Day 12 - and I am on a plane

A long time ago I swore I would never forsake my Blackberry for the sleek, glib, facile iPhone. The universe has a way of laughing in my face, loudly. First there was the broccoli revelation: after 39 years of professing I was a true blood broccoli hater and that the stuff made me gag, I had the most amazing broccoli dish at Nick's Italian cafe in McMinnville. Its tangy garlicky tartness made me a broccoli lover forever. Then there was that Coldplay song that made me eat my words about Chris Martin making my eardrums bleed. And ultimately the iPhone, upon which I am writing this post, one finger-tap at a time, from up on high in my Alaska Airlines seat. iPhone apps RULE, especially those that let you draft post from miles in the sky.
Because of this app, I can write this, my 12th post, before the end of the 12th day. And I can share the news that the Chipotle burrito franchise closest to LAX has the most unexpectedly interesting clientele - orange county mom with two surly kids, office friends, a soldier, a Mexican mother-daughter pair, a very tattooed dude, a very preppy guy, and a father with his son and teh son's girlfriend, not talking to each other, not one single word for the duration of their burritos. And while my burrito could not hold a candle to yesterday's cheese or the coffee cup I'll get from my boyfriend tomorrow morning, it sure as hell beat the pitiful dining options in terminal 3.
While we are on the subject of apps - I love the epicurious app, and the wholefoods recipe app which is surprisingly easy to use and practical. And the measurement conversion app of course.
Internets, or my fellow and dear co-blogger, what are your favorite food related apps?

Landing in 15 minutes. Must turn iPhone off. From high above Ashland, Oregon

Your committed nablopomo blogger

The symmetry of the number 11

I like the number 11. It's the smallest double digit prime number. And since it is still 11 o'clock - I am beating the clock and will manage to post today!
Apart from liking certain numbers , you know what else I like? I like cheese. A lot. And after yesterday's salt soup fiasco I vowed like Scarlett O'Hara never to do that again.
I had an errand to run in Beverly Hills today. There's not much I like about BH, but there is one place I LOVE. And I mean, I luuuurve it. Meet today's boyfriend: the Cheese Store of Beverly Hills.

I walked in as if I were walking out of the desert and into a cold glass of diet coke. I inhaled the smell of mold and tangy goat milk, and looked into the eyes of a real cheese monger and told him -"I want three pieces of cheese. They'll have to be enough for dinner, and they have to rock my world".
They did. I got one sharp Sardinian cheese that tasted like a mature version of a Ptit Basque, and a Spanish creamy blue cheese that made my knees melt, and the most pornographic tiny burrata. I ate the cheese with a delicious balsamic cream (yes you read right: balsamic.cream. it was amazing) and shaved fennel with a tiny bit of lemon, olive oil and sea salt. The last of the gooey burrata (the part that was spread out over the plate, mixed in with some lemony fennel dressing and drops of the balsamic cream) was neatly scooped up with chunks of a honey crisp apple - those really are every bit as good as everyone says they are.

Ah redemption, thy name is burrata.

day 10 - getting into a rythm

I just had TJ's onion soup. Remind me never to do that again. It is made largely of salt. The ingredient list onions, and broth, but mainly it's all salt.
Why would someone who idolizes cookbook authors eat such crap? Because of a chronic case of lethargia, brought on largely by a case of Los Angeles. This town does not inspire to cook. Or perhaps it's the LA kitchen? Or the fact that it is still too warm to embrace winters soups and stews, but the tomatoes don't taste like anything anymore either.
This w-e, as I lay in bed waging war against the flu, the one bright spot was the arrival of the NYT on Sunday. It's not just about the x-word puzzle (although it is largely about that) - I always (mostly) enjoy the food essay in the magazine.
This week's essay was about the return of a retro appetizer - the bagna cauda. Not only do I LOVE bagna cauda, it also reminds me of one of this summer's dinners in Oregon, and it reminds me of my Oregon mama Joanie who told me how to make it and what pot to use and what best to dip into it.
Bagna cauda uses three of my favorite ingredients: butter, anchovies and garlic, and my other boyfriend - olive oil. Mix those four together and you have the mother of silky smooth baths of savory yumminess, which I am pretty sure is the literal translation of 'bagna cauda'.
I made it for a dinner party we had this summer - 4 people plus us, and I had never met them before. The bagna cauda and a big plate of sliced crusty bread, chiogga beets and fennel and we were all fast friends by the time we were scraping the garlicky anchovies off the bottom of the pot.
That an a couple of bottles of bubbly made for the perfect introduction on a perfect Oregon summer's evening, the perfect memory of which will hopefully carry me away from the salty TJ's experience I am laboring to digest.

Cold + wet = soup.

My co-blogger has inspired me to try to blog more. This is a crazy-busy time of year for me. But, there is something soothing and so normal about posting periodically. Since the weather is crap right now: really cold and wet, a soup for dinner was in order. Lately, we have been eating a lot of soups. They are fairly easy to make, don't take too long and are very forgiving. Here is what I made tonight:

Chicken Pesto Soup

In a deep pot or dutch oven saute in olive oil:
1 onion, coarsely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 leeks, chopped
2 small fingerling potatoes, chopped in small pieces
2 small sweet potatoes, yes, these are chopped too

In a cast iron skillet cook up two chicken breast until just barely cooked. Remove breasts from pan and set aside. Add some water and soften the browned chicken goodness with the water. Add this to the dutch oven with all the vegetables.

Add 6-8 cups low sodium chicken broth to the dutch oven. Add 3 TB of prepared pesto to the dutch oven and stir well. Chop up two large handfuls of fresh arugula and add to the veggie-broth mixture.

With an immersion blender or something like that, blend the soup together until moderately smooth. If you like really smooth, blend longer. If you like a little chunky, blend for a shorter period of time. Cut chicken breasts into bit-sized pieces and add to soup.

Add fresh ground black pepper and salt to taste.

I am going to serve this with a little assiago cheese and a baguette. I think everyone will be happy. The photo above does not do it justice, but it is good.

Sleep well.

-S

Day 9 - and 20 years ago

I usually remember memorable meals, or I remember what I ate at memorable events. 20 years ago I was in Berlin at what qualifies as top-10 memorable moments of anyone's life. I was living in Brussels then, and after a flight from Brussels to Frankfurt with Lufthansa and then a connecting flight to Berlin on American Airlines - it was still East Germany so getting IN to Berlin still involved some acrobatics - I was there.

I think I crossed Checkpoint Charlie on one of the last days it was still operational as a real checkpoint. Within hours of our crossing into the East, chunks of the wall were being sawed off. I don't remember how I found a hotel room, I don't remember where it was, but I do remember walking towards the Siegesäule by the wall with an increasing number of people.

The hum of all those people walking towards a wall that had defined the city for almost 30 years, everyone from punk rockers in leather to nice middle class ladies taking a hammer or axe to the wall, my friends reaching up to hand a pack of Marlboros to the East German soldier standing on the wall. That soldier would never had been able to stand on that wall before the week in November. I don't think I realized, as they stood stoically on that wall, looking down at us, occasionally accepting cigarettes or flowers, that for many of them, that this was the first time they had stood so close to the other side, that it was the first time they could look into the city and the people they had been separate from for decades. They looked liked they weren't quite sure what they should do, so they stood sentry on the wall - but what I wouldn't give to hear the internal dialogue going on in their heads as they saw the no-man's-land strip between the wall and the watchtowers on the Eastern side, and the throng of people, television crews, cars and ice cream trucks on the other side. I wonder where those guys are now.

I spent 3 or 4 days in Berlin that time, and I have absolutely no memory of what I ate. I walked every where, I don't think I slept much, and I must have had at least a couple of Bockwürstchen in the street, the kind of sausage only Germans know how to make, with mustard that again only Germans serve. And I can't imagine I would have spent half an hour in Germany before buying a poppy seed pastry. Maybe I did, but I don't remember anything about it at all.

The good thing is, I don't have to try remember or forget this.

Day 8 on day 9 - and this is why I need to keep counting down

I missed yesterday. I completely missed posting. And I blame the fact that I am not counting down. The same way that if I don't count the eggs and put them in a separate dish away from the carton, I will lose count and end up with too many eggs in the dough, or too many drops of vanilla essence, or scoops of flour. I need lists (even if I ignore them - see recent Trader Joe's incident) and I need countdown.

Yesterday was spent grading midterms, an exhaustingly depressing exercise. Then I walked 3 miles to meet friends a chinese place that's become our place. It's chinese in a very American way - this ain't no Lucky Strike - Portland's rebuttal to precisely the kind of place Hunan Taste is. I don't think there's an attempt at authenticity here, unless the authenticity you crave is that of the chinese-american cuisine of pre-1982. Slippery shrimp in a silky eggy sauce with water chestnuts. Orange crispy chicken. Soggy moo-shu. Everything is sweet and soft, and when you are in the mood for that kind of nostalgia, there's no place like Hunan Taste (it's at 6031 San Vicente Blvd almost at Fairfax in LA, just in case our one reader is in the neighborhood).

Would I take Mark Bittman there you ask? Only if he shares a nostalgia for chinese food that may not exactly be chinese.

Am I going to enjoy the leftovers today? Absolutely!

i must really have meant it

When I committed to this November thing, I had no idea that interesting stuff does NOT happen everyday. It certainly does not happen when you are in sick bed.

Food-wise, life is particularly uninteresting, making my commitment to post daily really difficult. Yesterday's matzo ball chicken soup from Jerry's was excellent, today's Trader Joe's raspberry non-fat yoghurt delightful.

Although I guess I could start posting about anything. Like the fact that my pillows start feeling kinda lumpy after lying them for 15 hours, and at some point you really do run out of stuff to watch on hulu.com. I watched the entire first (and only?) season of Kitchen Confidential - the dramatization of Anthony Bourdain's book - the last time I took to bed, so what else is there? Firefly? Done. Hell's Kitchen? I dislike Gordon Ramsay profoundly.

So dear reader, if you are there, what should I watch ?