Take Me Out To the Ball Game.

Things are making more sense now. Or, perhaps, I am making more sense of things now. Or, perhaps, I am feeling more sensible now. Maybe yesterday’s earthquake shook me back to my overly organized self. For this, I am relieved. I accomplished all of my Monday paperwork and tedium before noon, then ran errands, did laundry, and even made my bed (which I never do). Captivating stuff, right?

I’m also very excited that today is opening day of baseball season. Yes, it's true, I love baseball. I actually went to a game this past Saturday. I have always loved baseball but it got pretty serious about 10 or so years ago in Atlanta. I dated a major Braves fan. It all made sense at the time. I grew up in Richmond, VA, which was home to the farm team for the Atlanta Braves, aptly called the Richmond Braves. If you showed up after the 4^th inning you’d be let in for free. My friend Sam and I would go all the time when we were in high school. And, of course, Dad took me to games as a kid. The Richmond Braves have since been sold. Richmond's farm team is now called the Flying Squirrels. Don't even get me started...

Anyway, at the time, Mark, the Atlanta Braves fan, still collected baseball cards, went to games by himself, kept score at the games (which is quite a process if you are familiar with what I'm talking about), and even listened to them on the radio. He taught me more than I ever thought I wanted to know about the sport. I recall an entire inning being spent with him explaining the intricacies of the balk rule. You’d be surprised, but this endeared me to him enormously.

Chipper Jones (Braves) at bat and Paul LoDuca (Dodgers) catcher. Circa 2002. Mark gets photo credit (shot through his binoculars).

Many moons have passed since Mark and I went our separate ways, but I still keep up with the sport (as, I’m sure, does he). I still love the Braves, but am also a Dodgers fan now. I don’t really listen to games on the radio, or watch much of them on TV (depends on the game), but I just love going to them. The smell of the stadium, the energy in the air, the complete melting pot of cultures, classes and ages, the spirit, the Americana, the hot dogs, peanuts and beer. Interestingly, this is one of the very few occasions during which I will drink beer. Or wear a baseball hat. Or hat of any kind, for that matter.

With the nostalgia brought on by the familiarity of what I associate to be the onslaught of all things Summer, my thoughts are brought back to the kitchen - or in this case, the grill.

A while back Chris found a recipe in The Week illustrating how to prepare the perfect steakhouse steak. You know, with the super crusty outside? We loved it and cooked it on both a grill pan and the grill with equal success.

There’s something about the sights, smells and sounds of the promise of Summer:  the clanking of the spoon against the glass stirring the pitcher of lemonade, the smell of fresh cut grass, cicadas chirping at sunset, picnics on red checkered blankets, a late-afternoon thunderstorm and the smell of the charcoal grill wafting down the streets of the neighborhood.

This steak has all of these things wrapped up in each stage of preparation: the smells and sounds of the meat searing and every bite breaking through the crusty exterior into the tender, medium-rare meat. The perfect steak. It really just can’t be beat.

So tonight, as I applaud the Braves 16-5 win over the Cubs and mourn the impending loss by the Dodgers to the Pirates, with comfort and calm in my soul, I sparked up the old grill for the first time in months and cooked me up a steak.

The Perfect Steak

Ingredients

1  14- to 16-ounce New York strip steak (about 1 to 1 1/4 inches thick)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp freshly cracked pepper

1 tsp cornstarch

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Directions

Pat steaks dry with paper towel and rub in salt, pepper and cornstarch.

Wrap steak in wax paper and put in freezer for 30-45 minutes (until a bit hard on the outside but not completely frozen).

Grill steaks on very high heat 4-6 minutes on each side. Douse a little Worcestershire sauce on while grilling.

Plate and serve.

All Lost in the Supermarket.

It seems like it has been a while since I’ve written. Has it? Maybe not. I feel like my sense of time is a little warped right now. Why? I don’t know. The days and weeks are whipping past me at lightning fast speed. Yet the days are theoretically longer now. I think I’m just distracted.

Spring is being so springy right now. It makes me want to be springy, too. I want to play. I want to fly. I am enjoying my distractions. I am still accomplishing what needs to be done, so it should be fine that I’m distractedly springy, right? But, admittedly, I feel guilty. I have not been swimming in food thoughts as much as I’d like, and this is unusual.

I actually haven’t really even cooked in about a week. I don’t feel like I’ve been eating out an unusual amount. Hell, am I eating? This, to me, seems to be a bit strange. Is Mercury in retrograde or something?

Am I escaping something? Am I running towards something? I’m not sure. I imagine it will all figure itself out. I will focus.

Chris came over last night to do his laundry and have dinner. We do this every couple of weeks. So I ran to the store, with nary a recipe in mind, to find inspirato. Interestingly, my shopping was also distractedly springy and unfocused. I bought a bunch of random things hoping some meal concept would jump out at me. I knew I wanted to make something lighter, springier than usual: fish. The trout looked fresh and beautiful, so I bought that. Then I picked up, among other things, a bulb of fennel, a shallot, some green grapes - something was coming together in my head, but only very vaguely. Then, I remembered Chris’ various steamed mussels recipes he has prepared for us in the past and wanted those as well. So I ran back over to the fish counter again. All very disorganized, I know.

When I arrived home, I rifled through the refrigerator to find a bounty of Crimini mushrooms. So I decided to make a soup. Now why, I wonder, did I decide to do that? I just bought a mountain of seafood. See what I mean? Scattered, scattered, scattered.

But it was a good thing to do. Perhaps I was trying to get my footing back in the kitchen by making something I am so comfortable with. And while I made my soup I concentrated on how I was going to put together dinner.

We had steamed mussels in white wine and garlic with crusty, French bread as an appetizer. For the main course I decided to very loosely adapt Suzanne Goin’s grilled pancetta-wrapped trout with verjus, crushed grapes, and fennel gratin. Except I didn’t wrap the trout in pancetta, grill it or use verjus. I served this all with a side of bacon-wrapped asparagus.

I went at this meal strangely. I didn’t really refer to her recipe, except to get the broadest concept of ingredients. And I didn’t exactly adhere to those either. I would say I primarily maintained some of the basic flavor combinations. In the end I was happy with the way everything turned out. Chris absolutely loved the fennel gratin but we both decided it was more of a hash than a gratin. He wasn’t wild about the fish. He was surprised that I would ever use fruit, moreover cooked fruit, in a savory dish and found it to be too sweet for his taste. Shockingly, I really liked it.

It was a nice meal that I was perfectly pleased with. However, it was unlike anything I usually serve and unlike any way I usually go about preparing a meal. I think it’s tremendously interesting that whatever orbit I am in right now came through in every facet of this meal and its composition.

What I will share with you here is the fennel hash recipe. It was great with the fish, but would be equally appropriate with a grilled skirt steak or a roasted chicken.

Potato Fennel Hash

Serves 4

3 tbsp olive oil

1 fennel bulb

1 shallot, thinly sliced

1 tbsp chopped fennel fronds

1 bay leaf

1 tbsp fresh thyme

juice of 1/2 Meyer lemon

3/4 lb fingerling potatoes, boiled and drained

½ cup heavy cream

2 tbsp chopped Italian parsley

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 425F.

Trim the root end of the fennel, cut the stalks off where they meet the bulb, and peel off any outer layers that are brown or bruised. Cut the bulb in half lengthwise, leaving the core intact. Place the halves, cut side down, on a cutting board, and slice the fennel thinly lengthwise.

Toss the fennel in a large bowl with the shallot, thyme, bay leaf, fennel fronds, 1 tbsp olive oil, salt & pepper.

Heat oil in a cast iron skillet until it is very hot and then toss in the fennel mixture. Once the mixture is tender and somewhat translucent (about 10 minutes), toss in the potatoes, and smash them up a bit with a potato masher. Add lemon and stir everything together for about 5 minutes and add cream.

Bake for 30-45 minutes, until golden and slightly crispy on top.

Top with parsley and serve.

29. The Grill 'Em All Truck

I love Metallica. I have loved Metallica for some time, now - and I don’t even really listen to metal. But I do appreciate double bass drum. Growing up primarily on beats, hip-hop and jazz probably had a hand in that. But I will never forget the first time I heard Blackened. It changed something with music and me. I have put that song on countless mixes and still listen to it almost every week. I'm listening to it now. I always play it for my friends who still can’t make sense out of how unlikely it is that I would like it so much. “It’s like a symphony,” I tell them. More often than not I get either a blank stare or a "bless-her-heart" look.

And hell, I have been turning people on to Heavy Metal Parking Lot for well over a decade. I know every single line of dialogue in that epic documentary.

And I love food trucks.

So, as you may imagine, dear readers, I have been pretty geeked about the Grill ‘Em All Truck since day one. They hit the streets near the end of last year, right when I was cramming all those trucks in for my self imposed deadline, and yet I never saw them on any of my routes. Then, it took me awhile to even think about eating at any of the trucks again for a while, even though I do just love their Tweets, in particular. Then, while finishing up some work in Hollywood and on my way back home, there they were. It was an unlikely time of day and location for a food truck. Obviously, I figured they must have been there just for me. So even though I had a co-worker riding along with me, I excitedly pulled over and dragged her to the window to order, all the while explaining the story about these boys.

Manned by BFFs (so un-metal of me, I know), chef Ryan Harkins and burger aficionado/taste tester, Matthew Chernus, Grill ‘Em All is simple: heavy metal and burgers. It’s one of those, why-didn’t-I-think-of-that beauties in the world.

So, last week I ordered the Witte (California cream cheese, deep fried bacon(!!!), beer & sriracha soaked onions & garlic aioli - $8)). I wanted the Lars (seared Hudson Valley foie gras, fried egg, malt vinegar, aioli & chips - $15), but the girl I was with was not down with the foie. Hey, I had just met her. How could I have known? Neither of us were famished, and it was a hot day, so we split our burger. And Matt even told us they could cut it in half for us. Really sweet, but I couldn’t help but feel like a bit of a pantywaist.

 The Witte

We both really liked the burger. The bun was fantastic – shiny, brown and rounded at the top with enough of a crumb to keep the ginormity of the insides together. The meat was nicely cooked for me, about medium. I usually like things almost bloody, but I understand it’s not so easy to accommodate such particulars in truck-land. The deep fried bacon was decadent and awesome. The onions were a little over powered by the cream cheese, which was really the only issue I had with anything that hit my palate that day. I felt that rather than cream cheese, which coats your tongue, the burger would have been more succinct with something more acidic to cut through the powerhouse that was everything else and the grease inherently in the burger. Maybe something mustardy? Maybe a cave aged gruyere?

But still, I knew I wanted to go back. To try more. I just needed a little something else to seal the deal prior to writing this.

And what do you know? They were smack in my truckjectory today! Same location, same time. Kismet.

Same deal as last week… I showed up on the later side of lunchtime, no line, no wait.

The boys remembered me from last week. That always makes a girl feel special. I perused the menu, and really just wanted to try the most basic burger. I wanted to see what they did with bare bones. But they named that burger the Hannah Montana. Good Christ. After getting my burger cut in half last week I was going to be damned if I ordered a chunk of meat called Hannah Montana. I might as well go to the Coach & Horses and order a Shirley Temple. And those of you that know me know that would never happen.

So I ordered the Molly Hatchet (seared fennel smoked sausage gravy, apple wood smoked bacon, with a maple drizzle - $7.50). I felt very satisfied with the bravado of my order until - and I believe they both asked –  “just the burger?” To which I meekly replied, “Um, and a water?” I wanted fries, but I knew the burger wasn’t realistically going to get finished off and I hate wasting food! I’ll try the damned fries next time, guys.

Ryan then handed me 7485061 napkins and said, “You’re gonna need all of these.” This prompted me to ask my age-old truck question, “Why don’t any of you guys ever provide moist towelettes?”

Are you guys ready for this?

THEY HAD THEM!!!!!

After months and months and over 30 some odd trucks, my day had come! I could go on forever about this, but okay, the food!

This was the most delicious angioplasty I have had in recent memory. I felt like Dante, with my copy of the Divine Comedy, standing next to the entrance to hell. 

The Molly Hatchet.  Note the moist towellete on the right.

That fennel smoked sausage gravy was rich, complex, naughty but so divine. And I got it everywhere. The meat was a little closer to the done side than that of last week, but still quality. The bacon added the needed crispy, crunchy to the affair, and that drizzle of maple… that subtle, homey sweetness that perfectly complimented the bite of the sausage and the aristocracy of the fennel. This made me very happy.

This also made a huge mess. Good thing I had that moist towellete...

These fellas are doing something special and seem to be having a blast along the ride. At least, I hope that’s what those huge smiles on their faces are all about. Nothing can possibly beat that. - and it all comes out in their food.

And, apparently they cater parties - and party hard!

The Duchess and The Pea

Spring is springing all over the city of angels and I am really excited about it. I can smell the wisteria and night blooming jasmine, birds are chirping like crazy, everything is green and bloomy, all of my windows are open and I can wear much cuter tops. The clear, bright and warm days morph into clean, cool evenings with a hint of mystery. This is the absolute perfect time of year to be in Los Angeles.

Oh, and did I mention the produce?

Asparagus, artichokes, peas, heirloom tomatoes, arugula, beans, strawberries and rhubarb are all in season right now and the farmers markets are filled to the brim with them. It’s just wonderful.

I lived in Atlanta for about 6 years prior to moving here in late March of 2002. We didn’t have farmers markets like the ones here. There were no outdoor, open-air markets with individual growers. At least, not that I knew of. I’m sure they have them now, of course. There was an interesting place in Decatur called the Dekalb Farmers Market. It was huge and amazing. It was also reminiscent of a Costco, but just for food – a huge warehouse and great prices. The employees had to wear hair nets and no photography was allowed. Looking back, that was actually a really strange place.

One of my closest friends in Atlanta, Michael Fancini, coined me “The Duchess”. I don’t think it was entirely a compliment or an insult and, while I’m not completely sure why he called me that, I get it. If you knew me, you’d probably get it. In fact, everyone in Atlanta got it. So much so, that I became The Duchess. Occasionally, if I was acting particularly persnickety or gooby, Fancini would lengthen the moniker to “The Duchess of Dork”. Cute.

I miss that guy. He had a beautiful Boxer that he named Chesty B. Wiggles. He also worked wonders with polenta.

So, now here I live in this city of sunshine and shadows, limos and lights, diamonds and guns. And this is the place I call home. As far as I know, I currently have no nickname to speak of. But when I’m at the Sunday market, picking over the healthiest, fluffiest chards, nuttiest avocados, brightest dandelion greens, or delicately sifting through the squash blossoms and perfect heirloom tomatoes, I feel like The Duchess.

At last Sunday’s market while delicately examining and selecting my peas, the metaphor was not lost on me: The Duchess and the pea.

And on a beautiful, sunshiney day, remembering my life in Atlanta, Michael Fancini, Chesty B. Wiggles, and the Dekalb Farmers Market, home to make soup I went.

Fresh Mint Pea Soup

*I have a bounty of various mints growing in my garden. I used a mixture of candy mint, lime mint and chocolate mint. If you can find some different mints, they add a wonderful complexity and zing to the soup.

Serves 4-6

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

2 cloves garlic, smashed

1 large shallot, chopped

3 ½ cups fresh peas

3 cups chicken stock

¼ cup fresh mint, chopped

1 cup sour cream

Sea salt & white pepper

Heat oil and butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add shallot and garlic and sauté until tender, about 5-7 minutes. Add peas and stir for a couple of minutes, until well coated. Add stock and bring to simmer. Cook until peas are tender, about 10 minutes. Be careful not to cook too long or on too high heat, to maintain the integrity of the green in the peas.

Let cool for about 15-30 minutes. Puree soup and mint in batches in a blender or food processor until smooth. Return to pot. Can be made 1 day ahead. Cool, cover and chill.

Rewarm soup over medium-low heat and salt & pepper to taste. Garnish with a little sprig of mint and serve.

This soup can be served hot or cold and would pair beautifully with a sparkling vouvray.

Printable Recipe

28. Willoughby Road

A couple of months ago I was in the back seat of someone's car in Santa Monica going to or coming from somewhere. As we drove along we passed a food truck I had never seen or heard of before. I could just make it out as we whizzed by: Willoughby Road. Curious. I thought I was pretty on top of this stuff. How could this one have slipped past me?

As soon as I got home I scrambled to my computer to do some research. Breakdown: two chefs, both graduates of Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena. One, Adrian Ochoa, worked under Ludo at Bastide, while the other, Jeshua Garza, rigorously studied the savory science of bbq throughout Massachusetts. These two friends, from way back in high school, then reunited in Southern California selling their food on Sundays at the Eagle Rock farmers' market and soon after found themselves at the helm of - what else - a food truck serving "classic Southern cuisine, redefined."

It's like the food truck version of When Harry Met Sally.

My friend, Brandon, was recently working on an article about Southern food trucks in LA for Oxford American and called me to talk trucks. Sadly, while I had a world of wonderful words about Mattie's, I knew nothing of Willoughby Road. Perhaps it's because they are one of the quieter trucks in the Twitter world and don't often appear along my preferred stretch of truck-lunch-land, Miracle Mile. Eventually, it actually was Brandon who told me these guys were the bomb diggety.

And so I waited patiently for the right time and place. That was yesterday.

I got one of their sparse Tweets an hour before they opened their window on Miracle Mile. They would be serving from 12-1pm. 1 Hour. I jumped in the car and away I went. I texted Brandon on my way to tell him how excited I was to finally get my hands on this food. He replied that I should say hi to Jeshua and that they were "good folk". Excitement was mounting.

And, I might add, I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day to sit in a sun spot, by a fountain with my truck fare. This was one of those perfect, sunny, warm with a cool breeze, clear, perfect LA days.

As I sidled up I noticed little to no line. Good. I poked my head in the window and asked the guy if he was Jeshua. He was. So after a few kind words about Brandon and his article, and introducing me to his partner, Adrian, I told him to lead the way - to serve me whatever he thought needed to grace my palate.

After a very short wait he handed me a pulled pork sandwich with Thai slaw and apple chipotle bbq sauce ($6) and an order of candied yams with blue cheese and truffle honey ($4). He said he remembered Brandon being quite fond of the yams. Oh! And being the sweetness that he clearly is, Jeshua gave me a bottle of water - on the house. And so, with my treasures, off to a little wall with a little sun spot by a little fountain I went.

Ok. The food, damnit!

The first bite I took was of the yams. I was so intrigued. They were divine (although I added a scant pinch of salt (which I do to everything)). The yams were cooked to perfection, soft and warm. The blue cheese added a pleasant surprise of savory and bite. And somehow the truffle honey, in its subtlety, brought the three flavors together in unison. They were meant to be.

The sandwich was no joke either, folks. The bun was ever so slightly crisped on the exterior but became immediately delicate upon biting down. It held the bounty inside together brilliantly. The Thai slaw was tangy and the slightest bit spicy, but completely fresh. The pork was tender, succulent, a bit sweet and plentiful. The two elements in the sandwich danced playfully across my tongue. The portions are generous and the food is delicious. So much so that I really wanted to finish my sandwich, but I simply could not as I was stuffed.

An hour later, however, I wanted to go back and try a pile of other stuff on the menu. Brandon said the grits were impressive. And as a fellow Southerner, I trust that what he says is true.

Oh, I'll be traveling down Willoughby Road again, my friends. And I hope to see you there.