I was working a shift at the coop and found these on the shelf in produce:

GHERKINS! They look like watermelons for a dollhouse. I made cornichons; depending on how successful they are I’ll share the recipe. We’ll know in three weeks, after I make a pate and crack a jar open.

When you have plateaux de fruits de mer on your mind as the perfect dinner and you are served a disappointing plateau, it is only natural to remedy the state of dissatisfaction with a second dinner accompanied by a bottle of champagne to wash away the irritation piqued by a perfectly easy food presentation done wrong.

Take shellfsih. Open it or cook and chill it. Serve it prettily. Not an insurmountable challenge, especially for a seafood restaurant. 

On Saturday after a sweaty day of errands, I had an exceptionally good plateau de mer at Balthazar. It was a follow up to an exceptionally disappointing plateau de mer at Ed’s Lobter Bar.

A study in contrasts: Ed’s had 2 cherrystones, 2 littlenecks, 4 oysters (provenance unknown) and half of a lobster so frigidly frozen you couldn’t taste a thing, plopped on a plate of ice. Balthazar’s had two tiers of abundant crustacea and molluskery as well as a whole hard shell crab, was dripping with lovely sea beans and ice, perfect in temperature, and presented the extra special treat of periwinkles on the top tier (yes, it was a tiered affair).

Periwinkles are sea snails. They are firm, just a teeny bit chewy and dense. To me they are special however prepared unless utterly rubberized, because they are rarely found on menus and only sold at fish shops in Chinatown.  Balthazar’s periwinkles are extra fine: there is some genius in the kitchen who makes a tarragon-laden court bouillion in which he simmers the winks, perhaps one at a time judging from their perfect doneness.

Ed’s plateau cost $45 and was worth $15 Balthazar’s cost $60 and honestly, was worth twice that for the fun elegance and various taste thrills. It ended up being a very delicious date (and I could go on about how 10 years on Balthazar is still a champ). The bartender at Balthazar even bought us an Armangac after our meal.

I bought a jar of fair trade raw coffee flower honey (from the Bird Mountain Zapatista cooperative in Chiapas, Mexico at the food coop). It is imported by “Cafe Rebelion” and sold online, along with lots of other Zapatista products, at Rebel Imports. I like honey a great deal, and like to compare the different flavors imparted from the pollen of different flowers in dominant varietal honeys - I came back from Paris a couple of years ago with a bag of 7 small jars for comparitive tasting. So support of indigenous rights, flavor research and the quest for deliciousness were certainly behind the purchase of this rebel honey, but mostly I got it because it is the toughest looking food product I’ve ever seen.

It has a mahogany color, low viscosity, and a spicy caramelized taste. It majorly enhances ginger tea, but isn’t ideal for a PB&H sandwich.

Trace of still-edible honey was found in sealed jars when pharoahs’ tombs were opened in Egypt in the 19th century. Honey lasts forever, which is good as this is a very large jar.

I have tried one final time and now must admit defeat - I do not like tinned salmon. I like tinned tuna - love is probably more accurate - and I subsist on tinned sardines. But tinned salmon is gross. There is an unnatural slime to it, and there are lots of little cartilage bits that make me think of eye sockets and it doesn’t matter how much you dress it up, it still tastes like something you would get in an airport. I’ve tried salmon cakes, and fakey nicoise, and all manner of mayo- and olive oil-based salads. No good. Unfortunately I recently purchased a selection of cans from Trader Joes, to do a tinned salmon taste-off. I only made it through the first (wild Alaskan) and still have unused cans of wild Red and Pink. If you want them just leave me a comment to that effect and I’ll bring them over.

First, let me say happy birthday to Luke, Lilly and Lucy. My dear friends have a penchant for naming their babies with L-names. Love.

Also. I ate lunch at home today, which I can do because I work around the corner from HQ. Step out of the office and into the kitchen.

I had spicy eggplant salad on bran crisps. I made the salad yesterday as part of a “stock up the larder for lunch” cooking frenzy. Two eggplants. I punctured neither’s skin before baking, and while this facilitates the skin peeling away from the flesh like bark, it is dangerous if you test for doneness by poking the roasting fruit too hard. One exploded with a loud pop like an overblown balloon when prodded. Theresult was quite a start and some splatter burns, as well as a messy oven. The other was fine. I think this danger can be avoided by using common sense and inserting a knife to test for doneness, or prodding less forcefully. Alternately, simply remove a 1 pound fruit from the oven after 45 minutes or so.

Choosing a sweet eggplant to roast is simple if you know the trick about the “sex “of the fruit, although as I understand it, fruit really has no gender. There is in common wisdom (and my experience) a difference between eggplants with a shallow circle at the blossom end or bottom of the fruit (often called “male”), and those with an deeper, oval-shaped groove (”female”). Those with a deep oval have more seeds, and a greater tendency to bitterness. Create your own simile.

I mixed the roasted, peeled, chopped eggplant with olive oil and tom yum soup base (cribbed directly from the restaurant),but the options for mix-ins to roasted eggplants are flexible and broad. Add some cumin and yogurt, or some ras-al-hanout for a Top Chef spin, or some mint leaves and feta for Eggplant ala Greque. Even just some minced garlic, olive oil and salt is a winning flavor.

Regardless of mix-in, however, in photographs, eggplant salad looks like babyfood.

Wheels of blood oranges served with shaved red onion, salt and olive oil is another new favorite salad ripped off from Franny’s (who in turn ripped it off from some Sicilian, where they’ve been eating blood oranges and onions together since the Moors were kicking about). At two points, this is a very reasonable WW snack. Tart and juicy, it feels like a flood of vitamin C, sits lightly in your stomach and scratches both a sweet and a savory itch.

As you can see, the orange I bought at the Coop today is not terribly bloody; it is a Tarocco, a strain which has less pigmentation (anthocyanin) and therefore doesn’t appear as ”full blood” as the more familiar Moro. Its paleface nature doesn’t betray a wimpy flavor profile, however; the Tarocco is every bit as fragrant and berried as its more intensely-colored cousins.

Don’t be shy with the sea salt, don’t cut the onions too thick and don’t waste any of the juice if you can help it. There really isn’t more to this than what you see, but it becomes more than the sum of its parts.

I’m back on Weight Watchers in anticipation of my best friend’s wedding , and I refuse to accept it as a gustatory set back. I’m lucky that I enjoy a salad for dinner. 

I’ve been especially lucky, too, as I’ve dined at Franny’s bar twice in as many weeks. Oh, how I love to sit at the bar with a negroni and eat salad with my fingers in the company of a charming man. And if I subsist on steel-cut oatmeal and cherry tomatoes for the majority of the day and keep an eye on how many bites I have, I can eat pretty much anything that sounds good.

One of the salads offered recently consisted of leaves of tender escarole dressed with peppery olive oil, sweet-tart Meyer lemon juice and salty parmesan cheese. I could eat this every day and in fact have been making a dime-store version with a conventional lemon, romaine, everyday olive oil and pre-grated parm that I have lurking around the Old Stove pantry.

I eat it because it is healthy, and because it is filling and tasty if not as soaring as Franny’s (my version blushes at the very mention of Franny’s version, it is so inferior), and because it makes me think of the cook crush. I also eat it because when I measure the cheese and oil carefully (1 tablespoon and one teaspoon, respectively), it is only 2 points towards my Weight Watchers allotment.  Topped with a poached egg to compensate for the limited oil, it becomes a minimalist gesture of a Caesar salad, has a major increase in elegance, and weighs in at only 4 points.

Not bad for a filling (and quick and cheap) meal at home.

For a few years I rejected everything that smacked of home and hearth, including personal observations of holidays. I couldn’t break my family of traditions, but could do my best to be out of the country for the big annuals like Christmas and Thanksgiving, and let the little guys such as Easter and St. Patrick’s day slide by uncommented upon. But this past year my desire to mark the passing of time and the annual journey of the earth in its rotation around the sun has increased. Especially when the collective observations involve ritualized foods, as they so often do.

I’m in Boston right now, and it is St. Patrick’s day. I did not celebrate by getting shitty and heading onto the commuter rail and into the city for the parade as I would if I lived on the South Shore. But I did make a traditional New England boiled dinner and some soda bread for the family. Corned beef simmered with carrots, potatoes, pearl onions and cabbage, served with dense, caraway-flecked, butter-slathered bread  is a good meal for a chilly March day regardless of whether it is authentically Irish (it’s not).  

Irish Soda Bread

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Soak 1 cup raisins in hot water to plump, about 10 minutes. 
3. Sift together 4 cups flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon salt and 3/4 teaspoon baking soda. Mix in 1 tablespoon caraway seeds.
4. Drain raisins and mix into dry ingredients. Mix in 2 cups buttermilk.
5. Turn onto floured surface and knead in additional flour as needed until no longer tacky to the touch.
6. Divide into two balls, roll into tight circles, place on a baking sheet, slash a cross into each top, and bake for about 50 minutes, until dry when poked with a knife, hollow sounding and brown on top and bottom.

The first time I had kimchi stew at Momofuku directly after a Bikram class I realized that I had a problem. I have always liked this dish, but there was something about eating it after spending a couple of hours sweating up a storm that felt both virtuous and gratifying. Yet at $17 for the (admittedly huge) bowl, and Bikram 3 or 4 times a week, I can’t possibly afford to eat it each time I want it, even if one order feeds me twice. Going “authentic” and ordering kimchi jigae at a restaurant in Korea Town isn’t much better, even though it comes with generous banchan (side dishes like tiny crunchy anchovies with chile powder, pickled radish and seaweed salad) and is only about $15.

Kimchi has, to my mind, magical health-giving properties, This is part fervent belief, part science. The cabbage leaves set to ferment with salt, garlic and chile develop the same bacterial cultures that make yogurt a healthy choice - that’s what gives the chi its bubbly, pickled tang. And I’ve got this thing about cabbage by itself being one of the healthiest things you can eat. So, probiotically enhanced cabbage? Unbeatable.

And when I’m feeling rundown, as I was for much of this winter, I feel like I’m going to go crazy or get rickets if I don’t eat it regularly. It is a pressing need.

Desiring liberation from the shackles of restaurant kimchi stew, aware of the urgency of my need, I decided that it was time to being experimenting with homemade style. I read a few recipes online, referred to two Korean cookbooks, thought carefully about Mr. Chang’s marvelous version at Momofuku, and began. It was ridiculously easy, very fast and I must admit, delicious. The cook crush, who introduced me to the stew-after-sweat phenom after eating it post-schvitz, approved of my effort.

I will make and freeze some pork stock to use in place of water for the next batch. There will be a next batch. There will be many batches.  

1. Heat 1 tablespoon sesame oil in a casserole or stock pot. Sweat 3 cloves minced garlic and 4 scallion whites.
2. Brown 1/3 pound cubed pork belly. Add ~3 cups kimchi, heat through, scrape up fond on bottom of pan released by kimchi juices
3. Cover with water (or if you have it, preferably pork stock), adjust salt and heat with gochujang (salty, red, garlicky chile paste), and bring to a simmer.
4. Simmer for about an hour. This makes the pork tender and melds the fermented and umami tastes. Don’t rush.
5. Add half a package of firm tofu, cubed, and if you can find them, Korean rice cakes (these chewy disks are optional, obscure, and the subject of some research by me vis their difference from Japanese rice cakes, so more to come, but are an essential element to the sublimity of the Momofuku stew). If you can’t find the rice cakes, sigh. Bring to a simmer.
6. Adjust flavor with chile paste and sesame oil for spice and balance. 
7. Serve with chopped scallion greens and optional rice.

I was given a dried lime and I’m not exactly sure what to do with it. I know they are used in Persian cuisine. If anyone has a thought about when or how to add it to a lamb stew or the like, please advise. In the meantime I’ll do some research with Claudia Roden.