Gastronomy 101

Previously, I've written about the type of simple meals I enjoy , in particular, bread and cheese, cured meats, pickles and fruit. Well, my love of simple meals not only encompasses the west, but the east as well. Some nights, instead of themore European bread and cheese based meals, I prefer a more Japanese-inspired meal of rice, vegetable and soup, or something similar. So when I saw these recipes for pickles, inspired by Korean bahn chan --which are the little dishes of pickles that come out with your rice when you are eating Korean food--I immediately thought of how good they would be with a bowl of rice as a small and simple dinner. The two pickles I chose, soy jalapenos, and apple-cucumber, were a good complement to each other. One was spicy and salty and tangy while the other was light and sweet and vinegary. I would definitely make the apple cucumber ones repeatedly, as they make a nice warm weather snack, and the flavor is delicate, but the ginger adds a bit of a kick. I w...

NOTE: I have received word that this first wine dinner has to be rescheduled. I will post an update once I have the proper date. For now, it will not be starting this Sunday. If you love wine, and have some dollars to spare (lucky you!) and are looking for something fun to do this weekend, I offer for your consideration Riva 's wine class dinner this weekend featuring "Tre Bicchiere" wines. Chef Jason Travi will create a five course meal, each thoughtfully paired with a Tre Bicchiere wine to match. As you eat, you will get a tutorial for each wine presented, so you'll get a little learnin' along with your fine meal. Riva is an Italian-inspired restaurant cheffed by a husband and wife team with impressive credentials. Jason and Miho Travi are most recently known for the restaurant Fraiche in Culver City. Riva is a slightly more casual counterpart to Fraiche with more of a focus on dishes inspired by the food of rustic Italian coastal villages. I have no problem shi...

Recently, I had a comment on one of my past posts that made me think it was time to step away from the pretty pictures and the recipes for a minute and get on my soapbox. The comment was from a "J-Bone" and was appended to my post about a local root beer . The comment read as follows, in response to my opinion on liking Virgil's Root Beer, another local root beer besides the one I was reviewing: "Wow how can you choose Virgil's crap with all those chemicals in it???? Dr. Tima is all natural and as NO CORN SYRUP!! It's the best hands down in natural soda!! All the other stuff tastes like mouthwash" Reading this made me think that maybe now is a good time to do a post on skeptical eating. The classical definition of a skeptic is: "One who instinctively or habitually doubts, questions, or disagrees with assertions or generally accepted conclusions." In other words, don't believe everything you read or see, investigate for yourself to find the ...

I love to eat like a peasant. Or perhaps not like a peasant, but like a fake pastoral fairy tale peasant. Culinary education nowadays tells that me that peasants ate beer, beans, peas and "pottage" which was basically a soup made of everything you have. While I have been known to eat these things, particularly that last thing, from time to time, that's NOT what I mean. What I mean is when you read a story about a young farmboy or girl heading off into the forest to make their fortune or meet the witch or save the princess or whatever, at some point they seem to stop and eat a simple meal of bread and cheese and fruit or meat. That's what I'm talking about. That mythical fairy tale traveling food or what the lady in the cottage where you stop to rest gives you. I love to eat like that. One of my favorite meals is just bread, cheese, cured meats, fruit and/or perhaps: nuts, crackers, wine, pickles, or other small bites. And the best way to start is by making a rusti...

May is the month of many birthdays, and that means .... cookies! These cookies are like brownies in cookie form with a bit of ginger flavor and chunks of white chocolate. That's really all there is to say about them, so let me tell you a bit about the people they were meant for instead, because they are special people, who I'll call by their code names, TFS and Carrot. Almost two years ago now, I met a dude on the internet. Up until really recently, I wasn't in the habit of meeting people that way, but when you work from home, suddenly you discover that you mostly don't talk to other people in the course of a normal day, like you do in an office. So you find yourself reaching out for social interaction in whatever way you can. The first thing I remember about TFS is discovering we were the same age (always a relief on the internet) and exchanging mutual and virtual high fives over being age buddies. But that was about the extent of our interaction, until he dragged his ...

Knowing that we were going to be in Washington DC for our vacation this year, J and I definitely want to try to get a reservation at Minibar. Minibar is a restaurant within a restaurant, the creation of world-famous chef Jose Andres. Minibar is tucked away in the back of Andres's Cafe Atlantico. It's just a small bar with only six seats. Each night, they do two seatings only, which means only 12 people can dine there per night. The lucky diners are served 25-30 courses of inventive dishes that are about the size of an amuse bouche. I was really nervous about that number ... I have a fairly small appetite, but I found that the portions and pacing were well done and I didn't get too full. In fact, I have had three course meals where I felt more stuffed than that, so I was relieved that I could easily eat everything. In order to get a reservation, we had to call the restaurant exactly one month in advance on the dot of when they opened for calls in the morning. It was like a l...

Since it's spring, I've been picking out the springtime-looking soups in the soup section of my Japanese cookbook. This fish soup in a clear broth with watercress and lemon looked very springlike and reminded me of some soups I had when I was in Japan in the springtime. The original recipe is made with a fish head, but the one in the books uses a more attractive fish filet with skin on. The fish used in Japan is porgy, or sea bream. That's not available at my fishmonger, which mostly sells local fish and only a few special fish shipped from overseas. The recipe gave sole as an acceptable substitute and sole is locally available. I chose a rex sole because it still had the skin on, as opposed to the petrale sole. The only problem I ran into with it is that it is cooked with the bone on, and then taken off the bone. That added some extra steps to this preparation and because the bones are delicate, I ended up with one or two bones in my soup. Next time I would probably just c...