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.

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Soup weather in Los Angeles!

After weeks of hot winds, fires, and relentless sunshine (in L.A. there can be such a thing) it is cold enough today to turn the heater on. This is in addition to the extra layers of clothing and the warm slippers.

Finally the weather cooperates with my favorite convergence at the Farmers’ Market: fresh cranberry beans and cavolo nero. I have my friends at McGrath Farms to thank for introducing me to the former, and the irrepressible and sadly deceased Dee Dee Throgmartin to thank for the later.

Learning to like kale and drop it into soups and vegetable braises was a culinary rite of passage when I first came to Cali and realized that veggies didn’t really come from cans. Ten years ago, when Dee Dee started bringing her bunches of cavolo nero grown from seeds she got from Italy to market, I immediately fell in love with them. With their pebbly texture and richly colored dark green leaves, they look fantastic. They taste even better, whether lightly sautéed in olive oil and garlic, or cooked for hours into a mysterious luscious mass, ala Suzanne Goin.

Now cavolo nero abounds at many a Cali farmer’s table, as have the wealth of recipes supporting their use. I use it for a kale, pancetta and crispy garlic dish I make to serve alongside caramelized cippolini onions for Thanksgiving. I throw it into everything from vegetable soup to frittatas. Sometimes I braise it with garlic and red pepper flakes, and serve it with poached eggs and grilled bread rubbed with fresh garlic.

But my favorite dish is Ribollita, and today is just the day for it. Ribollita can be made a variety of ways, with a variety of bitter greens and with canned cranberry (borlotti) or cannelini beans, but it is all the richer for the fresh ones that are making their brief appearance alongside the kale this year. (Last year the beans didn’t make it into the late fall and I had to rely instead on dried borlottis from Bob’s Red Mill Farms-still good of course, but not the same).

To me the magic of this dish is its simplicity and the sensuality of its preparation. First I roughly chop the vegetables for the mirepoix, and while that is cooking, I shell the fresh beans. The shells of borlotti beans have a distinct cranberry and cream mottled coloring that looks like marbleized Italian paper. So do the beans themselves, though that changes with cooking. Coaxing the plump beans, huddling together in a row, out of their hiding place can be an exercise in patience, but I enjoy the process while breathing in the aroma of the mirepoix on the stove and the mineral-y smell of the kale waiting patiently for its turn under the knife.

Like many simple dishes, the success of this soup relies on assembling the freshest ingredients you can find. There are two exceptions of this rule. Use canned tomatoes, but make them the best – San Marzano or Muir Glen fire-roasted are my picks. Then make sure you have a slightly stale ciabatta on hand. If you are like me and love buying those fragrant loaves but can only allow yourself a few pieces of toast before succumbing to carbo-phobia, this is a good way not to waste the rest of the loaf.

Finally, plan to spend an afternoon attending to this soup in a leisurely way. While the sweet, nutty perfume wafts through the house, read a book or call a friend, Maybe cozy up with a good movie. Then a few hours later, scoop some into a big bowl and eat to your heart’s content –it is rich with minerals and antioxidants. Nothing else required, unless you feel like a glass of good red wine.

Leftovers have sustained me all week long as a lunch I actually look forward to. It only gets better the longer it lasts, about a week to 10 days.

Assemble:

• About 1⁄4 cup olive oil
• a big handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
• one small celery root, peeled and chopped, or 3 ribs celery, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 red onion, chopped
• coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 -2 cans whole peeled tomatoes
• 2 -3 bunches cavolo nero, trimmed and roughly chopped
• 1 lb fresh cranberry beans, or 2 15-oz. cans borlotti or cannelini beans, drained
• 1 stale loaf ciabatta bread minus the pieces you’ve already eaten for breakfast

1. Pour a thick layer of olive oil into a soup pot and heat over medium-high heat.
2. Add parsley, celery root, garlic, carrots, onion, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook, stirring every so often, until onion is transparent and slightly browned, 15–20 minutes.
3. Crush tomatoes and add to the pot. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook until thickened, about 20-30 minutes.
4. Add cavolo nero, and fresh water to cover.
5. Cover the soup pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, until cavolo nero is tender, about 30 minutes.
6. Slice the loaf lengthwise, and tear bread away from the crust into pieces that are about 1″. then add to pot with a few tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, and more salt and pepper to taste.
7. Simmer stirring occasionally until thick, about 30 minutes more .
8. Serve drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil, if you like.

• If you are cooking with canned beans, you can puree an extra can of drained beans with 1/2cup of water in a food processor and add to the soup after step 5
• Add red pepper flakes to taste to the mirepoix in step 2.
• Add a parmesan rind to the pot at step 5
• Leave out step 6. Serve with slices of ciabatta toast rubbed with the open end of a garlic clove that has been sliced in half
• Chop some pancetta into cubes, “blanch” in boiling water for a minute or two, and add to the mirepoix in step 2

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This has been the week from hell down here in SoCal

As a friend mentioned today, it’s a good thing we are a rich state, or those of us who live in southern cali would all be toast by now. Here in Los Angeles, our canyons have been spared this time, but being sandwiched in between 12 out of control wildfires has been no picnic either. I’ve been breathing in chunks of particulate, wiping ash out of my eyes and off of my car all week. On Tuesday the heat was so oppressive, the air so still and the sky so low and orange I thought I was in the middle of some post nuclear nightmare. I can’t even imagine what it has been like for the folks who’ve had to deal with the winds, the flames and the smoke.

The bright spots in my week were:

1: a comment from thirithch on my post on Augusten Burroughs a few weeks back. Thirithch: you aren’t late to the party at all: In fact just last night in a class on memoir I’m taking, our instructor, the wonderful Amy Friedman, professed her disdain for Running with Scissors for all the same reasons you cite, so your timing is uncanny!

2. this picture that showed up on my flickr RSS today:

4durt: this picture arrived in the nick of time. It is so absurdly beyond cute, that I’m just going to stare at this photo until I start to feel normal again.

****

Goodbye Jack. You are missed.

god’s lute will beg for your hands

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The dog days are upon us…

I’ve been away from my blog for a bit – as those of you, my silent readers who never comment – must have noticed. It’s been a challenging 10 days. The temperature has been in the triple digits since last weekend, and the humidity is relentless. The skies are brown from smog and a fire that has been burning north of Santa Barbara since July 4^th. People get on my nerves – they drive like idiots and remind me of the flies that seem to be everywhere all the time now. I take three showers a day and still feel unwashed. If kitchen trash sits for more than half a day, it takes on a lingering stench usually associated with 3 day old dead bodies – this you will be relieved to know, I understand more from instinct than from any actual experience.

As a result, I and my foul temper stay inside with the air conditioner and two fans going (Al, I’m sorry, but I will buy my wind power card at Whole Foods tomorrow, I promise). The shades are drawn and liquids full of electrolytes are at the ready. Every so often I register a change in the atmosphere as an intensification of the headache I’ve had for the past week. I don’t get allergies in Los Angeles, I get headaches; nasty ones that make me feel like my right eyeball is on fire, to be precise. It’s hard to write about my reluctant love of L.A. in such conditions.

In fact, it’s almost more than I can bear to lift an icy glass of Spanish rose to my lips, and nibble on the few organic lettuces that accompany my store bought pissaladerie for lunch / dinner. I can barely rally the strength to focus my good eye on the Fall fashion issues of my favorite glossies. Vogue, is so heavy I can’t even lift it, which is probably a good thing, since the thought of anything except for lightly chilled ocean salt water touching my skin makes me ill – let alone all those lovely tailored lightweight wools and leathers worn over tights and this season’s must have booties.

To be honest, I haven’t even made it past the cover of Details with Clive Owen on the cover – he’s not as moody as he looks – but note to the writer: I do not want to know how what he really wants to do is take his wife to a soccer match. I want to know how he’s pining away moodily after the amazing woman he saw when last he was in Los Angeles, the one that he can’t get out of his mind- with the lustrous pewter and platinum hair, the amazing eyes, and the –lets be honest – gorgeous breasts just recently relieved of 6 excess pounds and now floating perkily under the kinds of summer dresses they could only dream of supporting in years past…oh, oh, where is she?- cries Clive. Staring at a picture of you on the cover of Details, mate. I’ll be back as soon as I add just a smidgen of vodka to my strawberry lemonade…

I actually did leave the house twice this past week, once to go to the beach, which was worth the painful sunburn, and once to go on the oddest job interview of my life. Details follow.

This interview was with a media luminary who I actually admire quite a bit. I won’t name her, but her initials are A.H. and she’s written many books – most recently about being a woman and being bold – and she runs an online media empire. She used to represent hateful things; marriage to and rapacious campaigner for a rich, closeted queer neocon creep attempting to take over my beloved California. And then there was her biography of one of my favorite artists, Pablo Picasso, which focused almost exclusively on his dark personal life – not fair!! Note to all intelligent people: Personal lives of creative geniuses are almost always strange and often sordid –witness this month’s profile of Arthur Miller in Vanity Fair. But she had the courage (and nerve, some would say) to divorce the creep, grab his money and reinvent herself as “a compassionate and progressive populist,” something that appears heartfelt and admirable, or utterly calculated, which just seems like too much work.

Being interested, I arrived ahead of schedule, with sweat dripping down my back from the heat of the drive in an un- air-conditioned car, hoping that maybe this woman would pay enough that I could replace it –maybe with a Prius, like the one she drives. I waited a few minutes to let the Brentwood breezes cool me down a bit, and then I rang at the gate. The door opened, and I was admitted into one of those short front yards peculiar to Los Angeles mansions, after which I walked through an open door into a cool foyer to be guided by The Voice into a large airy office with twenty foot ceilings and floor to ceiling windows that framed her large desk. There were books and comfortable furnishing all around and I just wanted to plop down on the sofa, kick off my shoes, pick something up to read and say – hey, what have you been up to? Can you believe the f***in’ weather? But my Mother raised me, and I walked to my designated seat instead, and commented on the room’s handsome appointments. “Yes, isn’t it comfy?” she said in her luscious, honey soaked accent, and then she took a couple of phone calls. In between, she asked me the same question twice – so you are returning to writing?- and seemed to register my responses, but I can’t really be sure. She then sent me upstairs to meet her other assistant.

On the way up, I spotted a Modigliani. “This is real?” I asked reflexively- and she responded – “no, definitely not”- but you have to agree that a print of a Modigliani nude next to the spiral staircase leading up to the “team’s” office is a pretty interesting choice.

The assistant was a pleasant but humorless worker who gave me the task of cleaning out A’s contacts in Outlook for awhile. The air conditioning was broken in this airless atelier, and my hand kept sticking to the page of duplicate contacts I was supposed to weed out. I did that for about 30 minutes, fact-checking famous names as I went, and that was it. The worker told me that AH would be calling me that night or tomorrow, and escorted me to the door.

Of course it’s several days after tomorrow, and no phone call, but I’ve lived here long enough to know that in Hollywood, actually getting a phone call would be an exception to the rule. I guess I just didn’t realize just how Hollywood A is.

I still wish she had called because I sincerely want to know: what exactly was the point of that particular exercise? Was the Outlook task some kind of timed contact management exercise, perhaps? The worker assured me that it wasn’t a test when I asked her, but she also told me she liked her job, and I wasn’t convinced by her answer to that question either.

There are a number of possible scenarios that explain why I didn’t get a call back; you choose the one you like the best (or add one of your own):

• I’m older than she thought I’d be, and she likes young assistants because they are less expensive, and are also less likely to talk back,

• She’s gay and the sight of me and my previously described breasts distracted her to the point where she knew her life and work would be in ruins if she hired me,

• She was worried that the writer in me might do the same sort of hatchet job on her that she did on Picasso,

• She found my blog through my email address and hates it, and couldn’t possibly hire someone who would write such non-erudite mulch,

• She’s been busy covering the Utah Mining Disaster and Karl Rove and Hillary and she honestly thought the worker was going to call me,

• It was at the top of her list to call with a very attractive compensation package and a puff of fresh air into my otherwise stale life, until she read this post…

Whatever…

Now I’m back on my side of town, and noticing just how decidedly asymmetrical Clive Owen’s face is, and how it shouldn’t add to his allure but it does, and how, in Bourne Identity his face looks positively tidy and symmetrical, and how does he do that? Can he make himself look asymmetrical? If so, he’s even more incredible than I thought! Why does he display his wedding ring so much in his Details photos? Is it the equivalent of the sign of the cross against vampires? Why are all the male models in the rest of the magazine so young and so emaciated? They look like Oliver Twist -more soup please! It’s worse than in Vogue, where the girls at least sometimes try to look of age…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are we now a nation of self obsessed pedophiles?

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Becks and Posh! Posh and Becks!

 

 

 

Girlfriend looks as though she could use some dinner. I wonder if she would need to book a month in advance to get into Pizzeria Mozza the way I did. Pizzeria Mozza, in case you’ve been too busy analyzing the war in Iraq or something is the lovechild of L.A. foodie darling Nancy Silverton and Mario Batali, of the orange clogs and the unfortunate affiliation with Iron Chef America. This, and the newly opened Osteria Mozza next door, is Batali’s first foray into the Los Angeles dining scene after creating his empire of highly regarded restaurants in New York. Don’t be fooled however. Pizzeria Mozza is definitely a Nancy Silverton joint.

The “authenticity” of Nancy’s pies, along with the difficulty getting in to taste them, have sparked a heated debate among foodies. My moment finally arrived last Friday night at 6:15PM. This happened to coincide with the much anticipated opening of Mozza Osteria. As I walked by the window, I saw the Osteria staff in their brand new whites getting their marching orders. First night – the horror! Oh to be a spider in the corner.
Pizzeria Mozza on the other hand has been open since last winter and it hums to a soundtrack of Beck’s Guero CD, laughter and foodie chat. Even at 6:15PM the tables were full and people were milling around the entrance waiting to get a place at one of two bars that seat on a first come first served basis. Everyone appeared to be in a good mood except for the hostess, a boho hottie who looked as though everything was getting on her last nerve – a full 3 hours before sundown. I said a little prayer for her as she guided us to our table, a deuce at the end of a long row next to the window facing Highland, and with a good view of the front door action and the rest of the room.

First up were some delectable squash blossoms fried to perfection with a creamy ricotta filling, except my second one had no filling and a bit too much batter. Then came a lovely piece of fish served in a chunky fresh tomato sauce with cici (garbanzo) beans, a tad too salty for me but perfectly cooked. Then the pizza – a classic combination of guanciale (a pork cheek bacon – memorize this and order it the next time you see it on a menu) and a bagna cauda (a hot bath of olive oil, garlic and anchovy) of bitter greens, with an egg dropped onto the pizza as it went into the oven. I love bitter greens with bacon and egg anyway – see below for a quick, easy supper – but I’m telling you this pizza took it to a level I would never be able to recreate at home. For starters, I usually have the dish with lardoons – thick cubes of pancetta or thick sliced bacon. Typically a bite of lardoon will dominate the palate for a bit before allowing the other flavors to join the party, but the guanciale, which was barely visible, seemed to coat the wilted greens with a crispy deliciousness that melted into a sublime marriage of bitter smoky porkiness that got even better when the silky sweet egg yolk arrived to sooth the bitterness of the greens. I’m coming back.

I was completed enchanted by our first choice of dessert – a “sofiata” which is really a profiterole substituting a subtle pistachio ice cream for the traditional pastry cream, and a drape of sweet cherry syrup studded with macerated dried sweet cherries and a slick of honey. We also ordered the caramel coppetta, (sundae) accompanied by a sticky marshmallow and peanut kind of deconstructed candy bar. It was good, but it didn’t really come together for me. I wish we’d ordered the butterscotch budino that everyone keeps raving about instead.

Service was excellent. We were promptly seated and our server was welcoming, knew her stuff, helped me pick out a perfect wine choice, and actually seemed to like the fact that we took our time with our food (the table next to us turned over twice before we left). The bill came in at $50 per person, including wine, minus tip.

Mozza serves the best kind of causal food served in a casual environment, and you leave wanting to explore the menu further. But when it takes a month to get a table, how can anybody with a real life hang? Also some of the dishes seem to work better than others. This is fine at a place where you know they’re experimenting with flavors and techniques. But when its a month between reservations, you need it to be right.

Granted, seating at the two bars is first come first served, with one bar serving as a kind of wine bar, and the other a close encounter with the wood burning oven. I can see myself going one night and eating bruschetta and chatting with the bartender about his wine pairings. Another night I might want to watch the action at the wood burning oven.

But what do I do when a few of my girls have a Friday evening open and we want to share some pies and a bottle or two of wine? Or a friend from New York who treated me to lunch at Lupa finds himself in L.A. for the evening and I want to return the favor? Pizzeria Mozza should be able to accommodate that – spontaneity is built into the spirit of the place. Maybe that will happen soon, now that the Osteria has opened. Until then, the place will seem too precious to me. Quello non è buono!

Eggs with bitter greens and pork lardoons enough for two

Prep the lardoons:

• Ask your butcher for a 1/2 inch thick round of pancetta, all in one piece
• Cut the pancetta into strips about the width of your little finger. Then cut the strips into chunks about the length of the tip of your index finger to the first knuckle.
• Using a strainer, drop the lardoons into boiling water for a minute, set aside to drain.

Prep the greens:

• Cut a bunch of dandelion (or other bitter grean) and a head raddichio into a rough chop.
• Using the strainer, submerge the greens into the boiling water for a minute until the dandelion turns bright green. Remove, drain, set aside.

Then:

• Heat a frying pan on medium heat.
• Add enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan generously.
• When it starts to shimmer, add 3-4 cloves of garlic chopped into small chunks – don’t mince. They should sizzle in the pan. Cook them until they are toasty brown, then remove from the pan. Turn heat under pan to low.
• Add the lardoons to the pan and let them cook until they are thoroughly browned and crispy. Remove from the pan and set aside. Try not to eat them all.
• Make sure that your greens are relatively dry. If you like you can drain some of the fat in the pan off, but make sure you have enough to coat the greens.
• Over low heat, add crushed dried red pepper to the fat in the pan. Add the greens and toss to coat with the fat and pepper. Cook a while longer until the greens soften and lose their crunch, but don’t let them get soggy. Toss with the lardoons. Turn off the heat, cover to keep warm on the stove.

Poach 2 -4 eggs

Pile the greens into a shallow soup bowl. Place one or two eggs on top. Add a dusting of freshly ground black pepper. Shave some nice Parmesan over that.

Serve with some crusty bread and a nice glass of white wine.

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It’s the Fourth of July

It’s Fourth of July and anyone in Los Angeles heading to see fireworks had better already be there. I can hear the first crackles and pops from Universal Studio’s display, and if I try, I could maybe see some twinkling star fire above my neighbors’ tree tops. But I’m not of a mind to angle for a better view. Nor did I spend the day eating hot dogs and potato chips at the beach. Too much trouble: too crowded, too much traffic. Way too hot.

I had a vague plan to catch up on housekeeping, errands and reading today. By the time I made it to my local coffeehouse at 10AM, I was “glowing.” By the time I made it to the patio with my coffee and muffin at 10:15AM, sweat was streaming down my back in rivulets. I didn’t have my glasses.  This became a sign to go home and make use of the air conditioning that is eating up the savings from my gas bill; maybe I could get enough housework done so that my weekend can be chore-free. In the car, the radio played Paul Simon singing An American Tune:

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age’s most uncertain hours
and sing an American tune
Oh, and it’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
You can’t be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow’s going to be another working day
And I’m trying to get some rest
That’s all I’m trying to get some rest

I’ve always envisioned this song being sung by a lonely soldier, circa Viet Nam. I thought of a line from Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried: “They carried all they could bear, and then some…” It was hard to shake the moment off. It was hard not to break down in tears.

 

A little later I saw high clouds drifting through the sky. A breeze picked up. I remembered hearing someone mention that fire-retardant was being sprayed around areas near local fireworks displays as a precaution against wildfires.

 

In the afternoon, I fell asleep reading House of Meetings by Martin Amis:

 

Yes, so far as the individual is concerned, Venus, it may very well be true that character is destiny. And the other way around. But on the larger scale character means nothing. On the larger scale, destiny is demographics; and demographics is a monster.

 

Later, I ran out to do some errands and encountered two bewildered drunks with red faces and paunchy, hairless bare chests being cuffed and stuffed into a squad car while peope stood around watching. As I pulled up to the curb in front of my house, a pair of runaways approached me. They wanted a ride into Hollywood. They’d been walking all the way from Sun Valley, they said. She had a vein in her leg that was killing her, she said. Four months pregnant, she added. She was bone thin and blue eyed with a wide red mouth under penciled-in black eyebrows. He was skinny too and heavily tattooed. The piercing at the side of his mouth appeared to be bothering him. They looked young and sweet and dumb, and like there was probably a good reason to be running away. I would have liked to give them a lift, but it would have been foolish to do so. You just don’t know what people are up too.

 

Like bad sex, the fireworks at Universal are over after about 20 minutes. The sky is illuminated with a creepy pink fluorescence. Nearby, someone has just shot off a high powered rifle three times. Sirens reply.

Hey baby, it’s the Fourth of July…Dave Alvin

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Longest day of the year…

I was useless at work, but so what? The air is clean and fragrant, the sky is cloudless and blue, and the breeze cools the hot sun. Drove home with my shoes off and the sunroof open.  It honestly doesn’t get much better than this, and it won’t last. The drive was so quick, I only had time to take one snapshot of my commute.

Those are some mighty dry hills out my car window….

 

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Peonies, Parsons, Springtime at the Sunday Market

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Sunday and spring has officially arrived at the market. Perhaps even more than for the cherries and apricots, I get there early to grab a few fragrant bunches of peonies from Ha’s Farm. Peonies are very expensive in Southern California. They require a hard freeze in the winter so they are scarce. I grew up with peonies; they became the Indiana state flower in 1957 (replacing the zinnia) and they used to carpet my grandmother’s back yard in the spring. But when I first moved to California I was shocked to find them wrapped in precious bundles of three at $10 a stem. David and Yeung Ha farm in the hills of Tehachapi, so they can grow tree peonies and bring them by the bucket full for three short weeks in the Spring(at $2 a stem). They are more famous for their Fuji apples that taste of honey, and also the delicious jams and delicious apple turnovers. But the peonies in the spring are my favorites. Peonies have a prolific but sort lived season, which make them all the more precious. As if they needed anything beyond their old fashioned beauty, they also open in stages, starting off as plump fluffy blossoms and metamorphizing into delicate lacy blooms. Every day, a new bouquet.

Also at the market this AM was Russ Parsons and his new book How To Pick a Peach. Now I can throw away a bunch of his clippings from The Los Angeles Times. I also have some good reading ahead of me. Parsons is a good home cook with lots of great chef friends, so if his recipes don’t always seem original, its not really the point. Every recipe I’ve ever tried of his works out perfectly – the scale and technique are designed with the home cook in mind. Parsons has dedicated this book to fruits and vegetables in season and divides the book accordingly. Each section includes essays on such topics as farming techniques of small and large scale farmers, kitcehn chemistry and what to look for and how to store (and cook) fresh fruits and vegetables If reading about the effects of global competition on American agricultural practices makes you feel tart to feel a bit disheartened, cheer yourself up with recipes like “tart of garlicky greens and black olives”, “overcooked green beans” and “strawberries and oranges in basil syrup” – all in season at the moment.

 

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Lounge preferences among apartment dwellers in Marina Del Rey

Leslie has a high rise apartment overlooking the Marina and fun friends, so her parties are always worth making the trek down the 405. She invited a group over on Memorial Day to lounge on her patio overlooking the Marina, and then lounge by the pool, and then lounge some more on the rooftop deck. When we weren’t lounging we examined the meaning of the patios lined up in a tidy row on the building next door. Bright primary colors indicate the presence of children, potted palms and a buddha suggest a quest for inner peace, several rows of pottery barn chaise lounges imply an aspirational lifestyle. Then it was time for dinner which included a pork shoulder braised with beer and herbs in a crock pot that’s almost as stylish as Leslie is (Hamilton Beach, about $50). She served it with black beans, cole slaw and green salad. Simple and delicious!

I brought the desert. I found a recipe in last week’s LA Times for a pavolva and 3 pints of strawberries from McGrath Farms waiting to be given their due, so why not? I reduced the amount of cornstarch used and halved the recipe. I used canned whipped cream and store bought lemon curd for the filling. Because of the reduced cornstarch, my meringue didn’t hold its shape, but it had a light, velvety mouth feel that was worth the sacrifice. Next time I’ll try cream of tartar or tapioca flour instead of cornstarch.

Use the left over egg yolks to make an aioli

First:

Preheat the oven to 350 F

Cut an 8 inch circle out of parchment paper and place on a cookie sheet.

Then on to the recipe:

Whip 5 egg whites on medium high in a stand mixer using the wisk attachment until they form stiff peaks

Add:

1 cup sugar, added in a steady stream to the egg whites at medium speed until incorporated

Then:

1 Tablespoon cornstarch until incorporated

Then:

1 tsp white wine vinegar

1 tsp vanilla

Spread the meringue onto the parchment paper. Try to keep the sides high, with a slight indent in the middle. Place into the oven and then reduce the heat to 300F. Bake about 30 minutes, then look to see if the outer layer of the meringe is hardened. Cool in the oven with the heat turned off.

While the meringue is in the oven, prepare the strawberries, as many as you want ( a couple of pints probably) cutting them as you see fit, sprinkling them with a little sugar and balsamic vinegar. Set aside.

When ready to serve:

Combine 1/3 jar of lemon curd with some canned whipped cream (I used Land o Lakes light whipped cream). First whisk the lemon curd into a sauce, then fold in the whipped cream to taste.

Spread the lemon curd mixture into the center well of the meringue.

Pile the strawberries on top.

Cut wedges with a serrated knife.

It’s that simple and while it is being eaten, you will be beloved.

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On and about L.A., part deux

Last Wednesday, I went to Royce Hall, on the UCLA campus, to see Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan perform a 75 minute work they call Sacred Monsters.

They are as unlikely a pair as could be. Guillem is the famous French Prima Ballerina discovered by Rudolph Nureyev, and Khan is a British-Asian dancer and choreographer known for fusing Western contemporary dance with Indian classical kathak. Tall, fair, impossibly narrow Sylvie is adored for her seemingly jointless body, amazing extension, feet to drive the fetishist mad with longing, and impeccable lyricism. Kahn is dark, compact, percussive, and his roots are firmly planted in classical Indian dance. But of course the pairing works; his dark to her light, her melody to his rhythm, ying meets yang – you get the idea.

At first I found myself wishing I’d seen Guillem in her hey day as a ballerina dancing Raymonda or Swan Lake. But then I realized I was watching something far more intimate and original, and I got lost in the pair’s remarkable pas de deux that seemed to cover the full range of human emotion in a light but still penetrating way.

It wasn’t a typical pas de deux by any means. Sometimes one performed solo as the other sat nearby on stage, sometimes they performed together, and at other time they performed at the same time, but apart from one another. At one point Guillem sat and braided her hair. At another the two chatted while mopping the floor by dragging towels around with their feet. But they always worked in relation to one another, as artists, as woman and man, as inhabitants of two distinctly different worlds reaching out to discover something new.

Through dance, dialogue and music they touched on themes of fame, doubt and expectation, and ended by performing what looked very much like children jumping rope.

I was disarmed completely and it was a fantastic ending to an otherwise tedious day. I drove home with my shoes off and the sun roof open . The moon was full and the music, a mesmerizing mix of live voice and Western and Eastern instruments, stayed with me the whole way home.

Here is video of Sylvie performing Raymonda:

 

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