Danish Danish

You know those little fruit-filled round morning disks called "Danish pastry" that are usually found on insipid continental breakfast buffets in this country? And you know how we eat them because of either: 1) casual passivity, 2) they’re there, 3) you’re half asleep, or 4) otherwise you’d starve? Until about 6 years ago I thought these ubiquitous pastries were one of life’s little tricks because they look and sound good—which elicits hopes of deliciousness—yet each time I bite into one I’m reminded how awful they are. Here’s the thing: what we call Danish are Americanized Danish, in the same way that Panda Express is Chinese food.

Aloha! Hawaii Food Adventure

Aloha!

So here I am, back from my first visit to Hawaii & posting my first blog entry in five months (!). All that writing for school in an enforced "less casual way" hopefully didn't supplant my blog voice, at least not in the long term. We shall see :)

School starts up again in a few days, so let's get crackin'. First up, a quiz question:

Which of the following three things did I NOT eat in Hawaii:

A. Crab

B. Pineapple

C. SPAM

Hint: One of these things I didn't eat at all, and the other things I ate twice. What is your guess? The answer will be revealed as you read of my various food finds on the islands of Oahu and Big:

Coffee – Trying Kona coffee was big on my list, and there were two general kinds: 100% Kona and 10% Kona. The cheaper kind is what many restaurants serve. Hey why not, it’s cheaper. The best Kona I experienced then, the 100% kind, was from the local swanky coffee shop Island Vintage Coffee. That Kona sang in a smooth, lusty baritone. The town of Kona is on the Big Island, and the town of Hilo is too. I visited Hilo yet found no Kona for sale. However, a person on my island tour received a gift of Hilo coffee from the Hilo Coffee Mill, and the smell emanating from those coffee bags hinted at the glories of coffee dreams. Sadly there was none for sale at the airport, but thankfully they do mail order.

Croissants – Ok sure, this is not an item indigenous to Hawaii. But, the croissant I had with my Island Vintage Kona coffee was 20x better than the "you-claim-this-is-a-croissant" croissant I get once a week in Los Angeles at Starbucks (their croissant is the only pastry they sell without sugar painted all over it). Dear Los Angeles, you are closer in distance to France than Hawaii. Maybe you should visit Hawaii to learn a thing or two about making good croissants. Thanks for listening.

McDonald’s!

As you may know, whenever I visit a new town/city/country I always check out the McDonald’s to see what's unique. In Hawaii there were two such things:

1. The haupia pie is a standard hot pie like our apple and cherry, filled instead with a coconut-style cream. Interestingly, the flavor wasn’t very coconutty. Who cares though, it was pretty addictive, like a faintly tropical white pudding fried pie and I meant to stop eating halfway in but before you know it, all gone.

2. I never made it to the second unique thing. That would be their kind of "big breakfast." They replace the standard starches of English muffin, pancakes and/or hash browns with white rice (the starring starch of a Hawaiian "plate lunch"), then add scrambled eggs and either SPAM, Portuguese sausage or a combo of both. I did have a Portuguese sausage with egg and rice at this Zippy’s chain on the way to the airport. It was fine except I couldn't eat all the sausage: too many fat pieces in it (on purpose). As for SPAM, you’ll soon see I did experience that a few times during the trip...just not at McD’s.

Longans – After my tour group left the top of a live volcano (with real magma flowing in the distance!), our tour guide passed around a bag of “dragon eyes,” or longans. This translucent golf ball-sized fruit contains a lone black seed in the middle about the size of, um, a pupil actually, so the fruit in its entirety does kind of look like an eyeball. You eat them by lightly breaking the thin beige skin with your teeth, peeling off the skin, and popping the fruit into your mouth (just don't eat the pit). The fruit felt like eating a litchi/cherry combo, just without any extreme sweet or tart flavor. Or it was like eating a more exciting green grape.

Coconut Wine – This is something I saw in shops but didn't try and have no regrets! Would you try something so scary sounding for $20? I tried to taste it in my imagination and that's all it took for my superego to say no (thanks for watching my back, SE). Here's my thinking: besides a cost to my palate, the coconut "wine" would really cost $45 to purchase... $20 for the wine and an additional $25 for the bag check to fly it home for sharing. By the way, a recent Tweet on the subject said: “I can't commit to it but I'm relatively sure this Royal Chief Coconut Wine is the worst wine I've ever tasted.” All right!

Pineapple – This is the answer to the quiz question: I did not eat any pineapple in Hawaii. Why? It was never really offered. But wait, didn’t I visit the Dole Plantation? Why yes I did. The tour guide told us they don’t really grow pineapples much these days (thanks South America). If I’d wanted some pineapple—besides buying the cute Hello Kitty pineapple marshmallows which I didn't buy because I really only do marshmallows in S'mores—all I had to do during my 30-minute Dole tour stop was wait in a very long line and get me some Dole Whip, a.k.a. pineapple soft-serve ice cream. Ha to THAT! If I want to stand in a line for my Dole Whip then I’ll just go to Disneyland and stand in line there, as I have done many, many times. It's my favorite way to eat pineapple.

Crab – I ate crab on two occasions, but both were at chain restaurants. So as not to be judged by readers, I will only say that the crab was decent but not on par with crab enjoyed at other places, i.e., at a certain wonderful seafood place on a dock in San Francisco.

So yes, Hawaii does serve crab but from my recent experience best to stick with its local specialties, like…

The Loco Moco – This is an island favorite of a burger patty on rice topped with gravy and an egg. It was touted as a true national dish of Hawaii, sort of like the “plate lunch.” Ok, the plate lunch is some kind of fried meat (your choice) with two scoops of white rice and one scoop of macaroni salad. I like meat and rice, but not macaroni salad so sorry there, I never tried a plate lunch in Hawaii. The loco moco, to me, is better! (No macaroni salad.) If a place is fancy they may top all that decadent loco-moco-ness with fried onion strips too. As much as I would have enjoyed onion strips, my loco moco lunch in the picture was just fine without. This is a once every two years dish…delicious but not at all healthy!

Fresh Coconut Juice – Picture it…we just left the black sand beach with new coconut tree plantings and had a half hour before leaving for the volcano visit. Found a little area walking back with a café and farm stands. And then, I spotted the coconut lady. “Pick a coconut!” she said, surely high on life from living in Hawaii. I picked the smallest young coconut she had since I wasn’t too thirsty, and for $2 the husks were hacked off and a straw poked through. Good deal. The only down side was the juice was a bit ripe for its own good. They call this phenomenon “the champagne,” where the juice is fizzy and not quite fresh-tasting. Can't complain, the experience itself trumps any taste expectations. When the juice was gone (and I had help from a friend), the coconut lady scooped out the remaining young, almost jelly-like coconut meat for my late afternoon snack, which I didn't realize at the time was an early dinner.

Spam & Egg Musubi – What? Why? Because at the end of the day of black sand beaches and visits to steaming craters and live volcanoes, my tour boarded a plane going from one island to another at 10:00 p.m., and it occurred to me I hadn’t eaten dinner yet! (Young coconut meat and juice notwithstanding.) Hey, I do not like not having dinner! Nothing available at the airport, and back in Waikiki the only place nearby and open was the ABC Store (what would be the offspring of a 7-11 store and a rabbit, as there are so many and they are everywhere). For $1.89 I grabbed this Hawaiian bite for my better-late-than-never dinner. It is a hunk of rice topped with a scrambled egg square and then SPAM, wrapped in some sushi-style nori and sealed in cellophane for storage in a heat box. Apparently SPAM became popular in Hawaii during WWII, as soldiers had it as a part of their meal rations and it somehow stuck. The SPAM on top of my egg musubi tasted, how you say, just as old as that fact. Back at my hotel room with my "dinner," I did not quite delight in the musubi's SPAM element but of course ate it. It did the trick, that's what really matters (and that I didn't get sick). I probably won’t eat it again.

Macadamia Nuts – We know that Hawaii grows macadamia nuts, but who knew they came in flavors other than salted and chocolate covered? I didn't. Lucky for me one of my tour groups visited the source, a place called Tropical Farms that grows and flavors their own macadamia nuts. And they give out free samples!!! (You know I like that.) Flavor options include Kona coffee glazed, honey glazed, cinnamon, and my favorites were the caramel and maui onion & garlic. Many restaurants chop em up to add to things like meat breading or pancake batter, but my fave is when they're chopped up on top of waffles. Macadamia nut waffles with coconut syrup are especially scrumptious (thanks Vit's Hawaiian Steakhouse). Mmmm, so simple yet my best meal on Oahu. Yum!

Spam & Macadamia Nuts – You're probably thinking, if she didn't eat pineapple that means she ate both crab and SPAM twice. But why?? I'll tell ya why. Because sometimes two completely opposite foods—one not edible, the other extremely delicious—can be joined together successfully. Such is the case with the illustrious SPAM-flavored macadamia nuts. It was against my instincts when a lady at the Hilo Hattie souvenir store offered a free sample. I ADMIT IT ... I tried it and I liked it. The thing is, it really didn’t taste like various pig parts and fat when done up as a powder coating on a nut. It only tasted of smokey salt. And what's wrong with that? It was good. Just in the end not $4.95-per-can or ridicule-for-life good.

Dim Sum – Jade Dynasty Seafood Restaurant from Hong Kong opened their first and only U.S. location in Honolulu two days before I got there. This would explain the very low chairs at the bar—I didn't want a big dim sum table for myself—and that's why the bar was level with my neck. The bartender explained that the wrong chairs were ordered and new ones were coming, but in any case this explains why I was the only person sitting there. On to the food: either this restaurant is really good, or dim sum improves exponentially the closer you get to Hong Kong. Either way, my mochi rice, red bean & coconut mochi balls, and shrimp look fun rolls were some of the best I’ve had. So if you ever happen to be in Honolulu and on a rainy day make a stop at the Ala Moana mall, go ahead and skip Romano’s Macaroni Grill and Bubba Gumps to go to this place.

Kalua Pork – Besides the waffles, another new favorite thing I was lucky to try is kalua pork. What is it? It’s pretty much just pulled pork, and what happens when a pig is roasted at a luau and shreds of tender salty meat are pulled out. Not that I would know since my luau was rained out. But it's ok, kalua pork is served everywhere and I tried it first at a restaurant during a day tour (really good), and again on my last night in Hawaii at Duke’s Waikiki (super good). At Duke's, BBQ sauce was added, making it taste like a high-end pulled pork, and it was ingeniously served on a taro bun. That’s right, a soft and purpley taro bun. Delicious. A pilot on layover who was sitting next to me let me try his kalua pork nachos, but eh, all the other stuff on there blocked the pure, rich flavor of the meat. That's why in my opinion it's best to eat this specialty straight up or in a sandwich, and not covered up with other gunk.

In summary, I adored being in Hawaii—SPAM encounters notwithstanding—and hopefully I'll get a chance to visit again soon. In the meantime, there are a bunch of casual Hawaiian places in L.A., including King's Hawaiian Restaurant & Bakery in Torrance. Kalua pork and loco moco, here I come!

Until we eat again,

Marly

Tidbits: A few recent food adventures

1. Minneapolis/St. Paul visit

Izzy's Ice Cream

The "Izzy Scoop" is a baby scoop of ice cream on top of a regular scoop, and to me it's kinda like an alien scoop. And not only that! Their flavors are modern and experimental, for example they had five types of strawberry the night we were there plus a few exotic chocolates, including Umeshu Chocolate made with Japanese plum wine. I couldn’t decide, so ordered a 5-Izzy scoop sampler of Mexican chocolate fiesta, cream cheese, coconut, graham cracker and the amaaazing salted caramel. When I was done with my 5 Izzy’s I did indeed want another scoop of salted caramel and my local friends (bless them for taking me here) talked me out of it. Balderdash! Not to torture you but here, take a look at the current flavor list and next time you're in the Minneapolis area run, don't walk, to Izzy's.

The Juicy Lucy

Another fantastic thing in St. Paul was the Juicy Lucy (a.k.a. Jucy Lucy) burger at Matt's bar. This discovery shared by a local friend made me pretty happy. It's basically two McDonald's-sized burgers sandwiched around a liquidy cheese sauce. No, not a gloppy Cheddar ooze as some photos suggest, but a nice mellow cheese sauce. The servers and the menus both warn to let the burger cool before chomping down, since that cheese sauce is molten and it wants to spurt all over your face! We waited a few and blew on our burgers then took a bite. Sure as heck if that cheese sauce wasn't dying to come out! It had a bonefide lava-like propulsion factor, and it was really yummy. Thank goodness the burgers weren't too big either, since too much meat-to-cheese ratio would have made the Juicy Lucy less humble, obnoxious even, in my opinion. This way was just right.

2. Carmine’s Chicken Scarpiello – cookbook vs. restaurant showdown

In my January 8, 2009 blog post “I heart Carmine's, and now you know,” I wrote about one of my favorite NYC restaurants and a fantastic dish there that I order all the time, chicken scarpiello. Many Italian restaurants make this but at Carmine's it is very unique and outrageously delicious. In my blog entry I described it as “heavenly, different from any other, with a sweet & sour brown lemon rosemary garlic sauce and caramelized garlic cloves.”

The reason this was written about in January 2010 is because my family and I had visited the Atlantic City Carmine's in December 2009, and there lo and behold I noticed the new Carmine's cookbook for sale. Celebration! Now the chance to make chicken scarpiello at home was mine!, especially necessary since Carmine's, for me, was no longer just a subway ride away.

A month later my friends came over for the recipe unveiling. Well it didn't turn out well at all :(, though my friends were pretty polite about it. The official planetmarly blog rating was, on a 1-3 scale: “1: bad recipe”. In the history of this blog, nothing's ever turned out THAT bad. Frustrated over wasted money – this was the main reason for my purchase of the cookbook – I slid my new Benedict Arnold hardcover onto the cookbook shelf and there is has remained. Until last week.

See my sister -- another fan of the chix scarpiello magic -- recently discovered an online recipe for the dish associated with the restaurant's chef. She made it and wanted to compare the recipe in my cookbook with hers to see if a match. Turns out my sister's version came out just fine, but that's only after she improvised. And when she sent me her online version of the recipe with notes, it became clear that the cookbook’s version was filled with errors:

1. Garlic – Cookbook said crushed garlic, which was awful on the finished dish and covered the chicken like little balls of soft tapioca. In the restaurant, the dish is known for its browned garlic cloves. No garlic cloves in the cookbook's recipe, a major faux pas which honestly I should have caught.
2. Recipe Liquid – This dish is also known for its lovely brown gravy. My cookbooked dish had none. My sister decided to up the wine quotient a little and also add a cup of chicken stock. Genius. There was only a 1/4 cup of wine in her recipe and no stock. This is why I’m more of a baker. I follow directions to a T and this recipe really needed some intuitive (and obvious) improvisation.
3. Laziness – My sister felt the recipe I emailed her from the cookbook was lazy. It often said to use the “remaining” of this and that (lemon, herbs and butter), without being clear of how much that would be, which would have helped out the home cook tremendously.

All in all, this episode reminded me that we shouldn’t automatically trust cookbooks just because they're published, since some of them are simply not good. I recently finished reading Julia Child’s “My Life in France,” and that chef took great pride and many years in the proofreading and testing of her recipes. I probably won’t make any other dish from the Carmine’s cookbook. But the Ghirardelli or Tom Douglas cookbooks? Oh yes indeed I will go to them over and over again.

By the way, the photo of the dish above is from “www.twofatbellies.com,” and the authors had a pre-theater dinner at Carmine’s. They wrote why this is a special version of the dish too, and I agree because it’s why I only order this dish at Carmine's and no where else. “The chicken is covered in a lemony, garlicky sauce that is flavored with rosemary. It’s different from other versions of scarpariello, which usually feature sausage and peppers, but I vastly prefer this version.” Exactly! So after my sister puts the final touches on her recipe redux, I’ll try again and also post it on the blog if everyone wants it.

That's it for now blog peeps. Next week I'm off to Orlando for a conference and will be dining at the San Angel Inn in EPCOT Mexico. This beautiful "Mexican village at night" pavilion within an Aztec pyramid is one of my favorite places to visit, cheasy like a Juicy Lucy and oh so festive. I ate my first molé there during a college spring break road trip. Let's see if the restaurant stands up to the test of time.

Until we eat again,
Marly

Europe Food!

Bonjour and Hallo!

Last week I returned from my 8th trip to Europe, and I wondered... Why do I keep going back to that part of the world? Well, it is awesome, but one of the main reasons is I’ve always had amazing experiences and discoveries centering around the food.

While I think my next trip may be to some new place, it’s always a treat to be in Europe, where the food is so fresh and less processed that it simply tastes better than food I experience day-to-day here.

So here is a list of some of the cool food we recently ate in Europe. If something is available in the U.S. I’ll mention it, otherwise you’ll just have to book a flight soon!

The List (with matching photos!):

1. Haggis – Pork parts, potatoes and spices finely mashed up like corned beef hash. Tastier than expected, my brain still couldn’t fully release the reality of my consumption, so I ate only a little. Or maybe I wasn't feeling too bad about it until the LAX customs guys forced me to a read the ingredients from a souvenir can of haggis brought back for a friend. That I could definitely have done without. Yes, ignorance is bliss!

2. Kouign Amann – The reputation of this Breton butter cake entered my consciousness before I even tasted it. How could a cake made with mainly sugar, butter and pastry baked into a caramelized crunchy buttery mass not have that effect on the human brain? Now I’ve had the pleasure of eating this twice. Once at BLD in Los Angeles, where it’s offered at brunch (I got it to go and ate it cold, not smart) and then in Paris again last week (hallelujah!). I found it peering out from behind more aggressive treats in a bake shop window and whirled in with my Euros. It took me three days to eat it due to its sultry artery-hardening richness. Yes, it was worth the wait. If you buy one at BLD, make sure to eat it there and ask for it warmed.

3. A non-continental complimentary hotel breakfast – That’s right, the breakfast that is included has serious meats and cheeses, soft-boiled eggs, country breads and apricot juice to go with the standard orange and grapefruit. This is what I want for my country! Real food in this scenario, with less crappy carbs and more protein deliciousness. Thank you.

4. Classic, simple French crepes – Made to order from a street vendor and handed over soft and steamy, the minimal additions of butter and sugar are the way to go here. Forget the Nutella or ham and cheese options (or save that for your second one). As a first taste, the most true to form is having it this way. It's all you need in the crepe department.

5. Eggs Benedict sandwich – Imagine an English muffin of sorts with herbed hollandaise-infused scrambled eggs and an unprocessed, fantastic slab of country ham. This was only $4 and didn't contain a tower of eggs to over-fill me before a flight. Original in flavor with great ingredients, this was a big fat yes.

6. Fun-flavored potato chips! – The people from Great Britain have always had it right. Instead of the typical BBQ, cheddar, and sour cream and chive, flavors include lamb with mint sauce, roast beef with mustard, smoked ham and pickle, prawn cocktail and the hysterical haggis.

7. Amazing chocolate – Beyond the Swiss brands of Cailler, Lindt and Frey selling specialty bars at the supermarket, the fresh chocolate from Läderach is saturated with whole caramelized almonds or hazelnuts. The Zurich-bought stash hidden in my desk is almost gone and I may have to wear black tomorrow to mourn it.

8. Interesting foods at the market – At M&S Market in Edinburgh, they had pretty ingenious fresh meals to go. They also had some frozen items I’d never seen, specifically international take out dinner kits. You could pick Chinese Favourites or Indian Takeaway, all filled with six different items from appetizers to mains, for about $15. Talk about a dinner time saver! Why didn’t we think of that?

9. Better tasting, more natural yogurt – Oh my in Switzerland and France you cannot imagine how much good yogurt is available. There are tons of flavors to choose from, with less processed sugar and more purposeful probiotics. At the Basel train station I picked up a cup of Nestle passion fruit yogurt, which was so tasty when finished I had no choice but to get every bit off the lid (see top photo). Christy said the vanilla yogurt made by Emmi tasted like custard. Emmi yogurt is for sale in Los Angeles at The Cheese Store of Silverlake at Sunset Junction.

10. French macarons from the source – When I first tasted a chocolate-passion fruit macaron by Pierre Hermé in 2005 (check out his new book, Macaron), I had no idea that every macaron-maker in the world would be copying his flavor combos and selling them off as their own. French macarons have become known in the U.S., but you have to be careful of bakers over here who use too much sugar. Plus, the flavors are often the same: chocolate, lemon, raspberry, pistachio, vanilla, coffee, strawberry. In fact, macarons have become so ubiquitous here that I even noticed my local Starbucks selling a pack of them for $10. Well, at Pierre Hermé this year they sadly didn’t have my favorites from 2005: the apricot or the olive oil. But they did have the rose and the chocolate-passion fruit, AND they had weird new flavors which boggled the mind: wasabi and balsamic vinegar. I feared these macarons, but I shouldn’t have. Where was all that Pierre Hermé trust? The new macaron flavors were phenomenal. The wasabi was subtle and had a dab of a mysterious red in the middle (see photo). It was divine. And the balsamic vinegar was just as subdued. This man is the master and I hope more area bakers will start mixing up the flavors to be a little more exotic, too.

11. Rösti with fried egg – This Swiss specialty is basically just shredded potatoes sautéed into a cake, and in this version topped with two fried eggs. We ate it as an appetizer to cheese fondue and it is always a simple, delicious treat.

12. Ham and cheese sandwich (on baguette or pretzel roll) – This is tasty simplicity at its finest. Why? Because here is what’s on the bread: butter, ham and cheese. That’s it! Who needs tomato, lettuce, mayo, onions, peppers and some sort of globby dressing. You don’t need all that on a European sandwich. Why? Because the main ingredients are of such a high quality and taste so good, that’s why! And don’t you forget it!

13. Fondue – Yes you can get this in LA (Morels @ the Grove), though the perfect fusing of cheeses along with the right kirsch vs. white wine ratio is too important to ignore. Fondue in Switzerland tastes amazing, with a smooth (not gummy), somewhat gritty consistency. It’s solely served with day old rustic bread. And it was worth the cholesterol, trust me, which is probably why I inadvertently ate this twice and have dreamed of it ever since. Enjoy it with some hoppy beer, or with a local Swiss white wine like a Fendant.

14. Raclette – You can buy this cheese at Trader Joe’s, or be invited to a Swiss person’s house for a Raclette party (this has happened to me). It’s sort of like fondue but more straight-up: there are no ingredients except CHEESE. It’s tasty. You eat it with something sturdy like potatoes or cornichons.

15. Spätzle - Literally translated from German as "little sparrow," this is a dish of tiny dumplings forced through a sieve and boiled before being tossed with butter and sometimes sautéed. (Appears in the right background in Raclette photo.)

16. International McDonald's – Whenever I’m overseas, I always stop into a local McDonald’s. Some things are the same, and almost always some things are different. Years ago in Vienna I remember a McPork sandwich, which was like a grilled chicken sandwich made with pork. Why do we have the need to cover up our pork in the U.S. with fried breading or McRib sauce? Over there you get the real deal. Now a few years ago in France I noticed more international flavors and breads brought in, with for instance an Italian burger on a ciabatta roll, and an Indian burger on a naan-like roll. Speaking of which, in Edinburgh I found an Indian twist on the snack wrap: the chicken tikka snack wrap. And in Zurich I had the pleasure of buying 6 whole, large fried “shrimps” with a mayo-based cocktail sauce and it was a nice addition.


17. Tattie scones – OMG, I’ve been dreaming of this breakfast wonder since first trying it in Belfast in 2000. As part of any respectable Irish or Scottish full breakfast, the tattie scone is simply a potato scone, looks like a pita but is heartier (at 12:00 on the plate), and is sautéed in the pan. I have no idea where to get this in Los Angeles, so I guess I’ll just have to make some myself. It sure won’t be the same, though, as enjoying it as part of a full Scottish breakfast in a sleepy pub on a chilly Edinburgh morning.

Until we eat again,

Marly

Road Trip

Ever since my first trip to Seattle I’ve been inspired by local foods, as unique menu treasures from non-ubiquitous local restaurants are hard to come by in the urban centers I’ve long lived in.

Right now I’m thinking about Seattle chef Tom Douglas’s triple coconut cream pie, from Dahlia Lounge, a dessert epiphany that I was lucky enough to experience for the first time years ago while exploring that fine food city.

The small successes you encounter in faraway restaurants are the parts you take home. Once you get back to your roost you’ll very likely share those discoveries with friends and colleagues, and if anyone hits the road themselves, if they don’t track down that wonderful place or menu item you found it’s easy to want to hurt them!

These thoughts have come to pass because a few weekends ago to ring in the new year I had the pleasure of driving up the California coast with Christy. What a wonderful reminder of why I moved to this great state. There is so much beauty to see, and it’s all so accessible.

We started in Pismo Beach with a pre-“Avatar” dinner at a local seafood spot called Steamers. My shrimp scampi was quite good, refined and flavorful and for the right price. Christy’s linguini with clams tasted great, although it took her a good 20 minutes to dig 100 tiny clams out of their shells before digging in.

The next day we couldn’t get into a sold-out Hearst Castle, so instead – since there were two full days left in the holiday weekend – we set our compass north. I imagined the map of the state in my mind, searching for a fun locale due north. Suddenly the Napa Valley exploded into my consciousness. It’s so close! And I’d wanted for a long time to visit the Oxbow Public Market, a fairly new food hall similar to the luminous Ferry Building in San Francisco.

We called en route and found out the market closed at 7:00pm, so we hauled ass. Even though we got there at 6:45pm, most of the food stalls were already closed, but that's okay. At least we got to see the place. It's nice! And this was very cool too, right next door to the market was a new branch of Taylor's Automatic Refresher—also in the Ferry Building, also in St. Helena—that fantastic local retro hamburger stand.

Next up, it was time to finally check out the Bounty Hunter, a hot wine bar that had just opened in downtown Napa back when I was taking a one-week course at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone. That was in 2004, and the course was called the Professional Business of Wine. I went with the intention of seeing if this was a career path I should consider more seriously, and also thought it would be a fun way to explore Napa with my classmates.

No such luck, on both fronts:

1) I enjoyed the class, yet couldn’t wrap my head around the growing principles of vines and grapes. Then in the tasting portion of class, I couldn't shake my Kevin Zraly's Windows on the World Wine School training, which taught me to lose all pretention about wine and simply know what I like vs. what I don’t in the most general terms. Here, my classmates imagined tasting things I couldn’t imagine! They took a sip and in one wine tasted McIntosh apple and Greengage plum. They tasted fancy things in other wines like lemongrass, papaya and black pepper, even hybrid fruit like pluots. Poppycock! I tasted… grapes! Rich, jammy, bitter, tannic, dry, berry, smoky, apple, lemon, butter, caramel… in the wine. I was not able to taste Greengage plum in the wine. Come on!

2) My class was very small, with about seven people, and they didn’t care to have group activities after class. Except one lady said I could join her cadre at the then new Bounty Hunter, but it felt like a pity invite only, so I declined.

Instead I did my own thing and wandered into Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen, located, um, actually on a backstreet parallel to the main street of St. Helena. This place was wonderful, in a converted two-story house, and I grabbed a seat at the bar. The bartender was a fantasy version of a man, a guy you'd want to talk to every day from now until forever, although an hour on that evening was good enough for me. All the food I ordered tasted perfectly amazing, yet the wine business not being for me really hit home that night when my appetizer order of a pan-sautéed artichoke with a glass of Trimbach Gewurtraminer to start was rejected by the bartender because “the artichoke is going to kill that wine.” I love sautéed artichokes, I adore Trimbach’s Gewurtraminer which is rarely on a restaurant menu by the glass, and I did not want to annoy this handsome bartender. But I held my ground and ordered it anyway. Of course he was right, as were the teenage weaned-on-wine busboys who giggled when I went ahead with the order and painfully realized my mistake. It’s ok though, my basic grilled chicken BLT with spiced fries was the best sandwich I’d had in years and years. So flavorful! And the campfire pie for dessert was so original, so incredible. Sure I lived in the great restaurant town of New York then, but finding a place like Cindy’s there was next to impossible because restaurants like that are only found on the road.

The next day after class I was invited by a cute blonde classmate to join him in Calistoga, up Rt. 29 by bus, to kick around a bit before he headed off to a softball game with his Calistoga friends. We perused a market in that town while discussing cheeses and local potato chips, bought fun sodas and finally walked to his friend’s place after openly dreaming of owning our own wine stores. This was the kind of post-class day I’d been looking for, though it ended too soon. He and his friends had to go! They told me to hop in the jeep and they’d drive me back to St. Helena, I could have dinner while they practiced, then they told me where to find them later to watch the game.

We hopped into the jeep with the top down and sailed south on the Silverado Trail, passing field after gorgeous field of grapes, where they and their vines lived in peace. The sun was shining on pretty green landscape as I’d never seen. When the guys dropped me off at Taylor’s Automatic Refresher I was pretty happy since they’d talked it up a lot and I’d never heard of it. Turns out the jeep driver used to work there, and he went up to the counter and ordered for me before waving goodbye and driving off with my classmate. My cheeseburger with sweet potato fries and a glass of red wine were not only of the highest quality, they were also on the house. I wandered over to the softball game about an hour later, and the experience was right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. This world was so serene and strange. I loved it, but it was also a bit lonely since I was there on my own and at this point doubted my ability to make a living there in the Napa Valley wine world (Greengage plum??).

So a few weeks ago, I was taken back to all this as Christy and I drove to dinner at the Bounty Hunter, although we didn't end up eating there and that's okay with me. See our trip to the wine country was an impulse and we never expected to find ourselves up there dressed in jeans and sweatshirts. From the moment we entered the Bounty Hunter bar there were looks and stares from the help, and it wasn't pleasant. We left without sitting down and drove up Rt. 29 to find another place, anything, and we drove past the Oakville Grocery, past the standby restaurants Brix and Mustards, past the flagship Dean & Deluca, and past all the wineries with their trees still wrapped in tiny glowing Christmas lights. We passed a new place I hadn’t seen before called the Rutherford Grill, from the Houston’s folks which I will plan to visit some time in the future. And finally we came upon the original Taylor’s Automatic Refresher, at which I’d had that delicious gourmet burger meal in 2004, and once you hit that you know you’re in St. Helena.

St. Helena was a bit too sleepy at 9:00pm on a Saturday night, so we decided to keep driving for our dinner. In the car I pointed out where Cindy’s was, along with the expansive Beringer winery, and finally we drove through the line of old oak trees that lead up to the majestic Culinary Institute of America. Five minutes later we arrived in the quaint western-style town of Calistoga, and it looked so charming at night that we decided to dine at the lovely Calistoga Inn.

Our repast complete, we drove through Healdsburg at around 10:30pm, home of the Kendall Jackson Winery tasting room. What an amazing town this was! Hadn’t been that north before. It was late, so we decided to come back the next day to walk around. The next morning we drove through California’s southernmost redwood forest park. We proceded south along the foggy Pacific coast winding down through Mendocino. The coastline sure is a sight to see.

Back in Healdsburg we ventured into the Kendall Jackson tasting room because KJ's Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay was the first wine I tasted and loved as an adult. We sampled some interesting wines not available in Los Angeles stores, served to us by "Uncle Bill." Throughout the tasting I threw out some wine facts from my wine school days and Uncle Bill was impressed. Maybe I was too hard on myself in 2004. Maybe it was a matter of simple intimidation, since the people in Napa seemed to know so much more than me. Now I realize I know enough to get by in that world; the key is to forget all pretention and just keep on tasting.

Now it was Sunday early afternoon and time to head back to Los Angeles. We drove south and decided to have lunch in Hayward, California, just south of Oakland, to hit up Buffalo Bill’s Brewery. I've had their excellent beer in LA, and imagined lunch at the brewery would be an amazing foodie adventure. Actually the food was kinda bleh, but let’s face it, we were there for the beer. Pity they were out of their fantastic orange blossom cream ale. Instead we ordered the renowned pumpkin ale (still have some bottles in my fridge from October) and that was good yet it was the unfiltered Hayward Hefe on tap that rocked our world. For a repeat of that experience, we will indeed have to drive back up to Hayward.

Which we may get to do this weekend. We’re heading up to Oakland to explore the foodie-dom of that little gem of a town. Ok, it’s a big and sometimes rough city, however its growing food offerings should not be ignored, and there are little restaurants popping up that I'm fairly confident don’t exist in Los Angeles. Yep in order to find those, we’ll have to hit the road again.

Why Long Weekends In California Rock

Hello, nice to see you again :)

So let's see, at this point I've lived in California for over a year and a half. And in this native east-coaster’s humble opinion, the beauty of long weekends in California (besides...all that sun) is there are always fun and myriad options of where to go and what to do just a short road trip away. Here are some basic examples of what I'm talking about:

1) If you’re in the north, go south to LA or north to Oregon
2) If you’re in the south, a) go south to San Diego & Mexico or b) go north to San Fran & wine country

That’s what I did this past President’s Day weekend (#2b). What a great trip! I was graciously introduced to the bounty of the California breadbasket, where much of our country’s produce is grown. Here are some special things I was able to experience just over a week ago:

• A drive through Castroville, home of artichokes, the giant artichoke (a globular statue) and restaurants that serve artichoke fries and fried artichoke hearts galore
  
• Gilroy, home of garlic and the first place I ever tried garlic-stuffed olives
• Olallieberry Pie (yes, this is a berry!) in Watsonville, along with the juiciest, tastiest strawberries, and the birthplace of Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider
• Yummy Marini’s salt water taffy and the Giant Dipper (a fantabulous rollercoaster, not an ice cream cone like I first thought) at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk
• Humble wild salmon (for the menu did not list this as wild) and the freshest steamed artichoke at the Jay Leno-touted The Whole Enchilada restaurant in Moss Landing
  

Truly a foodie’s dream, this part of the world. Thanks, host Neil!

On another day we (Neil, Nick & Rachael) drove up to San Francisco and stopped in at… don’t be surprised when I tell you… The Ferry Building!... after which back in the car we sampled Recchiuti rose caramels, fleur de sel caramels, sesame nougat and the new, seasonal Champagne truffle made with 2001 Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs. SO GOOD.

If that wasn't enough to blow my foodie mind, we then drove north to beautiful Sonoma in search of a great meal, and it was certainly found!

But first...en route to Sonoma we stopped at Viansa Winery and Italian Marketplace. Wow. Not only are the grounds exceptionally regal in the “oh yeah we’re in wine country now” way (see photo above); inside there are endless jars of pestos, jams, marinades, etc. and each is open for tasting (and imminent purchasing, you know because it isn’t every day you come across cilantro pumpkin seed pesto). This was a good thing.

So, we arrived in lovely downtown Sonoma. It reminded me of Santa Fe a little, with the big town square. And off of the town square and down a quaint little pedestrian lane was LaSalette, our dinner destination. This is a family-owned and operated restaurant specializing in Cozinha Nova Portuguesa, a.k.a. “contemporary, inventive Portuguese cuisine.” It was my first official foray into this cuisine, and I will tell you I can’t wait to get back to Sonoma and LaSalette. The restaurant is warm and charming, with great service and authentic, exciting food preparations that were all over-the-top delicious.

Here is what we ordered:

Portuguese White Wine Flight - (3 oz. pour of each) Muralhas Vinho Verde, Quinta Do Casal Branco, & Campolargo (the Campolargo was our fave so we ordered a bottle with dinner)

As a starter we shared:
Fresh Portuguese rolls and butter (so soft, so good!!)
+
Portuguese Cheese and Charcuterie Plates, 5 items
1) Queijo do Topo, cows-milk, semi-hard, sharp with house-made quince paste!
2) Queijo Fresco, house-made farmers cheese with house-made tomato jam!
3) Sardine Pate, house-made with onion, garlic and Piri-Piri
4) Linquica, traditional Portuguese home style sausage
5) Chourico, dry Portuguese pork and garlic sausage

For four of us, three entrees were enough:
1) Bacalhau, traditional baked casserole of salt cod, potatoes, onions and olives
2) Cataplana de Marisco, our signature seafood and white bean stew served in a copper bowl
3) Feijoada Completa, Brazilian national dish of stewed beef, pork, smoked sausage and black beans, accompanied by herbed rice, collard greens and traditional condiments

Then for dessert:
Arroz Doce, Lasalette Azevedos special recipe for Portuguese rice pudding garnished with a light caramel sauce with dried figs

Mmm mmm. While it is true that all the dishes were outstanding, the Feijoada was my favorite. It’s also important to note the items (rice, greens, salsa) that came with this dish were not mere sidekicks but bold co-stars with the Feijoada itself.

Saveur magazine did an article in issue #66, April/May 2003 about Feijoada from Brazil, however if I ever attempt this at home I’ll be more likely to try the recipe from Time/Life Foods of the World Cookbook: The Cooking of Spain and Portugal. And when I do that, there should be enough for sharing so I’ll let you know ;)

Until we eat again,
Marly

Evolving Beyond Bacon: The Glories of Pork

Hello long lost readers,

Yes it's been awhile, please forgive! There've been travels galore and many excuses as to why I haven't updated in 2 months. Let's look forward, though. It's time to talk about pork.

When Neil and I traveled to Germany in November, the trip reminded me -- beyond the glorious Christmas markets, fun and adventure -- how one-dimensional our experiences with pork are in the U.S.

You know what I mean, in restaurants there are basically 3 ways to order pork: as a chop, as a medallion, as a side of bacon. Hey no one here is dissing the side of bacon!; all this foodie's saying is in a great dining country like this, why do most restaurants serve the same cuts of pork?

The best pork dishes we ate in Germany -- and typical of that part of the world's cuisine -- were the pork steak (with ie. pepper cream sauce) and the pork filet (with ie. mustard cream sauce). In addition, there was the bratwurst and all sorts of beautiful crackly pork sausages served with mustard, and of course don't forget the schnitzels... a pounded filet (usually veal but sometimes pork) breaded and exquisitely fried with a squeeze of fresh lemon and a dash of capers on top. Fattening though so wunderbar!

It's because pork is such a prominent protein in the German culture that we were even delighted to find the when-will-that-come-back-again McRib sandwich (formed pork in the shape of ribs doused in BBQ sauce on a soft bun with fresh onions) on every McDonald's menu in the cities we visited. We had to partake...because we could! And yes it was good.

So when back to this part of the woods, I wondered why pork isn't often served as a steak or filet on indigenous menus when it's so amazing! To me standard pork chops are ok but have a heavy taste from the fat around the bone that gets redundant. And usually pork medallions are too dry. The steak and the filet were moist and so flavorful! The pork flavor shines through and on the steak was especially excellent if served with a caramelized char. Oh yes if you can find it, try it.

Although I didn't have such luck once home, pretty much forgot about it really until last Sunday when I went about my foodie business and tried the fab BLD for brunch. I was quite excited to try their gourmet egg sandwich with Gruyère, aioli and Nueske's applewood-smoked bacon. But you know what? Suddenly this wasn't good enough. My expectations of pork had been raised and there was no going back. Bacon as my only pork outlet -- even if the famed Nueske's -- was a big fat "eh."

Thankfully while in New York City just over a week ago I had several opportunities to have pork in ways beyond bacon... First, I went to Blaue Gans with my cousins, a casual Austrian place from one of NYC's top chefs du jour. There I had the pleasure of eating one of their signatures, called the Jaeger Schnitzel. This is a style of Weiner Schnitzel made with pork, with a mushroom-bacon cream sauce (double the pork!) and some of the most succulent spätzle I've ever had. Y U M. They even served Cologne, Germany's famous Kölsch beer which one would think would be impossible to find outside of that city. Ending with Apfelstrudel, this was truly a great meal, plus it finally got me my non-chop, non-medallion pork fix on American soil.

The very next day in the city I had the pleasure of dining with Dan (see previous blog entry about our LA Korean BBQ experience, which happened to include the excellent spicy pork). For the 2nd year in a row Dan took me to that pleasure palace of soup dumplings, Joe's Shanghai. Woo hoo those dumplings (see photo above) were amazing! You cannot imagine. I'm sure they're somewhere in LA in Monterey Park, though you should know, the best are at Joe's. Fly don't walk, as Dan would say.

So my advice to you is this: try to eat some non-traditional pork cuts when you have the chance, they are really amazing. Sure being in Germany or Austria helps, and if you're in Denmark, I hear the Roast Breast of Pork with Crackling is to die for (fyi, Saveur magazine issue #67 has the recipe). The Red Lion in Silver Lake might have some good options for you too.

And if you count yourself as a person who hasn't yet had soup dumplings and would like to try making them, yes it will take a day, though for you culinary adventurers try this penultimate soup dumpling recipe by Anita Lo, chef at Annisa in New York, which includes a little explanation of these pork-filled doughy delights.

As for me, I'm probably going to have bacon for dinner at this point (the craving is suddenly unbearable ;). Wishing you all the best in 2008 in food, wine and beyond,
Marly

I Heart Seattle

So I am begrudgingly back from Seattle, the city that I feel still serves the best food in the land.

To commemorate the impetus behind the visit I purchased this artisan's plate of "the salmon." Ah yes, copper river salmon, you were mine. *sigh*

And it was cold, and cloudy, and one day rainy, and just to tease me on my departure day it was bright and sunny...but no matter; it was great to be back!

Instead of going back to old haunts per usual, this creature-of-habit tried some new stuff, and rediscovered some old. While all this news now appears on the City List at right, there are still a few more bits to share about why I Heart Seattle:

1) Visiting Queen Anne -- a tiny neighborhood on a hill overlooking Elliott Bay near Seattle Center that is filled with greenery and charm.

2) Discovering Black Bottle -- a newish wine bar/small plates restaurant that has the coolest industrial Brooklyn decor and vibe.

3) Trying Dry Soda -- lemongrass was good but lavender was the best! What a great thing to use as a cocktail mixer if it hasn't already been discovered.

4) Remembering why I love the restaurants of Tom Douglas -- one bite into a mushroom appetizer speaks volumes on Pacific Northwest Cuisine and why it rocks my world.

5) Sitting in an oasis of a coffee shop -- with 20 clean armchairs each with a street view, where the music is soothing, people of all ages have enough room to each get a seat, and the coffee is perfect.

6) Witnessing restaurant originality again -- the restaurants of Seattle have more creativity than restaurants in other great cities, yet you don't pay the same high price for it. To experience this level of freshness in New York in these days of the super chef, you would pay 3-4 times as much. Here it's just how restaurants are.

7) Delighting over a new kind of condiment table-setting at Steelhead Diner -- sure they had ketchup at this "diner that isn't really a diner," and Crystal hot sauce. Add to this a bottle of pepper vinegar. But the coolest was, while eating a fantastic salad with pine nut vinaigrette, what appeared to be salt & pepper shakers. One contained a house-made Cajun seasoning, and the other contained... smoked sea salt? This is expensive! So to have all that on every table, such a unique and generous selection, made me smile.

8) Copper River Sockeye Salmon -- and we've come full circle to the reason behind this visit. It turns out that I'm not a huge fan of the king variety; the sockeye is the kind I find transcendental, sooo deeply orange/pink in color (like a salmon-colored shirt, that color salmon), and so rich with flavor you can't imagine.

Til next time Seattle!
Marly

New - Marly's City Must Lists

Ok fellow food explorers, it's time to introduce the list I've been compiling for ages, my tried-and-true city favorites, each item sampled personally at least one time -- ok probably more like two, three or ten times! (*blush*)

If you've known me awhile you may have heard some of this before, though this is just the beginning. The list is going to be BIG, it's going to grow baby, and new things will be added as my beloved food adventures continue onward.

You'll notice, unlike other reviews or lists, that this one is short & sweet (& salty too! lol). Expositional verbiage has been left out so you can get right to the need-to-know: where to go and why. Do you have time to read through pages of text to get to the pearl? I didn't think so. Do I have time to provide links for every pearl you find? I knew you'd understand that I don't :).

So on the right side of this blog, click on the link at City Lists. There you will find a short list of cities in alphabetical order. Each city lists up to five categories:
1. Eats (sit-down places)
2. Drinks (sometimes including food)
3. Markets & Shops (farmer's, gourmet & unique)
4. Hotels
5. Other

The destinations on each list feature the places I like to breathe in while visiting a particular place (like the photo above, Dahlia Lounge in Seattle). This is followed by a neighborhood, if relevant, and then the nugget -- the item you should order to achieve some level of nirvana. See if you don't order what I recommend I won't be held responsible for your "just OK" experience. Got it? And this doesn't mean the item I include is the only great thing on the menu; no it probably means I never tried anything else because I liked this thing soooo much.

Planet Marly reader, let me be the first to humbly say these lists are by no means complete. Some listings may seem redundant or even the opposite of trendy, but don't you fret -- this is an ongoing project, viewable from the blog's righthand column. So don't forget to check back for updates or when you're about to take a trip! Have faith that if it's on the list it means it's damn good, and here's hoping you'll agree.