third weekend in July

Hey, it's the weekend update!  Lucky y'all, right?  Here we go!

Friday started out with me doing a mighty mighty long morning walk:  just shy of ten miles.  I was understandably a little worn out the rest of the day, but I rallied for dinner at Maestro.  No Van this time - he was a little under the weather - but we did have a nice time with Stephen. 

Ah, Stephen, someone we didn't see often enough despite him living just over in Glendale.  And now he is all packed up and moving to Texas.  This week.  We wish him well there, what with the new job and being much closer to his daughters and grandson.

Anyway, it was a nice evening outside. 

I stuck with the Maestro margarita, a hibiscus-flavoured drink, and we shared some good food:  guacamole with plantain chips, oysters, the roasted beet salad, and the cochinita pibil.  

I really love that last dish.  Yum!

Conrad and I came home from dinner, poured a little wine, watched some television.  An easy Friday done.

Saturday started out with less walking than the day before.  And, of course, we ended up at Amara.  Rather than having my usual arepa, I split a breakfast burrito

with Conrad. 

Have no fear:  there was a decaf latte for me.

Saturday then unspooled through a day of groceries, some laundry, and tackling some of the accumulation in the one storage room.  That felt good to get done.  Eventually I took up residence in my kitchen where I cobbled up from dim memory a lentil and bacon tart

to serve at room temperature for dinner and served that along with a salad platter (no lettuce - we are being wary of that like many other people) of burrata with crispy prosciutto, tomatoes, nectarines, basil, and mint. 

We had barely finished when Erik from next door showed up at the door to say hello.  That turned into a longer evening with him and his friend, Barry, joining us.  And then, because the dishwasher is on the fritz, I was up until after 11 washing and drying all the dishes by hand.  A lot of time on my feet despite a shorter walk that day, and man oh man, was I exhausted by the time I went to bed.

I let myself stay in bed longer yesterday, and our morning walk was meager.  It was nice to get a morning with some oatmeal and decaf and writing a few notecards to friends.  I made some dinner for Conrad to reheat tonight while I'm at Van's, then set to work on the happy hour cocktails.  That was fun.  Van stuck around for sushi after drinks, and then he headed home while Conrad and I finished up with some travel planning we'd been doing earlier in the day.  To bed after that.

Just a rather ordinary, easy weekend for us.  Nice to have! 

second weekend in May

You know, yesterday was so gosh darn lazy that I really could have sat down after dinner and written a summary of the weekend, and maybe, just maybe, I would have felt as though I had accomplished something.  Yes, it really was that kind of a day, hanging out in comfy sweats for most of it. 

Oh, I didn't do absolutely nothing.  I cooked us dinner, and we finally stumbled out of the condo after 8 for a short walk past restaurants still thronged with Mother's Day diners.  But otherwise, not a heck of a lot.

But we did get up to things the first half of the weekend!  So let me report on that, yes?

Van came by late Friday afternoon, and the three of us headed over to Maestro (with a stop in a new store to check it out - we'll have to pop back in another time to do some actual shopping) for dinner outside. 

It was a nice, leisurely dinner, no rush to it at all.  I had a tasty passionfruit and tequila cocktail to start,

and we all shared queso fundido, a beet salad,

calamari,

and the cochinita pibil. 

Bellies full from that, we wandered home to wind down, Van heading back to feed Olive.  An easy Friday evening where we got to catch up with the folks at Maestro and have some good food and drink.

Saturday was the busy day, but even then it wasn't so bad.  I went out for a walk without Conrad then collected him so that we could enjoy breakfast at Amara as usual. 

From there it was on to a massage session for me, and then Conrad and I did the week's groceries.  Back at home, there was laundry on the go, and while I worked in the kitchen, Conrad de-cluttered a storage closet in the condo.

Van and Olive were due for dinner, and it was nice to cook for all of us at home.  I had made a brown butter blueberry tart earlier in the day for our dessert. 

For dinner, I seared a few petit filets, topped them with caramelized onion and blue cheese, served them on spinach and a roasted slice of Japanese sweet potato, and spooned around a red wine reduction sauce. 

Decent little dinner, I have to say!  By the time we were done, we felt it a little late to start a movie or watch some television, and that was fine, too.

Van is away this coming weekend, and all of us are away together the next.  A few adventures coming up.  This week, however, promises/threatens to be a little dull.  I'll chime in when I can! 

weekend update

It's a long weekend, so it's a little premature to do a weekend update.  On the other hand, it's a quiet, easy Sunday, so let me chime in here before I go do something utterly unproductive....

Friday!  I didn't get photos from most of the evening, but it was a nice one.  Our friend Richard was doing some work in Pasadena, so he came by late afternoon, had a cocktail with Conrad, then Van joined us in time to head to Maestro for dinner at the bar.  After dinner and Richard and Van had gone home, I sipped a bit more wine and read before bed. 

I love that it's getting to be cozy sweater weather!

Saturday morning I headed out on foot, past where the Rose Parade stands are going up at the corner of Orange Grove and Colorado,

past the Ambassador Auditorium. 

I eventually met up with Conrad, who has been dealing with a foot injury, and we had a short remaining walk together.  Then, as you might guess, we ended up at Amara for a satisfying breakfast and lattes.

Saturday afternoon I was in the kitchen pretty much all day.  I made a brown butter blueberry tart

and put together a spinach and caramelized onion

lasagna for dinner at Van's last night.  I also roasted some chunks of delicata squash for a salad of burrata, the squash, and some autumn fruits. 

And I put focaccia dough together.  Busy afternoon.  We enjoyed an aperitivo together - martinis for me and Conrad

- and then Jennifer and Sanders came over to Van's for dinner (along with their dog, Daisy),

and the lasagna made for a satisfying meal.

But boy, was I pooped by the time dinner was done and they had gone home!

I was out the door by 6:30 this morning, having already caught the sunrise from the deck. 

Another lovely morning, another nice walk. 

Just shy of 3.5 miles for me, and I took some photos as I went along.  Random things that caught my eye,

nothing in particular.  Buildings,

plants. 

The guys (and Olive) eventually got up after I got back, and Van made us all breakfast (thank you, Van!).

And now it's back at the condo, most of the afternoon stretching before us with little we need to do.  Natasha will come for dinner, and the leftovers from yesterday will make a fine enough meal.  A day off tomorrow, and an easy day at that.

Happy weekend, friends!

more old stand-by recipes

Conrad and I haven't done much entertaining lately.  Let's blame it on two things:  our combined travel schedule and our disaster of an apartment.  The two of those aren't unrelated, come to think of it, though I am certain all that Fiestaware in the kitchen is dusty for reasons other than him and me flying off hither and thither.

It's been a while, though, as I said, so it was nice to have a casual little dinner in the kitchen last night with Michael, a PhD student from my university and someone I've known from his time working in the Special Collections department.  Conrad hadn't met him before, but Michael and I have been talking for some time about sharing a meal or two, especially since enjoying tapas together in Philadelphia last year.  His partner, Jenna, is out of the country right now doing some research, so it was a good time to have him over and make sure he's getting fed properly.  Starving grad students, you know.

It's dinners like last night where, rather than attempting something new and unknown (and I know I keep meaning to do more of that, culinarily), it just makes more sense to go back to the familiar, the stand-bys from my days at the restaurant.  Gosh, it's hard to think that it's 14 years almost since I stopped working there.  I'm sure these recipes are anything but cutting edge (if ever they were).  Still, they result in food I can feel reasonably confident will be enjoyed.  And that's the point:  that our guest enjoy dinner.  I think we succeeded.

We started off with some wine and cheese and olives and caper berries and nuts.  

Dinner wasn't yet out of the oven - we were running a bit behind, I admit, and that Michael came late was actually a good thing as it meant we got caught up on the dishes.  The wine done, I steered us to a richer wine than a Pinot.  I was feeling chilled somehow and wanted something a bit fuller to drink so that I might feel it warm me up.  A new wine poured (a Cab from the Oliver Winery in Indiana, a nice choice and a wine that will convince anyone that there are good Midwest wines).  I dished up dinner after letting it set up a bit following its removal from the oven.

Lasagna!  We so seldom cook pasta at home or opt for it when dining out (and even then it's usually only me and usually only Thai).  I'd had the recipe in mind for a few days, ever since a conversation TK and I had that led to the realization Evan Kleiman had closed Angeli Caffe in LA earlier this year and before I could go dine there (foolish me, I canceled a reservation for the place last summer).  Her Pizza, Pasta, Panini cookbook is really quite excellent, and the spinach and caramelized onion lasagna would make for a good vegetarian dinner, I thought.  I tossed salad greens with some white balsamic and white truffle oil, salt and pepper as a side dish.  Simple as that.

Michael went home with three servings of the lasagna, which is a good thing - in my experience, it's great the next day, even cold.  I just had a small bit as a late lunch.

Of course, there had to be dessert (and a third bottle of wine started but not finished).  Back to the restaurant days for the brown butter tart recipe.  It's not simply an easy dessert to make, it's one I like immensely.  The brown butter is a marvelous flavour in the tart filling, and a hint of salt adds dimension to the sweet.  The recipe actually calls for blueberries, and while I like that version, I think that more acidic fruit works better.  It's mango season at Whole Foods, so I decided to go with them.  They turned out sweeter and less acidic than hoped, but they still worked nicely in the tart.

Michael went home with four pieces.  Dessert for his lasagna, plus an extra tart slice.

Next Friday we're supposed to have Brad over.  We have a bottle of BC wine to share with him, and I'll again be pressed to come up with a vegetarian dinner.  Oh, it's not tough to do.  I'll start thinking now on which restaurant stand-bys to ply him with.

brown butter tart

Look, I know that I can be a very harsh critic of my own food. I think that anyone who pursues an interest of any sort often finds things to nitpick over. We do that because we love what we do, right? And think of it this way: how much sweeter it feels to really nail it.

The first time I was ever truly pleased with food I'd made myself (not food I was making at the restaurant) was around about New Year's Eve 1997. Something like that, or so I recall. I had made a pot of tomatillo braised country style pork ribs and some biscuits, and as I ate (with my parents, who were visiting), I was actually exclaiming out loud. It was good. I was pleased.

Moments like that are few and far between, but never think that I am on the verge of throwing every meal into the garbage or having to hold my nose when I eat my food. No. Mostly it's thinking to myself, "Hmmm... next time try tweaking XX a little." Or, "Maybe a little more precise measurement next time." Nothing too down on myself. Just wanting to do better.

Yesterday, though, I hit on happiness with my cooking. Daniel came for dinner, and I made us ribs with some broccoli on the side, and they were tasty - I usually like how my ribs turn out. But no, that's not what I'm talking about, and I didn't snap any shots of the ribs anyway. Instead it was dessert: brown butter mango tart.



Brown butter blueberry tart was a standby at the restaurant for at least a few years. I think Helen may have grown bored with it in the end, and after many iterations, that's understandable. I always liked it, though, for its somewhat cakey-filling that had that intriguing brown butter flavour and for how easy it was. Swap out the blueberries for other fruit, and you had a versatile dessert foundation to deploy on short notice. I got in the habit over the years of having some frozen berries in the freezer just in case. Tart fruits like raspberries work especially well in the dessert, I think - they cut against the sweet filling all the better.

With Daniel set to come over, I dashed through Whole Foods after brunch yesterday and grabbed a wedge of a triple-cream cheese and some nice crackers. I thought I could make a quick fruit relish to go with that, and we'd call that dessert. When I got home, though, I realized I had some mangoes purchased earlier in the week. They were still slightly underripe, but I decided that was to my advantage - a bit more sour, some acidity to balance sugar. My favourite standby popped into mind.

The recipe is one from The Ma Cuisine Cooking School Cookbook by a chef named Roy Yamaguchi. I don't know why I'd never put two and two together before today, but the chef is, of course, Roy of Roy's fame. The recipe isn't a Hawaiian one given the blueberries, but the mango takes it back there a little.

Anyway, mid-afternoon I set to work on the tart, creating a crust of shortbread-like crumbs to press into the pan. I am often a bit cavalier with this step and end up with a thick and/or hard crust. This is the part I was most delighted with last night: a nice crust that was buttery rich and fairly tender. Over the crust I scattered the pieces of mango and some toasted slivers of almond. Over top the fruit and nuts went the brown butter filling - I add a hint of salt to it to give a bit of edge to the sweet. Into the oven on 350 for 50 minutes, and later that bright, sunny Saturday afternoon we had dessert ready.



The funny thing about making dessert for a dinner for only a few people is that it can mean a lot of dessert leftover. I'm half tempted to eat a sliver for breakfast, but I think it might be wiser to send the remainder into Conrad's office tomorrow. They should enjoy it there. But for one dinner, for one evening, I was genuinely pleased with what I'd made, finding no fault, and lifting forkful after forkful to my own appreciative mouth.

small things of which I'm proud

In among everything on my mind and going on this weekend, a meal of which I was proud. I'm not always pleased with the food I produce, I admit - my own harshest critic all too often. Last night I put together a reasonable meal, though.

Dan came over - still in town from PA following a conference we both attended. Good company, and he very graciously brought delicious wines for us to enjoy. We all sat in the kitchen, and - following some snacks of cheese and nuts - dug into these little parcels.



Cornhusks are the wrapping for the parcels. Inside them are sockeye, one large shrimp, a bit of roasted poblano, slivers of yellow squash, and a dollop of butter flavoured with salt, lime zest and juice, and cilantro. I steamed them up for a bit (the tricky part - difficult to gauge doneness).

To plate, a generous spoonful of Cuban black beans, the parcels, a couple of corn rounds, and a sprig of cilantro atop. I actually thought they looked attractive. In the center of the table, I set a bowl for the emptied husks.

All in all, it was a nice meal. The parts went together fairly well, I thought, and the pale cornhusk parcels against the dark beans was a welcome contrast.

Dessert was an old restaurant standby: a brown butter tart. No blueberries this time, however. Mangoes have been in abundance in the stores, so I used them in the tart and swapped out the almonds slivers for pistachios. Dan was sent home with a couple of wedges, and I hope they made for a good snack for him today.