Better Butter

Never mind that I spent my post-Thanksgiving downtime catching up on a few accumulated Netflix, two of which just so happened to be about the business of food, Food Inc and King Corn, and nevermind that I am finding myself more and more tempted to get a backyard chicken coop for humanely-raised fresh eggs, especially after my sister sent me a link to this cute little number, the Eglu...

(Insert image of husband rolling eyes to the heavens. Chickens. In the backyard. Peckin' in the dirt with the cats. But hey, you really owe it to yourselves to try a non-commercially raised egg sometime in your life. There's just no comparison in yolk color, texture, and taste.)

...AND nevermind how shocking it was to find out about the way chickens, pork, beef and dairy cows are mass-raised, what they're fed and how they're treated, that I have the sudden urge to rethink some things around here. Not necessarily to go vegan, but at the very least to get more conscious about what we're buying, and eating.

It's no secret and I readily admit, I'm a sucker for good food, good cocktails. A good slather of butter on a thick slice of crusty paisano bread with coffee in the morning, (or with wine later in the day), is just about heaven to me. But after learning more about commercial dairy, I want to look for other options there too. It's not the fat that scares me. At this point it's the silent accumulation of hormones, antibiotics and pesticides that are fed to mass lots of cattle, and that somehow get more concentrated in high-fat products such as commercial butter, ice cream, half and half, cheese...

Hmmm...but what's a dairy-lover to do?

I've already been buying hormone-free milk products for a quite a while now. Rolling up my sleeves and bringing to life that inner "pioneer-homesteader woman" my husband labels me with so often, I get it in my brain that I'm going to try to make my own butter using a more sustainable cream. (Wow. Now that my book's done, I must have waaay too much time on my hands.)

And, what I found out is...

...it couldn't be easier...

...and most importantly, it is most, but most, delicious.

Way delicious.

So check this out:

I started with 2 pints of organic hormone, antibiotic, pesticide-free heavy whipping cream, $1.69 ea (Love Trader Joes! I buy all my hormone-free milk products there.)

Whip it in your stand mixer just like you would for whip cream. Plain. No additives.

Whip it a little further and it starts to thicken.

Whip it further still and you start to see a graininess.

Keep going. It's getting thicker.

Notice the color deepens and you almost start to see little "curds" now. (This is just a few minutes past whipped cream.)

Thicker. More curds.

Curds begin to solidify and they're definitely separating from the whey now.

We got butter, baby.

Strain the butter, save the whey (aka "buttermilk") which can be used for baking, pancakes, oatmeal, mashed potatoes, what-have-you.

Look at all that buttery goodness.

Press down solids to remove all the liquid.

Now we "wash the butter" by returning butter to the mixer, adding clean filtered water and letting it slosh around.

Drain, scrape down, and repeat for several "washings" until the water pours off clear.

Butter baby! Clean, unadulterated butter.

I turned some with a bit of moist and crunchy Celtic Sea Salt. OMG. Take that on a slice of good bread! You won't be sorry.

A near pound of fresh chemical-free sweet organic butter, wrapped up in wax paper, for a mere $3.38 and a few laps around a stand mixer. This should last me a month. Should.

So. Worth. It!

Oh but the time, you say, I just don't have the time.

The whole thing took maybe 20 minutes start to finish and that was with stopping every few minutes to turn off the beater, clean my hands, and snap pix. (Next time, it won't take nearly as long, maybe 10 minutes. And I plan to experiment with other local organic creams.)

Then you need one of these: a beurrier. The Butter Bell. To keep it soft and spreadable. Stays fresh without refrigeration.

Isn't it funny to go so far forward, only to come back to basics. Progress.

So good. A butter you can feel good about. Better Butter.

* * *

For more on the "business" of food:

Watch Food, Inc instantly here.

Watch King Corn instantly here.

Time Mag: Getting Real About the High Cost Of Cheap Food http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1917458,00.html

Sustainable Dairy

http://www.sustainabletable.org/features/articles/dairy/

Thanksgiving Feast - a photo essay

For the 2nd Grade Feast last Weds...sliced up and devoured in the blink of an eye. Don't tell me a pack of hungry kids can't discern the hot-out-of-the-oven real thing from the store-bought re-heated over-processed kind or microwaved ham...this thing was gone in about 15 minutes.










The 18 1/2 lber Thanksgiving bird with sage leaves, garlic and butter tucked under the skin, and filled with wild rice apple stuffing

The "use what you have" fruit, nut, pine cone, rosemary clippings harvest centerpiece

Personalized place settings, each anchored with a wisteria leaf, are both simple and welcoming










Our bounteous spread...the brandied-sage-pan-dripping gravy is already in pitchers on the table

Pear Gingerbread and French Apple Tart with vanilla bean ice cream complete the feast

Not shown?

The half-dozen or more empty wine bottles that followed a couple of rounds of infusion cocktails.... and I'm not going to say how many adults we were....

:)

So much to be thankful for.

Good friends, good food, and good drink just being some of them...

!

Keep scrolling....today it's a 3-for-1 post....

Fig Explosion!

For the last month or so, figs have been literally falling from the sky. A veritable bounty of Black Mission figs so fresh to bursting, mere steps from my back door, have been calling out to me, beckoning, offering her lusty wares while her heady scent perfumed the air. Remarkable for a tree that nearly snapped a year back.

But a girl can only drink so many Figgytinis while nibbling on figs with crumbled gorgonzola, or even figs straight up while the rest of the family turns in indifference.

Meanwhile, if I didn't get to them, the birds and bees and squirrels and raccoons and the ground would. We were already attracting every winged creature in the 'hood while mounds of rotting flesh sat at the trunk's base decomposing.

What to do with all. that. fruit?

A moment of inspiration came when my sweet friend Clemence of Gourmandise Desserts (check out her sugary site!) suggested making jam.

Jam.

I'd leave you the recipe, but alas, it was one of those in-the-moment, impromptu improvisations. A just-do-it and don't-think-about it creations.

Introducing, the Black Mission-Meyer Lemon Fig Jam....a recipe in pictures.

Gather figs ripe to bursting.

My precious little sweethearts.

Rinse and cut into quarters.

Add thinly sliced Meyer lemons and a ton of sugar. (My bad, I didn't weigh it, just did it by sight.) Let it sit and macerate for at least a half an hour so the juices release and marinate together.

Into the stockpot under medium-high heat.

Boil it down....And boil it some more...until it thickens and globs on the back of a wooden spoon.

Boil the jars and lids separately. Remove with tongs and fill with hot jam. Carefully wipe rims and replace lids, then return to a water bath, boiling the filled jars for another 15-20 minutes. Remove and listen for the little "pop" that announces that the lids have all sealed.

Ah, my precious little jewels.

(And another big tupperware filled in the fridge.)

Just needs some nifty labels and a raffia ribbon around the top.

I tried slathering some of the jam over a pork tenderloin and roasting it in a hot oven, making a quick pan sauce out of the drippings with zinfandel and butter.

It's all blurry with goodness.

The ubiquitous fresh fig salad over just picked-from-the-garden arugula, crumbled gorgonzola, and drizzled with olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar.

And in another moment of inspiration,

I created this Fig and Rhubarb Vanilla Bean Galette.

OMG.

OMHOG was that good. Pinch me good.

Makes that whole strawberry-rhubarb combo taste like Marie Callender's. (I'm just sayin')

Have a Figtabulous day!!

Snow and Fog

"Merlin's Beard! It's been a long time!"

As I trudge through mental snowdrifts, the beginning of a white out, images emerge as the flurries begin to settle and subside.

It's only weather.

It's only ever weather.

But there's no temperature in here. It's all in here.

Trudging through the swirling white, seemingly in no direction, it's only in looking back that I can see any small measure of the path behind me.

Thoughts waft through one ear and dissipate out the other. A fleeting reminder to …get the milk, really must respond to, cat medicine time… I feel my body pulling me through a tube…dimensionless…hovering…watching…waiting. It can wait. I let go. It's gone.

Sailing through this time period, neither asleep nor fully awake, I am equal parts in motion, in contemplation, in creation, in the doing, or in the resting from it. There is no perspective here. It's neither good nor bad. Just. Moving. Along.

Thick blankets of fog have enveloped me for months now as I sometimes poke out in anger, in regret, in sadness, in frustration. But it's not all bad; I also rise up in laughter, in compassion, in caring, and in joy. All is quiet now on the western front. Quiet and serene.

I keep waiting for the thing to bubble up, so obvious, like, look mommy, Pinot has a boo-boo on his eye, he needs to go to the doctor.

I need to know who I am, what I am supposed to be doing.
I need to know what I'm passionate about. Where's my passion already?
I need to know how the hell I will know, when, hey, shouldn't I already know?
I need to know what I am feeling. Is this working? Are we working?
I need to know what the hell is wrong with me. Nothing's feeling right. Right?

I realize there are a lot of things that are loose right now. And more than Miss S's latest tooth.

If I just bide my time, it will all be revealed. All in right time, I tell myself. Right?

Am I making mountains out of molehills, or molehills out of gaping mountains so vast that I cannot see them?

Am I about to fall into a bottomless chasm, or free-falling, ascend instead into the sky?

Either outcome would be preferable to this limbo-like fog.

I bake cookies, almond croissants. I make a standing rib roast, Yorkshire pudding, and the unctuous horsey sauce as if by Braille. I invent delicious cocktails and fry off some latkes just to prove I still can. And the roasted pears in tempranillo sauce….with the delicate smattering of shaved cheeses…it's all lovely. Lovely. Who can be angry after a meal like this? Fear doesn't stand a chance near that thick gooey caramel of a burgundy reduction...if I can just bottle it...

Skip the end-of-year top ten book list.* I'll take the top ten meals. Or better yet, I'll settle for 10 moments of clarity.


*Thanks Carrie.













...and for a musical interlude, check out the next post...

Smell The Roses

Our yard is exploding with fragrant color right now. Roses, varying degrees of red-pink-crimson, who've been here longer than I. Perhaps decades.

The pace these days is so accelerated I can barely remember to eat, let alone sleep or wax nostalgic over the deliciousness hanging in the air. Maybe these photos, silent visual beacons, will help me remember to slow down--if not stop, and smell the roses. Transport me from flurry into transcendent beauty.

Do we remember delight? Deliciousness? Frivolity and just because it pleases?

I stepped on an escalator recently and haven't stopped. Capitol, senators, assemblypeople, rallies, plane trips, talks, speeches, lunches, picnics, meetings, doctor appts, teeth wigglings, school functions, a speech to write, accommodations to procure, birthday parties to plan, Playbills and laminates to create, talking points, spreading info, a dead computer, Genius Bar, Dead Motherboard, the dreaded dead computer replacement purchase, extracting data, losing data, recovering some data, new operating platform, new systems, new installations, new touch, adjustments to make, transitions, lost time, lost sleep, flying by the seat of my pants, elevated platform, elevated expectations, elevated worries, no time to worry, just enough time to do, dead debit card, loss of access, to money, to internet, to files, to info, dead food in the fridge, rebooting, re-authorizing, reconfiguring, taking out the trash, cupcakes to bake, speeches to write, revisions to write, new frontiers to venture forth in....

Tonight I cleaned up the counters and cooked real food. A meal. A solid meal. More than a meal. (More about that another time. If I find the time.) I've always said food is more than food, more than taste. Good food heals. The food itself is almost irrelevant. It's what is done to it, and then transformed, what it does to us. That's its magic. Aroma, color, texture, taste. Love. Ahhh. Exhale. Enjoy. While I can.

Did I mention that my daughter counts her years on both hands now? Six. Half a dozen. More than half a decade.

Mom to me is now like a pair of broken-in jeans. She's in there like cupcakes between the tarragon chicken and Lacrima Christi Bianchi and high heels and power suits and lip gloss. As she grows, so do I. In ways unexpected.

The Mom Clogs have been hurting my feet lately. Plus they just look so dowdy. Time for a new pair of shoes. Not sure what suits me these days, or even where to go to find it, but I've been looking. Something between being comfortable and being a presence. Might need to look in not the usual places. Might need to venture farther...

Damn those are beautiful roses! Been blooming every year for decades. Long before I got here. Long after I leave. Remember to notice. Put a few in a vase so I can see them and take in their powerful magic, their wisdom, their fragrance, citrusy and voluptuous, abundant and abundantly clear. It gives me pause.

Smell.


Not like I've had much time to do just that, just thought it'd be a good reminder.

Comfort Foods

(Note: another piece in my ongoing exploration of food as metaphor for life.)

There's something so comforting about certain foods. You know what they offer and they don't talk back to you. They're comforting in their kind of simplistic elegance. They reach us and feed us from the inside out.

A hot baked potato, or crusty bread slathered with butter for instance, with a sprinkling of good Celtic Sea Salt, ("goodie salt," as my daughter calls it), or a roasted Sunday chicken. It's so simple, yet so fulfilling when done right. It lends a kind of nourishment we long for at the soul level where everything is good and right and just.

Where some foods are fickle, requiring constant fussing and coaxing and maintenance, comfort foods are tolerant and forgiving, reliable as your ratty old pair of slippers tossed halfway under the bed. Left on the stove abandoned, they continue to gather flavor in their ever-inviting way, like a pot of simmering marina or a vat of chicken noodle soup.

Foods that go well together such as tomato and basil, balsamic and arugula, peanut butter and jelly, or lime and tequila, are like best friends, lovers even in their rightness, their togetherness. You can try mixing it up, do your best creative voodoo, a do-si-do shuffle out of shear boredom alone, but when you return them together, you are reminded of just how well they fit in that effortless way, the way you hope to one day fit with your own mate.

Some foods such as pasta take on an "I'll get along with anybody" approach, while others such as turkey and stuffing, apple pie and vanilla ice cream, are classic relationships we rely on time after time. Either way, I find solace and comfort in the predictability of certain foods and what they can offer…a deep connection to somewhere safe, somewhere nurturing, somewhere loved.

I took some green apples, turning and fingering them in my hands, considering their fate….big fat chunks, dotted with raisins, encased in the duality of an upstairs-downstairs house of pie dough. It would have been a classic, a nod to earlier, simpler times: thick, doughy, drippy pie, overstuffed and homey, (well, not my home but somebody's home nonetheless), and entirely comforting. Nothing wrong with that.

Yet today I wanted a special kind of comfort. I wanted to go farther.

My leanings went French, refined, a spiral of beauty, the apples lovingly roasted in cinnamon-sugar until caramelized in their own juices, then hand-mashed and slid onto the toasty golden deck of a buttery pâte sablé tart dough...

...then adorned only with more of itself: paper-thin petals of apple, a perfect spiral, drizzled in melted butter and dusted with a light snowfall of sugar crystals.

Baked off to define her edges, there she was in all her green apple glory. Tart yet sweet, simple yet sublime, open to the heavens yet pulling you into the pure heart of her: the apple elevated to art. True to, yet transcendent of, her original nature.





There is something quite fragile yet sublime about the immediacy of the consumption of food. It's a transient, disposable art form, easily dismissed as irrelevant and unimportant, perfunctory in fulfilling its task to placate hunger, or worse, something to be deliberately ignored or denied as we strive for an impossibly thin silhouette.

"Feed me," we ask, "I am hungry, I am longing, I am sad, I need connection, I need validation, I need nourishment," we plead. And lovingly (or not so lovingly) food obliges us.

Picked at the height of ripeness, cooked to reveal its greatness, served at the peak of readiness, all the while aware of the constant pull of imminent decline on the other side if ignored too long, great--even good--food strives to live up to and meet these in-the-moment demands. Sometimes it does. Other times it fails miserably. And taste can be tricky and subjective.

Yet we as a people consume unaware. Like some jilting lothario we move on to the next conquest. Unconscious of the very nature of the ingredients or the involvement of the chef-creator or the unspoken dance between inspiration and creation or even the limitations of materials to work with, we are unaware of the potential alchemy either towards death or rebirth available to us in every mouthful.

As we enter the holiday season, a time of many shared meals, feasts, and celebrations, I say send a hearty "thank you" to your plate, fully en-"joy" it (ie. infuse it with the energy of joy and deep gratitude) before you delve into it. Revel in the life it is offering you, a gift borne of inherent sacrifice.

Eat well, give thanks, and enjoy the bounty. May you be nourished as well as comforted.

Bon Appétit!

Foodie Unwrapped

You may be wondering where I got my inner-foodie mojo. When I think back to how I became so passionate about food, there are many influences, but I grew up with my mother in the midwest, so I would have to say that she was my earliest culinary influence. She had a large lazy susan full of herbs and spices, and encouraged us to get cooking early on. Instead of suggesting which spice went with what, she'd say, "use your nose!" and make us sniff the jars and explore for ourselves. Although that annoyed me at the time, I'm sure it had everything to do with the early development of my palate and my keen sense of smell.

Mom was more of a health freak than much of a cook, but she did insist we have a green salad every night. We would take turns washing the lettuce, patting it dry on a kitchen towel, and pounding the garlic in the bottom of the salad bowl to create a fresh vinaigrette for it. 

She was also an avid gardener, so as a kid I recognized the exquisiteness of tomatoes that still tasted of sunlight, green peppers and beans snapped right off the vine, the crunch of baby cucumbers, or picking sweet-tart raspberries in my own backyard.

As a teenager when I met my Dad, I absorbed his passion for food and art and music, and mostly his uncanny ability to whip together the most delicious and exotic foods in a matter of minutes. On the east coast, he introduced me to worldly flavors, gourmet foods and wine, and encouraged my experimentation in the kitchen. He showed me how to work with eggplants, chick peas, and fresh fava beans, how to eat eggs with pita bread, olives and sliced tomatoes. I learned to balance the creamy-lemony-salty-sharp ingredients of hummus with my eyes closed and my taste buds aware. We made lamb every which way, we roasted ducks, experimented with shellfish, and in the summer entire meals were made out of piles of farm fresh barely steamed sweet corn. "You've got to eat anyway, so why not eat well?" he'd say. We ate very well.

As a young adult, it was my travels and the cities I lived in that expanded my palate. Arriving in NYC at 17, I was exposed to just about every cuisine and ingredient imaginable, and I was curious. I asked questions. I explored markets. From Indian Tandooris to Bento boxes, I tasted and experimented. One of the best schools I went to was living across the street from the Fairway Market on 74th and Broadway. I suppose it was a poor man's Zabar's, but to me it was heaven. There I was introduced to mountains of produce, great breads, amazing cheeses, coffees, imported oils and vinegars, smoked fish, and so much more. It was also right down the street from another favorite goldmine, Citarella's Fish Market, which at the time was a tiny storefront packed with some of the most beautiful and amusing displays of fresh fish and shellfish I'd ever seen. I also worked my way through a number of restaurants to support my music career, and was continually inspired along the way.

New York City offered a huge collision of global influences for me, followed by living and working in the South, but by the time I got to LA a few years later where there's sunshine 95% of the year and just about everything grows here, I truly became inspired by the sheer abundance of cultures and ingredients available -- from every kind of produce, to farm-raised meats, to artisanal cheeses and sausages, to fantastic olives, and incredible world-class wine. It was as if the floodgates of creativity were opened and anything was possible. Roasted turkey with mango-dark rum glaze? Mahi Mahi with plum-cabernet sauce? Guava roasted beef tenderloin w/ blackberry chevre stuffed squash blossoms? Sure, you bet. You could see it, smell it, grow it and create it here. I found abundance on every street, at every market, at every turn. And food became another creative medium to play in.

I never set out to be a chef. I didn't study with the right people or plan a strategic course of high-profile restaurants straight to the top like so many young upstarts do these days. I was never so self-assured or conscious about my life decisions. It was all so hand-to mouth. Day to day survival really. Perhaps I took my ability for granted because I assumed everyone had to eat anyway and probably already knew how to take care of that need, so for years I didn't value my skills much except as a way out of debt. Now records, that was my goal. A big juicy recording career, never a career in food. Food was just the ladder, the day gig. The bread and butter they called it. I fed the rich to feed my music habit, which somehow always landed me in more of an outlay of cash than an influx of success.

Needing to earn some quick cash, I discovered freelance catering out in LA. It was perfect. I registered with several companies and could book as much or as little work as I needed to. Within months I rose up from a kitchen assistant to head chef and kitchen manager on many very exciting high profile Hollywood events, and then I began getting requested to chef in the private homes of many stunning and unbelievable personalities.

But beyond all that which I'll save for another day, my bottom line, final fork is this: whether cooking in my home, for a group of friends, or for a client, I try to be creative and fearless with food. As a busy mother, time is a luxury these days, so I use what's fresh and available--whether that's what's in my garden, what's on sale at the market this week, or even the leftovers in my fridge, and I do it with as little fuss as possible. I find inspiration everywhere, and believe that color and beauty on a plate are just as important as taste. 

Creating with food is relatively no different than creating with words, or notes, or colors on a canvas. It's playing with form and ingredients to create pleasure and a shared experience. You've got to eat anyway, so you might as well eat well! May we all experience such abundance.

Bon appétit and santé!

Still Peachy

You don't have to go to Georgia to enjoy a fresh peach. No, in LA you just need a little patch of dirt, some sunshine, a baby sapling, and about 8 or 9 years. Oh, and the right amount of "chill hours" each winter to set the fruit.

Luxuriating in the peachy bounty our little tree has offered us of late, may I suggest we raise our Bellini glasses in a hearty cheers. The Bellini--a signature drink made from a combination of fresh white peach puree and Prosecco--is the creation of Giuseppi Cipriani at his infamous Harry's Bar in Venice, Italy, where white peaches were fragrant and plentiful. Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles were said to have held court among others sipping this delightful nectar, finding inspiration in its bounty amidst the grandeur of the canals.

Our homegrown yellow peaches make a delightful version. Sweet and perfumey, slightly tart and effervescent, the Bellini is a delightful summer sipper. And with one of those handheld stick blender gizmos, fresh peach puree is a snap to make. Just don't forget to skin the peaches first.

But another amazing discovery is the Peachy Chicken I referenced a post ago.


Take one whole chicken roaster, rinsed and patted dry. Place in a roasting pan. Slide a few pats of butter under the breast skin and slather with a good dose of (homemade) peach jam or preserves. Season with salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Then, chop up 3 or 4 celery stalks and a red onion in large chunks and add to the pan, scatter in a handful of garlic cloves in their skins, and finish with a few sprigs of fresh thyme and/or Italian parsley.

Slide the sucker into a 375 degree oven and roast for about an hour and a half, basting frequently.
The skin deepens and caramelizes from the peach sugars, but as the veggies break down and give off their juices, their aromatic flavors tame everything to a mellow roasty balance of sweet and savory.

Served hot or cold, this one is a winner. And don't toss those veggies. I eat them straight out of the pan standing over the stove as a "cook's treat." In fact, next time I think I'll add 2 red onions and more cloves of garlic to serve on the side of the sliced chicken.

Bon appétit.