwind of prep going on for the Saturday events and there were stacks of produce boxes, rolling racks, plastic-wrapped platters and prep tables heaving with veggies, meat and chicken all being prepped. Despite all that, we did manage to set up the propane grill out in the parking lot and grill off the three donated cases of corn, 144 ears. When you passed by you could hear them popping merrily on the grill grates.

When we loaded our two vans Saturday afternoon and set off to serve our dinners we felt as if we were in good shape for Sunday's event. The corn was grilled and a plan was set. Now we just had to serve dinner to 200 or so.

Pedro, Adam and I straggled back in Sunday morning after our long Saturday and while I started cutting the kernels off the 144 grilled ears of corn, the two of them put together yet another two parties that were to go out by noon; ahhh, catering.

My plan was to first put together the salsa, a simple concoction of the grilled corn kernels, cooked black beans, roasted red pepper and a couple of handfuls of chopped cilantro in an orange/chipotle/cumin dressing. Simple enough yes, although one does forget how long it takes to strip the ears of their tasty kernels. I tend to favor laying the cob down on the table to cut rather than standing it on end as it seems to leave the cut parts of the corn on the cutting board, rather than firing them around the room.

Once the salsa (almost a salad) was assembled it was time for the pancake batter. I used a recipe I like that incorporates the corn into a mix of cornmeal, cumin (again), finely minced jalapeno and a bit of green onion. Into that dry mix goes a wet solution of Greek yogurt, egg yolks and olive oil. The final step is whipping the separated egg whites and then folding them into the entire mixture. This gives the pancakes a nice little "rise" when they hit the griddle.

CORN PANCAKE RECIPE

1/2 Cup fine grind cornmeal

1 1/4 cup Cooked corn kernels

3 Green onions, sliced as thinly as you can

1 Jalapeno, chopped fine

1/2 Tsp Cumin (seeds toasted, then ground)

S&P

3/4 Cup Greek yogurt (I prefer the full fat rather than the low fat)

3 Egg yolks

1 1/2 TBS Olive oil

3 Whites separated and whipped to light peaks

Mix dry ingredients together and mix wet ingredients (omitting the egg whites) in separate bowls. Mix the wet into the dry and then fold the whipped egg whites in, just to incorporate.

Heat a skillet and lightly brush with oil. When it is just short of smoking, drop the pancakes onto the skillet off the end of a teaspoon into small circles; pat down into pancake shape. Fry on one side and then turn.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mixing the batter in large quantities was, of course, a bit messier than I'd intended, but the batter came out nicely. It always seems a bit denser than I expect, but that is from the quantity of fresh corn that I use (I tend to err on the side of using more than less corn). I found that by multiplying this recipe eight times, I got just over 400 pancakes from it (not counting the ones that didn't quite make it in the pan due to bad flipping technique).

Since, sadly, we do not have a flat grill, which would have made this child's play, I hauled down our big cast iron skillet and heated it up. This particular skillet is on the thin side so the heat needs to be constantly adjusted, another caveat I had failed to factor in. And so the production began. It took me about an hour on my own, then Pedro joined me, using a smaller pan, and we stood and panfried our 850 corn pancakes in just over two hours. We laid the cooked cakes out onto sheet pans and then re-heated them in the oven just prior to leaving. We packed them into smaller pans and put them into a Cambro, an insulated plastic box.

Adam had packed the salad/salsa for us and had put together the sour cream sauce by pureeing the roasted chiles and two bunches of cilantro in the Cuisinart with a couple of cups of sour cream. The van was packed with the Cambro, the salad and the salsa and we were ready. Pedro and I had our black chef's coats, a big stack of business cards, plenty of bottled water and miraculously we were on time and off to "Chefs Night Out".

We'd heard a rumor that we were going to be stuck in the satellite tent outside the main room and sure enough, that was the case. Our table had been decorated quite nicely by Sue, who does a lot of our event staging and all we had to do was haul in our Cambro, the beautiful copper platters we'd chosen and a few bowls. This was the point where I was ever-so-glad we had decided to go simple. I watched other caterers struggling with chafing dishes, lighting sterno and hunching over cutting boards in frenzied last minute prepping; ugh. Not for us; no way, no how.

Pedro and I put on our coats, assembled a couple of trays of the pancakes and stepped back. We were in a corner of the tent between two wineries and that was just fine. It was a bit misty outside and chilly, but the main room was going to get packed and stifling. This was better.

The first wave of guests had VIP passes and got to arrive an hour earlier than the teeming masses. It was all quite civilized and there was time to chat a bit with our visitors. People were leaving their cars in a big parking lot at the bottom of the hill (the winery sits atop a beautiful peak that looks out over the Willamette Valley) and being shuttled up which allowed for a good flow of guests, at least early on.

After the first hour the crush set in and the feeding and drinking began in earnest. There is a certain type of person who comes to events such as these to see just how much he can slug down his throat and cram into his mouth and there were plenty of these guests in the second wave. The tent filled, the musicians turned up and the volume swelled. Blessedly, this is when the time seems to fly and Pedro and I concentrated on traying, topping and saucing our little cakes.

The two middle hours flew by and we went through our product in a fairly predictable way. I was relieved to see that we were definitely going to have enough and not suffer the indignity of running out early. The final hour of events like this are, unfortunately, generally dominated by those who just can't bear to leave, need to have just one more (or three more) glasses of wine and who tend to stand in clusters and shriek and scream. This is the point of the festivities when the wineries start pouring larger and larger glasses (generally due to customer demand) and the drinkers seem to dominate the proceedings.

Pedro and I packed up as best we could, gritted our teeth through our painted on smiles and kept replenishing the trays, although not much eating was being done at this point. As the blessed hour of 7:00 drew closer, we packed up everything we could and began to plan our escape. I sent Pedro for the van about quarter of the hour and it was, nearly over. It had been a success, we had garnered much praise for our little pancakes and had gone through nearly all our product. The day was long, but the getting was good and we splashed down the winding winery driveway through the raindrops and puddles, tired and ready for the barn. I was quite glad that we were a few minutes ahead of the final drinkers who would hit the roads all too soon...

AND JUST LIKE THAT

2011-09-28T18:22:00.000-07:00

And yes, it was "just like that" that the warmth and generous spirit of Indian Summer were supplanted by a howling wind and sideways rain, last Saturday night. No messin' around here on the eastern edge of the Willamette Valley; when Ma Nature tells you that Indian Summer (and any and all summer you may have hopes of hanging on to) are over, they are over.

But please, please, please don't get the idea that we weren't/aren't ready for it. That's hardly the case. Here on the home front we've filled the woodpile with 4 cords of of firewood, harvested most of the garden and canned, roasted, dried and frozen just about everything that could possibly be of some use in the coming months of chill.

We have made the short drive back and forth to Ted Hazel's massive woodpile (he's a local woodcutter) in the White Buffalo, our 1990 Chevy Cheyenne pick-up with load after load of firewood. We'd pick it up at his place and hurl (or occasionally neatly stack) it into the bed of the truck then drive it up the hill here to our house where we once again hurl it out onto the lawn in preparation for the meticulous stacking process. This wood gets handled a lot.

I'm new at this, but Kathy has a plan and a system, and it's a good one, involving building strong corners using half logs and then stacking and arranging the rest in between. We've managed to get 4 cords of wood stacked into a relatively small area and it's pretty damn impressive. Just one cord of wood is, as I have learned, 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet, or, 128 cubic feet, and that's a lot of wood. Multiply that times four and you get a big old (neatly organized) pile of wood.

Each of our runs over to Ted's netted us about 1/4 of a cord, so there were 16 trips and then a number of afternoon stacking parties to get all this fuel into place. We heat our house with a wonderful old cast iron stove and it beats the heck out of paying a $300 month electrical bill, no matter how tired one gets of hauling and stacking firewood.

And just past the woodpile is the garden, which has been very nearly picked clean. Our early crops were potatoes, onions and garlic, all of which were picked and stored in the shed last month; but the most recent harvest has been tomatoes, green beans, peppers and a few squash.

If you'd asked me a month ago whether or not we were going to have ripe tomatoes, any ripe tomatoes, I would have had to tell you no, I didn't think so. All it took was three hot weeks from the end of August into the second week of September, and we've got almost more red, ripe tomatoes than we know what to do with, BUT, the good news is, we do know what to do with them. Kathy is a drying expert and we now have ten or twelve giant zip-locs filled with dried tomatoes for winter sauces and stews.

My preferred method of storage is a newer one that I developed a few years ago when trying to wrench flavor out of winter tomatoes while working in San Francisco. My technique involves pouring olive oil on a sheet pan, placing cored and halved tomatoes on it (cut side down), layering thick slices of onion and whole cloves of garlic in and around the tomatoes, pouring on more olive oil and then salting and peppering. The tray of tomatoes is roasted in a 400-450 degree oven until the tops blister and then removed and allowed to cool. I rough chop the roasted tomatoes and store them and all their luscious juices in yet more zip-locs. The tomatoes get a tremendous concentration of flavor (thus, my having used this technique on flavorless winter tomatoes) and can be used for pasta sauces, or added to braises and stews for more flavor. I love this technique.

We have eaten as many green beans as we could possibly shove into the front of our faces, and now they just get quick blanched and frozen for winter usage. We used the same technique for an earlier harvest of peas and now have four bags full. Kathy freezes chiles whole and it seems to be a pretty good idea. We have zip-locs filled with anaheim, poblano and jalapeno chiles stored in the freezer for future reference. There are still Walla Walla onions to be pulled and a scant number of pumpkins "oranging" in the last of the September sun. We had some kind of funky fungus that got to most of our zucchini, but then again, that may have been more a blessing than a curse. And last week we ate our last head of romaine so despite there not having been any summer at all until early August, I think we did pretty damn well.

Summer Upon Us (and summer not)

2011-08-16T15:04:00.000-07:00

We've almost come to the end of August here (and everywhere else, I can only presume) and it has become plain that this is all the summer those of us here in the Willamette Valley are going to get. We just got that burst of summer that everyone was looking for, temps in the low 90's (that would be fahrenheit, natch) and lovely warm evenings, but it only lasted four or five days. Just as quickly we've reverted to gray misty mornings and overnight temps in the 50's (we put a quilt on the bed last night) and today it even had the nerve to rain; a slow steady rain that's still coming down, while I was out stacking firewood. It's odd, or so they tell me, but I'm thinking this may just be a new part of the ever shifting weather paradigm.

The Willamette Valley is a major agricultural area and provides employment to nearly 225,000 people annually. There is a huge harvest of vegetables of all kinds, wine is, of course, becoming a big factor economically, but the Willamette Valley produces more exported berries, hazelnuts and wheat than any other agricultural area of the United States. Additionally, the Valley is home to a huge production of the famous Cascade hops, prized among beer makers for the distinctive bitterness they bring to the brew. Spread between the veggies and berries are the biggest agricultural cash crop of all, commercial growing for nurseries. There are hundreds of acres of land filled with potted shrubs, trees and flowers looking for a nursery in a neighborhood near you.

Summer didn't begin to give our valley much in the way of sunshine and support until mid-July and suddenly here at the end of August the entire area is nearly done with the seemingly spontaneous burst of energy of farmers and workers scrambling overtime to get the crops picked and packed in less time than usual. The strawberries and raspberries are pretty much done, there is still a final harvest of blackberries and blueberries going on and I must confess, they are among the best I have ever eaten anywhere. My esteem for raspberries in particular had fallen mightily since they became a nearly year round crop (thanks to Peru and down under), but this summer I have eaten raspberries grown right down the road that have made my jaw drop; fat, succulent and filled with flavor (as opposed to the pebbly, dry and flavorless berries that are passed off on cruiselines and hotel buffets year round).

I just picked up some peaches that were grown between here and Albany that rival most of those I've had from California and at the same farm they had four different types of heirloom varietal melon, including a Charentais, the French cantelope. The aroma in the truck emanating from the peaches and those melons as I drove home was heavenly. Back when I arrived here in March I would never have believed that produce this sweet and this ripe would come from an area so cold and damp.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Because I have spent my entire life in restaurants I have always been the beneficiary of other gardens and other gardeners. I began using local produce grown in Brentwood by David and Laurie Visher at T.R.'s Bar and Grill in Concord, CA, way back in the summer of 1985; bought produce from local gardens at Tourelle in Lafayette in the late 80's; and got "same day as picked" deliveries of amazing heirloom varietals from Summer Fog produce, George Gutekunst's tiny outpost in the fogbelt of San Francisco's Avenues in the 90's.

It used to be that chefs in cities used to have to really want to do the work to locate and serve farm fresh produce. It's only recently, and I'm talking the last 10-12 years or so that chefs and restaurants have been able to offer produce that has come out of the ground that day or at least, the day before.

And now cooking for just Kathy and myself, I'm getting the opportunity to use the product right as it emerges from the earth. Green beans to pot in three minutes and on the table in ten; what a concept. And the flavor, whew, remarkable!! It's a whole new thing for me to be able to use produce that comes right out of my backyard. Kathy did nearly all the work this past Spring, but I did run the tiller and did a fair amount of weeding. I didn't realize just how much I was going to enjoy reaping the benefits of her (and a bit of my own) hard labor.

Our own garden started slowly, but has suddenly sprung into production, catching us a bit unawares and not quite ready with a plan for the bounty. A few weeks ago we dug our first potatoes and a seed plot of tiny reds yielded us between 50-60# of beautiful firm red first crop

potatoes; small, medium and large. Last week we dug up the smaller harvest of yukon golds, getting another 30#s or so out of the rich (20 years of horseshit, Kathy tells me) soil and another 10# of delicious red fingerlings. The medium sized potatoes are wonderful roasted simply in a bit of olive oil, sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. I've also been making a French-style potato salad with plenty of Dijon mustard and red vinegar that has all who have tasted it saying, "the best I ever had". I'd like to take credit, but it's all in the potatoes.

We pulled up all the fragrant members of the lily family this past weekend and now have bags of onions, shallots and long stems of garlic hanging in the shed for winter use. The garlic in particular is strong, odiferous and such a pleasure to use so very fresh. We got a major haul of green beans and although as I mentioned, I delight in cooking them to al dente 1o minutes out of the garden in butter and shallots, this past weekend we had a gathering of Kathy's family and by request I did them the way her mom and my mom used to, slow cooked, with bacon and onions. What a world of difference in flavors, though; tender, delicious, and consumed, every last one!

We've eaten all the peas, they were fabulous, sweet and crunchy, but lots of ground work and shelling for such a small yield. This is a big broccoli producing area and we had a small harvest of our own. When we cut the florets, they were so damn fresh they were almost a glowing blue-green color. And the flavor was otherworldly as well. We've had a bit of a blight on the summer squash, a root fungus or something, but there are still enough (and thank God, not too many) zucchini and crooknecks to saute a night or two a week or to offer themselves up to my own version of ratatouille (one in which I cook each of the ingredients separately and then mix them).

We're still looking forward to another harvest of lettuce, one more of peas and the remainder of the beans and squashes. And oh, yes, the corn, the tomatoes and the celebration of the season at the Harvest Fest in Mt. Angel. There are pears and apples still to come; carrots and peppers and pumpkins, and did I mention the corn? So yes, fresh from our garden and fresh from this valley have been revelations to me in this, my first Oregon summer.

Coming Home

2011-07-25T14:26:00.000-07:00

Kathy and I live just above the Eastern edge of the Willamette Valley and as we each make our morning commutes over to Salem on the West side, we connect to an odd grid of farm roads, which, at this time of the year, are suddenly grown high at either side with berries and veggies, tall fescu, bent grass and wheat which seem to have risen from nothing. There are interspaced bean fields and acres of cosmos, marigolds and poppies. Lavender fields roll out along the valley floor casting that peculiar and wonderful unfocused purple layer of color that seems to hover about 18 inches above the rich valley soil.

My move here to Oregon has obviously represented a huge change for me and it's taking time for me grow into it, but the recent arrival here of summer, however tardy it may be, is certainly helping. I drove home from a job on Saturday night as dusk was sliding in over the Valley. The smell of the newly cut hay was strong and the aromas from grills and the voices and calls from houses and campgrounds rang through the evening air. For the first time it felt as if summer had arrived and it brought with it a sense of belonging, of joy, and even of relief.

*******************************

We had a good meeting of the "board" last Wednesday in Jean's office at Willaby's Catering, where I am the Chef. One of the suggestions I made, in light of a changing economy, one in which not so many companies are able to afford caterers and catered events, that we begin to make and sell food products such as sausages, stocks, salsa and sauces, etc., seemed to go over quite well. With luck, the help of the zoning laws in our neighborhood, and a good marketing program, we may soon be selling Willaby's products designed and cooked by Chef Dave, the Chef of the Woods, in addition to providing fine catering around the Willamette Valley.

**********************************

Yesterday afternoon Kathy and I took pitchfork, shovel and gloves out to the garden to do the first harvest of the potatoes we planted not more than 11 weeks ago. We had bought a number of "seed" starters, including red, white and different types of creamers and fingerlings, and the reds had come to flower and then fruit first.

We had a long and rainy spring, and it certainly appeared to have done well by the red potatoes. We dug up and down our two rows of plants, being careful to only apply the pitchfork under and around the plants that had died. I had never dug potatoes before and this was high adventure for me, particularly when Kathy shrieked in triumph when we turned the soil around the very first bush under and it yielded five or six fat reds covered in earth and another four or five tinier spuds. And it went like that up and down the two rows we dug.

It was like digging for Easter eggs and our baskets were definitely full, as were the boxes and old kitchen pots we had brought out. We kept digging and the potatoes kept coming. I was having a ball, down on my knees, pawing through the earth Kathy was turning over, and there was definitely a child-like glee I was experiencing as I kept finding more and more potatoes under the fresh turned earth.

We ended up with between 50 and 60 pounds of fresh reds of varying sizes (but lots of big ones) from our $5 investment in the "seed" potatoes. And now it's up to me to figure out enough ways to use them so we get the most return without burning out. That's the kind of challenge I like.

FINALLY MOVING ON...

2011-07-21T17:59:00.000-07:00

Am I here to announce the end of the Chef of the Jungle? Well, the part about the jungle anyway, perhaps. The Chef is in me always. But it certainly appears that any return to the jungle will not be in a cooking capacity. For those of you I haven't been able to tell in person, I have turned down an offer of a working partnership in a restaurant in Dominical and will remain here in Oregon.

The decision was a hard one, very hard. In turning down this very generous offer from some very good people I knew I would be walking away from some things I had dreamed about for quite some time; a partnership, artistic freedom and an opportunity to put my hard work into my own dream rather than the dreams of others.

I had thought that I would make my last stand in a kitchen in Costa Rica and that I would cook there always. I loved the environment, the climate, the fruit, the fish and the freedom that came from heading off in totally new culinary directions for the area I was in. I had been promised that the job I had would be mine until I no longer wanted it. Sadly, the final days of my time at La Cusinga made it clear that I was and would always be a gringo visitor and that Costa Rica is not my country.

When I considered the notion of trying to make what could possibly be my last effort at having my own restaurant in this, the summer I turned 60, I realized that it would never happen in Costa Rica. I watched other gringos attempt to realize their dreams there and saw frustration and failure mount. I watched rules and regulations vary and wander depending on those whom they were being administered to. I listened, and this part makes me so sad, as people I had come to trust and respect, people I had labored hard and long and honorably for, began to recant things they had said as truths. I came to the hard realization that this was the nature of the culture and the society and that it would never work for me to put my last and final eggs in this leaky basket.

So yes, the Chef of the Jungle is hanging up his self-penned sobriquet and is becoming the Chef of the Woods, or the Chef of the Trees, or whatever new moniker may fall upon him. Does it make me sad? Well yes, it does; sad, disappointed and a bit betrayed and hurt as well, but I have moved on and need to keep moving on away from those feelings. I am far too old and have experienced far too much in my life to blame disappointments on anyone but myself. I have always had the (in)ability to hear what I wanted to hear and a dreamer's nature that doesn't always temper what I hear with what is real.

I am lucky and grateful that I have the love of a woman, a wonderful woman; a home that feels for the first time to me in years, like a home; and a job that promises growth and opportunity. The jungle will always be in me, but I now know that the jungle belongs to those who come from it, and not to those who try, however hard, to be part of it.

The Promised Land/Back in the USA

2011-04-26T05:50:00.001-07:00

"tell the folks back home this is the Promised Land calling,

and the poor boy's on the line..."

That's what Chuck Berry said, but he wrote that in the early 60's, and as I've been finding out in the seven weeks I've been back, a few things have changed. Not that I was expecting my transition from two years in the jungles of Costa Rica to the United States to be easy or different, I was just not quite prepared for HOW eye-opening it would be.

I had been buying organic produce in Costa Rica, raised by local farmers in local fincas (farms) and had gotten used to the notion that I would be paying a bit more for the quality I would be receiving. What I certainly wasn't prepared for was arriving here and finding out that it was going to put a strain on our budget just to put a fresh green vegetable (and not organic or necessarily local) on our dinner plates each night.

Granted, it has been a long and difficult winter (and granted that this NWestern Oregon valley will turn into an agricultural wonderland sometime soon) and granted the the farmer, the trucker, the broker and the vendor all need to get their nickel (?!) out of the deal. I understand that, but when it costs nearly $1.25 per person just to have fresh sauteed spinach with one's dinner, that is frightening, horrifying. Zucchini was $2.99/# in our market the other day, fresh asparagus trucked "all the way" from California were $4.49/# and artichokes were THREE blinkin' dollars each!! Our default and "go to" vegetable has been broccoli, which is the only vegetable here under $2.00/# and it only gets under that by a penny.

Until I made a wonderful discovery (see below) just this past week, I had nearly given up on the notion of fresh fish, a staple of my eating habits in Costa Rica. We are a mere 90 minutes from the coast and the fish we see here is either water-laden, old and dry, or frozen. On top of that, the prices make a grown man holler; or perhaps weep would be more accurate. I paid $7.99 for "fresh: Canadian rock fish filets (they were on sale) last week and when I opened the package, at least two ounces or water came out of it. And it is just not feasible (even as a treat) to pay $17.99/# for halibut that looks like it went for a long, long ride from the coast before it ever got to us.

I have gotten used to cooking meat again, not that I'd forgotten how, but I needed to re-adjust my thinking to cooking for home. There is a very high quality local range chicken that comes on sale at $.79/# once a month or so at our local market and we have taken to buying three at a time and freezing them. If I do a simple and tasty roast chicken, we can get a first night dinner from it. Another night I shred it either for enchiladas or pasta and Kathy will still have some for sandwiches for her lunch. By buying the whole bird, we are able to get the cost down to about $.70 per person per portion. The irony here, is, of course, that we are able to eat a good portion of protein for less than the cost of our vegetables.

I've also been finding bargains with pork which seems to go on sale fairly regularly as well. I picked up an 18 ounce pork tenderloin on sale at $4.99/# and we got a really nice dinner and three lunches out of it. Pork loin comes on sale here quite a bit as well and that's something I've been able to stretch. We get dinner for two off a two pound roast the first night, escalopes cut thin and sauteed for another meal, another enchilada dinner (I've been honing my Mexican chops) for a third and yet more sandwiches for Kathy to take to work. Again, we can get our portion cost down to less than $.70 per, and again, that is less than the green vegetable that goes on the plate to accompany it.

All of this makes it easier for me to see why fast food restaurants do so well. I am a professional cook who doesn't mind spending time in the kitchen, and it takes time to be creative with where the various parts of our animals are going to go. For single parent families or families with both partners working, it isn't always feasible to buy economically and plan meals accordingly. A quick trip to the local fast food outlet feeds the family quickly, relatively cheaply and requires no planning; fresh vegetables be damned (well, there is lettuce and tomato on the burger, isn't there?).

*********

A recent discovery through a tip from a co-worker may have done a bit to help with my seafood craving. Pedro, the lead cook at my new job told me the other day that he had seen a place on Lancaster in Salem that had live fish in tanks and that also had whole fish on ice. I had done my internet searching and had even gone old school and used the yellow pages, but as far as I knew there was no such place.

My deep curiosity led me to wander through Salem and over onto Lancaster, a street mostly lined with fast food franchises and strip malls. I nearly drove past the sign it was so hard to see, but there is was, four lanes over; a papered-over storefront in a nearly uninhabited strip mall with a sign that said "Pescados Frescos". Yes, in Spanish. I was going to blow it off and save it for another time, but suddenly two whole lanes cleared to my left and I was able to swing into the left hand turn lane. I hung the left and circled around so that I could get to this nearly hidden outpost that may or may not have good fresh fish.

I pulled right up in front, the only car in the parking lot and ducked into the front door. There was a young Asian woman at the register and a few scant aisles of groceries, but there, at the back, I could see some rather opaque plastic cases and what looked like fish on ice right in front of them. I gave her a quick smile and headed straight to the back. Yes, there in front, on ice, were whole striped bass, mullet, rock fish and even trout. Behind them in the plastic cases were four sizes and types of shrimp, squid and octopus. Next to them was a tank with live Maine lobsters. This was good.

I was delighted with what I saw and my delight turned to near ecstasy when I scanned farther back and saw tanks, big tanks filled with water and live things. The motors of running water filters hummed above them. The only people in the store were the young woman at the register, an older Asian woman in an apron with a broom at the back of the store and me. I nearly skipped over to the tanks and there they were, in the front, sacks of oysters and clams; behind them, huge tanks filled with live tilapia and behind them, further still, live Dungeness crabs, hundreds of them. Eureka, I had found it. Finally, fresh fish and live crabs right here in Salem.

I had to flag down the woman in the back to get her help. She was not entirely interested in me until I expressed my deep desire in buying a crab. I told her I wanted the biggest one she could find. The larger the crab, the better the meat to shell ratio and I wanted meat.

She donned a heavy rubber glove, reached in and started grabbing. The first couple she came up with seemed fine to me, I was so excited by this point, but she shook her head and tossed them back in. After grabbing a step stool to give her a better reach, she immersed her hand way in the back and came up with a large and lively specimen. He was huge (by Dungeness crab standards) and I nodded, yes, yes, yes.

She stood in front of my for a moment, holding up the crab with his legs churning and waving wildly. With brilliant economy of movement she had him in a paper bag and then in a white plastic sack and was thrusting him to me. Nothing more was said. She gestured to the cash register and walked away. That was it; I paid my $5.99/# for him (it came to just over $15) and hustled out to the truck.

I cooked the crab that afternoon in a classic "crab boil" of hot water, cayenne, smoked paprika, bay leaves, black peppercorns, lemons, garlic and onions. I dropped him into the boiling water (and no, this doesn't bother me one bit), let it come back up to a boil, and turned it off. When the water was cooled to tepid, I reached in, drained the crab, put him in a bowl and refrigerated him. I do not rinse the crab off as it just rinses away whatever flavoring agents one has put into the "crab boil".

The next night Kathy and I dined on fresh cracked crab with a green herb aioli, garlic bread and a big green salad with tomatoes and avocados. I was in heaven. Fresh cracked Dungeness crab is one of the first seafood items I learned to eat, at a very young age, and is one of my food cravings. And no, there is no Dungeness crab in Costa Rica. I will go back to the market this week, perhaps for a whole striped bass, perhaps for something else. It depends on what they have and what looks good. It's nice to finally have the choice.

GREEN HERB AIOLI

1/2 Cup Chopped Parsley

1/4 Cup Chopped Chives

3 Garlic Cloves, smashed

1 Whole Egg

Juice of 2 Lemons

Dash of Tabasco

1/2 Cup Canola Oil

1/2 Cup Olive Oil

S&P to taste

In a small food processor, blend the herbs, garlic, tabasco, egg and lemon juice. With the motor running, drizzle in the canola oil slowly at first and then more quickly as the oil is incorporated. Repeat with the olive oil and when all the oil is added check the aioli for thickness. I occasionally like to drizzle a bit of warm water into the sauce with the motor running to make it a bit thinner. Check for salt and pepper and chill for a couple of hours. The flavors improve as the sauce sits.

HOME COOKIN'

2011-04-01T17:33:00.000-07:00

HOME COOKIN'; Part 1

It would seem that you can keep the chef out of the restaurant, but you cannot keep the chef out of the kitchen. Now that I am blissfully cohabiting, I have embraced my household duties whole-heartedly. And a particular favorite of mine is the duty of putting dinner on the table each and every night for my overworked (but certainly not under loved) sweetheart.

These few weeks in Oregon have found me adapting rather nicely, and actually cottoning to, cooking at home for two. I know, I know, scold me; this is what at least one partner in every relationship since the beginning of time has done. But for me it represents a sea change in the way I view shopping and cooking; a chance to plan more intimately and shop more economically.

When I cook in a restaurant setting it seems that there is always a way to get rid of the left-overs. They can be incorporated into the next day's lunch special, or, better still, they can live a second life as part of an appetizer or when blended into a sauce or soup. Best of all, the guest who ate the initial offering is rarely around to see it in its second life.

I find that buying for the home, and particularly buying for two, requires far more planning and far more awareness. A former sous-chef of mine used to quote his grandmother to the effect that the definition of eternity was "two people and a ham." So I have embarked into the task of buying smaller amounts, utilizing the freezer far more than I am used to and attempting to paint my leftovers in more attractive and different colors from the palate of taste.

This week I raided the freezer for the second set of chicken breasts I had wrapped up when a pack of four was on sale; for two packets of ground beef that Kathy had obtained as part of the purchase of a quarter of beef; and lastly for a packet of turkey breast meat that had been frozen after we had slow-cooked a whole breast in the crock pot. My mission was to turn them into something new, fresh and not too altogether familiar (although, it should be noted, not all at the same time).

Tuesday, I decided, would be the chicken and this was an easy one. There were two big half breasts; wing bone still attached. We had bacon, we had mushrooms and we had fresh tomatoes. Best of all we had a the rich stock left from the slow cooking of the turkey breast. We had brown rice and we had whole wheat egg noodles; I opted for the noodles. There were also three small heads of fresh broccoli in the refrigerator.

I turned the oven to 450 and turned on both front burners. On one burner I put salted water to boil and on the other went a non-stick 12" fry pan, my favorite all purpose cooking vessel.

While waiting for the water to come to a boil I lightly seasoned the chicken breasts with salt, pepper and smoked paprika. When the fry pan came to heat, I put in a small amount of canola oil and crisped the skin of the chicken breasts. I flipped them over and into the oven they went.

At just that moment the water came to a boil so I blanched the broccoli florets, drained them and shocked them in an icy bath to halt the cooking process. At the cutting board I diced bacon, and tomatoes, quartered mushrooms and peeled and chopped garlic. I also pulled out a few green onions and cut them into small rings. I had the turkey stock ready. I put another pot of salted water on to boil and checked on the chicken.

When the chicken breasts cook meat-side down in the oven it really hastens the cooking process and they were nearly done. I took the pan out, poured off the cooking oil and placed the breasts in again, skin side down, but this time I added the diced bacon. This went back into the oven for five minutes to crisp the bacon. Again the pan came out and this time I lifted up the chicken breasts and scraped the mushrooms, tomato and green onions into the pan. I gave it a bit of a toss, put the chicken on top of the mix and put in in the oven one more time.

The second pot of water had come to a boil so I dropped in a big handful of curled whole wheat noodles and then pulled the chicken out of the oven one more time. I used my tongs to pluck the breasts, crisp and golden brown, out of the pan and put them on a plate. I put the pan on a burner and poured in the rich turkey stock. The aroma of the bacon and roasting mushrooms rushed right up at me. The turkey stock swirled around, picking up the little bits of tomato that had stuck to the bottom of the pan and incorporated them into the sauce. I brought it to a quick boil and then turned down the burner.

The time had come to put it all together! I sauteed a bit of garlic with butter and olive oil and added the broccoli florets with some salt and pepper. I drained off the noodles and tossed them in their cooking pan with a bit of olive oil. I put the chicken breasts back into the pan with the rich aromatic sauce and poured in the juices they'd left on the plate. I poured a bit of the pan sauce into the noodles and it was time to plate.

The noodles went down onto the plate first with the garlicky scented broccoli just above it. I sliced each crisp skinned breast into four thick medallions and overlapped them on top of the noodles. I grabbed a kitchen spoon and ladled the rich aromatic bacon/tomato/mushroom mixture over the top of the slices and to the table we went. It was cold out and this dish was a wonderful aromatic antidote to a rainy chilly night.

********************************

Night 2; Meatloaf ala Chef Dave; or, Calling Up Old Ghosts

I started making this meatloaf recipe in the mid-90's when I worked at the Elite Cafe on Fillmore St. in San Francisco. It started out as a bit of a derivation (read "borrowed") from a recipe used by my friend Philipe LaMancusa at Embarko in the early 90's and the one in Paul Prudhomme's first cookbook.

At the Elite it was cajun spice heavy, and we used a fairly standard gravy for it, made with a dark roux. One of the interesting adaptations that came out of the Elite was my sous chef, Steve Harlow and I mixing pureed canned chipotle chiles with ketchup and our house BBQ sauce for the glaze that would go on top. We both liked how the glaze caramelized as the meatloaf cooked, although at that time we were cooking the loaves in bread loaf pans so we weren't getting good coverage from the glaze.

The recipe took a little trip down to a N'Awlins style restaurant I opened in SF's Cannery called Belle Roux (great reviews, bad location) and was run as a special from time to time. I was fiddling with the gravy and ended up adding deeply caramelized onions to it, echoing a gravy that Philipe (once again) had put on a pork loin dish at Embarko that he called "burnt onion gravy". I used the same glaze there, but was hand forming the loaves so that the glaze would run down over the sides, lending them more of that spicy sweet caramelized goodness.

I took the recipe to the masses when I left Belle Roux and went to work as a Corporate Chef for Gap Inc. The Gap's headquarters was home to rather an upscale cafeteria/cafe and the staff was just over 80% women. That in no way kept the lines on "meatloaf day" from going out the cafe doors and wrapping down through the hallways. We would sell 12-14 meatloafs (loaves?) a day there and would be sold out by 1:00 each afternoon. Diets went by the wayside for the meatloaf and gravy over mashed potatoes.

All of this history brings us to this Wednesday past when I decided that Kathy and I would take full advantage of the packets of ground beef that were the by-product of her quarter beef purchase. I bought a pound and a half of freshly ground unseasoned pork sausage at the local market as the addition of pork makes the meatloaf moister and set out to make a recipe I had not made in at least nine years.

It's a good thing that there was plenty of bacon in the freezer because like so many other Southern/N'Awlins recipes, that's how this one starts. I cut a couple of strips in a fine dice and started them in a pan. Alongside them on the cutting board I had placed the elements of the "holy trinity"; onion, bell pepper (red, in this case, and in most cases for me; I hate the green ones) and celery. As usual, garlic found it's way in there as well. When the bacon was about half cooked and had rendered enough fat, I put a fine mirepoix of the "trinity" into the pan along with a teaspoon or so of a pre-made "cajun" spice blend. I tossed all this together, let it cook for only a few minutes and turned it out onto a sheet pan to chill.

The two packet of beef went into a mixing bowl along with the pork, two eggs, a fistful of breadcrumbs and then what else? We had some ketchup, so I added a bit of that. There was some Stubb's BBQ sauce in the refrigerator so I added a few shakes into the mix. Salt and pepper? Well, of course, along with several dashes of Lea&Perrin's, a few drops of Tabasco and lastly, the chilled spiced vegetables. I mixed all this together and patted it out into a loaf form onto a cookie pan.

The glaze would have to be a bit of an improvisation. We had no chipotle, but we had a Thai-style sweet red chile sauce. We definitely had enough ketchup and we had more BBQ sauce so all three went into a mixing bowl along with a tiny splash more of L&P. I mixed it up and brushed it on, nice and thick. I laid two long strips of bacon across the top in an "X" and the loaf was oven ready. Pretty as a picture it was (so I took one).

With the loaf in a 400 degree oven, it was gravy time. I thin sliced (half moons for me) a big yellow onion and put the slices in a cast iron skillet with a couple of teaspoons of fat I had taken off the turkey stock along with about a third of a cube of butter. The onions were set on a medium heat to cook slowly enough to keep from burning, but hot enough so that they would color; color deeply.

While the onions did their caramelizing thing, I brought about two cups of chicken and turkey stock to boil and then let it simmer. After about 20 minutes of tossing and browning, tossing and browning, the onions were starting to get some color and I was getting bored, so I turned up the heat. With the higher heat I kept tossing the onions in the pan, but was starting to get some of the crisp edges that give this gravy its distinctive flavor. When caramelizing onions, the cook wants them to be brown, limp and evenly cooked. For this gravy, I want the onions browned in the middle, but crisp and nearly (but, oh, not quite) black on the edges.

At what I considered the perfect point, I added a handful of flour to the pan and using a wooden spoon, coaxed it into the liquid fat that surrounded the onions. It thickened quickly and then, as happens, it fell into a softer form as a bit of the liquid from the onions worked its way in. Now it would be like cooking a roux, much like one would for gumbo or other cajun stews.

I tossed and mixed the onions and roux until the color of the roux was nearly like a dark peanut butter; a really dark peanut butter. Very, VERY, carefully, I poured the simmering stock into the skillet and still using the long wooden spoon, stirred the mixture until it was "as one". Still stirring, I brought the gravy to a boil and then reduced it to a low simmer. The browning would have cooked most of the flour taste out, but the gravy now needed a long slow cooking to incorporate all the flavors.

I left the gravy on a low heat to slowly commingle the flavors and turned to the loaf at hand. It was nearly done and I knew that it would need to sit and repose (or reposee, as they say in France). I find that most meatloaves, despite being wonderful straight from the oven, may be better the second day after all the juices have redistributed themselves in the tiny crevices in the meat.

But we were eating it that night and so it would have to rest for as long as we could let it before we had at it.

Mashed potatoes were and are the obvious accompaniment to meatloaf and gravy and I had yukon golds peeled and in the water and boiling away. I keep a jar of roasted garlic cloves in the refrigerator for moments such as this and they awaited their fate of being mashed in with the finished spuds. I had been craving asparagus even though the locals are not quite here yet (late, late Spring) so caved and bought some Mexican product; please don't tell a soul.

The gravy had reached it's desired flavor and doneness, the spuds had been mashed (along with the roasted garlic cloves) and anointed with butter and cream; the asparagus were simmering lightly in a bath of butter and sauteed garlic. All that remained was to put that first cut in the loaf and put the plate together. I broke through the crust and glaze with a sharp knife and was greeted by a waft of steam and a seductively spicy aroma. The mashers went down on the plate surrounded by the asparagus. The slabs of meatloaf went right on top of the potatoes and a generous ladle of gravy covered it all. Dinner was on; really on.

We enjoyed (I enjoyed) this dinner more than anything that I've cooked in quite some time. It may have been nine years, but it was every bit as good as I remembered. Costa Rica may have steered me a bit off meat, but this loaf was divine, heavenly and yes, delicious.

*****************************************

Night 3; Finally Mexican

I grew up in California and have always loved Mexican food and cooking with Mexican ingredients. I made my first chile rellenos over 40 years ago and perfected a tomatillo "salsa verde" for crab or chicken enchiladas that my sisters both still use. Mexican culture is so deeply entwined with the cultures of both California and Texas, both states where I have lived and it has always been an undercurrent of flavor and style in my cooking.

For nearly all of my time in Costa Rica I drew on influences from Mexican cuisine. I made fruit salsas based on the the "pico de gallo" model; I made guacamole using just fresh avocados, lime, chiles and cilantro; I made vegetarian stuffed chiles that were not too different from my early chiles rellenos and I used Mexican techniques for braising pork with citrus and chiles. But, I have not cooked any real Mexican food in a long, long time.

This week we had big chunks of leftover turkey in our refrigerator from a whole turkey breast that Kathy had braised in the crock pot. I needed a way to use it up that would get us out of the flavors we had been currently eating, and I needed to do something that would get me on a different track. Mexican was something I had been missing, Mexican was something I had been craving and Mexican it was going to be.

The last time I had made Turkey Enchiladas was in Austin two and a half years ago with some Thanksgiving leftovers, but then I had used my old standby green sauce. This time I wanted to find some good quality dried chiles and do a traditional red chile enchilada sauce. It took a little hunting to find the chiles I wanted, but a very helpful young gentlemen in the produce department at Safeway pulled a box of loose packed dried New Mexico chiles out and let me rummage through them to find what I wanted. In addition I bought a pack of dried ancho chiles to balance out and deepen the flavor.

To start the process I heated a cast iron skillet to take the place of the traditional Mexican "comal" and toasted the chiles on each side before immersing them in water to rehydrate. I used the same hot iron pan to dry toast thick slices of onion, halved tomatoes and unpeeled garlic cloves. When each of them were toasted I put them in a blender (I peeled the garlic after toasting) along with the rehydrated chiles that I had stemmed, seeded and torn into pieces. When I blended it all with some of the soaking water, it turned into a beautiful deep, thick, rust colored liquid.

The next step is to lightly "fry" the sauce in hot oil. It seems odd to "fry" a liquid, but it helps to take the raw flavor out of the chiles and intensifies those flavors as well. When the sauce hits the hot oil it comes to a quick boil in the pan. I then turn the flame down and let the sauce simmer for nearly an hour. The smell is haunting and ever so familiar.

I cut and tore our leftover turkey breast into pieces and chunks and put it into a bowl along with cubes of avocado, shredded Monterey Jack cheese, some minced green onions and a healthy ladle of the newly made red sauce. When mixed together, this would be the filling for the enchiladas. I next dipped each white corn tortilla in the hot red sauce to soften it so that it would not tear in the rolling and proceeded to roll up six tortillas. I coated the bottom of a pyrex with more sauce and laid the finished enchiladas in the pan. Another thick coat of the red sauce went over them and then a flurry of grated jack cheese. A layer of foil over the top made our enchiladas oven ready.

While the enchiladas baked I prepared a simple white rice that I mixed with a handful of chopped green onions and cilantro. I anointed a lettuce mix with just lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper and left it to toss when the enchiladas were ready. I took the foil off the enchiladas after 25 minutes and gave them another 15 minutes in the oven so that the cheese took on a nice golden brown color. I pulled them from the over steaming and beautiful.

The plate was simple but colorful; the red of the enchiladas and their sauce, the simple green salad and the speckled green and white of the rice. Kathy and I took out first bites of the enchiladas and it was hauntingly familiar; slightly bitter but with hint of sweetness, spicy but not too, and deep with flavor. I had put a dollop of sour cream on top of them when I had put them on the plate and the blandness of the cream and the turkey/avocado filling were the perfect foils to allow the bite of the red chile sauce to shine through. We powered through these and barely spoke while we did.

It was such a pleasure to experience this classic flavor once again. It brought back so many taste-bud and olfactory memories which in turn sparked a host of thoughts of other meals and other times.

It is one of the powerful properties of food and cooking that it can take us back to so many other places. These three meals each called up flavors from my cooking past and allowed me to revisit and re-practice techniques which will never leave me. It is amazing how a trip to the freezer and the need to rid ourselves of left-overs can open the door to the past and help to remind us that the skills and the flavors are always there.

Same Ocean; Different Waves

2011-03-19T16:56:00.000-07:00

Mangos to Artichokes; Palmito to Asparagus

Brisk. Brisk and breezy and wet and downright cold. I am in the Northwestern part of Oregon and everything Kathy, my fiancee, told me about what late winter/early spring here, is true. There is a fire always burning here in the wood stove and thank God there is. I've been rained on, snowed on and yes, even hailed on. There has been, from time to time, an actual patch of blue sky, but only very rarely.

The transition between Costa Rican summer and late winter/early spring in N. West Oregon has been notable. And it is notably difficult for someone who has spent the last 25 months in Central America. But I am here for the best of all possible reasons; love. And for that I am grateful, pleased, blissful and doing my best to be in denial about the climatic conditions

I am told that this is typical for late winter/early spring in these parts and that gradually, ever so gradually conditions improve. It's one of those two steps forward, one step back kind of things, with insidious rain and the occasional sneak attack of snow still waiting to darken skies that would be blue. Or so I am told.

I have come from the jungles outside of Uvita on the south Pacific coast of Costa Rica. I was living down a dirt road with coconut trees in my front yard, iguanas coming in my front door and howler monkeys serenading me just outside the back. Now I am in low mountain forest, living down a dirt road with a horse in the back, deer and elk prancing/thundering across the yard, the occasional moutain lion or bear, and rain; yes, the famous cold Oregon rain.

I've traded toucans for owls, palm trees for cedars, geckos for barn mice and sunsets for hail storms. But I know the weather will change and although I seem to be having trouble keeping my feet warm, it is not something that brings me great distress. Kathy and I live over 11 miles from town and there is a peace here, a silence and a stillness that rivals that of the deep jungles. Rural here in Oregon is not so different from rural in Costa Rica. Farmers are farmers wherever one goes and houses here are just as scattered away from each other as they are down the roads that lead into the hills outside of Uvita.

Our house, the house that Kathy has welcomed me into, is warm, secure, cozy and filled with love. I have taken on the house chores, outside chores and have earned my way into the heart of Molly, her wise and amusing dog. And still I cook. I always cook and here it is just about using different ingredients. I will use the same techniques, I always use the same techniques, but now I return to the slower cooking styles. Braising, roasting and a kitchen filled with lingering smells of legumes, whole birds and yes, meats have replaced an open and airy stove where fish is cooked in seconds and sauces are just tosses of fresh fruits and raw vegetables.

This is winter cooking now and will change as the weather warms. Like the area I came from in Costa Rica, this is an agricultural area, but the changes here are dramatic and the cooking is reflective of those changes, whereas in the Zona Sur there really are no changes of season. At the San Isidro feria I could buy ripe tomatoes year round. The price would change from time to time, but rarely did my cooking reflect radical seasonality. The fruits would change, but the changes in the vegetable seasons were not so nearly apparent.

And so what have I been cooking? Cooking for myself and my loved ones? Funny you should ask. In a bit of a change, I've been eating a lot of my own cooking lately. Kathy and I passed through Austin on our way here and stayed with my sister, Barbara and my brother in law, Pete. I have always enjoyed cooking with my sister and the stop there eased the difficulty of the transition back to life in North America.

We cooked and ate with them a couple of nights and our meals started off with some serious looking inch and half thick Berkshire porterhouse pork chops that ended up in a smoky dry rub and over a mesquite fire. I braised some cavolo nero (black kale/dino kale) to go with garlicky roasted yukon gold potatoes. The next day we hit a cold and blustery Austin farmer's market for fresh shrimp to pair with chaurice and andouille sausages from my friend Jessie Griffith's Dai Due kitchen in a batch of Mardi Gras week Jambalaya. I roasted both tomatoes and shrimp shells (yes, separately) to make a rich stock to cook the shrimp in to put over the rice base and it spicy success.

When we had arrived in Austin it was 72 degrees and that had dropped into the high 40's the next day, but that still didn't prepare me for my arrival in Portland. We got in at 8:45 at night and it was a windy 37 degrees, with a hard sideways rain pelting down. We ended up at Kathy's house, a bit southeast in Scotts Mills, which I'm still getting used to calling "home" around 10:30, and suddenly I was a North American again.

And yes, the food has been decidedly of the cold weather "comfort" nature as it hasn't risen much above 50 in the ten days I've been here and the evenings visit into the mid-30's pretty frequently. The first dinner I cooked was a roasted locally raised organic chicken and really, is there no better comfort food than a roast chicken? Not only does it warm and fill the house with that wonderful roast chicken smell, it is ever so good for the soul.

We are beginning to get some of those first of the spring vegetables and I had forgotten how much I have missed asparagus and artichokes. I grew up in the East Bay in Northern California and learned to eat those two representatives of Spring at an early age. My parents grew asparagus in our back yard in Lafayette and they often teased my about how, in my early years, I even ate the asparagus off their plates as well as those on my own.

Artichokes were even more of a family tradition as we would take two jaunts a year down to the Monterey Peninsula, one in the Spring and one in the Fall (timed coincidentally, or perhaps not) with the two yearly yields of artichokes from the Castroville and Watsonville fields. I learned to eat the prickly thistle at the age of three and have just recently gotten over gazing gape-mouthed at those who have said they have never eaten an artichoke. How could one live without them?

I must have still been in Costa Rican mode then, when the sight of both "A" vegetables caught me by surprise at a local farmstand market. I picked up the banded stalks of asparagus as one might a precious jewel. These were the real deal; locally grown and almost sweet smelling at the stalk. And right next to them were bins of giant globe artichokes with that telltale frost bitten brownish edge at the top of their thistly leaves.

Those two were consumed the first two nights we had them at the house. The asparagus simply par-boiled and then sauteed in butter, served with a roasted rare flatiron steak from locally raised cattle. The slices of the rare (and quite delicious) beef took a backseat while I scarfed down the fat spears while they were still warm from the pan. And yes, they were amazing; sweet in that way that fresh "grass" can be and filled with that totally unique flavor.

The next night we decided to eat vegetarian and feature the artichokes as well as some goodies from Kathy's garden. I had picked through a box of last year's potatoes and onions and picked out the ones that had made it though the winter without rotting. I had been told there were still leeks in the garden. The New York Times had just published some recipes espousing leeks as the great end of winter vegetable and I had culled one I really liked for a potato-leek gratin with gruyere. Perfect.

I tromped through the fresh mud of the garden and pulled the last of the leeks out of the dense earth, their roots clumped with dark black mud. The outside pipes are still turned off to prevent freezing so it was into the kitchen to clean these babies. When I held the fresh leeks under the faucet the mud nearly exploded and flew all over the kitchen. Kathy has taken to surveying the kitchen after I have had my way with it these past few days and saying, while shaking her head, "I live with a chef". And this was certainly one of those moments.

I sliced the potatoes and tossed them with cream and salt and pepper, then layered them in a pyrex. I sliced and de-mudded the leeks and sauteed them in butter with a couple of crushed garlic cloves and laid them over the top of the potatoes. The shredded gruyere went on next and a bit more cream to moisten it all. I liked the way this looked. I covered the top with foil and popped it into the oven.

Now it was time for the chokes. I trimmed off a bit of the stem, but not too much, it is just an extension of the heart, after all, and made sure they stood up without falling. They got plopped into our largest sauce pan and were followed in by a lemon cut in half and squeezed, four crushed garlic cloves and a splash of olive oil. I filled the pot so that it came halfway up the artichokes and put it on to boil. The tops of the chokes stuck out above the edge of the pan and it turned out there was not a top in our kitchen that would fit so I improvised a stainless steel bowl as a lid and it fit nice and snug. The chokes came to a boil and I dropped the heat and affixed the bowl over the top so they could steam to doneness.

I have always been of the "mayonnaise school" as opposed to the "melted butter school" for my dipping sauce of choice and my family was always a Best Foods family. Personally, I find it a good product, but a bit sweet. I countered that by squeezing in more lemon juice and adding a couple of dashes of tabasco. I minced some small green onions quite finely and then stirred in an ounce or two of extra virgin olive oil; Best Foods just got better and I was salivating.

About 40 minutes later I pulled the foil off the gratin for the last ten minutes to get a nice crust on top and pulled a leaf out of one of the chokes to test the doneness. It was all going to happen at the same time. Excellent. We had a ripe avocado and some of those vine-ripened hot-house tomatoes, so I tossed chunks of each with lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper and that was salad. We cut wedges out of the gratin, taking in the sweet smell of the steam; we placed the giant chokes on the plate and we spooned some salad somewhere between the two. It was vegetarian and it was delightful. Kathy went back for seconds on the gratin (and had the last of hit for breakfast); great recipe. And the artichokes? Such a long-lost treat. I could eat another one today.

SMOOTHIE RITUAL

2011-02-28T17:39:00.000-08:00

I was in bustling downtown Uvita early this afternoon, dodging semi's in the Costanera and hailing my neighbors in the Corona parking lot. I was doing some final banking and turning the key to my mail box in at the Uvita Information Center when I ran into a friend who asked me, "What are you going to miss most about being here?"

My initial answer to her was that I would miss my friends, that I would miss the small town-ness of where we live. I went on to say that I would really, really miss the cooking I had been doing at La Cusinga and had been, in fact, missing cooking quite a bit over this last four weeks of idleness. But while I was answering her, I wasn't really sure if I was being all that sincere about my answer and that I knew deep in my heart of hearts that there was another answer; the real answer.

What I will really miss, what I will miss deeply, mournfully and significantly is my morning smoothie. I have become a virtual prisoner to the mix of tropical fruits and yogurt that I place reverently into my blender each and every morning. My whole morning used to revolve around the tea ritual. The steeping of the strong black tea and intensely flavored local honey was a huge focal point of my early day but something happened, something changed.

And what happened was that I was becoming much more greatly attuned to the transcendent quality of the fruits I was peeling each day. I was paying more attention to the subtle bite of the goat's milk yogurt I got from the Mennonites. I was turning my morning ritual toward the cutting of the fruit and the layering of the yogurt. Putting tea bags and honey into a tea pot was child's play compared to this, this construction of something so much greater than the sum of its parts.

Did it happen when the passion fruit came into season and I could pull them off the vines in the back yard? Was it when I discovered Irwins, the world's sexiest and most glorious mango, oozing honey from every drop? Or was it perhaps when I started buying a "hand" of sweet bananas at the busy Feria each week from the lovely Tica girl who smiled shyly at me when her father was looking away?

I don't know, I can't say when it turned; that moment when the making of the smoothie became the apex of my morning ritual. Those who know me, my lovely fiancee, Kathy, particularly, will tell you that I am a creature who adores, no, that's inaccurate, demands a morning ritual. The rising, the opening of the doors and windows, flipping on the computer, the first glass of cold mint/green tea to ease down the ibuprofin and fish oil, those are mechanical, yet ritualistic. The tea kettle is filled with water and the flame is lit, the tea bags and honey go into the teapot; ritual.

Everything that follows is ritual as well. I get on the floor to stretch and meditate, I pour the first cup of tea, I read emails, Facebook, SF Gate and the NY Times. I begin the crossword puzzle but I don't finish it; yes, ritual. But I now realize, that all these are just small steps on the path to the true ritual. I know they are because now I am starting to delay the rising from the chair, to savor the moments, the building up to that series of steps that makes, yes makes, the morning.

On the counter are the bananas, the sweet ripe bananas. They are the foundation, the staple and the body of the smoothie. If everyday were a perfect day, next to them would be four or five gold and red oblong Irwin mangos. The Irwin is majestic, soulful, succulent and downright sexual. To me, it is the mango of my dreams, culinary, erotic and otherwise. I worked for a fine, fine produce company my last two years in San Francisco and never once did I taste either bananas or (particularly) mangos that came remotely close to this amazing fruit.

I choose the two ripest bananas and after squeezing the mangos and then passing each of them in front of my twitching nose, I choose today's participant. I lay these on the cutting board and saunter out the back door toward the maracuya bush; home of passion fruit. If I am lucky, there will be a perfect speciman, gold not green, and with that perfect amount of "give". And yes, there is.

The bananas are peeled, broken into chunks and fed into the blender bottom. The mango ritual is next and I love the way the little Wusthof paring knife slides the skins off the tender fruit. I work my way around the seed, cutting off moist sticky slabs of the golden fruit. The mango joins the banana and greedily I suck the mango peels like artichoke leaves so that none of that heavenly flesh goes to waste. I cut the maracuya in half and admire its perfectly formed seed sac and the tiny seeds inside. It is quite a sensual sight. I don't want the passionfruit's acid to spoil the sweetness so only the seedsac from one side of the fruit goes in. There will be more for tomorrow.

I have pulled the yogurt container from the refrigerator along with a bowl of tiny ice cubes (because that's the kind of ice cube trays I have). The container is shaken and the thick white goat's milk yogurt joins the fruits. The flavor of this yogurt is so goaty and distinct, almost a bit much by itself, but oh, the harmony it creates. A handful of ice cubes go in, both for chill and to cut the richness just a bit. I sigh and turn the blender on to 7. Always to 7 and only to 7.

This is a ritual.

I am beginning to salivate and I rock the whirring blender to make sure all the yogurt slides down into the golden mix. When I can no longer hear the ice cubes I know. I know the moment that this has all been building to is approaching. And better yet, I know that this mix will make exactly two, not one, but two glasses of that which makes it possible for me to leave the house, to go forward with my day, to achieve greatness, to deal with challenge, to be the man I know I can be.

The glass is brought forth and the glass mixer is leaned forward for the pour. The smoothie nearly walks out of the mixer, thick, viscous and oh, so golden. It layers itself into the glass as if it knows that this is its sole purpose in life. I sigh with contentment, cover the mixer and hastily put it in the refrigerator. I take my glass to the counter and standing behind it I take that first gulp. And yes, it is the perfect smoothie. It is rich, it is fruity and it is the stuff of dreams. There is a sense and a purpose in going on. This is what ritual is all about, and yes, this is definitely what I will miss the most.

THE ROAST CHICKEN MEDITATIONS

2011-02-14T15:19:00.000-08:00

The Roast Chicken Meditations

It has often been said that if you have a house you want to sell you should bake cookies to entice prospective buyers. I have a deep belief that they would be even further seduced by the scents arising from a chicken roasting to a crackle skinned doneness in the oven. There are few things that I do in my kitchen at home that speak to my basic cooking instincts like roasting a chicken.

There is something so entirely satisfying about readying the bird for the oven; anointing it with a bit of butter, or olive oil or a simple squeeze of lemon; filling it's innards with that same split lemon, or sprigs of fresh rosemary and/or thyme, or several cloves of partially crushed garlic, or, all of the above. I forego the roasting rack that goes beneath the bird and instead build a celebratory pyre of sliced carrots, wedges of onion and more peeled garlic cloves. The bird goes on top and then into the hot oven.

And then, for that proscribed amount of time, perhaps 45 minutes for a smaller specimen, perhaps up to an hour and twenty minutes for a four and a half pound bird, your time is your own. It is just you and that book, or some perfect chicken roasting music (or for me, both) and the smells that begin to waft from the oven. There is of course, the interruption about twenty minutes into the process for the opening of the over door (ahh, more lovely smells) and the placing of the halved or quartered small potatoes around the bird, but it is, if well planned, brief.

The bird is in the oven, the book is in the lap, Bill Frisell is noodling exquisitely on his guitar and all is right with the world. If this isn't cheap and significant therapy, I'm not sure what to recommend that would be. It works wonderfully if it is cold and rainy outside, but I found out yesterday, it works just as well on a tropical late afternoon in Costa Rica. I sat on the back patio, and the book, the music and the smells were all just as they should have been.

It was clear that the climate has no influence on the effect of the roasting chicken on the psyche and the soul when I suddenly looked down and realized I hadn't read a page in several minutes and had not been aware that the cd had moved right on to the next one in the shuffle. I stretched out on the chair behind me and put my feet back up on the chair in front of me. The cicadas were clicking madly and a few goofy "gallinas de la montana" were warbling their insane warble. The sun had slid down behind the coconut trees and the air was rich with the smell of a deeply burnished bird.

So yes, one must arise to rescue the bird, but there is security in knowing that it must, as the French say, "repose" for several minutes before it falls prey to the carving knife. A salad might be made at this point, a simple salad; tomatoes sliced, even an avocado broken into and mixed with a dash of "jugo de mandarina", but this is lazy work, work done at a restful and serene pace. Don't make a dressing, just splash some olive oil and citrus juice on the greens; sea salt and a few grinds of black pepper. The salad will far better accompany the simple flavors of the chicken dressed this way.

It's all ready. Cut the bird anyway you like. I like to start with a leg, but then, I am a "leg man". Grab a few crispy potato pieces, a hunk of two of browned carrot and some of the fallen apart but caramelized wedges of onion. The garlic cloves, roasted to perfection; grab a few of those, too.

Load the plate up and push some of that simply dressed salad on there. Tilt up the roasting pan and pour some of those chicken-y fatty juices over the whole damn thing. Perfect, just perfect.

Eat. And enjoy.

ADIOS FOR NOW

2011-02-07T20:56:00.000-08:00

These two pieces will make up my final contribution to Dominical Days, at least for a while. But fear not, blog fans, the blog will live on.

ADIOS FOR NOW

Sadly, loyal readers, that this will be my final column for Dominical Days, at least this time through, I want to express my gratitude to Marcel for offering me this space as well as to those of you who have suffered through these 18 or so months with me.

I am leaving La Cusinga after two years and the reasons are the usual culprits in my industry; money and trust. I’ve had a good two years there and am grateful for the opportunity, the freedom and the beautiful environment. I got a little off track for a while, but in these two years I feel as if I’ve gotten my “Chef” back. My mission was to show the area that we could cook world class cuisine using all local ingredients and I feel as if I’ve accomplished that.

I’ve had thanks a plenty, but as we used to say in the kitchens when I was a drinking man, “Thanks doesn’t buy the beer”. Now that I’m sober I find that it doesn’t help with the rent, the dentist or at the taller either. I suppose in every work situation there are promises made as to the future but when they are denied and two years of loyalty is rewarded with mistrust, it is time to move on.

In this time here I have made some amazing friends and have developed some of the world’s most loyal eaters. Chefs thrive on seeing people eating and happy, and I have seen some awfully happy faces these last two years. It took us a while to get the word our into this community, but in January we had the largest number of “non-hotel guest” diners that La Cusinga had ever had..

I will miss you all, I will miss the amazing local ingredients and I will miss this coastal paradise for whatever length of time I am gone. Pura Vida.

RECIPES FOR LIVING THE LIFE

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write in this, my last recipe column, but when my good friend Richard suggested to me that I write an entry in my blog (www.chefofthejungle.blogspot.com) about sourcing the ingredients I cook with, it seemed like it matched up perfectly.

I buy all local organic produce and get most it from Mauren and Ademar (Finca Coreotos) at the Uvita Feria on Saturdays and at the Feria de San Isidro on Thursdays. They are also at Citrus in Ojochal on Tuesday mornings. I buy specialty items from Marjorie and Bolivar at Diamante Organico in the San Salvador valley. They deliver to Maractu in Dominical on Thursdays, so perhaps an arrangement could be made for delivery there.

I have been buying whole fish from Victoriano in Playa Tortuga and filets from Jose who has the stand at the Uvita Feria. If you stay on top of Jose the quality is usually excellent.

My delicious organic chickens and eggs also come from Mauren and Ademar at the Uvita Feria.

I use a lot of specialty items and get many of them at the big Feria in San Isidro. The Mennonites sell excellent goat cheese as well as sweet butter and goat’s milk yogurt.

There is an older Tico right next to Mauren and Ademar’s table in the organic section who sells the best honey I have tasted here. There is also a smiling shortish man at that end, but one row over who sells a nice selection of frijoles tiernos (fresh shelling beans).

Mario (in his white straw hat) has organic portobellos and other mushrooms, but get there early.

Elena’s table is at the far end of the market and she has a wealth of wonderful things. I get organic brown rice, black and white sesame seeds, organic mustards and more. You can find her at chayotevine@gmail.com.

Adios y pura vida, Chef Dave

MORTY'S BIG NIGHT

2011-01-27T09:54:00.000-08:00

MORTY'S BIG NIGHT

It must have been last Saturday morning that my cell phone sang out its peculiar song and there was my up the hill neighbor, Morty, on the phone. I hadn't done much other than exchange a few neighborly waves with him, and there was one brief conversation, and then he started coming into La Cusinga to eat. And he kept coming back. I liked that.

So when he mentioned a party and a birthday cake and some other things like that I kind of panicked, having heard nothing of the sort from anyone. I knew I had a dinner reservation for some local/regulars that very night, but didn't know much about any birthday cake. It turned out, fortunately, and upon further questioning, that Morty's event was his own birthday party and was for the following Tuesday. In all too familiar form, I just hadn't been apprised of it by the gentleman who had taken the reservation.

Despite Tuesday being a valued day off, one of the few I get in this part of the year, I was happy to be able to host and cook Morty's birthday dinner. It was going to be 13 people, and was going to include a lot of friends, old and new. I like Morty and his recent and frequent appreciation of what I do in the kitchen makes me like him even more. More importantly, this was going to be Morty's 70th! To add to the festivities, he had requested "the" pineapple upside down cake (the one I call, "Not Your Mother's Pineapple Upside Down Cake") as his birthday cake, and he wanted it on the table so that he could serve it. It sounded like a grand idea to me.

On the appointed Tuesday I began the birthday cake by making caramel with butter and raw cane sugar. I had over 30 for dinner and would need three cakes, so I had two sticks of unsalted butter and 2 cups of the sugar in the pan. While the caramel cooked over a low heat I cut the skins from two ripe pineapples, cut them in half lengthwise and cored them. The cored halves got cut into a series of half-moon shaped slices to lay into the, oops, the caramel. I stepped back to the stove, gave the caramel a couple of quick (but careful, this stuff is like napalm) stirs and poured it into the bottom of the cake pans.

While the caramel had been cooking and the pineapples were getting cleaned and cut, I had put the mixing bowl of butter, more cane sugar and organic vanilla on the back of the stove to soften the butter and make it easier to cream. I laid the pineapple slices down into the caramel in as nice a pattern as I could muster and then weighed out the dry ingredients; flour, ground almond, baking powder and a pinch of salt. I was just about ready to put these babies together; cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs and sour cream and fold in the dry mix.

And then there was silence. The lilting Brazilian music coming from my iTunes had stopped, the humming of the refrigerator had stopped, and the every bang of every pot and pan in the dish sink seemed deafening. The power had gone off; not an unexpected nor unusual occurrence, just one particularly ill-timed.

All I could do was keep moving forward with things that required no electricity. I had ordered fresh fish to come in Tuesday so I knew we'd be getting something good for the birthday dinner and sure enough the Dorado (mahimahi for you up there) that came in was perfect, pristine, glistening fresh. I had a bag full of succulently ripe mangos, so it was pretty apparent which direction this was going to go. I would need no electricity to cut fish or make salsa.

I had the second half of a batch of carrot/beet/ginger soup so that was and obvious choice for our first course. I've been so busy I have had trouble keeping up on my backlog of soups, but I had set this one aside; a good one. I season this with plenty of fresh grated ginger, a healthy hit of Thai red curry and then puree it with fresh orange/carrot juice. It is a great zap-pow of a palate opener, and thank goodness it was already pureed.

I had four vegetarians on the books and realized that this was the perfect time to take advantage of the oven being empty. I had planned on Ayote Rellenos as the vegetarian entree and the halved, seeded squashes would need to roast for nearly 40 minutes. The ayote is in the pumpkin family, but is green and colored like a zucchini. The ones I use are a little big bigger than a softball. I cut them down the middle from top to bottom, scoop out their pumpkin-like seeds, drizzle them with olive oil, hit them with sea salt and black pepper and into the oven they go. I'd figure out their stuffing later.

Our weekend had been so busy that I'd had to make an emergency call to Marjorie at Diamante Organico for more produce and I had it all at my fingertips for Morty's big night. Her husband Bolivar had cut fresh palmito (hearts of palm) for me so I sliced that and tossed the thin slices with fresh mandarina juice, strips of roasted sweet red pepper and a fine mince of garlic greens. I finished dressing it with a splash of olive oil, sea salt and several grinds of black pepper; a salad within a salad.

I kept listening for the music to resume and the stand-up refrigerator to resume its annoying vibrations and humming, but nothing. Not yet.

Marjorie had also picked me several small heads of romaine that morning as well as a bag of fresh arugula. Perfect, the crunch of romaine with the pepper of arugula. I would dress it with my not-Caesar (everything but the anchovies) dressing and serve it with wedges of vine-ripe tomatoes drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and just a hit of balsamic. I wanted just one more touch for this party, so I grated some of the fresh goat cheese I get at the Feria from the Mennonites. All of this with a mound of the dressed palmito in front of it? Perfect...

I get two products from Diamante Organico that may be exclusive to me, I don't know, but I haven't seen them anywhere else down here and I love them both. One is mix of braising greens, sometimes nine or ten types; mustards, kales, collards, local greens I don't even know the names of, chois, wild spinach and more. These greens are just lovely to look at and the textures are fascinating to me. The other specialty item is curling strands of Chinese long beans; tender and sweet. These two would be the vegetable accompaniment to the Dorado and yes, mango salsa.

We have been doing a puree of camotes (local white yams) and plantains that has been a favorite during my two years at La Cusinga and I knew its pale yellow color would show well against the bright green of the two chosen vegetables. We cook it just like mashed potatoes, adding the ripe plantains at the end. It gets mashed with milk and butter and just a hit of waht the Ticos call "miel de pulga", the syrup taken and cooked down from fresh sugar cane. The fish goes on top and the salsa goes over fish and puree.

After I had cut the shining filets of Dorado into dinner portions I addressed the sweet smelling mangos. This has been both a great and an early season for them and they were perfectly ripe and sticky to the touch. It has taken me a while, but being down here it became imperative that I learn to cut mangos efficiently, and I believe I have finally figured it out. I trim off the ends, stand them up, and with a sharp paring knife, remove the skin. I then follow the ovate pattern of the seed and cut the flesh away in long chunks. To be honest, I made a mess of many a mango before I finally figured this out.

Once the mango is freed from its stone, it gets diced into salsa size, along with red bell peppers and red onions. The jalapenos I get from Marjorie are quite hot, so one, seeded, stemmed and minced fine was certainly going to be enough. Sea salt was sprinkled over the bright golden and red mix in the bowl and two mandarinas squeezed into the nearly finished salsa. I tossed it all and stuck it in the refrigerator. There would be cilantro added, but not until the end, to keep it fresh and bright.

Then, yes, noise, music; the happy Brazilians were back at it. There was rattling, humming from the refrigerator, and power. I grabbed the mixing bowl of softening butter from the back of the stove where it had been forgotten and latched it onto the Kitchen Aide to cream. Oops, it wasn't going to need much creaming. This butter was nearly melted. I wasn't really sure how that was going to affect my cakes as I am neither a baker nor a scientist. But these babies had to get in the oven, and soon. This cake really benefits from sitting a while before it gets cut.

I "creamed" the nearly melted butter and tapa dulce and added the eggs and a healthy cup and a half of sour cream. The flour/almond mixture got folded into the bowl in batches and the bowl scraped down with a spatula, hoping for the best. The batter seemed a bit looser than usual (go figure) but I was thinking it had to bake anyway, didn't it? I smoothed it over the pineapples and the caramel and praying a little prayer to the kitchen gods, slid the three cakes into the oven. Now it was up to Science and the Universe.

My last major chore was the building of the vegetarian entrees. I had pulled the roasted ayote halves out of the oven when the cakes had gone in and they pierced nicely when prodded with the tip of a knife; done and ready to "rellenar". Because we do both lunch and dinner, there are any number of odds and ends floating around the refrigerators at all times. Generally, and this works well in the vegetarian world, there are little bowls of prepped cooked veggies, rices and who knows what. I always keep a batch of cooked frijoles tiernos (shelling beans) around as a base for vegetarian meals, so I had all I needed.

I sauteed the "basics" to get started. Chopped onion, diced red bell pepper and garlic in olive oil is a good way to start almost anything. The day before we had roasted trays of tomatoes in olive oil and I chopped up five or six and with a bit of their orange roasting oil added them to the "basics" in the pan. Next in went a handful of chopped braising greens for some color. I hit the pan with a half a cup of water to help wilt the greens then added a cup of the cooked frijoles. I tossed the pan to distribute all this goodness and then added a big spoon of some vegetarian rice that the lunch crew had cooked the day before. It was studded with bits of broccoli, cauliflower and kernels of corn and added a great look to the mix. I added a bit more water, turned down the flame and put a cover on it to allow the flavors to come together in private; nearly done. I would heap this into the cooked ayote shells and they would be ready to bake.

Olga had finished the cleaning the greens and the lettuces, the camotes were peeled and coming to a boil and the water for blanching the long beans was nearly ready. The soup was ready, the components of the salad were ready, the fish was cut, the salsa was tossed and the cakes were finally in the oven. I breathed.

Morty and his wife Paula showed up around 4:00 before their guests; he lugging a crate of wines and she trailing behind. He was his usual grinning, shambling self, utterly charming and totally without pretense. It was the first time I had met his wife Paula, who has Emmylou Harris silver hair and a New York accent, quite an interesting combination. I got them someone who could help them ice the wine and told them that their special meal was nearly ready. I walked them up to the top deck and their guests began to arrive.

Along with Morty and Paula's group of 13 there was another group of 11 yoga practitioners and four couples. The time of seating would be tricky if I wanted to avoid having a cattle call and feeding everyone at once. Franco, the leader of the yoga group solved that problem for me by coming down and asking if it would be a problem for them to eat at 7:00. No, not a problem, and, in fact, probably a blessing. The dueces (couples, pairs, twos, for you non-restaurant readers) would be easy, they always are. You can sneak them in and around big groups easily.

I was pretty sure the birthday party would sit just after 6:00 when the sun was well down and we could get the bulk of their service out of the way early.

I got the final details ready; chopping garlic, hauling out the pans and the all important portioning of the desserts in the final moments before the final feeding and cooking frenzy. I pulled out the perfect Dorado portions, put them on sheet pans for roasting and dusted them with sea salt and fresh ground black pepper. The mango salsa came out of the refrigerator to receive a handful of chopped cilantro and to come up to room temperature (doesn't take long here). Olga had put the finished puree into a bain-marie (double boiler) and I adjusted the flame to keep it from boiling over. Now I was just nervously pacing.

Then it was 6:05 and Morty's party was filing in. I knew nearly all of them and since they've all eaten with us before they knew just where to go. I let them do their toasts and then hit the table with 13 small bowls of the chilled soup. The server and Olga both wanted to rush a bit, but I wanted to let them take their time so we dressed the greens leisurely, place the tomatoes and hearts of palm, just so, and sprinkled the shredded goat cheese over the top. Nice looking salad.

The dueces filed in, the olive oil went in the hot pans; the greens braised and the long beans sauteed. The fish went into the hot oven and emerged. Everyone got soup and salad and of course, just as the perfectly cooked Dorado came out of the oven, the 11 sat down. I had, oh so cleverly, pre-poured their soups, so as those were served we were able to plate the ten fish and roasted stuffed ayotes for Morty's birthday dinner. The puree had come out a lovely pale yellow color and when the mango salsa went over the fish the palate of colors went from pale to brilliant yellow flecked with red, nestled up against the bright greens of the vegetables. It was a lovely plate.

As usual, all of this flew past. The actual service is so fleeting compared to the time spent prepping it all and there is a certain irony to that. Olga and I did the kitchen dance; me placing the first vegetable (the braised greens) and the fish while she darts around and in front of me with the puree and the long beans. I salsa and she pulls the finished dishes from the counter. The plates get wiped and are suddenly arrayed in the service window

It seemed like only seconds before I was straightening the flowers around Morty's birthday cake and scooping the accompanying mango ice cream into the bowls. The yoga group was chowing their entrees and all the dueces had been fed. The cake went out to the singing friends at the table and I could see Morty happily serving up the fat slices of the upside down cake. I love this part; the smiles, the laughter, the empty plates and the air of satisfaction, satiation and peace.

I visited the tables, as I do each night after the entrees go out, and basked in the appreciation of our labors. We had worked hard and it was, as it always is to me, worth it.

Morty was presiding at his table and glowing. The guests were murmuring and smiling in a food-induced semi-coma. This is the way it should be and I was so happy to have been able to have my part in it. Happy Birthday, Morty.

MANGOS OTRA VEZ

2011-01-27T08:53:00.000-08:00

MANGOS OTRA VEZ

I actually got to take a night off to go dinner last night and spent some quality time with my friends Richard and Debbie. Of course we were talking about food and I got to waxing on about how much earlier the mango season had come this year than last and just how damn good the mangos were this year.

I was rattling on and on about just how special mangos are to me, now much I love to cook with them and just how damn sensous a fruit they are, and Debbie said to me, "But how do you cut them? I can't seem to do it without getting a mess all over the place. Her question reminded me that I had written a piece for Dominical Days about my mango-lust and had included in the second part a pretty good description of how I like to cut them to get the largest and best looking pieces from this most luscious of fruits.

I have reprinted my paean to mangos below. The first part is a love/lust story and the second describes how to cut the fruit and gives a recipe for a nice mango/mustard glaze. I would like to add to the instructions about the cutting that it works best with a sharp paring knife, for removing both the skin and the fruit. If you are able to use a vegetable peeler on your mango then it is probably not ripe enough to be considering in the first place.

MANGOES, FINALLY I GET MANGOES (From the July, 2010 issue of Dominical Days)

This has been the breakout year for me with mangoes. I always liked them, but didn’t love them. I’d liked using them in my kitchen, but didn’t really understand the possibilities they presented to me. I knew that they were a richly flavored and almost sexual fruit, but I just hadn’t gotten there with them, so to speak. And lastly, I just couldn’t figure out how to cut the damn things.

This mango season that has all changed. Maybe it was that I became more committed to working with local ingredients and knew that they were an essential part of a tropical kitchen repertoire. Maybe it was the smell of them in my car on a warm day as their honeyed juices warmed, and maybe it was licking my fingers after cutting them for my “Salsa de la Jungla” and discovering that each mango had a slightly different yet equally powerfully seductive flavor.

This is the year that I discovered a “signature” sauce based on mangoes. This is the year I made mango vinegar, numerous mango salsas, mango-mustard glaze and mango-coco ice cream. I found that the mango could stand up to the acid of mandarina, the bite of ginger, the heat of habaneros and the sinus opening blast of hot mustard.

I have paired mango this year with chicken, fish and pork. Each of those meats picks something up from the inherent mango sweetness and if they are cooked on the grill, they give something back with the flavor of smoke and charcoal. A crusty pork loin or crisp skinned chicken thigh brushed with a mango glaze and then pulled from the grill is barbecued poetry.

The season is almost over but there are still sticky sweet mangoes at the Feria. Buy and use them now or puree the flesh and use it later. But however you use them, don’t forget to lick your fingers.

MANGOES AND WHAT TO DO

So now, with any luck, I’ve made you want to run out and grab a few mangoes, and in an “end of the season” burst of creativity, have your way with them. I buy them with three criteria in mind; feel, smell and color. I want my mango to have some give to it when I squeeze it, but not just in one soft place. I want the smell to be aromatic and sweet. And I want the color to be a lovely hue of red running into gold over the entire fruit.

Cut off enough of either end so that it will stand up on its own.Using a paring knife, from top to bottom take the skin off in longnarrow strips. When the peel is gone, stand the mango up again and look at it from the top. It should be ovate, rather than round. The longest sides of the oval are where the greatest amount of the flesh is. Using the blade of the knife, find the seed and slide the knife downward, staying as close to the seed as possible. The flesh should come away in a long even piece. Continue around the mango, working the knife down the pit. You will have two larger pieces of mango and several other long narrow pieces. You are ready to cook.

MANGO MUSTARD GLAZE

Flesh of One Ripe Mango

Juice of 2 Mandarinas

½ Cup Orange Juice

½ Cup Tapa Dulce, or Brown Sugar

1 tsp grated fresh ginger

2 TBS Dijon Mustard

In a stainless or non-corrosive pot, put all the ingredients except the mustard. Bring up the heat to a low boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring to break up the pieces. Remove from heat and stir in the mustard. Use as a glaze for pork, chicken or fish. Use it now, or chill and reserve.

US AND THEM

2011-01-17T09:33:00.000-08:00

US AND THEM

I often forget, and how easy that is for me, that there are people out there in this world who do not look upon food as I do, or perhaps even as the readers of this blog do. I tend to think that the greater portion of reading and traveling humanity shares an appetite and fascination for all things culinary, similar to my own. Why would they not be enraptured by the freshness of the food, the purity of its credentials and the wondrousness of the combinations of flavor therein?

There are times at our seasons at La Cusinga where that difference in attitudes and "food visions" are more clear than others. This is one of those times. This is our "high season" and along with guests who come to relax with their spouses and/or families we also entertain a number of groups who are traveling through Costa Rica and make many stops. La Cusinga is but one of those destinations for their birdwatching, flora/fauna studying, yoga retreating visits.

This was quite evident this past weekend. We were host to a group of traveling gardeners from a particular organization and a mid-western US state that shall go unnamed. They were a group of 20 and had arranged to take their morning, mid-day and evening meals with us for three nights. Because we are also open to our general public over the weekends, it was an interesting opportunity to observe the basic differences in people's approaches to the feeding process.

On the evening that most represented this schism of "food values" we had our group of 20 at our large round table (along with a few satellite tables) and at another table we had two couples who are regular customers of mine and big fans of our food. With the addition of a cold soup course for the smaller table, the menus and food served to the two groups was identical. The reactions were not.

Our first course went out; a tossed mix of organic greens in an emulsified citrus-dijon dressing. Served alongside the dressed greens were organic tomato wedges drizzled with a mandarina/olive oil mix, roasted organic beets marinated in balsamic and herbed vinegars, and a mini-salad of cucumber and paper thin slices of organic celery mixed with minced garlic greens and tossed with an herbed white vinegar. All of these sides to the basic greens were seasoned with fresh ground black pepper and sea salt.

Because I watch every plate that comes back from my dining room I was able to see that the plates that came back from my regular guests had been nearly licked clean. The called me over to the table and because they had astutely picked up on the differences in the dressings (four vinaigrettes in all!) wanted to know just how I had dressed each of the components. (And they wrote to my Facebook page the next day to express their appreciation of the combinations and the balance.)

The plates that came back from the large table were perhaps split equally between those that had been cleaned of the salad and the ones that had had the components of the salad segregated into small piles and shoved off to one side or the other. A lot of the beets went untouched, which is not unusual; most of the cucumber-celery salad had not even been tried; and , surprisingly, a lot of the lovely vine-ripe organic tomatoes had not been eaten. Several of the salads appeared untouched. And these people are gardeners!

The entree plate was composed of a puree of camotes (our local white yam) and plantains; a braise of a mix of eight organic greens; a saute of broccoli and green beans with garlic and red peppers; and the entree was freshly caught Dorado (mahimahi) set over the puree and topped with a delicious and brightly colored mango salsa. I love this dish.

Again, when the plates returned to the kitchen, the ones that came back from my local group of four were cleaned. No, wait, there was a broccoli floret uneaten on one of the plates. As I readied the desserts the plates began to come back from the large group, I could see the mountains of uneaten food piled up on them. Untouched puree, whole pieces of fish (!), salsa pushed to the side and a lot of untouched braised greens. Granted, there were a number of plates eaten clean but the amount of uneaten food surprised me.

Our dessert for the evening was a mango-almond tart topped with my own homemade mango ice cream and it was not surprising that nearly every dessert plate came back from both tables with the dessert completely eaten. There were, as there nearly always are, those who don't eat either the cake or the ice cream, but these were few.

What does this tell me? Well first, it tells me that my friends, my regulars, had come to eat and to eat well. They had brought two bottles of wine and they relaxed and enjoyed themselves; they dined. My other guests, the large group? I had compassion for them. They were traveling, living out of suitcases and carry-ons and in a whole new and quite different environment. They were gulping wine, but almost desperately. But above and beyond that, it still strikes me as odd that grown-ups (!?) no matter where they are from, still carry their food prejudices with them to the degree that there are certain things that they just will not try.

And perhaps I live in a bubble. Food is my life and it is unthinkable to me to consider that I would not try something put before me on a plate. I have traveled considerably, and look forward to the opportunity to try things that are unfamiliar; I try everything once. I am not sure that I would be able to travel if I were so concerned about whether or not I was going to like the food.

We have guests who plop down in their chairs, right in front of the glistening blue Pacific and tell me, "I won't eat fish". Please note, that is "won't" not "don't" or "can't". Are we arrogant if we travel and demand that the food be made to suit our own specific likes or are we merely exercising our right to demand that our tourist needs be met? I am not sure of the answers to these questions. I do know that it is strange to me that I would visit a foreign country and be pre-disposed to not want to eat the food. As I said, perhaps I live in a bubble.

Full Speed Ahead?

2011-01-10T08:49:00.000-08:00

Welcome to January. The holidays are past us, and in true high season form we have gone from a standing start to full occupancy with nary a chance to draw our collective breath. As usual, the Christmas and New Year's inundation left us reeling and gasping and now we need to find our feet and figure out how to logically set ourselves up to be busy Every Single Day.

As I have lived a life in the restaurant business (and not that I'm recommending that to anyone, oh, no No NO!) I am used to coming in to work each day and prepping for a full and busy night. It is second nature to me to peer into my refrigerators each day, clear out the debris, see what can be reshaped or reformed and then organize myself combining those things with the new and fresh. It is a dance, a puzzle, a new breathing of life each and every day. I must confess that I love the challenge and I love putting my hard-won skills to work solving the puzzle.

Unfortunately, it is not something that one can teach in a short period of time. It certainly was nothing that came to me early on, but rather, a philosophy I had to develop myself as well as grow into. I had an amazing mentor, Lucien Kuwamoto, in my "green and raw" days, who beat me up and taught me to use my hands, but better yet, taught me to think, to consider and to plan. He also instilled in my a philosophy of how to work, as an individual, but also how to make a kitchen work and run.

Well trained chefs do their purchasing and their prepping with an eye to utilization. In a properly run kitchen, nothing goes to waste and each purchase is made with an eye to how it can be used to each and every advantage. The great god of Food Cost was the determining force of so many decisions related to purchases. In theory, nothing will go to waste.

I learned that one made the most money for the "house" (and therefore might be entitled to more oneself, with any luck and patience; always patience) by learning to butcher and subsequently using all the disassembled parts in various ways. Hind quarters of beef and veal became steaks and roasts, the glory cuts, yes. But it was the trimmings and the lesser regarded sections of the animal where the money was made. Veal scallopini gave way to veal parmagiana which gave way to blanquette de veau which gave way to various forms of stroganoff and other cost effective stews. The unusable bits, the silver skin and the membranes were roasted with vegetables and turned into a "mother sauce". Truly, nothing was wasted.

The way I work now, at La Cusinga, and in places past, puts more emphasis on the fresh. The menu ostensibly (?!) changes each day and the challenge is now to incorporate that which was fresh and new yesterday into something that is equally fresh today. Equally, the challenge exists to get a staff of young country women, not trained professionally, and in some cases, not trained at all, to grasp, however remotely, that concept of utilization.

I love the learning process, and it has been a joy to me to see the light come on in faces not used to being taught and not used to being encouraged to take pride in the things they do. The realization that rice can be cooked in the oven and doesn't have to boil on the stove until the bottom of the pot is thick with crusted burnt grains is a concept that has only recently been embraced (particularly since this makes the cleaning of the pot much easier). I am moved hearing the pride in the voice of Angelica, my day cook, when she tells me that the mix has been made for a batch of ice cream, or that the bananas have been roasted so that another mix may be started.

The busier we get, however, less of those concepts learned are put to use, and in what is just human nature, our kitchen staff goes back to what they know. Sadly, this often translates to small bits of food hidden away, obscured in a giant hunk of aluminum foil, or a myriad of tiny bowls filling an entire refrigerator shelf, each with a slightly less than usable portion of some treat from days gone past. Despite my pleadings the cover of choice remains aluminum foil as opposed to clear wrap. The foil is about four times as expensive, but is so much easier to handle.

Each night at the end of my shift I place plastic container of usable cooked vegetables in the front of the refrigerator that holds the lunch products and each day when I arrive, there it sits; unused and perhaps unnoticed. I put portioned fish and pieces of chicken that can be used in lunch specials there as well. I want to be able to reach these young women some way, some how, but the connect, the lightbulb, the vision is just not something I seem to be able to communicate. I am not sure if I am battling against a cultural issue, a training issue or a motivational issue.

I want so much for the women I work with to feel the pride, the joy, of a job well done and I would love to sense that more often. Frequently I sense an "oh well, another day" as they scrub their pots and mop the floors. Of course there are moments of light and they do give one hope. There has been some staying a bit later to make sure ordering is done and there are moments of inspiration and even motivation. Yes, there are and I must make sure I notice them. I must also remember the patience that my mentor had with me, so much patience.

One of my favorite quotes is from the baseball manager, Tony LaRussa, in which he says, "Good management is putting people in a position to succeed." I will continue to try to break through. I will continue to praise, to teach and to patiently explain the "why". I will keep doing damage control each day, going through the many tiny bowls and unwrapping the mystery packages. It may make me crazy either way, giving up or forging ahead, but the only way I know how is to keep at it, to keep making the point and explaining the "why". After all, we are in "that" part of the year and it is Full Speed Ahead.

2011-01-07T08:22:00.000-08:00

SUMMER NEW AND SUMMER OLD

“Summer’s here and the time is right for…” buying your produce at the grocery store? I hope not!

I am seeing a lot of old friends but also new faces when I make my stop at the local grocery stores in Uvita for my ration of club soda. But sadly, I am noticing a lot of grocery carts filled with equally sad produce taken from the shelves of these grocery stores (which shall remain nameless).

I would like to remind everyone, full timers and summer residents alike, that we have access to locally (!) grown organic produce at two Ferias here on the coast so that you don’t have to buy wilted goods trucked in from somewhere far away.

There is a farmer’s market at Citrus restaurant in Ojochal on Tuesday mornings and another in Uvita at the Rincon on Saturday mornings. Additionally there is the massive Feria in San Isidro on Thursdays and Fridays. Please join with me in supporting our local growers as well as treating yourself to fresher tastier veggies.

SUMMER NEW AND SUMMER OLD/SALAD DRESSING

A great way to utilize those organic lettuces you got at the Feria is with a big salad with a nice piece of organic fish or chicken on top. I like to serve mine with organic tomatoes, cucumber and delicious local hearts of palm. A piece of grilled fish on top is perfect. A squeeze of mandarina over the top is all you need for the perfect evening meal after a day at the beach.

This is a great basic salad dressing recipe that holds up in the fridge for days.

Food Processor or Blender

1 Whole Egg and 1 Egg Yolk;

1 TBS Dijon Mustard;

2 Oz. Good Red Wine Vinegar;

Juice of 2 Lemons;

6 Cloves of Garlic, finely chopped;

Dash of Hot Sauce, Tabasco, or any other;

Sea Salt and Freshly Ground Black Pepper

¾ Cup Good Olive Oil (Not Extra Virgin)

¾ Cup Canola or Light Cooking Oil

Put the first six ingredients, plus a good pinch each of salt and pepper into the food processor, turn the motor on and blend them well. With the motor running, begin to add the oil, first in a very slow but steady stream, and then bit by bit, more rapidly. As the oil is absorbed into the egg/mustard mixture you will hear the sound of the motor change slightly as your dressing begins to emulsify. If the dressing is a bit thick, add a few teaspoons of water with the motor running.

I know there will be the standard yelp that the organic prices are higher, but remember, the product is pristinely fresh and its shelf life will be longer. The yield from locally grown products will be greater (you won’t be peeling those floppy leaves off the outside of your lettuce heads) and the difference in flavor is easily worth whatever extra colones you may part with. Treat yourself to buying and eating locally.

Still Holding, But It's Oh So Close

2010-12-20T08:54:00.001-08:00

We are at the tail end of the 3rd week of December and perched right at the edge of having our lives changed drastically. Yes, we have gone from a nearly sleep walking November to doing some decent business in December, but it's not quite yet the inundation we have been waiting for. There have been a number of nights in the double digits that we hope for and an evening of 18 that felt like the hallowed "good old days", but soon we will be doing those numbers and then some every night.

I have been using this time to finish and polish our cookbook, "Cooking at La Cusinga with The Chef of the Jungle" and while it is a mouthful, hopefully that thought will be prophetic. I have included many of the soup, salad and salsa recipes that have gotten us a lot of attention and paid homage to my growers and producers as well. We have engaged a local graphic artist to do our cover and layout work and she has come up with what I think is a brilliant and eye-catching cover. The next step will be the high resolution food photos we need to finish the cover and to place opposite the pages where they are relevant. Following that, the text goes to the person who will put it all in book form and finally, God willing, the printer.

I must admit this has been quite a learning exercise for me. I can order food, build menus and put together what I think is a pretty good meal, but putting together a book by oneself is another thing entirely. I went into this project both green and cold, barely knowing what each next step would be and I'm sure that's kept us from getting the thing to the printers as soon as we would have liked. I have written, re-read and re-written every recipe at least three times and have cooked all the recipes to see if they really work. With the help of Geinier, La Cusinga's GM/owner and the people involved in the final processes, hopefully we will see this book sometime in mid-Spring; fingers crossed.

In the time between, I have been working on getting us set for another busy season at the Lodge. I've been setting up arrangements with some new organic vendors (there are a new goat cheese producer and a new organic vanilla producer to bring on board), and working out new recipes as well as refining old ones. I have finally found a new source for organic cacao so I am back in production of what I think is the best chocolate "style" ice cream I've ever tasted. I've also been trying out a lot more fruit ice creams made from the local goodies. A huge favorite of the whole staff is Maracuya, or passion fruit. This ice cream is rich and both tart and sweet at the same time, just as the fruit is. I'm also mixing pureed mango with canned coconut milk for an interesting mango-coco flavor.

We have huge bookings for January and February and a group of 18 coming in Christmas Eve. With any luck, I'll be able to come up for air from time to time, but we are coming to "our"season and this is the time when Chef Dave does what he does best, "turn 'em and burn 'em" as we used to say in the high stress restaurant business. Here in the jungle it takes on a slightly smaller degree of stress and volume, but the idea is the same; great food, great service and of course, our amazing view. Get on down here and check us out.

CHANGE OF SEASON?

2010-11-29T06:56:00.001-08:00

Last night it didn't rain. Two nights ago it didn't rain. Yesterday was a glorious day filled with sunshine and the sunset was a gift from God; a flashing of colors and light, the first of its kind in many weeks. Could it be, could it just be that we are ready to move out of this extended season of deluge and into our summer season? I may be a bit emboldened here, but I believe I am speaking for everyone on this coast that We Are Ready For It. Bring on the sun, the warmth, the humidity, the bugs...well, let's not go overboard.

The last three months have seen monsoon rains, floods, roads washed away and tourism at a virtual standstill. I have been to the US, had the US visit me and slipped an engagement ring on the finger of Kathy, the woman I will spend the rest of my life with. I have finished, except for the final editing and a few add-ons, the cookbook from La Cusinga that I have been promising my guests for the last six months. I am six days from reaching the anniversary of my 3rd year of sobriety and like everyone else down here, I am ready for the change of season.

And maybe, just maybe, this past weekend was the indicator, the advance notice, that our change is in the air. I left home on Saturday afternoon with the knowledge that I had four for dinner. Ho-hum, another four. I had enough fish cut, soup made, a jar of "Salsa de la Jungla" and part of a dessert left from earlier in the week. I wasn't much inspired by it, but I knew I needed to use it all up. In these slow times, total utilization of product is essential, though occasionally uninspiring.

I pulled into the La Cusinga driveway and as I passed Cindy she told me we were up to six. No big deal, I still had enough to cover them. I changed and when I got back to the kitchen there was Cindy again tell me we were up to eight for dinner. And then I remembered to ask her if she was factoring in the two guests who had reserved through our front office in San Isidro; "visitantes" we call them. She said she hadn't been and suddenly we were up to ten. This sudden turn of events would require some rethinking. Olga, one of my nightly helpers had been given the evening off, so I was working solo in the kitchen.

My plan to use the fish was foiled. There simply wasn't enough to cover all and in order to keep myself organized and from becoming more confused than usual, I wanted to serve the same menu to each guest. If I were a staff of two or three or four I might go for doing a choice of entrees or perhaps even more, but simplicity and clarity are essential when flying solo.

I had received my weekly allotment of two (I said business had been slow) plump organic chickens from Finca Coreotos that morning so chicken it would be. I knew I had two legs remaining in the freezer (shhh) so would braise the six legs, roast the two breasts (they're huge and four will feed 5-6 people) and divide them up among the ten guests. I had roasted tomatoes earlier in the week and had chicken stock in the freezer so that part of the menu was set. Braised chicken in a roasted tomato-basil sauce over achiote rice was the entree.

I had half a flourless chocolate cake in the refrigerator from the previous night, but that would only feed six so as I was working alone, I went to my favorite default dessert, Mandarina Pound Cake. It comes together in about five minutes and bakes in 30, so hey, piece of cake (sorry). I always accompany it with Mountain Blackberry Ice Cream and I had plenty of that in the freezer. Now I was rockin'.

Olga, bless her heart, had cleaned the entire bag of braising greens that had arrived on Thursday so I was set for one of my two vegetables. I had both broccoli and cauliflower from that morning's Feria in the reach-in, but didn't want to be messing with any extra saute pans since I would be slicing chicken breasts for the plate. I love roasted cauliflower so decided to toss large florets of both the broccoli and the cauliflower in olive oil, sea salt and black pepper for roasting. They come out caramelized and delicious and better still, don't require "a la minute" cooking.

This was coming together nicely and I was quickly into the salad course. There were small heads of organic red and green leaf lettuces from Ademar's morning delivery and a bag of nice peppery arugula; those would be the base. I had small organic tomatoes from the San Isidro Thursday Feria ripening and they would be perfect with a drizzle of the pesto I had made the day before.

I had bought a disc of locally made goat cheese from the Mennonites and wanted to pair that with some organic cucumbers delivered on Thursday. I also had some fresh palmito, so I ended up cutting the cucumber and palmito in equal size quarter moons, mixed them with strips of roasted red pepper and a small dice of garlic greens and tossed them with balsamic vinegar, mandarina juice and olive oil. The goat cheese would get sprinkled over the top after all three components of the salad were on the plate. I was nearly there.

Soup; yes I would need soup for my traditional first course of a chilled soup and it would be perfect as a starter in our new found warm weather. I had taken a small container of roasted tomato/frijole tierno soup from the freezer and since I had both the roasted tomatoes and come cooked frijoles as well, I would be able to stretch it. I put the soup and a couple of spoons each of the beans and tomatoes in a tall container and put the stick blender to them. While I was pureeing the veggies, I added a squeeze of mandarina juice for acid and blended in a stream of olive oil as well for that added suaveness. A pinch of sea salt and it was ready.

And suddenly there was Cindy again. "David, es posible para dos mas para cenar?" Could we feed two more people? We'd be up to an even dozen. And then she said he magic words, "Ellos quieren pescado". The would like to have fish. I keep a secret stash of small filets of pargo in the deep freeze and a piece serving two would be ready in no time. "Seguro, seguro", I told her, "no hay problema". And twelve it would be.

The first thing about serving four courses to 12 people by oneself, with essentially three different entrees (as I had to slice the chicken breasts and serve them differently than the legs), is to be organized; the second is to remain calm. I do have a tendency to get a teensy bit excited when I'm busy and when that happens, organization suffers. Oops, there go both needs out the window. But fortunately, Saturday night, calmness and serenity won out over the hyper-frazzle.

Once the chicken legs were in the oven with their accompaniment of white wine, roasted tomatoes and garlic and a touch of stock I knew it was going to be all right.

Just before service I poured out the twelve soups (damn I love serving cold soup) and put them into the refrigerator; Cindy would pick them up and serve them just after the guest sat. The braised chicken legs had come out of the oven looking and smelling wonderful and the four breasts were roasting at a higher heat. Against all odds, our guests came in in a perfectly staggered way. I was able to feed them two by two by two by two and then four at the end. It couldn't have worked out any better.

The salads required a bit of work as the greens needed to be dressed and placed first; followed by the wedges of sea-salted olive oiled tomatoes and their drizzle of pesto at the top of the plate. Next was the mixed salad of cucumber, hearts of palm and roasted pepper which I placed in front of the dressed greens and a crumble of goat cheese went over all.

Dishing up the chicken legs was easy. The plate got the achiote rice in the center, a small pile of braised greens (best cooked in advance anyway) on one side and a couple of florets of the roasted broccoli and cauliflower on the other. I plopped (or placed artistically, depending on your viewpoint) on top of the rice, mixed a small handful of basil in with the rich tomato-wine sauce and poured it over the chicken and rice.

The two fish plates were quite easy as I roast them to order in 7-8 minutes. By the time I needed to slice the roasted chicken breasts everyone else had been served and I could concentrate on slicing and laying out the thick juicy slices of the breast. Again, the sauce got freshly cut basil added to it, was reheated and poured over the top. Damn this was a good looking plate! And now it was time for dessert.

I had already figured out who would get the chocolate cake and who would get mandarina pound cake and had pre-cut the cakes. The plate-up was easy and the ice creams even cooperated by balancing on top of the cake. Yes. The real reward to watch as each and every plate came back nearly scraped (or licked?) clean. Yes, calmness, organization (and serenity) had won out. And better yet, it appeared that the rainy season doldrums were on their way out and we were heading into the fat part of our year; finally, a change of season. Here comes the sun...

BIG DOG, BIG RAIN

2010-11-07T15:49:00.000-08:00

I know there haven't been many food related posts here, but it has been a while since the opportunity to cook has arisen. That hardly means, however, that I am without adventures.

This is another one brought on, at least partially, by our record rainy season.

Each morning at between 5:15 and 5:30, Russell, the huge and untrained German Shepherd of whom I am in charge (?), begins to bark; a deep sonorous and resonant bark. He barks at the first things that move and continues to bark until I roust myself from bed and then go wrestle with him to get him off his chain so he can run and poop and pee. We wrestle because he becomes so excited at the prospect of being free that he begins to buck and rear like a small horse. Of course it is in no way obvious to him that this impedes the muddy path to freedom.

Thursday morning was the beginning of another day of thunderous driving rain. It had rained all night and all day the day before. The ground was saturated and swamp-like in front of the house and the walkway beneath the eaves that help to keep Russell dry was slick with mud and rain from his forays out to bark in the rain. At dawn's first bark I rose to do my unleashing duty, knowing that the more quickly I did it, the more quickly I could return to a warm bed inside and the sound of the rain outside.

I eased the door open and peered into the gray dawn and the equally gray curtain of rain and there he was, leaping up on me with muddy paws and rank doggy breath. I pushed him back and down, as I do every morning, yelling at him "down" and "sit" even though it's as futile as screaming into a vacuum. Russell knows not word one related to obedience. He is trained by his masters with a rolled up newspaper slapped into an open palm and it is the only thing to which he responds.

We began our morning grapple to find the collar and subsequently the grasping of the all too small clasp that needs to be squeezed and pulled to send him off on his morning duties. This morning, for reasons unclear, he was particularly unruly and when he completely reared up he knocked me back and off balance. I lost my footing in the pooled and muddy water on the concrete porch and fell backwards, my back hit the door just as I was twisting to try to keep my tailbone from crashing into the concrete and the door slammed shut. Shut.

As in locked out at 5:20 in the morning on a calamitously rainy day with no power and/or water.

I was wearing a pair of thin sleeping shorts and nothing else. I lay there on the cold wet of the front entrance with a huge dog panting over me and a locked door behind me. I kicked at him and swore at him. Neither of those things opened the door. I pried at it just in case, but it was clearly, firmly and absolutely locked. Thanking God that I at least have the good sense to keep my muddy shoes outside the front door, I struggled to my feet, slipped on a pair of muddy Crocs and began the slosh around the house to see if it could be broken into.

I had previously broken in through the octagonally shaped kitchen window when I had grabbed the wrong keys upon exiting in my first week at the house. But I had repaired the crack I had made and had strengthened the lock. Good work. Around the back is impenetrable as the back wall is a corrugated aluminum door on a roller, much like that of a garage or grocery store. The only possibility was the bedroom window; open but secured by a spider-web wrought iron sculpture that covered it completely. If one was to push in as hard as one could, one might almost; but no, way too small for me.

I was now soaking wet and shivering a bit in the early morning rain. It may still be Costa Rica, but when it rains for days on end, the sun never gets a chance to do its warming work. I made my way back to the front door to see if there was something, some method of breaking and entering my own house that I had overlooked. Again I pried at the doors, the windows; working at the jams and attempting to find a slim piece of something that might be used to prise that once-broken kitchen window open once again. Nothing. I made this trek in the deep mud two or three times, before giving in and giving up.

I stood outside the bedroom window, which would be my only hope. I pressed at the iron bars and gazed at the slender opening and knew that there was no way that I was going to get through there. I pushed at the chain that held the two parts of the ironwork together and knew it would never break. I needed a bolt-cutter, or, wait, a small person, a very small person. I knew that Dan and Kim, the couple across the street might just have a bolt-cutter, but for sure had a small person. They have two sons, Reese and Wyatt, five and six years old.

Because it was still shy of 6:00 AM I retired to my car, blessedly beneath a carport, laid the seat back, shivered, and repeated the Serenity Prayer to myself, over and over. At least now I had a plan; I just had to wait until a slightly more neighborly hour to put it into action. There was no electricity and there would be no lights to inform me of my neighbor's having risen to greet the day, but they do have a two year old daughter and she, naturally, gets everyone up early.

I waited as long as I could bear and then slogged across the river that our dirt road had become, letting the pounding rain pour off my body. There wasn't much to soak, but it was all soaked. I stood beneath the upper balcony where Kim and Dan's front door was and sensed (YES!) motion and the early morning sounds of a household rising. I called out, "Hola, hola". And Kim came to the front door, blinking in early morning surprise and through the haze of the recently awakened.

I briefly explained my dilemma and within a few minutes tall Dan and tiny Reese were wriggling into ponchos and rubber boots and were accompanying this nearly naked neighbor across the muddy road to the back window. I explained my plan and they nodded, each of them not quite awake and certainly not at all clear on why they were out in the rain and the mud at this time of the day. We reached the back window, Dan and I pushed it forward as far as we could and Reese slipped through easily, handily.

The only obstacle now would be Molly, my own dog. She would bark or she would hide, one or the other. I talked to her and she let young Reese through and he made his way through the darkened and unfamiliar house to the keys. But they were hung too high for him to reach, I'd forgotten how short one is when one is six. Dan and I looked at each other wondering at the delay, but then heard the sound of something being dragged across the floor. Reese had spied the tall bar stool I have and was working it to under the pegboard that held the keys. He was using a technique I am now certain he had used before to get to things that might perhaps have been intentionally hung a bit high for him. A moment or two later his pale face was at the window, thrusting the keys forward. Victory.

Dan and I sloshed around the house one last time and opened the front door. Reese and Molly both spilled out and I thanked everyone profusely. By this time it was nearly 7:15. I had been locked out for almost two hours. I thought about sleep, but instead made myself a pot of tea and began my morning routine. Afterall, I had some thanks to give.

STILL RAININ', STILL DREAMIN'

2010-11-02T17:12:00.000-07:00

A letter from the tropics...

Well, my, hasn't it been "a week" down here; quite a week.

(After I'd written this the Giants went ahead and won the World Series, we got a day and a half of sunshine and it has now been raining for 22 hours straight. Two major segments of the Costanera Highway that runs up and down the coast have fallen away and it is closed again today (or was earlier this afternoon). It has been a "rainy season" to beat all.)

Yes, there is, of course, that amazing Giants thing. I fire up my laptop and go to mlb.com where they have a program called "AT BAT" whereby one receives a computer generated image of a baseball field and a computer generated image of a batter, either left handed or right, in the appropriate uniform. The pitches appear on the screen as blue or red swooshes (for strikes and balls, silly) with their approximate location, speed and type of pitch listed along with them.

It's kind of hard to follow anything if there happens to be any action. For example if there is contact the little box on the screen says either "ball hit (out)", or "ball hit (not out)", or in some cases, "ball hit (not out/run(s))".

Now the good news is that when there is not a major storm, all of these images are accompanied by one's choice of audio feeds; it is available from the home radio station of either team. Naturally, I choose the broadcast from KNBR (no, no more KSFO with it's jingle sung in wonderfully sonorous tones), and get the Giants regular announcers, Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper, or, as they are known affectionately in the Bay Area, Kruk and Kuip (kipe). I also get the glorious crowd noise.

The bad news is when the weather is bad it cuts off the audio connection, which leads us to the second part of what has made this "a week". We have been getting supremely intense rainstorms which are washing away the mountains and the roads and causing the rivers to swell up over their banks to flood out farm and family.

FromThursday morning until Friday afternoon we got 30 inches of rain in 36 hours. And the rain is so loud that it is impossible to hear music, the audio broadcast of the game (when it does come through) or someone talking to you on the telephone. The front yard here at Uli's is a swamp and on Thursday night, the laundry room (attached to the house but a couple of inches lower than the threshold of the front door) was three inches deep in water.

The small bridge that crosses one of the many rivers about five miles north of Uvita finally gave up the ghost and became one with the river yesterday morning, shutting down the highway for the rest of the day and until around 8 this morning. It has since been fortified with stone from underneath and one lane is open, but another good rain will wipe it out again. 15 kilometers south of us, just above Ojochal, where I used to live, the dirt has been mostly washed out from under a portion of the highway and all that remains of the outside half of either lane is a thin layer of asphalt.

I suppose I don't need to point out (but still will) that the road remains open, because this is Costa Rica, but one can only hope people are approaching it with some degree of trepidation. There is a huge amount of semi-truck traffic between the Northern part of the country and Panama, and this is their major artery. I am presuming that shortly one of them will crack off the remaining parts of unsupported road top and the truck will tumble off the road. That should be fun.

Thursday I drove over the mountain to the Feria and although I left in a time of no rain, by the time I got to Dominical I had passed through four spots where the water was over the tires. If I hadn't cracked off one of my remaining original crowns and teeth, and had a dentist appointment in San Isidro I would have turned around and gone back home. But coming back home was when the real adventure began. The drive back down the mountain was treacherous, but as I came around a bend in the road, almost back to the coast, traffic was backed up in front of me. "Oh shit", I thought, "this just can't be good".

I got out of the car in the driving rain and walked up about 15 cars to have a look. Sure enough a huge portion of the hillside had slid and covered both lanes of the road just 1 kilometer out of Dominical. And it was a huge slide. There was no way it was going to be moved anytime soon and no way anyone was getting through for a while. I ran back to the car, turned around before the oncoming traffic got too thick and covered both lanes, and headed back over the mountain to San Isidro once again.

I gassed up in San Isidro and then, trusting my instincts and what I'd seen, I headed south down the Pan-American highway to take the really long way home. It is 48 K south to Buenos Aires and then another 50 K northeast to Palmar Norte. The road winds along a river and passes by all the Del Monte holdings. Lots of pineapples. Palmar Norte is at the bottom tip of the Costanera, the highway that runs from Dominical through Uvita and Ojochal. It is another 40 K from Palmar Norte to Uvita. The entire time I was making the drive I was wondering if I had been too impetuous; whether perhaps I should have waited.

As I was pulling into the La Cusinga driveway after just over two and a half hours on the road I got a phone call from the La Cusinga office wondering where I was and if I was okay. It seems that I had made the right choice (and gotten out just in time); the road was shut from Dominical to San Isidro and there were slides in several places. The road wasn't cleared until sometime after dark and the people who had elected to stay and wait it out had sat in their cars in a driving rainstorm for nearly seven hours. It is a glamorous life here...

Last night, because of the bridge closure just to the north of us, we inherited a small wedding party. They had booked a ceremony and dinner at Costa Paraiso, just down from Dominical, for their tiny (13 people) wedding and couldn't get to it. We were happy to take them and their business, so I had an unexpected 13 for dinner last night. Where the Lord closes a door he opens a window or something like that.

On a different and much happier subject, Kathy arrives in Costa Rica late the night of the 10th and after she spends some time with her good friends Terry and John, I will drive up to Jaco (accent "o") on Saturday the 13th to fetch her and bring her back here. I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!

So there you have it, all the news that fits. The skies are darkening over and I'm kind of glad that the bad roads have kept guests from the Lodge today and that I get to stay home and "watch" the Giants on the computer.

peace, love and serenity

chefdave

RAINY SEASON BLUES (and greens and flowing browns and reds)

2010-10-18T09:57:00.001-07:00

Mid October; well not exactly, but close enough; we've already crossed the halfway point of the month, and we are nowhere near the end of what has been a particularly heavy rainy season. According to some study done somewhere, we have received nearly 70% more rain this year than is normal (although, this being Costa Rica, normal is a bit of a nebulous concept). The fact of the matter is, however, that there is mud everywhere.

What I can tell you about it from my personal experience is that the front area of Casa de Uli, where I am now house sitting, turns into a lake, a marsh and a bog; pretty much in that order each time we get one our almost daily downpours. It makes the trip from the outlying garage to the front of the house an unpleasantly slippery, sloshy and muddy journey and is particularly memorable at night when I get home from work. I remember Uli's parting words being, "I wanted to put down a load of gravel there, but didn't get to it."

This is the time of the year when my feet never seem to get clean; you know, really clean. I suppose I could wear shoes that had ties at the tops, to keep the mud and the ooze from squeezing in, but that would require my tying the laces which is entirely out of character for me. I trudge through the sludge in my Chaco flipflops for everyday wear and my Keen's for hiking and walking the dogs. Yes, the mud slides in, but I don't have to go to all that work to affix these footwear favorites to my feet. And the added advantage is that I can just hose the mud off my chosen footwear. Sooner or later, even those in sensible shoes will step into or through a puddle deep enough to come in over the top and then one must suffer wet, gritty and muddy socks. Ick.

I guess, also, I could do what most of the Tico trabajadores do and wear shin high rubber boots, but have you ever smelled your feet after you've taken them out of rubber boots? It's enough to make you want to slip on your flipflops and walk through the mud just to get the odor out. There are a pair of Uli's rubber boots here, shiny and new, but his feet are also substantially larger than mine and I definitely don't need the blisters that would be incurred by even a short trek in those floppy boats. And there is also the cultural faux pas of looking like a gringo wannebe when you show up in town with a pair of practically new shiny rubber boots on.

Business? What business? All of Uvita is a ghost town except for us year-round residents and the action at La Cusinga is exactly the same. Every now and then one sees a couple of Euro-kid backpackers hop off the bus staggering under the weight of their giant designer backs. They look around, blink and head off to the nearest hostel. At La Cusinga our guests are made up of those to whom we owe favors or to those for whom we are extending a favor.

Last week we had seven young French guests ("what do you mean we cannot eat at 10:00? Sacre bleu!") who huddled on the upper deck in their ponchos and chainsmoked Costa Rican Marlboros. This week we have guests from a tourist agency who are bringing prospective clients from other agencies through, the off season being the only time to be able to check out prospective recommendations. Later in the week we are hosting a couple who are part of a group building a GPS system for the waterways and mountains of this area. This is a gratis stay and they have told us we can just feed them "rice and beans". Right.

Buying food to serve (and keep fresh) for this kind of business represents a serious challenge to my chefly abilities. Potatoes, onions, hardy green beans, even broccoli and cauliflower are no problem. The interesting veggies; my precious lettuces, greens for braising, long beans and others of that fragile nature are harder to protect. We rely on turnover and our vendors rely on our being able to buy in slightly larger quantities than you might for your home.

This buying pattern doesn't make me happy and it sure doesn't make my farmers happy. And as seasonality and bad luck would have it, this is a time of the year that so many of the rare and exotic come into season in the raised beds at Diamante Organico. Each week poor beleagured Marjorie calls me and I have to tell her that I can only take a kilo of this, two bunches of that, and fruit ordered by the individual quantity, rather than bags and bags of her organic goodies.

I have to be careful to keep enough food around for surprise local guests of whom I have had few in the last couple of weeks, but not enough so that it rots and turns to compost in the refrigerator. And you thought you had it tough.

Am I freezing fish? Why yes I am. I portion it and freeze it as deep and as fast as I possibly can.

And I would challenge you to be able to tell me that it's been frozen after I'm done doing my magic to it. But still; it is frozen and if and when anyone asks me, I look them right in the eye and then I look away and say, "yes, er, yes it is frozen; that is, no, it's not fresh". Damn do I hate to have to do that.

So come on October, kick it over into November and then we've only got one more (long and wet) month to go. December will magically bring the sun, it will bring the guests and it will bring loads and loads of fresh veggies and fish every single day. Pura vida. Chef Dave.

WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO

2010-10-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO

I returned to La Cusinga in January, 2009 with a dream in mind. I wanted to create a cuisine that would bridge the gap between what La Cusinga offered their guests physically and spiritually, and what they were putting in their bodies when they ate here. Just as La Cusinga represents a sustainable form of eco-tourism, I wanted to offer a cuisine that reflected that same sustainability. I was on a mission to show not just our guests, but also the people of this community that it was possible to create delicious, serious, mostly organic food using entirely local ingredients.

I had in mind a vision that would support local farmers, fishermen and food artisans and one that would create a new cuisine of coastal Costa Rica. I visit the markets each week to talk with growers and to develop the relationships that will be mutually beneficial as Costa Rica experiences its rapid growth on an international level. Dairy farmers, cheesemakers, rice farmers, ceramic artists, vanilla growers and cacao farmers; all are included in this vision.

I am often asked if I cook entirely locally and my answer, somewhat surprised, is always, “Yes, of course, why wouldn’t I?” This should be every Chef’s dream, to be able to provide the food for his guests with ingredients grown less than an hour away. Between the produce we grow here at the Lodge, the lovely organics I am able to buy from my loyal and local farmers, and the fish that come from the ocean I can see from my kitchen, we have created a cuisine here at La Cusinga that is original and unique to this area.

What we are doing is by no means unique internationally; after all the French have been using this model for years and the United States is home to a huge “farm to table” sensibility. But here in Costa Rica our world class fish and produce have been pushed to the side in an effort to create a more homogenous cuisine for tourists. I don’t believe we have to do that and I believe that the ingredients I get here at tiny La Cusinga rival those of any kitchen in the world.

I am proud of the food we serve at La Cusinga. I am proud that organic growers here have risen to the challenge of producing top flight produce and I am proud to be able to go right to the boats where our fish are caught. But mostly I am proud to be able to put food on our tables here that honors and respects the hard work of John and Bella, of Geinier and Henry and of all the people who make La Cusinga the world class Eco-Lodge that it is.

FRIJOLES TIERNOS

2010-10-04T12:06:00.000-07:00

FRIJOLES TIERNOS

I must confess to being a bean lover and nothing is better, to me, than using a bean fresh, that would normally be dried. In the States, these are called “shelling beans” and they are taken right out of the pods and sold fresh. They are available at the Feria in San Isidro and during the season, there may be four or five types available.

The joy of these beans is that they cook in 45 minutes or less, cutting at least two hours out of the time on the stove. The real pleasure of them though, is the flavor and texture. These fresh beans have a richness, a creaminess and almost a “meatiness” when cooked that is unsurpassed.

When I see them at the Feria, they are usually laid out in bins, with a few kilos bagged up ready for sale. They are plumper and more colorful than their dried counterparts and there is a sheen to them, as if they have a healthy glow. The colors range from a pale pink to a mottled variegated pink and white to faint shades of green and yellow. Among my favorites are the heirloom variety, “Cua” which is a yellow-brown color, a bit more rounded than elongated with a deep almost nutty flavor.

I cook these beans much like I cook dried beans (except for a substantially smaller amount of time) and find that it’s best to start with a sauté of whichever vegetables you choose and the fat and meat from whatever pork product you like to flavor them. Sauteeing the vegetables gives them a greater depth of flavor that just adding them and letting them boil. For additional flavor I like to add a couple of spoons of of roasted tomatoes, or a handful of roasted pepper strips. You can of course, cook these beans in a purely vegetarian style, but they don’t call it “Pork and Beans” for nothing.

FRIJOLES TIERNOS

1 Large Yellow Onion, cut in ½” dice;

6 Cloves of Garlic, minced;

1 Carrot, cut in ¼” dice;

1 Jalapeno Chile (optional), cut in fine dice;

6 Strips of Bacon, or 1 Smoked Sausage (hot or mild), cut in cubes; or, 2-3 Smoked Pork Chops (it is quite tempting to use a combination of the three);

1 Ounce Light Cooking Oil;

1 Heaping TBS of “Jambalaya Spice Mix”

3 Fresh Thyme Sprigs (or ½ Tsp Dried Thyme Leaves);

4 Bay Leaves

Add the oil and pork products to a heavy pot and bring up to a good heat. If you are using bacon, try to get some color on it. Stir frequently and add the vegetables and the Spice Mix. Stir often, scraping up the spice mix if it should stick to the bottom of the pot.

Add the beans and herbs (and tomatoes and/or peppers, if you like) and cover by 2 inches with water. Bring the pot of beans to a boil and then reduce the heat until the liquid is just bubbling. Allow to cook for 15 minutes and then check the level of the liquid. It is best if it remains about an inch above the beans. Try not to let the beans cook at too high a heat or they will break up and not remain whole. It is important to keep the beans in enough liquid while they cook, but after about 30 minutes, as they get closer to being done, let the liquid cook down until it is just even with the beans. The beans are done when you can just squish them between your fingers. Remember that they will keep cooking as they cool.

Frijoles Tiernos are great served alongside grilled fish or meat, sausages, or along with either a highly seasoned and flavored rice dish for an upscale version of “gallo pinto”.

TRAVELING CHEF, Part 2

2010-09-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

Onward to Oregon!

In the week I've been here the climate has gone from lovely and bright "end of summer" skies, with temps in the low 70's, to cold, windy and downright blustery. It would seem that they take the changing of season both literally and seriously here.

I flew into Portland on a Thursday and had an amazing reunion with Kathy, who I had been Skyping with, but hadn't seen in 42 years. She drove me south of of Portland and down into the N. Central farm country and guided us expertly to our first country farm stand. I was craving corn, corn and more corn, but the late season bounty in this part of the world had me filling bag after bag with produce long out of season in the rest of the country. I couldn't believe my good fortune at finding luscious ripe peaches and my favorites, nectarines. We also loaded up on all three of the berry brothers; black, rasp and blue.

My first night here in Oregon I was presented with a local organic chicken and my choice of vegetables from the garden; my kind of challenge. I stuffed the chicken with stems of lemon-oregano from the garden along with a couple of lemon halves, surrounded it with small garden fresh onions, carrots, whole garlic cloves and potatoes and fired that baby in the oven. I basted it with a mix of lemon juice, olive oil and butter and it emerged from the hot oven a lovely and crisp burnished gold. We added some local green beans (from our earlier stop) sauteed with mushrooms and topped with toasted pine nuts, and of course a couple of ears of sweet local corn. I made a quickie sauce out of the pan drippings and it was country eating at its finest.

Sunday we made the drive out to the coast along the Alsea River and it was a gorgeous pre-Fall day. The maples were turning color, the river was flowing and the road from Corvallis to the coast winds through some dense and verdant forest. We had hoped for fresh Dungeness crab, whole and kicking, but settled for a bag of fresh, local crab meat instead.

I smashed up oyster crackers and along with an herbed mayonnaise that I'd concocted at Kathy's house, lightly bound the crabmeat into six fat crab cakes. I pan fried them and we topped them with more of the herbed mayo and served them with roasted potatoes and a salad of baby spinaches, romaine and peppery radishes, also from the garden. The crabcakes came out perfectly; crisp, light and tasting "oh so crabby".

The following morning we hit the Yachats beach and strolled along, peering into the tide pools while watching two maniacs head out into the freezing surf in their bathing suits. It always amazes me to remember that this is the same ocean I see every day in Costa Rica. It seems so different in color, smell and even in its temperament. The ocean in Oregon is percussive, slamming and sailing into the coast with a power and fury we rarely see way down the coast.

We were all about seafood after the walk so went to a funky chic local spot called appropriately enough, The Drift Inn. Kathy went for more crab in a very nice salad with avocado, crisp romaine and artichoke hearts and I had local halibut done up in crisp breading served with herbed handcut french fries in a great regional take on fish and chips.

That night we went out to see my sister Nancy and her husband Mark's lovely house along the Yachats River and luckily ran into a lovely large hunk of local salmon; a big filet weighing in at at least three pounds. Mark had fired up the grill and I made a glaze for the salmon out of seeded dijon mustard, honey and tamari. My sister had snipped green beans from her garden the way our mom used to when we were small and she sauteed them the same way we had eaten them years ago, with chunks of bacon (although I think this bacon may have had a bit more of a pedigree than Mom's). Mark had made focaccia that he topped with thin slices of homegrown onion and yellow crookneck squash and put back in the oven until the veggies were just cooked.

The fish came off the grill, full of that rich salmon smell that I have missed in the tropics. I love salmon and my mouth was drooling from the aromatics coming off the little Weber. We plated salmon chunks cut from the roast, the bacon-y green beans and wedges of focaccia and we nearly ran to the table. Not much was said for the first five minutes or so, which is always a good sign. The meal was perfect and I got a serious salmon fix.

Sadly, the following day was the journey back to reality, but we made a stop in Eugene at the 5th St. Market and a great bistro called Marche, for the type of food I crave down in Central America. I stared off with half a dozen Totten Bay oysters on the half shell, briny and crisp tasting; almost like falling face down in the chilly ocean. We shared a salad of Little Gem lettuces tossed with an "anchoide" dressing (read, Caesar), thin shards of good Parmesan and garlicky thin crostini along with a BLT with applesmoked bacon, braised pork belly and heirloom tomatoes. We finished the meal with a classic vanilla bean creme brulee. It was a perfect "American Bistro" meal.

We came back to steaks from beef raised by Kathy's neighbors one night and a pot of lentils cooked with smoked ham hocks the next. Tonight will be braised organic chicken thighs in a sauce of roasted garden tomatoes and tomorrow I am, more than grudgingly, in the skies back to Austin and then Costa Rica. I do, however, have the ever-growing Austin Farmer's Market to look forward to; lots of fall vegetables and seriously tasty goodies from my friend Jesse Griffith and his Dai Due butcher shop. There will be at least one more epic feast at my sister Barbara's house in Austin. And it is starting to get just a bit chilly here for my wardrobe, it's time to admit. I've got to get back to where flip-flops, shorts and a loose shirt are the norm, if not slightly overdressed.

Traveling Chef

2010-09-22T11:36:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the Great Pacific Northwest where they look at you funny if you wear shorts and flipflops in the 60 degree weather; go figure...

I hit Austin on a Monday and walked out of an air conditioned airport into 92 degree heat. Ah, welcome to Texas. My sister, Barbara, picked me up and I was greeted at her house by her husband Pete and a 32 ounce Porterhouse steak. Ah yes, welcome to Texas, yet again. We grilled the steak and paired it with corn on the cob (oh, how I miss corn on the cob!!) and a big green salad; such a nice way to get into town.

Tuesday was all about running all the errands doing things I cannot possibly do in Costa Rica. First and foremost was the visit to the Genius Bar at the Apple store to get this baby worked on. Sitting outside in the humidity and heat in Costa Rica, coupled with being attacked by the greasy fingers of the chef were not doing the keyboard any good at all. From there it was on the camera store (so long, faithful Canon), Best Buy for more computer stuff, the Good Will for Costa Rican dress shirts (4 short sleeved dress shirts for $20) and every book store and drug store in between.

That evening we were planning on going to Flipnoticks, a tiny club down near Barton Springs, to see and hear the incomparable Erik Hokkanen and his quartet, so dinner was to be convenient, but naturally, delicious. Barbara pointed me in the direction of a new cheese store, Antonelli's that had popped up in her (and my old) neighborhood, so I strolled over to check it out, and what a find!

I slipped in through the door and looked down the long narrow room at a cheese counter that nearly took up the entire length. I was the only one in the store and Eric, behind the counter and I struck up an immediate rapport. I was asking all the right questions and he had some good answers. John Antonelli, the owner, came over and soon I was regaling them with stories of cooking in Costa Rica while they plied me with taste after taste of cheese.

I ended up with a lovely and herbaceous semi-hard cheese from Vermont that reminded me of a St. Nectaire, two half wheels of great double cremes from Cowgirl Creamery in Pt. Reyes, a tangy blue from Oregons Rogue River and a chunk of delicious grainy, minerally English Farmhouse Cheddar from Quicke. And around the corner from the cheeses was the charcuterie and olives. I picked up a nice spicy hard sausage made by an Italian family who have settled in Utah to raise pigs and make pork products and a wonderfully thyme-scented cured pork loin sliced thinly like speck. A tub each of Lucques and Castelveltrano olives completed my trip and I went out the after leaving website and blog addresses. It is probably a good thing that Antonelli's wasn't there when I lived there or I'd be fatter and poorer than I already am.

Our "light" repast was set off by a tangy arugula and organic tomato salad and a couple of loaves of Brea Bakery baguette. Thus fortified we headed out into the warm night to jam ourselves into the tiny room at Flipnotics to hear Mr. Hokkanen work his magic. He is a genius of a fiddle player and incorporates the Stephane Grapelli gypsy style into his repertoire along with a lot of Western Swing. But it isn't until he puts down the fiddle and straps on his candy apple red Fender and starts to play his own take on surf and rockabilly that the place gets rockin'. He has the deranged grin of a true savant as his fingers fly over the strings and his background on the violin makes his approach to his guitar playing totally unique. The man is or should be a national treasure.

The next day was more errand running, but ended up at Austin's newest "see and be seen", tough reservation restaurant, Uchiko. Uchiko is owned by the same folks who own the nationally acclaimed Uchi and shares the same culinary destinations; truly fresh fish in Asian directed presentations. One side of the menu is all sushi and sashimi (and thank God there are no stupid show off rolls) and the other side has three headings, Cold, Hot and Grill.

The room is long, large and loud and it seemed as if everyone there was celebrating something and that they all knew each other some way or another. Despite the truly annoying offering of the waiter's name by both the host and the waiter himself (oh how I hate that, "And Tim will be your waiter tonight"; ugh), the service was exemplary and quite helpful. We started off with grilled (!) edamame and the best (ever) fried eggplant, cut in ultra-thin discs, I've ever had. The eggplant was sauced with a homemade "Sri racha" type sauce that was excellent.

This is one of those "order a bunch of plates for the table" places where the waiter recommends how many you'll need if you want enough to eat. We opted for six, two from the sushi/sashimi side and the others from the the more complete plates in the the Hot/etc, columns. The first plate was probably the most disappointing of the evening, a hamachi roll with a bland lemon mayonnaise on one side of the plate and some sweet goopy, plum-like sauce on the other. Fortunately, the next plate, a sashimi of fresh white anchovies with the tiniest cherry tomatoes you've ever seen, shavings of bottargo (dried tuna roe) and micro basil leaves was amazing and the pedestrian roll was soon forgotten.

From the other side we ordered and got (in succession): Roasted squid with Reisling pressed celery, baby chard and marinated apples; Norwegian mackerel with pickled bluefoot mushrooms and huckleberries (don't laugh, this was a great dish and the mackerel was outstanding); Rabbit confit with celery chips, poached egg and a madras curry sauce; and a "hot pot" style dish of two kinds of Asian mushrooms, bonito flakes, roasted onions and another poached egg. The "hot pot" was great and the rabbit was not. This is the only area our waiter fell down in; the two dishes should not have been served, one after the other, or he might have steered us in a different direction. The "hot pot" was umami at its finest.

We actually were nearly full after all this, despite the plates not being huge, and were waffling on dessert when "Tim" told us that since our first courses had been delayed that the house would buy us dessert. We opted for a celebration of sweet corn that included a sweet corn sorbet, a gelatinous sweetened polenta-like bar, toasted and caramelized corn meal and a tall architectural cookie made of pressed sweetened corn flakes; dots of tart lemon gel surrounded the corn creations. It was an odd dessert, but if one was agile enough with the fork to catch a bit of every component in one bite, the logic of the preparations came through.

It was an interesting and creative meal; thought provoking, which to me is good. We had enough time between courses to discuss them at great length and I like that when I eat.

The next day was a morning flight to Portland and pretty radical shift in climates. More about the trip out to the coast and the Pacific Northwest bounty soon...

lT'S ALL lN THE PANTS

2010-08-29T14:21:00.000-07:00

lT'S ALL lN THE PANTS

Last night at dinner l approached the table of some guests (friends of mine as it turned out) to ask them, as is typical for me, how everything was. Fortunately, the food was good and they were happy, but then my friend John pointed to my chalk-striped black chef shorts and said, laughing, "And do those shorts make the food taste better?"

l was caught a bit by surprise, something that happens to me much more often in places other than my own dining room, but recovered quickly enough to show him the "Chefwear" logo that appears on the right front pocket of these and any other pants made by Chefwear. This is hardly a plug for Chefwear, or Kitchen Collection, or even Birkenstock, for that matter, all of whose products l wear to cook in, but more an expression of wonderment that people are amused that those of us in my industry have our own work clothes.

We laughed about it at John's table and then he pointed to the fork logo on the brand tag of my shirt and we laughed again. l made a joke about how unprofessional it would appear for me to be cooking in my own clothes, or perhaps, board shorts and a raggedy T-shirt, and how that might create somewhat of a mistrust of the seriousness of my mission; we all shared a chuckle and they went back to eating.

A couple of days before that, my girlfriend, upon seeing another pair of striped chef's shorts, had remarked that l looked like l should be refereeing a soccer match. And just a day or two before that l had been in a meeting when the person next to me, seeing the Chefwear logo on my shorts had burst into laughter and then said, "Oh, how cute, Chefwear, did someone make those for you?" l wandered back into my kitchen, after answering John, but the question plagued my mind as to why it would seem so odd and/or humorous to people that we kitchen workers would have clothing specific to our industry.

Forty years ago, when l first got serious about cooking, one was asked one's jacket size and pants size upon taking a new job. This was because restaurants used to supply their cooks with the work clothes of the trade. A linen company would deliver, along with the tablecloths and napkins, racks of cook's clothing, on hangers, and separated by size; checked pants and white starched double breasted jackets. A lot of them even stenciled your name on the sizing label on the outside of the pants pocket. Yes, really.

Was l ever grateful to find that out. Previously l had worked for steak houses that gave you a logo shirt and you wore your own pants. And by the end of the shift your favorite or even less than favorite Levis were coated with a layer of grease, and by the end of two or three days they were no longer your favorite Levis. Now, in my new attire, no matter how greasy l got, at the end of my shift l could drop my dirty clothes into a linen hamper and forget about them. Yes, l still had to slide my greasy smelly body into my own clothes for the remainder of my day, but at least l hadn't worked in them. l wore shorts home a lot and some of the cooks would simply wear the next shift's pants home and back in the next day.

Naturally their were glitches; days when l wore someone else's chef's coat, snatched furtively from a hanger, and days when l wore pants that were either impossible to bend over in, or were cuffed three times at my ankles. But still, the "mud and the blood and the beer" as we used to say, were absorbed by someone else's clothes. And l liked that a lot.

Somewhere along the line, probably as early as the late 70's, but to the public's perception, more like the early to mid-80's, restaurants began to change. People's ideas about restaurants and food began to change as well. And accordingly the people working in restaurants began to change. For one thing, someone who pursued a career in the food industry was no longer consider a pariah, or a certified loser, as had been the case in my early days.

The older men l'd worked with, the ones with military kitchen and country club backgrounds; the ones who'd looked at me in derision at my lack of experience, were now gone; retired, moved along to the next place or dead. The restaurant "lifers", among whom l now considered myself, were disappearing. Dinosaurs, my few remaining cohorts and l called ourselves.

A newer type of cook was emerging. For some reason working in a restaurant became "hip" and leaving one's graduate studies to become a cook/chef was not at all unheard of. And these new cooks didn't take at all to the old style industrial looking cook's clothes. l started seeing a whole lot of my new kitchen mates coming to work in and then working in their jeans.

And much to my dismay, once restaurants saw this, they began, in a cost cutting effort, to stop supplying their cooks with the black and white houndstooth checks of my youth. They couldn't get away with discontinuing the jackets, as the starched white look was too classic, but the pants were fast disappearing. And in their place were the jeans and cords that the cooks would come to work in (it was a good thing more than a few pair of cooks checks had made it home with me).

But something new was happening and l'll have my hand shoved in a hot french fryer if l can remember when it began, but suddenly baggy chef's pants with elastic waistbands began showing up in kitchens. lt seems that a woman named Rochelle Huppin (of course, it had to be a woman) had not liked the old stodgy and starchy uniform she'd been issued at the Culinary lnstitute of America (and damn, they even had cooking Academys now) and had designed and sewn her own pants.

As if overnight, Rochelle's pants (so to speak) were in every kitchen in America that mattered. They were comfortable, they were cool, in more ways that one and they pushed the envelope of design and color. Yes, the came in the same old houndstooth, but NOBODY wore those. They also came in solids, wild and colorful patterns with food themes, and they came in stripes. Every kitchen had two, three, four cooks sporting different and wildly colorful pants.

America had a new industry. Sales of cookware, expensive knives and cookbooks soared. Chefwear spawned a wide array of imitators, some good, some bad, but as near as l can tell, most still in business. Chef's were on TV wearing logo wear. Housewives could suddenly quote Bobby Flay recipes and had monogrammed chef's jackets hanging in their kitchens next to their All Clad pan sets.

So this is in part why Chef Dave is in the jungle wearing striped Chef Wear kitchen shorts. Consider them the Carhardt or Ben Davis of my profession and please remember, best of all, l don't have to cook in my street clothes.

SAD NEWS/BAD NEWS

2010-08-24T08:36:00.000-07:00

SAD NEWS/BAD NEWS

On an unpleasant and confusing subject, the news reached us just over a week ago that Ben Vaughn's assailant, the man who bludgeoned him beyond recognition, kicked him repeatedly once he was on the ground and then left him for dead, has been released from custody. lt seems that the Costa Rican judicial system calls for a hearing at the end of a 90 incarceration to re-assess the sentencing of the accused. At this hearing, if there are no objections and if there is someone to assume responsibility for the accused, they can be set free.

One would logically presume, and in this case, desperately hope, that the victim and his attorney would be present to present their case and lodge their protests against the prospective release of the accused. Oddly, and frighteningly, Ben Vaughn and his attorney Randall Vargas, were never informed of the date of the hearing, although the brother of the accused was notified in sufficient time to be able to travel here from the US where he lives, and vouchsafe for his soon to be freed brother.

The ramifications of this nose thumbing at justice are huge and ugly. The first horrifying thought is that the assailant, a man with a long record of violent crime is back on the streets with a grudge. Since his release there has already been a theft at Ben's property. lt is impossible to imagine the fear and apprehension in the minds of Ben and Natalie in the face of this constant threat to their safety.

The second, and while less threatening, but equally horrible aspect of this is the complete collapse of any system in this country that protects the victims of violent crime. Ben Vaughn is a man who has believed staunchly, through his slow recovery from an attack that has changed his life, that justice would be served. He dragged his beaten and traumatized body to hearings and depositions just days after his release from lntensive Care so that the criminal justice system here would have the information it needed to perform its duties. And for Ben, for any of us, to discover through word of mouth, with NO notification of a hearing, that his attacker is back on the streets, is the worst kind of slap in the face.

How is he, how are any of us in Costa Rica to be protected from violent crime, when the legal system has no control over the attacker and no respect for the victims?

CHlCKEN POOP/LEG MAN

2010-08-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

These are my newest articles for the September issue of Dominical Days

CHICKEN POOP

I’m going to share a secret with you. You can get chicken here in Costa Rica that has flavor. Yes, you can buy chicken that is not laced with hormones and chemicals, too. You just have to know where to go, and I’m here to tell you.

There are two companies that have a stranglehold on the poultry business in Costa Rica and I’m sure you, like me, have at one time or another found yourself behind one of their trucks touting the freshness of their poor tortured chickens. Those chickens may have, at some time in their miserable lives been fresh, but by the time they reach you, they are all cottony flavorless breast meat and scrawny legs and thighs.

Chickens that are mass produced to meet the demand of a busy market are forcefed and hormone primed so that the can be rushed to you in just over three weeks. This is so unnatural as to be horrifying.

A happy, grainfed chicken should take somewhere between six and eight weeks to reach a size suitable for cooking and also to develop a flavor and firmness brought on by not being penned. This is not nearly fast enough for a busy chicken “production plant” that is more concerned with stocking freezers than producing good-tasting healthy chickens.

Fortunately for those of us who are passionate about serving quality ingredients to our families and friends I have found a source for organically raised free range chickens. I am now pre-ordering and buying beautiful healthy delicious chickens through Ademar and Mauren who are at both the Uvita and San Isidro Ferias, and so can you.

And if you don’t think I’m serious about this, I visited the two of them at their finca so I could personally witness what the chickens ate and how they lived. These birds get the Chef Dave stamp of approval for health and flavor.

LEG MAN

I am a leg man. Give me a chicken and I immediately begin to scheme on a way to serve the legs; umm, love that thigh. I used to have a girlfriend who would only eat the white meat of the chicken and it drove me crazy so I devised a cooking method that even she liked.

The best way to cook a chicken leg, to my thinking, is to braise it. Yes, crisp the skin, flip it over, splash in some wine and stock and pop it in the oven for about 45 minutes until it is meltingly tender. I have won over numerous “white meat only” people with this recipe. When served over mashed potatoes, risotto, or a good rice, this is tender and delicious.

Braised Chicken Legs

Preheat oven to 400

4 Full Chicken Legs (thigh and drumstick);

½ Cup Dry White or Red Wine;

1/2 Cup Chicken Stock or broth;

3 Cloves Garlic, chopped;

1 Cup Chopped Tomatoes (or better yet, home roasted tomatoes)

Salt and pepper the chicken legs, dust them with flour and crisp them in a bit of cooking oil, skin side down in a sauté pan you can put in the oven. Take them out when the skin is crisp and pour out the oil. Return the pan to the flame and add the garlic. Pour in the wine and allow to reduce by half. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add the tomatoes and the chicken legs, letting them settle into the liquid. Put the pan in the oven and cook for 45 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and remove the legs from the pan. Pour the liquid into something that can be easily skimmed and remove the fat from the top. To serve, return the chicken and the sauce to the pan and put them back in the oven for ten minutes.

TWO COUPLES/TWO FINCAS

2010-07-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

TWO COUPLES/TWO FINCAS

I would like to use this opportunity to both appreciate and introduce you to the two couples that do the hard work that brings me the organic produce I value so highly. Mauren Jimenez and Ademar Varela, who own and run Los Coreotos, their own certified organic finca, are one couple and Marjorie Cerdes Mora and Bolivar Cortes Gomez, the operators of Diamante Organico are the other. These two couples, between them, supply me with 90% of the produce (all organic) that I put on my plates. In each family both partners share the workload, and interestingly, on both farms, the women handle the ordering, the paperwork and the bulk of the communication.

I have written here at great length about my trips over the hill and down into El Valle de San Isidro to visit the Thursday Feria in Perez Zeladon. The market there is immense and the beautiful produce is a multi-colored reflection of the bounty the valley has to offer. My visits there, however, are not of the onions and carrots, garlic and potatoes variety; the nuts and bolts of cooking, if you will. The Thursday Feria is where I hunt down the newly seasonal, the small batches and special growths, the perfectly ripe tomatoes and the handpicked watercress that screams “use me today”. I should note that there was no watercress yesterday, it was eaten by a tapir.

The real workload and major part of my tiny supply chain comes, however, from Los Coreotos and Diamante Organico.

I first met Mauren and Ademar at the Perez Feria a year and a half ago. My boss, Geinier Guzman, introduced me to them on my first day back at the market after a long absence and suggested that if I really wanted to go all organic that they were a good place to start. They had a table in the line of tables in the back corner of the football field sized platform and Mauren wore the green blouse that showed that she was selling “certified organic”. Geinier introduced me to a couple in their early 40’s who were a bit “Tico shy” at meeting a gringo, but I pulled out my somewhat rusty Spanish and we were off.

Mauren is slender with tousled curly black hair and the patient but world weary look of someone who has raised three children while partnering in a small self-sufficient farm. It appears that sleep is somewhere down the list of her priorities, but she is warm and open and we have become good friends. Ademar is the muscle, the physical part of the farming and he looks the part. He is short and strong with a dark tan, a firm grip and and ever present white straw cowboy hat perched on his head. I am so immensely grateful that we all hit it off from day one.

My buying history with Los Coreotos began with me making one buy from them at the Thursday Feria in Perez Zeladon and then another at the Saturday Feria in Uvita. At that time La Cusing was buying our "nuts and bolts" from a local non-organic vendor. I wasn't happy with that arrangement, nor the quality of his goods and I wanted a change. It became clear over time (and as our business increased) that we would need a delivery early in the week and we struggled with how to put that together. Los Coreotos is above the San Isidro Valley and it is a long trek to the coast for Ademar to service just one account.

In February of this year Mauren and Ademar courageously pooled resources with a local seafood vendor and opened a small retail outlet here in Uvita. This was great news to me, but sadly, community support was tentative at best. Signage was bad and our local gringos went on buying produce and frozen fish from far away at La Corona and the BM as they had in the past. But what this did do was open the door for Mauren and Ademar to develop a small produce distribution network here along the coast.

They say that when a door shuts a window opens, and suddenly I was able to get not only my specialty produce from Los Coroetos, but also to have them pick up and deliver the potatoes, onions, carrots and garlic that we need on an ongoing basis. Now I get three deliveries a week and we're all happy. Additionally, Mauren and Ademar have begun to participate in yet another Feria further south in Ojochal and their business is good, but not doing much for Mauren's world weary smile.

My introduction to Marjorie and Bolivar at Diamante Organico came in a much more roundabout way. Diamante is owned by Linn Aosjia, a vibrant woman with spectacular blue eyes who split her time between farms in California and the San Salvador valley, between the coast and Perez Zeladon. Ironically, I had met Linn during my riotous days at the Lookout Hotel in Ojochal and had even catered the week long party that was her wedding in Spring of 2006.

We had made phone contact and had circled each other a bit warily, as our previous relationship had had it's ups and downs. We had, however, each been through a few changes (perhaps a bit more significant on my part) and our first meeting was classically defined by her showing up at my kitchen entrance for her first delivery with the Grateful Dead singing "when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door" from my iTunes. We had a good laugh about the irony of that and the ice was broken. And better yet, the produce she brought me was nothing short of awesome, a word I use infrequently.

Everything she pulled from its bag that first visit was of exemplary quality. I had asked her to bring me a sampling of greens to braise, one of my passions, and the bag she brought had not just three or four, but nine different varieties, beautifully mixed. There were the first Chinese long beans I'd seen in Costa Rica and beautiful bok choy. The red romaine was tender and still crunchy and she even brought me variegated amaranth leaves for garnish. I was like a kid at Christmas and completely sold on Diamante Organico.

Linn was, however called away to the US on long term business at her other property, leaving Marjorie and Bolivar to run the finca. Marjorie is robust, red-faced, jolly (but quite business like when need be) and filled with energy. Bolivar is the perfect foil; slender and quiet, but with twinkling eyes and a look on his countenance that engenders trust. I loved them immediately.

So now each Wednesday Marjorie calls me and we joke and laugh over the bad connection. Diamante Organico sits deep in the San Salvador valley, in reality just over the coastal hills from us, but far, far away as far as climate and phone connections. The valley is in rain forest and when it is raining it looks like a set from "Lost World" with fog hanging in the trees and mists floating through the valley. The finca is quite a special property and the care and love that is taken with it is impressive.

On Thursday morning Marjorie and Bolivar do the cutting and bagging and head out of the valley and over the hill to the coast. They make a stop in Dominical and then head down to see me at La Cusinga to hand deliver their lovely perfect produce. I give them some of my homemade ice cream for their troubles and Marjorie always packs a gift bag with chiles, annona or some of those variegated amaranth leaves for me.

It is so moving to me that these people, these two couples, work so hard to provide to such a limited, specialized market. I don't know how they're making it, but thank God they are. If the produce wasn't just so damned good and if they weren't all such special people, I could never feel this strongly. But they are, and it is, and I feel that it is not just my pleasure but my duty to support them. It is definitely a privilege to count them among my friends.

WHY WE/I DO WHAT WE DO

2010-07-21T09:56:00.000-07:00

WHY WE/I DO WHAT WE DO

A great part of our business at La Cusinga comes from making ourselves available to various tour groups. This is just smart marketing, something my boss and good friend, Geiner Guzman, is very good at. We put ourselves out there in a number of small internet niches and our guest list reflects this. We have been jam-packed busy the whole month of July, normally a slow month, and have hosted bird-watchers, yoga practitioners, GPS classes and more. Additionally, a lot of our guests who are non-group affiliated come here from Europe, primarily Germany, where we are a big presence on Eco-tour websites.

And this is all great; groups come and groups go. We put on our best faces, put out our best food, show them how to get around and relish our position as hosts at what is a very special place in a very special part of the world. We provide directions and bag lunches for hikes, set up tours, cater to dietary needs and administer to insect bites and nasty sunburns. We answer a LOT of questions. Sometimes, however, it is easy for our ultimate "reason for being who and where we are" to be lost on us. I must confess to getting a bit caught up purely in the work aspect to be able to enjoy and/or appreciate the unique-ness of my position.

Thankfully, we are lucky to have a group or two come by who bring us back to the roots of what we represent and who we are. We had such a group last week and another at the end of May. Last week, Franco, a long-time friend and supporter of the Lodge brought in one of his bi-annual yoga groups for a week's stay. And what this usually means to the cynic in me is a lot of special dietary needs and a fair amount of cosmic woo-woo-ness; this has happened frequently in the past. This was not, however, the case with this group.

What we were lucky enough to get was, instead, a group that got us. We got a group that was so ready to love us, and where they were, that when they arrived in the pouring rain they stood right out in it with their arms outstretched to the skies. The lavished and sloshed in its "cleansing feeling". It was easy to see, from minute one, that these folks would be different.

I immediately referred back to my meal roster. The only person with special dietary requirements turned out to be Franco, the leader. And I already knew he was vegan and was ready for him.

This may seem odd, but we do indeed get groups of people who will come down for their first dinner with us and not say, "hello" or "hola" and not even make eye contact. It is an open kitchen and we are right there in their faces, but somehow they choose to ignore us. And odder still, we get guests who remain that way for the duration of their stay. There is really nothing that makes one feel more like "the help" that being ignored in such close quarters. Not these guys, though, they came down to eat and to have a good time with grins, laughter and smiles of greeting mixed in with their "Como esta"'s. These people came down dancing to the music I was playing in the kitchen. It was so refreshing.

Dinner that first night was consumed with so much gusto and appreciation that I couldn't help but understand how different this week was going to be. And as the week eased by, there never ceased to be smiles of appreciation and even wonderment on the faces of this group. It seemed as if every one of them stopped at some point to make contact, to express amazement at where they were, or simply to thank us for being there. Soon, it seemed as if I, at least, was seeing La Cusinga through their eyes. The views, the yoga pavilion, the rain, the sunsets, even the food I was cooking all took on renewed value and a renewed quality of "special" for me when seen through the eyes of people seeing it and falling in love with it for the first time.

So, I need to thank Franco and all the great people in his group for helping me, in the middle of a three week run with no days off, to revisit and recapture the magic and the wonder of the place I work. La Cusinga is one of the special places on this Earth, and I have the Greatest Job in the World. Thank you.

FREEZING FROM FRESH

2010-07-12T11:37:00.000-07:00

This is a sneak preview of my articles for the August issue of Dominical Days...

FREEZING FROM FRESH

Gasp! Did he just say that? Does the Chef of the Jungle freeze fresh things? Doesn’t that go against all he stands for?

Yes, mis amigos, I am here to tell you that I keep a number of flavor bumpers in my freezer so that they may be at my fingertips, in the pan or the sauce, or over the fish in moments.

There are just some things that cannot and will not suffer by being frozen; particularly if one takes the proper steps to freeze them. Good zip locks made for freezing work quite nicely but to save a bit of money, I wrap as tightly as possible in clear wrap, and then do it a second time to prevent freezer burn

Something I always, always do when I pack my zip-locks for the freezer is squeeze the air from them and pack them flat. This helps for two reasons. Once the package is frozen, it’s easily stacked when flat; and second, a flat package thaws in almost no time.

I freeze roasted tomatoes in zip-locks, to use for pastas, fish sauces or tomato soup at a moment’s notice. I freeze chicken stock, not in ice cube trays, but flat in both small sandwich sized and large zip-lock bags. Again, done this way, they stack so nicely.

Something else that I make as a flavor booster and which also freezes quite nicely, are different pestos. A fresh bright green pesto, so dazzling with pasta, remains equally green when frozen, is much more easily portioned and doesn’t get all mucky and brown on top.

Basil grows so well here in our coastal climate that it’s always available at the Saturday Feria in Uvita, or if you want to make a big batch of pesto, it’s plentiful and cheap at the Thursday Feria in San Isidro. You might even grow it yourself; basil loves it here.

PESTO; NOT JUST FOR PASTA ANYMORE

The Italian word, “pesto” comes from the same root that pestle, of mortar and pestle fame, comes from, and it means “to pound or to grind”. Traditionally pesto making has been a long and arduous process, learned at one’s nonna’s knees and never varied from, at threat of excommunication. Drizzle and pound, drizzle and pound…

I’m not much for long and arduous, and am here to tell you that you can assemble a great batch of pesto in less than five minutes and never have to look over your shoulder for your nonna’s shadow.

Like almost everything I make or do in the kitchen, the “mise en place”, or assembly of ingredients is key. For me, there are few worse feelings than stumbling around the kitchen searching for an essential ingredient in mid-cooking.

PESTO OF THE JUNGLE

2 Cups Tightly Packed Basil eaves

4 Cloves Peeled and Chopped Garlic

¼ Cup sliced, blanched almonds (tradition calls for pine nuts, but we’re non-traditional)

2/3 Cup Good Olive Oil (it need not be Extra Virgin)

¼-1/2 Cup Good Parmesan

S&P

Put the basil, garlic and almonds in your food processor with some salt and pepper and pulse-grind them for 30 seconds. Turn the machine on and add half the olive oil in a slow stream. Turn off the processor and add the cheese. Turn the machine back on and add the rest of the oil in a steady stream. The pesto should remain a bit chunky. Taste for salt and pepper; pack it flat into zip-locks and freeze.

You can (and I do) substitute spinach, parsley, arugula, or even cilantro for half the basil. Heck, you can leave the basil out entirely.

Use pesto as a sauce for fish, spooned right on top; toss it with cooked small potatoes or green beans, stir it into mashed potatoes or into mayonnaise, and definitely eat it with pasta.

THE COME AND GO BLUES

2010-07-09T09:59:00.000-07:00

THE COME AND GO BLUES

Although there is some dispute as the the finer details of this particular process, as it now stands, if one, one like me for example who does not have residency, is living in Costa Rica, it can only be done on a tourist visa; essentially a 90 day pass. In order for one to "refresh" that visa, one must leave the country for (and this is where the dispute comes in) for either 72 hours, or, as some would have it, no time at all; just a quick in and out.

In order to keep my slate clean and so as to not jeopardize my situation in their lovely country, I have been a strict observer of the 72 hours out of the country every 90 days during my time here in Costa Rica. Whether this makes me any better or worse of a "perpetual tourist" in the eyes of Imagracion, I have yet to discover. And since I do indeed wish to stay here, doing what I do, I have my fingers crossed that I am doing this in the honorable and correct fashion.

It turned out that after a somewhat drab and dreadful June at La Cusinga, that we would be besieged for much of July and it was suggested to me that I make my 72 hour foray a bit earlier than the 90 days, which was fine with me. I engaged Nathalie at the Jungle Pet Lodge to take watch over Booker the Dog, I made reservations for a cabana at Isla Verde in Boquete, Panama, I packed a bag and I was ready to exit the country.

It always seems as if it should be an easy proposition, this crossing of the border, but one never knows what surprises, mysteries and downright puzzling things await.

I got up at 5:45, took Booker for our long and hilly morning walk (I'm on a big hill climbing campaign these days; cardio-vascular and all that), finished packing, consumed smoothie and tea, and he and I rambled off to the Jungle Pet Lodge. He was excited the whole time up there, but when he saw that he was going to have to share Ms. Nathalie's attentions with a 14 year old shepard/mastiff mix and a St. Bernard (yes, a St. Bernard, here in Costa Rica) he became decidedly less enthusiastic to the point of pulling back on the leash when she took him, which he has never done before.

I continued rambling on and made the border by about 9:45 or so and then the fun started. I usually park my car on one of the congested streets and some encrusted drunk or another comes over, throws cardboard over my windshield and I tell him I'll be back in three days and I will compensate him richly ($3-5) upon my return, for watching my car. But today, the streets were packed with all kinds of parking hustlers and when I parked my car, a guy with missing teeth and a blood-spattered shirt told me it would cost $100 for him to watch my car. I informed him that I parked there in January and again in April for a far lesser sum and told him we would discuss it when I got back.

There was virtually no one at the Costa Rica side of the border, but when I dragged myself and my bags through the puddles, mud and various forms of human degeneration to the other side of the terminal, the scene at the Panama side was like a panel from a painting by Bosch. The lines (were there lines?) were mobbed and there must have been 150 people competing for two exit windows. There were people pushing, posturing and parading; all of it performed at high volume. I shuddered and kind of attached myself to a couple of moderately well-to-do Costa Rican families and after 75-80 minutes of disorganized jostling we made it to the window and then were spit out. I then got on a packed shuttle bus and we careered on down the highway to David. At David, one transfers to these somewhat charming old yellow Bluebird school buses (and with all the comforts you might remember from your school bus) and the final hour and half descent to Boquete is made in a bouncing reeling fashion, marked by perhaps 30-40 stops along the way.

The stay in Boquete was lovely, as it often is. The weather is decidedly cooler, after all it does sit in a valley at the base of the mountains, and they, like us in Costa Rica, had been getting a lot of rain. No problem. I had books, music, the newest issue of the New Yorker, and best of all (a birthday present from sister Barbara and her husband, Pete) access to the NY Times crossword puzzle and it WAS Sunday, big puzzle day. Life was good.

So for three days I read, ate, slept, hiked (when it wasn't raining), got massaged, ate, read and slept. Life was good. I got up early the morning of departure and blithely slipped, unknowingly into yet another adventure. I should know to expect these things by now. I left the hotel at 7:15, Costa Rica time (Panama is an hour ahead), wanting to allow myself plenty of wiggle room for traveling. I took a taxi to the bomba (station) in Boquete and got on another charming old yellow bus; again, more charming than comfy. It took about 20 minutes for the bus to fill with Panamanians on their way to their daily requirements and we jounced off down the hill to David.

The bus terminal in David is quite a scene, but I have learned over the years that it's best not to pay much attention to the beggars, animals, smell and overall mayhem. After one pays $.25 to pee in a disturbingly smell trough, one ventures to the opposite site of the terminal where a line-up of "busetas" (shuttle buses) awaits. Each bus has a driver and an assistant who serves in the capacity of barker. He stands outside the buseta and shouts out the destination over and over again in an apparent attempt to be louder than the guy at the buseta next to him. Slung over his shoulder is a chain that holds one of those old fashioned change making machines that I always associate with the ice cream man of my childhood.

The bus ride out of David is a bit circuitous, and meanders through some fine and not so fine neighborhoods before it heads out on the highway. Once upon the highway the buseta stops intermittently, but frequently. The barker jumps out and yells our destination, "Frontera, frontera" loudly and proudly and people either do or do not get on the bus. Despite there being an open seat, no on wishes to sit next to the only gringo on the buseta, which is fine with me. I check the clock and despite our numerous stops, we are making good time and I will have plenty of time to pick up Mr. Booker, take him home and with any luck take a shower before heading in to work.

We stop and start perhaps 50 or 60 times, but finally the arched top of the Panamanian border building is in sight and we're as good as home. When I came around the corner, however, to stand in line for the "salida" (exit) window to have my passport stamped, it seemed that another experience entirely awaited me. There was a mob of perhaps 300-400 people (who knew how many) standing, pushing, waiting grimly in front of one, yes one window. There was no semblance of a line, none at all, but being the good citizen I am, I walked back along the right side until I found an obvious break in the crowd. This was far, far worse than what I had deemed a "thing most horrible" when I was entering Panama on Sunday.

There is was, I was in "line" at the "salida" in Panama, trying to get back into Costa Rica and there was one window open with one slow moving and most beleaguered senor behind it. Outside his window milling in the waiting zone, the sidewalks and spilling over into the streets (the curb is 18" high) was a nascent mob of maybe 350 people all trying to reach the window at the same time. I tucked into line (ha, line, what line?) with a family of nine from Iowa and we bobbed and weaved together in the crowd like boxers in a ring, like small craft on large seas, like whole nuts tossed into a whirling food processor.

It was as close as I've been to a riot since I ran down Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley tossing bricks through the windows of car dealerships in the name of peace. The crowd grew tired, then frustrated, and then, downright and upright (no where to sit, now was there?) pissed off and began chanting, then throwing things, and then, horribly, just surging forward with only a concrete wall and safety glass windows as their destination.

The terminal manager finally emerged and did a fine job of emulating confusion, care and concern. He tried to enter the mass of humanity that was rudely sullying his fine terminal and was pushed back out as if refracting magnets had come, ever so briefly, together. So he did what any right minded individual would do; he went for back-up and came back with six Panamanian soldiers in camo gear. They did what any soldier would do under the circumstances; nothing. They stood and watched, like good army men.

When it was finally too obvious to ignore any longer, the military began apprehending and pulling the obvious party crashers out of the center of the mob and flinging them off the 18" curb and into the street. Someone threw something and someone got hit with an umbrella and suddenly (and finally, thank God) the brave soldiers entered the eye of the hurricane and started pushing people into something resembling a line.

People fell, bodies were strewn and curses in a plethora of tongues were hurled, but finally the courage of the military won out and there were two lines formed somewhat like steel is forged over a fire; one for senors and one for senoras y senoritas. And so it came to pass that the terminal manager saw fit to open a second window (stout thinking, that) and we all ultimately came to reach the window and get our precious exit stamp so that we could go stand in yet another line on the Costa Rican side. I was in the crush for three and a quarter hours and have never seen anything like it, although Altamont came close.

I passed through the Costa Rican side (where they have chains and stanchions to form the lines) in a relatively breezy 45 minutes. Upon reaching my little Toyota that I had promised my extortionist, the toothless gentleman in the blood spattered shirt, that I would pay to watch in my 72 hour absence, found that I was blocked in by a semi, sporting a full trailer. The woman who was obviously the "Jefa" of the parking mob hit me up for $10 and promised to find the driver of the semi. It was only another half hour before the driver was located, backed it up, and I was on the road. Clear sailing? Oh no, not yet, Chef. At the customs check a huge logging truck was broken down and a senor was waving us all to the left. The left? What was to the left?

What was to the left was the side of Paso Canoas that nobody really wants or need to see. I attempted to negotiate some of the most horribly rocky streets I'd ever driven on, ever trying to keep parallel to the main highway, but working farther and farther away from it. Finally I passed the Policia who told me, "adelante y derecho". Straight ahead, then right; that's what I'd thought.

I continued through lake sized puddles, abandoned cars and dead dogs. An obvious right turn emerged and I took it to yes, the main highway. Clear sailing? Almost.

It had begun to rain while I was waiting in line for the hallowed passport stamps, and now it was coming down harder. I sloshed through Ciudad Neily and checked the gas gauge. A quarter tank; I'd stop in Rio Claro for gas, a fluid discharge and more fluids. Despite the rain, the driving was good until I hit Rio Claro where it seemed to have rained a whole lot more that anywhere else, since the Rio Claro was not clear at all, but the color of mud and instead of staying in the river banks where it belonged, it was up over the road and nearly two feet deep. Traffic was proceeding through the renegade Rio, but slowly, and one lane at a time. When my turn came, I tucked in behind another smaller car and we searched for the high ground as the water came up over our tires.

I was a lot wetter on my brake drums than I wanted to be, but I was through the flooded Rio Claro and up to the town proper for gas. I pulled into the only service station in town and saw to my horror, that all the gas pumps had garbage bags over them. "Gasolina mal" was the muttered response to my yearning question. So I was above "E", but well below 1/4 tank when I got back out on the road. The next distance sign told me it was 47 kilometres to Palmar so I sighed in resignation and hit the gas.

Fortunately, I had forgotten about Chacarita at the turn off to Golfito and I gassed up, grabbed iced tea and club soda and made a final run for it. I was late, so late. My phone had lost its charge and I just had to power on. I got to work at 4:15 rather than my scheduled 2:00 and Booker the Dog had to spend one more night at the Jungle Pet Lodge, and I'm sure it was fine with him, he likes Nathalie. Just another day for him.

So there it is, the glory, the excitement and the thrill of the road. Travel far, see the world, share experiences with like-minded souls, press flesh in ways you never dreamed imaginable. Adelante...

COOKING FOR BEN Part 1

2010-06-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

I am standing in an unfamiliar kitchen with boxes and tubs of food all around me. I'm not sure yet where the pots and pans are and I can't seem to find the cutting boards. I have turned on a switch that says "oven warmer" and there is the unmistakable smell of burning fabric coming from somewhere near the stove.

This is just like the old days, hearkening eerily back to my time spent as a caterer. Recently, I have been taking my "Chef of the Jungle" act on the road. I have been donating my services and cooking skills as one part of a community effort to raise money to pay the hospital bills of a dear friend.

Ben Vaughn, one of the true "good guys" in our oceanside/jungle's edge paradise was brutally beaten while confronting some robbery suspects. Beaten to the point that he needed to be air-vacced to Costa Rica's only hospital with a brain trauma unit, where he spent nearly three weeks, much of it in intensive care.

Like so many of us here, Ben didn't carry nearly enough of the insurance necessary to cover the

monstrous medical costs that follow catastrophic injury. In response to the financial needs mounting from his shocking attack, this coastal community has risen up in support of Ben. A common bond seems to have united us and money from donations and fundraisers has been both pouring and trickling in to help Ben with the payment of inconceivably high hospital bills.

Ben has been released from the hospital and while he still needs a tremendous amount of therapy to even think about resuming his life, his recent appearance here showed the strength and character he will need as he faces the ramifications of this incident; physical, legal and spiritual, in the days to come. He has lost the sight in an eye and lost a step, but his willingness to do the work necessary is already apparent.

As donations and contributions began pouring in, my thoughts ran to, "what could I do?"

I don't have the money to make a straight-up donation and I don't have much to offer other than my skills in the kitchen. So it occurred to me that I could be offering my services in the kitchen in the form of fundraising dinners cooked in private homes. I would cater to small groups, meet with the hosts to create menus, cook for up to eight people, back out my costs and donate what I could to Ben's mounting assistance fund. I ran this idea by Geinier, my boss at La Cusinga and he generously offered to match what I could raise.

I put together my idea and posted it initially on Facebook. I got immediate response, not from prospective guests/diners, but from others who appreciated my idea. Beautiful flyers were donated and designed by Marcel and Rita at the magazine "Dominical Days", and a local printer did a stack of 150 of them for us for free. I was ready and willing, all I need was that first call.

And that first call did come, on a Saturday. On Sunday I was meeting with Sharon and Mac in their home in Ojochal and by Tuesday afternoon I was standing in their kitchen burning her napkins, kept, unbeknownst to me, in a pull out drawer below the burners, that was indeed an "oven warmer".

Sharon and I had met in order for me to, naturally, find the house, scope out the kitchen and, most importantly, write the menu. She had been part of a group in St. Thomas that had sponsored bi-monthly dinner fundraisers, so was a perfect first guest to try out my "Cooking For Ben" idea. And graciously, she went along with all my ideas, telling me to go ahead and cook what I thought would be best. Since that's the whole premise behind what we do at La Cusinga, it was on. I would do, essentially, a "greatest hits" menu, making it easier than trying to do something new in a new space.

Our menu would consist of four courses, just as it does at the restaurant. We would start with a chilled curried cauliflower soup, then move to a mix of lightly dressed organic greens augmented by crunchy "ceviche" of fresh palmito (hearts of palm). The entree would be fresh local fish (to be determined by Victoriano, the fisherman) with my "soon to be legendary" Salsa de la Jungla, a spiced rice pilaf, and whichever vegetables my organic farmers told me were the best. I offered a chocolate cake for dessert, but Sharon opted for mandarina pound cake topped with blackberry ice cream.

I put together my prep and purchase list on Monday, called in my produce orders, visited Victoriano to make sure he would be coming in with fresh fish and made ready. On Tuesday I went down to the little Feria that Citrus restaurant hosts in Ojochal and met with Mauren and Ademar, good friends and organic farmers. I came away with just picked whole heads of organic lettuce, fat/ripe tomatoes, small tight heads of sweet smelling broccoli and shiny red bell peppers.

Just across the main highway and down the rutted dirt road was Victoriano's fish stand and tiny home. There is no sign, just his raised concrete platform and his two ancient coolers indicating that someone might just sell fish here. We greeted each other warmly and I was given the customary kiss on the cheek by his buxom wife, Maria, whom he calls, with all the affection and love in the world, "Gorda". The lid to the cooler was thrown open, and there, glistening in among the chunks of crushed ice were eight, nine, maybe ten gorgeous silvery yellow Robalo, bright eyed and fat, each weighing at least 5-6 kilos.

Robalo (called snook in the US), is an estuary fish. It lives between the fresh and salt waters and the meat is pearly white, beautifully lean and mild. It lends itself very nicely to sauces and has just a touch of freshwater sweetness. I chose a six kilo fish, wanting to assure myself eight beautiful cuts. I have to figure on a 50% yield when I buy whole fish and need to do my math to make sure I get what I need. Victoriano packed it into one bag, packed that one into a bag of ice and I stowed it in the trunk for the short drive to La Cusinga.

I had the produce, I had the fish and I had brought the olive oils and herbs. That left me just a few short hours in the kitchen at La Cusinga to finish my prepping. I cleaned the stems from the beautiful mix of braising greens that my friends at Diamante Farms had brought me and picked the ends from the dark green "media metre" Chinese long beans that they grow as well. Bolivar from Diamante had chopped and cleaned a kilo of palmito for me and all that remained was to slice it thin and toss it with lime juice and olive oil, roasted red peppers and garlic chives. A few grinds of black pepper and a pinch of sea salt and it was packed up and ready.

The last thing I had to do was butcher the fish; the firm, fresh robalo. I marveled at how easy it was to work through the flesh is as I slid the knife down the spine and peeled the filets away from the bone. The filet knife slid again, between flesh and skin, leaving the whole filets ready to portion. I cut thick white steaks from the filets and packed them in a double wrap of plastic before putting them on the ice in my cooler.

The bags of produce, the ice chest with soup and ice cream, the fish on ice; it was all in the car and ready to go. I took a last look around, checklist in hand, and was soon behind the wheel and down the driveway at La Cusinga, on my way to Ojochal to cook some dinner.

So it was that I found myself in Sharon and Mac's kitchen, putting a light smoky glaze on her cloth napkins and kitchen towels and searching for the cutting boards. And it all came together quite nicely. I've done a lot of catering and it all comes down to preparation (back to the "mis en place is God" philosophy, for those of you who read that blog). I was well prepped and had left myself little to do but the actual cooking.

I made the rice, set up the fish to cook and when the guests arrived we were underway. Sharon had provided me with an interesting mix of two kinds of china and it was great fun to use different plates. The guests were charming and receptive; hungry and appreciative. The cooking and service flowed and the night passed smoothly and successfully. The oohs and aahs were deeply appreciated and it seemed that just because of the reason for each of us being there, there was a common feeling of sharing and unity.

At the end of the evening, as the envelope was passed, there was a moment that drew us all nearer. We were equals, chef and diners and it was clear that I was part of this and never considered "the help". The common denominator of each of us doing something for Ben was the glue that held us together.

It is unfortunate that sometimes it takes a tragedy, such as the one that befell Ben, to pull a community together. I hope it's not too naive of me to wish that we could feel that sense of sharing life and pain along with love and happiness without needing a common cause, but I suppose I do feel that way. At least for this small moment in time, however, because of what happened to Ben Vaughn, our coastal community is closer than I've ever experienced it being.

I do hope it stays this way.

2010-06-11T11:48:00.000-07:00

MANGOES, I FINALLY GET MANGOES

2010-06-11T11:41:00.000-07:00

This is my submission for the July issue of Dominical Days; read it here first.

MANGOES, FINALLY I GET MANGOES

MANGOES AND WHAT TO DO

Cut off enough of either end so that it will stand up on its own. Using a paring knife, from top to bottom take the skin off in long narrow strips. When the peel is gone, stand the mango up again and look at it from the top. It should be ovate, rather than round. The longest sides of the oval are where the greatest amount of the flesh is. Using the blade of the knife, find the seed and slide the knife downward, staying as close to the seed as possible. The flesh should come away in a long even piece. Continue around the mango, working the knife down the pit. You will have two larger pieces of mango and several other long narrow pieces. You are ready to cook.

MANGO MUSTARD GLAZE

Flesh of One Ripe Mango

Juice of 2 Mandarinas

½ Cup Orange Juice

½ Cup Tapa Dulce, or Brown Sugar

1 tsp grated fresh ginger

2 TBS Dijon Mustard

THE TIMES THEY HAVE CHANGED

2010-06-04T12:21:00.000-07:00

So here I am, sitting on a bar stool in front of the granite counter tops at the "house up the hill" using the internet. "How does he do it?", you may or may not ask. We know there is no internet service way up there on the hill.

Well, the story goes like this:

I was sitting in the Uvita Tucan Hotel (not listening to the airconditioner hum), using the internet before I headed home for the night and I ran into Big Rob, who used to do (poorly) the internet at La Cusinga. I confided in him that I had been looking for an internet device, kind of a "memory stick", which, when stuck into one's computer, accesses internet. These do indeed exist, and they even exist here, but trying to find one for purchase has proved difficult. "Just ran out", or, "new supply next week (month, year, etc.)" are the standard answers.

So he listened to me bemoan my fate and then asked me what kind of phone I had. Costa Rica is in the process of changing over from 2G to 3G phones, which will fuck up their entire phone service system, but they don't seem to care. I told him that I had a 2G as they still worked (for now) and were significantly less expensive that the 3G models which all seem to feature numerous application possibilities; bells and whistles out the wazoo, if you will. So he says, "well that's too bad" and goes on to explain to me that if I have a 3G phone, it can be converted into a modem that will transfer internet to any computer it is tethered to.

"Whoopee", I say, averring as to how I certainly wish I had one, but that they were entirely out of my price range. "But oho" he says, "I happen to have one for sale". And so he proceeds to tell me that he had purchased this here top of the line Nokia 3G but now an iPhone has fallen into his chubby little hands and that he cannot/will not live without it, thus rendering the Nokia obsolete in his squinty eyes.

So to make a long story endless, I bought the Nokia from him for $100, figuring, if nothing else, I now had a groovy phone way cheap as the damn things retail here in Costa Rica for over $400. But lo and behold, I take it down to ICE, the utilities conglomerate that essentially runs the country, and yes, they can give me internet capability AND, better yet, make my new phone and my old laptop compatible. Shit boy Howdy.

So I sit in the chair in the brutally air conditioned ICE office (everyone who works there wears a jacket) for over an hour and a half while the Tico tech with a truly interestingly gelled non-hairdo puzzles and putzes over my two electric boxes. I meditated, I sang to myself, I listened to the air conditioner hum and out of nowhere his somewhat greasy face breaks into a wide grin as if he has opened the diamond vaults atAntwerp. Entonces and Voila! He has broken the code and he is going to share it with me.

And so, I know have the internet here at the "house on the hill" and I'm pretty damn happy about it. It does suck the charge out of the phone pretty damn fast, but if one pays attention it is a non-issue. Wondrous times in which we live.

CHEF'S SECRETS, PART 2, OR, FLAVOR AND WHERE HE GETS IT

2010-05-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

CHEF'S SECRETS, PART 2

or,

FLAVOR, AND WHERE HE GETS IT

DRY INGREDIENTS

I have two storage stashes for my flavor boosting ingredients, cold and not cold. The supplies that are dry and mostly non-perishable go in the pantry or on the kitchen shelves. A few of them even reside close by the stove. Most of these are things you can buy at the store and you probably keep a few of them around in your own kitchen. Do NOT underestimate the value of these seemingly mundane items.

First and foremost is salt. And not table salt, but yes, I keep that around too; mostly for salting the water of things I blanch or par-cook. I cook with kosher salt and I use sea salt when I want that Bang-Pow salt effect in a particular dish. But back to your table salt for a moment or two. Do you blanch vegetables like green beans or broccoli or carrots until they're just done and then saute them in butter or olive oil just before serving. No? Well I do and they taste better for it.

And they taste better still if you put a heavy dose of salt into your blanching water. In Thomas Keller's world famous restaurants, French Laundry (Napa Valley) and Per Se (Manhattan) he instructs his cooks to blanch their green vegetables in water "as salty as the ocean". Why? Because it brings out FLAVOR.

Next to the salt on the shelf is black pepper and no, not black pepper that you buy pre-ground in a little plastic package or a jar. I use either a pepper grinder in the kitchen or if I am really busy, I pre-grind black peppercorns in a coffee/spice grinder each day and keep them in a cup near the stove. Black pepper is one of the simplest flavor boosters I use, but I never tire of the "bump" it gives to salads, fresh sauteed vegetables, or meat and fish. And if you really want the pepper to have some zing (this is a secret, don't tell) toast the whole peppercorns really lightly in a skillet until the start to give off a peppery scent and then grind them. Zap.

Okay, moving on through the dry goods. I always keep a good (and relatively fresh) bag of red chile flakes around to add little bursts of heat to pasta sauces (specifically tomato). You can buy bulk red chile flakes at places like Whole Foods (gak!) and you can be reasonably sure that they have sufficient turnover so that the chiles are not aged into a second dehydration. Another spice blend that I keep around is packaged curry powder. I use it in a couple of my soups and I slip it into flour mixes that I use for fish or chicken before pan-frying. It is also a principal ingredient in my Chilled Curried Cauliflower Soup. Again, this is not one of those things that you want to try to use after it's been sitting on the back of your pantry shelf for two or three years

Something restaurants have been using for many years (I first started using it at the Elite Cafe in the mid-90's) is Pimenton, or smoked paprika. It has been hard to find, but now commercial spice manufacturers like McCormick are selling it. Paprika is made in Spain and Hungary by drying pimiento chiles (a long sweet/hot red pepper) and grinding it. Most of the commercial paprika on shelves in people's home kitchens is so old it is no longer hot and not even perceptibly sweet. This, like the chile flakes, is something best bought from a wholesale spice seller and used soon after purchase. But, back to the Pimenton, which is those same pimiento chiles, but smoked before being dried and ground. The flavor difference between regular paprika and Pimenton is profound and I love to use it in rice dishes like jambalaya, braised chicken dishes that use roasted tomatoes, any stew I make that includes sausage or pork products and soups. This is a very interesting flavor and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Something I just recently started keeping around and working with is tubs of different flavors of Thai curry pastes. They generally come in red, yellow, green, and massaman. They represent a lot of hard work avoided, if one tries to make them oneself. as is asked for in a number of Thai cookbooks and recipes. Essentially, they are a paste made from fresh and dried chiles, ginger, a number of different dried spices (turmeric, cumin, etc.) and they pack a flavor wallop. I use them in rice, sauteed vegetables and in a couple of the cold soups that I make. I particularly like the flavor boost that a tablespoon or so of Thai curry paste gives to my carrot/beet/ginger soup. But use them judiciously, as a little bit of these goes quite a long way. And yes, they are hot!

The Ticos use a lot of achiote paste to color rice and vegetable mixes and I must admit, I'm not adverse to stirring a spoon or two of it into the vegetables I saute when I make a batch of rice pilaf and I want some color (bright, bright yellow, indeed) from it. Achiote paste is made from grinding annato seeds which used to be used in an old kitchen staple from the 50's and 60's, "Egg Shade", used in shrimp and fritter batters. There isn't a significant flavor in achiote, at least none that I can detect, but it sure does make rice a lovely shade of yellow.

And lastly, one of my secret ingredients is a quasi-Cajun spice blend. I've worked in two restaurants that were New Orleans-oriented and saw my share of blackening spices. If I never see blackened redfish again, it will be too soon. But I still love to use a blend of paprika, cayenne, dried thyme, salt, and black pepper as a seasoning agent. I use it in rice. I use it in flour mixes for frying. I add a healthy whack of it into the sauteed vegetable base I add into my seafood or crab cakes. The cayenne provides heat, yes, but the subtlety of the paprika carries a lot of flavor. And it definitely needs salt to help distribute all the flavors. You certainly can rub it on fish or chicken before you pan-fry it and it works nicely with anything you're about to put on the grill, as well. It will burn and char a bit, but I suppose that's the point of blackened anything. My blend used eight parts paprika, one part cayenne, four parts of salt, two parts black pepper and one part dried thyme. Occasionally I will put mustard powder into it if I'm feeling "that way" and crumbled bay leaves are nice if you're not coating fish or meat with it.

I use dried thyme when I make chicken stock (it is irreplaceable) and beans. Bay leaves go into almost all stocks and long cooked braises. Almost all other dried herbs are a waste of time. Oh go ahead and keep some dried oregano around, as long as it's relatively new to your spice cabinet. Take any of your dried herbs that are over six months old and throw them away.

WET INGREDIENTS

Oil and vinegar; wet ingredients. And there you have it, but for the fact that there are so many misconceptions about oils, particularly the various kinds of olive oils, and the fact that balsamic vinegar is just so great in everything. Not.

I use one basic oil for cooking; a canola oil blend. I can get it all the way up to smoking hot and it doesn't burn. It it great for pan-frying fish and chicken and I use it frequently. I generally use it once and toss it. Fish cooked in twice used oil is nasty but occasionally you can get away with it for chicken if you strain it right after you use it and keep it in the refrigerator. I also use half canola oil and half olive oil in a lot of my salad dressings and definitely in mayonnaise. The one great thing it has going for it other than a high smoke point is that it has virtually no flavor. And here's where we segue way in to my olive oil rant...

Despite what they may tell you in cookbooks and on those damn cooking shows, you DO NOT NEED to use 100% olive oil in your salad dressings. Good olive oils have enough flavor to overwhelm the most acidic and saltiest of salad dressings. You can save money and taste the other ingredients in your dressings, aiolis and mayonnaises if you use equal parts olive oil and canola oil. Buying a "light" olive oil is a waste of time. Buy good olive oil and mix it. And if you absolutely must cook with olive oil (don't do it, don't do it), buy the damn light stuff. Good olive oil is not for cooking. Period.

I was talking the other day with an old friend (who shall remain nameless) about a recent recipe for mayonnaise that I had posted on this blog and he said, "So I should use extra-virgin olive oil, right? It's the best, isn't it?" Well yes and no. As far as being the best, it's the purest and has the most flavor. Does that make it the best? Everything has its use and you do not use extra-virgin olive oil except for flavor. If you want to put a splash of it in a dressing at the end of making it that's fine and if you'd rather drizzle it into your salad just before tossing, that's better yet. Most high quality extra-virgin olive oils are flavoring agents. They are not for cooking and they will overwhelm any sauce you make with them in which they are the sole oil used.

Please, please, don't misunderstand me. I love, love, love good extra-virgin olive oil. I love the way a tiny bit of it tastes over a piece of hot grilled fish, mixed with a squeeze of lemon. I love the way it tastes when you drizzle it over lovely fresh tomatoes. And I really love it on fresh grilled bread of high quality. Yes, indeed. I do not love it heated too hot and I do not love it when it overwhelms an otherwise delicate sauce.

And that brings us to vinegars. I love vinegars, too. Acid, used correctly, works much like salt in bringing out flavors. This is why we squeeze lemon over our fish and this is why we put vinegar in salad dressings. Years ago when I worked with Mark Miller in Berkeley he taught me a huge lesson by pouring a good splash of high quality red wine vinegar into a soup to finish it, rather than salting it; brought the flavors right up and helped to balance everything. I liked that.

As you may have inferred I am not a huge fan of balsamic vinegar. Most commercial balsamic vinegars have sugar and artificial coloring added to regular vinegar and are a "safety flavor"; mild and inoffensive so that people with timid palates can use them with impunity. Frankly, that's not me. I use commercial balsamic vinegar to pack roasted beets in and to braise red onions. I also toss fresh strawberries with balsamic vinegar and tapa dulce, our local cane sugar, to spoon over a Basque almond torte I make. For my palate, there is not enough acid in balsamic vinegar for it to make a decent salad dressing. There are many grades of expensive balsamic vinegars and much like extra-virgin olive oils, they are "finishing vinegars", best used as a final drizzle of flavor over tomatoes or even roasted meats.

My favorite vinegar for dressings and hits of flavor is Sherry Vinegar, or Xeres, if you're buying it in Europe or Costa Rica. It has a nice acidic bite without making your nose tingle and doing that funny thing down your eustacean tubes, and there is a "woodiness" to the flavor of it that blends well with most everything. I use it frequently, along with olive oil, sea salt and fresh ground pepper to marinate tomatoes for salads. I use sherry vinegar mixed with a bit of commercial red wine vinegar in salad dressings and have even used it to deglaze the pan after I have roasted chicken breasts.

There are a number of flavored vinegars on the market and they all have their uses. For a white vinegar I like champagne vinegars, as they seem to have a bit of fruit to them, unlike a simple white vinegar. I do keep white vinegar in my kitchen for making "chilero", the famous Costa Rica hot sauce that uses habaneros. Vinegars are a great vehicle for carrying heat which is why Tabasco ferments its chiles in vinegar and vinegar only. I do keep a good quality red wine vinegar on the shelf as it goes into my Caesar salad dressing in equal parts with lemon juice. If you are buying red or white vinegars here in Costa Rica make certain you are not buying something that mentions the word "artificial" on the label. Chemical acids are used here to create vinegars and there is virtually no real flavor in them. Cuidado!

So get in the kitchen and cook with flavor! Mild is not a word in our vocabulary.

Aspiring to mild flavors is like aspiring to senility. Create your own flavor profiles using any or all of these ingredients and remember, Food Is Love.