1.28.2004
What you eat
Perhaps fortunetellers should toss the crystal ball and tarot cards and read a person’s future from what they decide to have for breakfast. For many, this is the meal we forgo in our mad dash to work or gobble in one hand, wrapper greasy, while driving the kids to school. For some, it is the first Zen step of many in measured bites and silent thoughts.
Over the next two days the catering company I work for will be juggling wine and food for 700 during a law school dedication at the local university. There will be many law luminaries, as they are wont to be called, and many Very Important People, who will want a twist of lime, not lemon, in their sparkling water, or perhaps inquire very sternly whether there are any nuts in the tuna tartare. I will very politely explain that tuna tartare is fish, and most of the nuts at this event are outside the bowl, not in it.
This whirlwind kicks off this morning, at 8 a.m. Chief Justice Anthony Kennedy, the guest of honor, will be having a modest breakfast in one of the law school classrooms, by himself. His requested menu: One scone, with butter and jam. One yogurt. One apple; one banana. One bag of plain chips, and one Hershey bar, with almonds. Five bottles of mineral water. He will eat this repast on china plates, with well-polished silverware. The only sound in the room will be of metal on porcelain, the rustle of the chip bag, the quiet breath of the air conditioner in a very new, very expensive room of the law school.
Judge Kennedy has been described as a “restrained pragmatist” on the bench, one who doesn’t “raise any problems.” I don’t know whether he likes plain yogurt or mixed berry, so I included both. Perhaps, if he liked lemon best of all, he still wouldn’t say.
I will eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on my way to the dry cleaners, and will probably leave a small dollop of jam on my jacket as I fumble for my wallet. I might be described as a “last-minute juggler,” one who prefers “crunchy to creamy.” Maybe I’ll just leave the fortunetelling to the professionals.
Perhaps fortunetellers should toss the crystal ball and tarot cards and read a person’s future from what they decide to have for breakfast. For many, this is the meal we forgo in our mad dash to work or gobble in one hand, wrapper greasy, while driving the kids to school. For some, it is the first Zen step of many in measured bites and silent thoughts.
Over the next two days the catering company I work for will be juggling wine and food for 700 during a law school dedication at the local university. There will be many law luminaries, as they are wont to be called, and many Very Important People, who will want a twist of lime, not lemon, in their sparkling water, or perhaps inquire very sternly whether there are any nuts in the tuna tartare. I will very politely explain that tuna tartare is fish, and most of the nuts at this event are outside the bowl, not in it.
This whirlwind kicks off this morning, at 8 a.m. Chief Justice Anthony Kennedy, the guest of honor, will be having a modest breakfast in one of the law school classrooms, by himself. His requested menu: One scone, with butter and jam. One yogurt. One apple; one banana. One bag of plain chips, and one Hershey bar, with almonds. Five bottles of mineral water. He will eat this repast on china plates, with well-polished silverware. The only sound in the room will be of metal on porcelain, the rustle of the chip bag, the quiet breath of the air conditioner in a very new, very expensive room of the law school.
Judge Kennedy has been described as a “restrained pragmatist” on the bench, one who doesn’t “raise any problems.” I don’t know whether he likes plain yogurt or mixed berry, so I included both. Perhaps, if he liked lemon best of all, he still wouldn’t say.
I will eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on my way to the dry cleaners, and will probably leave a small dollop of jam on my jacket as I fumble for my wallet. I might be described as a “last-minute juggler,” one who prefers “crunchy to creamy.” Maybe I’ll just leave the fortunetelling to the professionals.
1.23.2004
Open for business
A late-night craving for Vietnamese spring rolls after a long workday brought me to a pho joint on Clement Street, one of the many sleepless noodle houses in the Richmond.
Most pho shops wear the same clothes. Watercolor pictures of Hanoi or Hue, surrounded by gilded frames, hang on off-white walls. There is always a wall of mirrors, giving the illusion of an endless sea of noodle slurpers. The mirrors also reflect the glowing red bulbs of the ubiquitous corner shrine, painting the stained linoleum and the white table tops a bright blush. Menus are well handled and oily, and smell faintly of fish sauce. The communal chopsticks and spoon holder rattles as you sit down. You order by number, always. And even though you come to this same pho house every week, and probably order the same thing, every week, the waiter still has to crane his neck and double-check the menu in front of you--after all, there are at least 100 items on the page.
I wasn’t planning to linger, ordering my spring rolls to go and sighing into the stiff chair nearest the cash register. The owner, a tired woman in her 50s, slouched on a stool behind the register desk and stared blankly out the front of the restaurant, barely looking at the order slip in front of her as she wrote. She carried the slip back through two swinging doors to the kitchen, where she called out the order to the cooks on duty.
A child’s voice echoed her order and repeated it at least five times, each time becoming more hysterical and insistent. I couldn’t see the parrot in the kitchen, but smiled at the woman who had made her way back to her spot behind the register. She smiled with heavy, stiff lips. One of her eyes wandered a bit, and when she started speaking, I wasn’t sure she was talking to me, or to the cloud of exhaustion surrounding her.
You have quite a kitchen helper, I said. My son, she told me. He’s here late, and he must get up to go to school. This job no good. Very long hours.
She proceeded to tell me that her family owns three pho noodle houses in the Sunset and in the Richmond districts, a business burden that keeps her and her family up at all hours, seven days a week. Her son, the parrot, is seven years old and was practically born in the kitchen. He goes to school at 6 a.m., and after school, goes straight to the restaurant so his mother can keep an eye on him. Around 10 p.m. the restaurant closes, and around 11 they head home. They are tired a lot, she said, still staring out the front windows, glowing green and red from a neon sign that announced the shop was “Open.”
I ask my son what he wants to be, a lawyer or a doctor, she says. He says, I want to own all the restaurants. He knows all the menu items by heart, she sighs. But I don’t want him to do this work.
Her son comes out of the kitchen and heads straight to his mother. Her face lights up, if briefly, and she strokes his head. He’s wearing a red turtleneck, a lucky color. He announces to his mother that 800 plus 200 is ‘ten-hundred.’ He notices me staring at them both, and nuzzles his mother’s side with his nose.
Your mother was just telling me how smart you are, I say. He is bashful and quiet, and runs back to the kitchen, his playground. My spring rolls appear in the hands of the cook, who has taken the time to tie a special knot in the bag so I can carry the container without spilling. He presents the bundle to me with two hands, as if handing over a gift. I turn to the mother and wish her happy new year, and lots of luck.
A late-night craving for Vietnamese spring rolls after a long workday brought me to a pho joint on Clement Street, one of the many sleepless noodle houses in the Richmond.
Most pho shops wear the same clothes. Watercolor pictures of Hanoi or Hue, surrounded by gilded frames, hang on off-white walls. There is always a wall of mirrors, giving the illusion of an endless sea of noodle slurpers. The mirrors also reflect the glowing red bulbs of the ubiquitous corner shrine, painting the stained linoleum and the white table tops a bright blush. Menus are well handled and oily, and smell faintly of fish sauce. The communal chopsticks and spoon holder rattles as you sit down. You order by number, always. And even though you come to this same pho house every week, and probably order the same thing, every week, the waiter still has to crane his neck and double-check the menu in front of you--after all, there are at least 100 items on the page.
I wasn’t planning to linger, ordering my spring rolls to go and sighing into the stiff chair nearest the cash register. The owner, a tired woman in her 50s, slouched on a stool behind the register desk and stared blankly out the front of the restaurant, barely looking at the order slip in front of her as she wrote. She carried the slip back through two swinging doors to the kitchen, where she called out the order to the cooks on duty.
A child’s voice echoed her order and repeated it at least five times, each time becoming more hysterical and insistent. I couldn’t see the parrot in the kitchen, but smiled at the woman who had made her way back to her spot behind the register. She smiled with heavy, stiff lips. One of her eyes wandered a bit, and when she started speaking, I wasn’t sure she was talking to me, or to the cloud of exhaustion surrounding her.
You have quite a kitchen helper, I said. My son, she told me. He’s here late, and he must get up to go to school. This job no good. Very long hours.
She proceeded to tell me that her family owns three pho noodle houses in the Sunset and in the Richmond districts, a business burden that keeps her and her family up at all hours, seven days a week. Her son, the parrot, is seven years old and was practically born in the kitchen. He goes to school at 6 a.m., and after school, goes straight to the restaurant so his mother can keep an eye on him. Around 10 p.m. the restaurant closes, and around 11 they head home. They are tired a lot, she said, still staring out the front windows, glowing green and red from a neon sign that announced the shop was “Open.”
I ask my son what he wants to be, a lawyer or a doctor, she says. He says, I want to own all the restaurants. He knows all the menu items by heart, she sighs. But I don’t want him to do this work.
Her son comes out of the kitchen and heads straight to his mother. Her face lights up, if briefly, and she strokes his head. He’s wearing a red turtleneck, a lucky color. He announces to his mother that 800 plus 200 is ‘ten-hundred.’ He notices me staring at them both, and nuzzles his mother’s side with his nose.
Your mother was just telling me how smart you are, I say. He is bashful and quiet, and runs back to the kitchen, his playground. My spring rolls appear in the hands of the cook, who has taken the time to tie a special knot in the bag so I can carry the container without spilling. He presents the bundle to me with two hands, as if handing over a gift. I turn to the mother and wish her happy new year, and lots of luck.
1.22.2004
A new harvest
I am up to my elbows in dirt. Not the dirt that lodges under fingernails and turns worn knees on jeans a muddy hue, but the language of dirt, of farming. I’m surrounded by books with titles such as, “On Good Land” and “The Chef’s Garden” and “From the Earth to the Table,” each a personal account of a gourmand or earth goddess able to extract gold from the earth, in the form of perfect vegetables, succulent fruit.
I’m out of my league here. I was raised on cement and often kill things that are green. The only organic materials I am familiar with are the runoff of city streets, the pungent body odors of public places. For example, the perfume of this library where I now sit is redolent of underarms, toes, and wet sneakers. This is my garden. There is little to sow, but plenty of compost.
Reading these various volumes I am coming more to realize how absolutely out of touch I am with how the natural world produces the food I crave and eat daily. And even more so, I realize that this disconnect clashes violently with my desire to seek better, more wholesome, produce and meats. I don’t have a garden; I barely have a backyard. There is an abundance of farmer’s markets in the Bay Area, but the products there are already past their natural state, albeit presented in wicker baskets or haphazard leafy piles to enhance their “natural” effect.
I tried to grow tomatoes, once; the spindly plant rotted from my over-enthusiastic watering. I did produce one, perfectly round cherry tomato, however. It popped when I bit into it, its juices running down my lips and chin. The taste was bright and crisp. I found myself hesitating before I bit, realizing with mistaken motherly pride that the vegetable on my plate was created with my guiding hand, and briefly, I considered it a pet, a prize that perhaps shouldn’t be sacrificed to a greedy mouth. Thankfully I didn’t name it.
I’m up to my elbows in dirt in an attempt to gain a better understanding of the world of organic farming and “real” food to prepare myself for a possible (gasp) book proposal. It is intimidating, and I feel somewhat too clean, still, to consider myself knowledgeable about anything farm-related. I should volunteer at an urban garden, perhaps, or find a field—miles, no doubt, from where I live—and watch cows chew grass. They will probably smell my city stink, gasoline and exhaust, and run the other direction, while I hold my nose, unaccustomed to the smell of nature.
I recall, somewhat haphazardly, a scene in “The Corrections” where the sister, after having sex with her lesbian lover in her restaurant’s garden, digs her hands deep into the soil and is intoxicated with the overwhelming heady scent of sex and earth. Reading these gardening books, I realize that I am craving dirt. (I am always craving sex, thus, the logic is sound.) I am envious of these writers and gardeners and chefs who can step outside and know, with a sensitive nose and keen eye, which fruits are ripe and ready for the picking.
Ripe peaches are the subjects of a sidebar in one book I'm reading by a farmer who chronicled his love affair and cultivation of a local farm threatened by urban sprawl near Goleta, California. It is fruit as passion, as foreplay. After reading it I fell into daydreaming of wine and the soft skin of my lover’s back, warmed by the just-rising sun.
How to pick a peach
Harvesting fruit requires sensitivity, acute observation, and patience. Before picking a peach, try to be aware of all your senses. Imagine that eating the fruit begins with seeing the whole tree, discerning its parts, and visually consuming its shapes and colors. Try to smell for ripeness and allow your hands to land on the fruit that calls you in its readiness. Without touching, look closely at its color, at the exposed side and then the unexposed side. Most tree fruit has layers of skin color. Beneath the more obvious reds of an apple, for example, are various shades of green or yellow. These are called the ground or base colors. If the ground color of the peach is mostly pale yellow and the body of the fruit is red or orange it is probably close. Carefully, using the palm of your hand, cradle the fruit and move it gently. If after vigorous movement it refuses to let go, move on. If it comes off easily in your hand it is ready.
Eat slowly.
-“On Good Land: The Autobiography of an Urban Farm” by Michael Ableman
I am up to my elbows in dirt. Not the dirt that lodges under fingernails and turns worn knees on jeans a muddy hue, but the language of dirt, of farming. I’m surrounded by books with titles such as, “On Good Land” and “The Chef’s Garden” and “From the Earth to the Table,” each a personal account of a gourmand or earth goddess able to extract gold from the earth, in the form of perfect vegetables, succulent fruit.
I’m out of my league here. I was raised on cement and often kill things that are green. The only organic materials I am familiar with are the runoff of city streets, the pungent body odors of public places. For example, the perfume of this library where I now sit is redolent of underarms, toes, and wet sneakers. This is my garden. There is little to sow, but plenty of compost.
Reading these various volumes I am coming more to realize how absolutely out of touch I am with how the natural world produces the food I crave and eat daily. And even more so, I realize that this disconnect clashes violently with my desire to seek better, more wholesome, produce and meats. I don’t have a garden; I barely have a backyard. There is an abundance of farmer’s markets in the Bay Area, but the products there are already past their natural state, albeit presented in wicker baskets or haphazard leafy piles to enhance their “natural” effect.
I tried to grow tomatoes, once; the spindly plant rotted from my over-enthusiastic watering. I did produce one, perfectly round cherry tomato, however. It popped when I bit into it, its juices running down my lips and chin. The taste was bright and crisp. I found myself hesitating before I bit, realizing with mistaken motherly pride that the vegetable on my plate was created with my guiding hand, and briefly, I considered it a pet, a prize that perhaps shouldn’t be sacrificed to a greedy mouth. Thankfully I didn’t name it.
I’m up to my elbows in dirt in an attempt to gain a better understanding of the world of organic farming and “real” food to prepare myself for a possible (gasp) book proposal. It is intimidating, and I feel somewhat too clean, still, to consider myself knowledgeable about anything farm-related. I should volunteer at an urban garden, perhaps, or find a field—miles, no doubt, from where I live—and watch cows chew grass. They will probably smell my city stink, gasoline and exhaust, and run the other direction, while I hold my nose, unaccustomed to the smell of nature.
I recall, somewhat haphazardly, a scene in “The Corrections” where the sister, after having sex with her lesbian lover in her restaurant’s garden, digs her hands deep into the soil and is intoxicated with the overwhelming heady scent of sex and earth. Reading these gardening books, I realize that I am craving dirt. (I am always craving sex, thus, the logic is sound.) I am envious of these writers and gardeners and chefs who can step outside and know, with a sensitive nose and keen eye, which fruits are ripe and ready for the picking.
Ripe peaches are the subjects of a sidebar in one book I'm reading by a farmer who chronicled his love affair and cultivation of a local farm threatened by urban sprawl near Goleta, California. It is fruit as passion, as foreplay. After reading it I fell into daydreaming of wine and the soft skin of my lover’s back, warmed by the just-rising sun.
How to pick a peach
Harvesting fruit requires sensitivity, acute observation, and patience. Before picking a peach, try to be aware of all your senses. Imagine that eating the fruit begins with seeing the whole tree, discerning its parts, and visually consuming its shapes and colors. Try to smell for ripeness and allow your hands to land on the fruit that calls you in its readiness. Without touching, look closely at its color, at the exposed side and then the unexposed side. Most tree fruit has layers of skin color. Beneath the more obvious reds of an apple, for example, are various shades of green or yellow. These are called the ground or base colors. If the ground color of the peach is mostly pale yellow and the body of the fruit is red or orange it is probably close. Carefully, using the palm of your hand, cradle the fruit and move it gently. If after vigorous movement it refuses to let go, move on. If it comes off easily in your hand it is ready.
Eat slowly.
-“On Good Land: The Autobiography of an Urban Farm” by Michael Ableman
1.15.2004
Cooking comprehension
It took me four hours to make a lousy beet and goat cheese tart yesterday. Beets take their own sweet time to roast. Dough needs to rest. Onions need to caramelize. Dough needs to roll and rest again. Custard needs to set. Chef needs to eat a peanut butter sandwich in the middle of it all because she’s hungry, dammit, and the tart can wait.
So goes my first day as a semi-official recipe tester for Leite’s Culinaria, a gorgeous and useful food Web site by a solid food writer, David Leite, who has a very cool stove. I would like his stove; my stove is rather stingy with its heat. My baking-happy roommate and I have had to stick a thermometer, permanently, in its creaky mouth to make sure it is behaving. Despite this precaution, it still burns cookies. It is an evil stove.
It is industry knowledge, but not general knowledge, that most of the recipes published in cookbooks are not tested. And how could they be? There are hundreds of cookbooks published each year, and each book has on average 50 to 100 recipes. Cookbook writers and editors would be a rather fat lot; the number of triple bypasses would skyrocket. So, caveat chef: what you read may not be what you get.
What Leite’s set out to do is take a few tasty-sounding recipes that have already been published and see if they hold up in home test kitchens around the country. I’m not sure how many testers are out there, but we’re an anonymous bunch; we get our assignments online and submit our results in the same fashion. There’s no pay, but it is a nice resume chit; and best of all, you get to eat what you cook. Unless what you cook sucks or takes so long you starve. See peanut butter sandwich reference, first paragraph.
There are a couple of tricks to know when reading recipes that will help prevent pulled hair or burned houses. First, and most importantly: read the whole recipe first, ingredient list as well as method. Know what you’re getting into. The tart recipe -- roasted beets, caramelized onions, fresh goat cheese with walnuts -- sounded excellent until I started counting hours of preparation. One hour to make the dough, another half-hour to let it rest. Half an hour for the tart shell to cook. An hour for the beets to roast; another half-hour for the custard to set and the tart to cook completely. Meanwhile, it’s midnight and your dinner guests have left for the KFC down the street. So, read the entire recipe first.
Another good trick: check the ingredient list with the method, or explanation of how the dish is prepared. Are all the ingredients mentioned in the method? Are any left out? Does the cookbook author assume you’ve got eggs for egg wash already on hand, or know instinctively how to blanch asparagus? If the recipe seems incomplete, or poorly written, chances are the dish will come out half-baked too.
Tools are another stumbling block. The other recipe I tested, Thai “waffles” with dried shrimp and lime, suggested the batter be cooked in a waffle iron. Well, I don’t have a waffle iron, and wasn’t about to run out and grab one just for this project. The recipe did say the batter could be cooked like regular crepes, which is what I did.
The crepes were soggy and floppy and utterly boring. I chide the authors for suggesting an alternate method that is decidedly second-rate, yet, if I hadn’t been testing the recipe, I probably would have shied away because of my lack of kitchen toys. So be sure to read through the entire recipe and make sure you’ve got the gadgets required: it could foil your grand culinary experiment.
Or, on the contrary, a mistake could turn into a resounding success. Recipes are, after all, mostly guidelines -- it’s a quick script written after years of improv. If you don’t like what’s written in a recipe, add your own spice and creativity. What you create may be far better, or worse: but best of all, it will be yours.
It took me four hours to make a lousy beet and goat cheese tart yesterday. Beets take their own sweet time to roast. Dough needs to rest. Onions need to caramelize. Dough needs to roll and rest again. Custard needs to set. Chef needs to eat a peanut butter sandwich in the middle of it all because she’s hungry, dammit, and the tart can wait.
So goes my first day as a semi-official recipe tester for Leite’s Culinaria, a gorgeous and useful food Web site by a solid food writer, David Leite, who has a very cool stove. I would like his stove; my stove is rather stingy with its heat. My baking-happy roommate and I have had to stick a thermometer, permanently, in its creaky mouth to make sure it is behaving. Despite this precaution, it still burns cookies. It is an evil stove.
It is industry knowledge, but not general knowledge, that most of the recipes published in cookbooks are not tested. And how could they be? There are hundreds of cookbooks published each year, and each book has on average 50 to 100 recipes. Cookbook writers and editors would be a rather fat lot; the number of triple bypasses would skyrocket. So, caveat chef: what you read may not be what you get.
What Leite’s set out to do is take a few tasty-sounding recipes that have already been published and see if they hold up in home test kitchens around the country. I’m not sure how many testers are out there, but we’re an anonymous bunch; we get our assignments online and submit our results in the same fashion. There’s no pay, but it is a nice resume chit; and best of all, you get to eat what you cook. Unless what you cook sucks or takes so long you starve. See peanut butter sandwich reference, first paragraph.
There are a couple of tricks to know when reading recipes that will help prevent pulled hair or burned houses. First, and most importantly: read the whole recipe first, ingredient list as well as method. Know what you’re getting into. The tart recipe -- roasted beets, caramelized onions, fresh goat cheese with walnuts -- sounded excellent until I started counting hours of preparation. One hour to make the dough, another half-hour to let it rest. Half an hour for the tart shell to cook. An hour for the beets to roast; another half-hour for the custard to set and the tart to cook completely. Meanwhile, it’s midnight and your dinner guests have left for the KFC down the street. So, read the entire recipe first.
Another good trick: check the ingredient list with the method, or explanation of how the dish is prepared. Are all the ingredients mentioned in the method? Are any left out? Does the cookbook author assume you’ve got eggs for egg wash already on hand, or know instinctively how to blanch asparagus? If the recipe seems incomplete, or poorly written, chances are the dish will come out half-baked too.
Tools are another stumbling block. The other recipe I tested, Thai “waffles” with dried shrimp and lime, suggested the batter be cooked in a waffle iron. Well, I don’t have a waffle iron, and wasn’t about to run out and grab one just for this project. The recipe did say the batter could be cooked like regular crepes, which is what I did.
The crepes were soggy and floppy and utterly boring. I chide the authors for suggesting an alternate method that is decidedly second-rate, yet, if I hadn’t been testing the recipe, I probably would have shied away because of my lack of kitchen toys. So be sure to read through the entire recipe and make sure you’ve got the gadgets required: it could foil your grand culinary experiment.
Or, on the contrary, a mistake could turn into a resounding success. Recipes are, after all, mostly guidelines -- it’s a quick script written after years of improv. If you don’t like what’s written in a recipe, add your own spice and creativity. What you create may be far better, or worse: but best of all, it will be yours.
1.12.2004
The better burger
America may be the birthplace of the hamburger, the traditional (perhaps patriotic?) ground meat patty, seasoned well or simply, tucked tightly with lettuce, tomatoes and dill pickles between a sliced, seeded, doughy bun, slathered with ketchup and mayonnaise. But this version doesn’t hold a candle to the Turkish kofte.
Pronounce a guttural “goood” and you’ve said “kofte” correctly. It’s Turkey’s hamburger, and simply means “ball” in the Turkish language. And, like the American burger, the kofte is Istanbul’s version of fast food. Food stalls on the streets of the raucous city need no additional advertisement aside from the pungent, salty smell of grilled beef and lamb that hangs heavily in the sweaty summer air. One needs to simply follow one’s nose to find the right dining spot.
The meat is seasoned with thyme, garlic and minced onions. It can be prepared more than a dozen ways, but in my humble opinion, is best grilled. Condiments are few, but perfect: served between puffy pide bread, the kofte are complemented with a tangy yogurt sauce seasoned with more thyme and garlic, and perhaps a few strings of red onion, thinly sliced. The outside of the kofte should be crisp and brown, while the inside just cooked, tender, pungent and juicy. Take a bite and let the juices run down your fingers; no one will think twice if you’ve got to gobble.
I had kofte for dinner Friday night, along with a Turkish peasant salad, a chopped mix of cucumbers, red onions and tomatoes in a light olive oil dressing. We shared a kofte plate, and yes, we did gobble. The only thing that was missing to recreate a perfect, sultry Istanbul evening was a glass of raki, the Turkish national drink, a refreshing anise liquor that goes best with ice and outdoor dining.
Want kofte? Check out Café de Pera on Clement Street in San Francisco for kofte and other Turkish kebab specialties. For more information on Turkish cuisine, check out this great page on Sally’s Place, a comprehensive site on food and travel.
America may be the birthplace of the hamburger, the traditional (perhaps patriotic?) ground meat patty, seasoned well or simply, tucked tightly with lettuce, tomatoes and dill pickles between a sliced, seeded, doughy bun, slathered with ketchup and mayonnaise. But this version doesn’t hold a candle to the Turkish kofte.
Pronounce a guttural “goood” and you’ve said “kofte” correctly. It’s Turkey’s hamburger, and simply means “ball” in the Turkish language. And, like the American burger, the kofte is Istanbul’s version of fast food. Food stalls on the streets of the raucous city need no additional advertisement aside from the pungent, salty smell of grilled beef and lamb that hangs heavily in the sweaty summer air. One needs to simply follow one’s nose to find the right dining spot.
The meat is seasoned with thyme, garlic and minced onions. It can be prepared more than a dozen ways, but in my humble opinion, is best grilled. Condiments are few, but perfect: served between puffy pide bread, the kofte are complemented with a tangy yogurt sauce seasoned with more thyme and garlic, and perhaps a few strings of red onion, thinly sliced. The outside of the kofte should be crisp and brown, while the inside just cooked, tender, pungent and juicy. Take a bite and let the juices run down your fingers; no one will think twice if you’ve got to gobble.
I had kofte for dinner Friday night, along with a Turkish peasant salad, a chopped mix of cucumbers, red onions and tomatoes in a light olive oil dressing. We shared a kofte plate, and yes, we did gobble. The only thing that was missing to recreate a perfect, sultry Istanbul evening was a glass of raki, the Turkish national drink, a refreshing anise liquor that goes best with ice and outdoor dining.
Want kofte? Check out Café de Pera on Clement Street in San Francisco for kofte and other Turkish kebab specialties. For more information on Turkish cuisine, check out this great page on Sally’s Place, a comprehensive site on food and travel.
1.08.2004
At the table
I do not want to be a food writer, but a writer who can write about food and the world in which it is served. For what is really more interesting: a spoonful of tomato bisque, or the person whose lips the soup is about to pass through? I am finding greater inspiration through writers who are able to capture not only the flavors at a table, but also the spirit of each singular, original scene in which we sit down and share.
I came across this passage while re-reading "A Room of One's Own," Virginia Woolf's wise essay on the "unsolved problems" of women and fiction. It is at once about the food and about the author, about literature and tradition, and most of all, about simplicity and bliss.
It is a curious fact that novelists have a way of making us believe that luncheon parties are invariably memorable for something very witty that was said, or for something very wise that was done. But they seldom spare a word for what was eaten. It is part of the novelist's convention not to mention soup and salmon and ducklings, as if soup and salmon and ducklings were of no importance whatsover, as if nobody ever smoked a cigar or drank a glass of wine. Here, however, I shall take the liberty to defy that convention and to tell you that the lunch on this occasion began with soles, sunk in a deep dish, over which the college cook had spread a counterpane of the whitest cream, save that it was branded here and there with brown spots like the spots on the flanks of a doe. After that came the partridges, but if this suggests a couple of bald, brown birds on a plate you are mistaken. The partridges, many and various, came with all their retinue of sauces and salads, the sharp and the sweet, each in its order; their potatoes, thin as coins but not so hard; their sprouts, foliated as rosebuds but more succulent. And no sooner had the roast and its retinue been done with than the silent serving man...set before us, wreathed in napkins, a confection which rose all sugar from the waves. To call it pudding and so relate it to rice and tapioca would be an insult. Meanwhile the wineglasses had flushed yellow and flushed crimson; had been emptied; had been filled. And thus by degrees was lit, halfway down the spine, which is the seat of the soul, not that hard little electric light which we call brilliance, as it pops in and out upon our lips, but the more profound, subtle and subterranean glow, which is the rich yellow flame of rational intercourse. No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself. We are all going to heaven and Vandyck is of the company--in other words, how good life seemed, how sweet its rewards, how trivial this grudge or that grievance, how admirable friendship and the society of one's kind, as, lighting a good cigarette, one sunk among the cushions in the window-seat.
- "A Room of One's Own," By Virginia Woolf (1929)
I do not want to be a food writer, but a writer who can write about food and the world in which it is served. For what is really more interesting: a spoonful of tomato bisque, or the person whose lips the soup is about to pass through? I am finding greater inspiration through writers who are able to capture not only the flavors at a table, but also the spirit of each singular, original scene in which we sit down and share.
I came across this passage while re-reading "A Room of One's Own," Virginia Woolf's wise essay on the "unsolved problems" of women and fiction. It is at once about the food and about the author, about literature and tradition, and most of all, about simplicity and bliss.
It is a curious fact that novelists have a way of making us believe that luncheon parties are invariably memorable for something very witty that was said, or for something very wise that was done. But they seldom spare a word for what was eaten. It is part of the novelist's convention not to mention soup and salmon and ducklings, as if soup and salmon and ducklings were of no importance whatsover, as if nobody ever smoked a cigar or drank a glass of wine. Here, however, I shall take the liberty to defy that convention and to tell you that the lunch on this occasion began with soles, sunk in a deep dish, over which the college cook had spread a counterpane of the whitest cream, save that it was branded here and there with brown spots like the spots on the flanks of a doe. After that came the partridges, but if this suggests a couple of bald, brown birds on a plate you are mistaken. The partridges, many and various, came with all their retinue of sauces and salads, the sharp and the sweet, each in its order; their potatoes, thin as coins but not so hard; their sprouts, foliated as rosebuds but more succulent. And no sooner had the roast and its retinue been done with than the silent serving man...set before us, wreathed in napkins, a confection which rose all sugar from the waves. To call it pudding and so relate it to rice and tapioca would be an insult. Meanwhile the wineglasses had flushed yellow and flushed crimson; had been emptied; had been filled. And thus by degrees was lit, halfway down the spine, which is the seat of the soul, not that hard little electric light which we call brilliance, as it pops in and out upon our lips, but the more profound, subtle and subterranean glow, which is the rich yellow flame of rational intercourse. No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself. We are all going to heaven and Vandyck is of the company--in other words, how good life seemed, how sweet its rewards, how trivial this grudge or that grievance, how admirable friendship and the society of one's kind, as, lighting a good cigarette, one sunk among the cushions in the window-seat.
- "A Room of One's Own," By Virginia Woolf (1929)
1.07.2004
Better than a fruit roll-up
The foodies at the San Francisco Chronicle decided to bite on dried fruit in today’s Food section, and what a timely bite it is. There are still a few fresh fruits out there to tantalize, such as the baggy-skinned but sweet winter oranges now piled head-high at most farmer’s markets and local establishments. Some crisp yet close to overripe Gravensteins inspired me towards applesauce last night, but more on that later.
But dried fruit, as the article expounds, is a handy snack and always available. A nibble on a dried apricot or mango, jeweled orange, offers a tasty, flavorful spark to a dull winter day. There are dozens of good places to find dried fruit in the City; Trader Joe’s sells a wide variety but I’ve found that prices can be higher than at smaller markets. The corner market at 22nd and Irving Street specializes in Greek food and carries a great selection of dried fruit, especially figs and apricots. A small cheese shop on Divisadero at Oak offers dried fruit in bulk, as well as a dizzying selection of cheeses and dried grains.
The best thing about dried fruit is that they are nature’s sponges; they’ll soak up any delicious juice you want. A tasty topping for a silky fois gras or creamy, plain goat cheese appetizer is dried cranberries and golden raisins cooked in sherry. You’ll need a healthy handful of each fruit, about a ½ cup of sherry (any sweet sherry will do; I used an amontillado, which is smooth and slightly nutty) and a cinnamon stick, the size of a pinkie finger.
Place the fruit in a small bowl and cover briefly with warm water, to remove any extra sugars. Drain and place in a pan, with the sherry and cinnamon stick. Bring to a gentle simmer over low heat, covered, for five to seven minutes. Then remove the cover and simmer until the fruit is pleasantly plump and the sherry has reduced to a slightly thick, cinnamon-infused glaze. Remove the cinnamon stick, and store the fruit and sauce in the refrigerator until ready to use.
This sauce could also go well with roast duck or pork, the sweetness of the sauce complementing the gamy, rich meat. I added ½ cup of fruit and two tablespoons of sauce to my Gravenstein applesauce last night; it turned the simple side into a spicy dessert. My roommate and I, complaining of the cold, gobbled it up in no time. We were warmed instantly.
The foodies at the San Francisco Chronicle decided to bite on dried fruit in today’s Food section, and what a timely bite it is. There are still a few fresh fruits out there to tantalize, such as the baggy-skinned but sweet winter oranges now piled head-high at most farmer’s markets and local establishments. Some crisp yet close to overripe Gravensteins inspired me towards applesauce last night, but more on that later.
But dried fruit, as the article expounds, is a handy snack and always available. A nibble on a dried apricot or mango, jeweled orange, offers a tasty, flavorful spark to a dull winter day. There are dozens of good places to find dried fruit in the City; Trader Joe’s sells a wide variety but I’ve found that prices can be higher than at smaller markets. The corner market at 22nd and Irving Street specializes in Greek food and carries a great selection of dried fruit, especially figs and apricots. A small cheese shop on Divisadero at Oak offers dried fruit in bulk, as well as a dizzying selection of cheeses and dried grains.
The best thing about dried fruit is that they are nature’s sponges; they’ll soak up any delicious juice you want. A tasty topping for a silky fois gras or creamy, plain goat cheese appetizer is dried cranberries and golden raisins cooked in sherry. You’ll need a healthy handful of each fruit, about a ½ cup of sherry (any sweet sherry will do; I used an amontillado, which is smooth and slightly nutty) and a cinnamon stick, the size of a pinkie finger.
Place the fruit in a small bowl and cover briefly with warm water, to remove any extra sugars. Drain and place in a pan, with the sherry and cinnamon stick. Bring to a gentle simmer over low heat, covered, for five to seven minutes. Then remove the cover and simmer until the fruit is pleasantly plump and the sherry has reduced to a slightly thick, cinnamon-infused glaze. Remove the cinnamon stick, and store the fruit and sauce in the refrigerator until ready to use.
This sauce could also go well with roast duck or pork, the sweetness of the sauce complementing the gamy, rich meat. I added ½ cup of fruit and two tablespoons of sauce to my Gravenstein applesauce last night; it turned the simple side into a spicy dessert. My roommate and I, complaining of the cold, gobbled it up in no time. We were warmed instantly.
1.06.2004
Cool beans
I’ve been daydreaming of coffee from a café in Budapest while standing on the street corner, blowing on frozen hands, waiting for the bus that never comes. Served in a simple demitasse, this special drink was strong European coffee scented with cinnamon and chocolate, with a thin layer of the richest whipped cream. The cup was small enough to fit snugly in my petite hands, as I sipped and nibbled pieces of cheese scones and sugar cookies. This was breakfast in the capital of Hungary, under the high ceilings of a turn-of-the-century café, shaking off the sticky sleep of an overnight train ride.
Coffee cures. We forgot the dank smell of the third-class train compartment, where an enormous gypsy woman snored and farted and smothered her skinny companion stuck in the next seat. We shed the lingering stress of negotiating our way into a sleeper couchette in German and Hungarian and Romanian, until finally, we were allowed between those desired starched white sheets for a not-so-bargain price of 70 euros. We laughed off the ridiculous dance of our American traveling companions, trying to find a locker for their oversized baggage and begging for change from the hot dog vendor at 8 a.m., then speaking English with increasing volume at every Hungarian passer-by. We sipped and nibbled and tried with failing success not to slip back into sleep in the overstuffed, soft green leather booths.
That brief morning spurred me to research Hungarian pastry and mull the concept of a book on coffeehouse culture in Budapest. At the turn of the century, the cafes were the intellectual and political centers of the capital, where artists and aristocrats and folk cut from all cloths would come to discuss and chew. Our Hungarian guide and companion that morning shared some great café lore. Some establishments would carry three menus for its different clientele. In the morning, one menu, with moderate prices, catered to the working man, who would sweep in for a quick bite before heading to work. Poor artists read the free newspapers and supped on soup in the afternoons, and there was a special menu for them, too. Café owners became de facto patrons of this subset, and some prided themselves on providing a space for these rising Hungarian stars. In the evening, the prices would shoot up for the aristocrats, on their way to the theater or opera.
Café culture, after being smothered for so long under Communism, is starting to percolate anew, with the renovation of a number of classic coffeehouses in the center of Budapest. I’m not the only one with this passion, however; the book’s been written. Perhaps the cookbook doesn’t have as much history as I’d like to include, but then again, it is all about the dobos tortes. Politics are nice, but pastry tastes better.
I’ve been daydreaming of coffee from a café in Budapest while standing on the street corner, blowing on frozen hands, waiting for the bus that never comes. Served in a simple demitasse, this special drink was strong European coffee scented with cinnamon and chocolate, with a thin layer of the richest whipped cream. The cup was small enough to fit snugly in my petite hands, as I sipped and nibbled pieces of cheese scones and sugar cookies. This was breakfast in the capital of Hungary, under the high ceilings of a turn-of-the-century café, shaking off the sticky sleep of an overnight train ride.
Coffee cures. We forgot the dank smell of the third-class train compartment, where an enormous gypsy woman snored and farted and smothered her skinny companion stuck in the next seat. We shed the lingering stress of negotiating our way into a sleeper couchette in German and Hungarian and Romanian, until finally, we were allowed between those desired starched white sheets for a not-so-bargain price of 70 euros. We laughed off the ridiculous dance of our American traveling companions, trying to find a locker for their oversized baggage and begging for change from the hot dog vendor at 8 a.m., then speaking English with increasing volume at every Hungarian passer-by. We sipped and nibbled and tried with failing success not to slip back into sleep in the overstuffed, soft green leather booths.
That brief morning spurred me to research Hungarian pastry and mull the concept of a book on coffeehouse culture in Budapest. At the turn of the century, the cafes were the intellectual and political centers of the capital, where artists and aristocrats and folk cut from all cloths would come to discuss and chew. Our Hungarian guide and companion that morning shared some great café lore. Some establishments would carry three menus for its different clientele. In the morning, one menu, with moderate prices, catered to the working man, who would sweep in for a quick bite before heading to work. Poor artists read the free newspapers and supped on soup in the afternoons, and there was a special menu for them, too. Café owners became de facto patrons of this subset, and some prided themselves on providing a space for these rising Hungarian stars. In the evening, the prices would shoot up for the aristocrats, on their way to the theater or opera.
Café culture, after being smothered for so long under Communism, is starting to percolate anew, with the renovation of a number of classic coffeehouses in the center of Budapest. I’m not the only one with this passion, however; the book’s been written. Perhaps the cookbook doesn’t have as much history as I’d like to include, but then again, it is all about the dobos tortes. Politics are nice, but pastry tastes better.
1.05.2004
Living large
A recent special on food in The Economist, that fabulous cheeky English rag, sounds a culinary alarm. As consumers, we are ballooning, just like the blueberry-plumped Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka, a madcap tale of candy and overindulgence. Obesity has become epidemic, and everyone’s to blame. One of many incredible statistics the study (“Filling the World’s Belly,” Dec. 13 print issue) cites:
“In the world as a whole, according to the World Health Organization, more people are obese than malnourished.”
Can that really possible? According to the study, more than half of the population of some of the more affluent countries—and even some of the not so affluent—are overweight. In England, more than 60 percent of the country’s men are overweight. In the U.S, it’s closer to 70 percent. In Mexico and Russia, close to 55 percent of women are overweight, with half of those individuals tipping the scales to obese.
Surprisingly, China is now on the short list of countries that needs to loosen its collective belt at the dinner table, partly as a result of the influx of money to the economy and a general rise in the standard of living. More statistics:
“Between 1989 and 1997, better-off Chinese cut their consumption of grains by 15 percent; their meat consumption increased by nearly half, their egg consumption doubled and their chicken and oils consumption tripled. What took a century to happen in the West has taken a decade in China.”
We can describe an affluent man, who often carries a thick wallet as well as a generous gut, as “prosperous.” A plump child is a well-loved child; in the Caribbean, skinny women are shunned. How can we keep ourselves from taking seconds? It is a delicious contradiction: as animals, we are programmed to fill ourselves to gird for the famine ahead. But as socialized beings, we should know better.
Or do we just think we do? Our instincts may seem sublimated to logic and reason, but the statistics seem to prove otherwise. We still hoard; we still gobble for fear of an empty plate tomorrow. The feast or famine rational seems to hold true, at least according to these recent studies. Some scientists, The Economist reports, believe that malnourished children, as adults, are more susceptible to weight gain. The “Depression” effect is huge, too. Grandparents who suffered through the lean times of the 1950s in China are now stuffing their grandchildren like miniature bao, plump and practically bursting at the seams.
The connection between a higher standard of living and obesity is poignant, especially for developing nations where famine has been far more frequent than feast. Meat is a symbol of prosperity for many cultures since it is often rare, and expensive. A good example: in college, I was assembling shish kabobs with an international group of friends. A Persian friend was threading chunks of lamb onto skewers, one after the other, much to the dismay of a vegetarian friend, who tried to suggest including a few of the tomatoes and onions we had so carefully cut up. The Persian woman looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and disgust. No vegetables, she said. Poor people eat vegetables. We pushed her for an explanation, and it was simple. If you serve vegetables to your guests, you obviously can’t afford meat. It was a question of cultural pride, she said.
A hard concept for Californians, granted. But it is this disconnect that makes The Economist report so interesting: as some cultures finally reach a level of affluence that allows them to live they way they desire as well as provide for their families in a way that is both rich, respectable and wholesome, they’re told they’re unhealthy. Prosperity, we discover, has its costs.
A recent special on food in The Economist, that fabulous cheeky English rag, sounds a culinary alarm. As consumers, we are ballooning, just like the blueberry-plumped Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka, a madcap tale of candy and overindulgence. Obesity has become epidemic, and everyone’s to blame. One of many incredible statistics the study (“Filling the World’s Belly,” Dec. 13 print issue) cites:
“In the world as a whole, according to the World Health Organization, more people are obese than malnourished.”
Can that really possible? According to the study, more than half of the population of some of the more affluent countries—and even some of the not so affluent—are overweight. In England, more than 60 percent of the country’s men are overweight. In the U.S, it’s closer to 70 percent. In Mexico and Russia, close to 55 percent of women are overweight, with half of those individuals tipping the scales to obese.
Surprisingly, China is now on the short list of countries that needs to loosen its collective belt at the dinner table, partly as a result of the influx of money to the economy and a general rise in the standard of living. More statistics:
“Between 1989 and 1997, better-off Chinese cut their consumption of grains by 15 percent; their meat consumption increased by nearly half, their egg consumption doubled and their chicken and oils consumption tripled. What took a century to happen in the West has taken a decade in China.”
We can describe an affluent man, who often carries a thick wallet as well as a generous gut, as “prosperous.” A plump child is a well-loved child; in the Caribbean, skinny women are shunned. How can we keep ourselves from taking seconds? It is a delicious contradiction: as animals, we are programmed to fill ourselves to gird for the famine ahead. But as socialized beings, we should know better.
Or do we just think we do? Our instincts may seem sublimated to logic and reason, but the statistics seem to prove otherwise. We still hoard; we still gobble for fear of an empty plate tomorrow. The feast or famine rational seems to hold true, at least according to these recent studies. Some scientists, The Economist reports, believe that malnourished children, as adults, are more susceptible to weight gain. The “Depression” effect is huge, too. Grandparents who suffered through the lean times of the 1950s in China are now stuffing their grandchildren like miniature bao, plump and practically bursting at the seams.
The connection between a higher standard of living and obesity is poignant, especially for developing nations where famine has been far more frequent than feast. Meat is a symbol of prosperity for many cultures since it is often rare, and expensive. A good example: in college, I was assembling shish kabobs with an international group of friends. A Persian friend was threading chunks of lamb onto skewers, one after the other, much to the dismay of a vegetarian friend, who tried to suggest including a few of the tomatoes and onions we had so carefully cut up. The Persian woman looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and disgust. No vegetables, she said. Poor people eat vegetables. We pushed her for an explanation, and it was simple. If you serve vegetables to your guests, you obviously can’t afford meat. It was a question of cultural pride, she said.
A hard concept for Californians, granted. But it is this disconnect that makes The Economist report so interesting: as some cultures finally reach a level of affluence that allows them to live they way they desire as well as provide for their families in a way that is both rich, respectable and wholesome, they’re told they’re unhealthy. Prosperity, we discover, has its costs.
1.02.2004
Blank plate
And this is how it starts, staring at a blank screen, three days after a New Year’s Eve resolution to write every day. Luck often comes in threes, so this start may be more auspicious than if I had dragged myself from my lover’s bed early on the 1st, still pajama-clad, to write about our wonderful crab and oyster feast, now a tradition, on the eve of 2004.
I will write about the evening now, as I can still see us sitting at a zinc bar on the crowded sidewalk at Fisherman’s Wharf--a tourist trap but still brimming with good eats, if you know where to find them. We tore apart cracked crab with chilly hands and dipped the meat into fresh lemon juice. We slurped a half-dozen oysters—not Hog Island fresh, but briny and tasty nonetheless. We then shot over to the Buena Vista for a cocktail yet couldn’t resist a coda of slivovitz in honor of Romanian wedding celebrations and hangovers. Plum brandy makes everything warmer. Then to a friend’s for chocolate fondue and a cornucopia of dipping sweets—butter crackers, strawberries, candied ginger, blood orange sections, dried figs and more cookies. Thankfully there was plenty of champagne. The bubbles make one feel lighter, even when one’s stomach is on the verge of bursting.
I put my head on the pillow in the wee hours of 2004 and remembered my resolution last year--to make a change in how I work for my proverbial supper. It is warming (just like that plum brandy) to acknowledge that I have succeeded in making that change.
This past year I went to culinary school and worked as a waiter to make ends barely meet. I wrote and sold two articles on food to The Washington Post. I completed a course on food writing and submitted work to be judged as part of a symposium scholarship for a food writing retreat in March. I helped edit an upcoming cookbook from a James Beard award-winning author and mentor. I single-handedly re-wrote and edited the City College of San Francisco cookbook, which was published in December.
And I’m now a full-time catering supervisor, working in and around food, every day. The work sustains me, puts bread on the table. It doesn’t overwhelm or take time away from where I should be: behind this computer, writing.
So resolutions for 2004? Write. Get at least six articles published; a bonus, get paid. Edit more cookbooks, make more culinary contacts. Throw dinner parties. Know wine. Keep my mind available to art and beauty, not stress and financial worries. And eat!
And this is how it starts, staring at a blank screen, three days after a New Year’s Eve resolution to write every day. Luck often comes in threes, so this start may be more auspicious than if I had dragged myself from my lover’s bed early on the 1st, still pajama-clad, to write about our wonderful crab and oyster feast, now a tradition, on the eve of 2004.
I will write about the evening now, as I can still see us sitting at a zinc bar on the crowded sidewalk at Fisherman’s Wharf--a tourist trap but still brimming with good eats, if you know where to find them. We tore apart cracked crab with chilly hands and dipped the meat into fresh lemon juice. We slurped a half-dozen oysters—not Hog Island fresh, but briny and tasty nonetheless. We then shot over to the Buena Vista for a cocktail yet couldn’t resist a coda of slivovitz in honor of Romanian wedding celebrations and hangovers. Plum brandy makes everything warmer. Then to a friend’s for chocolate fondue and a cornucopia of dipping sweets—butter crackers, strawberries, candied ginger, blood orange sections, dried figs and more cookies. Thankfully there was plenty of champagne. The bubbles make one feel lighter, even when one’s stomach is on the verge of bursting.
I put my head on the pillow in the wee hours of 2004 and remembered my resolution last year--to make a change in how I work for my proverbial supper. It is warming (just like that plum brandy) to acknowledge that I have succeeded in making that change.
This past year I went to culinary school and worked as a waiter to make ends barely meet. I wrote and sold two articles on food to The Washington Post. I completed a course on food writing and submitted work to be judged as part of a symposium scholarship for a food writing retreat in March. I helped edit an upcoming cookbook from a James Beard award-winning author and mentor. I single-handedly re-wrote and edited the City College of San Francisco cookbook, which was published in December.
And I’m now a full-time catering supervisor, working in and around food, every day. The work sustains me, puts bread on the table. It doesn’t overwhelm or take time away from where I should be: behind this computer, writing.
So resolutions for 2004? Write. Get at least six articles published; a bonus, get paid. Edit more cookbooks, make more culinary contacts. Throw dinner parties. Know wine. Keep my mind available to art and beauty, not stress and financial worries. And eat!
