The weather is still dropping cold in San Francisco, so I see no reason not to dip into a new fondue book. Written by fellow Cowgirl, Lenny Rice, and her friend Brigid Callinan, Fondue is witty, cute, and perfectly delicious. Dropping allusions to Laverne and Shirley and Hawaii 5-0, this cookbook takes you through fifty fondue recipes -- sweet and savory -- as well as fondue accompaniments, like mango marshmallows, Irish soda bread, and spiced doughnut holes.

While I didn't make it yet, my favorite recipe by far has to be the one that came out of Lenny's football-watching childhood in Oklahoma. It's called "Whiskey Tango Game Day" and the recipe includes ground beef or pork and Velveeta. (Yes, Velveeta -- stop your pearl clutching.) Lenny writes, "And the name? If you're familiar with military radio alphabet, you'll probably know how we came up with it!" While drink recommendations for other recipes guide you to specific wines and beers, this recipe suggest you pair your WT Game Day fondue with Dr. Pepper, Bud Light, and RC Cola. Awesome.

The other night Big Cheese and I melted up a big pot of California Country Roads, which throws together the tangy-stinky combination of Cowgirl's own Red Hawk and Bellwether Farms Carmody. The recipe notes suggest using walnut bread, Fig Newtons, Graham crackers, and apples as dippers and pairing with a blanc de noirs. The Fig Newtons were definitely an interesting idea and the Fig Newton lovers in the group became addicted to the combo after the first bite.

With all these recipes at the ready, and a whole lotta cheese out there just begging to be turned into bubbly, velvet masses of goo, I hope these cold nights continue for quite awhile.

California Country Roads

Makes 2 cups

1 (12-ounce) round Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk, rind discarded and cubed
8 ounces Bellwether Farms Carmody, grated
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup Napa or Sonoma sauvignon blanc
2 tablespoons muscat or other sweet dessert wine

Toss the cheeses with the flour in a bowl and set aside. In a fondue pot, bring the sauvignon blanc to a boil over medium-high heat. Decrease the heat to low and add the cheese mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring until melted after each addition. Add the muscat and stir until smooth. Serve immediately.

Serve with: toasted walnut or other rustic bread cubes, pear chunks, apple chunks, fresh figs, quartered, fig bars, Graham crackers.

Beverage Suggestions: pinot noir, blanc de noirs (sparkling wine), fino sherry

Labels: bellwether farms, cheese, cookbook, cowgirl creamery, fondue, local author, stephanie v.w. lucianovic

Photo by Jen Maiser

Casual drinkers beware, cocktail nerds have a new way of ordering drinks in San Francisco. No longer satisfied with set menus or even with drink specials du soir, the true cocktailian now knows how to order custom-made drinks, and it's definitely the In thing to do.

Don't believe me? Next time you go to a bar, take a listen. There will probably be at least one or two patrons who, after sampling a few drinks on the bar menu, will leave their next drink up to the bartender. They'll probably give clues like, "I'd like something with Bluecoat gin and ginger" or "I'm looking for something with a bitter edge, but not Campari-bitter," and then sit back to wait for their custom drink.

It's akin to a diner swanning into a restaurant, disdaining the proffered menu, and instead waving a hand at the waiter, announcing, "Tell the chef to surprise me!" In that context, it sounds imperious, arrogant, and more than a bit conceited to assume the chef has nothing better to do than to whip up some special, off-menu delicacy. However, just like a sommelier ferreting out the best wines to pair with dishes, I've noticed that some bartenders in the Bay Area seize upon this request from their drinkers as a challenge.

Not only that, but when the drinker can talk at length about their specific preferences -- often displaying an informed knowledge of liquors, liqueurs, and mixology in general -- the bartender realizes, "Hey, this isn't just another cosmojitini swiller, who doesn't care what I make as long as it was pimped on Lipstick Mafia and goes down easy." The bartender seems to like the fact that the drinker is not just drinking, but thinking. That, in recognition of the bartender's prowess, the drinker is putting as much care into their ordering as the bartender puts into his or her shaking and straining.

Now, I'm not saying that you should charge into a bar, heedless of the crowds that might be there, and demand your made-to-order drink. I'm saying, take some time to learn the menu, get a rapport going with the bartender, and if he or she is not overwhelmed with orders and customers, make your move. But you can't just say, "Surprise me!" and expect magic to swirl into your glass. No, you have to do your part as well. Explain the things you like and don't like. Show some respect for the menu and the bar.

Labels: bars, cocktails, stephanie v.w. lucianovic, trends

You know the old saying: "It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive"? Well, that's literally true when you're dining out in San Francisco and relying on taxi service. Forget about the cab being on time, most of the time you just hope it shows up at all.

My husband and I MUNI'd for a few years, but door-to-door, the travel time was sometimes over an hour when the restaurant was only ten minutes away by car. We have our own car, but parking is a nightmare in some neighborhoods and we enjoy wine with dinner. There are enough drunk drivers careering around the streets of San Francisco, we don't need to add to them.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you call a cab company and they tell you they're sending a cab your way, you've entered into an agreement. They've agreed to send you something, and you've agreed to wait. And wait. And wait. AND WAIT!

It's gotten so bad that after we call a cab, we now look at the clock and estimate how long we'll wait before we try to hail one off the street or call another company.

For us, the worst cab offenders have been Luxor and Yellow Cab. They're both equally horrible, and by the time we finally weaned ourselves off of both companies, we had lost count how many times we had called for cabs that never showed up. We lost count of how many times we paced around the sidewalk outside our building, straining through the dark to find the muted light on top of a car roof. We lost count of how many times we called the cab company back to ask where the HELL our promised cab was only to be met with a busy signal over and over and over and OVER again!

We've also lost count of how many times we've had to call sympathetic hosts and hostesses and push our reservation by 15, 40, 60 minutes. Another time, we weren't so lucky and we lost our reservation and our dinner. We had Luxor to thank for completely ruining a night out we had been anticipating for weeks.

Of course now, some restaurants have even started instituting a grace period. If you don't show up, say, within 15 minutes of your original reservation time, you risk losing the reservation entirely. I don't blame the restaurants for this policy, because just like ordering a cab, a reservation is an agreement. A contract. A promise to show up when you said you would show up.

Why don't the cab companies understand this?

Labels: cab, dining out, luxor, stephanie v.w. lucianovic, taxi, yellow cab

Seeing that the February 5th primary in California will actually matter for the first time in way too many election cycles, presidential candidates and their supporters are out stumping at key Bay Area cornerstones. Or, should I say that they're actually paying attention to us, the Left Coasties, because maybe JUST MAYBE our votes are finally going to count for something? (For instance, Chelsea returns to her alma mater, but pisses people off by making herself available only to lucky Greeks. In the hopes of being granted Chelsea face-time, some of her disappointed fans even missed out on Lake Tahoe ski trips -- oh noes!)

As a result of our becoming the girl who is suddenly hot when she takes off her glasses and lets her hair hang down, California's eating establishments have now become ripe targets for candidate glad-handing. The trite salt-of-the-earth diner has long been the choice site for retail politicking in down-home places like Iowa and New Hampshire, but it's a bit weird to think of our favorite hot spots being used for the same purpose.

For instance, just this past week, Bill Clinton was in Oakland and made national "news" because of a pointed exchange he had with ABC7's Mark Matthews. The locale? None other than Everett & Jones barbeque, where he also held a roundtable discussion, plumping up his wife's campaign while he plumped up his waistline with E&J's succulent ribs. How true to both his SNL persona and his storied connections with the African-American community for him to choose that particular location for a photo-op.

Matier and Ross also reminded us this week about the California Dem vote being split between the beer-drinkers and the wine and cheese crowd. As they report it, Hillary has the ear of the blue-collar beer drinkers (mostly downstate, they note), while Obama wraps up the liberal wine-and-cheesers.

This got me thinking, does this mean Barack Obama needs to go to The French Laundry to answer Clinton in kind? Or better yet, given his now-infamous 2007 arugula remark in Iowa, he could set up camp at the Ferry Building -- where everyone will always know the price of arugula.

But hey, what does all this mean for Bay Area beer-drinkers? See, we're a rarified lot up here, where many of us treat our beer like wine. This the crowd that goes to Suppenküche, Toranado, and Magnolia, tracking down hard-to-find Belgians, doppelbocks, and specialized microbrews. Clinton's beer is not that kind of beer. No, Clinton beer is mass-produced, domestic (preferably light) beer. And you know? There's not a whole lot of that in the Bay Area -- home of the micro/local everything.

So, if Hillary's going to find her constituency at a Bay Area noshery or watering hole, she's going to have to look beyond the beer-swillers.

She could go where Bill goes, but I don't see her pushing up her suit sleeves to chow down at Everett & Jones without him; it seems slightly outside of her comfort zone. No, I really see her at A16. Yes, I see Hillary in the Marina, I see her at a place that's a focal point for that not-too-young, not-too-edgy monied crowd. It's a popular place, it's a respected place, and it doesn't take chances.

Naturally, my mind started meandering around the city, trying to match candidate with eatery.

Barack would go to Delfina, because he'd feel the need to answer Hillary's Italian in kind, but in an edgier, hipper, younger neighborhood. Think about it: A16 focusses on a single Italian region, but Delfina is known to incorporate cuisines from diverse Italian regions and even adds their own unique California touch to each dish. And as we all know, Obama is the candidate who transcends culinary divides. (But is he Italian enough?) Plus, on his way out of town, he'd answer Bill's barbeque photo-op with a Lower Haight stop at Memphis Minnie's.

John Edwards: The Boulevard Cafe in suburban Daly City. It's always busy, it serves good, honest (if sometimes uninspired) food, and a lot of people forget it's even an option.

Rudy Giuliani: Let's give him Miller's East Coast West Delicatessen because it's the closest he'll ever get to New York on the Left Coast.

John McCain: He's a military guy and would be at home at Presidio Social Club and Top of the Mark. Right? I mean, he fought in WWII, didn't he? Failing that, I somehow think his platform might also gravitate towards Maverick.

Mitt Romney: With the hair, the suit, the smile, and the cloned kids, he's totally Cheesecake Factory material. And with such a large menu, no matter how many times he changes his mind, they'll be certain to have something for him.

Mike Huckabee: Before his salad eating days, I could see the immigrant-friendly guv hanging out at El Farolito, but since the weight-loss, he's probably looking around for healthier fare. Greens and Millennium are probably way too experimental and liberal for him, so he'd probably be holding court with a Baja Fresh veggie burrito in a strip mall somewhere.

Fred Thompson: I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about him screams somnambulistic businessmen and huge sides of beef, so I'll put him in Alfred's Steakhouse and The House of Prime Rib. He's the real sleeper candidate.

Ron Paul: As long as he puts himself as far away from City Hall as possible, he'll be good. I see Ron Paul setting up a grill and cooler in Golden Gate Park and yelling at all the kids to stay off his lawn.

Labels: clinton, edwards, election, giuliani, huckabee, mccain, obama, presidential, primary, romney, ron paul, stephanie v.w. lucianovic, thompson

Frankly, my natural politeness and desire to help my fellow foodist is wearing mighty thin these days. My website, The Grub Report, turned five this past August, and I realized that I am still answering unsolicited requests for recipes, San Francisco restaurant and accommodation recommendations, culinary school advice, and general food information. Honestly, I have no problem answering such requests, I really don't, but I rarely get any sort of response. Do I require flowers, chocolates, wine, or proposals of marriage? Of course not. While I do happen to get a few of the latter in response to my rants and recaps at Television Without Pity, I don't tend to get them at Grub Report.

When Sam -- possibly the most generous and non-egotistical food blogger I know -- touched upon the idea of bad manners across emails, I knew it was okay for me to feel the way I had been feeling for well over a year.

Am I grateful that people read and think highly enough of me to ask for recipes, restaurant and accomodation recommendations, advice that could affect their life, and general information? Of course, but would it kill them to hit "reply" on their email and simply type: "T-h-a-n-k-s"?

What has happened -- and this is something I've been wondering about for years now -- to manners on the Internet? Where are the polite, the kind, and the thoughtful? I know there are some out there because when I was dealing with my fairly disturbing vertigo, my inbox filled with sympathy, shared experiences, and general inquiries for my well-being. When I had my travails with pies this summer, I got a similar (and very welcome) deluge of helpful, considerate emails. I know these people exist, so why do extensively answered queries go unthanked and unrecognized?

Frankly, it's not even just about getting thanked (that's the least they can do, actually), because I'm genuinely interested to know if my cooking tips helped, if the local restaurant was enjoyed or hated (really, I like to know both sides), or what was thought of the suggested brunches.

I know the Internet has made it easier for people to demonstrate their rudeness, their ignorance, and their hate. I also know it's more likely that someone will take the time to write something mean than to write something nice. Just...why? Why not err on politeness and kindness? Why keep filling the world with hate and incivility?

The Internet never forgets. Why not make it remember the nice, rather than the nasty? Before you hit "send" on your email, comment, or response, double check your manners, people.

Please.

Labels: blogging, manners, stephanie v.w. lucianovic

While on vacation in Hawaii I did not indulge in one of my addictions, watching food programs on TV. In fact, I watched very little TV at all on my trip. Vacation is my big chance to catch up on my reading. This time around I brought two books I had received review copies of--Best Food Writing 2007 and Service Included. I was thrilled to see that my friend and Bay Area Bites colleague Shuna Fish Lydon was included in the book. Past Bay Area Bites writers to make the cut include both Catherine Nash and Stephanie Lucianovic. The book seems to be equal parts angst and humor with some thoughtful and sentimental pieces thrown In for good measure. It's a good vacation read, and provides an interesting snapshot of the food issues and obsessions of the day. Some of my favorite pieces were Cast Iron Skillet by Andrea King Collier, and A Grandchild of Italy Cracks the Spaghetti Code by Kim Severson.

The other book I read Service Included, is really a gem. It gives us the flipside to Bill Buford's Heat. It's the story of being a waiter at Per Se in New York. Phoebe Damrosch is a fantastic writer with humor, wit and a great sense of irony. She is brutally honest about just about everything, herself included. Throughout the saga of the opening of Per Se in New York are little tidbits about service and how to be a good diner. The book reads like a guilty pleasure. I have even less desire to be a waiter than to be a chef, but to be a fly on the wall is just plain yummy.

Labels: amy sherman, books, catherine nash, shuna lydon, stephanie v.w. lucianovic

Back when my plans for Christmas Eve crab were threatened by some dumb-ass humans, I decided to resurrect a Christmas Eve tradition from my childhood: snails. That's right, people, I grew up a picky eater in Minnesota where I gagged on string beans, yet I ate snails.

There's no explanation, but where my mom failed with wild rice, succatash, and scalloped potatoes, she succeeded with hot, buttery, garlicky gastropods. As much as my sister and I loved escargots, we never asked for it any time of the year other than Christmas Eve. It was tradition and we loved our Christmas Eve traditions.

We sat on the floor in front of the fire and ate our Christmas Eve dinner from the coffee table. We felt elegant, grown up, and quite worldly as we carefully applied the escargots pincers to the natural shells and pulled out the butter-soaked meats with tiny forks. Small and soft rounds of baguette were used to wipe the plates clean and stuffed into the shells to soak up every possible spot of garlic butter.

The Vander Weide Family's Christmas Eve Escargots

1 can large snails
Natural shells (you can also use frozen pastry or phyllo shells)
1/4 lb. unsalted butter, softened
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 scallions, chopped
Salt, to taste

Preheat oven to 375°

1. Pour off liquid from snails, rinse under cold, running water.

2. Combine butter with garlic, scallions, and salt. Smudge a small amount of butter inside each shell, stuff the snail in, and pack it in with more butter. Let snails chill overnight.

3. Put snails upright in a baking dish and bake on lower rack for about 25 minutes. Serve with baguette.

Last year, I revived the family escargots tradition and brought the sumptuous snails to a Christmas Eve party. However, instead of my mother's traditional recipe, I used the one I discovered in my 1963 copy of Samuel Chamberlain's Bouquet de France.

The squeamish didn't partake, but those who did came back for seconds until there were no seconds left. The highest compliment I received came from a French guest who told me my escargots tasted exactly like the escargots she enjoys in Paris.

Escargots Maison from Bouquet de France

2 cans large snails
1 cup butter, softened
8 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Large pinch of grated nutmeg
6-8 blanched almonds, chopped and finely pounded

Preheat oven to 375°

1. Pour off liquid from snails, rinse under cold, running water.

2. Combine the butter, parsley, garlic, shallot, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and almonds. Smudge a small amount of butter inside each shell, stuff the snail in, and pack it in with more butter. Let snails chill overnight.

3. Put snails upright in a baking dish and bake on lower rack for about 25 minutes. Serve with baguette.

Serve either recipe with Champagne or a red wine from Burgundy.

Labels: Christmas Eve, escargot, samuel chamberlain, stephanie v.w. lucianovic, traditions

Bay Area

Grab your bottles of California white Burgundy, we might be back on the crab in time for Christmas.

San Francisco City Planning Commissioners want to ban drunk pizza munching on Broadway.

Get a free gingerbread house kit when you sign your family up for a membership to the Bay Area Discovery Museum, then enter your edible edifice in the 12th Annual Gingerbread Architecture Extravaganza.

Elsewhere

Are you ready for another new season of Top Chef? Yeah, me neither. How about just a Holiday special, featuring some of your favorite and loudest cheftestants?

It's long past Halloween, but those crazy Canadians are still scaring their fellow Canucks silly with a slew of workplace PSAs. The one below concerns kitchen safety. WARNING: This video is graphic, intensely disturbing, which, of course, makes it highly effective.

Labels: crab, gingerbread house, pizza, PSA, stephanie v.w. lucianovic, top chef

One of the most exciting pieces of food news this year is that "locavore" has been knighted "word of the year" by the Oxford University Press. However, I absorbed the concept of the Eat Local Challenge before I did "locavore," which, in all honesty, I thought had something to do with the phases of the moon and the lycanthrope society. (It's possible I've watched one too many Frasiers.)

The first time I heard about the Eat Local movement, it was over two years ago, and since I was still trying to ferret out where to buy my favorite French nut oil, Mexican ginger beer, and New England pumpkin ale, I felt totally overwhelmed.

Did I really need to think about each and every food product that came into my kitchen when I was just starting to find my cooking legs in San Francisco? Of course not. If you give the smallest crap about eating local, it's not necessary to ensure that every food product -- salt, coffee, flour, sugar, produce, meat, Diet Coke -- in your kitchen is from local purveyors. If you give the smallest crap about eating local, you just think about what you're buying and wonder if it's local. Because you care.

That's all you need to do to effect change: start thinking about it. Start caring about it. Then maybe, you'll start acting on it. Frankly, if it hadn't been for Jen Maiser, I'd still be just thinking about eating local and not actually doing anything about it. Not only does Jen blog about eating local at her own site, Life Begins at 30, she's also the editor of the Eat Local Challenge blog and has worked at various farmers' stands at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market.

After my failed first attempt at participating in an Eat Local Challenge, I started following Jen's efforts more and more. Her passionate, yet refreshingly frank and evenhanded writing style drew me in deeper and deeper, and before I knew it, not only was I examining every tag, sticker, and vittles visa at Andronico's, but I was delivering earnest, flushed-cheek diatribes to my Minneapolian parents and sister about why they should think to ask, "Where did this come from?" before they stuck anything in their mouths. It got to the point when my mom was collaring the hapless meat guy at Whole Foods and demanding to know why he was offering her lamb from New Zealand and not from Minnesota.

Jen shares her information widely, energetically, and -- most importantly -- nonjudgmentally. She embodies the sentiment that you don't have to harvest your own coffee beans, dry your own salt, or refine your own sugar to be a conscientious eater, you just need to wonder, "Where?"

In fact, "Where?" is the sentiment of the newest Eat Local Challenge. According to Jen, the next ELC -- set to be unveiled early next year -- is: "a challenge focused on where our everyday foods are sourced from. Instead of challenging participants to eat food from as close to home as possible, we will be asking them to take everyday items that their families eat -- processed foods like crackers and potato chips, mass-produced products, and fast food items -- and try to find out the source of the product ingredients. I think it will be interesting to learn what we can, and can't, find out about our food."

I'm thrilled that "locavore" is being recorded in the annals of history, but without the Eat Local Challenge spurring me to think, question, act, and eat, I have a feeling I'd still be assuming that locavores howled at the moon and stuffed pillows with their own hair.

Labels: eat local challenge, jen maiser, locavore, stephanie v.w. lucianovic

Between November 7th and 8th, the Bay Area saw an initial and completely erroneous report of 140 gallons of fuel oil dumped into the bay by the container ship Cosco Busan gush wildly up to a disgusting 58,000 gallons. While lawsuits and finger-pointing are pending, wildlife and beaches suffer and, following a decision made on Saturday afternoon, so does the crab fishing.

On November 10, commercial crabbers from Bodega Bay to Half Moon Bay voted to postpone the opening of the crab season, set to open Thursday, November 15th. Larry Collins, the president of the Crab Boat Owners Association, is quoted as asking for "the immediate closure" of commercial and sport crab fishing.

While I, for one, will sorely miss our traditional Dungeness crab Christmas Eve dinner, the crabbers will miss that essential income more, especially since the article mentions that we crabovores might be able to get our hands on Dungeness from the Pacific Northwest. Additionally, other fish, like salmon, might also be adversely affected by the oil spill.

Some salmon fisherman reported having no problems bringing in their boat's limit of salmon from an area 13 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. While the commercial salmon fisherman are seeing plenty of evidence of the spilled fuel on their way to their fishing grounds, at least a few of them think it will be safe for their customers to eat the fish they bring back from non-affected waters.

From the article: "Robertson had calls from worried customers Wednesday night. 'They wanted to know if I was still fishing and if it was OK to fish,' Robertson said. 'I told them it should be fine, if we fished out of the fuel.'"

However, officials from the Department of Fish and Game are not necessarily saying the same thing:

"'We're assessing the situation now,' said Pete Kalvas, a senior biologist with the department's marine region in Fort Bragg (Mendocino County). 'We just don't have a blanket opinion on eating fish from the bay right now. The problems seem to be localized, and different harbor commissions and park districts will be posting their own warnings, as they see fit.'"

The salmon season is set to close today, and the commercial fishermen also voted to immediately close the sport fishing season.

The deadly effect on the wildlife is heartbreaking and the destruction is noxious, and I'd like to apologize to all the suffering birds and beasts, flora and fauna that humans are so goddamned stupid. Meanwhile, it's gratifying to learn that the number of volunteers exceeds the current demand.

Labels: commercial fishing, Cosco Busan, Dungeness crab, oil spill, salmon, stephanie v.w. lucianovic

I am not a fan of smoked cheese. I don't like smoked provolone, smoked cheddar is just unnecessary, and I gag over the weird yellow dappling that smoking mozzarella brings about. Therefore, I didn't expect to like Elk Creamery's Smoked Chèvre. But I bought it anyway. I have an open mind and an open palate, and I was intrigued by this fairly new (to me) offering from the Mendocino-based cheesemakers.

Smoked with organic alderwood and applewood on the Elk Creamery goat farm, the cheese smells like an entire side of St. Louis ribs AND a safely contained Brownie campfire. I had absolutely no desire to eat this tangy, smoky cheese raw, on crackers or on anything else, but my esteemed colleague, Head Cheese, brilliantly suggested I find some way of cooking with it. Pizza seemed to be the answer. A vegetarian pizza, to be precise; no need for any meats to add to the rich flavors the smoke was already bringing to the party.

After grabbing some Trader Joe's whole wheat ready-to-roll-and-bake pizza dough, a couple of veggies, and sloshing up some roasted tomato sauce, I was ready to build my pizza. The result was surprising. I was fully expecting to hate the cheese even in this iteration, but the combination of the spicy tomato sauce, the sweetly caramelized fennel, and the woodsy asparagus all managed, not to repel the smoked chévre, but to embrace it and welcome it into the pizza as just another flavorful topping.



2 heads of fennel
3-4 olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 recipe pizza dough
1 cup tomato sauce, bought or homemade and cooled
1/3 cup slivered asparagus
1 ounce Elk Creamery Smoked Chèvre, chilled

1. Preheat your oven to 475°. Slice the fennel thinly and place it in a large roasting pan. Toss the slivers with the olive oil, salt, and pepper and roast until slightly caramelized for about 10 minutes. Set aside.

2. Flour a pizza peel and douse it with a handful of cornmeal. The cornmeal will act as ball bearings when you slide your pizza into the oven. Roll the dough into a 12-inch round and ladle on the tomato sauce. Spread it evenly around the dough and evenly distribute the roasted fennel slivers and asparagus on top of the sauce.

3. Using a vegetable peeler, shave thin curls of Elk Creamery Smoked Chèvre over the pizza. Slide the pizza into the oven -- preferably on a heated pizza stone -- and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Labels: chevre, Elk Creamery, pizza, smoked cheese, stephanie v.w. lucianovic

Comfort food is different for every person. It might be your mother's meatloaf, a bowl of butter-padded mashed potatoes, or a vat of chicken soup. Personally, I never thought I'd be looking to a New Mexican restaurant as my comfort food source, but that's exact what Green Chile Kitchen has come to mean for me.

Working on a KQED cooking show has meant that my past week was filled with twelve hour days where I rarely sit down, lots of running, and lots of food. The sad thing is, I didn't want to eat that food. It's no reflection on the chef, mind you, but it's long been a foible of mine that if I cook something all day, I completely lose my appetite for it.

There have been two constants of comfort during this past week of twelve hour days: my husband and Green Chile Kitchen. Green Chile Kitchen moved into the vacated Baker/Fulton corner nearly two years ago and while we have been fairly frequent patrons, I have never written about it.

They have a fresh greens salad to which you are allowed to add five additions from all manner of fresh ingredients. You can also choose to add applewood smoked bacon, avocado, and Fulton Valley chicken breast. I've actually developed my own salad mix that I consider to be the ultimate order. Aside from the greens I request walnuts, blue cheese, red onion, corn, and for my fifth choice, I just get more corn. When I'm really hungry, I'll add chicken breast and avocado to the salad.

When it comes to salad dressing, I'm a purist. I make my own and there are only certain restaurants I trust to get it right. Zuni, Suppenkuche, and Chez Panisse get it right, but a lot of other places don't. It's either bottled or delivered on the side, and on the side just doesn't cut it with me. I mean, unless you're going to bring out a big ol' bowl along with the "on the side" that allows me to slap everything with an even, glistening coat, don't bother. Green Chile Kitchen gets it right. Their balsamic vinaigrette, chipotle lime vinaigrette, citrus vinaigrette, and green chile buttermilk are all made from scratch and they toss the dressing for you. There's no need to dump the dressing on, seal up the box, and shake your foodie, praying that oily droplets don't spew everywhere.

So yeah, I love their organic green salad. I also love their burritos, and their guacamole has recently been made amazing by the piquant addition of chiles. Finally, their green chile stew -- veg or fully meaty with slow-roasted Niman Ranch pork -- is something to tuck your body into on a cold autumn night.



But lately, a side order of their rice and pinto beans is all I need to sustain me during these trying weeks, and it's also about all I have time to shove into my mouth before collapsing, insensible, into bed.

Over this past weekend, where I did little else but sleep and brunch with friends, the thought of being back in my kitchen didn't repulse me, as much as it made me narcoleptic every time I set foot in it. Food was needed. Outside food. Comfort food. Once again, Green Chile Kitchen via my husband came to my rescue. 1/4 of a citrus-herb roasted chicken -- all juicy white meat -- some roasted potatoes, a warm, soft, folded tortilla with fire-roasted salsa, and a glass of Geyser Peak Merlot from Trader Joe's was all my exhausted soul needed to regenerate.



A few quibbles: their overly complicated menu, riddled with so many choices of sides and accompaniments, confuses both the order takers and the order fulfillers, not to mention the patrons. They could also do with another register. While you can stake out the dark wood booths and eat in the welcoming cafe area, we're only three blocks away, so we mostly do pick up. Unfortunately, with one line and one register for everyone, it means if you've placed your order over the phone, you are often standing in a long line with people who haven't placed their order, don't know what they want, and waste your already-packed order's precious heat by browsing the menu and asking lots of questions. Not that I begrudge them the time to make up their minds, mind you, it's just that two lines -- one for pick-ups and one for everyone else -- would make so much more sense.

Green Chile Kitchen
601 Baker (at Fulton)
San Francisco, CA 94117

415.614.9411

Labels: comfort food, green chile kitchen, KQED, new mexican, stephanie v.w. lucianovic

Ask five people what they taste when they suck a plush gobbet of Cowgirl Creamery's Pierce Pt. off their finger and you'll get five different answers. "Chamomile!" "Fennel!" "Coriander!" Personally, I always manage to pull out a flavor that reminds me of the big steaming bowls of oatmeal my mother used to dish out on cold Minnesota mornings. And now, with San Francisco skies waxing chill and nights that stretch dark and long like a Halloween cat flexing its supple spine, Pierce Pt. is once again of the season.

Once upon a time when I was a sweet young cheesemonger, Pierce Pt. was thick with herbs that scattered messily as a knife pulled through the encrusted round. It was a delicious mess, however, because I delighted in taking small white wedges and stamping them all over the plate, sticking up the herbs in a woodsy, furry collection.




Although it continues to be made with organic whole milk from the Straus Family dairy, today's Pierce Pt. is more restrained, refined, and graced with a delicate scattering of herbs that grow around the coastal climes of Tomales Bay. A quick spritz of a sweet and golden wine from Fetzer deepens the cheese's flavor and encourages the gilding of chamomile, fennel, bay, and coriander to cling fast to the natural, soft mold.



Delicately creamy, Pierce Pt.'s many levels of flavors unfold gently on your tongue.

Taste fall.

Labels: cheese, cowgirl creamery, pierce pt., stephanie v.w. lucianovic, straus family dairy

In 2005, Garrison Keillor, that curmudegon of a Minnesotan, wrote a column in Salon stating:

"Today, home canning has gone the way of the typewriter, the vacuum tube and the TV variety show. The Ball company sold off its jar division and now makes satellite sensors or something, and groceries stock fresh tomatoes all winter, imported from Mexico, which cost a buck apiece and taste more like tennis balls than tomatoes. But at least you don't have to stand in a steamy kitchen and ruin your hairdo."

How great is it that locavores everywhere are proving him wrong this month? As Jen Maiser mentioned late last month, this year's September Eat Local Challenge is focussed on "canning, preserving, and putting food up for the winter." As the blogs I frequent roll up on my Google reader, I can see that several Bay Area Bloggers have risen to the challenge.

Sam at Becks and Posh starts off her Eat Local Challenge canning project by first making me jealous that she invested in a pressure canner and then giving a hysterical list of "Don't"s for novice canners. As in:

" --Don't embark on a canning project unless you think you will get extreme satisfaction from a loud popping noise in your kitchen that almost sounds like someone has been shot but is, in fact, just indication that your lid has concaved, your vacuum has sealed, you can safely remove the screw band and that the operation was a complete success..."

and

"Don't install the disk of your food mill upside down. It is possible, but not recommended."

Hee. She also appears to be swearing, cursing, and using lots of bad words. But she doesn't recommend that either.

Elsewhere, Cookiecrumb at I'm Mad and I Eat who, rather than canning, has just pickled some serranos and jalapeños, and explains:

"I covered them with a boiling mixture of vinegar (local), salt (uh-uh), sugar (nope), cinnamon (as if) and cardamom (yeah, right). Water from Marin County. No idea if this mixture is chemically balanced for the hot water bath, but it's yummy just the same, and who cares. "

For my part this time around, I'm doing my passive (but LOCAL!) part by discovering and indulging in cold jars of certified organic sour dills from Happy Girl Kitchen. You can buy them as singletons at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market and slurp on them as you do your shopping or, if you're a glutton like me, you can grab a whole jar and snack on them late at night while watching The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T and wondering if drinking pickle juice really does give you strange powers.

Labels: canning, eat local challenge, jen maiser, locavores, stephanie v.w. lucianovic

This past week, Joy over at Confessions of a Restaurant Whore pointed me to a disturbingly addictive new site.

Based on official local inspections, CleanScores will tell you all the gory details about your favorite restaurant. It can tell you their cleanliness rating in current years, past years, and even give details about what Major, Moderate, or Minor violations the restaurant incurred. At this time, CleanScores is only dishing the dirt on San Francisco restaurants (lucky us!), but note that they have plans to cover more infracted ground.

Joy asked this question:

Riddle me this, though: why, oh why, is it a greater violation to have a few dirty utensils than it is to have rats and mice in your kitchen? I could give two shits if my chef is downing a beer while s/he cooks, but allowing roaches to throw a little party in the back room? Not cool, bitches, not cool. That's the health department's fault, though, not the fault of Clean Scores so don't hold it against them.

Seriously.

My burning question for CleanScores has to do with listing previous years/ratings: it appears that these years are clickable, which is great because I would love to see why Kokkari got a 75 in 2003 as opposed to their current 94, yet when I do click on the 2003 report, nothing happens. Is that a bug or a feature?

In the comments at Restaurant Whore, Sam pointed out that the same official information has been available online for awhile now. She's right, but it's a fairly clugey site and, well, with that clean *ding!* mark on the spoon, and the hip design, CleanScores makes health code violations so darn pretty!

BREAKING BEER AND BIKE NEWS

This Saturday, July 21st, is the 2007 New Belgium Brewing Company's San Francisco Tour de Fat. Bring your bike and bring your beer thirst to Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park and enjoy free admission, live music, beer, food, and all manner of bike events at this annual "bike rodeo."

All proceeds from the beer sales go to benefit the San Francisco Bike Coalition and the Bay Area Ridge Trails Council. Now doesn't that make your Fat Tire taste even better?

Labels: cleanscores, fat tire, health codes, new belgium brewing, restaurants, san francisco bike coalition, stephanie v.w. lucianovic, tour de fat

Strike one more vegetable off my, "I really, really, REALLY need to learn how to like this repellent green thing" list. Okra, oh delicious, mysterious, oddly viscous, okra -- so long have you been out of my reach, beyond my culinary ken. I've had you fried, steamed, and gumbo'd, but still, you did not convince me of your deliciousness.

Catherine did.

Even more amazing than my about-face on this newly in season veggie is how simple her recipe is; just slice the fuzzy hexagons and saute. Nothing fancy. When I saw Catherine pull her okra out of the fridge -- already sliced -- I interrogated her. "Is that necessary? A sort of resting in the fridge to dry out the slime before cooking? It makes it crispier?" She looked at me. "No, it was just easier to have them sliced before you came over." Oh.

Just tonight, I tried to replicate Catherine's easier than easy recipe. Sensing the sizzle-pop was over and delicious okra was soon to follow, my husband wandered into the kitchen and found me staring at my pile of okra. "I don't think I did it right. It looks overcooked." I reached out and sadly plucked a slice out of the green mound and sampled it. It definitely wasn't as crispy as Catherine's. My husband plucked out a slice of his own. "It's great!" he assured me. The perfectionist in me didn't believe him. But I plucked out another slice. And another. And another.

Without any utensils or even sitting down, the two of us consumed the entire mass of salty okra in about two minutes. I will not stop in my quest to get my okra Catherine-perfect, but it does appear that even the less than perfect stuff is furiously addicting.

I'm not worried. I have all summer to figure it out.

Labels: okra, stephanie v.w. lucianovic, summer vegetables

Akaka Falls, Big Island, Hawaii

I don't think I've disguised my deep and abiding love for all things New and Belgium when it comes to beer. I recently fell all over a coriander and bitter orange peel laced summer quaff called Mothership Wit Beer (New Belgium's first organic beer) and I do highly recommend that one as well, but I've got a bead on a fascinating new hot weather beer. Kona Brewing Company -- the self-same outfit that introduced my confused system to the awesomeness of coffee and beer -- has a new summer sipper out.

Wailua Wheat, coolly saronged by a bright, tropical label, is named for Wailua Falls on Maui's famed Hana Highway and brewed with tropical passion fruit. Or, if you're from the islands "lilikoi." Now, I'm not a fruit beer lover. I freely admit that I did the raspberry-blueberry-cherry beer thing in college, and they're probably the reason why the mere idea of fruit beers chokes my throat and offends my tongue. However, this is not what I would call a fruit beer. At least, not in the Boston definition of fruit beers.

The tart passion fruit in Wailua Wheat is neither sweet nor cloying, and its twangy edge matches as well with the crisp and hoppy wheat beer as a wedge of lemon in a cloudy pull of Hefeweizen. It's the heat and throb of the tropics crashing up against the centuries-old tradition of brewing and when the tide ebbs out, you're left with this icy bottle of exotic sunshine.

From the brewers themselves:

Wailua Wheat is an excellent beer to enjoy after a day on the water or at the beach (or even after mowing the lawn or playing softball in your "pau hana" summer league!). It typically pairs well with lighter fare like grilled fish and shrimp, roasted chicken, salads and Asian foods. Perhaps even a dish of vanilla ice cream.

I think I'll leave the vanilla ice cream for my Pipeline Porter, but I'm on board with the grilled shrimp idea. In fact, marinate the shrimp in this beer before grilling and see what happens.

You can find Wailua Wheat at BevMo.

Labels: beer, kona brewing company, mothership wit, new belgium brewing, passion fruit beer, pipeline porter, stephanie v.w. lucianovic, summer drinks, wailua wheat

Barely over my ecstasy from that first amaranth-hued glass, I decided to sample another grape-smeared offering from Marin Wines, their Mount Tamalpais Merlot. My god. My GOD!

Now, yes, Merlot has been battered about by the Hollywood likes of Sideways and bad examples of the glass. And, because it had been at least five years since I traded in my last glass of Merlot for Zinfandels, Francs, Barbarescos, and anything found in the Rhone, I also laughed knowingly along with the rest of the Northern California audience as Paul Giamatti's character, Miles, slagged off on the once-popular wine.

It wasn't even that I agreed with what his character, Miles, said about Merlot, it's that I had long left what I considered a cloyingly sweet and flat red for rougher cut pastures and vines. Certain Merlots were shuddering reminders of my White Zinfandel-tinted youth, and I knew that my palette had grown up and was guiding me to richer and more complex climes.

However, last year I went to a traveling seminar sponsored by Swanson Vineyards called "Merlot Fights Back." Not only did I get reintroduced to Merlot and reminded just how good that beleaguered grape can be, but I learned that the special bottle of '61 Cheval Blanc Miles had been saving was a 50/50 blend of Cabernet Franc and Merlot. That's right, fifty percent "fucking Merlot." However, I still wasn't buying it by the bottle or even ordering it in restaurants. Until now.

Mount Tamalpais Merlot is remarkably robust and much more like the Bordeaux of old than the fruity, jammy, Smucker's Merlots I had given up. Rich and musty with shifting prisms of loamy complexity, this Merlot massaged my soul with long, intense strokes. After one sip, I felt myself sinking bodily into my garnet glass.

As with any new and exciting bottle, this wine deserved a special dinner, so I paired it with a flagelot bean gratin, rare rosemary-flecked sirloin lamb chops, and a peppery watercress, fennel, and French Breakfast radish salad. Limbs entangled endlessly, the creamy beans, the gamey lamb, and the crunch-spice salad wallowed happily with the velvet-tongued wine.

You can buy Mount Tamalpais Merlot at PlumpJack Wines and the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant in San Francisco, at Tomales Bay Foods in Point Reyes, and from the Marin Wine website.

Mount Tamalpais Merlot, 2004, $25.00

Labels: mount tamalpais merlot, pey-marin wines, sideways, stephanie v.w. lucianovic, wine