The Caffeine Addict: Hooked, Locally

By biteclub

Freshly roasted, freshly ground, freshly brewed
Freshly roasted, freshly ground, freshly brewed

Although I recently admitted to my failings as a true coffee connoisseur, my palate remains resolute in its hatred of oxidation. Or, having puzzled over the chemical processes involved, I should say that I hate the change in flavors and aromas caused by reduction-oxidation, but that takes too long, and efficiency matters in the kitchen. Furthermore, while my math skills may be passable and I find physics fascinating, chemistry has, at least since the 7th grade, given me a headache: Something about all that rote memorization and what I always took to be an unhealthy and mind-numbing emphasis on the “what” at the expense of the “how”.
In any case, suffice it to say that the taste and smell of  a food (for the avoidance of doubt, coffee is closer to the bottom than the top of the Food Pyramid, at least in my kitchen) changes by virtue of the food’s contact with the air we breathe, and most of these changes are not for the better. Oxidation creates that nasty metallic taste, the perception of acridness and overcooked-ness. This process is particularly acute in two of my favorite beverages, wine and coffee; fortunately, water, by my accounting the only other liquid truly essential to the sustenance of life, seems a bit more stable when left to its own devices.
In the case of coffee, the important thing to know is that the process of oxidation begins immediately, and the engine for this process is heat, although it is also deleteriously influenced by the piercing of the shell of the bean (the excellent if slightly more technical discussion I base this on may be found here): As soon as the bean is roasted, its taste and smell begins to degrade, in ways both subtle and profound: The compounds responsible for “good” flavors fade away, and the concentration of those responsible for “bad” flavors increases. The good news is that Mother Nature is also a coffee lover and, as is her wont, designed the bean in a particularly clever way: First, the external structure of the bean itself traps and protects many of the desirable features of coffee’s flavor profile inside; second, even after grinding, some of the aromatics remain inside the coffee by virtue of the bean’s naturally occurring oils and waxes known as lipids.
So what’s a deeply entrenched caffeine addict to do?

  1. Buy your beans in smaller amounts, as frequently as practical, and as close as possible to the date on which the beans were actually roasted. Clearly, this gives a huge edge to your local micro-roaster, and not because it’s “free trade”, or “local”, or even because they buy better beans (all of which may, or may not, matter to you), but because the chemistry itself dictates that locally roasted coffee will taste better. Funny how often this basic lesson seems to come up so frequently in food and cooking, and how much better suited to good eating (albeit more time consuming) is the old-school model of grocery shopping, in which we would buy our daily bread from a baker, our vegetables from the produce stand of a farmer who grew them, the fish from a fishmonger who just caught it. Easy rule: If you can’t figure out when it was roasted, you probably don’t want to buy it.
  2. If you’re going to store your beans for any length of time (and we do this as a matter of course – there is idealism, and there is keeping the family sane and the parents well-fueled at all times), try to get them in vacuum packs (to reduce air contact), and store them in the freezer (to mitigate the deleterious effects of temperature).
  3. Grind it when you’re going to drink it, and only brew what you’re going to drink. I don’t know about you, but I just don’t buy the argument that grinding your own beans is messy and time-consuming; and since the actual science tells me that I can drink better coffee simply by grinding my own, that seems to me a pretty cheap and easy way to consume a superior product. If you must brew a larger quantity first thing in the morning, then at least transfer it to an airtight carafe or thermos or whatever in order to slow down the nasty effects of heat and air on your beverage.

There is, as ever in the kitchen, an object lesson in all this: Simply by buying my coffee fresh and close to home, by preparing it when I actually want to drink it, and by only making the quantity that I actually want to drink, I will drink better coffee.

Sex, Lies, and Tomatoes: The Recipes

By biteclub

tomato and pesto on cranberry semolina bread
Super simple tomato sandwiches

The good news, as of this writing (a reprint from my previous website, if you’re wondering about the timeline), is that our local tomato spring truly has sprung. Not exactly on-time, however – more like, finally. As in, Finally, it’s about [expletive] time, because I live alongside some of the finest tomato plants in the known universe, and it’s just plain wrong to make me wait until late August to get my fix. In fairness, to live in Sonoma County is hardly akin to the forced deprivation of an extended tour on a nuclear submarine or offshore oil rig; sufficiently desperate for Solanum lycopersicum, I could purchase the irredeemable supermarket facsimile year-round. However, as I’ve already tried to explain, I won’t – I can’t – subject my family’s taste buds to such effrontery, and neither should you to yours. But here and now, the farmer’s market is literally teeming with tomatoes, at the stalls of the dedicated specialists (e.g, Dan Magnuson’s Soda Rock Farms), as well those of the many other outstanding growers I’m lucky enough to shop with (Preston Vineyards, Foggy River and Early Bird Farms, to name but a few); I’m even getting regular contributions from my own garden, and I really suck at growing tomatoes.
I’ll cook all sorts of things with tomatoes over the next couple of months, and once in a while I may even get a little cutesy and dress them up (for years I’ve been tempted, but failed to muster the courage, to mount an assault on Alain Passard’s legendary tomate farcie confit aux douze saveurs, still, as I understand it, a fixture of the menu at L’Arpege). Still and all, I typically treat tomatoes much the way I’d treat a peach, erring on the side of simplicity over complexity, part of my ongoing effort simply not to screw up a thing that began as nearly perfect before I got involved. However, unlike a peach – the peach being one of those rare foods that seems almost impossible to improve either by fiddling with or adorning it – the tomato is a remarkably versatile foil, tolerating temperatures from hot to cold, equally content as condiment and centerpiece, visually arresting whether highly processed or nearly naked, an unimpeachable accompaniment for seafood, steak, and cheese alike. The first tomatoes of the season, however, deserve a special respect, a period of honest assessment and contemplation, and this – more than a little like the first night back with your spouse after a long business trip or following an exaggerated bitchfest about something neither of you can even remember – seems best done naked, or at least nearly so.
Thus, as we continue eat our way through the first few batches of ripe little gems from our own garden, the dominant themes resonate around salads and sandwiches. The variations are truly limitless, but I really liked the most recent incarnation, as pictured at the top of this post, so here you go (the recipe for pesto follows at the end):
Heirloom Tomato Sandwiches on Cranberry-Semolina with Pesto, Olive Oil, and Salt
You could use virtually any tomatoes here, and – ideally – I think you’d serve a few different ones, both for variety of color and flavor. A red-toned beauty (Purple Cherokee, Pink Lady, or Early Girl), a yellow (Tangerine or Lemon Boy), and a green (Green Zebra) would provide a gorgeous array of color as well as a distinctive breadth of flavors, sweetness, and acidity. Similarly with the bread, you could use anything, really, but a lightly toasted, crusty sourdough works particularly well. I hadn’t planned it ahead of time, and I would not have thought of a fruit-laced bread had it not been lying around, but the almost impossibly good Cranberry-Semolina from the Full Circle Bakery in Penngrove worked exceedingly well, with the chewy, sweet-tart bite of the cranberries adding just the right ballast against the acidic tomatoes and the licorice notes in the pesto.

  1. Toast some slices of the bread, preferably a crusty sourdough with a baked-in dried fruit (cranberries, apricots… nuts in the bread, for some reason, sound unpleasant to me, although I can’t say why, because nuts and fruits go well together, there are already nuts in pesto… hmmmm… maybe next time?)
  2. Top each slice of bread with a thick slice of tomato – ideally, slices of a few different colors, although my garden wasn’t cooperating on that front – and then top each slice of tomato with a small quenelle of pesto. (Why bother with a quenelle? Because it takes almost zero effort and the uniform shape will look nice against the slightly irregular backdrop of the heirloom tomato and crusty bread, and because it will show off the effort you put into your pesto.)
  3. Sprinkle with fleur de sel and drizzle the plate with olive oil, preferably from Dry Creek, such as that from Preston or the pricier, but exceptional, Da Vero.

Classic Pesto (from M Hazan)
I’ve talked at length about pesto and its Mediterranean cousin, pistou here, and I like all sorts of variations, and many have a particular place (with cheese; without cheese; for fish; for pasta Genovese), but nothing – and I’ve made and consumed many hundreds in my life – is ever quite the equal of the classic Italian variety, and no version seems quite so perfect as the simple food-processor method of M Hazan’s, described accurately, along with some pretty decent comments and observations, here, in case you don’t have the book (Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, which, by the way, is one of my few “must have” cookbooks, certainly a Top 10, maybe a Top 5).
Hazan’s is so easy, and so perfect, that I can not possibly add anything without also diluting it. However, I will emphasize that, if you’re going to make pesto, in addition to following Ms Hazan to the letter, you must heed a few basic rules (these are, of course, common to all cooking, but the simplicity and intensity of pesto offers even less slack than usual):

  • Use good basil. You really ought to grow your own – it’s cheap and easy, even for a challenged gardener like me. Make sure it’s the Genovese varietal: There are many basils, but you only want to make classic pesto with the particularly aromatic Genovese basil and its distinctive note of licorice.
  • Use good olive oil (it needn’t be your best – Costco’s organic extra virgin is just fine, and in fact better and cheaper than most), and probably an oil that leans more toward the grassy than the buttery end of the spectrum.
  • Use only freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano and Pecorino Romano cheeses. Seriously, don’t buy the waxy, shrink-wrapped, Swiss-cheese-tasting crap from the market, don’t buy it pre-grated in tubs from Trader Joe’s, and never, not ever, shall you pour grated cheese from a shiny green can – not for any reason, but specifically not into your pesto.
  • Be careful about your garlic: First, try to find a grower that offers more than one kind, and that can describe the difference. Some are just way too hot and spicy. Rose de Lautrec is my go-to garlic if I can only have one, but obviously whatever the Italians classically use for pesto would be fine (I buy Rocambole from Bernier Farms, in the possibly misguided belief that this is what I would get in Italy). But be careful, because different garlics are not at all equivalent, and this extends to measurements: What, precisely, is a “clove” of garlic? The same bulb could have cloves varying in size by a factor of 4; and different types of garlic could have their heat vary by a factor of 4; so you could have a recipe calling for “2 cloves” and it could mean 2 or 32, from one extreme to the other. There is no way to deal with this uncertainty except to learn to do it by taste, to learn the garlic you use, to learn how much for your pesto.
  • Don’t forget to season it, but don’t risk over-salting until all the cheeses are incorporated, as Romano in particular is very salty.

Major shakeup at Santa Rosa Certified Farmers’ Market

By biteclub

Longtime Santa Rosa Certified Farmer’s Market manager Paula Downing has been removed from her position by the six-member market board of directors.
News of the seemingly sudden dismissal from the popular Veteran’s Hall market was sent by letter to the 111 members of the SRCFM — mostly producers and farmers who sell at the Wednesday and Saturday markets — on October 4. Downing has not been at the market since Sept. 30.
According to the letter, obtained by BiteClub, the board decided not to renew Downing’s agreement to manage the market under the terms Downing demanded. “Although we are not able to discuss all the reasons the decision was made due to our concern for Ms. Downing’s privacy, we assure you that our decision not to renew her agreement was warranted under the circumstances.”
Kathleen Miller of Beyers-Costin, attorney for the market and spokesperson for the board said, “Paula Downing had an independent contractor agreement with the market. She was seeking additional compensation and in the process of renegotiation she wanted more money than the market could pay her. The board made her an offer that included additional compensation, but it was not as much as she wanted. The board didn’t believe it was in the best interest of the market to give her as much as she was asking.”
Board members declined to speak publicly about the dismissal but stated in their letter to members that “Downing and her supporters have chosen to vilify and harass the board members as a result of our decision.”
Downing, when reached for comment today, said “It was not my decision to leave. I would never have put the market in this position by leaving at the height of the season. I feel guilty about the farmers get this kind of publicity, this is people’s livelihood.” She declined to elaborate further citing legal actions, but clarified that she was “asked to leave”.
Downing has been at the Santa Rosa Certified Farmer’s Market for eight years. She will continue to manage the Sebastopol Farmer’s market. In the interim, the board has announced that market veterans Susan Nystrom and Ellen Roberts will be acting as interim managers for the Saturday and Wednesday market respectively.
“Nothing about the market is changing except for the Management,” reads the letter to members. “The Board of Directors is working overtime to ensure a stable, healthy, vibrant Farmers’ Market, now and in the future.”
The shakeup comes on the heels of a months-long kerfuffle at the Tuesday night Sonoma Farmer’s Market. After a number of high-tension public meetings and votes, the city has required longtime manager Hilda Schwartz to submit a proposal to continue managing the Tuesday night market on the city plaza. The RFP process, in which anyone can submit a plan for the market, continues until November.

The Caffeine Addict: Palate Fail

By biteclub

Blue Bottle Coffee Tasting
Blue Bottle, freshly pressed.

I have a Coffee Mea Culpa and it is this: I like bad coffee. Not awful coffee – I care not at all for the taste of two-day-old-and-tasting-of-burnt-gym-socks coffee, of low-grade beans apparently canned sometime during the early days of the Cold War, of Dunkin’ Donuts or McDonald’s drive-through “Cafes” – but coffee that is, in some objective sense, not ideal.
I know this because I have a competent palate, as far as it goes: Not that of a professional cook’s, but the ability to perceive, in a broadly objective sense, whether or not a dish tastes “right” – whether it’s properly seasoned, exhibits balance, consists of flavors that work well or poorly together, that sort of thing; and the flip side of tasting objectively (OK, fine, “objective taste” may be conceptually oxymoronic, but I’m sticking to my guns on this one: There is such a thing as objective quality with respect to food, and no matter how many shades of subjective gray might litter the middle of the spectrum, the “good” and “bad” extremes remain unequivocal) is that one must – eventually and, more likely, frequently – face the fact that what is good and what one likes do not always coincide in one’s mouth. Case in point and back on-thread: Coffee.
I’ve written elsewhere about the merits of locally-based “micro” roasters, and specifically why freshness – of both the roast and its subsequent percolation – has such a dramatic impact on the flavor of this uniquely stimulative and life-sustaining elixir. The thing is, once you understand why the flavor of coffee goes bad (it’s all about the reduction-oxidation process, as explained by the Specialty Coffee Association people here), you must also accept that most popular, commercially available “fresh” beans are overcooked: Heat is ultimately an enemy of coffee aromatics, so really hard roasting, at least as practiced by industry leaders Starbucks and Peets, inevitably raises the proportion of “bad” flavors and degrades the proportion of many “good” ones. But I do love my Peets, my Badass Coffee Co’s French Roast, my syrupy cup of liquid amphetamine midnight of whatever provenance. (Starbucks may be a godsend in an airport or the middle of Interstate 5, but otherwise, you can keep your SBUX.) Seriously – all those bitter, smoky, dark-chocolate flavors in a good cup of Peet’s? If the price is that I lose some subtlety, that I buy more blends than “single origins”, that there is just a hint of burnt? I will happily settle up on those terms, because everything else strikes me as watery or, worse, dirty.
That being said, I can also recognize when I’m wrong, and in this case, I’m wrong – in an objective sense, Peets et. al. uniformly roast their beans too hot, for too long, or both – I’m not sure which – in order to get their exceptionally dark roast. So, while I love it, I also accept it for what it is, and more importantly, what it isn’t: If I really cared about the terroir of coffee the way I do about wine, I would buy it from somebody like Blue Bottle or, more probably, our own local roaster, the Flying Goat: Both (amongst many others that I’m ignorant of) specialize in fair-trade, organic beans of the highest quality, emphasize the importance of individual terroirs, and – in order to express this specialization – both roast to a significantly lesser degree than Peets or any of their ilk. Case in point: I hadn’t heard of Blue Bottle until recently when La Familia B (who, by any definition, count amongst the ranks of the unrepentant foodie) gifted us the baggie pictured northwesterly. Provenance of the roast? Date-stamped 72 hours prior, somewhere in the East Bay. So my wife and I dutifully brewed up this little baggie of buzz: We dutifully let the water come off the boil; we patiently awaited the French press and tolerated its inevitable lacing of sludge; in short, we gave this coffee whatever chance we could to show off its true colors. The result? Pretty damned good, if you like it in all its medium-roasted, slightly dirty glory. I can accept it as more balanced, more complex, more unique than my crude-oil version. But still and all, I’m sorry, it just wasn’t to my personal taste: Scorched though it may be, give me the black-as-night, stain-your-teeth brew any day. I know I’m wrong, but I just like it that way.

Fresh by Lisa Hemenway: PIX

By biteclub

BiteClub’s been reporting on Lisa Hemenway’s new venture, Fresh, for several months now. But last night was the first time I’ve seen the market/restaurant in full swing since opening in late September.
It’s been a work-in-progress for a few weeks as staff were trained, shelves stocked and the in-store restaurant worked out. But on a bustling Wednesday night, the restaurant was at capacity, with locals munching on wood-fired pizzas, ravioli and salads. It’s a unique concept for the area — housing a wine bar and casual resto (where BiteClub saw several local culinary heavy-hitters enjoying dinner) in the midst of a market where folks are picking out their zucchini and crab cakes. But it works, making for a nice community space where neighbors picking up milk can say hello to friends in the dining room.
Fresh, open 8am to 9pm daily, 5755 Mountain Hawk Way, Santa Rosa.
Here are some interior photos…

Help Starts in the Kitchen

By biteclub

Local chef Josh Silvers and his wife/business partner Regina are spearheading a campaign to help out the local YWCA’s therapeutic preschool program for children who’ve experienced abuse or neglect.
Not surprisingly, that help starts in the kitchen. The center offers free meals to the through USDA program to the children, but is in serious need of upgrades. “For some, this school provides the only  safe place for children to be children and for others the only place they recieve a healthy meal,” pleads Regina.  Local  businesses are already getting in on the action, with appliance donations from TeeVax, countertops from local restaurant designer Neva B and cabinets from winery-owner (and former cabinet man) Ray D’Argenzio.
They’re now looking to the community to help out — but offering a few carrots for your donations.
Jackson’s Bar and Oven will be selling raffle tickets for $5 each (or 5 for $20) through the end of the month. The winner will receive dinner for 4 (up to $150) at the restaurant and a reservation (never taken at the restaurant). D’Argenzio is offering a complimentary wine tasting for everyone who buys a ticket.
Tickets can be purchased at Jackson’s Bar and Oven (135 4th St., Santa Rosa,), Syrah Bistro (205 5th St, Santa Rosa) or at D’Argenzio Winery (1301 Cleveland Avenue,
Santa Rosa). You can make an online donation to the YWCA at ywca.org/sonomacounty.

Fish Story | Napa

By biteclub


Fish Story Lobster Roll
Fish Story Lobster Roll

Forget everything you know about fish and chips. Because you’ve never actually had them until you’ve eaten them at Fish Story.
Imagine, if you will, angel wings of beer batter and flour gently floating over moist, flaky local rock cod. Take it for a salty, vinegary dunk. Cram it all into your mouth until your tongue sizzles and burns. Finish with a soul-satisfying crunch against your back molars. Kennebec french fries soak up wayward morsels of oil and fish and batter, all the more delightful for their service.
Best. Ever. And that’s no fish story.
Perched at the edge of the Napa River in the enviably cool Riverfront development (home to Morimoto and the soon-to-open Tyler Florence eatery, Rotisserie & Wine), this Lark Creek Restaurant Group (Bradley Ogden & crew) opening is a biggie.
At the helm is Chef Steven Barber who left BarbersQ to open the restaurant. A restaurant veteran of MECCA and Bambu in SF, he’s long been on the critic’s radar and will likely get plenty of nods for his this new venture.
With daily menu updates, the restaurant sources fish and shellfish according to the notoriously strict sustainability guidelines of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program and Barber’s using the former Copia gardens to farm herbs and produce. So don’t expect to see swordfish on the menu anytime soon.
Here’s the fork-11.
The Food: It’s a lengthy menu broken down in to Raw Bar, Soups & Salads, Starters, Rolls & Burgers, Features, Today’s Fish and Seasonal Sides.
You’re here for fish, so don’t miss the freshest flavors of the sea in their simplest form. Fish Story is bringing in seafood from around the US (and beyond), so you’ll find Massachusetts clams, Florida Shrimp, Hawaiian ahi tuna tartar (yes a usually yawn-worth menu inclusion, but given an incredible prep with hazelnut oil, avocado mousse and Fresno chili, $14). Fish Towers are date-impressers in three sizes (Keeper, $36; Whopper, $68 and Moby Dick, $99) showcasing a variety of shellfish. Of course bigger is always better.
Fried Monterey Bay Calamari ($10.5)and Fried Ipswich Full Belly Clams ($14) are getting high marks, but there’s no denying Fish Story’s take on the East Coast “Roll” — Bay Shrimp, Maine Lobster or Dungeness Crab. Its a wedge of soft bread stuffed with huge chunks of (in my case) lobster gently dressed with mayo and spices ($21).
Opening entrees include Chili Roasted Dungeness Crab ($18.5 for half/$34 whole), North Bay Cioppino ($26), pan-roasted Halibut and Grilled Idaho Trout ($18.5), along with the Rock Cod Fish & Chips (made with house-brewed Fish Story Ale, $16.5), and Shrimp and Grits ($19). There are, of course, several non-seafood options for abstainers. But come on, really?
Today’s Fish is similar in concept to what’s done over at Go Fish — a selection of daily fish prepared simply with a choice of sides, salsa verde or citrus butter ($17 to $39). Sometimes simplicity is best. And for dessert, don’t miss a cup of the Lark Creek group’s signature butterscotch pudding.
The Drinks: Wines on tap are a nice touch, and the Fish Story Ale on draft is currently “arriving soon” though other beers and speciality cocktails are available. A fresh blended lemonade ($3.95) and other mocktails make for a less tipsy indulgence.

A bright interior overlooks the river
A bright interior overlooks the river

The Vibe: The dining room isn’t huge, and even at lunch can fill up as eaters gawk at the live lobster tanks and spectacular riverside views. If you’re reservation-less, pull up to the bar, where service is polished and you can gab with your neighbors. Don’t feel the need to dress up, this is strictly casual. There’s a kids’ menu, so the nippers are welcome as well.
The Outlook: Things seem to be going swimmingly for Fish Story, a much-needed seafood-centric eatery that lets its fish do the talking. Beyond fresh and local, Fish Story walks the walk with serious sustainability as well.
Fish Story: 790 Main Street, Napa, 251-5600. Open M-F for lunch 11:30 to 2:30pm, Dinner Sun-Th, 5:30 to 9:30pm, Fri/Sat 5:30 to 10pm.

Martini House Sold

By biteclub

After a rumor popped up this morning in Napa that Pat Kuleto was selling Martini House in Napa, SF Eater has confirmed that the restaurant will, in fact, shutter on October 30 — at least in its current form. The purchasers of the restaurant are Paul Fleming and Brian Bennett. Fleming is best known as owner of P.F. Chang’s, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar and Paul Martin’s American Bistro. Because of a moratorium on chain restaurants in St. Helena, according to ThirstyReader, it isn’t likely that the restaurant will be reopened with giant Chinese warriors standing guard outside

In Search of Mac-n-Cheese Perfection, v2.0

By biteclub

Home-made Kraft-style mac-n-cheese
An orange cube of cheesy goodness

In our earlier skirmish with this thread, we waxed philosophical on the gustatory wonder and sundry therapeutic benefits of a classic macaroni and cheese, but made precious little headway toward the dish itself. On our next pass, we thought about actually making the dish, and wondered about the the appropriateness of breadcrumb toppings, cheeses other than cheddar, and the optimal pasta shape. While the end result – ziti baked in a sauce of bechamel, provolone and parmigiano – was good, maybe even satisfying, it nevertheless fell short of transporting. And a truly classic mac-n-cheese must, above all else, transport us somewhere: Perhaps to a time when we were younger, or in circumstances more care-free, or maybe precisely where we are now, but with softer edges, the carbohydrate equivalent of a Snuggly.
With this schmaltzy sentiment firmly ensconced, I decided to try a riff on the undeniably classic, if not particularly gourmet, version from 1937 known simply as Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (or, if you’re Canadian, Kraft Dinner). What could be more iconic than a lifeboat-orange, rib-gluing plate of Kraft? The problem, of course, is Kraft from a box basically tastes like crap. Which is not surprising, considering you could probably whip up a box from the original 1937 production run and eat it without getting sick. Hey, give credit where it’s due: I’ve fed it to my kids, more than once, and I invariably sneak a bite, but it’s not exactly a badge of honor here in the Proximal Kitchen. So what I’m after today is the essence of Kraft – a thick, creamy sauce; a blazing orange so rarely found in nature – but with the taste of real cheese, minus the food colorings, some texture to the pasta, and ideally a consistency a bit less like Elmer’s Glue. (The recipe resides on the last page, feel free to skip ahead.)
Right off the bat, I knew the color would be tricky, because even with loads of sharp cheddar, it’s going to be a very pale orange by the time you melt it into the bechamel, and in any case I don’t like how cheddar melts, too grainy. No substitute for primary research, so I took a quick trip down the cheese aisle, and lucked out: Mimolette. Mimolette – the hard, aged, dark-orange French version of Edam – is not one of my favorite cheeses; uninspiring on a cheese plate, and not my favorite texture, a bit too waxy for my palate. However, for our purposes here, it seemed like an ideal candidate: Lots of color (naturally produced using annatto, by the way), a sharp tang not unlike an aged cheddar, and, hopefully, melting properties inherited from its Dutch cousin.
I was worried about its melting properties, but figured to solve that by tempering it into the bechamel and rounding out the sauce with – insert horrified gasp here – processed “American” cheese. (How sad is it, by the way, that the only cheese whose proper name contains “American” is a “processed cheese product”. No wonder the French send us all their Beaujolais Nouveau and wheels of unripened brie.) It turns out that the processed cheese – e.g., “American cheese” – offers some distinct technical advantages to the aspiring builder of a great mac-n-cheese, because processed cheese has been emulsified (with water, whey, and/or milk, typically) and thus melts smoothly without breaking. Try to melt an aged, orange cheddar on its own and see what happens: Fats and solids separate, the melted cheese gets grainy, it’s just plain nasty, and has no place in my mac-n-cheese. Still, I didn’t want to serve a Cheese Whiz casserole, so I kept the proportions 2:1 in favor of the French.
For all this talk of Kraft, I still wanted to dress up the final product, to end up with an all-grown-up homage to the iconic childhood classic that resides in our collective cheesy consciousness, a dish for the 40-something toddler that lurks just beneath the surface of well-adjusted adults everywhere. To that end, I added a few bells and whistles, some of which you could probably do an end-around and not miss too much, but which, when taken together, help raise the humble, baked casserole into a deeply complex, satisfying plate of pasta. And, while it’s certainly several branches removed from where we started – the blue cardboard box on the mac-n-cheese family tree – I think you’ll agree that the family resemblance remains unmistakable. .
Mac-n-Cheese II

  1. Turn on the oven and set a large pot of salted water for the pasta to boil, and make an onion brulee (for the life of me, I can’t find a link to a simple description, so here’s my own: To make onion brulee, split an onion in half, stud it with several cloves, and make a slit into which you slot a bay leaf. Drizzle with a little oil and put under a broiler until the onion begins to char. That’s it.). As long as you’re working under a broiler, quickly toast several thick-cut slices of sourdough bread.  While the onion is in the oven, whisk together 1/2C (each of flour and butter) into a blonde roux.When the onion and the toast are out of the oven, set the temperature to 350F.
  2. Scald two cups of whole milk with the onion brulee and cook the pasta (I used cavatappi in order to get the classic “elbow shape”, but you could certainly use classic elbows; really, any tube-style pasta will do, it just depends how Kraft-like you want the final look and how you want it to set up for service. Don’t overcook the pasta! If you’re using a basic Italian boxed pasta like Barilla or De Cecco, take the lower end of their suggested cooking range, and subtract 1 minute. Pull the pasta – it will be slightly too tough still – and drain.
  3. Make the sauce, beginning with a bechamel. This is the key to this particular recipe – it is all about this sauce. Remove the onion and whisk the hot milk into the roux. Bring to a very low simmer and, while it cooks, prep the cheeses: 1lb of Mimolette, coursely grated, and 1/2lb of Kraft yellow American cheese, either cut in strips or grated, depending on the form in which you buy it. Season the bechamel with salt and freshly ground nutmeg and white pepper and add the cheese in batches. Once all the cheese has been incorporated, whisk in 1/4C of beer, 1 tablespoon of dry, ground mustard, 1 teaspoon of paprika (use a decent quality paprika – nice and deep red – or the color will be off), a few dashes of Tabasco sauce (you don’t want a spicy sauce, this is just a background note), and – the other secret weapon for color – a small pinch of saffron threads, ground between your fingers. The saffron is really just there to bring up the yellow in the sauce which, together with the dark red of the paprika and the orange of the Mimolette, will result in an almost impossibly bright and Kraft-like orange. While the sauce comes together, chop the toast slices, whiz them in a food processor until they are a uniform bread-crumb consistency, and gently saute them with some butter, salt and pepper. Remove from the heat, cool, and toss with a handful of finely grated Parmigiano or Romano cheese. Check the sauce for seasoning and adjust – it should be pretty sharp and a little salty, remember it has to flavor all that pasta. It will be very thick – that is fine, and what you want.
  4. Fold the pasta and the sauce together gently. You may have too much sauce, so reserve a cup or so until you know. The pasta should all be thickly slathered. Pour into a buttered 9×12 (-ish) casserole dish, or pie plate or crock pot or whatever you like, of similar volume. Press down gently to pack it together and get rid of air between noodles. Pour the breadcrumbs over the top, cover with foil, and place in the 350F oven for 20-25 minutes, until it’s bubbling and just starting to brown at the edges. Remove the foil and return to the oven until the top is a deep golden brown and the bread crumbs are nice and crunch, taking care not to burn – 5, maybe 10 minutes tops.
  5. Let is set for at least 10 minutes and cut in slices. Enjoy!

Corn Salsa Even My Kids Will Eat (Recipe)

By biteclub

Like the 49ers staring at a 4th-and-20, last Friday’s post ended with a whimper, a don’t think/just-punt sort of moment, as my employer’s requirement for some actual work and the post’s rapidly escalating word count dictated a hasty retreat from a recipe that I had the poor form to advertise and picture, but not to supply. So, think of today as a reprieve from the instant-replay booth – not exactly lucky, but fortuitous nevertheless.
The provenance of this seriously good and kid-approved corn sauce? First, as is my wont, an inventory of leftovers: Some trim off a previously fileted side of wild salmon, too scrappy to cook on their own; a few Wyeth Acres eggs, lonely in the far corner of last week’s carton; some stale bread; lots of gorgeous garlic from Bernier Farms, both Rocambole and Rose du Lautrec (the former richly spiced, the latter delicate and aromatic without too much heat); our Serrano chili bush, after last week’s heat spell alight like a Christmas tree in the middle of our little thicket of garden, its branches suddenly heavy with bright red fruit; and – critically – a bottle of Bob Pellegrini’s Olivet Lane Pinot Noir, inexplicably undrunk from my previous foray down the Costco wine aisle. Throw the lot if together, dredged in Panko and shallow-fried, and you have Crispy Salmon Cakes (a seasoned mixture of rough chopped salmon, bread soaked in milk, a beaten egg, and the chilis finely minced). Add the requisite starch (my kitchen is the Antarctica to Dr. Atkins’ Magnetic North), maybe another vegetable that the kids won’t touch, and wash it all down with Bob’s youthfully red Pinot, laced with cherries and raspberries, a perfect counterpoint to the mildly spicy, richly flavored salmon. (If you ever need to disprove a misconception about red wine and fish, grill some Copper River salmon and serve it with a soft, fruity RRV Pinot. QED.)
Plans were laid for a quick stop by the Tuesday market: Some freshly-dug potatoes, maybe some of that garlic roasted in the oven, chopped chives… it all seemed obvious, kid-friendly, easy, and cheap. Except, No Potatoes, and Enter Corn: I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know the name of the farm, but somebody had these big, beautiful, bright-green ears of corn from the far end of Dry Creek, picked less than two hours earlier. Salmon… chiles… corn. No brainer, really, and I’d get to serve a starch and a vegetable. The more I thought about, the more I realized that corn was the better option, by  half. If only the kids would eat it.
Kid-Approved Corn Salsa (adapted from The Professional Chef by the CIA)

  1. Cut off the silk, wet 4 ears of fresh corn, and roast them in a 350F oven for 15-20 minutes. Husk the corn (be sure to remove all the silk), cut off the kernels, and reserve the kernels, and return the cobs to the oven and broil them, turning once, until well-roasted and browned (but not burnt!).
  2. While the corn is cooking, dice an onion and sweat it in a saucepan with some olive oil until lightly browned. Deglaze with a cup of dry wine to match the final dish (e.g., Pinot for this one, but you could use a lighter white or a heavier red, Zin say, depending on what you’re serving it with) and cook until nearly dry.Meanwhile, mince a few Serrano chiles (2-4, depending on heat and size), and 1-2 cloves of garlic – all told, about a tablespoon of chili and a teaspoon of garlic.
  3. Add two cups of stock (this will work fine in vegetarian form, and better water than a bullion cube; but chicken stock will be more flavorful, and a white beef or veal stock best of all, with all the added body), along with a bay leaf, a sprig of fresh thyme, and a few whole peppercorns, and the roasted cobs, cut in half. Simmer gently until reduced by at least half, strain it out, and adjust the seasoning.
  4. Wipe out the pan, melt a knob of butter, and add the chilis, garlic, and the corn kernels, a teaspoon or so of cumin, and sautee gently over medium-low heat until they just start to soften.
  5. Add the sauce back and simmer until the corn is cooked through, but just, and still retains some tooth. Adjust the seasoning and serve at once. (The longer you have to hold this sauce, the more conservative you want to be about the corn, or it will overcook. However, you could do it all ahead of time, secept for this step, and add the sauce to the vegetables at the very end.) 
  6.  While the sauce is simmering, remove the corn from the oven, husk it (take care to get rid of all the silk), and cut off and reserve the kernels. Return the cobs to the oven and turn the heat up to a broil. Watch the cobs, turning them once – you want them roasted and browned, but never burnt.

My 8yo daughter went nuts for this stuff: The Serranos and garlic become very mild, the corn nicely sweet, the cumin a background note. It paired perfectly with the crispy salmon cakes, but it was so good, you could make a large quantity and serve it on its own; or as a sauce to just about anything that pairs well with corn.