Reminiscing about the red fruit

 After skimming our blog and remembering our love for tomatoes, it seems appropriate that my first post in 8 years would be about this fruit. Not planned, by the way. I also wrote about tomatoes in my first Cornell Daily Sun article at the end of the summer 2003. August is tomato season, and fresh tomatoes that haven't touched a refrigerator are magical. 

Though I will say... a few years ago, I thought I could get good tomatoes from Whole Foods, and those would do in a pinch. Now I'm older and wiser- even the pretty red tomatoes at the organic grocery stores that litter our neighborhoods taste a little flat. Forget winter tomatoes- those are thick skinned, crunchy, and taste like nothing. I've hit the point in life where I have zero time to spend on something that isn't 100%. So- my tomato corn salad and pasta sauce only make an appearance during the three weeks in August when the farmers sell seconds (this is what we call slightly bruised tomatoes in the Midwest- not sure if it's the same in AZ).

Seconds at my market are sold by the pallet... $20 for a full, $10 for a half. First, this is much more agreeable than spending $4 on a single tomato. Second, I could give two shits whether the tomato going into a sauce has a brown crack on the top. Or the tomato going into a salad or a beautiful caprese for that matter... just slice off the offending portion. I'm not using these for food photography, and even if I was, the finished product would look the same. Enough on my food waste rant. 

Last week, I made so much sauce that my stock pot was filled to the brim (18 lbs of tomatoes). Louis has been an excellent helper in the kitchen... he dropped each piece of tomato one by one into the pot. This took about 20 minutes. As I restrained myself from grabbing the remaining pile of tomato and dumping it into the pot, I reminded myself that this was 20 minutes of a happily engaged, quiet tiny person. He's amazingly cautious of the gas flame- I have to watch him, but I don't worry that he's going to barbecue his fingers. I've tried redirecting him to the play kitchen (which has better backsplash than the real kitchen), but playing with wooden vegetables and fake cooktops isn't as fun as the real thing. I get it. 

After such a ridiculous last few months (COVID, general work malaise, life panic), I'm happy to settle into an old habit and produce consistently, legitimately good food for foods' sake. 

Anna's Summer Tomato Sauce

Olive oil

Pinch red pepper flake

10 lbs summer tomatoes

1 white onion

6 cloves garlic

1.5 tblsp Salt 

Torn basil

Coat bottom of sauce pot with olive oil & turn flame to medium. Add sliced white onion & garlic... stir for 3 minutes until aromatic. Meanwhile, quarter tomatoes and drop in the pot. Add 1.5 tblsp salt & stir. Keep on medium heat ~5 minutes or until simmering. Turn down heat to low & cover pot. Stir sauce about every hour. Cook down until 60% of original height in pot... about 6 hours. If you are short on time, uncover pot, and kick up heat to medium. Stir every 5 minutes in this case. Blend with immersion blender (a regular blender works but will make an unholy mess).

Remove from heat & add basil.

Eat within a week or freeze in pint or quart size containers.

Diner en Blanc- Cincinnati

The post I'm about to write has very little to do with food. I didn't cook the food for this event, nor can I say the food I bought was particularly spectacular. But the event itself was, well, beautiful.

Diner en Blanc is a flash picnic that was started in Paris in the late '80s. This is the picnic's 2nd year in the US, and I have to say, it was incredibly well organized. Space was limited to 1100, and signups were all online. Once signed up, you had the option to purchase a picnic basket. For $48, I couldn't have put one together myself (basket to boot, no less!) The location of the picnic was secret- we met at one of the 10 "bus stops" around Cincinnati, and had our names checked off a list.

This thing was not easy to prep- I had to buy a table and rent linens and folding chairs. The bf has no white clothes, so white pants/belt/shoes had to be mail ordered. Of course, there had to be at least a modest table setting, so an Ikea trip for votive candles and a white pitcher for flowers became necessary.

So- back to the bus. We boarded around 6pm, and drove 10 minutes down the road to Lytle Park for the event.

 Bus by bus, all 1100 people set up their tables and decorations- some people had insane tablescapes- one table had a canopy with twinkly lights. White napkins waved in the air to signify the start of the event (and the wine!)

Setting up in Lytle Park

Fantastic home-made picnic... wish it was mine!

Eiffel Tower Centerpiece

The table with the canopy!

Our table... flowers and candles are creative by my standards ;)

me at our table

Everyone had to pack a picnic basket with white plates (not plastic- real plates), flatware, wine glasses, and of course, wine. We brought two bottles thinking we'd only open one... good thing we brought both! One was a Hooked! 2011 Reisling... crisp, not overly sweet. The other was a 2009 Urban Uco Malbec- probably one of the best inexpensive Malbec's we've had since Argentina. Really smooth with strong blackberry overtones. My pre-purchased basket had spinach dip with crackers and veg, chicken sandwich, potato salad, tomato mozzarella salad, and cookies... good quality but not as impressive as some of the home made baskets.

All in all- a successful evening. The weather was perfect, and the white lights and balloons in the evening were beautiful. I'll sign up for next year, you should come too.

DEB at night

Sparklers to end the evening

Tomato Take 2

Hi Becky-

Tomato season isn't over, and I've already one-upped my own posting. The recipe of the season has been bumped from tomato corn salad to chicken with seared cherry tomatoes. Can't pretend that I made this one up, but I do have a few comments.

1) Read the entire recipe before you start- this one goes in and out of the oven so many times that you need to watch which ingredients are added in the beginning/middle/end:
http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/quick-recipes/2012/08/chicken-with-herb-roasted-tomatoes-and-pan-sauce

2) I know you have a cast iron skillet. For anyone reading this blog who doesn't own a cast iron skillet, buy one... specifically for this recipe. They're listed on Amazon for $20- Loge is a good brand.

3) Grape, heirloom, cherry, roma... any tomato will do, really

4) I don't have Herbes de Provence in the pantry, nor was I going to stock up on a $5 bottle. I know- flippant, considering the demand to purchase a $20 cast iron skillet... the skillet will change your cooking life, the herbs won't. At any rate- sub out the 2 tblsp of Herbes de Provence for 1 tsp dried thyme and 2 tblsp fresh chopped basil. Add the thyme to the tomatoes in the beginning. Stir in the basil at the end, right before serving.

5) Worcestershire sauce + red wine vinegar + tomatoes= magical (sweet/tart/savory all in one bite!)

6) This recipe is flexible enough to use with any protein. Follow cooking times exact if you're using chicken. If using tilapia or other fish, sear on each side 1 minute and bake in the oven 4-5 minutes. Don't check the fish while searing- let it sit in the hot pan a full minute on each side to allow the golden crust to form.

7) The fresh tarragon and parsley are optional, particularly if you used the fresh basil

This is really awesome with ravioli or pasta on the side... the tomatoes act as built-in pasta sauce!

Tomato- Game On

Finally, it's tomato season! (cue dull roar from crowd) And, I've been buying 5 pounds a week from the farmers market.

Any other time of year, I can't stand eating raw tomatoes... they're flavorless with a crunchy yet goopy texture that just doesn't do it for me. I always wondered why winter tomatoes didn't have the magic... according to U of I, tomato flesh degrades when stored below 54 degrees. Meaning: don't pop those suckers into the fridge! http://urbanext.illinois.edu/veggies/tomato.cfm

Have tried a few fresh tomato recipes & want to try a pasta with raw sauce that I found in this month's Bon Appetit. Last year, I made a few tomato salads with cheeses, bruchetta, and tomato pie. All were ok, but this one is my absolute favorite:

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2012/07/charred-corn-salad-with-basil-and-tomatoes

The recipe is impossible to screw up, and it also happens to be corn & basil season too :) The only kicker is this salad tastes like complete crap if you make it outside of July & August. Eat up while you can, let me know what you think!

Do you have any other ideas for using fresh summer tomatoes?

Kick-N-Chicken

When I was a little kid, I used to spend 2 months every summer at my grandparents' house in upstate NY. Not the Westchester county version of Upstate NY... I'm talkin' about the back country road, old farmhouse, pig farm, corn field Upstate NY. And every Sunday was chicken day. What was chicken day, you ask? Chicken day was when smoked rotisserie chicken owned the kitchen- the smell alone was enough to attract every member of the family like flies to sugar water. 

Every weekend during the summers, the chicken stand would light a wood smoker early in the morning. Imagine a massive pit with a 15 foot rotisserie spit spread across. On the spit were 20 perfect chickens, bound together with twine, seasoned with BBQ seasoning (Bucks), and gently rubbed in butter. The chickens would slow roast over the smoky embers for a couple hours, until the meat fell off the bone. *Fell off the bone* Imagine a slow roasted pork butt shredding between your fingers- that's what this chicken is like. This isn't a chicken with flavor reserved only for the skin, or the chicken that requires a heavy coating of sauce to be called barbeque. The meat itself is infused with smokey flavor, and the slow roasting melts the tendons to lock in moisture. Equally moist white and dark meat- impossible to achieve in the oven without dissecting the bird before it's fully cooked.

Yesterday, I encountered the infamous Upstate NY chicken for the first time in over 5 years. What the hell was I thinking, skipping all of those summer family visits? The chicken alone was worth the flight (and grandma too).

Here's a picture of Kick-N-Chicken in Palermo, NY. The pit has been replaced with a wagon. Clearly this ain't your Kroger dual chicken electric rotisserie.

Grandma with the birdies

Dosa Back

Hey Becky-

I have three very awesome food months to catch up on (Korea! New York! Cupcakes! Blueberry smashes!) In the meantime though, I can't help but wax a little poetic on dosas.

I had my first dosa 4 years ago at a place called Dakshin in Louisville (http://www.mydakshin.com). Dakshin is probably the best Indian food I've had in a restaurant, and it's located in a veritable shithole of a shopping center. But the massive half moon, size-of-a-Carolina's-tortilla, crispy, delicately browned dosas with the mashed potato filling were worth transferring the hefty contents of my car into the trunk for safekeeping every time. I liked them so much that I bought rice flour thinking I might try to recreate them at home- no such luck so far.

Was the uttapam similar to a Korean pancake? Yet another unsatisfied reason for the rice flour purchase.

Dosa on Fillmore next year?

Left My Heart (and Stomach) in San Francisco

Dear Anna,

Gosh, it’s been … 2 years since I last posted on the blog. I suppose I’ve been busy in the meantime: finishing graduate school, getting married, working. That reminds me, I should probably update my bio on the left side bar, hm?

I thought I would herald my return to the blog with a restaurant review – Dosa in San Francisco, specifically Dosa on Fillmore (there’s also a Dosa on Valencia). But first, the story. My good friends J and J (I figured I would keep it limited to initials since this is a blog and not Facebook) live in the Bay Area, and they are foodies as well. On a visit last year, they took Husband and I to an Indian restaurant called Dosa, and I have to say it’s astoundingly delicious and unlike any Indian food you’ve probably ever had before.

The Interwebs at Wikipedia tells me that dosa is “a fermented crepe or pancake made from rice batter and black lentils … and is a staple dish in the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu.” Uttapam is a thicker pancake with toppings like onions, chiles, tomatoes and spices are cooked into the batter. I’m no expert, but I think the kormas, paratha, roti, and other dishes in which we used to drown our Cornell studying sorrows and typically think of as “Indian food” is northern Indian cuisine.

So, continuing the story: our friends J and J got married earlier this month, and Husband and I flew in to San Francisco for the wedding. (May I just say that in our experience, it’s a lot more fun to be guests at a wedding versus being the marrying couple.) We made it a point to go back to Dosa while we were there… well actually, it was more like a “hurry-up-and-get-through-baggage-claim-because-we’re-having-dinner-at-Dosa-now” kind of point.

The restaurant itself is quite beautiful, with tables both upstairs and downstairs and at the bar, in that sexy urban restaurant kind of way.

I can’t quite remember if we ordered both dosas AND uttapams during our first visit, but it was the uttapams that we remembered. At the restaurant, you can order a chef’s selection of five different uttapams (South Indian Moons) if you have a hard time making your choice. And you can get both entrée-sized dishes or small plates of meat, fish, and vegetable dishes. The small plates are particularly nice if you, like us, just want to taste EVERYTHING.

I’m trying to think how to describe an uttapam to you … all the descriptors say “pancake,” but that’s like saying that a loaf of ciabatta fresh out of an oven in Tuscany is bread; technically true but misses something important. The texture is dense and moist, with pops of flavor from the toppings and spices.

*sigh*

Too bad this restaurant is 750 miles away from me in Arizona and 2,400 miles away from you in Ohio.

So… when can we go? =D

Love,

Becky

http://dosasf.com/fillmore_home.htm