Former Chef

Slow Roasted Tomato and Fennel Soup with Smoked Paprika

October 30, 2011

The height of tomato season in my garden seems to be mid August. It doesn’t matter when I plant, or how I stagger the planting, every August shows the bulk of the tomato crop. This year I did a little better, getting some tomatoes to last into September, including a second crop off my Celebrity plant. Some of you who live in colder climates may not start planting until later (I plant in April and May) and might still have plants still with fruit on the vine, or at least tomatoes picked a little green and ripening inside away from the first frost. Here is a way to use up those not-so-perfect tomatoes and the last of the ripe ones. The soup is also warm and hearty enough to say, “ah, Fall…” and the smoked paprika give it a nice little spicy kick.

I know people will ask, can …

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Favorite Food Experiences in Japan Part 2; Yakatori; Izakaya, Sushi, and Okonomiyaki

October 24, 2011

This is part 2 of a 3 part series on some of my favorite food experiences in Tokyo and Kyoto Japan. If you missed it, make sure you check out part 1, Noodles, Unagi and Tempura and Tonkatsu.

Yakatori

Yakatori Daitoryo in Ameyoko Market, Tokyo

We were strolling though the market when we found ourselves stopped in our tracks by the smell of grilling meat. The mouth watering smell was coming from a little yakitori restaurant called Daitoryo smack in the center of the market underneath the train tracks. We stood there, looking to see what they had and if there was a place to sit, but the signs (hundreds of them) were in Japanese and every seat was taken.

Then, the moment.

There was a small group of guys sitting at the tables in front of the restaurant and one of them said, “sit here!” We did as we were told, ordered a couple …

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Fig, Caramelized Onion, and Bacon Jam

October 3, 2011

When our neighbor offered figs from her tree, I called my mother and asked her if she wanted some to make jam. She had been in a jam making frenzy this summer making over 100 jars of various flavors (strawberry vanilla bean being my favorite) to the point where I threatened a canning intervention. But since neither of us could let good home grown food go to waste, she took some and I used the rest of the figs to make flatbread and fig and goat’s milk ice cream.

While mom made some regular fig jam, she also surprised us with this fig, caramelized onion and bacon jam which she swore would be fantastic on a fried egg sandwich. I tend to like my jam plain on toast (as opposed to exotic combonations of flavors and spices) but this jam is amazing, especially on the egg sandwich, and that was the end of it or so …

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Favorite Food Experiences in Japan Part 1; Noodles, Unagi, Tempura and Tonkatsu

September 28, 2011

The tagline for this site is “Cook. Eat. Travel. Grow.” I’ve been a little remiss in keeping up with the “Travel” part, so I thought it’s time to include some of my favorite food experiences from a trip to Japan over the next few weeks. In October I’m headed back to Rome, Naples and Paestum (the home of buffalo mozzarella!) so I’ll also be writing about all the wonderful Italian food we eat and markets we visit.
Don’t worry, there are plenty of new recipes coming as well.

In April, my husband and I spent eight days in Tokyo and Kyoto about 6 weeks after the devastating tsunami and earthquake of March 11, 2011. We had an amazing time and found the people to be so welcoming.
Oh, and the food! I was thrilled with the incredible diversity of deliciousness there. We hardly had a bad meal and ate something different and new …

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Slow Simmered Pork Ragú With Handkerchief Pasta

September 26, 2011

In Southern California summer starts early and ends late. Some people say we have no real “seasons” here, but that’s not really true. We have them, they’re just a little more muted than in other places. That, and we don’t have to suffer things like ice storms or 90% humidity, so really, I can’t complain. Still, as we head into October, I find myself craving those heartier dishes which say “Fall” even if the temperature outside is still hovering near 80 degrees.

Recently I made this slow simmered ragú using one of the last roasts from our pig. I decided to serve it with handkerchief pasta, a cut of pasta I’ve wanted to make ever since I had it at Delfina in San Francisco a couple of years ago. There are a lot of different recipes out there for a “traditional” Italian ragú; some have beef, some pork. Some ragús include sausage …

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Grilled Flatbread with Figs, Goat Cheese, Prosciutto and Arugula

August 22, 2011

There is a saying, “Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans.”

We had plans for this weekend, oh yes. Big ones which involved flying to another city, a nice hotel room and dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant with friends. We’d been planning it for months. Those four days were going to be the only getaway my husband David and I would have together this summer and we were both looking forward to it.

Then fate intervened.

A few weeks ago we noticed that one of our two cats, our boy named Basil, had a problem with his left eye. Over the next few weeks, David took Basil to see three different vets for tests to only figure out what it was not (an infection, a fungus, a virus, cancer spread to other organs). There was no real diagnosis, only that he had a mass growing behind his left eye, but not what caused it. …

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