loquats

Nothing newsy to report, just a photo to share.  I was out walking north of the freeway yesterday, and I saw some loquat trees in a few yards, heavy with fruit coming along nicely.

I've read in the past that there are many such trees around the LA area, and that a lot of the fruit goes unused.  And I don't doubt that - in the groceries stores (read:  white, or non-ethnic) where I shop, the fruit is almost never on sale.  I probably haven't tasted it since I lived in Montreal and was dating Claude, and he would find loquats in stores (sold as nèfles) and buy them.

Anyway, no invading yards for me.  Just admiration.  Handsome trees.  I hope some owners are harvesting them.  

hotel gardens

A small break here before I press on.  I would be remiss if I didn't share photos from the hotel gardens.  The fruits and vegetables they grew supplied the restaurant.  Hotel guests were free to roam the gardens, and there were places to sit and just enjoy the peace of the space. 

The Il Monastero grounds also included a small vineyard.  Indeed, there was wine produced and bottled.  I don't think we tried it, alas, and the vines had been harvested not long before we traveled there.  Still, it made for a lovely setting, especially with part of the castle complex looming above.

Some garden photos, then.  More to come from Ischia and the rest of Italy! 

Sunday dinner with Erik

It feels as though I've been dining out a lot lately, what with travel here and there (and more to come this week) and the like.  It was good, then, to spend my Sunday in the kitchen.  Not toiling away, sweating and swearing, but moving through the planning and preparation of a dinner at a nice pace.

Conrad and I had invited our next door neighbour, Erik, over.  It had been some weeks since we'd caught up with him, and we thought it would be nice to hear how his summer was going.  He shower up at 6:30 with a gift of Norwegian gin in hand, we poured him a cocktail, and from there dinner played out.

Up first:  burrata served with tomato and nectarine slices, some fresh basil, and a light sherry vinegar and garlic dressing.  Sweet and tangy and creamy and herbacious.  I thought it was a nice start.

The main course:  rack of lamb that I served as double chops to each of us atop some eggplant and green pea curry (needed more salt and cayenne) along with some rice and an apple and golden raisin chutney.  It was fine, not quite reaching what I was going for.  But fine enough.

Dessert:  olive oil cake with roasted strawberry and nectarine sherbet, nectarine macerated with mint, and a piece of almond praline.  The cake was a little dry, alas, but otherwise, it was all good.

Final grade?  A solid B, maybe a B+.  I'm hard on myself, I know, but I have made this food better.  Nonetheless, we had a nice evening with Erik, enjoying some good wines and the dinner.

hotel garden

I can't overstate how much we liked our hotel in Torres del Paine, the Hotel Las Torres.  Oh, the rooms could have been more luxurious, perhaps, but they were certainly comfortable.  And the view?  Come on!  I've also commented on just how good the all-inclusive food was as well.  And here's a cool thing about that food: a lot of it was very very local indeed.

We had some time between breakfast and our long ride to El Calafate to walk around a bit, so Conrad and I found ourselves wandering into the hotel gardens. 

No, not exquisite beds of fragrant blooms, but a working vegetable garden.  Not to mention apples, pears, and plums in the orchard! 

We saw rhubarb and currant bushes and gooseberries, the source of ingredients for drinks and desserts.  We saw the carrots that were served with dinner dishes and adorned the lovely salads at lunch.  There were greenhouses as well.  Guests were welcome to walk through the area, and I can only hope it made people appreciate the hotel and its food all the more.

In addition, there was the little brewery. 

A small building standing near the garden entrance, it was the source of a beer that one of the Brits on our excursion the day before had raved about.  Jenny, who lives in Belgium (where they know a thing or two about beer) ordered one before dinner the night before, and she approved.  I just wonder whether there was the space in the there for distilling the gin they made!

variations on a theme

If I may, I will frame this entry by stating the obvious: I am pale, pasty white. To this I add that I spent my formative years in northern BC where - though it could get hotter than most people here can believe - cool and wet was the norm. My summers are ideally set no higher than 24 degrees (that's Centigrade - no jokes about sled dogs being needed once you cross the border into Canada). I loathe the heat.




And yet I live in Chicago (fast approaching my 11-year anniversary), and heat and humidity are the essence of summer here. My response? I turn on the AC as high as it will go and stay away from the oven and stove. I'd love to say that dinner then becomes a choice between ice cream and Popsicles, but no, I try to keep us eating something halfway decent.




Lately, given the heat, it's been salads, cold fish, nuts, cheeses, fruit. Things I don't need to cook. Wash, cut, plate, yes. But no cooking, not if I can help it. Wine as well with the occasional martini sneaking in. Call it a rut, but so be it if a rut means that I - pale, pasty, cold-weather loving Canuck that I am - can survive the Chicago summer!

magic foods

I was having a conversation with TK about this: the foodstuffs that just make me sit up and say, "YES!"

Conrad is easy: Pinot Noir, raspberries, chocolate (dark, please), salmon, plus cheeses of various sorts. I can build a special date night meal around those frequently. Come to think of it, I do.

;-)

Me? I have to be tricky. Seasonal items (asparagus, pomegranates). Pricier, specialty items (morels). Crap (Old Dutch dill pickle chips - I have them almost EVERY time we go to the UP).
The other problem with me is that I go through phases. For a season, a year, I'll be so into a particular thing. The list of past infatuations includes walnuts, radishes, and a French feta I was getting from Whole Foods. You know, just the things we all shop for, right?

I've figured out the two things for this year. For starters, I've been working through a bottle of white truffle oil and have totally reveled in its fragrance and flavour. Mmmmmm. The other thing? Strawberries.

That's kinda weird.

Usually the strawberries in the store - even Whole Foods - are gorgeous and smell heavenly and have no flavour or are sour as anything and get moldy all too fast. Strawberries are like the online hook up of the food world - they never are as good as their picture suggests. Bastards.

Somehow, though, we've had a good run of berries this season, and I've taken real delight in their perfume in the kitchen, especially when I've got them macerating in a bowl with some sugar and fresh lavender leaves. It's a play on an idea I stole from CG, and I've wheeled it out a few time this spring and summer.

When we were up in the UP for the long weekend, we caught the tail end of the strawberry season at the farmers market in town. A pint came home to Conrad's mother's place with us, and we snacked on them with breakfast while we were there. Sweet with an edge of tang, fragrant, a beautiful deep red. Lustful thoughts were mine: mixing them into a crisp with some rhubarb or turning them into an ice cream concoction. But really, they were best washed and popped into our mouths with no adornment. Just the flavour of real fruit.

I'll miss them now that the season is pretty much over. Happily for me, the cherries have been good lately, and the plum season is almost upon us. Upside down cake! Mmmmm....

no oven, please!

I don't know what the Saturday high temperature was in Chicago. The actual number is immaterial to me. Hot. That's what it was. And yes, I do know it was far from the hottest it's been or even that I've known it to be. I am a polar creature, I think, and I prefer cooler temperatures.

And yet, I never object to the opportunity to dine out on the balcony. Friday night with Heather and Arek, Saturday night a mini-date night with Conrad. Bliss!






In this weather, I avoid turning on the oven (though I will likely get cookies for the conference roomies, TK and Martin, baked before I head to DC midweek). That being the case, Saturday dinner was a near repeat of Friday. Things that require scant cooking on the stove. No oven, please!

Salad-y things were the order of the day, and we're both fine with that. Some mixed nuts, a small dish of olives. A well-chilled Chardonnay. I set out a salad of mixed baby greens and some herbs with tomatoes, dressed with white truffle oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. White truffle oil is my magic go-to ingredient of this year, it seems. Rough life Peter. I also had a dish of asparagus, cooked and chilled, a drizzle of the oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, and then a grating of Spanish Mahon Curado cheese atop. Alongside this were a dozen plump shrimp I'd barely and gently poached in rose wine with peppercorns and a pinch of a spot prawn flavoured salt. The shrimp were chilled as well. Dessert? A bowl of cherries.

An ideal dinner - light fare with minimal fuss. Loading the dishwasher probably took longer than the salad, for example. And, happily, it keeps the apartment cool for the much-welcome night of EC.

Simple, easy food for an er-lee summer evening. Conrad and I just munched and sipped and chatted and were grateful for these simple pleasures.

old stand-bys

One of my many dirty little secrets is that I have not really had any new recipes for years. Instead, I keep foisting recipes from my restaurant days on people and rely on them never having been all the way to Terrace ever to keep the recipes "fresh" and "new".

It worked again this past weekend.

Chris and Sherri came over. There's a nice core group of Vancouver friends we enjoy seeing each time, and those two - not a couple! - are firmly within that group. Always good to see them even if it is just for one evening.

Plus, I like to be able to get better acquainted with my Vancouver kitchen three years after purchase of the condo. What did I learn this time? SLOW oven. Merde!

Anyway, they came over around 7ish. Sherri brought cheese and other snacks and wine, though it was Marie's sparkling wine and lavender cocktails that we started out with. In all, we had a healthy (ahem!) amount of wine that night, but plenty of food to go with.

Half Cornish game hens with a pea and bacon puree plus some veggies and a drizzle of truffle oil.





The standby - dessert: rhubarb anise crisp.
I winged it without the original Coyote Cafe recipe, and it was fine. Marie had barely enough sugar, though, and I ended up folding brown sugar into unsweetened whipped cream. Worked like a charm!





A very nice night with our friends, but really, I can't help but chuckle to myself that some of the food I make I've been making for years. The benefits of Don Diego's live on and on and on...