Girl and the Goat with Amy, Andrew, and Ed

I've blogged the Rose Mary dinner, now for the other Top Chef meal.  Girl and the Goat, now a Chicago establishment, the flagship for Stephanie Izard since she became the first woman (and first Chicago chef) to win the show back in season 4.  I hadn't been in years although I had been to the LA outpost with Conrad and Van and had also been to Little Goat a couple of times when that was still open.  It would prove to be a welcome return.

I am a fan of Chef Izard.  During her season, she showed time and again that she was creative, technically skilled, managed her time well, and wasn't into drama.  Immensely likable on television, small wonder there was such buzz for Girl and the Goat when it opened - the fans wanted it.  And she delivered.  The first time we went there many years back, Conrad and I were joined by vegetarian friends.  For a restaurant that has goat as part of its name and identity, Girl and the Goat delivered on vegetables.  We had a wonderful meal.  Since the restaurant wasn't too far a walk from work, I went a few times after that for early bites with friends.  I don't think, however, that I had been back since we moved to SoCal.

Sunday dinner at conference was a nice little group affair, with Amy, Andrew, and Ed joining me and Conrad.  Three friends I absolutely treasure, and I know they all like good food, so I was excited about our meal.  The five of us rode the green line several stops, then walked on down to the restaurant.  We had a nice table tucked just inside the door, which gave us a view of the street or the busy restaurant interior.  We ordered cocktails - the Sun Kid for me

- and then food.  Ready? Here we go:

Green garlic brioche. 

Who doesn't love starting with some bread?  This was tasty!

Chickpea fritters. 

Oh, I loved these.  These were a surprise - no one was wowed about them on seeing them on the menu, but my gosh were they tender and good.

Goat empanadas. 

And I loved these as well.  A cocktail, two rounds of these, and a green vegetable, and we would have been happy with just that.

Roasted asparagus. 

Quite fine.

Pan-roasted halibut. 

Cooked nicely, and it was good, but it was also just halibut.  Happily, I rather like halibut.

Roasted pig face. 

Yum!  So good.  I love that they are getting that meat and using it.

I didn't get photos of the other four savoury dishes, but we had kohlrabi salad, grilled kalbi short ribs, wood fired chicken, and crispy pork belly.  The pork belly was good - I often find that pork belly is crispy outside and then a ton of fat, and this wasn't nearly so fatty.  The ribs were my least favourite course.  Not bad, just kind of chewy and alright.

For dessert, we got all of them.  All four. 

I wish that restaurants would post their dessert menus online more consistently.  I can't remember what all four were, but there was one that I think was an homage to ball parks with caramel and corn involved,  It was also the best of the four.  I liked the desserts, but they all struck me as more or less some sort of cake base with an ice cream, and some greater variety would have been terrific.  But I quibble, and we did finish off all of those desserts, after all. 

All in all, a terrific meal.  A couple of items that didn't shine as brightly, but nothing at all that I didn't like, and lots more that I would have been happy to try.  Aside from our friends being such good company, a group meant we could try and share a lot more from the menu than just two of us would.  We had such a nice night, then capped it off with drinks back at the hotel with some others.  And oh yes, I'd be very happy to go back to Girl and the Goat again some day. 

spritz night!

It was the July online happy for us, and the theme was spritzes.  A fun summer drink, and lots of ways to modify it.  So I did!  Here's a stoplight:  cassis spritz, limoncello spritz, and a Hugo (elderflower spritz). 

I also tried making a Cynar spritz and an orange liqueur spritz, but no, alas, they were not as good.

Ultimately, the Hugo won out

(and an Aperol spritz for the second round).  And so we sat outside and sipped and got caught up before I pulled out a grazing board for dinner.

Fun times! 

a Tuesday dinner

Conrad messaged me late afternoon yesterday, before he got home from the office but after I was home from a day of meetings at an airport hotel.  A frustrating day for him, he said.  Being the good (I hope I am good) husband that I try to be, I knew that dinner had to be a nice one for him.

And I think it was.

Humble bragging or something?  Perhaps.  But sometimes the cooking is going just right.  I set to work on dessert first, using up the leftover fresh rhubarb from the weekend to make a few individual crisps from the Mark Miller recipe that I've relied on for decades. 

Then it was on to the pork tenderloin.  I know, I make that often - it's an easy cut of meat to cook, doesn't take too long, and we both enjoy it.  I made a saffron carrot puree and cooked a bit of asparagus to go along with the pork. 

Tasty!  I was pleased with it all.

Conrad sipped a martini, I enjoyed a white wine from Paso Robles,

we watched the first episode of the new season of Top Chef, and then we strolled around the neighbourhood before I tackled dishes.  I think that I gave him a nice evening to unwind.  It was, at least, a delicious enough time!

steak

Date night at home with Van tonight.  Good wine, good music, and some steak for us.  Not my best effort, but very far from my worst.  Yum!!

Friday in Oregon

Wait, how did I get to be six days behind?  At least it's a mild week here, easy for catching up bit by bit.

But let's do this a little different.  Here, then, is a list of things from last Friday in Oregon, the day before the wedding...

1. A lazy start, but when I got started, I think I looked cute.
   
   
   
2. A drive into Medford with a first stop at Starbucks.
   
   
   
3. A walk around the city downtown. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Some cool old buildings,
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   but not much life, alas.  Big library, though!
   
   
   
4. A drive out to Jacksonville, where we'd had dinner the night before, to poke in a shop or two.
5. Wine tasting after too short a time in Jacksonville's downtown. 
   
   
   
   
   
   Very good food
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   and wine to pair at Parkhurst Winery. 
   
   
   The white asparagus dish was a particular highlight,
   
   
   as were the sablefish bites. 
   
   
   The fava and mint puree with the shrimp was the best of all, though.
   
   
   
6. A party in the hotel lobby for all the wedding guests featuring burgers and brats grilled outside and catering by Peter's aunts.  Meeting everyone was a treat, but Peter in a tiara (with Deb) was the highlight.
   

There.  Not too much editorializing, and really, none needed.  Just look what a gorgeous day it was.  Clearly we enjoyed ourselves the day before Peter's wedding!

two meals in the desert

We're just back from another weekend in the desert.  Yes, another one.  The desert hashtags will be growing in number as I go on.

Anyway, we're back from the desert.  Where I got to come down with a cold.  As did Van.  And Van's brother-in-law, Bob.  Three out of five (well, six, if we count Olive).  It made for a rather subdued weekend, I admit.  Ah well.  There will be more weekends.

The drawback to having a cold is that food doesn't taste as good, nor do I care quite so much about it.  Friday, though, none of us were doing too badly.  I had a busy morning of meetings, and before I had to return to report writing in the afternoon, we all popped down to Palm Desert to go to what has become my favourite fast food chain.

All you who think that you HAVE to go to In 'n' Out when you come to California, go for it.  Leave me at home.  The burgers are fine there (but really, a secret menu?  Sheesh!), but I think the fries are unworthy of the line ups.  In any case, I think I just read that that chain is relocating HQ to Nashville, so go see them in Tennessee instead.  No, when you come to California, enjoy visiting The Habit.

The Habit started in Santa Barbara.  Go read its history elsewhere.  Me, I'm here to recommend two things:  the seared tuna sandwich and the tempura green beans. 

Oh man, the green beans!  But also, the sandwich.  Whenever Conrad and/or Van suggest The Habit, I'm on board.  At lunch, we introduced Cathy (Van's sister) and Bob to the restaurant, and it was met with thumbs up all around.

As for dinner that night, we swung by Bristol Farm, and picked up the fixings for cooking at home.  I usually cook, as you might imagine, but Cathy and Bob were interested by the mention of lobster tails.  I played Van's support in the kitchen, helping him with what he needed for the lobster and the baked potatoes, and I cooked some asparagus. 

Not a refined meal in terms of plating, but a tasty, buttery one.

Capped by dessert:  fregolata. 

An old standby, lemon and almond shortbread.  I served slivers alongside a cheese, and we enjoy it all thoroughly.

And then the cold worsened on Saturday, and I slept much of the day before a nice but unremarkable dinner out in Palm Springs.

rare achievement

Friends will know this: I am very critical of my own cooking. Badly and even unnecessarily so, but I think that's not unusual for people who enjoy cooking. I'm hard on myself, I know. Sorry.

Conrad is out of town for a handful of days, and rather than do my usual thing of putting together a selection of things I can nibble on idly while I sip wine and watch old episodes of Top Chef on my iTunes, I actually cooked and plated a real dinner for myself.

And you know what? It wasn't exactly refined, but by gosh did it taste good.

A nice piece of sockeye salmon, seasoned with kosher salt and ground cumin, sauteed in a pan. Asparagus cooked crispy-tender. A fresh salsa made with corn cut from the cob, tomato, cilantro, jalapeno, red onion, lime juice, salt, and pepper.



And there I sat, a bit of Pinot Noir, Top Chef on iTunes, a dish of fresh cherries (rushing the season - oh! I can't wait until the cherries are in the thick of their season) awaiting me for dessert. And a nod to myself, a silent mental pat on the back for a job well done.

cleanse, day 30

Thirty days. Thirty days without consciously consuming caffeine, red meat or poultry, sugar (or honey or agave or maple syrup or the like), refined flour, dairy, or alcohol.

A few days in and I thought to myself how very daunting it would be. A week or more in, and I was expressing dismay with the beaniness of it all. At every meal shared with friends, I apologized profusely for being such a nuisance, such a bore. Still, I stuck with it. And now, tomorrow morning after I do my gym and swim, I will be free to ease back into a less-restricted diet. Frankly, I have reservations about how much I want to reintroduce. And given that Conrad is out of town for work, I may just stick close to the cleanse diet a day or two more.

You know, I've cooked many things, many meals in my life. I have never, so far as my sieve-y memory can recall, cooked tofu. Heck, I generally avoided eating it until Medgar offered me crispy fried squares of it when we lived in Montreal. I rather like it now, though as with many things, it also depends. Tonight? I liked it.

I started out by sauteing sliced onion and shallot with chopped garlic and ginger in a bit of vegetable oil. Along with the vegetables I cooked some green curry paste to remove the rawness. After the vegetables had softened, I added a can of light coconut milk, then let that simmer to develop the flavour. I can think of other things I would have added if I had them on hand, but some salt was all the seasoning I gave it.

I had pressed the tofu for about an hour to remove excess moisture, then I cut it into rectangular pieces, frying each a bit to lend some colour and bit of a crust to each piece. I added these to the green curry, then added in asparagus I'd cut up. Plump pieces - it's the season (though I'm not as mad for asparagus as I have been in past years). When the asparagus was just tender, I added a chopped tomato, stirred it to heat the tomato, then served it around a mound of basmati rice.



This, happily, was an occasion when my dinner pleased me, the harsh critic of my own cooking.

Also happily: leftovers!

A month of interesting dining and cooking ends, but the habits won't, not entirely. And by gosh, I think I may cook with tofu once again some day.

cleanse, day 14

Sitting here on Monday evening, writing this halfway through this self-imposed cleanse, I realize that the toughest part of this process is not relinquishing the many foods (and wine) I love. No, the toughest part is the burden I feel it places on others to accommodate me, indulge me, humour me, enjoy a meal with me.

Frank invited us to dinner yesterday, and it took a lot of negotiation to set up. Poor Frank. I am sure he thought he could share a good chicken pie with us as he has before. No, no. I had to make it tricky. Ultimately we agreed that he would provide a salad and some berries for dessert (with ice cream for Conrad) and even some cold poached salmon to go on the salad in case he and Conrad wanted something more. Yes, I am eating fish, but I opted not to last night. Instead, I brought along a main course for all of us - they'd partake as they saw fit.

I actually spent much of a sunny and cold Sunday in the kitchen. I'd downloaded the most recent Harry Potter film and set to work on cookies for Josh (more on that in another post - Josh, that is, not the cookies, which were NOT my best batch ever) and dinner for me. I'd had some barley with black cod the night before at Sola, and that made me think to make a barley risotto and then fashion it into cakes for frying.

I infused vegetable broth with dried morel and porcini mushrooms and kept that on a low heat, close at hand. The barley I sauteed some with a bit of shallot in olive oil, then began stirring in the broth. At the end of the process, when the barley was tender but had bite and was in its own thick, starchy sauce, I added in diced trumpet mushrooms and more shallots that I'd sauteed and seasoned together.

Now then, people who know me well will know that I have a rule of mushrooms: the more expensive the mushroom, the better it tastes. Button mushrooms revolt me. Few other foods do. The mushroom broth and trumpet mushrooms yesterday? Added depth and meatiness to the barley. Yum!

I let the barley chill and firm up, then stirred in some coarse grain cornmeal to help bind it. I coated the cakes in more cornmeal, then sauteed them in olive oil. I think flour (not permitted on the cleanse, at least not white flour) and egg may have helped bind them more, but I wasn't displeased with the result.

I debated a sauce, but still really needed a protein. I had also considered adding fava beans to the risotto (none available at Whole Foods) or peas, but settled on a pea puree to act as a sauce and protein both. That was easily prepared, and two parts were done. The last bit, some fat asparagus spears, I brought to Frank's, and he cooked them for all of us. He cooks his more than I usually cook mine, to be honest, but I still like asparagus in any case.

Puree down on the plate first, the cakes atop, the asparagus atop/between. I thought it was pretty satisfying.



Best of all? leftovers for a convenient dinner tonight. I popped two cakes on some puree in the toaster oven to reheat gently and partnered them with some broccoli. In all likelihood, tomorrow dinner will be the same!

cleanse, day 1

So this is a little crazy and odd of me, I admit: I'm doing a month-long cleanse of sorts. Let's call it the MG cleanse in honour of Martin, who was undertaking it in January.

Why? Well, truthfully, Conrad and I live a life of overindulgent dining. And wining. And for some time now I've been feeling kind of off on a regular basis. I'd like to get rid of that feeling. I'd like to get back to a certain equilibrium. And once I regain that, then I can balance fun eating with a healthier approach. For a month, though, it's tipped to healthier.

A month, then, of

• no caffeine
• no dairy
• no alcohol
• no meat (but I will allow fish during the cleanse)
• no refined carbs (sugar and white flour)

The downside of this all is finding snacking at home. Also, the morning ritual of getting coffee is a certain comfort. And arranging proper food at work is a little tricky, too. On the plus side, it is fun to try out some other recipes, some other cooking.

Monday was the first day of the cleanse. Dinner? Simple. Two eggs poached with some deliciously plump asparagus and a sprinkling of black pepper and wild mushroom salt.



It worked out quite nicely, and not having Conrad home made it easier for me to cook and eat what I wanted when I wanted.

Dinner Like no Other (8th annual)

(it occurs to me that it's actually a very nice thing that I have had to wait until a night when Conrad is out of town overnight for work to write this blog post)

This year marks the 8th time Rick Bayless and company have staged the Dinner Like No Other, a fundraiser for the Frontera Farmer Foundation. I think we've been to nearly all of them and enjoyed them hugely, not least because of the great people we've dined with. This year was no different.

Conrad and I got ourselves prettied up,
then headed downtown where we joined RAD again. He had assembled a table of familiar faces, so Jim (on the right with RAD) was there, and so was his wife Dianne. Glen and Sue had come down from Milwaukee. Andrew couldn't make it, but Susan and Conrad had a hoot all night long chatting away at their end of the table. We were sitting in the Frontera side again, and the mood around the table was spirited. And heck, that was even before they had poured us each a Copa Mundial Margarita (Tres Generaciones blanco tequila, Moon on the Water sake, Klug Farm strawberries, fresh lime). We sipped, Rick Bayless spoke to the assembled guests, introduced some of the farmers,
and then on to the food!

An Asian influence spun through the menu this year, mostly with good effect. I know now everyone cares for kimchi, but I for one rather like it. The amuse went down well. Tostadita Asiatica - City Farm radish kimchi, Nichols green onions, Alaskan king crab, crispy tortilla.

The courses are paired with wines, but this year there were two changes. First, Jill (the sommelier - we LOVE her) was not there, having worked the afternoon event. I hope she got the bottle of wine we brought for her. Second, the first course was paired with a local beer. Frankly, the pairing was a little lost on me - not at all bad, but the food just outshone the ale so very much. Our salad, then. Ensalada de Esparragos - grilled Klug Farm asparagus in miso butter. Pasilla chile compote, egg yolk custard, Gunthorp bacon, Bayless microgreens. Paired with 2010 Goose Island "Sophie" Belgian-style farmhouse ale.

When I saw the menu, it was the soup course I zeroed in on. Nettles. Cool! Plus, I'd had a chilled soup at the last wine pairing dinner at Frontera, and it was a wonder. This was no less delightful - look at that colour! The wine was an excellent match in this case. Sopa Verde - chilled soup of Spence Farm nettles and roasted poblano chiles. Whipped ricotta cheese, fermented black garlic, slow-cooked Iron Creek tomatoes, brioche croutons. Paired with 2009 Dona Paula Torrontes, Argentina.

I think Frontera Grill is one of the best places in the city to get seafood, but I think this was the weakest course of the night. The fish was fine in itself, and the go alongs were alright. But that was the problem: I wanted more than alright. I wanted Zap! Pow! It didn't happen. I will say that the wine was even better when sipped with the food. Halibut con Frijoles Negros - wood-grilled Alaskan halibut with Three Sisters Garden black beans and fermented black bean broth. Spicy Nichols snow peas, peanuts, crispy onions, furikake. Paired with 2008 Cono Sur "Vison" Pinot Noir, Chile.

Ah, but while the fish was fine, the pork was delicious. All those herbs singing together on my tongue, and a rich red wine that could handle them. This was a great end to the savoury portion of the meal. Puerco al Coco - Maple Creek pork shoulder braised in coconut water. Green papaya-mango salad with banana blossoms, Spence Farm quelites, homemade rice noodles, Living Waters herbs. Paired with 2009 Boekenhoutskloof "The Wolftrap", South Africa.

Ah dessert, bringing us full circle with the strawberries. Was it the angelica that had the unfamiliar and wonderful flavour? I'm not sure. I really liked this a lot, though. Isla Flotante de Fresa - Little Farm egg white meringue, Klug Farm/Seedling strawberries, peppercorn natilla, Bayless garden angelica, Living Waters micro basil.

With dessert, a pour of Tres Generaciones anejo tequila. I sipped some of it, but I didn't need it, and again, the nuances of tequila can be lost on me.

The night isn't just about food, though. There are raffles (we didn't win anything YET AGAIN). There is a silent auction (we sort of won, as a table, a cocktail party in the Bayless' garden) in which Jim successfully bid on the chef's jacket Rick Bayless wore to cook a recent state dinner at the White House. So there were were, a few of us (Robert and his wife Katie came by, the two lovely young women at the next table - I forget their names), trying it on, having a laugh.




The night wound down and left me thinking it's too seldom that Conrad and I make it down there to dine, much as we love it. Maybe some time next month (not-so-subtle hint coming up) I'll get in an early or belated 40th birthday nosh there. We'll see.