Dominoes

I have been noodling with different ideas for my end-of-the-year post for about a week or so now. I bandied about the idea of a 2011 ‘round-up’ and even started that one – I got two paragraphs in and everything. I guess I abandoned it when I realized 2011 has been a year I have been kind of ambivalent about. I mean, it has been quite a year. A year that feels like a minute. But, without trying to sound maudlin, a year I’m perfectly fine with passing into a new one.

Admittedly, I am tremendously excited about 2012. But I ought not get my panties in a bunch about a year that has not yet begun.

2011 has had a lot of beauty, don’t get me wrong. It has just been very Big. I have seen some friends go away and come back, seen some friendships become incredibly fueled and intense in both good and bad ways, seen some go away never to return again and I feel I have been strengthening my relationship with my mom. I have eaten a mountain of amazing food, drunk vats of delicious wine, added a beautifully intense Chihuahua to my family, danced in closed restaurants with random people until four o’clock in the morning, traveled through Europe with friends and family; at times cried myself to sleep on the couch but at times also wanted to spin around on top of a mountain singing with joy.

But I’ve wanted something that hasn’t been there. Something I have been missing for some time. Something I didn’t even realize I forgot what it felt like. Until I felt it. Again. And, as a result, right this minute, as 2011 is about to slide into 2012, I am so very full and warm and fuzzy and happy. But I did just eat a pile of carnitas/asparagus/bacon/potato hash with two fried eggs on top.

The past couple of days I have thinking a lot about dominoes. It clearly began on Christmas Eve. Fred and I made dinner. We roasted a turkey, stuffed with Meyer lemon, covered in a weave of bacon and served with a sherry-pan gravy, a burrata and beet salad, roasted parsnips and my Brussels sprouts with toasted hazelnuts in a sage-brown butter. We also riffed on a recipe I had seen in Bon Appetît a few months back called ‘domino potatoes’. I had been wanting to prepare it since I first saw it, so I was excited. It’s a beautiful dish.

But then I started thinking about dominoes and moreover, tesselation, in general. In the area of math, the word domino often refers to any rectangle formed from joining two congruent squares edge to edge. To go in a bit further, tessellation is the process of creating a two-dimensional plane using the repetition of a geometric shape with no overlaps and no gaps. Generalizations to higher dimensions are also possible. Think M. C. Escher.

One use of dominoes is standing them on end in long lines so that when the first tile is toppled, it topples the second, which topples the third, etc., resulting in all of the tiles falling. By analogy, the phenomenon of small events causing similar events leading to eventual catastrophe is called the domino effect.

Well, over the past month, I have been toppling and my walls have been falling. There have been moments where I have feared the possibility of eventual (or immediate) catastrophe. I guess is big part of me still harbors that fear. But I have simultaneously felt a form of tessellation has occurred – its as though a plane with no overlaps or gaps has been created. With two congruent squares, edge to edge, a rectangle has been formed and, as a result, higher dimensions are now possible.

And this, my friends, is one of the primary reasons I am so very much looking into that which the possibility of 2012 holds. Right now, it seems infinite.

I wish each and every one of you a beautiful and inspired 2012...

Roasted Domino Potatoes

Serves 8

Ingredients

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, divided

3 1/2 pounds Idaho potatoes (4-6 large)

1 tablespoon chopped, fresh rosemary

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

24 (about) fresh or dried bay leaves

Kosher salt and fleur de sel

Fresh cracked pepper

Preparation

Preheat oven to 425°. Brush a 13x9x2" baking dish or cast-iron griddle with 2 Tbsp. butter. Peel potatoes and trim ends (do not rinse). Trim all 4 sides of potatoes to form a rectangle. Using a mandoline, cut potatoes crosswise into 1/8" slices, keeping slices in stacks as best you can.

Re-form slices from each potato into a stack. Place in prepared dish, fanning apart slightly like a deck of cards. Insert bay leaves and garlic between potato slices at even intervals. Season with rosemary,salt and pepper and drizzle with remaining 4 Tbsp. butter.

Bake potatoes, rotating the dish halfway through cooking, until the edges are crisp and golden and the centers are tender, about 1 hour. Sprinkle with fleur de sel.

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One year ago: Vinegar-Braised Chicken with Garlic and Celery Leaves

To years ago: 2009: The Year of the Food Truck

I'm Totally Rushing You In the Fall.

Things are happy. Things are good. Business is good, things feel pretty stable, and, on these crisp nights, I can rock layers (clothing). Thanksgiving has passed and Christmas is coming up really fast. Usually I am a pretty major Christmas geek. I love Christmas music, the tree, the decorating, the parties, the excuse to be over dressed and wear sparkly things, the excuse to be over dressed, wearing sparkly thinks while drinking sparkly things.

This year I don’t feel as much like Mother Christmas as I usually do. I don’t foresee having my annual Christmas party, I’m entirely unclear what I’m giving to whom as gifts (and I usually have that on lockdown months before), and I’m not even getting a tree. I have dug the big boxes of Christmas from the garage, so that’s a start.

A lot of this could be because of the timing of the most recent Dinner at Eight. That would have been last Friday. But even though that’s over and done with, I don’t feel like I can concentrate on things. I am decidedly distracted. I’ve barely even written anything this month. But maybe that’s because I have a crush.

I do.

 

And it (he) has taken quite a bit of my physical and mental space over the past few weeks. He’s coming over for dinner tonight. I haven’t cooked for him yet. I’m nervous. Why am I nervous? I cook for people all the time. I cook for friends, family and even complete strangers. All. The. Time. And yet I’m nervous to cook for Fred tonight. I know I’m going to make my oyster stew. However, I don’t know what will follow. I’m sure it will be fine. I’m sure it will be better than fine. I’m sure it will be delicious and fun.

But I’ve still got the swirlies. Ugh.

Anyway, this past Sunday we spent the better part of the day making cassoulet. I’ve wanted to make cassoulet for forevers. It’ one of my very most favorite dishes. Cassoulet night at Lucques is something I look forward to all year (that’s coming up, by the way). Our cassoulet making was a really fun process that began with procuring our Meat(s) at Lindy & Grundy around one o’clock and ended on Fred’s couch, chowing down at about eleven o’clock. And that was with the fast soak on the cannelini beans. We spent a good deal of the down time doing the Sunday crossword and watching In A Lonely Place (best movie, ever). It all worked out really nicely. It was good times and good food, I must admit. And, as you know, I do so love a Process. And a Sunday. And a cassoulet.

So, back to tonight. I’m thinking either scallops or a stuffed pork tenderloin. Something with beets? I welcome your thoughts on the matter. Regardless, I’ll keep you posted on how tonight’s meal turns out. Promise.

Our Sunday Cassoulet

Serves 6-8

1 lb. dried cannelini beans
10 tbsp. duck fat 

16 cloves garlic, smashed
5 shallots, chopped3 carrots, chopped

1 large ham hock
1 lb. lamb neck, cut into 1"cubes
1⁄2 lb. pancetta, cubed
4 sprigs oregano
4 sprigs thyme
3 bay leaves
1 cup whole peeled canned tomatoes
1 1/2 cup white wine
2 cups chicken stock

2 confit duck legs (we used chicken legs)
1 lb. pork sausages
2 cups bread crumbs

Soak beans in a 4-qt. bowl in 7 1⁄2 cups water overnight. Heat 2 tbsp. duck fat in a 6-qt. pot over medium-high heat. Add half the garlic, shallots, and carrots and cook until lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Add ham hock along with beans and their water and boil. Reduce heat and simmer beans until tender, about 1 1⁄2 hours.

Transfer ham hock to a plate; let cool. Pull off meat; discard skin, bone, and gristle. Chop meat; add to beans. Set aside.

Heat 2 tbsp. duck fat in a 5-qt. dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add lamb and brown for 8 minutes. Add pancetta; cook for 5 minutes. Add remaining garlic, onions, and carrots; cook until lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Tie together oregano, thyme, and bay leaves with twine; add to pan with tomatoes; cook until liquid thickens, 8–10 minutes. Add wine; reduce by half. Add broth; boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook, uncovered, until liquid has thickened, about 1 hour. Discard herbs; set dutch oven aside.

Meanwhile, sear duck legs in 2 tbsp. duck fat in a 12" skillet over medium-high heat for 8 minutes; transfer to a plate. Brown sausages in the fat, about 8 minutes. Cut sausages into 1⁄2" slices. Pull duck meat off bones. Discard fat and bones. Stir duck and sausages into pork stew.

Heat oven to 300˚. Mix beans and pork stew in a 4-qt. cast iron dutch oven. Cover with bread crumbs; drizzle with remaining duck fat. Bake, uncovered, for 3 hours. Raise oven temperature to 500˚; cook cassoulet until crust is golden, about 5 minutes.


Printable recipe


One year ago: Linguine with Pancetta Mushroom Cream Sauce
Two years ago: The Flying Pig Truck

Duck, Duck, Fat: Dinner at Sun Ha Jang.

This past Saturday night was very exciting. First off, I may or may not have been on a date. But more importantly, I was taken to two (2) places in my City of Angels that I had never been nor had any prior knowledge of. That’s pretty rare.

I was sent an email a day or two before Saturday with a link to the prodigious Mr. Gold’s review of our restaurant destination: Sun Ha Jang. So I was aware and prepared for whatever lay ahead. That would be duck. Excitement mounted.

At precisely seven o’clock (right on time!) I was picked up and off we went. To Koreatown. And just as I was noticing the façade for a spa I sent my mom to as a gift for Christmas some years ago that left her with PTSD to this day (another story), we were parked smack in front of the restaurant.

Sun Ha Jang was bright, but not too bright, tidy, small and about halfway filled up. I think this was about seven thirty. We were seemingly the only non-Koreans in the house, which was a comforting sign. We were seated immediately and handed golden menus with those hologramy-winky pictures in them. We hardly perused the menu at all before our server came over to get our order. This was fine as we didn’t really know what we were doing and we were pretty much going to go for what was suggested from the review. The Roasted Duck. I’m guessing they were used to Korean food dilettantes coming in, clutching their reference guides Smart Phones since she just kindly nodded, and knew exactly what to deliver.

So right after we got our bottle of soju, a bottle of cold tea, and the usual assortment of panchan, kimchi and marinated bean sprouts, came the sliced duck. Our server was kind to us and guided us through The Process wordlessly. She gingerly placed the round, thick, marbled and fatty duck slices on the griddle in the center of the table with a generous smattering of whole cloves of garlic. Then she picked up a chunklet of kimchi and used it to plug the griddle's drain. We later realized this was to preserve all that glorious duck fat.

After just a few minutes we started to pick at the duck, flipping it and whatnot as I had read that we should by no means allow them to condense into chewy nubs. This was when our server hustled back over to assist, and also where I will insert my companion’s only sound bite from the evening for this post, “Aside from the yumminess of the duck and duck fat roasted garlic and the good company, what sticks in my mind the most was the maternal weariness with which the waitress took over as she watched my relative clumsiness in flipping the duck over on the griddle.”

Did you see that? I’m good company!

Anyway.

When the duck was ready to come off the griddle our server even showed us how to assemble and eat everything together. She made a whole presentation on Date’s plate. The result was not unlike a duck salad: the chopped, dressed lettuce with a few slivers of marinated onion, and a little julienned pickled radish, garnished with the duck topped with a few strands of sliced Korean leek and a small dollop of chili paste. It was fresh and clean, yet rich and unctuous. Each bite was crisp, cool and bright right alongside with being warm, supple and lush.

After a little more time and a lot more bites, the cloves of garlic were all roasty, with crisp outsides and warm, oozy insides. At this point I just wanted to eat bites of the garlic rubbed over slices of the now, ever so slightly brittled duck meat that remained.

But there was more. I knew it was coming and I was aflutter. Our server then brought us a bowl of rice cooked with beans and dumped it onto the griddle, sprinkling it with herbs and sesame seeds. And there it sizzled away as it cooked in that beautiful, seasoned duck fat until it was perfectly crunchety on the bottom.

And then I was sated.

I very much enjoyed my meal and my experience at Sun Ha Jang. I do so love a process. An interactive meal, so to speak. The company was pretty great too.

And then we were off, into the night. Off to destination number two, and as mentioned above, yet another new experience for me, a bar called 1642. This place serves only wine and beer, is perfectly dark and plays almost-but-not-too-loud-and-very-good jazz. Wine and conversation ensued.

This was a good night.


One year ago: Salt's Cure
Two years ago: Grace

Frankly, my dear...

I watched Gone With the Windfor the 7,539^th time on Thanksgiving. We couldn’t find Home For the Holidays on TV and Maggie had never seen it before. Seemed like a good idea. That film has always had a profound effect on me, but usually in that hopeless-romantic-why-can’t-Rhett-and-Scarlett-just-figure-it-out-already-and-realize-they’re-meant-to-be-together way. As usual, I was a bumbling mess of tears and sniffles when Rhett walked out the door, but this time, for a different reason. I again found myself really identifying with Scarlett, but for a different reason.

Yes, I always appreciate her spirit, her determination, her independence, her fortitude, her bitchiness, her passion. Her moxie. But this time I really saw what propelled these qualities.

Tara.

It made me think hard on that from which we draw our strength. Or, perhaps, that from which I feel I’ve drawn my strength recently.

The little brick house with the big blue doors. Grove Ave. Richmond. Home.

I don’t know what it is. I realize that, while the climate changes with each season, and, depending on where you fall on the matter, global warming, it also changes in our public and private lives. In our cities, our communities and ourselves. And I feel a new wind blowing through mine.

Los Angeles is so many things to me. The most complicated relationship I’ve ever had in my life is the one I have with this city. And yes, I do call it home. But, even at a fairly steady seventy-five degrees year-round, it can often feel very cold.

It loves me and I love it but rarely at exactly the same time do we love each other exactly the same way. And isn’t that always the rub?

I fancy to label myself as strong. And while, I think if I were in a horror movie, I’d probably play dead to fool the killer and not get killed, I really am a fighter. Or, perhaps, I am a survivor. I left home right after I graduated high school deigning never to return (to live). And since graduating from college in Ohio in the mid-1990s, I have been on a trajectory that has taken me to city after city, each one bigger and busier (and traffic-ier) than the one prior. And all the while I’ve been fighting. I’ve been trying prove something. Right now I’m just not so sure what.

And so lately I think It has all been catching up to me. I’m really tired. I mean, really tired. I feel like I’ve been a player in Running Manor something. I want to sleep.  I want to sleep for a long time. Like, a whole day. I want to sleep and I want someone to rub my head. I want to be the Scarlett that Rhett so longed she would let herself be, but just didn’t know how. And I don’t want to be the Scarlett that realized all of this when it was too late.

Or maybe it wasn’t. 

Photo by Maggie.

I mentioned a month or so ago that I think I just need to go home more frequently. I think it’s as simple as that. I think that once the holidays have passed, and my work slows down, I will do just that. Then and there I will sleep (if Dad lets me). I will fuel up, regain strength. And then I can return to my City of Angels bright-eyed and bushy tailed.

After all… tomorrow is another day.

My mom has been baking cranberry nut bread for as long as I can remember, usually around the holidays. And, although I have never wanted anything to do with cooked fruit, for some reason I have always loved this bread. And so - not unlike Scarlett and Rhett, or me and my City of Angels - here we have another complicated relationship. And one that’s worth it.

This bread is perfect lightly toasted with butter alongside your morning coffee and, perhaps your Scarlett or your Rhett...

Classic Cranberry Nut Bread

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
2 tablespoons shortening
1 egg, well beaten
1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup chopped pecans

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.

Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a medium mixing bowl. Stir in orange juice, orange peel, shortening and egg. Mix until well blended. Stir in cranberries and pecans. Spread evenly in loaf pan.

Bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely. Wrap and store overnight.

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Two years ago: Bool BBQ Truck

Simplicity: The Hallmark of Genius

My mother's name Kathryn Virginia. My grandmother called her Divinia (Virginia jumbled up and pronounced similarly) and nicknamed her Divi. Most Virginia's are nicknamed Ginny or Ginger but my grandmother had her own special naming and language process. My grandmother had her own special way of doing most things. The mother of five, she became weary of hearing "Mom, oh Mom, Mama" from her brood. Once she announced that she was to be addressed as Brenda (not even close to her name: Esther), so for almost a month she would not respond to anything but Brenda.

If you recall, my mom also has her own special, shall we say, language. Recently, water has turned into watzee, Maggie is Magothy, and I’m still Tweeters. I too have fun playing with my words. So I suppose the apple has not fallen far from the tree for the past three generations.

My grandmother passed away when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. I don’t think I knew her all that well but do I have some very specific snapshots of her and her world. First of all, I swear she looked just like Roy Orbison. There was often cream chipped beef on toast happening in the kitchen. And one time, when I was crying about something, she gave me a Monchichi coloring book to try to lift my spirits. I used to love those Monchichis. I remember really loving her bathtub, and I can also recall a hole in the floor upstairs in her house that looked down into the kitchen. I had all of my Christmas mornings at her house in Roanoke until she passed away.

Apparently Grandma made a very involved and very decadent rum cake of which my mom has a very specific, very visceral memory. According to Mom, the cake took days. Part of its process involved wrapping the cake in a rum-soaked towel overnight. Apparently this cake weighed about as much as the family dog. Mom has been trying to unearth that recipe for quite some time now, to no avail.

I’m spending today writing this and trying to track down a recipe that fits the bill for that elusive cake. I'm poring through vintage cookbooks, asking my food cohorts via Twitter, and searching online. I even sent an email to Aunt Babe and Noel. We shall see. If unearthed, this will be the cake served at the December 16^th Dinner at Eight. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime I am going to share with you the recipe for the most elegant, yet simple, hors d'oeuvres I can imagine. They are little onion sandwiches and they were served at the most recent Dinner at Eight during cocktail hour. I had been hearing about them for years. Mom used to make them in her café back in Richmond and they were a hit. My dad even called me one time after he stopped by a party for their mutual friend, Breeda, where Mom had served them. He said he ate five of them in as many minutes and then had to promptly leave because of his onion breath. I guess they were so good, he sacrificed the party for the sandwiches. Priorities.

The success of this dish depends on the quality of the bread used and the thinness of the onion-slice filling, which must be nearly transparent. I highly recommend using a mandoline. And, of course, you must use Duke’s mayonnaise.

Divinia’s Tea Sandwiches

12 servings

24 slices of a fine-textured white bread
36 small, wafer-thin slices raw sweet onion
1 ½ cup Duke’s mayonnaise
Salt to taste
1 cup minced parsley

Cut the slices of bread into rounds with a small biscuit cutter (or a water glass), about one inch diameter.

Choose small onions and slice them so that each circle will be a little smaller than the bread rounds.

Spread each piece of bread with mayonnaise. On half the pieces arrange the onion slice and season with salt. Cover the onion with the remaining pieces of bread to assemble sandwiches.

Spread the remaining mayonnaise on a wooden board and sprinkle the chopped parsley on another board. Hold each sandwich round lightly between thumb and finger so it will turn like a wheel. Roll the edge in mayonnaise, then in parsley. Set the sandwiches, as they are completed, on waxed paper and chill thoroughly.

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Two years ago: Buttermilk Corn Soup with Curry & Mint