Recipe: Seek and Ye Shall Find Pasta

The beauty of home cooking is the improvisation. Take white mushrooms on the edge of freshness + dried mushrooms well soaked + leftover broccoli + red onion and ... I get my umami on.

Round strip of pancetta, chopped
Half a red onion, sliced
Shallot and couple cloves of garlic, chopped
Handful of dried mushrooms, prepped (see below)
Handful of fresh mushrooms, sliced
Tomato, chopped
Steamed broccoli spears
Half a jar of TJ's marinara
Half a bag of gemelli

The dried-mushroom thing sounds like a pain in the ass, but the payoff is lots of delicious broth. Put some dried fungus in a bowl and then cover them with boiling water from the tea kettle to reconstitute. In about 20-30 minutes, you want to strain this using a cheesecloth or paper towel, saving all the liquid in another bowl for later. In between jobs, there's prep.

In a large sauté pan with hot olive oil, brown the pancetta a bit. Then add the onion and shallot and soften them up. Throw in the formerly dried mushrooms as well as the fresh ones, and season with some herbs and salt and pepper. Once those cook down a bit, add the tomato, and a little later toss in garlic. Then you're ready for the sauce. To really clean out the jar, use the mushroom broth; cap and shake, and pour in. Lower the heat. Once it's reduced, add the broccoli to bring the florets to temperature.

Cook your pasta till al dente; this doesn't take too long. Strain and finish cooking it in the sauté pan with the sauce. Stir well with some fresh or frozen basil, if you have it. Plate onto a warm pasta bowl; top with fresh grated Parmesan and red-pepper flakes. Pay yourself $14.95 + tax and tip.

Use the Body, Now You Want My Soul

By popular request I am putting a thought together on body sushi, which appears to be the latest fad in theme dining.

(The theme of themes is in and of itself one of my least favorite things with food, but then again I’m pretty religious in my idealization of the whole process. To wit: Chicken is best eaten with your hands. When approaching pho, take the soup spoon in the left and grip the chopsticks with the right, or vice versa. The grand, non-negotiable order of the universe should be Champagne and shellfish first, then a Caesar and then your main course. Butcher-block paper on the tabletop is to be kept smooth, not curled up by arms and elbows, with doodling welcome. Most people do without the parenthetical graf and just say this is anal. Fine.)

I sent the story to the attention of the main Lefty Bistroan because I wondered whether people were so understimulated that they have to eat off naked people to get excited about something, or whether the guys on the business side were looking for a quick way to rack up the tabs. Then as I was gorging on Spitzer stories, the answer appeared in the aptly titled Wealth Report column of the Wall Street Journal. Here’s why the megawealthy want high-class hookers:

> The most popular reason was “unique experiences” (71%), followed by “higher-quality experiences” (57%). Conventional wisdom says that the rich visit escorts to avoid messy breakups or extra demands for cash. But the study shows otherwise: “No strings attached” ranked last as a reason.

As they say in the service industry, enjoy.

Photo Op: Japanese Sweet Potatoes

Photo Op: Watermelon Radish

From the Planet Organics box.

TJ's New Product Roundup

The past few months we've road-tested a few new products (or new to us) from Trader Joe's. A quick review:

* White bean hummus: It's a nice break from regular hummus, which is always in the Bistro fridge. But it comes topped with a cloying layer of olive oil and sun--dried tomatoes that's hard to avoid. Grade: C+

* Cherry-granola cookies: I used to be indifferent about dessert. Sure, a bite of ice cream or a biscotto would be nice, I would say, but do I need it? Nah. Until now. The cherry-granola cookies are crunchy and moist at the same time, an addictive balance of rich molasses and tart cherry chunks. Grade: A

* No-boil lasagna noodles: Finally. TJ's always carried other fresh pasta options, why not lasagna? Grade: B

* Fage Greek-style yogurt: Thick and creamy, just like I remember eating at a beachfront cafe on Santorini after sleeping all night on the beach. (Those were the days.) One slight difference: the lady of the Bistro demands no-fat, so we get the no-fat. Not nearly as rich, but the texture is about the same. Grade: B+

The Audi Sportscar Food Experience

What do adrenaline-addled guys do after gunning 420-horsepower, all-wheel drive V-8 sport sedans around a Nascar track for three hours in the rain? Stop for lunch, of course.

Audi did it right: spice-crusted pork loin sliced to order, lightly roasted winter veggies like zucchini, eggplant, squash and red onion, baby greens with goat cheese, a little mashed potatoes -- nothing too heavy. We were all wide-eyed and wired from skidding around the turns and keeping up with the instructors in the lead car, so the five of us sat at a too-small table and shot the shit, taking breaks to eat. Dessert nibbles were mini chocolate-chip cookies and three kinds of brownie bites: coconut macaroon, white-chocolate frosting and double-decadent chocolate. A bit of kicking back with bottled water, and then back into the cars.

Buy me a drink and set the timer on, and I'll blab about this as much as you'll tolerate. Let me just say that if you look at the track graphic and check out turn 6, it's a bend that winds down seven stories, and the car can hug that like it's on rails. (9a is a chicane. Special transit-geek points if you know what that is.) The best feeling is when you pull off the track and Nico the born-in-France, raised-in-Brazil professional driver comes over and says you're up to speed.

"Item! Been to 21 and Le Cirque?"

The Jackie Harveyish headline above is funny, because ... because I think it is, anyway. Raymond Sokolov's latest column in the Wall Street Journal, "Bay Watch," isn't funny, and not just because I think it isn't, but because it's plain crap writing that should have been spiked, yesterday or in 1998 or whenever.

Sokolov -- oops, sorry, he says "We" -- "didn't expect to be wowed at Aqua [...] where we had an acceptable lunch a few years back and remember it only as less boring than our dining companions." (Maybe one companion resisted the urge to say "Waiter? Bring me the lobster bisque so I can pour it down this guy's pants." "We'll" never know.) Then there's blah blah blah about venerable Aqua chef's "cutting-edge mix of militantly San Francisco foods," foie gras, abalone, pork belly, chanterelles, this and that. It's like dashing through Whole Foods! Maybe the Journal should send a reporter out shopping.

Skipping his bit about Ame, "an experiment in japonaiserie," the piece jumps to that hot new place, have you heard of it? Boulevard's emphasis is on "local ingredients and basic techniques with a twist." It's a very short graf, even with the deconstruction of the suckling pig from Manteca.

The East Bay vs. West Bay premise is tired and dorky, the "survival guide" approach is spurious except for those on expense accounts and the Wall Street Journal reveals itself, again, to be completely out of its element on this kind of coverage. Next time just call it Frisco so the rest of us can skip and enjoy Perbacco in peace.

You Call it Heparin, I Call it Sausage

The tainted heparin (blood-thinner) from pharma company Baxter has everyone in a tizzy. The WSJ sent a reporter to a heparin-extraction plant in China. Source material: pig intestines. And as one photo caption in this series explains, what doesn't turn into heparin is saved for sausage casings.

The captions say the stuff coming out of the intestines is "pulp." Is that a typo? Shouldn't it be "poop"?

Recipe: Italian Egg Rolls

This is adapted from, um, Dom DeLuise:

Slice up a couple of eggplants, lengthwise, into thin slices, no more than 1/4 inch thick. (Save the odds and ends. See below.) Put them down on cutting boards or something and sweat them out with salt for about 10 minutes. In the meantime, prep your station: Beat a couple of eggs, and get your bread crumbs on a plate. Grease a couple of cookie sheets. Preheat the oven to 350.

Dab the moisture off the eggplants with a paper towel, and then take the slices one by one and dredge them in egg and then in bread crumbs and lay them on the cookie sheets. Once they're all done, pop them in the oven for 15 minutes so they get tender.

Take what's left of your setup and bread the odds and ends; you'll fry these as a appetizer for later or save them for sandwiches.

Mix 15 ounces or so of ricotta in a bowl with some fresh-cut parsley. I also added a chopped garlic clove and cracked in some fresh pepper. Slice up a half-pound ball of mozzarella, again in thin slices. I used fresh mozz, since that's what they had at 22nd and Irving.

Now that you've gone through the prep, you're ready to assemble. Put a bit of cheese on a slice of baked eggplant, and top with a spoonful of ricotta. Roll it up and place it seam side down in a baking pan. When you've got them all rolled up and nestled, ladle some marinara sauce on top. (You have some of that marinara you made last time, don't you?) Grate a little Parmesan or whatnot on top and pop the pan or pans back in the hot oven for 30 minutes.

At the end of the evening, you won't exactly look like Dom, but you'll be well sated so you can do all the dishes.

Do Everyone a Favor, Dude: Dine Alone

> Jennifer Esposito, 28, an image consultant who lives in Rye Brook, N.Y., lived for four years with a man who ate only pizza, noodles with butter and the occasional baked potato.

Either give this woman a medal, or take away her meds.

Postcard from the Edge of a Waffle Breakfast

From Bistro friend Paul Festa's Southern film-screening tour:

Breakfast was at the Waffle House. The signage was so getto [sic!] that I was sure I had chosen a local favorite, but I wasn’t ten minutes in my cream-colored PT Cruiser (the gayest car in South Carolina and George combined!) when I saw another, and then another, and soon I realized that I had breakfasted at the iHOP of the south.

Click here to read the whole post, complete with sly Louis Prima reference.

Pizza Photo of the Week

You asked for it, you got it: pesto sausage, crimini mushrooms, and the United States of arugula.

Hot Hot Heat

Yuck? Pickles and Kool-Aid

This is less a "Yuck?" and more of a "Yuck!", combined with a sober acknowledgment that our little United States of Arugula isn't feeding the souls or any other part of the underclass. In places like the Sunnydale projects, people have trouble finding a market with fresh produce -- if they can get out of the apartment at all, as a story in today's Chron relates.

The finished products are placed on the table next to a tub of licorice and a jar of pickles soaking in Kool-Aid, another popular snack in Sunnydale's underground stores. As if he heard the oven buzzer, a young boy stops in and asks Sandy if she made cupcakes yet. He gives her 50 cents and she drops it into a black ceramic jar on her kitchen counter.

Review: Salt House/SF/USA

My current read is David Kamp's "The United States of Arugula," which is broadly about the emergence of our national cuisine due to the vim and vigor of the Great Gourmets (Beard, Claiborne, Child, et al.) and grand capitalism trailing gustatory trends. "So, you want baby greens? You want Scharffen Berger? You can have it all."

Where a place like, say, Zuni has been pointing this way all along, a place like Salt House in the financial district, I'd say, no longer has to genuflect toward France or Italy. We've come a long way, baby, and Rupert's paying.

With shellfish so fresh and rabbit so tender and a wine list so versatile, the Old World never really goes away, but it's like a culinary Obama moment, where the California or continental cuisines are day-old definitions. Striped bass with red cabbage and chorizo? Fine. Parsnip soup? It's wintertime. Fulton Valley chicken and fingerlings? You're welcome.

Great lighting, warm furniture to offset the cool-glass picture windows, attentive and informed service, a little loud but a lot of fun. Perfect portions. Homemade cookies.

Now going for two years, you've got to hand it to the management -- not just for keeping the expense-account crowds coming, but for finding the foodie sweet spot and serving it up. If the Fanch is reading, maybe she can talk about the partners running this show (along with Town Hall). They've got it dialed in.

Stack 'Em High

This goes against everything I went over in the last post, and maybe the last couple of posts. But I would be among those eager to do this, for the sake of doing something incredible. I also like to eat with my hands.

Look at the sheer enormity of meat in this picture. Also note the bottle of Dr. Pepper next to the cans of acetylene fuel. Is that for flavoring, or to keep the cooks awake while they wield those machetes?

The only thing you have to wonder is what kind of beer they put out, and who has to drive home.

Mostly Plants

K recently dazzled me with two big pans of lasagna, a food memory now slightly tinged by the fact that it had two pounds of the red stuff. Today I have to pat myself on the midsection, because except for two tiny, tiny slices of smoked ham I had a meatless day.

Lunch was at Wildflower, spendy and toothsome as always, and for dinner I scrounged around the fridge for the last of mushrooms and celery to sauté, tossing in a clove of garlic at the end. Meantime I prepped the assembly: First the tortillas, then the brie, smoked cheddar, ham, spinach new from the TJ's bag. Topped the stack with the veg, and in the same pan folded in the two torts.

Five minutes later, a flip. Five minutes later, they sit on a plate, and I scoop out half an avocado on 'em. Finish with some salsa from a jar, and feed.

The Reds

Whew! Now we've gotta push back on the other red flesh besides tuna. This food blog is going to to turn into a guilt blog by the time I'm done.

here's a money quote that dovetails with my "send the marketplace a message" mantra:

> If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.

I heard long ago that Harris Ranch had 100,000 head of cattle, and now the New York Times backs me up.

Bistro East, Part 3

I'm a bit remiss in finishing the report of our trip to New York. The weekend got off to a rousing start when I met a certain ex-Kazakh gentleman Thursday eve at the venerable Knickerbocker Bar & Grill on University. We sat at the bar and kibbitzed with the harried bartendress, ate guinea-hen quesadillas (really), and ordered something like a few martinis. Whatever the final count, it was enough to prompt the 'tendress to offer us, unprovoked, a drink on the house.

By 8.30 my friend was piling into a cab to get to his next social engagement. I staggered back to the in-laws and tried to pretend to be half-sober. My cover was blown a couple hours later when Da Fanch opened the bathroom door and found me kneeling in prayer to the porcelain goddess.

The next day, work at the Madison Ave. headquarters of the Singular Capitalist was a bit rough. My head cleared a bit after a dash through the rain and lunch at a hot-pot pho joint on 32nd St. with my editor.

By evening, I was raring to go. After a tour of the Gray Lady's new armoire, my Riv-eting companion and I hit the West Village, which probably means a lot less today than it did, say, 25 years ago. We found a darling little spot run by Venezuelans, Flor's Kitchen, which was fairly cheap and down-home enough to serve gristly but super-flavorful steak and greasy but super-flavorful arepas. Just like Hugo's mama used to make it.

The culinary highlight of the trip, however, was served not at a restaurant but Saturday night in my in-laws' dining room. Cousins of Da Fanch brought venison from their upstate farm. We salted and peppered several steaks, seared them and finished them in a hot oven. It was meat the way off-duty chefs eat it: hot, browned outside, red inside, with a pan sauce that's half red wine and half blood. Chew on that for a while.

I've actually left out a few interesting meals, but like me after 10 days in New York, this post has had enough.

Show of Hands

Who's ready to cut back on fishy sushi? Anybody?