Wow that was fast.

Lot 1's cute former chef

I don’t make it over to Silver Lake / Echo Park much anymore – it lost some of its allure once it got too trendy to find parking. But I’ve had it in mind lately to make a field trip to the new Lot 1 restaurant ever since I got a rave recommendation from a friend of a mine. “ze food is amazing! You weel lof eet!” (she’s French). And it did sound intriguing with items like a simple arugula salad with guanciale and grated jidori egg and a red wine pot roast with fava beans and candied rhubarb, not to mention a chocolate and fleur de sel mousse with olive oil. Simple but creative food – just my thing. Then I saw the Amy Scattergood feature in the L.A. Times about chef Josef Centeno (late of Opus) and his studiply named but delicious sounding lunchtime baco, and thought I would wait a bit for the post-publicity crowds to die down. Oh well, I guess I lost my chance, since Scattergood now reports that Centeno is leaving.

The story goes that he was walking down the street one day and ran into Eileen Leslie, who was putting the finishing touches on her new restaurant, which was ready to go except for the small detail that there was no chef. Enter Centeno and the buzz began, but these sorts of serendipitous events often end in tears – especially when there is a restaurant involved. After several months behind Leslie’s stoves, Centeno reports that “he doesn’t want to cook for awhile.” Ouch.

I know the feeling. What is it about working in a restaurant that can turn you off cooking? My own denouement came when I started as pastry cook at a super hip and much buzzed about mid 90’s Hollywood restaurant. After a few stints here and there, I got a call from a young chef about a new place opening up in a parking lot off Hollywood Blvd. Chef wanted an Alice Waters-y vibe, and I produced tarts and pot de cremes and delicate cakes served with fruit confits, staying as fresh and local as I could and earning raves for a lemon tart I adapted from Chef’s own. It was all very sun dappled and lovely until one morning Chef came into the kitchen, looked over my shoulder, and I caught a whiff of something on his breath – something like sour milk, or perhaps vomit, no, no – ughhh semen. From that point forward, things were never the same. I can’t explain it, and I do feel bad about it, but I felt small and mean and primal – my sensibilities all in an uproar – and well, how do you tell someone you don’t want to cook for them anymore because they smell like blow job? Quarrels and shouting ensued; I started walking out dramatically on a daily basis. During that time, the kitchen shifted focus away from earthly Alice and towards bad boy Marco Pierre White (read Bill Buford’s Heat for a fantastic portrait of this brilliantly annoying enfant terrible), and suddenly the pastry station was all about spun sugar, and one day I walked out in a huff and didn’t come back. All of this – from first phone call to final huff – took about 3 months to transpire. I thought I’d never cook again. While the desire to cook came back quickly enough, the desire to step into a restaurant kitchen again never has.

Here is a ridiculously rich and delicious chocolate tart that Chef taught me. Use the best chocolate you can find. For the baking shell, I recommend Lindsey Shere’s short crust, recipe below. If you are feeling fancy, serve along side some coffee creme anglaise, a strawberry, cut lengthwise several times and fanned out, and a sprig of mint tucked alongside. Or eat a thin slice or two with coffee, as you would a cookie.

Chocolate Tart

Preheat oven to 400^o

Combine, melt and blend in a bain marie or double boiler over simmering water (do not let the water touch the bottom of your pan)

9 oz good dark chocolate, like Valrhona of Callebaut

½ cup butter

pinch of salt

In electric mixer beat on high until ribbon stage:

6 egg yolks

¼ cup sugar

Fold egg & sugar mixture into cooled, but still warm chocolate. (Add just a bit of the egg mixture and blend into the chocolate before adding the rest).

Beat to stiff peaks

2 egg whites

1 tb sugar

fold 1/3 of the whites into the chocolate, then incorporate the rest.

Fill the tart pan, and bake at 400 for 8-10 minutes, until top appears cracked and cake-like but insides remain running.

Lindsey Shere’s short crust

2 c Unbleached all-purpose flour	¼ ts grated lemon peel
¼ ts Salt	1 tb Ice water; plus
1 tb Sugar	1/2 ts vanilla extract
½ cup unsalted butter, not too cold

Mix the flour, salt, sugar and lemon peel in a bowl. Cut the butter in pieces 1/3-inch thick and quickly cut them into the flour mixture until it is the texture of cornmeal. You can do this with a pastry blender or with your hands by rubbing quickly and lightly between your fingers. Combine the water and vanilla and add to the dough until just blended. Gather into a ball and wrap in plastic. Let sit for 30 minutes, then press into a 9-inch tart pan, making sure it covers the bottom and sides evenly. Wrap the shell in foil and set it in the freezer for at least 30 minutes. Bake it blind (no need to fill the shell with beans) in a preheated 375o oven for about 25 minutes, until golden brown.

Goodbye Donna Deane…

She had the job I always wanted, as head of the Los Angeles Time’s test kitchen. But to tell the truth, I don’t think I would have had the stamina and savvy she’s shown over the last 28 years. Every week, for as long as I ‘ve been reading the L.A. Times Food section, she’s made my mouth water with her great recipes. Often, even if I didn’t try the recipe, I’ve remembered a technique or a tip. Now she’s leaving, a casualty, evidently, of Sam Zell’s massacre of a once great newspaper. It suddenly occurs to me that I should probably credit her for my becoming a serious home cook – Her recipes always sounded irresistible, the instructions made them seem doable, and the results were always a success.

Here’s one that I haven’t tried yet – I found the clipping under a pile of magazines I was in the process of throwing out. Six Gourmet magazines got the boot, but I’m hanging on to Donna’s recipe for this lemon upside down cake.

Lemon Upside-Down Cake

• 4 small lemons (about 4 oz. each)
• 1/2 c. plus 2 T. (1&1/4 sticks) butter
• 3/4 c. packed light brown sugar
• 1&1/2 c. flour
• 1&1/2 t. baking powder
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1 vanilla bean, split
• 3/4 c. sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c. milk

Cut three of the lemons into 1/8-inch thick slices. Remove seeds and set aside. You will have about 30 lemon slices. Grate 1 t. lemon peel from the remaining lemon. Set aside the grated peel; save the lemon for another use.

Heat 4 T. of the butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet or an ovenproof 10-inch saute pan until melted. Brush the sides of skillet with a little of the melted butter. Add the brown sugar, stir until it is moistened with the butter and spread it into an even layer. Arrange the lemon slices, slightly overlapping, to cover the bottom of the skillet. Set aside.

Heat the oven to 350°. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside.

Cut the remaining 6 T. butter into a mixing bowl. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean with the point of a knife onto the butter. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter, scraping down the sides of the bowl, until creamy. Add the sugar and grated lemon peel and beat until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

Add half the flour mixture and beat until blended. Add milk and beat until combined, then add the remaining flour mixture and beat until blended.

Spread the batter over the lemons in the skillet to cover evenly. Bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until the cake is golden and the center tests done. Let the cake stand 5 minutes, then invert the skillet onto a platter. To serve, slice into wedges with a sharp knife. Serves eight. May be served with a lightly sweetened whipped cream, if desired.

Each serving: 498 calories; 5 g protein; 62 g carbohydrates; 3 g fiber; 28 g fat; 17 g saturated fat; 122 mg cholesterol; 274 mg sodium.

— From Los Angeles Times test kitchen director Donna Deane

Oy vey!

I learned a few things about kosher meats yesterday, when I read the NYTimes story about an Iowa kosher meat processing plant and its management’s abuse of undocumented workers. I was then horrified to realize that I’ve bought many of this plant’s tasty kosher chickens at Trader Joe’s!. They are delicious, and cheaper than organic, and I naively thought that because they were kosher, they were, well, pure somehow. I’ve boycotted meat brands because of the treatment of animals before – this is the first time that I’ve stopped buying meat because of the way the humans working there were being treated.

Pied Pipers and miracles…

I’ve been having serious arguments about Obama lately with his faithful, who seem absolutely besotted by him.

Huckabee has said that “he majored in miracles,” and I think that Obama appeals on the same level – his supporters are hoping for magic.

Which is why Oprah, with all her self realization rhetoric, has been such a successful campaigner for him – she has focused the attention of all her adoring fans who think that candle burning, self affirmations and Dr. Phil style tough love can change your life. There’s nothing you can say or do to appeal to people in the throes of magical thinking. I sort of hope they are right, but honestly I think clicking your heels three times is the stuff of movies, not of government.

I’m so confuzed…….

“ U R con-fuzing meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” bff Mary emailed me this AM. I had just spent 45 minutes the day before attempting to steady her wavering resolve to vote for Hillary in Tuesday’s Primary, then I forwarded an email from another friend who is trying to get out the vote for Obama. What gives?

I’ll admit it – my own resolve is wavering – I can’t even rely on my marginally-related-through-heritage connection to the Kennedy clan to help me make up my mind: Caroline and Teddy are stumping for Obama while Bobby’s kids are standing by Hillary.

Last Sunday, Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama had me on the fence for the first time since the campaigns began.

Then I read George Packer’s excellent article on Clinton, and the different between her perception of leadership and Obama’s, in the New Yorker:

“The alternatives facing Democratic voters have been characterized variously as a choice between experience and change, between an insider and an outsider, and between two firsts—a woman and a black man. But perhaps the most important difference between these two politicians—whose policy views, after all, are almost indistinguishable—lies in their rival conceptions of the Presidency. Obama offers himself as a catalyst by which disenchanted Americans can overcome two decades of vicious partisanship, energize our democracy, and restore faith in government. Clinton presents politics as the art of the possible, with change coming incrementally through good governance, a skill that she has honed in her career as advocate, First Lady, and senator.”

“Obama spoke for only twenty-five minutes and took no questions; he had figured out how to leave an audience at the peak of its emotion, craving more. As he was ending, I walked outside and found five hundred people standing on the sidewalk and the front steps of the opera house, listening to his last words in silence, as if news of victory in the Pacific were coming over the loudspeakers. Within minutes, I couldn’t recall a single thing that he had said, and the speech dissolved into pure feeling, which stayed with me for days.”

My point to bff Mary was that I’m just not sure this country can turn itself around on pure feeling and the politics of kumbaya. We need someone who can think critically, who can roll up her / his sleeves and effectively manage us out of this crisis. We can’t afford someone whose strongest suit is their ability to inspire.

Then Frank Rich, who has faithfully articulated my sentiments about the Bush administration many a time, came out with his essay in today’s New York Times:

“What we also know is that, unlike Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama is not hesitant to take on John McCain. He has twice triggered the McCain temper, in spats over ethics reform in 2006 and Mr. McCain’s Baghdad market photo-op last year. In Thursday’s debate, Mr. Obama led an attack on Mr. McCain twice before Mrs. Clinton followed with a wan echo. When Bill Clinton promised that his wife and Mr. McCain’s friendship would ensure a “civilized” campaign, he may have been revealing more than he intended about the perils for Democrats in that matchup.”

Hmmmmm. And then this email plea from my old friend Jon…

“I got started in politics working for Eugene McCarthy back in 68 and worked
my heart out for many candidates until I turned 17. At which point I became
disillusioned with the American political system. I had a glimmer of hope
renewed with Clinton – only to see his willing engagement in attack/reattack
politics squander his administration and its potential.

I feel that we need someone who can rise above the internecine warfare in
Washington that produces such profound apathy in our country. Apathy in
otherwise idealistic people such as myself.

I believe that Barack Obama is the one person running for president who can
change the debilitating politics of the last 20+ years and can rally the
country around some of our most pressing national problems: the war in Iraq,
institutionalized poverty, health care, energy and the environment.

While I appreciate Hilary’s incredible grasp of the issues, her proposed
policies and her ability to debate, I do not feel that she is capable of
creating any kind of consensus with which to enact her programs. I believe
that Hillary and Bill believe in “politics” to the detriment of policy.
Bill’s behavior in South Carolina, convinced me that they learned nothing
from their disastrous years in the White House with its constant calculation
and stonewalling.

Internationally, electing an African American, with an African father, a
last name Obama, who lived in Indonesia for 4 years as a child will go a
long way toward healing the perception in the world that America is a self
centered, xenophobic, intolerant nation.

Finally because I feel that the “experience” issue is still troubling to
some of you – I would just say Nixon – one of the most “experienced”
politicians of our time.”

You may reach him at www.jonreiss.com

My heart or my head? In my heart, I have wanted to vote for a woman for president since I was a young girl. And my head tells me to vote for the bright, competent and battle tested CEO-type: Hillary. But my heart longs to be inspired, and I never saw a corporate boardroom I didn’t like (and I’ve seen more than a few).

Why do I suspect that I won’t know who I’ll vote for until I actually punch the card?

In the meantime, I will turn my attention to something else I read in today’s NYTimes: PUDDING!

But which will it be: the rice pudding with cinnamon and brandy? Or the Guadduja, with its hazelnuts and bittersweet chocolate?

Must everything in life be a decision?

My tell tale – or is it bleeding – heart

Yesterday morning, during a briefly sunny interlude between storms at my favorite cafe, I found myself eavesdropping on a conversation at the table next to mine.

“I like Obama,” a 20-something prospective law student proclaimed between bites of Santa Fe scramble, “but I’m concerned.”

Her boyfriend, who had been absentmindedly watching a bird eat seeds off a saucer on my table, groaned and started chanting “Obama, Obama, Obama…”

A girl sitting next to him playfully hit his shoulder. “Let her talk,” she chided.

“Well, it’s just that I went to his site…” said the aspiring law student. She seemed a little unsure of herself.

“Short on substance?” one of the guys at the table suggested while tapping away at an Apple device with his index finger.

“Yeah, kind of.”

‘Have you read Hillary’s site?” challenged another friend.

“No, but now I guess I have to.”

“I like Hillary,” another of the girls shrugged.

“Obama, Obama, Obama…” The boyfriend started in again on his chant, this time joined by others,until everyone started laughing and then the subject changed.

I envy them their dilemma so early in their adult lives. Who to vote for? The woman? Or the black man?

This morning I read Caroline Kennedy’s editorial in the New York Times.

“I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them.” she concludes. “But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.”

When Caroline Kennedy’s father was assassinated I was in kindergarten. I remember being in a crowd of bewildered children released early from school but somehow knowing it wasn’t OK to be happy about it. I watched Jack Ruby shoot Oswald on TV while I sat folding washcloths and my mother ironed my father’s shirts.

Five years later when Caroline Kennedy’s uncle Bobby ran for president, I was his biggest fan. My parents, who were not similarly enthused, started to include me in their political arguments, which could be fierce but always ended with joking and laughter. When he was murdered just a few months after the murder of Martin Luther King, I sensed evil and I closed my heart around that fear.

I agree with Caroline on at least one point: I have never had a president who inspired me.

In fact, for most of my life I have been dismayed by my government‘s behavior, both at home and abroad.

During the Clinton administration I felt more comfortable, but to be honest it always seemed to be one divisive battle after another, and for the most part, I tuned out.

Sure; the media has changed, the times have changed, the world has changed. Also, I’m not a kid anymore. But I wonder how much my resistance to Obama has to do with what I consider to be his unsuitability for the job.

I listened to Obama speak after his victory in South Carolina. What a racket –what a joyful noise – rose from that crowd. I felt a twinge of sadness mingle with a kind of fear.

My long constricted heart, so unwilling to discharge its loss.

I promised myself I’d lay off Obama…

But every time I hear him say something that’s not about the Clinton’s, I get seriously annoyed. Today it was a newsbite from a stump speech in South Carolina. Obama was talking about education. He said something along the lines of how there are lots of ways to make the educational system better but “if parents don’t parent, there’s not a lot we can do.”

I’m all for better parenting, and I agree that too many people look to teachers and the educational system to raise their kids because they’re either too lazy or too inept or because they honestly think that is how the system works, but his statement seems to lay the blame for the failure of U.S. education on bad parenting, and I most certainly don’t agree with that. I’d say that teacher salaries, crumbling infrastructure, wrong headed thinking about ways of quantifying school success, all rank higher on the list then bad parenting.

And even if bad parenting is the Number 1 reason why Johnny can’t read, we have to find ways to keep Johnny from slipping through the cracks. It’s not his fault his parents aren’t holding up their end of the bargain.

Why I’m glad I’m not a Republican and/or don’t live in Michigan

From the NY Times: Romney Beats McCain in Michigan Vote

Mitt Romney, seizing on his personal ties to a state where
his father made his family’s political and financial fortune,
captured a must-win victory in the Michigan primary on
Tuesday…

Let’s unpack this, just for fun:

Mitt Romney, a former management consultant/venture canpitalist (the guys who help eliminate / outsource jobs so that businesses can make more profits for top management to exploit) wins in a deeply economically troubled state,

“a state where his father made his family’s political and financial fortune” (on the backs on the factory lifers who got screwed in the economic downturn brought about by the policies of people like Romney’s father who ran the auto industry into the ground)

I’m sorry, am I missing something here?

Mitt’s wife Ann, however, seems to be a formidable person.

FYI: I had a really hard time finding an unflattering picture of this guy.

I wonder if there is a message in here somewhere…

This AM on HufPo:

Tom D’Antoni: Clinton and Obama Joint News Conference on Race/Gender

“TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY’S 9AM ET JOINT NEWS CONFERENCE WITH SENS. HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY) AND BARAK OBAMA (D-IL)

Sen. Clinton: We have called this joint news conference today because Barak and I want to make something very clear to our fellow Democrats and to all of America.

Sen. Obama: For the past few weeks the two of us have been concerned about the tenor of the campaign. We do not want our supporters or anyone else to mistake what we say.

Sen. Clinton: First of all we are Democrats. Democrats stand for equal rights and justice, for all races, genders, sexual preferences, religious preferences…or no religious preferences. All of the legislation to insure these equal rights has come from Democrats.

Sen. Obama: We do not seek, as the Republicans do, to exploit divisions among people…to stoke latent prejudices and make political gains from them. And so we have come before you today to make a pledge. We don’t apologize for criticisms we have made of each other’s records or positions.

Sen. Clinton: No, they are an important part of the process of choosing a new President. What we want to make clear is that when we criticize each other, what we say is neither racist nor sexist. Therefore, we pledge here today that for the rest of the campaign neither one of us or our representatives will accuse the other of either racism or sexism.

Sen. Obama: This is new to America…an African-American and a woman, running for the highest office in the land, and against each other. We both acknowledge that there are race and gender tensions in America. We would be silly to say there weren’t. But I tell you here today, that I will never play the race card.

Sen. Clinton: And I will never play the gender card. We know that there are some Americans who will never vote for a woman for president.

Sen. Obama: And some who will never vote for an African-American. What is important in this campaign is that we will not make any statements which might be construed to appeal to prejudice. We’ll leave those to the Republicans.

Sen. Clinton: Also, we promise that we will not react to any statement by each other and make accusations of veiled racism or sexism.

Sen. Obama: We want our supporters and representatives to know that whatever we say is about what we feel is best for America. We’re going to appeal to our natural constituencies, of course, we’d be stupid not to.

Sen. Clinton: But at no time are you or anyone else to construe that what we say has an ounce of prejudice or pandering to race or gender. After the nightmare of the past seven years, we seek to restore respect for ourselves as Americans and for the United States on the planet.

Sen. Obama: Let that moral compass come from us, by example. And with that…

Sen. Clinton and Obama toether: Let the best candidate win!

And then I woke up.”

Yeah, and I fell for it!

And then I read my horoscope:

“Sure, you’re smart enough to know that life is not fair, but that doesn’t always stop you from seeking justice and equality as you journey through your days. By maintaining this delicate balance between realism and idealism today, you will be able to handle any situation, no matter how bizarre or uncomfortable it might be. Becoming a cynic might save you some disappointment here and there, but it’s much more rewarding to think that all people are equal and should be treated as such.”

Hmmmmm….

Do you know what it feels like for Hillary?

This week I started riding in a work-sponsored van pool. Listening to music with my eyes closed instead of battling stop and go traffic to and from work is a luxury that offsets the 6:10AM departure time, and I love getting home early enough to see the late afternoon sun making the rooms in my apartment glow. I guess the one thing I will have to adjust to is getting my news in the evening rather than during my AM commute, but I get email alerts from the NY Times and BBC in case something serious happens. It was great to hear about Hillary’s “comeback” in NH, though I could have called it during the debate the night before, when Obama snarked that she was “likeable enough.” The next day, I heard Obama interviewed on NPR and deliver, when pushed, the closest thing I’ve heard to a policy statement delivered from him. To paraphrase, he said that, for instance there were plenty of health care initiatives out there and what really needs to happen is for the people to organize and demand that it happens. So – its up to us, we the people, to do the diligence and fight for the right and deliver the results and so forth, so he can green light it? Excuse me, but wouldn’t I be voting for him to do this on my behalf? I’m busy enough trying to finance my old age – I want him to deliver the goods on the health care, and on the mess we’re in in the middle east, and get the econ and education and our good name abroad back on track.

Anyway, when I started riding the vanpool I dug out my shuffle and the day after NH the first tune up Madonna’s “What it feels like for a girl,” which pretty much summed it all up as far as I’m concerned – wouldn’t you know it,but I heard the song again this AM on the radio (KCRW, natch), so I thought I’d drop the lyrics here…

Strong inside but you dont know it / Good little girls they never show it / When you open up your mouth to speak / Could you be a little weak /Do you know what it feels like for a girl / Do you know what it feels like in this world / For a girl…Hurt thats not supposed to show /And tears that fall when no one knows /When youre trying hard to be your best /Could you be a little less…
Of course the pundits who called NH wrong are busy adding questions to their polls attempting to gauge latent racism among voters (funny, no one’s knocking themselves out to uncover latent sexism) , and insisting, rather unconvincingly, that Hillary attracts poor uneducated voters, while their boy Obama rallies the Whole Foods and Starbucks crowd. From what I can tell, Hillary turned out the female vote as well as the poor and less educated (working class, if they voted for Obama) voters. The reason for the former might be that women can usually spot a player, and the latter might be because the working classes want to hear what’s going to get done, whereas the rich can afford to support pie-in-the-sky rhetoric about hope. What do I know though. I’m a voter, not a pollster.

 

And for the record, I shop at Whole Foods when I’m feeling flush, but I would never drink Starbuck’s coffee –that stuff if crap. I’m a Peets girl. I gotta say though that it feels good to be a dem when my choices are between a woman and a black man – finally!