Our Picks

July and August has been crazy times with the weather. We've had 3 devastating tornadoes very close to our city. There were many properties destroyed, but most tragic of all, was the one last week. Two teenagers were killed when their truck was thrown and tumbled into a field. This on top of the uncertainty of life with Covid-19 is weighing heavily on every one's mind.
Our province, and specifically, our small city of around 48,000 people had 72 days of no cases of Covid, then this last 2 weeks, we've had 67!
Many of us seniors have been living carefully within small bubbles, but we do miss having friends and families gathered for meals, etc.
Cooking and gardening, however, has kept me busy, well-fed, safe and happy at home.
 

At your service....nothing like a little anchovy to wake up the tastebuds in the morning!

 
Beautifully ripe Z Lady Peaches from Tenerelli Orchards at my local farmers market. If one wishes to pay the premium, Tenerelli is now shipping their peaches.   Seems pricey, but their peaches are stellar
 

Thick mango lassi with orange blossom water and pistachios.
 
 

Miso glazed monkfish skewer with ginger rice and a yu choy-mushroom stir fry
 

This dough was intended to be pizza, but not grilled! But when I slide pizza #1 off my peel onto my baking steel, I got a pretty good slosh of olive oil off the pizza into the oven, which of course was at 550°F. So, after a panicky couple of minutes setting up some ad hoc ventilation, we ate that pizza (which was delicious), but then made the second one on the grill. It's a quattro formaggi, with just olive oil as the sauce. The cheeses are mozzarella di bufala, ricotta, gorgonzola, and parmigiano. I also hit it with a pretty sizable dose of ground purple peppercorns from Burlap & Barrel.
 

A friend sent me a NYT recipe for Creamy Lemon Pops With Basil.  There's no actual lemon juice in them, just the zest.  
The recipe suggests adding fresh berries so each one got a few blueberries.  

 
I had some of that mix leftover so I puréed up the rest of the blueberries and made these Blueberry with Lemon Cream Pops

 
 

A couple of weeks ago was Arizona Cocktail Week and as part of the Artisanal Marketplace we served up a drink to the masses that we called Waiting for Watube (recipe by Micah Olson). We made a batch for sitting in the backyard this weekend. Gotta love how Montenegro and pineapple play together.



1 oz Plantation 5yr Barbados


0.5oz Hamilton Gold Jamaica


0.5oz Montenegro


0.75oz lime


0.75oz pineapple syrup (1:1 fresh pineapple juice and sugar)


Quick shake with crushed ice and dump all into glass


4 dashes aromatic bitters (AZBL Mi Casa) floated on top


dehydrated lime wheel garnish






 



 



[Host's note: this topic is part of an extended discussion that became too large for our servers to handle efficiently.  The discussion continues here.]

Banh mi rolls from Andrea Nguyen's Banh Mi Handbook.  Recipe online here. These are just out of the oven.  Haven't tried them yet. I think they're a bit overbaked.  

 
 

Pomegranate & Yogurt Pops  I added a bit of pomegranate molasses to the pomegranate juice in these but otherwise followed the recipe. 

 
And a poptail version of this Pomegranate & Grapefruit Paloma cocktail.   These are basically a juice pop so they'll be icy but should be refreshing. 

Fresh blackberry cake from a recipe recommended on the British expat FB group I belong to (I am not a British expat, I just like the food and humor):

 
Close up:

 
Slice:

Some custard would have been lovely, but I didn’t make it this time.  This was so good – tender and moist and not overly sweet.  The actual recipe calls for strawberries, but the original poster uses all kinds of fruit.  She did a lovely pear and raspberry one that I’d like to try next.
 
I cooked it in the CSO, which I'm not at all sure was a good idea.  It collapsed a bit.  

Also in the business of peaches.
 
Tart with hazelnut frangipane and peaches.
 
 

Hazelnut Pistachio , Cocoa Nib, and Apricot Loaf with Spices (p. 4•427)
This bread is in their section on "brick breads," as a sub-recipe to the Whole Grain bread (where here by "whole grain" they truly mean "left whole" as in, not ground into flour). It actually doesn't have any whole grains in it, but it exists in the same spirit as those breads: just enough flour to hold together a massive quantity of whole ingredients. In this case, nuts (I used pistachios), crushed cocoa nibs, and diced dried apricot. It also has a very large amount of cloves, some cinnamon, and some thyme. I had much more success with this bread than I did with the Vollkornbrot - it's much easier to eat, and you don't need anything special to slice it. In many ways it is reminiscent of a quick bread, though of course it is not one.
 

 

I baked a couple of loves of focaccia and brought them down to the Cape with me.  I did not feel like going to the fish market yesterday, so made them into caprese sandwiches.  Watermelon margaritas to start.  The heat index was 102 yesterday, but we have a good breeze at the house.
 

 

 

I think everyone covered Lammingtons real well for me!
As for the lady at Hervey Bay,  yes pretty tragic and would have been awful for all the families at the celebration to loose such a community active figure like that. But, I can't imagine eating/inhaling something covered in Dessicated Coconut at speed going well for me.
 
Back to Crisps and another shelf stayer for your discussion and disgust was found today. Give me England and plain old pickled onion and prawn cocktail any day 😉. 

Mille-feuilles. Fondant was too thick and edges could have been cleaner, but you live and learn!

 
Apple turnovers, with an applesauce + sauteed diced apple filling for a variety of textures.

 
Apricot rosemary tart. Rosemary almond cream, apricot marmalade, nut streusel, and seared apricots. 

 

Grey sole in a coconut lime curry broth with carrots, baby bok choy, chives, and zucchini
 

This one is straight out of Reinhart's American Pie: in the section he calls "Third-generation Neo-Neapolitan Pizza" he has a recipe for Onion Marmalade, Walnuts, and Blue Cheese pizza. I was a bit worried that the onions would be too sweet, but actually it ended up well-balanced, and quite delicious. This is the Bayley Hazen blue again, and I toasted the walnuts separately since this is a grilled pizza and the toppings don't get a lot of heat once they are on the pie.
 

Updates- everybody is doing really well. I'm especially happy with the kaffir lime and curry trees because I was worried how they would do in the coco coir - I was worried that it would hold too much moisture and get root rot, but all the new growth is really encouraging.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, although we tried to arrange an eG gathering this summer at Bulrush, a certain public health crisis intervened, and we've basically all been cooped up in our homes for the last several months. However, Bulrush is open again with very limited seating, and an expanded meal, so I ventured out to STL to give it a spin. This was without a doubt the best meal I've had to date at Bulrush...
 
Asparagus -
Dried chicken liver
Fermented aspragus
Foraged sumac
Asparagus emulsion

 
Carrot -
Nixtamalized baby carrot
Cinnebar mushroom powder
Rye crisp
Carrot top pesto

 
Ricotta & Squash - 
Ricotta mouse
Compressed squash w/ lovage
Grilled shishito peppers
Gooseberry verjus

 
Cabbage -
Garlic miso runner cabbage
Buttermilk gel
Blueberry anise sauce
Pickled gooseberry & mulberry
Sauercorn

 
Corn Soup - 
Chanterelle
Sauercorn
Pork belly

 
Acorn donut -
Black walnut nocino
Buttermilk roasted turnip
Pecan praline
White chocolate potato mousse

 
Walleye - 
Fermented chanterelle sauce
Grilled leek
Daikon radish
Leek oil

 
Poached hen's yolk - 
Edible "shell"
Fermented dandelion honey
Cured yolk
English peas
Marigold

 
Pork cheek - 
Sassafras root glaze
"Grilled" grits
Chanterelle
Blueberry salt
Gooseberry

 
Mignardise - 
Mulberry & cherry pate de fruit
Mulberry bonbon

 
Rhubarb vinegar ice cream -
Mulberry meringue
Buckwheat honey cake
Mulberry compote

 
Overall the meal was characterized by surprising and delicious flavor and texture combinations: in fact, I thought the least successful dish was the walleye, because it was so... normal! Delicious, but out of place among all of the other flavor combinations during the course of the meal. I also chatted with Rob about the cured hen's egg a bit -- it hasn't been his guests' favorite. The savory gel thing isn't sitting well with diners here, which I think is too bad, because I thought that dish was really excellent.


 

I made triangoli alla marmellata from Omar Busi. This is a leavened dough with sugar/egg/butter and laminated. Instead of the jam, I filled them with frangipane. My boy turning 13 today, no party but he got a special breakfast 

Here you go.  My knife splurge is complete. From top to bottom: Sukenari Honyaki white #1 gyuto 210mm with custom Russian Karelian Birch handle, Kato Nakiri white #2 180mm with wenge ferrule handle, Fujiwara Shirogami gyuto white #1 210mm, Fujiwara Shirogami Wa-petty white #1 150mm. The first two are from ChefKnivesToGo.com and the second two I bought in person at Bernal Cutlery in San Francisco.  I've congratulated myself enough for last year. Now on to earn next year's!
 

Salad of Chorizo, Avocado & Bell Peppers with Sherry Dressing from Diana Henry's Simple. Apparently the result of a merger between a Spanish tapas bar and a California salad joint!

Delicious salad and lots of fun to eat - you can make each bite a different combination of ingredients. I crisped the chickpeas in the oil left from the chorizo. The rich ingredients (chorizo, avocado, roasted pepper, etc.) need a nice bite from the sherry vinegar. I only tasted the dressing by dipping leaves of greens and ended up drizzling a bit more vinegar on afterwards.

Polenta topped with collards, boiled egg and some meat picked from the smoked hock cooked with the collards.

That's a moat of collard potlikker surrounding the polenta

Yaki udon. Cabbage, eggs, scallions, soy sauce, oyster sauce, ginger, garlic, some miso, pickled ginger. Calamari for my SO.
 
 

This is my Roasted Tomatillo Salsa.  Sometimes I vary the ratio of tomatillos, adding a few more or less, adding more jalapeno, that sort of thing.  The fresh garden cilantro is much more flavorful than the stuff in the grocery store since I just go out back and cut what I need off the cilantro pot on the patio.  I peel the skin off the tomatillos and rinse to get off that sticky texture, then on a sheet pan under the broiler to soften and get some charred bits.  These tomatillos were more bitter than I like, so I added about a teaspoon of sugar.  Served with a prepared pork tamale from the grocery store.  They are made by a family business in Utah and are really good, but the local Mexican grocer and cafe wasn't opened yesterday morning when I drove by. Their tamales are made fresh every day of the year.  I buy Mexican oregano for this salsa.  It's whole leaf oregano with the flowers that is dried.  Just rub it and it releases the fragrance.  I use it in Italian dishes too because it has a lot of flavor.  I prefer charred onions and garlic over raw for this salsa. Everything goes into a blender and then blended to combine.  It stays a vivid green color covered and kept in the fridge.  
 
1lb. tomatillos
1 1/2 cups fresh cilantro
1 jalapeno
1/2 yellow onion, charred
4 cloves garlic, charred
1 tsp. sugar as needed
Salt and black pepper
2 tsp. Mexican oregano