groove food

dot & c get hitched, part III of III

dot - this is the story of the day you married c. except it's not. it's the best i can do. tricky business, retelling the ineffable. so here are some words strung together disjointedly to interpret loosely. some pictures to take your breath away. like this one. whatever you were feeling inside at that very moment--that's the story. i hope you tell it to yourself often.

what are friends are for? making you eat breakfast.

each story is locked up safe inside.

"it looks really nice. now f*ck it up some."

some things blue.

while you were preening.

said to symbolize departure, which is to say, arriving somewhere else.

it haloed e v e r y t h i n g.

 all hands on deck.

could it be the passage from one point to another is the point?

 they waited patiently. for the most part.

 stella moonstone.

some pop champagne, others.

invest in knee pads, helmets & peanut butter cups.

they got to bear witness. and kick sand.

 your wedding day = not too shabby

greeks had it: love sprang from an oyster shell.

quel fromage, mama

pause.

like a sip of sparkling burgundy brew

honored guests.

as good as it looks.

night came on, so did radiohead.

tears, toasts, and toast.

oysters and pearls and pranks at the fast food drive thru. reasons why i love you.

bffs.

"they slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered." - f. scott fitzgerald

 

notes

* the breakfast sandwich is from carmel belle on the corner of ocean & san carlos in carmel-by-the-sea

* dot & c's wedding cake (meyer lemon chiffon if you must know) was from their dear friend michelle at big sur bakery

* as for dinner, 12 of us feasted on multiple courses well into the night. from delectable, bone-sucking-good grilled quail, to french laundry's dreamy "oysters and pearls," to homemade peach-champagne sorbet and butter-poached lobster in bright red beet sauce. the dinner was prepared by one of dot's friends and clients. the best part? sitting next to dot.

dot & c, part II of III: sushi & pizza

it seems only appropriate to begin the story of dot and c's wedding rehearsal with gnocchi 'casanova.' part of the romance of eating these plump spinach dumplings with the texture of marshmallows is being tucked in a corner at restaurant casanova, so your expression of dreaminess is a secret between you and your plate.

casanova himself knew that appreciation of food and wine played a key part in the art of seduction. when two people revel in flavor together a kindredness transpires, a sort of language-less vow in devotion to sharing the enjoyment of life. it is a bond so potent and big it overflows, reaching into all surrounding lives.

for instance, pickle's. she loves basking in love which is why she is the perfect pup for dot & c. her permanent tuxedo attire was finally appropriate for the occasion.

the world gets a little quieter before something big is about to happen. we sense the shape of what is waiting in the distance. therein sits the gift. our alertness allows us to witness a hundred little moments defined by their stillness. that is exactly how it was on the eve of dot & c's wedding day.

of course, the sun cooperated in helping us take notice.

as it set, the groom carved out a circle in the sand for his bride.

it was almost time for us to close our eyes and wait, and sense, and wait.

the flowers had taken their positions. the thing about dot is that she knows simplicity is the ultimate extravagance. her wedding flowers were cupful after cupful of roses in every shade of white, floating gardenias, aromatic stock, and french tulips that curved their slim stems toward wherever there was candlight.

when the day was almost done, we gathered back at dot's big dining room table with their officiant, erin, and sucked down sushi rolls from the mall.

and meat lover's pizza. because before there can ever be champagne, their should be pizza from a cardboard box.

here it comes!

notes

* restaurant casanova is located in carmel-by-the-sea at 5th avenue, between mission and san carlos. visit them online here.

* burst & bloom is dot's amazing shop and florist services in carmel. her website is here.

 

dot & c get hitched, part I of III

this begins the story of the day my best friend dot got married, told mostly through food and flowers. what better storytellers are there? it is also the story of how i successfully transported three pounds of beef tenderloin from san diego to carmel to make dinner for dot (aka lolo) and her husband to be. not even airport security could stop me.

before we get to ravishing wedding gowns, romantic roses, and oysters and pearls (and trust me, they are coming), i'll tell you that mother nature must love dot and c. california has its share of beautiful days, but only a few are magical. every day hugging and including their wedding day was that. sunlight married everything it touched and they became something more together.

this is january, people.

two days before rings were exchanged and kisses were kissed, gorgonzola dolce was stuffed into bosc pears and broiled until bubbly under a crust of hazelnuts. when dot & c were engaged a year ago, i started thinking about the pre-wedding dinner i wanted to make them.

while i love nothing more than making dinner with dot (see here, here, here, and here), the only thing i wanted her to lift were her dancing feet. i somewhat successfully warded her off from her own kitchen, only to bug her nearly constantly for the location of peelers and pepper, parchment and the like.

my beef tenderloin was tsa-approved, wrapped in an entire roll of saran wrap and snuggled into an insulated bag before it arrived in carmel to be tied with sprigs of thyme and slow-roasted for 2 hours in a low oven. i love my butcher in san diego, and i especially love the no-fuss, never-fail slow roasting method for tenderloin. just for the record, raw beef tenderloin is not considered a threat of terrorism.

also accepted by airport security was a chocolate stout cake i'd made the night before. dot had to help me unlodge it from the bundt pan and chocolate ganache cloaked any wounds endured by travel. conclusion: double stout, molasses, and flying all make chocolate taste a little better.

so does love.

notes

* find the recipe for pears stuffed with gorgozola and hazelnuts and mixed greens with pancetta here. i served it as a first course, but it would make for a lovely cheese course or end of a meal.

* the method for slow-roasted beef tenderloin is here. i like it served with shallots and red wine.

* can you tell i love fine cooking magazine? chocolate stout cake here.

* of the dot & c story - there is more to come...

pumpkin-colored days

we've crossed over. night comes on with a thud, the kitchen smells often of earl grey, orange leaves on the lawn are bright and damp with early rain. when the sun finds us, it feels like a refrain--lipstick still stuck to a wine glass. we are suspended in the slight nip and the light. somewhere they are shaking the olives from olive trees.

this all means soup. rice noodle with shiitakes, bok choy and a sesame-laced broth. chicken tortilla with a liberal squeeze of lime and fistfuls of cilantro. beef stew with cognac and red wine. mostly this: butternut squash with apples, coconut milk, and sweet curry powder. these are the days of yellow-stained wooden spoons and fingertips cracked and orange from peeling squash into the sink.

we get surrounded by orange--a handsome compensation for the dip in temperature. there are yams, persimmons with their taught, gleaming skin, first crop tangerines. inspired and hungry, i spent a morning making pumpkin spice muffins studded with dried cherries and chunks of bittersweet chocolate. lined up on a white tray, scented of cinammon, ginger and nutmeg, they were quickly devoured by a classroom of 1st graders.

even living far from fields, orchards, vineyards, and groves, i can feel the harvesting. there is more to do, there is more to give.

there are rituals waiting to be remembered, unpacked. rainy library days. the return of hot chocolate. making stock on a saturday. gratitude around the dinner table but with new names and moments on the list.

it's a good place to be--to long for what you already have.

notes

* my favorite butternut squash soup recipe comes from ina garten, but with a few modifications. i use less onion, add a bit of garlic, 3 cups of chicken stock (in place of water) and 1 cup of apple cider. i also add 14 ounces of coconut milk near the end. let me also just say it is worth the trouble of ordering sweet curry powder from penzey's for this soup and oh so many other reasons.

* the recipe for the pumpkin spice muffins can be found here. i make mine with whole milk greek yogurt, a little less sugar than the recipe calls for, a tiny hit of nutmeg in addition to the other spices and plenty of dried cherries and bittersweet chocolate added at the end.

where i've been

two months without you, dear readers. i come back with a recap of summer and a heap of ideas for the seasons ahead. i come back with flashy photographs of salads, convinced i shall finally prove the seduction of strewn-just-so-vegetables. and i come back to you with a metal mixing bowl full of tuna salad anointed with leftover goldfish crackers from thing 1's lunch, perched right beside my laptop. glamorous, no?

i'd like to think my creativity oozes from me like juice from an overripe peach. actually, it moves through cycles. i've been holding my breath. i've been green. in the meantime, i've cooked. like a mad woman, i've cooked. but i didn't write. i turned many shining sweet peppers into charred up things, and at the end of the day, i slept and waited for today to come.

today i have the courage to tell you how moved i can get by a kitchen tool. i think about its creator, and wonder if they knew the simple pleasure many would derive from its form and function. today i am grateful my heart is the type that gets equally gripped by a whisk as a cloudless night sky.

today there is nothing more pressing than writing this. the most crucial item on the agenda is remembering when my freshman year roommate and her fiance visited me this summer and i got up early to bake them grapefruit-honey-yogurt scones before we swam in the ocean.

today there are a couple (or more) bags of kettle corn from the leucadia farmers market to remember, if only to affirm my complete powerlessness with respect to them. is there any graceful way to eat kettle corn? excuse me for a moment only, but i can't get that shit into my mouth fast enough. today i've determined kettle corn should be a controlled substance.

today might also be the day to admit that groove food went quiet because i simply made spaghetti with cherry tomatoes over and over again all summer. it is a recipe so powerful i could probably milk a dozen or more posts out of it alone, but then i'd risk being branded the crazy spaghetti with cherry tomatoes lady. it's up there with the crazy cat lady, but with copious garlic involved.

while i was away i made sandwiches, and someone visited this site and used google to translate its content to portugese. i learned that in brazil, this blog is called "sulco de alimentos." glamourous enough to excuse the tuna salad/goldfish combo, right? the version of me that dones string bikinis on beaches in ipanema also wrote this sentence: "inebriante, mesmo." if you say it out loud it kind of sounds like warm caramel.

i also thought a lot about recipes i want to share with you. at the end of the day, when i've loaded and unloaded thing 1 & thing 2 and all their gear multiple times and cooked for families other than my own, i want nothing more than to curl up with a bowl of greek yogurt and convince myself that it can pass as dinner. but really, i want a stack of recipes that are easy and fast enough for moments like those, that also remind me of the pleasures of eating. i'm going to find and create those recipes for both of us.

i've also had this picture to share with you. a moment from my friend ryan's 30th birthday. jack meets grass-fed lamb chops. it might be my favorite food picture yet. thank you, always and forever, jack.

i've had so much to share with you, but i forgot how to start.

i wanted to urge you to find an orange tree and pick an armful that are still warm from the sun. juice them right away and drink up. wherever you are, that's your new memory. mine was at my grandmother's house on a sunday in july.

there's just a few more things: while i was away, my father turned 60 and this blog turned one! there was pecan-cornmeal-brown butter cake and a revisit to my most visited post. there was the alarming and satisfying realization that i'm finally doing what i set out to do: share with you about cooking and eating and life. happy birthday, groove food.

so, lastly, thank you. thank you for cooking shrimp with black rice and coconut milk and telling me how much you loved it. thank you for writing me that you missed the recipes. thank you for being an audience as i muse over just-picked raspberries and my six-year-old savoring homemade pizza. i remain convinced that one of the greatest pleasures of a meal is talking about it.

dinner with dot, four

come over.

your presence is mandatory. shoes are optional. the radishes are buttered. the olive oil is absinthe-colored. figs just came around the market. we need you.

help us tear this bread apart. what are your thoughts on violet-flavored balsamic? an alert that the banter will be lively: the cooks are fueled on rico's vegetarian burritos and probably a half cup or more of hot sauce.

we need you because food looks best when it is eaten. the loveliest dish is an empty one.

we'll feed you things like bay scallops in bourride with a sliver of roasted pepper. bourride? a homemade aioli expertly combined with a warm pour of leftover shrimp and lobster stock. (thanks, dot, for enlightening me).

my table wishes for people. it's true. it told me.

we've got all this summer produce. it can be distracting. intoxicating, even. we have a salad to share with you: baby romaine, raw white corn, shaved zucchini and summer squash, cherry tomatoes, and a few slivers of very nice pecorino, dressed with nothing more than lemon zest, juice, and the best olive oil in the house.

and we've got pasta dough! made with seven egg yolks! from the brilliant thomas keller, transposed by dot from his french laundry cookbook.

we wish we had enough of it to make a life-sized nest for you. or a wig for dashing about town.

nevertheless, we might ask you to help.

your reward will be handsome: those homemade noodles tossed with morel mushrooms, butter, fresh parsley, and a few spoonfuls of the pasta cooking water. pepper, please.

just to cleanse your palate (or maybe to give us an excuse to serve you two desserts), we'll serve you homemade olive oil gelato with blackberries doused in the smoothest white balsamic east of italy.

there are still butterscotch budinos with sweet sea salt and cold pressed bolivian coffee with cinnamon and cream. feel the love yet?

stay late. sing a song. smoke a clove. spin in circles. just come over.

notes

* find thomas keller's seven yolk pasta dough here.

* a recipe for olive oil gelato that beats all the rest here.

* i urge you to make butterscotch budinos. molly of orangette's recipe here.

* magical coffee is easy and way good. recipe here.

the warm up, avec dot

fact: anyone other than your mom is always going to be better at brushing your hair. another fact: that talented mane-tamer is also probably going to have some sort of snack up her sleeve that your mom has never been exposed to, like a peanut butter and honey "roll up." tasty on its own, but even more desirable because it mandates being eaten outside, lest honey droplets spatter the kitchen floor in some sort of edible homage to jackson pollack.

these are the type of lessons picked up in my house when dot visited thing 1, 2, and me a few weeks ago. we also learned that your house will inevitably be rewarded in the floral department if your best friend owns a flower shop. we have peony petals everywhere to prove it. also learned: the most delicious salad you will EVER have in your life are local beets roasted and tossed with a pinch of cumin and coriander, juicy orange supremes and plenty of cilantro, fresh mint, plump golden raisins and pine nuts. this is the fact of all facts, and i owe it to dot for teaching me.

the afternoon had begun with an hour or two of stock-making. over the course of several months, i had collected a trashbag full of shrimp and lobster shells in my freezer. the accumulation was tossed in a massive pot with white wine, plenty of water, onion, celery, carrots, fennel, parsley, a couple bay leaves, and a spoonful of tomato paste. within moments, the kitchen began to smell like the ocean.

the stock served the purpose of becoming broth for bowls full of manila clams, mussels, shrimp, and local sea bass, plus escarole, kale, fennel, tomatoes, garlic and a final swirl of brown butter. it's kind of like a feast for discerning pirates and mermaids--those that would call for a mouth-tingling sancerre in their stein to wash it all down.

the only utensil requirement is a crusty loaf of bread. stray mussel shells are perfect for plucking the contents inside others. candlelight completes the effect, but is not necessary. if you can, though, this meal is best shared with a best friend, one who does not raise his or her eyebrows when you down leftover broth by tipping back the enormous bowl.

the finale was partially consumed in a dark kitchen, standing over the counter in admiration of dot's little lemon tarts, adorned with a scoop of my homemade olive oil gelato. this is the kind of dish that is only possible when two heads and sets of hands set out in the kitchen together, which tells me cooking is meant to be a group effort. dot & i considered this night our team warm-up. round 2 to follow.

notes

* inspiration for the seafood stew with escarole, kale & cherry tomatoes came from michelle bernstein's recipe here.

* desiring that dessert? dot started with melissa clark's lemon tart recipe, and shrunk them down to mini-size. you can find the recipe in her book in the kitchen with a good appetite. i swear by the olive oil gelato on food52. utter decadence. recipe here.

songs & scenes, fruit on freedom day

honey, honey - feist (listen)

how long will it take - jeff buckley & gary lucas (listen)

all is love - karen o & the kids (listen)

god yu tekkem laef blong mi (listen)

badly drawn boy - magic in the air (listen)

moby - my weakness (listen)

notes

* happy fourth of july. i hope your day was filled with bbqs, or even the smell of a well-lit weber in the distance. mine finds me enjoying a quiet evening solo, longing for one thing: gumbo. the best i ever had was at a kitchen table, so simple, served over rice and with love. i won't make it myself, because i want to remember it just like that. plus, my kitchen currently lacks any andouille sausage and is filled with bowls and bowls of fruit and these songs.

dinner with dot, the third

when i wake up i have two things on my mind: coffee and dinner. the first i address urgently with joyful anticipation. in fact, i go to bed smiling knowing i will be drinking coffee when i rise. and as for dinner, i'm nearly always in a state of daydream concerning it. when the day begins, i ask what is required to make dinner magic happen. this question is most fun to consider in the company of my best friend, dot, and her best friend, pickle.

the best dinner missions are daring and ridiculous quests. we drove through the hills of monterey like we were on the autobahn! we popped wheelies in a prius but kept our brussels sprouts intact! we had transcendental moments with rainbow chard at the pacific grove farmers market! we sampled cheeses tagged as "funky" by in-the-know cheesemongers! we sponsored a dairy cow in a remote village in spain like it was a cabbage patch kid!

we bought a boatload of fava beans! i've been making dinner with dot a lot lately, you may have noticed. this fantastic fact is no small feat considering we live a seven hour drive from each other (and that's if you don't take the pretty route). so when we get down to the dinner part, things get serious. seriously ecstatic.

dot saluted spring in salad. the fava beans joined tender raw asparagus, watercress, parmesan shards, radish wheels, and meyer lemon dressing, inspiring everyone gathered around the table to say things like "hallelujah!" the verdant tangle was piled atop toast and a melting sliver of culatello, a.k.a. the prize of parma, a.k.a. prosciutto with an even smoother voice and beaucoup bucks in the bank.

the porcine theme expanded with dot's rosemary & honey glazed pork chops, a simple dish with limitless variations and a super idea for weeknight eating. dot seared organic pork chops until they achieved a golden crust, then turned the heat down a bit until they just cooked through (145 degrees internally with a 5 minute rest before serving). the pan was deglazed with a splash of stock, a fat sprig of rosemary, and a tablespoon or so of honey. so easy, no recipe required.

if you try dot's method, i encourage you to serve your chops alongside sliced pear, roasted brussel sprouts, a baked yam mashed with vanilla bean and butter, and spoon the pan sauce over everything. some nights incite a double hallelujah.

but, wait. there was still PEANUT BUTTER PIE (i am a lowercase kind of woman but those words deserve CAPS when listed together like that). from the pages of melissa clark's new book, in the kitchen with a good appetite (yes, i'm totally obsessed) comes a recipe for "karen's peanut butter pie," a chocolate cookie pie crust filled with the easiest ever peanut butter mousse and topped with chocolate chips and honey roasted nuts (and some whipped cream, if you fancy) you can find recipe here.

dot and i watched the meal go down at the dining room table from a perch on her sofa, pretty much marveling over how lucky we were to to be sharing things like pork chops and peanut butter pie in the same city. we meant to squeeze a cheese course between the entree and the pie, but it was late and her fiance's boys had school the next day. dot sent me a snapshot of the cheese a few days later, when i'd returned to san diego. with it came hints of dinner with dot, part four. hallelujah.

notes from dot:

the salad was dressed with a meyer lemon vinaigrette. juice from half a lemon, zest from the whole thing! shallots, minced (small shallot, a scant tbsp). white wine vinegar--a splash, emulsify with a light but fragrant olive oil (not Spanish, too strong) and salt and pepper to taste. flat leaf parsley to round it out.  the meat was culatello. it's a center cut of the prosciutto which is silky and has less of the fat than the outer sections.  people really into meat and curing think of culatello as a gem...those i know do. 

other notes:

* the pacific grove farmers market takes place on fridays from 4 pm - 7 pm (summer hours) on grand avenue and central avenue in pacific grove.

* i like my brussel sprouts split in half, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper and roasted at 400 for 20-25 minutes

* disclaimer: do not try popping wheelies in a prius at home. first, i'm pretty sure it is impossible. second, you might hurt yourself if you tried. make peanut butter pie instead.

songs & scenes, blushing

"cooking is like love. it should be entered into with abandon or not at all." - harriet van horne

alexander - a million years (listen here)

first aid kit - when i grow i up (listen)

shuggie otis - strawberry letter 23 (listen)

sam cooke - sugar dumpling (listen)

i like you better - frazey ford (listen)

madeline, karl blau & your break - i waited all day (listen)