My feet, my hands, my back; I’m tired.

I’m tired like restaurant business tired, but we got so much good stuff, and we got so much done.We went to Santa Monica Farmers’ Market at the crack of ass this morning and came back with sprouting broccoli, spanish onions, shallots, torpedo onions, green garlic, fennel bulbs, artichokes, fava beans, sage, savory, parsley, oregano, cilantro, celery, carrots (4 or 5 colors), beets, chard, potatoes, zucchini and god knows what else.

I have a few phots, but they will have to wait for tomorrow, as will the menu… too tired now.

Goodnight, moon.

G: are you busy that weekend, Joe can come up to visit
R: that would be great to have Joe up, I don’t have anything planned
G: cool I’ll let him know
R: I don’t remember him cooking last time he was here
G: sweetie we can’t force our friends to cook for us every time they visit
R: **maniacal laughter** yea, but can we force them to cook at least every other time?

I made a painful but true observation recently: The quality of my cooking has declined recently. My friend Massimo, whose taste is beyond reproach, said it more politically: that my cooking “has become more relaxed in style.”

It’s not as if I wasn’t aware: I made a number of conscious decisions about my cooking that I knew would lead to its decline. Mostly, they were based on the availability of time. Stock made less frequent appearances. Some very detail-oriented things got less attention- like risotto. I also have had to work through some bad ingredient choices. For example, after much lobbying by friends of mine, I bought the Trader Joe’s arborio rice. I said “How can this be? Two pounds of arborio rice for five bucks? It’s too good to be true.” Well, it was too good to be true, because that rice blows.

Also, the menus were getting longer as time became dearer. Here’s an example. This menu is from June of 2003:

Toasted Almonds, Garlic Shrimp, Serrano Ham, Green Olive Tapenade
Hidalgo La Gitana Manzanilla Sherry NV
St-Hilaire Blanquette de Limoux Brut 2000

Asparagus Soup
Hermann Wiemer Dy Johannisberg Riesling 2002

Poeled Pork Shoulder with Turnips
Braised Brussels Sprouts
Domaine Esmonin Sylvie Gevrey-Chambertin 1999
Ramsay Vineyards Pinot Noir 2000

Salad of Belgian Endive with Roaring Forties Blue Cheese and Walnuts

Epoisse and Gala Apples

Pear Tart a la Bordaloue
Chambers Rosewood Reserve Muscat NV

Yes, this is a six course meal, but not really. The first course is hors-d’oeuvres, completed in advance. The second is soup, done and sitting in a bain-marie when people arrive. A roast is tricky to time, but doable. A salad, easy, a cheese course, easy and a tart, completed early that morning. In other words, it is safe. It also was expertly prepared, even if I do say so myself- and shows the former largesse of my spending on wine. Of course Burgundy is always worth the expense.

Here’s the last menu I wrote about, one whose execution had serious defects:

Mostarda of Celery with fresh ricotta on crostini with my special olives: oil-cured sicilian olives macerated with blood orange juice and zest

Cauliflower risotto alla cariinese. (a replacement for rice and nettle soup)

Panelle with a salad of favas, salame calabrese (spicy), ricotta salata and whole chopped meyer lemons

Pork Butt Roast with braised leeks and Sicilian potato salad

Strawberries with lemon mousse

This is only five courses, but much more complicated. The mostarda is [a piece of] cake, but I boned the crostini: I just couldn’t get the right bread, and it ruined it. I should have either made the bread or made the trip to get something better. Crackers would have been better.
The risotto was a big disappointment. As I was making the Plan-A nettle soup and realized that was going awry, I should have just trashed the course, but I didn’t. I made risotto, instead, without stock, or an acceptably flavorful replacement, and didn’t have enough cauliflower sauce to season the risotto properly, not to mention the suck-ass rice I used, and it was blah. With more salt it could have been in any check-tablecloth place in Little Italy.
The panelle were good, but I might not fry them in advance next time. The texture was fine, but they had that not-freshly-fried taste. Or maybe next time I’ll fry them in lard. That stale taste comes from vegetable oil.
The pork butt was good, as was the potato salad, but the leeks were a bomb. I cooked them at too high a temperature and they dried out. They also probably needed more butter. The real problem is that I didn’t flesh out the recipe enough, I threw them together, and it showed.
There was a certain amount of hubris involved, since I entertain so much, I figured I could just pull some things out of my ass, which I did, and did very well, but not great. It’s like the Ruth’s Chris syndrome: There is nothing wrong with a meal at Ruth’s Chris. In fact, I enjoy a steak there from time to time, usually when traveling, but you won’t have a really spectacular meal there, ever.

So what is a spectacular meal?

Well, a spectacular meal doesn’t leave any detail unnoticed. In addition to absolutely perfect execution, the dish has to have harmony. A rich, succulent meat needs something to lighten its heaviness, like vinegar with foie gras or a salad with salumi. This, however, is not just a point-counterpoint, the harmony has to apply to flavors, too, though sometimes the counterpoint is something unexpected. I ate at [Osteria Mozza]( http://www.mozza-la.com/osteria/about.cfm) last night, and the dish was grilled octopus, perfect in its execution, smokey and mysterious with a gentle bite to the seafood. And all of a sudden- in this smokey, chewy haze- there was a bite of raw celery: light, fresh, spry in the mouth, it was exactly what was needed. The problem with the risotto was attention to detail: since the rice was crappy, I lost control of the timing since cheap rice cooks very quickly, not to mention that in a dish made almost entirely out of one ingredient, the flavor of the dish will vary in direct proportion to the quality of that ingredient; mediocre rice makes mediocre risotto.

To be perfect, the risotto would have been more al dente, and creamier, from better rice; more flavorful, from better stock; and even if I had used leftover sauce, I would have a) had enough of it and b) I would have augmented some of the surprise goodies, like the pine nuts and raisins. I also would have paid a lot more attention to the acid balance than I did. On pasta, the sweet-and-sour element would be clear in this sauce, but some cooked vinegar, or maybe even a gastrique (vinegar caramel) would have refueled the agrodolce flavor that dispersed into the soupy rice. I was lazy.

So I’m simplifying. Since time is at a premium right now, rather than scatter my efforts afield, I am editing my standard menu from:

Hors D’oeuvres
Pasta or Fish
Meat
Salad and Cheese
Dessert
Coffee

to something more like this:

Very simple Hors D’oeuvres
Vegetable Appetizer
Main
Salad and Cheese OR Dessert
Coffee

I never used to make dessert, and when I baked it was either as a gift or to scratch a specific itch and usually became an afternoon treat or breakfast. Mostly I did it for the holidays. Somewhere along the line I started doing a lot of desserts, I’m not really sure when or why, but the fact is I don’t enjoy them much, and people- at my house, at least- are usually so full they look at dessert with trepidation (read: dread). A salad and a piece of cheese, maybe a slice of pear and a few walnuts, aid digestion, clear the palate and turn the page on richer tastes just gone. A very delicate plated dessert- a perfect, harmonious whole- can be another stage in the natural progression of a meal, or a simple fruit dessert can provide some contrast. A piece of chocolate cake, though, to my taste, is a discordant, vulgar pie in the face of an otherwise lovely experience.

With a shorter menu- not to mention summer approaching- intensely flavored cold and warm vegetable appetizers will lead into whatever is cooking, which will have my undivided attention.

So I’m simplifying, but not relaxing.

**I wrote this over the last couple of days, but before I posted it, I coincidentally but unsurprisingly read the following passage this afternoon. My latest food musings have been on things like garnished sauerkraut, cassoulet (strange considering the weather), poached chicken and souffles (probably more digestible at the moment). At any rate, this is from MFK Fisher’s *How to Cook a Wolf*, and is offered in the context of wartime rationing, but no less relevant to my latest thinking:**

>If you want Mortimer [your theoretical son] to drink a fruit juice you can almost certainly arrange to have it given to him in the middle of the morning or afternoon, when it will not war with the starches in his own middle, and will give him an unadulterated and uncluttered lift.

>For lunch make an enormous salad, in the summer, or a casserole of vegetables, or a heartening and ample soup. That is all you need, if there is enough of it.

>And for dinner, if you want to stick solemnly to your “balanced day,” have a cheese souffle and a light salad, or, if you are in funds, a broiled rare steak and a beautiful platter of sliced herb-besprinkled ripe tomatoes.

>That with some red wine or ale if you like it and a loaf of honest bread, with or without butter, and toasted or not and good coffee afterwards, is a meal that may startle your company at first with its simplicity but will satisy their hunger and their sense of fitness and balance, all at once. An unnecessary peptic goad, but a very nice one now and then, is a good soft stinky cheese, a **Camembert or Liederkranz, with what is left of the bread, the wine, the hunger.**

> And later, when they begin to think of the automatic extravagance of most of our menus, and above all of the ghastly stupid monotony of them, they too will cast off many of their habits, and begin like you to eat the way they *want* to, instead of the way their parents and grandparents taught them. They will be richer, and healthier, and perhaps, best of all, their palates will awaken to new pleasures, or remember old ones. All those things are devoutly to be wishesed for, now especially.

Emphasis mine. Listening: NPR Marketplace

What do this spinach and arugula have in common? Yes, they are both organic. There’s something else. Yes, they’re both green, duh. Yes, they’re both grown in California. But you know what else? I grew them both.

Whoa.

I have often said that time and distance are reflected in the food we eat, so something flown in from Chile last week will never be as good as something picked yesterday on the local farm. Well, try picking the salad on your way inside from work. I’m not saying it was the best arugula I’ve ever tasted, but I will say that it had a taste and a vibrancy unlike anything else one can eat. Even a tomato eaten warm from the sun- one of the best things you can do with clothes on- as beautiful and explosive as that experience is- and it is- there is an urgent greenness inherent to salads and herbs this fresh that eclipse even the sacred tomato.

So I called up some of the crew and had them over to try it, and to help clean out the fridge from [earlier in the week]( http://omnivorousfish.com/node/316). The cupboard was relatively bare, but here’s what I came up with:

Bruschetta with Ricotta Salata and Oregano- that’s the recipe, essentially. Toast some bread with olive oil on both sides in the oven, grate over ricotta salata and sprinkle with chopped oregano- preferably from the garden.

Arugula (and spinach) Salad with Eureka Lemon Segments (god I love lemon segments in a salad)

Fava and Tuma Ravioli [from Easter]( http://omnivorousfish.com/node/311) with sage butter… guess where the sage came from

Apple Tart- courtesy of Laura

I also had guacamole and chips out. Fresh fresh fresh guacamole and blue corn chips, THAT is MFing snack food. Boo-YA.

Listening: A soundstage. Oh jeez.

Oh well. I went to New York, and I had an ok time. I saw some friends, ate a couple of decent meals, blah blah blah. The gig I went to do was great, actually, one or two of you might have seen it (the ball drop). It’s quite a thing being in Times square surrounded by some little aluminum barricades keeping out 400,000 cranky drunk people. Oh well.

Anyway, I’m back, and so glad to be. I even had my first houseguest on monday. None other than [Kung Foodie](http://kungfoodie.com/), Gnocchi Katz herself, came to visit me at the beach and have a bite. I had invited some peeps over, but they ended up being previously occupied, so I had her all to myself.

That store that I hate had some great manila clams which I cooked up with some shallots, bacon and sherry, which we snacked up, dunking bread and dripping clammy juice all over ourselves while mostly finishing the aforementioned bottle of sherry. Naturally, we were kind of loaded, so I set the *brasato* on to simmer and we went on a little walking tour of the neighborhood, including a little trek on the beach since, really, it’s right there. And who doesn’t like the beach?

The guest of honor took some great photos, too, reproduced with her *permesso, naturalmente*. *[Flicker is down, will get on that when I can- jf]*

When we got back, we had a little piece of pork, too, like you do, and some roasted rutabagas and parsnip, cut lengthwise and roasted in olive oil, garnished with a few cooked chestnuts (castagne in italian, *marroni* in sicilian, from the french word).

I have been craving gorgonzola lately, but unable to find any decent ones, so we had a MARVELOUS Point Reyes Blue, which fits better into the Eat Local ethos anyhow.

The rutabaga, certainly, is among the most overlooked vegetables around, and I encourage you to try it, especially when you find small ones. Even though I love them, it still seems I only eat them *ogni morte di papa,* or every death of a pope (meaning once in a while).

I’ve had a lot of italian idioms in my head. Last night, a friend of mine and her visiting in-laws- who speak NO english- came over for a little *cena siciliana*.

Honestly, I’m still a little skittish about cooking anything too far from my personal exerience for them, but I’ll branch out soon. Meanwhile, it’s fun to eat sicilian food. I don’t often cook it, since I’ve had so much of it, it’s often more fun to cook something I’m learning about.

We had:
Bruschetta of tuna and tomatoes
Bruschetta of dinsaur kale

Fennel with Oranges and Onions

Whole Wheat Pappardelle with Pork Guazzetto

Pork Shoulder Guazzetto with Oranges and Three Color Salad

And a pear cake that Anna made (I had bought some cheeses, but they were hurting, I still need to work on my portion control)

The first bruschetta is an old one, tuna packed in oil with tomatoes and onions. You could put garlic in it, too, if you wanted, but I didn’t. The other is a traditional tuscan dish, dinosaur kale cooked for a long time with onions and garlic. One of my favorites.

The fennel is a traditional [messinese](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messina) salad made with thinly sliced fennel and red onions, traditionally with chopped whole blood oranges, pith and all, but you need to have some special oranges for that, which I didn’t have, so I segmented the oranges and mixed the juice, the zest and olive oil in the blender to make the dressing (traditionally it would just be EV olive oil poured over plus the juice from the oranges).

[Guazzetto](http://omnivorousfish.com/node/265) we’ve been over before, but this is a slightly different one, very popular all over sicily, although I believe it is from Pantelleria originally. Pantelleria is an island between sicily and africa that gets VERY hot; it’s famous for its citrus and for its *passito*, a sweet wine, made from moscato d’alessandria, a more characterful version of its cousin from Asti (in Piemonte). Anyway, it’s made with a lot of onion, some rosemary and the juice and rind of blood oranges (two or three for a 3 pound piece), plus smaller quantities of the traditional wine, tomatoes and stock. We had the meat with a small green salad, *molto california*, if I do say so myself.

Anna (La Mamma in capital letters), was very sweet and brought a simple but simply wonderful pear cake, a plain cake batter poured over pears and baked. It was fantastic.

Much is made of the fact that Anna eats my cooking. When she visits, she does most of the cooking herself, and when people invite her over, she usually refuses food, claiming not to be hungry… but I know better. She ate like a horse at my house, which is about the best compliment I can get.

Then we had a poached salmon with beurre blanc, potatoes anna and brussels sprouts with chestnuts and pancetta. Then a little salad, then a whole baked camembert in pastry. We drank a couple of really remarkable wines, too. With the salads we had a Cusumano Nero d’Avola, which is only the Sicilia IGT, but it’s a great wine nonetheless, and with the salmon we had a Collio from Livio Felluga, which is a Lombardese pinot grigio, one of the finest, and certainly my favorite of the region. I admit I am partial to the Alto Adige DOC wines, esp the ones from Tiefenbrunner, but I find pinot grigio behaves a lot better when treated like a german grape than when treated like an Italian one. I’m fascinated by that area of the world, Friuli and Alto Adige especially, and also Istria (where they speak Istrian; an Italianate derivative of Slovenian). I mean, these are Italian people, eating Speck and drinking austere whites that speak german… and are Italian. Of course, I grew up speaking a language that Turks can understand, eating pasta with preserved lemon, and I think I’m Italian, too, so go figure.

I realized that I really like cooking, and tasting, but I find the actual act of eating kind of lackluster. I thrive on the fellowship of a meal, yet the shoveling food in my face is among my least fave parts of it. The first taste of something followed by a sip of the perfect wine… then I kind of just want rice. It’s funny, when people just drop by for dinner or I cook for myself (very rare) I cook mostly vegetarian, almost vegan, really, minus cheese. The other night I had a friend by and I cooked a pilaf of bulgar wheat (which I absolutely adore) with raisins, steamed red russian kale with tamari and the world famous celery root and radish salad.

Holy shit, I’m rambling. I think I might post this. Don’t be offended.

Listening: Pepino D’agostino “Ancora Un Instante” Venus Over Venice

Very often, when I have leftovers, they sit in the fridge until they start to move around on their own, with the exception of self-evidently useful things like [ham](http://omnivorousfish.com/node/104) or [chicken](http://omnivorousfish.com/node/61). Sometimes that kills you, though, like when you make *lapin a la moutarde* one night and 3/4 of it languishes in the fridge. Well, anytime you have any sort of moistened meat left over, but it’s not enough to feed anybody, just remember: that is the stuff of legendary pasta sauces.

Pappardelle with Rabbit

A traditional celebratory country meal in Italy will be comprised of several courses, but all the meat elements will come from one meager cut, usually of the less glamorous variety. I once had a delectable meal of cold antipasti, homemeade *strozzapreti* with *guazzeto* made from the shin meat of a water buffalo leg, and then the braised leg itself with potatoes and beans. It is one harmonius theme, and symphonic in its effect.

Anyway, the point is a simple braise can be stretched into a very impressive sauce for pasta, especially wide, sauce-scooping varieties like fettuce and pappardelle. When these pastas are made fresh, the experience is sublime. And let’s face it, with a little practice, pasta is a breeze.

Rabbit meat for sauce

I moistened the meat with a little milk and cooked it gently. When it was about ready, I dropped the moments old pappardelle in, and- whammo- they were done. Good stuff.I didn’t even drain them, I grabbed them out of the water with a fork. Old school.

The apt wasn’t ready, the kitchen wasn’t ready, I was barely ready, and we did it, and it was good. Here’s what we ate:

*Amuse piqui* (ok, that’s just a French way to spell picky. sue me.) Salted radishes with champagne vinegar on levain baguette with sweet butter

1st: Creamed Sorrel Soup, cold, garnished with chopped strawberries, served in demitasse cups, which makes me all giddy. *Feudi di San Gregoria Falanghina 2005* This was barely a course, with people lounging around, whimsically sipping their soup. This is so cool.

2nd: Fresh Tagliarini with Asparagus, Cream, Sage and Black Pepper. In a rare moment of showmanship (tee hee), I hand rolled a table-sized sheet of pasta for everybody to order. The nice thing about pasta this fresh is that it is completely light, and cooks instantaneously. Little purple sage flowers are beautiful on dishes like this. It also got a last minute grating of pecorino romano.

3rd: Poele of Chicken with Bacon and Green Garlic, and Firecracker and New Fire Lettuce Salad (this is a combo dry-moist heat cooking technique, look for more on this soon) *Qupe Syrah Central Coast 2004* The salad was dressed with champagne vinegar, mustard and extra virgin olive oil.

4th: Crepes with Swanton Farms Strawberry Jam and Shuna’s Magic Bergamot Orange Jam *Royal Tokay Wine Co. 5 Puttonyos Tokay*

And I served chunks of non-regulation chocolate with our coffee. [Somebody](http://eggbeater.typepad.com) made me feel so bad about having this brand of chocolate in my house that I chopped it up for coffee. Jeez.

Listening: NPR, BBC World Service

Having people over for dinner should be about fellowship and a decent meal. And while we should all have the presence of mind to be responsible omnivores, criticizing the ingredients people are nice enough to feed to you, or their provenance, is rude and counterproductive.

And for all those people who want to talk about organic this and biodynamic that, insisting that olive oil come from a conventional farm in far away Greece, when there are legion organic olive oils coming from (6000 miles closer) California is not only moronic, but hypocritical, and you don’t deserve to come to my house for dinner.

I’m alone with my thoughts, about this party and the people who were here and the people who weren’t. This was my party for many years; now it’s ours. I’m ok with that, just getting used to the idea. I still hear the din and the glasses clinking and chirping and the faint whisper of christmas music in the background. The phantom party lives on in my mind.

Many people who were here will read this, and I want to thank you. Just like my work is nothing without an audience, so is my hobby. If you weren’t here, especially Nick, you were missed. When the show you work at changes, your surroundings change, the people in your life change. The moments that were really good live on in my memory and in this christmas party. Often, it’s the only time of the year I see the people who made those times special. They’re doing other shows, I’m doing other shows, that’s how it is. But tonight, I can offer a slice of ham and a glass of wine to damn near everyone I’ve ever met, and I love it. I eat a slice or two myself, and when I do, I think about some of the people who simply aren’t here anymore. Like the shows I did with them, they are gone from the stage, but not from memory.

Thanks so much to all of our friends, old and new, who came out. Happy holidays.