The fruit of my labours

It has been over two years now since Jose taught me how to poach pears in wine (the secret is to add however much brown sugar you think is more than enough, and then double it), and since then I have had a colourful history of working with fruit. I make quite a mean magret de canard à l’orange, if I may say so myself. Sweet and savoury can be a potent combination – delicious when you get it right, and disastrous if not. Once every so often the wind blows in the right direction, the stars align and the gods smile on me, and I blunder my way into making a meal fit for a king.

I mention fruit because Jeff recently forwarded me a picture he had taken almost exactly a year ago of the swordfish steaks I’d made one night when we were both still living at 1721 T. It was a good meal, and thoroughly enjoyable. Apart from giving me a rush of nostalgia (it is hard to believe I have spent a year in the District, I guess days – and nights – pass by fast when you spend such a large part of them drinking your face off), the photograph also reminded me of all the fruits that are just now in season. So many fruity dishes to make, so little time. And perhaps more unfortunately, precious few good people to make them for.

Pan Seared Swordfish Steaks in Tomato buerre-blanc with Mango Salsa
2 swordfish steaks
Juice of 1 lemon
Juice of 3 limes
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
Half a handful of cilantro
1 red onion, diced
4 cluster tomatoes, diced
1 large mango, diced
1 cup dry white wine
butter

Salt and pepper the steaks, then drizzle generously with lemon juice and set aside. Meanwhile, whisk the lime juice and sherry vinegar into an emulsion and combine with the red onion, three-quarters of the tomatoes, the mango and the cilantro. Refrigerate the salsa and the steaks for at least two hours. When ready to eat, sear the steaks in a pan on both sides till browned, then add white wine and the remainder of the tomatoes. Cook the liquid down, braising the steaks in the process. When steaks are done, remove and cook sauce down to desired consistency. Monter au buerre and plate the sauce, swordfish and salsa – in that order.

Surf and Turf, or an Ode to the Oyster

Hank's Oyster Bar
1624 Q St NW
Washington DC 20009
202-462-4265

Let me just state categorically, that I love eating raw oysters. I love holding the half-shell to my mouth, positioning my oyster fork just thusly, in rude anticipation of a moment of intense enjoyment. I love swallowing them without chewing, unadorned of any dressing, and slurping their juices down. I love the smell and the taste of the sea – never mind that I sometimes find grit in my mouth. It is one of the great pleasures and rituals of dining, and one I find I must perform every once so often.

It is quite convenient, then, to have Hank’s Oyster Bar just a few blocks down from where I live in DC. It is a cute little place with decent food – not amazing – with just enough flaws to render it human, which in turn makes it all the more enticing. More importantly, they have good oysters, the selection of which changes daily. Hank’s is also one of only two establishments on 17th St where the food is anywhere near acceptable, which – coupled with the delightful hostess Maya – might explain why I am there so often. The delicious irony of it all (pardon the pun), is that the other place on 17th St that is halfway decent is Komi, which in my humble opinion is the best restaurant in DC bar none, and a pearl amidst the swirling cesspool of gastronomic mediocrity that is Dupont Circle’s most famous street.

So Hank’s it was, where Natalia, Clayton and I went last night to get our (or rather just mine) oyster fix. They did not have Blue Points, but they did have Kumamotos; and I got a half dozen of those, which were gone in as many seconds. I lie, actually. We did pause, in recognition of the efforts of the oyster-shucker working tirelessly at the back to give us this day our wonderful oysters. And then we went right back at them.

For dinner, Clayton ordered a steak, which I, at least on the inside, frowned upon. I mean, everybody – apart from Clayton, apparently – knows the seventeenth cardinal rule of dining out: that seafood at a steakhouse is always decent, but steak at a seafood place can never be good. But I exercised what little restraint I was born with and held my tongue; the moment was far too genial for my caustic comments. I never did try the steak, so I cannot say for sure – but Clayton seemed to enjoy it. Although he is from Texas. And with that, I rest my case.

Perhaps the best thing you can do with seafood, I think, is to use Old Bay on it. I do not know what goes into it, and I do not want to know. What I do know, though, is that it is delicious. It’s almost cheating, even. We tried the Old Bay French fries and the Old Bay shrimp – and all I will say is that one can always tell when food is good whenever it makes you drop your fork along with whatever Old World sensibilities you were brought up to have, and ravage it with your bare hands.

Hank’s Oyster Bar is a wonderful little place – something or other about it always effuses you and fills you with love for your common man. Or perhaps that’s really the numerous rounds of beers talking. Whatever the case, it is the kind of restaurant that you see couples on first dates at – and your first instinct is not to feel sorry for their awkwardness, but happy for their courage. We departed late into the night – with big hugs all round – and stumbled home with silly smiles on our faces.

My modern day Mecca

Williams-Sonoma
121 E 59th St
New York, NY 10022
917-369-1131

Café Lalo
201 W 83rd St
New York, NY 10024
212-496-6031

All was not good for the good guys this past weekend. To everyone who I may have affected with my black mood and grumpy demeanor, I wholeheartedly apologise. If you have ever lived in DC – or indeed any urban metropolitan area, but DC more than most – you will soon realise that it is a very transient place; no sooner do you find good people then they are lost to you, moving on to bigger and better things in their lives. Among others, Sarah left last weekend for good, and Amanda – albeit temporarily, to Ghana of all places – and this was not helped by the fact that Jeff, himself gone for quite some time now, wrote me an email from Barcelona detailing his drinking and debauchery.

So, understandably or not, I was a little down this past weekend. But rather my point is that eating for me, and shopping for others, is an art worthy enough to rank with the other methods by which man chooses to escape reality. What better way, then, to lift my mood than to combine the two with a trip to Williams-Sonoma, that mecca for modern-day chef wannabes? To be fair, it was a fortuitous trip to say the least – I was supposed to meet Elisabeth and Jacob for dinner when Elisabeth called to say they would be running late, and I could not think of a better way to spend 45 minutes in Columbus Circle than to browse the aisles of what could possibly be my favourite chain store.

The thing about walking around Williams-Sonoma is that I am continually amazed at how much is being mass-produced these days that nobody should really need. I mean, a garlic press? It’s already been invented, and it’s called the blade of a knife. I also am continually amazed at how ridiculously expensive this place is. Nevertheless, walking around gleaming pots and pans and flowery placemats does something to me. I am enervated no end, and start to scheme for the numerous meals that I will make next. It is, for me at least, like a groundswell of ideas and inspiration. Cast-iron pans make me want to make saffron paella with squid and other assorted seafood; griddles make me want to make buttermilk pancakes with blueberries. Espresso machines – things of beauty they are – set me off on reveries of espresso and latte and afogato and coffee cakes. The knife display makes me want to touch myself. I have to continually remind myself to wipe that spastic little-boy grin from my face.

Needless to say, I was sufficiently cheered up by the time Elisabeth danced into the store. (If you know Elisabeth, you will know that this is no exaggeration – the woman is so graceful that she does not walk, but rather waltzes.) And then it was off, to dinner!

Dinner itself was perhaps nothing to write home about – we ate at a kosher café where the food was prepared under the supervision of one Rabbi Avrohom Marmorstein. No one in our party was Jewish, so the selection was a little strange; but the conversation was charming and the company enchanting, and I blissfully forgot the fact that my soup was quite unsatisfactory and that I could, perhaps, have done a better job myself of the flounder stuffed with spinach and feta in an orange buerre-blanc.

But then Elisabeth took us to Café Lalo, on the Upper West Side, a neon-lit monstrosity of a dessert place whose claim to fame lies in that Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, in You’ve Got Mail, meet each other there for the first time after a courtship of online correspondence. Café Lalo is a café in the strictest Parisian sense of the word, right down to the paper tablemats and the tables bunched up against each other so you have to comport your ass and other extremities skillfully as you maneuver through the masses of chattering people going on about something or other. The only thing it lacks is the al fresco dining balcony with all the chairs facing outward for optimal people-watching. The French are a voyeuristic people.

And even though it is no Pastiche*, the dessert is delightful, and Jacob got us a pot of Russian Caravan, a blend of tea that he promised was “so smoky it’s like drinking a cigar”. I rather liked it myself. I sat across from Elisabeth, and she looked beautiful and radiant as she sat silently with a faraway look in her eyes and the barest hint of a smile, listening to Jacob. And for thirty glorious minutes in the company of these two dear friends, I forgot that I had to get up for work the next day.

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*Pastiche is a dessert place in Providence, RI renowned for their fruit tarts - I swear there is opium in their vanilla custard - but the biggest mistake you can make there is getting the same thing twice. The true standout here, in my humble opinion, is the vanilla-bean cheesecake. I remember exactly where I was and who I was with the first time I tried this; and I'm sure they remember it too because I was moaning orgasmically and very audibly and in general attracting lots of dirty as well as amused looks. It is perhaps my favourite dessert place in the world and I will write about it someday.

***Footnote: Three weeks after this I went against everything that I stood for and bought myself a wholly unnecessary kitchen implement from Williams-Sonoma – a citrus fruit juicer. I know, it’s already been invented, and it’s called your right (or left) hand. But this thing is 18 inches of chrome and stainless steel magnificence, and has a very masculine beauty for a kitchen implement. I used it to squeeze a lemon for a dish I was making, and felt a rush of blood to my head. Two days later Clayton and I had freshly squeezed orange juice, and I felt very pleased with myself.

Tutto suona più bello in italiano

Lo Scalco
313 Church Street
New York, NY 10013
212-343-2900

There is something about finding out a restaurant is a husband-and-wife operation that raises it somewhat in my estimation. It is as if the discovery reassures me that there was something personal, some love and devotion, some true feeling that inspired the opening of the restaurant; that it is not just another addition to some restaurant mogul’s portfolio. That warms my heart. I have recently been working out of New York City – where there is no shortage of good eats – and had the good fortune this past week to dine at just such an establishment.

The interior of Lo Scalco is beautiful - sleek, modern white walls and touches of black and muted brown, with Beaux-Arts arches, elaborate chandeliers and a classy marble bar. Designed by the wife of the chef and owner, after whose family the restaurant is lovingly and respectfully named, its most charming feature is the piping. It is left exposed, and camouflaged wittily amidst other horizontal fixtures across the high ceilings, in a very Brutalist sort of way, and it gives an edge to the elegance of the room – an edge that is, arguably, replicated in the food.

Lo Scalco’s menu is organised by region; there is an antipasto, primo and secondo for each region, that you mix and match for your meal. There are also some staples which, our waiter proclaims, the restaurant has never been able to take off the menu due to popular demand. One of these is the cannelloni with ricotta and artichokes, which I wound up getting. It certainly lived up to the hype – it was light and smooth and yet still packed a punch. I followed that with the rabbit – which was smothered perhaps a tad too much in fresh rosemary for my liking, but enjoyable nonetheless. Quantities aside, the cooking unconditionally espoused one of the main tenets of Italian cuisine – to let quality ingredients speak for themselves.

When it comes down to it, maybe cooking isn’t so difficult after all. What is difficult is finding fresh, local, quality ingredients.

Midway through our meal the chef comes out of the kitchen for what I can only assume is his periodic ritual of walking around and making sure things are running smoothly. You can tell that he is a chef almost immediately, and not from his toque and apron – although those do help. There are certain characteristics that are particular to each profession, and the practitioners of these professions are almost always indelibly marked. He had in his manner and comportment a singular focus and intensity – when he was walking one could tell that the foremost thing in his mind at that particular moment was getting from point A to point B. I think this is borne of working with food, where despite the need in a kitchen to manage and process a million different things happening at once, a million different entrees being prepared at once – when it comes down to it a chef must focus all his energies, at any given nanosecond, on the task that is at hand. Be it whisking a sauce or stirring a risotto, that particular task – in the instant that it is being performed – is all-consuming and all-important. Lose focus, and the dish will invariably suffer. The great chef is one who can multi-task and yet still ensure that each individual task receives his undivided attention when he is performing it.

We had no wine that night – a pity and a crying shame – because there was still work to be done after, and miles to go before we slept. Yet Lo Scalco was a pleasant experience, aided by the fact that we walked in without a reservation. There are precious few restaurants of this quality, especially in New York, where one can do this. It certainly begged questioning, but I suspect that now that the Guide Michelin has awarded it a star; once the Times reviews it the rest of New York will be all over it.

***Footnote: Once again the curse of the commentator strikes - I have been informed that Lo Scalco will be closing its Tribeca location soon. Apparently there is a move on the cards, to a Midtown location, but well. Que sera, sera.

Divine Providence

CAV
14 Imperial Place
Providence, RI 02903
401-751-9164

It is a strange and curious thing to experience the loss of something good. I was back in Providence, RI this past weekend for the alma mater's commencement and graduation festivities, and apart from the requisite getting wastyfaced and making an ass of myself in front of parents and professors alike - I also said what could be one final goodbye in a series of drawn-out farewells to some of my favourite places in Providence, one of which perhaps deserves a special mention.

On Saturday night my friend Reed's parents took me out to dinner at my favourite restaurant in Providence - a place called CAV. By way of background: CAV is a gem of a restaurant which is housed in what used to be an abandoned warehouse in the jewelry district, and also operates as an antique store. The name stands for “Coffee, Antiques, Victuals”, which for some reason still seems to elicit a smile from me to this day, even though I have been privy to that information for quite some time now. Everything in the restaurant - from the Venetian chandeliers to the tablecloths with the beautiful Native American prints - is for sale. The place is decorated with warm colours and bathed in lighting that is part sunset over water and part glowing embers. And the food, good god, the food. It is executed with the highest level of technical mastery but also with the utmost devotion and dedication. It is good food, done well, done with pride, care and - dare I say it - love. In summary, i have a huge boner for CAV.

(Side note: you will all be happy to note that I was extremely well-mannered at dinner and did not once reference any achievement of orgasm in my pantaloons, which itself may or may not have happened. Twice.)

We got to meet the owner - a matronly old lady wearing a long necklace of mismatched beads and a flowy black dress, her face wrinkled not by the passing of time but by her constant smile. She moved slowly but with purpose, her eyes by contrast constantly dancing across the room. As she comes to our table Reed's mum touches her arm and asks, "Do you own this place?"

She stops and sizes us up, then replies without a trace of irony, "No. It owns me."

She proceeds to tell us how and why she started the restaurant - as an act of defiance against stuffy fine dining in general and a denouncement of large, impersonal places with millions of different forks and glasses and an extended hierarchy of waiters and servers. One is never rushed through one's meal at CAV, they always let you sit for as long as you want, sipping and talking and picking at your plate. You can laugh as loud as you want. It is, and I quote her, "a port in the storm of everyday life". That, friends, I think is truer than you could ever imagine.

My point is, if you ever find yourselves in Providence - or back in Providence for some among you - please do yourselves a favour and bring somebody you love to CAV. As you may or may not know I eat out quite a fair bit, and to borrow a metaphor few other restaurants have ever come close to being a refuge from the noise and the confusion and the drudgery of the world. There is a bit in A Moveable Feast where Ernest Hemingway describes eating oysters and drinking white wine at his favourite restaurant after a long, draining day. He writes, "I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and make plans." That is exactly how I feel when I eat at CAV.

The irony of it all is that my second favourite restaurant in Providence (which I also visited this past weekend) is exactly the kind of sprawling, oak-paneled, dimly-lit restaurant with white tablecloths and a million different forks that takes itself very seriously. You might even call it the antithesis of CAV. It is called Mill's Tavern, and it is fucking amazing.

Summertime and the livin' is easy

s1. I know I love grilling more than life itself, but I am undecided as to whether I like springtime grilling or summer grilling better - there is, at least for me, a subtle difference. In the springtime I like to do smaller items, more vegetables and fish, perhaps; and keep it simple - no rubs, no oils, no marinades, just intrinsic flavours with that added smoky goodness. In the summer I like to do heartier stuff, large haunches of beef and lamb and meats in marinades - and to keep stuff on the grill longer for that sweet caramelized taste and that meat-falling-off-the-bone deliciousness.

Last night I stuffed a pair of rainbow trout with onion and garlic and mushrooms and breadcrumbs seasoned with lemon and thyme; then grilled them, covered, for what must have been 12 of the longest minutes of my life. I was jumping up and down in and out of my pants. I crosshatched the skin like I was taught to - I was, after all, taught by the best - and threw on a side of green beans to cook in the last few minutes. I know you are supposed to always let meats rest a couple of minutes after removing from the grill to let the juices return to the surface, for meat that is more moist and juicy - but goddamn it, I can never wait that long. I always just want to pick it up straight off the grill and stuff my face with my bare hands.

2. I often wonder why perfectly competent home chefs like myself still crave eating out so much. There are just so many reasons; I should keep a list, really, but my latest fascination is with the pacing of the meal. This is something that Ember in Singapore, Mills Tavern in Providence and Cashion's Eat Place in DC - collectively some of my favourite restaurants - have honed to a science. At these places more than most I have always had meals paced perfectly - course after course served at just the right intervals to allow for digestion and pleasant conversation, the food always still at the right temperature when it gets to your table. It is so hard for the home chef - unless he is not sitting down to eat as well - to plan and time multiple courses perfectly. It is a small thing, sure, but the best restaurants do even the smallest things well.

Dining early

Cashion's Eat Place
1819 Columbia Rd NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-797-1819

I count myself among those who consider dinner the largest meal of the day, and I find it positively barbaric when circumstances decree upon myself and my dining companions an early dinner – I am of the belief that my dessert fork should not have to set itself on the table before the sun does over the horizon. There are however, restaurants – and occasions, needless to say – on whose accounts this idiosyncrasy can be relaxed, and Cashion’s Eat Place is one of them. My friend Kevin was visiting in town this past weekend – a last-minute trip that provoked a last-minute plea of desperation to the hostess at Cashion’s. They could accommodate us, a table of 3 – us two and Sarah – but unfortunately only at 5.30pm. Shocking, I know. Some of us are barely done with lunch at that time.

Cashion’s is a place I bring visiting friends and gourmands to whenever it falls upon me to show off the wonders of DC. It is one of those restaurants that immediately feel familiar, even if you are stepping into it for the first time. I think it quite the compliment that I can never quite remember the exact colour of the walls – are they pink? orange? mauve? – for when I am in there the physical space just seems to melt away, and I am at a dinner table I have always been at, with friends and family I have always dined with. The food is quality – I have a sweet spot for the veal sweetbreads – and the staff always pleasant. Finally, if you have heard the story of Ann Cashion you will know that she was two years away from a PhD in English at Stanford but gave it all up to pursue her dream of cooking professionally. She may kind of be my hero.

So an early dinner it is, at Cashion’s, and it does not disappoint. I had the duck, but I sometimes enjoy it more when someone else at the table orders something that turns out to be much better than your own choice, like that one time in Bologna when Annie got the pumpkin ravioli which were really orgasms in disguise. It's almost as if just because you only get that one forkful, that one taste - that it inevitably has to taste better. I refer, of course, to Sarah’s halibut, which was that perfect texture between crumbly and firm, moist and meaty. Fish is a delicate thing, with so little margin for error, and it is a momentous occasion when it is done well. Mishandling it, as I no doubt have many times, is nothing short of a gross sin.

So all’s well that ends well, and the best part about Cashion’s is that it is literally a stone’s throw from any number of establishments that serve alcohol and encourage booty-shaking into the night. In our defense: we are young, and have a whole lifetime of mistakes to make.

***Footnote: I also want to admit that unless you are not averse to making a fool of yourself, I am perhaps not the best of dining companions. There are many reasons why: I like to make a pompous jackass of myself at the dinner table and savour every ritual, I like to talk to bartenders and waiters and have been known to insist that they share in our bottle(s) of wine. Sarah is much the same way, which is why we get along so famously. But even Sarah had to hide her face in shame and ignominy at my latest indiscretion: as our waitress graciously topped my wine glass off in the middle of our meal, I looked her straight in the eye and said, without irony, “Thank you. You’re like an angel, in the darkness.”

Is that so wrong?

Etouffee and the agony of eating alone

As i write it is 8:33pm Eastern Time on the eighteenth of April in the year 2006; and I just made and ate etouffee with crab meat and sausage. Not that I want to toot my own horn or anything, but it was so good it made me bust a nut in my pantaloons.

First I seared the sausages in a pan, then removed them to cook in the oven. I added butter to the rendered fat and tempered the mixture with paprika and pepper. I left the fat on high heat until I could smell the nutty, almost-woody smell of burning butter and could see wisps of smoke coming from the pan. Then I took the pan off the heat, added flour and whisked it to make a roux. So apparently the longer you cook a roux three things happen: a) it becomes darker, b) it loses its thickening ability and most importantly of all c) it becomes more flavourful.

If there are some things in the realm of the culinary arts that I think I am reasonably competent at - making a roux is probably one of them. After all, I was trained by the best. So I cooked my roux till it was a deep honey brown - the colour of delicious - and then threw in garlic, onions, green peppers, mushrooms and crabmeat. I seasoned it like there was no tomorrow and cooked the onions and mushrooms down before adding stock. A little while after that I took the sausages out of the oven and sliced them into pieces before adding them into the etouffee. Then I let it reduce while making rice. Approximately twenty minutes later I had my dinner. By myself.

Holy crap, it was better than sex.

That first taste was like someone smacked me across the face and I had to sit down. I know that I probably say that I come in my pantaloons too often and that it is a crass and overly graphic expression that nobody needs to hear, but this really warranted it. And it absolutely killed me, absolutely gutted me to pieces that i had nobody to share this with. It was a curious feeling, like I had stumbled upon a treasure and wanted so much to give it away but did not have anyone to take it. It is a feeling i have only ever gotten with food. Now, I travel a fair bit for work, and am no stranger to eating alone - but to experience an amazing meal and not have anyone else to eat it with you is sin visited upon sin.

Well anyway - that's my rant. Now I probably should go clean up my pants - you thought i was being figurative, didn't you?

And yes, Morgan, I then had to do the dishes.

All.

By.

Myself.

Party over here!

Last night Laura and Amanda came over for dinner and Amanda spent the better part of two hours making me laugh uncontrollably and of course, laughing uncontrollably herself. It is a wonder I managed to keep my food down. We had a savoury tart - something quite ambitious for me because it is not a technique that I am particularly comfortable with - and a salad that Amanda and I piled heaping mounds of BBQ pulled pork on. For my point is that Laura is vegetarian and always a pain in the butt to cook for (but a lovely one at that); because I usually make meat on the side and I use a different set of utensils and kitchen implements to make the vegetarian portion of the meal - I am dorky like that - and thus end up with a mountain of dishes. Anyway, in summary I made something that I'd never made before and it actually turned out pretty well, so here is the recipe.

Caramelized onion and butternut squash triple cheese tart

2 red onions
1 butternut squash
fresh sage, finely chopped
fresh thyme, finely chopped
a small thing of goat cheese
a small thing of fontina
equal amount of gruyere, grated
1 egg, beaten
breadcrumbs
slab of butter
2 store-bought pie crusts

Preheat oven to 375F. Take one pie crust, lay it flat and set aside. Slice squash in two and seed. Drizzle with olive oil and roast in the oven, cut side down, for 40 minutes or until soft. Meanwhile chop onions thinly and cook in butter and half the thyme, over low heat for 35-40 minutes or until glazed. Add butter and/or a teeny bit of red wine if they look like they're drying out. Once the squash is done, scoop it out of the skin and combine with onions, herbs, egg, breadcrumbs and cheese. Mix well and spread into the pie crust. Take the other pie crust that you've laid flat and use it to cover the one with the filling. Bake in oven for 30 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Cool and serve.

It was great served warm but I kept leftovers in the fridge and am going to eat it cold tonight. I can't wait.