A few of my favorite things from 2007…

Now that I’ve put Scrabulous in its place, I can get to the posts I wanted to write at the end of last year.

My top reads of 2007:

The books that moved me the most this year are ones that took me to a contemporary place revealing a world previously unknown to me.

• In Martin Amis’s House of Meetings, a book that is a pleasure to read for the language alone, the protagonist survives Stalin’s work camps only to return to them in 2004 as an 84 year old dying man recounting his past in a letter to an American stepdaughter.

• Against a backdrop of Post-WWI historical tumult, The Bad Girl, by Mario Vargas Llosa, is patterned after Madame Bovary, but begins its journey in Peru in 1950 and meanders through Europe and Asia to end in contemporary France.
• Septembers of Shiraz, probably my favorite novel of the lot, is the story of a middle class Iranian Jew imprisoned by the Revolutionary Guard in 1980s Tehran and his family. A prodigious first novel by Dalia Sofer, it suffers from a lousy title for the U.S. market, but one that comes clear in an ending scene that has a bittersweet universal quality.
• Then there is Elizabeth Hand, who’s work I only just discovered through her collection of short stories called Saffron and Brimstone. Several of these stories, set in real time or near future, had a prescient quality when I read them-they seemed to happen to me when I was grappling with aspects of their themes, so the paranormal characteristics of her style seemed to leak into my life. Filed under sci-fi/fantasy, Hand’s writing really belongs to the genre of speculative fiction inhabited by authors like Angela Carter, JG Ballard, Ursula LeGuinn, Margaret Atwood-all favorites of mine, which is why I am surprised that I’ve never heard of Hand before.
• I read lots of essays and short stories this past year, but one piece stands out as absolutely the most compelling I read all year: Werner, by Jo Ann Beard, from Tin House’s fantastic Graphics Issue. Werner has been anthologized in this year’s Best American Essays –just read it.

Favorite cookbooks: This is kind of a cheat, but my two favorites from 2007 are books I bought from Amazon UK in 2006, but were released in the U.S. in 2007.

• I still can’t get enough of Nigel Slater’s The Kitchen Diaries, which I read often and cook from only in the sense that his sensibility has slipped into my own attitude towards food.
• I also love to read Simon Hopkinson’s Roast Chicken and Other Stories, which came out in paperback in the UK in 2006 and supposedly was released in the U.S. last year, but I haven’t seen it anywhere. He’s a fun writer and each chapter contains an essay and several recipes for his favorite ingredients, such as anchovy, brains, chicken, chocolate, and on through the alphabet. Try the leek tart and the steak au poivre. I’m still trying to find a humane source for fresh rabbit so I can try his recipe for rabbit terrine.
• I also enjoy cooking from How to Pick a Peach by Russ Parsons, and A Twist of the Wrist by Nancy Silverton, though I don’t always reach for the latter because I seldom have the pantry ingredients called for on hand.
• Favorite cookbook I can’t wait to get to: this would be Jamie Oliver’s Cook with Jamie.
  

  Yeah, you heard me right, Jamie Oliver. The new book is very pretty and full of Oliver’s inexhaustible spirit and inventiveness. I’ve always enjoyed his slightly manic, “let’s just pop round to the shops and go home and whip something up” attitude and I also admire that he has turned his fame into activism. Plus his food is always tasty, and this book really makes me want to cook, unlike Alice Waters’ latest, Art of Simple Food, which wins my vote for Most anticipated book I almost bought and then decided to wait until it comes out in paperback. Don’t get me wrong – Waters is responsible for a important shift in the way that Americans (at least on the coasts) look at food. But this book has a fussy, overprivileged aesthetic that is off-putting. And I have to admit that as much as I refer to and cook from her books-especially the collaborations with Paul Bertolli and Lindsey Shere, there is something about these books that is a little intimidating.

Long story short, if I were to invite someone into my kitchen to teach me something about cooking, it would be Jamie, not Alice. I feel like I’d be getting an education, not a lecture.

Jamie’s School Dinners Ad for Channel 4

 

 

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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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