Glass Shallot by Adam Baer

Believer Interview with a Big Sur Yurt Hotelier

Perhaps this Believer interview I conducted with the owner of Big Sur's Treebones Resort is worth reading for some context on community, wildfires, and responsible coastal living and architecture in California. He's also a volunteer firefighter, and well, yes, thorough.

Jenji Kohan Has a Husband, His Name is Christopher Noxon, and We Spoke About his Stellar Novel

The congenial Christopher Noxon knows what it means to be a Plus One (something about weed, the color orange, and a talented woman called Jenji). Anyway, we talked about this subject and Chris' new novel Plus One for The Believer. You can buy the book here: http://www.amazon.com/Plus-One-Christopher-Nox…/…/1938849426 But you can read our interview by clicking here.

Related articles

Itzhak Perlman, an Honest Appreciation in the Los Angeles Times

Good Morning by Gustav Mahler

Go to Music School -- Just Go to a Better One

You're (Probably Not) Ending Your Emails Wrong

Medical Marijuana in LA: "Hit and Miss" in the Financial Times Magazine (FT Weekend)

 

This weekend, The Financial Times Magazine runs a hopefully informative and humorous personal essay [PDF] about my mysterious health travails and experience with LA's medical marijuana world at an crucial point in the battle to legalize cannabis in California. It's also online in web-friendly html page-format here, @ FT.com.

Naturally, I thought long and hard about what kinds of supplementary material I could offer on my blog. But we sadly only present words and stuff we can roll and/or bake into Web code  Glass Shallot. In that spirit, then let me offer a small chunk of text my editors and I had to cut at the last minute for page-space. It concerns the first dispensary I visited in Hollywood, one of the shops LA will close, where the system -- and the product -- actually worked very well. (Text below)

 

 

"More concerned with convenience than finding a boutique shop that sold Valrohna chocolate cupcakes, I first visited Druggie Christmas Tree Girl’s dispensary: a dank space above a seedy Hollywood motel, manned by a hulking Middle Eastern guy with a shaved head, wearing an elegantly dizzying Ed Hardy T-shirt. He screamed my name the way some thug had screamed at Jason Statham in an action movie I once reviewed. Naturally, I trusted him.

     “What iz dis?” the guy asked, taking my letter through a little hole in the wall that separated the real store from the waiting room.

     “It’s my doctor’s recommendation," I said.

     “I never see something like dis, yo.”

     “Well,” I said, “It’s real.”

     “I see dat, dude. But I still gotta call.”

     Yes, this sketchy drug-dealer type was calling a nationally lauded physician because of me. 

He left the window, I heard some mumbling. He reappeared minutes later.

     “You in,” he said. “He OK it.”

     “You spoke with my actual doctor, not some nurse or assistant?” I asked. 

    “Totally,” he said. “Now whaddayou want?”

     I walked into a tiny, smoky space through a cage-protected door, and he showed me some 10 canisters of fragrant weed. I asked for something to alleviate pain – nerve pain, if that meant anything?

     “Bubba Skunk,” he said. “That’s you shit.”

    “That’s my shit,” I concurred, handing over $50 for a pill bottle filled with buds.

     “How much should I use?” I asked.

    “Howev much you want, homeslice.” 

Then I left, and as I waved my new drugs around the seedy eastern side of Hollywood Boulevard, as a man in a doo-rag drove by me on a miniature bicycle powered by a tiny motor, my wife grabbed the bag and told me to hide it.

“But it’s legal,” I said.

“But this isn’t Brentwood!"

--Adam Baer

Avatar's Zoë Saldana and Chef Jose Andres: A Writer's Struggle

I struggle, like all artists, and nowhere is this more evident than in the rough-and-tumble assignments I completed last fall for publication in a variety of December magazines: a short Details magazine profile of  Zoë Saldana (above) and a Hemispheres feature on chef Jose Andres. Sometimes I must also dig ditches.

Shallot Casual: A Day at the Vineyard, or Comments One Could Have Offered to One's Fictional In-Laws on the Annual California Vacation

1. I'm all for visiting the Santa Barbara county wineries, but given the fact that you want to "do it right, all day long, like they do in the movie," don't you think we should plan to do it and leave LA later than 2 pm on an August Saturday so as to avoid traffic and other wine-country tourists and actually get a chance to visit more than one winery before they all close?

2. I'm all for visiting the Santa Barbara county wineries, but given the fact that you want to "do it right, all day long, like they do in the movie," don't you think we should plan to do it and leave LA later than 2 pm on an August Saturday so as to avoid traffic and other wine-country tourists and actually get a chance to visit more than one winery before they all close? And while we're at it, maybe we should plan to take a car that's big enough for the whole lot of us, so my wife (your daughter) doesn't have to twist herself like a contortionist in the middle of the backseat of your beautiful (and believe me, it's a knockout) but just ever-so-slightly too-small Dick Tracy-ish rental car?

3. I'm all for visiting the Santa Barbara county wineries, but given the fact that you want to "do it right, all day long, like they do in the movie," don't you think we should plan to do it and leave LA later than 2 pm on an August Saturday so as to avoid traffic and other wine-country tourists and actually get a chance to visit more than one winery before they all close? And while we're at it, maybe we should plan to take a car that's big enough for the whole lot of us, so my wife (your daughter) doesn't have to twist herself like a contortionist in the middle of the backseat of your beautiful (and believe me, it's a knockout) but just ever-so-slightly too-small Dick Tracy-ish rental car? Call me one of those "insane" California drivers, but maybe we should also go a hair faster than 55--you know, so we can just get to the winery before they stop doing their "Sideways" shtick that we all really think it will be fun to see even if we've seen it before (20 times, with other California visitors who have as original and fun ideas as you)?

4.  I'm all for visiting the Santa Barbara county wineries, but given the fact that you want to "do it right, all day long, like they do in the movie," don't you think we should plan to do it and leave LA later than 2 pm on an August Saturday so as to avoid traffic and other wine-country tourists and actually get a chance to visit more than one winery before they all close? And while we're at it, maybe we should plan to take a car that's big enough for the whole lot of us, so my wife (your daughter) doesn't have to twist herself like a contortionist in the middle of the backseat of your beautiful (and believe me, it's a knockout) but just ever-so-slightly too-small Dick Tracy-ish rental car? Call me one of those "insane" California drivers, but maybe we should also go a hair faster than 55--you know, so we can just get to the winery before they stop doing their "Sideways" shtick that we all really think it will be fun to see even if we've seen it before (20 times, with other California visitors who have as original and fun ideas as you)? And maybe once we get there (to the first winery), we should actually, just maybe, taste the actual wine and not complain that you could buy a bottle in a store for the price of the tasting? I'm not saying all the wine is good, but I don't know, I'm just throwing this out...perhaps it's a little too early to start hating the entire enterprise before actually doing one full tasting--that is, if you do plan on enjoying this day--at THE WINERIES--in the lovely Buelton countryside?

5.  I'm all for visiting the Santa Barbara county wineries, but given the fact that you want to "do it right, all day long, like they do in the movie," don't you think we should plan to do it and leave LA later than 2 pm on an August Saturday so as to avoid traffic and other wine-country tourists and actually get a chance to visit more than one winery before they all close? And while we're at it, maybe we should plan to take a car that's big enough for the whole lot of us, so my wife (your daughter) doesn't have to twist herself like a contortionist in the middle of the backseat of your beautiful (and believe me, it's a knockout) but just ever-so-slightly too-small Dick Tracy-ish rental car? Call me one of those "insane" California drivers, but maybe we should also go a hair faster than 55--you know, so we can just get to the winery before they stop doing their "Sideways" shtick that we all really think it will be fun to see even if we've seen it before (20 times, with other California visitors who have as original and fun ideas as you)? And maybe once we get there (to the first winery), we should actually, just maybe, taste the actual wine and not complain that you could buy a bottle in a store for the price of the tasting? I'm not saying all the wine is good, but I don't know, I'm just throwing this out... perhaps it's a little too early to start hating the entire enterprise before actually doing one full tasting--that is, if you do plan on enjoying this day--at THE  WINERIES--in the lovely Buelton countryside? On that count, and I'm just making a minor suggestion here, but maybe you might want to also mock the descriptive wine writing on the menus beyond earshot of the winery owner who already looks like he wants to hit you in the face with his full bottle of dolcetto? Just a suggestion--you know, so we can enjoy the jokes better without having to fight before we're even drunk enough to get into some serious bottle smashing.

kinder...malo?

The name of my favorite Italian chocolate bar, Kinder Bueno, translates, if you're up to melding German with Spanish, to: "Good Children." Which is obviously the demo for this wholesome ad. Just wait for the bunnies.

vintage shallot

When I was just getting started and the Atkins diet was everywhere, I did a little humor piece for McSweeney's. But in the spirit of a doctor who just told me to cut out carbs--are we really that advanced Mr. Cedars?--let's reminisce from the days of meat.

REVIEWS OF NEW FOOD
"Atkins Beanit Butter"

by Adam Baer

You're fat. You need to lose weight. You eat too much, but there's certainly got to be a way around that. At least that's what you thought when you started Atkins. But now you're finding that the mesmerizing tray of salted chicken-thighs glistening in the Ron Popeil Showtime Rotisserie isn't enough for a solo low-carb dinner. Your three-pound chuck steak family-pack, broiled to perfection, is flying right though you by the beginning of Must-See-TV. Your $9 block of Parmesan is light fare, despite your cardiologist-brother's characterization of it as "the most potent mass of cholesterol I have ever seen anyone ingest." You need something to really stick to your ribs. But you can't gorge yourself on PB&Js like you did when you ditched ninth-grade chem lab to run back to your house and binge while attacking your father's porn collection. You've made a "mature decision" about how you will "view food" and the "act of eating." And that's where Atkins Beanit Butter comes in. With less than one gram of "Net Carbs" per two-tablespoon serving, there's no stopping your nostalgia for tongue-slathering Skippy. Gorge on the nut-buttery goodness of this high-protein soy product and feel completely at ease that you haven't cheated on your new, disciplined "lifestyle choice." Spreadable on new Atkins Bran-A-Crisps, and a perfect lead-in to a bowl of Atkins Nutlettes—the "crunchy crispy" cereal-and-milk-flavored treat sweetened with the low-glycemic "Sugar Not" for those carb-controllers hankering to revisit memories of midnight dorm-room Fruit Loops.

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Also check out "Vote for me: A Commodore 64"--a humor piece back when we thought Obama was a Mac! (For the record, all forms of computers are hating me this week, and I work on PCs but hate Vista.)

celebrity burgers celebrate america, right?

The last July Fourth barbecue I attended made me sob. Not a burger on the grill. I asked my friend, the host: Are we so highbrow—so healthy and gourmet?--that we don't even grill burgers on our nation's birthday anymore? (Yes, the hamburger is an American creation, first appearing on menus in the late 19th century.) Well, this summer, I have vowed to stand for tradition, especially after returning from abroad. Here, my little collection of four winning, grill-friendly summer burgers—some decadent, low-fat, gourmet, seaborn (published in this month's Men's Journal)--and the chefs behind them. Because any other kind of July 4 food post would just feel wrong.

1. Burger: Chuck | Chef: Bobby Flay, Mesa Grill, Bahamas

A born-and-bred New Yorker (you can also grab his burger at Mesa's Manhattan and Vegas locations) the Food Network's "Boy Meets Grill" star prefers burgers simple, with ground chuck (source it from your trusted butcher, and grind it yourself), two thick slices of cheddar, grilled and sweet Vidalia onion, and horseradish mustard for kick. "Think about a perfect burger," he says. "It's crusty, it's juicy, it's got cheese oozing over it. It's basically one of the only times even a food snob can really say that they're into American cheese and get away with it. It just works." And chuck is flavorful and affordable. But “the most important thing is its fat content," he adds. "It has to have 20% fat or you're going to get a dry burger. I'm just not into lean burgers."

RECIPE

The Mesa Burger with Double Cheddar Cheese, Grilled Vidalia Onion and Horseradish Mustard

Serves: 4

Grilled Vidalia Onions

1 large Vidalia onions, sliced crosswise, 1/2" thick slices

2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Brush olive oil on both sides of onion slices and season with salt and pepper.  Grill the onion slices for 3-4 minutes on each side until golden brown.

Horseradish Mustard

1 cup Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons prepared horseradish, drained

Whisk ingredients in a small bowl until combined.

Burger

2 lbs freshly ground chuck

Salt and freshly ground pepper

8 slices cheddar cheese, sliced 1/4 inch thick

4 slices beefsteak tomatoes

4 leaves romaine lettuce

Grilled Vidalia Onions

Horseradish Mustard

4 Sesame Seed Hamburger Buns

Preheat grill to high. Form the meat into four 8-ounce burgers. Season burgers on both sides with salt and pepper.  Grill for 3-4 minutes on each side for medium doneness.  During last minutes of cooking add 2 slices of cheese to each burger, cover grill and let melt, approximately 1 minute.  Place burger on bun and top with onions, tomato, lettuce and a dollop of Horseradish Mustard.

2. Burger: Yellowfin Tuna | Chef: Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Spice Market, Atlanta

"I love beef burgers," says Vongerichten, one of America’s first celebrity chefs who crafted this Asian-flavored seafood burger for a tasty attempt at better health. "I can't eat too many [traditional burgers] because I have to watch my cholesterol.  I think people will love this burger because it doesn't skimp on flavor, but is a far healthier alternative to the traditional beef." What's more, while bluefin tuna is being over-fished in the Mediterranean, it's great to use yellowfin, which is available in better fish markets. "It's a much smaller fish that is sourced not from the Mediterranean but from Hawaii," the chef adds. "It is always caught wild.  It's also a great variety of tuna because it's not as fatty as others, but it still tastes great."

RECIPE

Grilled Yellowfin Tuna Burger, bonito mayo, shiso and yuzu pickles.

For the Tuna Mix: For 4 Burgers 

You can buy fresh ground tuna from a fishmonger.

2 Pounds Ground Tuna

3 TBLS Shallots, minced

3 TBLS Ginger, peeled and minced

1 Red Thai chili, minced

2 TSP Sesame oil

Carefully spread the tuna to cover the entire hotel pan. Sprinkle the surface with the remaining ingredients and mix carefully.

Form into 4 patties without working the meat.

Season with salt and white pepper, brush with light soy sauce and olive oil and grill on HIGH until medium rare.

Cut a Kaiser roll in half and brush with olive oil, grill until toasted and warm.

For the Bonito Mayonnaise:

2 cups Bonito flakes plus ½ cup reserved

½ cup water

2 egg yolks

2 TSP salt

4 TBLS Yuzu Juice

2 cups Grape Seed Oil

Put the 2 cups of bonito flakes in a small bowl.  Bring water to a boil and immediately pour over bonito.  Let steep for 8 minutes, then strain through a fine mesh strainer, pushing hard for total extraction.  The can be kept in the refrigerator for 3 days.   

Put ¼ cup of the bonito broth into the food processor with the yolks, salt and yuzu and process. Emulsify with the oil, then add the remaining bonito flakes and pulse quickly. Reserve refrigerated until needed.   

For the pickles:

2 Euro cucumbers, washed and channeled with a peeler, sliced full opening on a mandoline.

2 cups Japanese rice vinegar

6 oz Yuzu juice

12 oz Sugar

2 TBLS Salt

3 Green Thai chilies, washed and split

Put cucumbers in a medium size bowl. Combine vinegar, sugar, chilies and salt and bring to a boil.   Add yuzu juice and cool over ice. Pour over cucumbers 4 hours prior to use.   

To serve:

Boston lettuce leaves

Shiso or mint leaves

3. Burger: Buffalo with Blue Cheese and Buffalo sauce | Chef: Jason Boso, Twisted Root Burger Co., Dallas

"Often I can trick people into thinking they're eating beef with this burger," says Boso, who sources his hormone-free bison meat for Dallas's premiere burger enterprise from Comanche Buffalo (www.comanchebuffalo.com), a local operation in Lawton, O.K. "Buffalo is low-fat, 92% lean, so you won't have as much flame-up on an outdoor grill, but you should also cook it quicker than you would a piece of chuck." Boso suggests finding the crumbliest bleu cheese around, because it binds well with his bleu-cheese dressing before he "smushes" the creamy topping down onto the hot buffalo sauce with his preferred cracked-wheat bun. "No matter what you think, this buffalo meat isn't gamey like elk or venison, and if you can't get some from Comanche, you should be able to find buffalo at any specialty meat market now."

RECIPE

Buffalo burger

2 lb.        Ground Buffalo meat
1 tablespoon Sea salt
2 teaspoons  Fresh ground black pepper
4 oz         unseasoned bread crumbs (used as binder and helps retain fat
for a more moist burger)

Hand mix all in a cold bowl thouroughly speading seasonings into meat.
Roll meat into 5 or 6oz balls and then press into patty shape. Makes 5-6
burgers.

Place on high heat grill for 2 minutes each side for a medium Burger. 4
minutes a side for welldone. Remember Buffalo is 92% lean and therefore
better with a little pink in it.

Buffalo sauce

We cook our Buffalo sauce with a slury of cornstarch and lime juice to
give it a more ketchup consistancy and make it cleaner and easier to eat
on a burger.

16 ounces of buffalo sauce.(we like Frank's Red Hot)
4 oz. slurry of cornstarch and lime juice. (2-3 oz of lime juice 1-2 of
cornstarch -stir well to get rid of lumps.)

Add slurry to heated buffalo sauce and 4 oz. of sugar, cook for a few
minutes, then remove from heat and let cool.

6-8 ounces of your favorite Blue Cheese (we like Stilton)
crumble it and mix with a blue cheese dressing to bind crumbles.

Sesame white or Cracked Wheat bun are our favorites with this meat.

1 1/2 of buffalo sauce and 1 oz. of blue cheese mixture on top of your
buffalo meat and you're good to go. Enjoy.

4. Burger: Lamb Merguez | Chef: Laurent Tourondel, BLT Burger, Las Vegas

Tourondel, a French-born burger maven, also serves this alternative burger year-round in his New York and LA restaurants of the same moniker. But what makes it especially great for summer is its middle-Eastern spice and flavor profile, offset by a cooling cucumber yogurt sauce, tomatoes, olives, red onion, and spicy harissa (or hot sauce) mayo. "You can use a beef merguez sausage to temper the flavor of the lamb if lamb sausage is a little too strong," says Tourondel, who also says any high-end sausage should work at the end of the day and recommends using wood in your grill if you have it. "I also use the lamb shoulder meat, because it has the best flavor--and maybe the neck, because it has more fat. You can ask your butcher for it. But the key is to grill the burger to medium but let it char a bit over high heat for a good flavorful crust."

RECIPE

BLT Lamb Burger

Serves 6

Lamb Spice

4 teaspoons paprika

2 teaspoons black peppercorns

2 teaspoons turmeric

2 teaspoons fennel seed

2 teaspoons cumin seed

½ teaspoon cayenne

2 teaspoons garlic powder

2 teaspoons dried thyme

2 teaspoons dried oregano

Yogurt Sauce

2 cups plain yogurt

1 tablespoon mint, finely chopped

1 tablespoon lime juice

1 teaspoon lamb spice mix

Harissa Mayonnaise

1 cup mayonnaise

1 ½ ablespoon harissa

¼ cup lemon juice

Salt

Pepper

Vegetable Mix

1 vine-ripe tomato, finely diced

1 cucumber, peeled, finely diced

1 red onion, finely diced

¼ cup black pitted olives, finely diced

½ cup cured lemons, finely diced

1 tablespoon mint, chopped

1 tablespoon cilantro, chopped

2 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoon olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Lamb Burger

1 ½ pound ground lamb

1 ½ ounces Merguez sausage

1 tablespoon of lamb spice mix

½ pound sweet unsalted butter, melted

Salt

6 burger buns with sesame seeds, split

1 red onion, thinly sliced

2 vine-ripe tomatoes, sliced into ¼-inch slices

6 leaves romaine lettuce, ribs removed

To make the lamb spice mix  In a small sauté pan set over medium heat, lightly toast the black peppercorns, fennel seed, and cumin seeds until fragrant, approximately 3-5 minutes.  Remove from the pan and allow to cool.   

Add the toasted spices, paprika, turmeric, cayenne, garlic powder, dried thyme, and dried oregano to a spice grinder and grind until the spices reach the consistency of a fine powder.  Set aside.

Note:  The Lamb spice can be stored in an air and water tight container.

To make the yogurt sauce  Drain yogurt in a sieve lined with a cheesecloth or a clean kitchen towel set over a bowl in the refrigerator until all excess liquid is released, approximately 3-4 hours.

In a mixing bowl combine the strained yogurt, mint, lime juice and lamb spice mix and mix thoroughly.  Cover and store in refrigerator.

To make the harissa mayonnaise In a small mixing bowl combine all ingredients and mix until combined.  Season with salt and pepper.  Cover and store in refrigerator.

To make the vegetable mix  In a large mixing bowl add the tomato, cucumber, red onion, olives and cured lemons and mix until combined.  Add the mint, cilantro, lemon juice and olive oil and lightly toss.  Season with salt and pepper.

To make the lamb burger  Using a knife, carefully remove casings from the merguez sausage.  In a large mixing bowl add the sausage, ground lamb and lamb spice mix and mix until well combined.  Gently form the meat into six 6-ounce burgers.  Brush each patty with butter and season with salt.   

Heat a grill pan or barbeque over medium-high heat.  Grill the burgers for 4 minutes per side for medium rare.  Do not push down on the burgers while they cook, as this will cause the juices to run out.

Assemble the burger  Lightly toast the hamburger buns.  Place the burgers on the bottom halves of the buns.  With a slotted spoon, take a small amount of the vegetable mix allowing the juices to drain off, and place on burger. Top with lettuce, tomato, onion.  Spread the harissa mayonnaise, and the yogurt sauce on the top halves of the buns.  Serve immediately.

vacanze da vacanze romane

Having been here for a week, for the fourth time in my life, it's pretty easy for me to confirm how much Rome and my adopted hometown of Los Angeles are alike. In Rome, everyone immediately looks you up and down, even the cheesy bridge-and-tunnel kids with the badly gelled hair who live miles from Cinecitta; everyone's pazzo, doing something unusually complicated on unusually expensive cellphones, especially when driving; and style trumps all (addendum: most Romans, outside your immediate family and favorite Hugo Boss salesman, will be nice to your face and speak crap behind your back). Tired of these inescapable Hollywoodisms as well as the tourists in every corner of the city (and every Dior, D&G, and Armani store)--even in the small, unusually good dining rooms and bars of the former slaughterhouse district, Testaccio--I recently sought refuge in my father-in-law's alpine region of Abruzzi (home as well to half of Madonna's family). Good thing, too, because aside from the best saffron, game, sheep's milk cheese, and mountainous national parkland in Italy, Abruzzi  (though it's been called "The Next Toscana," think more Colorado than Napa) also benefits from a lack of tourism. Which doesn't mean you won't find great restaurants and hotels here; just that they won't be overrun with tacky, in-your-face, fanny-pack-waisted Rick Stevesians and the guidebooks that they love--or worse, B-level American celebrities. After a fast two hour jaunt east from Rome, last week, I arrived in the small, rustic town of Campo di Giove, set deep under the imposing Majella mountains and just minutes from the medeival city of Sulmona, birthplace of Ovid and that Confetti (candied almonds) your significant other will likely adore as much as L. Locals, and there are plenty of young, single ragazzi still hanging in their hometowns--make sure not to say you are single as one friend did; you will get an invitation to a family dinner for the wrong reasons). Inadvertently stylish in 80's threads they don't care about (unlike some of the chic-geeks in Sulmona), these kids may win you over with genuine friendliness as quickly as, say, the freshly made annelini with speck and ricotta (which would no doubt be on tomorrow's Babbo menu if Batali ever scootered himself over), at the no-frills La Scarpetta di Venere. At this thin-aired pine-perfumed spot, on a recent night, the young locals gathered to watch Rome play Inter in soccer while scarfing down pizze (I recommend the local prosciutto as a topping; it's deeper in color and richer in flavor, with more substance, than the overbought Parma stuff you can find in any Dean and Deluca), taking turns saying hello to our Zia (yes, young people, in certain places still have respect for elders).  In the morning, you might want to follow my lead and dodge a brown bear, a few wild boars, and a wolf (if I was kidding, this would be mentioned with some degree of whimsy), while riding the funicular up to Gran Sasso d'Italia (the rock of Italy), the highest mountain in the country, for fantastic hiking and even a look at a hotel built by Mussolini in Campo Imperatore. It's true: I have a home here--in the city you see above--and thank god there's no Wi-Fi. I, however, never mind a night at the albergo diffuso Sextantio, a recently finished preservation-minded design hotel built out of the intact medeival Abruzzese town of Santo Stefano di Sessanio, right in the national park, where Philippe Starck bathroom fixtures sit in restored cave-like brick rooms for the socially conscious yet aesthetically driven travelers some of us know we have become. I'm OK with this kind of tourism; the place was purchased over ten years ago and painstakingly restored with natural materials allowing locals (those who remained) to enjoy a better quality of life each month. As the manager, Giovanni, tells me, it's not for everyone. You have "niche" clienti, I tell him. Yes, he says, nich-a. Like the philosopher? Not exactly, I say, but hotel managers who think philosophy at the drop of an Abruzzese wool cap definitely are a niche group. Ho capito, he replies: I GET you. Then we eat a few chunks of local pecorino, talking soccer, while an American in a rented Alfa drives by, almost hitting a deer, he is so focused on the combination of his G.P.S. system and the panino he bought at an Auogrill on the autostrade. Oh, Abruzzi, am I hurting you--and hence slowly poisoning my escape--with such a post?  I will have to care for you as I introduce you around.--A.B.

an even trade: la farmers' markets for campo dei fiori?

How different are Italy's farmers' markets from California's? Having morphed into an Angeleno over the last few years, it's a tough question to answer, especially comparing swank Los Angeles and central Roma. In Larchmont, land of Yuppified Hollywood, you can find, on a Sunday morning, some of the freshest farmers' purple cauliflower, blood oranges (well, no longer this week), meyer lemons, and fava beans. But today, in Roma's Campo dei Fiori, all was alive and well even if I could not find blood oranges there either. I admit that I moved to California from New York after a decade-long love affair with Italy. For me, it was an escape from Washington Heights to America's Italia. I found even Hollywood (well, its hills and lemons) Italian. Still, while I didn't today venture so far into the unvisited Roma as my T+L colleague Gary Shteyngart did last year in Testaccio (Campo dei Fiori is, after all, one of Roma's most famous markets, filled with tourists and lame ristorantes selling everything from panini to "real, Italian" pizza and gelato as well as an amatriciana and carbonara for the Carmella Sopranos of the world), it was nice to be in the company of some fresh zucchini flowers, yelping fish salesmen, and plant seeds that honestly declared their status as "semi-Italian." What that means, I am not sure. But how many people in Los Angeles are from Southern California? And just where did they get their blood orange varietals? Allora...--AB

eat like a shallot: stars of the season

Before I head to Italy, land of locavore freshness, especially in Spring, I thought I'd send you to my latest collection of chef interviews for Saveur. It's about the best and some of the more unusual spring ingredients hitting our farmer's markets. Think of me instead of Hannibal when you eat those fava beans, and I promise you a tasty time. Read: Stars of the Season, featuring thoughts from Ming Tsai, Alice Waters, and others.

the springtime harvest: food stories

Recently, a 40-year-old friend e-mailed me a thanks for telling him what he should be eating at his ripe old age. About nine years younger than him, I couldn't claim to be a true expert and had a good laugh at his note. But the other cool thing about some of the facts I uncovered in reporting this recent Best Life food-for-health story is that you don't have to be a man to get benefits from these ingredients. Have a look at the piece, featuring actual experts (including a look at celebrity nutritionist culture), and if you see me at the local French bakery, I give you permission to smack me in the gut.

p.s. I also admit that I did send into the universe this cocktail story for Angeleno as well as this artisanal hot dog roundup for Lexus's newly retooled lifestyle and culture magazine--but hey, one of the dogs is made from organic, grass-fed beef, and let's not forget about the medicinal uses of ginger, which appear in one of Katsuya Hollywood's most transporting sips.

the shallot restaurant review, no. 2, 2008

Little Dom's, Los Feliz, Los Angeles; Angeleno Magazine

[more soon]

sweet as...

We trade in trends here at Shallot central. Earlier, seltzer returned to the fray. Now, it's winter pot pies. Recently, I chatted with intriguing chefs about the classic comfort food. One ended up in my Men's Journal story (click on image to open and then again to enlarge). Here's his take on the dish--and look below for other pies to try.

OTHER PIES TO TRY
Too tired to cook? The following restaurant-grade pot pies have won our hearts and bellies.

Tavern at the Park (Chicago, IL): This new upscale pub, headed by classically trained Executive Chef John Hogan, serves a delectable braised chicken pot pie with shitake, oyster, and cremini mushrooms deglazed in potent Madeira wine for a brown thyme-infused stew. $17

Blue Velvet (Los Angeles, CA): Chef Kris Morningstar of this stylish LA spot serves two very unusual pies -- a Tempeh Pot Pie, with soy, mushrooms, carrots, parsnips and vegan pastry crust, as well as a Braised Rabbit Pot Pie with sherry cream, crispy sweetbreads, served with a rabbit terrine en croute. $30.

Tristan (Charleston, SC): This bold, globally influenced Charleston restaurant, led by Fat Duck alum Chef Ciaran Duffy, serves a Deconstructed Lobster Pot Pie featuring a whole 1 1/2 pound lobster, split in half, with a pot pie filling of lobster and vegetables poured over it, and topped with a piece of puff pastry. $23.

The Half King, New York , N.Y.: It's not  gourmet in the fancy way, but the Beef and Guiness pot pie in an herb-flecked pastry shell at Sebastian Junger's NYC pub from Chef Gregory Baumel is all all about simplicity and authentic Irish nostalgia. A storm of savory perfection.  $16

some real new year's bubbly

In the current issue of Nextbook, Emily Barton's essay from the forthcoming anthology "Brooklyn Was Mine," takes us into a forgotten world of true Brooklyn seltzer-love, introducing us to Eli, the seltzer man. Finding this old-world, high-end delivery service that puts store-bought seltzer to shame, she writes:

Eli’s seltzer is more expensive than the kind we got in the store, so we don’t drink it with the same abandon, and the taste is different: saltier, more metallic, sharper. Learning to control the pressure was trickier than we’d expected; we had a few days of wet countertop before we mastered it. Even with soy milk, it makes phenomenal egg creams. But more important, we like having the crates and bottles in our kitchen, a tie to this city’s past. I like the connection to my father’s childhood, my aunts’ and uncle’s childhoods, and a world that was based around neighborhoods, where you knew the people who lived next door and ran the shop around the corner.

No beverage was more prominent in the home of my Sheepshead Bay grandparents than true, high-end seltzer (without the high-end price), and for the record, my Long Island born father still romances about properly carbonated egg creams. I used to even think as a little kid that seltzer was a specifically Jewish drink. But upon visiting my wife's Abruzzo-born Italian family in Bay Ridge last week, guess what I was served? One hint: It wasn't Pellegrino.

Why Glass Shallot?

Because we spit out "club soda" with verve!

Was this what you ate on Thanksgiving?

Do I have the right to criticize?

Hell, no. But here are a few guidelines I like to follow, and they're uncommonly helpful during the holidays:

The Painless Diet Upgrader, Best Life/Men's Health

the sacred schmaltz waltz

Some readers may remember the great gefilte-fish-off that made this here Shallot a hit with blog-reading lovers of my grandmother's claim to fame. Well, the high holidays are now over, and tons of young Jewish writers and editors are fronting new Jewish cuisine blogs. So, as far as I'm concerned, it's the perfect time to introduce Shallot readers to schmaltz (rendered chicken fat; sorry Mr. Diagram bird), courtesy of Tammy, Shallot's gefilte queen and master of all Semitic culinary endeavors worth review. See Tammy's  brand-new "How To Make Schmaltz (and What to do With Afterwards)"--there are many reasons to indulge as you will soon learn. And don't forget Tammy's warning: "Schmaltz is grandma's way of saying, 'I miss you.  Come visit...But don't overindulge unless you really want to visit grandma in the hereafter!'"

carnivorous diversions

Somehow, someone knew I would be right for the job. No matter how many people profiled, books and concerts reviewed, health issues probed, travels observed, or personal essays written, it was all leading up to a Men's Journal story on the top  high-end, foodie burgers in America (not the best burger, or best traditional burger, proper, mind you). It began as a longer, through-written piece with lots of criticism and description but due to page counts in the mag business, it turned into something more like a short guide to a few favorites. But check it out all the same (click on the image once, and once again, to read the text in larger font). And please e-mail me your comments (but note that we went to great pains not to include in our favorites the already over-covered, famous burgers, like DB Bistro's, even if we did sneak in the giant mess of a burger at the Old Homestead for those who need celebrity meats in their lives). Frankly, if I had had complete control over the story, I would have added in Boa Steakhouse for the LA section (not Father's Office, the Counter, or Cut's new Kobe sliders in 90210),  and I certainly would have given runner up to the following entry:

The Wino

Grilled Snake River Kobe Beef Burger, $17.95 

Martini House; Helen, CA

An eight-ounce grind of American Kobe (also called Wagyu) from Snake River farms, which makes the most consistently textured grind of that beer-fed, massaged, butter-tasting meat. It’s only served medium rare (without lettuce and tomatoes), and wet with a thin, house-made French-style dressing before receiving a topping of nutty gruyere and Napa Valley-white-port-stewed onions on a charred semolina bun with serious bite and chewing requirements. It’s just mildly seasoned (no spice), and the 30% fat content renders it luxuriantly textured though without palpable blubber. “Even when there’s no color left in it, it never gets dry,” says chef/owner Todd Humpries. Call it the perfect accompaniment to a long, arduous day of Sideways-style wine guzzling but don’t combine with any f’ing Merlot.

living among the happies: los feliz's hillhurst comes of age, again

In tomorrow's New York Times, I have a short piece about my neighborhood, Los Feliz. It's really more of a piece about the rebirth of Hillhurst Ave., and it's only a start in that regard. In the last 10 years, I've seen Hillhurst change from what seemed like a random and gritty vein of the Valley into a real expression of commerce-meets-creativity since the south-of-the-Boulevard hipsters have turned 30 (or 40, or 50) and become successful alongside their hillside brethren. Obviously Los Feliz isn't surfacing, but Hillhurst, itself, has been resurfacing for a few years, and still awaits more development. Some not so pleasant: on the upside, the owners of Dominick's and the 101 cafe will soon open Little Dom's in the spot previously occupied by the now-closed Belle Epoque; on the other hand, a view-obstructing, traffic-exploding Whole Foods and four levels of condos above it may soon cast a dark shadow over the beloved structure (the current Derby club) that once housed the original--and LA's last--Brown Derby restaurant.

I had originally written in an early draft that Hillhurst's relatively new chic shops and restaurants don't just represent the tastes and styles of the East Side's increasingly sophisticated inhabitants (not that I consider myself one of them) but that these establishments now directly serve the interests of this quantifiable group. There's a significant difference between projecting an image of what a neighborhood seems like*, and coming right out and giving a tight band of residents what they crave. The latter is now Hillhurst's job, and aside from deepening Los Feliz, at large, the street's also now opening up the hood to more inter-city, and hell, international travelers interested in more than a representation of  "hipsterdom" and a spoon of Pinkberry.

[*Vermont Avenue, for the most part, save for House of Pies, Palermo, bad jewelry store, and Skylight bookstore, etc... Our movie theater is no longer a true arthouse, and Fred 62 recently hosted the oh-so-fab Britney Spears.]

Simultaneously, young adults, even those without studio development deals, are buying in the storied hills that boast structures by Richard Neutra and Frank Lloyd Wright across from the new Observatory that won't guarantee show admission even if you buy yourself a shuttle ride up the hill. Leases, all around, are rising. Inhabitants without rent control are now paying close to $3,000 a month for new apartments. In the flats, a two-bedroom cottage just south of the Derby recently sold for a million dollars. It's getting crazy, to be sure, but these facts shock, with unrealistic intensity, many of my fellow native New York friends and family who don't see the tremendous value in spots like ours, and hence need a real-estate vision-readjustment.  What these new-style Alvie Singer-types don't realize is that Los Feliz is more free-spirited and artistic and socially cohesive as any current cross-section of any of today's downtown New York spots. In fact, it's better because of the other tight communities and fantastic nature that surround us--and that includes the Scientologists and aging-Brit, one-hit-wonders grazing on their microgreens. Such virtues, even the comical ones, are now true currency, especially in a sprawling, car-crazy town of people craving more frequent and deeper connections to each other.

With that out of the way, here's a brief addendum to the story: thoughts on other Hillhurst haunts and how they flesh out the street. Have a look, and stay tuned for updates and expansions throughout the week.

+On either side of Vinoteca Farfalla, the new wine bar, you can find some pretty solid culinary choices. Just avoid the newly opened En Sushi (it's overpriced, and always less than fresh). On the north side of the Vinoteca is the owners' initial hit, Farfalla: a bankable trattoria where you can snag a bucatini all'™amatriciana that almost comes close to that of NY's Babbo--not very close at all, but Babbo is pretty extraordinary, so that's still high praise. On the other side of the wine bar is Tropicialia, the wine bar owners'™ new Brazillian joint. What it lacks in decor--it's nearly cafeteria-style on the inside--it makes up for in affordable, braised meat that falls off the bone, and dependable steak salads. Just run from the cheese bread--it's fairly nauseating--and don't expect the polenta to taste like grandma's. It's nowhere close to as creamy and magical.

+Further down Hillhurst is Alcove's older, less bright, wannabe sibling, Home. Except it's far less chic and often easier to find yourself a seat there. Call it a standby: they serve everything your working parents might have cooked for you as a kid--if your working parents made you spinach salads with goat cheese along with sides of waffle fries--”but the service is truly lacking, and they really don't do anything innovative.  It'™s simply a relaxed, outdoor patio cafe on which to enjoy strong sandwiches, salads, and burgers with friends. And they deliver. Even to Yummy Yoga across the street.

+ Mustard Seed Cafe. Another organic lunch spot, this is the crunchiest of the bunch. Lots of veggie options, extremely slow waiters, and lingerers. It lacks the power scene of Alcove but might appeal to the more Whole Foodsy, Weeds-watching  type who can't stand eating next to TV stars. You know you love sprouts.

+Places to avoid: Mexico City (mediocre food; you can do much better in Silverlake); Tangier (overpriced continental gourmet in a bad Moroccan design, though I like the quiet outdoor bar for drinks when it's not overtaken by wannabe gangsters; look for a new, overly ambitious owner to make it even more upscale soon); and the new Vegan place across from Home (not very tasty, but that's coming from a carnivore).

+You should, however, hit Cafe Los Feliz, run by a local family, for your coffee instead of the Coffee Bean. And do try a croissant--I argue that they compete with good French patisseries.

+You won't feel good about yourself for it, but drinking at dive bars like the Rustic and Drawing Room has its merits--for one, you may end up at 4 a.m. cursing all farm animals and studio executives inside Keifer Sutherland's nearby loft.

+And the Village Gourmet store next to Alcove sells some excellent Parma proscuitto even if they charge way too much for food that shouldn't even be considered gourmet (say, Cento tomato sauce, which is a budget item in New York supermarkets) and really have no ethical problem with raping you on boutique wines.

+Yes, Yuca's taco stand is nationally famous. But let's be honest: it's just a taco stand. Good street food,  but god knows where it comes from. [UPDATE: One of my favorite local writers/music lawyers/cultural scions writes in to say that: "Yuca's is NOT just a taco stand. It's all about what you order that makes the difference: (a) the Cochinita Pibil -- a yucatecan pork specialty which is pretty much unavailable at any other taco stands/trucks I've been to in L.A....Sweet, BBQ goodness.
(b) the burgers - actually a pretty good, low-priced burger. Probably because they are made on the same grill as the carne asada, so they pick up a little of that marinade. Also, as opposed to most of the taco trucks in the city, Yuca's street tacos are a bit LARGER. Street tacos tend to be about 3" long from a taco truck/stand. Yuca's are standard taco size." She is right, of course. But I still stand by my street food comment. Must promote the health these days.]

+Buy jewelry at Liza Shtromberg's shop, and I hope I'm spelling that right. She's just up the block from Cafe Los Feliz--one block up from our increasingly popular Nature Mart. Liza makes her own pieces, and those shall-we-say smart celebrities wear it. But it's also affordable and just beautiful. The love of my life has always been pleased.

+One cool fact about the Hollywood Gelato company than I couldn't get into the piece (aside from the fact that they are the hood's only place to get a true Illy brew): It was apparently once a front for the Armenian mafia, who rented it from Annette's family (the current owners). Also, Annette's grandma still lives in the back of the building. And her late husband was a waiter at the original Brown Derby, back when Los Feliz was a sort of Little Italy. Annette, who played on Hillhurst as a child, also is reportedly trying to bring in only the best all-natural and sustainable gelato. Reason enough to get your ice cream here, no? Let's support the locals and show Whole Foods what we're made of (when we don't need giant bags of organic onions). Of course, there's also Pazzo Gelato in Silverlake--but Giada de Laurentiis just did a feature on it on the Food Network, so now it's really busy. Plus, it's not in Los Feliz-walking distance, and I think that certain of Annette's flavors really win--certainly the Chipotle Chocolate Chip and the superbly creamy and caramelly Cajeta.

+As a local grad student has recently mentioned: Yes, the wobbly chairs need some retooling at the Alcove. And no, it's not the quietest place to get work done. And yes, you will not find Internet there. However: It's around the block from my house--an excellent place to conduct work meetings--and I'm a big fan of laptops with cellular Internet cards that get you Web access everywhere. Plus, there's something about working in a nicely populated, somewhat foreign/uncomfortable environment--it juices me to get stuff done quickly, and that's swhat I'm looking for when I leave the house with computer in tow. That, and a grilled veggie salad with salmon. (I'm trying to avoid the See's candy chocolate cake.)

+I wouldn't get in a dither about seeing famous people here (although plenty gallop about). It's just that there's no point in mentioning some of the more interesting ones (let's let them live in peace), except of course for the L.Ron-loving Beck and his Ribissian possee.

+I'm sorry I haven't provided any addresses, phone numbers, or Web links, but I have to encourage a little research on your part because of the next +

+Please support but don't bombard the hood, says the occasionally reluctant travel writer. I live here, and hope to be able to continue to eat my Alcove lunches--and walk Hillhurst--in some sort of peace!

P.S. Yes, people already writing in, I'm aware of the fact that we didn't mention many new spots on Vermont and Sunset, and throughout other corners of the area. And I know, too, that we didn't cover Silverlake at all. But it had to stay short and focus on Hillhurst. Thems the rules.

note to the food network

Iron Chef America was kind of fun at the beginning, but how about kicking things up a notch and actually, you know, filming it the way it's supposedly filmed: With a guest chef randomly picking an Iron Chef to challenge, with both chefs learning of their secret ingredient one minute later, and with having to create dishes on the spot without prior knowledge of the so-called secret ingredient and a cast of sous chefs. Seriously, I think a few of the chefs--say, Mario Batali and Morimoto--could do it. And then the show would actually be exciting. Alas, this is reality TV.

advice i need to take

Glass Shallot friend and writer extraordinaire Hannah Wallace published this uncommonly  enlightening review of Nina Planck's "Real Food: What To Eat and Why" in the LA Times Health section a few weeks ago. Did you see it? The LAT Health section is so on the ball these days that a doctor I just saw in the Bronx said he never misses a page. We here at the Shallot are very glad Hannah's helping them in their plight--especially on the issue of how industrial food will be the end of us. Do read the review when you can: Apparently, drum roll, lard is good for you. (And no, my writing this has nothing to do with my perhaps self-destructive love for the Bacon of the Month Club [p.s. I only give memberships as gifts to unflinching carnivores these days]).

[p.p.s. Nina Planck's Web site is worth a visit.]

enter the (vegas) flay, gluten-free

Now, more than ever, you have got to be careful where you eat in Vegas.  Fifteen years ago, Sin City was still a town where you expected to pay a lot for a top-quality non-buffet meal and get robbed. This was Vegas, and you weren't there for a few days of, say, unparalleled quality. Even though the city's boundaries were stretching wider at an exponential pace in the 90's, it was still, largely, a spot known for deals, and then for upscale treats, which didn't really have to follow through on substance so long as you were served a ribeye medium rare with pan-roasted potatoes (i.e. something I can make at home). Now, however, the celebrity chefs have moved in. You can move from the spring break madness of the Hard Rock Hotel pool into Nobu's Vegas sushi bar in under 50 yards, provided you throw on some shoes and a pair of jeans and ask the UNLV freshman you just picked up to cover up that tiny camouflage bikini top with, say, a pink T-shirt that says "Punk Whore." Similarly, Emeril's in town, Todd English holds court in a Bellagio-mallified version of Olives (the food's good but very systematic), and Bobby Flay's newish Mesa Grill rests comfortably on the ground floor of Ceasar's Palace, with a great through-the-tinted-glass view of the casino's horse-racing monitors. Regardless, that's where Lina and I decided to eat the other night after getting ripped off the first evening at the Hard Rock's routine and obscenely expensive AJ's Steakhouse, which cannot, even on its best days, compete with your local Outback. Fans of NY's Bolo, we thought we'd get a quality meal at Flay's, and given that his prices didn't differ too much from AJ's-type spots without personalities, what did we have to lose? Not much, apparently, but I have noticed something about Bobby Flay's Vegas menu (and, perhaps all his non-Bolo fare) that makes his food even more appropriate for Las Vegas Boulevard than New York's Union Square. It's all about high quality ingredients (which anyone can purchase) topped, glazed, or rubbed with spice and sauce mixtures (which anyone can dream up with a list of the world's tastiest chilis and fruit in front of them). That is, there are very few interesting menu items that are intrinsically original. My tuna tartare with "blistered serrano sauce and avocado relish" was simply raw tuna spiced up so heavily with yet another of Mr. Flay's favorite chilis such that you couldn't taste the fish.  Lina's fried squash blossom stuffed with ricotta, corn, and basil was reportedly more intriguing, but it was a tease: she only received one of them, and it wasn't that different than something Mario Batali might try, sans the flavor. For dinner, I had a lamb T-bone with red-chile fig marmalade, but couldn't partake in the included roasted garlic tamale, because it might have contained wheat (I'm allergic). The reason I chose the lamb, though, was because the waiter candidly told me every other entree would be "boring" without its accompanying sauce: mango glazes, warm salsa crudas, bourban ancho-chile reductions, orange cilantro sauces. Flay can be organically inventive: his side dishes, like cocunt cashew rice, green-pea risotto, and sweet potato tamales, make you almost choose a meal for its accompaniment. But is that what you want from a fine dining establishment? I wanted to sidle up to Ham on the Street, who was, strangely, eating next to us, and ask him how hard you might have to hit someone with a pork chop in the face in order to attain bruising. But he was having a good time, it seemed. It looked like he was hopped up on the coffee-rubbed tenderloin.

Another bit about contemporary restaurant going that spans Vegas hots pots with large turnovers and pops up right in your local Long Island diner: How come bus-people are now instructed to clear your plate right after the last bite of food has hit the surface of your tongue--regardless of whether or not your partner has finished eating? I'm a dress-down casual guy, but isn't it rude to leave someone eating alone at a group table? Why not let you sit with your empty plate for a while and contemplate what you just spent $43 on. And no, I might say to every waiter I have ever met: I am not "still working." I don't "work" on my food. I (try to) enjoy it, eat it, and sometimes, if its good enough, swallow and digest it, which actually might lend me to put my fork down for a minute. God, and I'm not even a restaurant critic. Imagine what Jeffrey Steingarten might have to say on the matter.

shallot confit!

Would you like some red snapper with your rosemary-infused shallot confit?

[Thanks, Delores Riccio]

Or how about some of Melisse's sweet garlic and shallot flan?

[Thanks, Joseph Citrin]

yummmmmmm

the mother lode

Please tell me you just also learned about Shallot.com.

And please tell me you recognize the brilliance of this time-tested robot fuel:

Ciabatta with shallot croustade

mincing you

Tagliatelle with Leeks and Shrimp

by Lidia Bastianich

au poivre, what to do?

Bison Steak au Poivre with Red Wine Shallot Marmalade

by Joey Altman

2 tablespoons black peppercorns, cracked to a medium grind
2 tablespoons pink peppercorns, cracked to a medium grind
1 tablespoon kosher salt
4 (10-ounce) bison (buffalo) steaks, New York steak or strip loin cut

Red Wine-Shallot Marmalade:
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 cups shallot, peeled and sliced 1/8-inch thick
2 cups red wine
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
Salt and pepper

Combine the ground peppercorns and salt and liberally coat the bison steaks.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan on medium-high heat melt the butter with the oil and sugar. Add the shallots and caramelize them for 10 minutes. Add the wine, turn down the heat to a simmer and reduce liquid to 1/4 of its original amount. Remove from heat. Add thyme and season.

On a hot grill, cook the steaks to the desired doneness.

To serve, top each of the steaks with a spoonful of the shallot marmalade. The marmalade can be hot, warm or room temperature.

robots like to cook!

what the shalloteer didn't know when he left all of us for his lame "human" vacation is that robots get hungry! see the following shallot recipe, and check back for more tomorrow. -- your friendly gS robot

Olive Oli Poached Tuna infused with Thyme, Lemon, and Shallots

by Dweezil Zapa and Lisa Loeb

dancing the line

Who knew that all this gefilte-fishing would teach me something about Jewish genealogy? The winning Tammy writes to say that since her grandmother's recipe reminds me of my grandmother's, it's likely we hail from the same side of Eastern Europe -- that there's a "gefilte fish line" delineating two schools of fish-making (sweet v. savory) and wouldn't you know, two schools of Yiddish, among other things.

gefilte winner

I'm surprised at how many disgruntled gefilte fans are writing to request the winning recipe of the Great Gefilte Fish-off. I apologize: things in Shallot-land have been a little hectic to say the least. Thankfully, however, I have done the testing (of course dressed in the proper attire; see the above shoyt) and come up with this fine, finned victor. The winner - a lovely young lady called Tammy from NY -- writes:

"This recipe is my grandmother's.  She passed away 8 months ago, and a large part of my eulogy was devoted to our misadventures in gefilte
fish-making.  The recipe serves 25-30; don't get stuck eating it for
weeks like we did unless you have 25-30 gefilte-loving friends.

Preparing the fish:

9 lbs. carp (buy ground)
3 lb. either white fish, pike, or mullet (buy ground) -- my grandmom
suggests buying roe fish, b/c it's sweeter
*** Make sure the skin and bones from the white fish are included.
Fish men are not good listeners (a running theme in aforementioned
eulogy).

Put the fish in a pot with just enough water to cover it & bring to a boil.

Grind 4 onions and 2 carrots and add to the fish, along with:

2 T salt
2 T pepper (to taste, really)
6 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 c. water
9 T matzo meal

Mix until blended, then chop so it aerates.  (My grandmom had a
special wide, shallow wooden bowl & hand-held chopper for this
purpose.)

At the bottom of the pot, put:

6 onions, chopped
6 carrots, sliced
1 T salt
1 T pepper (again, to taste)
15 c. water (enough to nearly, but not entirely, cover the fish)
1 sweet potato, peeled & quartered
skin & bones from the white fish (wrap up the loose bones in skin)
onions peels (wrapped up into a compact package)

Bring everything to a boil.  Shape the fish into cakes and drop into
the pan one at a time.  On top of the fish cakes put tied-up dill &
parsnip (basically, leftover soup greens -- any good Jewish housewife
would have just finished making matzo ball soup).  Cover the pot &
cook for 2 hours.  While it's cooking, shake the pot so nothing
sticks to the bottom and burns.  After about an hour of cooking take
off the lid and baste the fish cakes.  Rotate which cakes are on top
so all have a chance to brown.

When you're done, remove the fish cakes and arrange them in a flat
container.  Discard the onion peels, soup greens, and skin & bones.
Then remove the sweet potato & carrots and slice to accompany your
fish.  Finally, pour the liquid around the fish cakes (you may wish
to strain out some, if not all, of the onion).  Put the container
into the refrigerator until cold.  Voila.

FYI, making gefilte fish is, quite frankly, a pain in the ass.  Even
my grandmother would agree.  She & I both got lazy in our old age and
doctored the store-bought stuff, which turned out surprisingly well &
fooled everyone.  (Basically, you prepare the pot as above, but dump
in the contents of a couple jars of Manischewitz' finest.)"

The verdict on Tammy's recipe: It gave me tsoris, making such a huge batch, but nothing tasted more like my Grandma's than this one. And now the mystery has been solved! Tammy is a golden gefilte goddesss.

**Lastly: Thanks Tammy -- and thanks to all those who entered (you know who you are). If you couldn't slather together some grimy fish meal this time, well, stay tuned for more Shallot food contests, featuring, among other things, borscht, corned beef, and oysters rockefeller!

Happy New Year!

The Great Gefilte Fish-off (Ep. 1)

The threats have been made, the mobilization process begun. Yes, the gefiltes have been swimming into *glassShallot's dockside headquarters one by one. And I must say, I'm hearten-ED to see how many of our fine finned friends have decided to give their lives for such noble research. That's right, this is Episode One of the Great Gefilte Fish-off (read the first post and introduction to the virtual hunt for America's best gefilte here). And I can today report the reception of five notable recipes. Be aware, as you read this: hardworking *glassShallot employees are currently carting in sacks of ripe carp by the dozen, and the kitchen-testing process will get underway as soon as humanly possible. For those who haven't yet entered, what, pray tell, is wrong with you? Surely you're tough enough to handle some scale slime for the sake of a tasty Rosh Hashanah snack. Or maybe you're just not capable of something so virtuous? Maybe that's just the kind of person you are: weak, scared, lame, lacking any semblance of compassion in your spoiled, halibut-like heart. To those potential competitors, I can only say this: You will go down in your everyday lives and rue the day you shunned gefiltes. Frightened, as well you should be? Get yourself together, man and woman, and be the biggest baddest sturgeon on your stoop by submitting your recipe here again! Homeade gefiltes will rise. Oh yes: rise they will.

The Great Gefilte Fish-Off (Intro)

In yet another *glassShallot food flash...

I have decided to spearhead (no pun intended) the grandest virtual gefilte fishing expedition ever attempted.

Back in the '80s, my grandmother Lillian ground up by hand the tastiest gefilte blend this side of Warsaw. She found her willing gilled friends at some of Brighton Beach's finest mongering establishments, but failed to detail exactly what ingredients she used. Grouper? Whitefish? Sturgeon? And the spices? Anything's possible. We were all too busy stuffing our faces with that delectable grout-hued gold, swimming in gelatinous juice, with a pale orange slice of carrot on top, to ask questions. The result? Neither I nor Beeferman, I presume, has had a piece of store-bought gefilte since. It's not that it's just not the same. It's that it's something entirely different. And putrid.

Which is why I implore you, dear reader, to please help me on my hunt for that elusive gefilte clearly still thriving on certain Jewish New Year tables at the celebratory beginning of Autumn.  Do you have a Jewish grandmother still living in Brooklyn? (Or L.A.'s Fairfax district, Phoenix, or any other hidden gefilte haunt?) Does the half-Jewish guy that your third-cousin divorced still have one? I have access to all the foodie mags, Web sites, and television cooking networks an amateur chef could want. What I need is someone with some old-school experience. Someone who has done real -- pardon the expression, Mom -- ghetto-testing -- or watched someone who has. Share with the world your best gefilte recipe, and worry not about killing family secrets. You have one month, as the High Holidays are upon us, and I refuse to look hatefully at one more jar of that ripe, rubbery mess known as canned gefilte come celebration time. All entries will be tested and detailed online with photo and video of the tasting process before a final winner is announced on October 3. The grand prize? A whole year free of guilt. (And your story published.)  You know you want it. Now get grindin' and enter.

learning to chill

It's inevitable. You write articles about pianists, crustaceans, comedians, and mobile virtual network operators, and you get reader e-mails asking you to solve the world's problems. This week's most pressing query: Why did Coca Cola bring out the zero-calorie Coca Cola Zero when they just could have replaced aftertasty Diet Coke? Hmm. I haven't had traditional soda in a few years, but I have recently been taste-testing the Zero, and I must say, it's one sweet ride to chillsville; it does send me into hallunicinatory states where I'm singing on top of Brooklyn mid-rises with cadres of my multinational friends. Anyway, here, a priori, is my take: CC Zero won't ever make use of  Splenda, the new sweetener that's rendering newer versions of Diet Coke slightly less rancid by the hour. And since certain soda lovers --diabetics, low-carbers, crazy people who don't want cancer, etc. -- benefit from Splenda-sweetened drinks, the two beverages will have to coexist for some time. If not forever! So get used to it, carbonation-hounds. Get used to it, now. And by all means, don't view this as a reason to stop drinking the water. Water heals, yo.

 

no soup for you

Why it took this long, I will never understand, but the AP reports that Al Yeganeh, otherwise known as Yev "The Soup Nazi" Kasem, in the infamous Seinfeld episode that popularized his Midtown storefront, will finally franchise and take his soup national. 10 clams buys you 8 ounces of soup, bread, a drink, and fresh fruit or a chocolate. Have your money ready or a 15-year-old Iowa high-school student with acne and a squeaky voice will have to deny you your watered-down order.

the little indie can that could

Confession: I often feel forgotten, lost -- and thirsty! -- in this world of custom celebrity branded beverages. It’s just so hard being an issue-driven indie film chick in this Krunk-juice-drinking boys club called Hollywood. So what if your dad made The Godfather? So what if James Cameron haunts your local Trader Joe’s in search of a deal on your family’s brand-name merlot? So what if you won an Oscar for a “sparse” (read: vacantly routine and already forgotten) coming-of-age screenplay that wouldn’t have been given the time of day if your dad, Bill Murray, Sonic Youth, and Wes Anderson hadn’t passed it around with rubber-stamp props. After a while plugging along, it takes some serious cajones to make it in this biz. And after a long day of dressing yourself to look unconcerned about clothes, taking meetings about taking meetings at Urth Caffe, and later joining Quentin down at Cinespace for a Russ Meyer retrospective before a late-night Silverlake patio party teeming with chevre-stuffed mushrooms, you need something to simultaneously take the edge off and remind you that you could do it ALL again. You need something that’s yours -- NOT Daddy’s!  And so that’s why I’m proud to be releasing (releasing, inspiring - what's the difference?) Sofia Mini Blanc de Blancs. (No, it’s not a car. Though aren’t those little buggers cute?! Maybe I should get myself one. Nah, too commercial.) No, Sofia Mini is it’s own thing. It’s not wine, it’s not beer, it’s not Bartles and James (mmm, don’t tell anyone I like Bartles and James, ok?). Sofia Mini is the sparkling wine-product the underground, thinking girl wants. The bouquet? Pear, honeysuckle, passion fruit. The body? Apple, melon, tangerine. The finish? Lemon and honey (what else?). Sporting an expert Monterey-grape balance of 70% Pinot Blanc, 20% Sauvignon Blanc, and 10% Muscat Cannelli -- oh, and did I mention it's served cold in its own cute lil’ red bullet can? -- Sofia Mini is Independence. That’s why I branded it “a distinctive blend as unconventional as the woman who inspired it.” Mini -- and you can call it that too -- is for “the impromptu, impetuous, live passionately-for-the-moment kind of person. The kind of person who lives like there is no tomorrow!” Because, like, that’s the kinda woman I am, yo. I make personal, independent movies. I push the envelope. And I expect nothing less from what I drink. Touché, Spike!

 

bacon pimping

Anyone who has ever read my "About" page's list of jobs has seen the two words "bacon pimp." They're not a lie. As a Mario Batali devotee, I have take his suggestion and chosen to send gifts from The Grateful Palate's Bacon of the Month Club. Which is why I am thankful for Jason Kottke's link to Bacontarian. How fortuitous a find after a night headlined by my tasty re-interpretation of Batali's Bucatini All'Amatriciana (which makes great use of the classic Italian pork products guanciale or pancetta and which of course works beautifully with some sauteed shallots!).

[via Kottke.org and Alex Ross who reminded me that Kottke continues to post some of the best original links on the Web]

shallot recipe of the week

All this talk of onions almost had me forget to post the first-ever Shallot Recipe of the Week.  Now, I'm not usually a fan of the Food Network's Sara Moulton. I find her television presence annoyingly rodent-like, her menus too French-cookbook traditional. But I made this dish the other night, and though it was simple, it turned out delicious. Maybe it was just the roasted shallots -- God knows, I have a jones (now public) for the peelable sweet gods of the earth. But I generally thought the delicate pairing of earthy veggies with the meatiness of the fish worked well. And so I give you: Sara Moulton's mouse-free Nutmeg-Scented Sorrel Salad with Roasted Shallots and Monkfish (courtesy of Gourmet Magazine).