Pu-Pu Please

When I was young we went out for Chinese food almost every Friday night. Amongst the assortment of Americanized Chinese food we consumed, I always ordered the Pu-Pu Platter for an appetizer. A tantalizing assortment of greasy goodies were set before us: a few fried wontons, an eggroll cut into four pieces, some slices of bbq pork, and the piece de resistance-- shish kebabs of marinated beef, skewered on bamboo sticks, and laid upon its very own sterno of bright flames. And I loved it.

So I guess you could say my love affair with appetizers started early on, and it has only grown. My most beloved cookbooks are ones with chapters devoted to the cocktail hour. There is something deeply satisfying about a little bite of food, complex in its composition yet minute in its size. Homemade potato chips, topped with gravlax, sour cream and caviar; perfectly formed melon balls adorned with salty slices of prosciutto; a beautiful crudite platter, baby carrots crisply peeled with their greens still intact, and neat, little radish orbs with just a sprinkling of kosher salt-- I adore them all. But yet do I have anyone to prepare such delectable treats for? The answer is sadly-- not really.

When I go to a party now a days it's not the swanky croquette sort, it's the chip and dip, or the requisite cheese platter kind. Does anyone truly throw those glitzy, cocktail fetes anymore? Or for that matter, did anyone ever really throw those kinds of parties? I have thrown the occasional party where cocktails and proper nourishment is available. But it is simply not enough to quell my inner pu-pu yearnings. I could propose a dinner made entirely of appetizers. I could invite some friends and let the grazing begin. But I would fear that ominous question, "Appetizers were wonderful, now where is the rest of the meal?"

I suppose there is a solution to all of this appetizer envy, assuming there are people who have "proper" cocktail parties, scrumptious tapas included. I just need to find a new group of friends. I will take out an ad in the local paper, or on craigslist, and it will read: Do you love appetizers, long for a saucy martini, straight-up? MF, ISO people with similar adoration of the cocktail hour to enjoy plates and plates of appetizers (enough to make a meal of really). If this sounds delicious to you, call... Pu-pu's always appreciated.

The Iron Men

My grandmother was a wonderful cook. I know that mostly everyone says this, but I mean it. She was a true, family-style cook. Nothing fancy, just belly-warming, carbohydrate-laden goodies came tumbling from her kitchen virtually any meal of the day. My mother says she often stretched one chicken to feed eight people: my grandpa, six children, and herself. It is from this matriarch, that I learned to peel my very first beet, the slippery orb popping from the dingy, tan skin; that I tasted my very first homemade, sweet-tart, strawberry-rhubarb pie; and learned to love a childhood treat of bologna and american cheese, cut primly into matchsticks. (Come on, I was three and my grandma was originally from South Dakota.) It was when she passed away, that I received what have quickly become invaluable kitchen tools, among her KitchenAid Mixer, a variety of metal baking dishes, and other kitchen odds and ends; I received the grandaddy of all kitchen goods, The Cast-Iron Skillet.

A two-handed lifter, these vessels of down-home cooking are ideal for frittatas, sautes, scrambles, upside-down desserts. Just about anything you fry up on the stove, you can fry up in a cast-iron skillet. My skillets are at least 50 years old (the older the better), and cared for gently and lovingly. Following strict rules from my mother, the skillets are seasoned after each use with a thin layer of cooking oil, keeping the pans shiny, and ensuring their nonstick surface. If all turns out right, and it usually does in these blackened babies, I don't even have to use soap when washing them out. Just rinse them off, clean with a sponge, and they're good as new. Some of you might be exclaiming, "What, no soap, but how does it get truly clean?" To you I say, "I am just doing as my grandma would have wanted; if corrosive disease didn't get her, it surely will not get me."

When I got married, my uncle gave me a sturdy, cast-iron, dutch oven. It too was from my grandmother. While she made a variety of dishes from this pot, she always made her special Best Ever Donuts in this pot as well. Sprinkled with powdered sugar, and gobbled up while still piping hot, bits of grease gleaming off of the surface and mingling with the sugary topping to create a glaze of sorts, these donuts were truly a thing of beauty. Some might say, "A cast-iron pot, what a strange dowry." That is the best sort of dowry. Each time I use those pots, dragging them out of the cupboard, practically giving myself carpal tunnel syndrome from the sheer weight of them, I think of my grandma. While she might have scoffed at my pea frittata with fresh mint and Manchego cheese, I am sure she would be thrilled that I was putting her skillets to good use.

Rootbeer FloatShake

We all know that the best part of a rootbeer float is that sweet, milky, goodness, that amalgamation of soda and ice cream, the liquid that forms from making the float. This nectar of the gods can be gulped down by chiseling away at the ice cream, tediously mixing by hand, waiting for a chemical reaction to occur with the soda, and sipping gently. Then waiting, and stirring...and waiting, and stirring...and waiting, and stirring some more. Or you don't have to waste time with the entire process, you can break out the blender and have a FloatShake.

This occurred to me weeks ago, just in time for summer, the beads of perspiration forming at my lips, and my sweet tooth hankering. I longed for something cool and refreshing, but a shake was too thick and filling, while a float was too laborious, but it was then that I had a culinary epiphany. I flipped the top off a bottle of rootbeer, scooped a heaping spoonful of french vanilla ice cream into the blender, and wwwhhhrrr...moments later the Rootbeer FloatShake was born.

Now I can't stop thinking of what other FloatShakes to make: chocolate ice cream and seltzer water; cream soda and vanilla ice cream; or an Orange Julius of sorts, with french vanilla ice cream, flecks of real vanilla beans and orange pop. I don't even like the saccharine sweet flavor of orange pop, in fact, I can't even tell you the last time the dyed-orange flavor graced my lips. But an Orange Pop FloatShake? Sure, I can do that.

Bringing Home the Pancetta

Pancetta, it's the bourgie's bacon! I mean, who doesn't love a little bit of pork product in their food? But pancetta, for all of its meaty saltiness, its crunchy crispness, and its artery-clogging goodness, can be a little too much on its own. It's wonderful as a starter for soups, or crisply fried into lardons and sprinkled on a salad, and then there is my new favorite-- crumbled on top of a heaping stack of pancakes.

This combination has the salty-sweet taste I so often find myself pining for. The bland neutrality of the pancake, the salty grease from the pancetta, and the tender sweetness from the pure maple syrup, is the ideal combination. I love bacon, but for this flavor combination I'm looking for the unsmoked taste that can only come from pancetta. Fried crisp, it is almost peppery in its composition. Crackling between my teeth as I consume the perfect bite, an ideal edge of a pancake, topped with a small pancetta tear, and the sweet maple flavor dripping off the fork.

For this week's consumption I made a batch of corn pancakes. Utilizing the fresh corn that is creeping its way into markets (and thus into my tummy), the kernels bursting with a gentle sweetness, they are the perfect combination of texture and taste. The gentle give of the corn kernel between my teeth, in conjunction with the chewy flours (I used corn and all-purpose), creates a delicate to-and-fro between devouring hungrily, and savoring each bite.

But don't get too hung up on having corn pancakes, as wonderful as they might be. Just try the pancetta, sliced thinly and fried crisply, on just about anything. Although it may make your meal slightly greasier, I guarantee it will also make it infinitely more pleasurable.

SHF- Strawberry-Rhubarb and Ricotta Galette

I love them all. Call it a pie, a tart, or a galette, I am an equal opportunity, pie eatin' fool. I will even choke down an ordinarily-too-plain apple pie if the occasion presents itself. But when it's spring/summertime and the lovely perfumed berries and sweet stone fruit abound, how can you not make a luscious dessert?

I have a friend in her early 20's and even though she was raised in California, she had never eaten rhubarb (gasp), never tasted that puckery crimson stalk, never had the perfect contrast of strawberries with this fleeting vegetable of sorts. So I decided to make her my favorite go-to for summertime sweets-- a galette. Her desire for pie came in perfect conjunction with this month's Sugar High Friday. Infinitely easy, and delightfully scrumptious, galettes can be made when you simply can't be bothered with rolling out two sets of dough, carefully fitting them in pie pans, and trimming bits of dough to make the perfect crusts. In a relatively brief amount of time you have a beautiful rustic tart, the edges rolled over containing all of the sumptuous juices.

Now this galette is neither too sweet or too bitter. Sweetened adequately with sugar, the filling is haphazardly laid upon little mounds of fresh ricotta cheese (I used a sheeps' milk variety), acting as a creamy base for the melange of fruity topping. As the galette bakes in the oven, juices from the strawberry-rhubarb topping seep onto the cheese creating a wonderfully sweet, tinged pink concoction. I love using mellow cheeses in my desserts, and with the pastry of the dough, the strawberry-rhubarb filling, and the mellifluous ricotta, this galette is reminiscent of a really good danish. (Actually it is not at all like any mediocre danish that I have consumed, only the stellar danishes of my dreams.)

If you would like the recipe for Strawberry-Rhubarb and Ricotta Galette, go to the Daily Specials section.

A Cuppa Joe

I am not a coffee snob, at least I never thought that I was. Awhile back we had some friends over for dinner, dessert rolled around, coffee was served from the French press, and conversation naturally turned to that rich, caffeinated beverage. I found that I had quite a few opinions. Peet's was too "grow hair on your chest" strong; coffee is meant to be enjoyed, not endured. Starbucks was corporate, watered down dreck. I loved a mellow serving of Illy Caffe, smooth and rich; and then there were countless neighborhood cafes, each serving up there own special blend, about which I had much to say.

Now with so many opinions about coffee, smooth versus burnt, decaf versus caffeinated, black versus light, how can I say that I am not a coffee snob? I love diner coffee, its reliability, not too strong but definitely not a weakling. But perhaps what I love the most about this type of coffee is the cups, the weight grounding the beverage, the solid proportions of the ceramic causing you to gently heave the cup upwards towards your lips. And I am not a coffee snob, because I do not really care what type of coffee you drink (if any). Just wake me up in the morning with a delightful cup of Blue Bottle Coffee, and I am more than pleased.

I am spoiled. I get my coffee delivered to me every Tuesday, by the lovely folks at the Blue Bottle Coffee Co. (If you live in parts of the East, or San Francisco Bay Area, you too can have this feature.) I was first introduced to Blue Bottle Coffee a few years ago at the Berkeley Farmer's Market, and they were tiny. At the time they only sold their beans at the farmer's market, and through home delivery. Over the next few years, the business has steadily grown, certain restaurants and cafes use their coffee, there is now a kiosk located in Hayes Valley, and Blue Bottle Coffee is sold in conjunction with Frog Hollow Farms sweet treats at the Ferry Building. But through all of this growth, they have maintained a superb product, selling a small variety of beans and blends geared toward different brewing methods.

Granted, I do not know a ton about different beans, their origins, notes of blueberry, or leather are all lost on me. I just know what I like. No matter how you prepare a batch of Blue Bottle Coffee, be it drip, French press, or percolator, the coffee is delightful-- smooth, rich, deep, with never a hint of throat-clenching bitterness. And who doesn't love having something delivered to them each week? It 's like a little gift, waiting for me at my front door ensuring a caffeine boost for the week to come.

Sufferin' Succotash

Some of you may know this pleasant vegetable side dish, as a melange of greyish vegetables, a lima bean chucked in for good measure, tumbling out of a can. But what I am talking about is the bourgie succotash, sweet corn, some lively red bell pepper, and buttery fava beans, all sauteed together, dancing quickly in the pan, so each vegetable maintains its own flavor. A true summertime side dish, with a little bit of everything: you've got your protein from the favas, veggies from the peppers, and starch from the corn. I love it when everything works out just so.


Originally succotash was just a dish of stewed corn and some type of legume (usually lima beans), sometimes including a smoked meat product (often times bear) eaten by the Native Americans. The dish derives its name not from Tweety Bird, but from msickquatash, the Narraganset word meaning boiled kernels of corn. Today, succotash is mainly eaten along the East Coast of this country, and throughout the South, and contains many different ingredients, but always corn.

The bourgie succotash is none too wild, a simple, down-home dish (as down-home as one can get in Berkeley, CA). The main difference in my recipe is the inclusion of fava beans, those lovely, fresh legumes that are only available in spring and summer times. I know, they are time consuming, slippery little buggers, requiring a double shuck, but I think they are well worth the effort. When that almost chartreuse bean, pops out of its hard, beige exterior, giving a smooth, crisp flavor to a dish, it all seems almost worthwhile. But for those of you who simply won't be bothered, or cannot get fava beans in your neck of the woods, lima beans or butter beans are a good substitute.


Corn is by far the star of this dish. Kernels sliced straight from the cob, then flash sauteed in order to maintain their delicate sweetness, make this side dish the perfect answer to the perennial question, "What's for dinner?" Sometimes it is the most simple of dishes that are utterly pleasing. With the bounty of fresh vegetables available right now, why not mix them all up to make one perfect accoutrement. After all "5 a day for proper nutrition," so two vegetables are always better then one. If you would like my recipe for succotash, it's on the Daily Specials page of this site.

Food Porn

House porn-- magazines like Dwell, and Architectural Digest, that make you scratch your chin, and wonder, "Does anyone truly live like this?" Sure we love them, maybe we even steal ideas from them, or hold them up as models of something we some day aspire to, but ultimately are they good for us?

I bought some cookbooks recently, and food porn they were. Actually it seems that more and more these days it's difficult to buy a cookbook that is not porny. Blurry fruitbowls, whisks, frosted with beaten egg whites, haphazardly thrown about pristine kitchen counters, and juicy pieces of meat, hot off the grill, marks perfectly posed, glistening in the noonday sun, have all become commonplace as we glance through the newer cookbooks or flip through the pages of Gourmet magazine. My feeling towards food porn is quite similar to my feelings towards house porn; revel in it I will (you might even see my versions of food porn on this site), but I will always question its need.

I have plenty of cookbooks, dog-eared, and stained with little bits of food and drips of sauces, that do not have a single picture in them. And are they any worse because of this fact? Absolutely not. Are the foods that they are carefully explaining how to make poorer in quality? Of course not. In fact, it could be argued that these books have a certain freedom to them by not containing pictures, that the food benefits from the freedom that is supplied by not lavishly displaying its wares. Sometimes when a recipe displays the final product, perfectly sliced, free of gristle, with just the right amount of sauce to adorn not drown, I feel pressure to perform. I get disappointed when the dessert I made, delicious though it may be, does not look just right.

When I was in the 4th grade we had a California Missions project. Each student in the class was assigned a different Mission on which to do a class project, culminating in a scale model-making of your assigned Mission. I asked for my mothers help, and although she sat with me as I placed little plastic monks, tonsures gleaming, around my Mission, never once did she simply do it for me. This was for two reasons: 1. This would have been cheating, it was my project assignment not hers. 2. She didn't want me to feel badly about not having my Mission turn out exactly right, knowing that a woman in her mid 40's could produce a far better Mission than a girl of 10. Do you get what I am saying?

And so, let me vow now to continue my cookbook collecting, giving equal shelf space to the picture-less, as well as the porny. Taking pictures of food is fun, Gaussian blurring is a gas, and I will indulge in all of these things in the future. But I will try very hard to not feel badly about the foods that I prepare from the porny books, and I will say to myself: No ones (insert name of food being prepared here) really looks like that.

Drink Chocolate, Get Skinny!

When you have breakfasted both well and amply, if you swallow a generous cup of good chocolate at the end of the meal, you will have digested the whole perfectly in comfort...Out of zeal for science, and by sheer force of eloquence, I have persuaded not a few ladies to make this experiment, although they thought to die of it; in every case they were delighted with the result...Those who habitually drink chocolate are conspicuous for unfailing health and immunity from the host of little ills which mar the enjoyment of life; their weight is also less inclined to vary; and these are two advantages which anyone may verify in society and among people whose diet can be ascertained.

Brillat-Savarin

Whether or not what Brillat-Savarin claims is true, is not of importance; it's the fact that he wrote it at all. For years we have waged the war with health fanatics, trying to shove carob down our throats, that chocolate is bad for you. Slowly we are coming to discover from various universities and health clinics, that chocolate does in fact contain beneficial health properties such as antioxidants (oooh) and cancer fighting components (aaah). So I say eat with abandon, roll in chocolate syrup, and lap up hot chocolate like it is going out of style!

But for those of you with a more refined palate, whose tongue is craving just a modicum of velvelty smoothness, I offer you Hot Drinking Chocolate. Different from hot cocoa, that wintertime beverage of our youth, and for many, simply an excuse to drown piles of whipped cream in a dessert flavored beverage, or dunk a mellifluous marshmallow or two, drinking chocolate is slightly sweet, veritably rich, and altogether delicious. Drinking chocolate gets its creaminess from actual chocolate and milk, where as cocoa, though the words are often used interchangeably, comes from cocoa powder, a process made by pressing all of the fats-- the cocoa butter, from the bean.

Though it may be summer, typically a season we do not associate with hot beverages, I say, "Come on, it's chocolate!" Sinfully rich, the milk fats skipping across your tongue when you taste it, and the delightful decadence of the entire beverage beckoning you to drink 'til the cup is empty. Try a batch anytime, as dessert or respite from afternoon activity or be truly 18th century, and like Brillat-Savarin have it at the culmination of your morning meal, and see if you are not amply ready for the day ahead.

Hot Drinking Chocolate

2 servings

2 1/2 cups milk, either low or full fat
4 tablespoons grated, good-quality, bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate
1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

In a small saucepan heat the milk to a simmer, whipping constantly. It is important to incorporate air into the milk, to maintain a frothy consistency. The more fat that is in the milk, the more froth that will be maintained. Add the chocolate and vanilla to the milk, and whip until incorporated. I use a pre-grated chocolate by Dolfin that is 77% cocoa. Sprinkle any remaining chocolate on top, if desired. Pour into cups, or cafe au lait bowls, and enjoy.