Note from Schelley in August 2008: I have no idea why these entries are posted in a huge group. I think technical difficulties.
[ Wed Dec 31, 05:30:51 PM | Schelley Olhava |
Chez Papa
Tony and I had our annual holiday dinner at Chez Papa, a tiny little french bistro on Potrero Hill, Sunday night.
We started off with drinks - Cava and cassis - at Tony's new apartment. And of course, a few cashews to absorb the alcohol.
After studying the menu for what seemed like forever, we made the brilliant move of actually ordering appetizers instead of an appetizer and a main course. While the main courses were interesting and would have been great, the appetizers looked much more appealing for reasons unknown.
I started with a roasted beet salad. The beets were cooked to perfection - not too soggy, still crunchy and tasted of earthiness. The salad was served with a tangy and well seasoned vinaigrette and a generous helping of feta cheese.
Steak tartare with a quail's egg served as a main course. I spread the meat on toasted french bread - absolutely delicious.
Tony had foie gras (his absolute decadent favorite) and rack of lamb with rattatouille. We also ordered an onion and zucchini gratin and pommes frites with aioli. Dessert was a shared hazelnut chocolate pot a creme (which I claimed could easily have been nutella whipped with cream).
Pinotage went well with the very decadent, but excellent meal. I can't forget the wonderful feelings that it left, considering the hell I've been through since...
[ Mon Dec 29, 10:10:00 AM | Schelley Olhava |
Two Days After Christmas
Twice a year, Mom and I go out to dinner with Barb, one of Mom's best friends, and her daughter, Karen (if she's available). We've been to Celadon in downtown Napa several times, although decided it was time for a change, and went to Cole's Chop House, an excellent steak house also in downtown Napa.
We started off with drinks. A cosmo for me, a drink which Cole's is known for (the restaurant has a beautiful wooden bar, the perfect place to meet for drinks while avoiding the wild and crazy 21-year olds at other bars). Barb had a key lime vodka gimlet. Mom had a gin and tonic. Barb and I both had seconds, which I later regretted.
Mom and I split a half dozen oysters on the half shelf, which were served with lemon wedges and a shallot-vinaigrette dressing, followed by a ceasar salad. I had a rib eye from the chop category of the menu, a slab of meat grilled to perfection: a bit of salt, cracked pepper and perfectly medium rare, which for me, is very red in the middle. We also ordered side dishes of hash brown potatoes and onions, which arrived molded as if cooked in a cast iron skillet and with an incredibly crispy crust, and grilled asparagus with a dollop of rich hollandaise sauce. Dessert was vanilla creme brulee, incredibly rich and delicious. I washed the steak down with a pinot (after I had excised the cosmo from my system).
I'm now in a food coma.
[ Mon Dec 29, 10:07:30 AM | Schelley Olhava |
Christmas Meals
The Holidays - a time of joyful celebration, healthy and rich eating and family tensions, and if you're lucky, a good argument or two. It can also be a time of revelation, new appreciations and insights. In a nutshell, that's Christmas.
So, for the food part.
Christmas Eve Dinner: Fondue, an Olhava family tradition that's been around long enough for fondue to have become stylish, gone out of style and cycled back again. Steak and chicken were cooked in oil; Ed made a cheese fondue with half Emmenthaler, half Gruyere (excellent and very popular) and kirsch, and Mom's pizza fondue. Dessert: caramelized lemon tart. Wines: Rosemount Shiraz, sauvignon blanc.
Christmas breakfast: Pancakes; bacon (southwest and maple); and chicken-apple sausage. We finally got around to opening presents around noon. I am now the proud owner of an oxo juicer.
Christmas snacks: caramelized onion dip; latkes; cheese and salami and crackers
Christmas dinner: Deep-fried turkey; roasted rack of lamb with a reduced red wine and rosemary sauce; mashed potato casserole; wild rice pilaf with cranberries and pecans; braised cauliflower with anchovies and white wine; roasted asparagus; acme sourdough bread; and mixed greens with dried cranberries and pine nuts tossed in a balsamic dressing. Dessert: New York style cheesecake with a mixed berry coulis.
Things that could happen only in the Olhava household while cooking for the holidays:
--Mom asking Ed what the homemade chicken stock was to be used for, to which he replied "I don't know".
--Taking an hour to figure out which ingredients we needed to purchase versus what Mom had versus what stuff Mom had was not useable.
--Grandma, a cook (in logging camps, a nursing home, etc) for most of her life, shaking her head as Ed and I insisted on making everything from scratch and doing it "just right".
--The look on the butcher's face at Vallergas when I asked for four pounds of chicken legs cut up into 2" pieces.
--Three trips to Vallergas on Christmas Eve day
--Making margaritas on Christmas day with my new juicer.
--Wondering how the pizza fondue could have evolved from a decent fondue into a tinny, thin tomato concoction in just one year, until Mom realized that she'd forgetten to add the Lipton onion soup mix.
--Watching Ed defrost the turkey in buckets of cold water and then carefully dry it off with a kitchen towel in order to avoid food poisoning, while others (not me) snickered. And then watching him leave the bloody towel on the counter.
--Cooking harmoniously in the kitchen with my brother (a miracle, considering that we fought constantly as teens), and then listening to mom and dad exchange words while deep frying the turkey.
--Watching Phoebe unknowingly start a tradition of mid-Christmas day latkes.
--Eating three very incredible meals during the holidays with family.
[ Tue Dec 23, 02:27:25 PM | Schelley Olhava |
The peppermint hot chocolate at Starbuck's rocks.
Try it. It's worth it.
[ Sun Dec 21, 05:45:49 PM | Schelley Olhava | edit ]
Dinner with Nilay last night. We started with cosmos; slightly different than the usual cosmo, as I had to substitute fresh lemon juice for lime juice. Still good...or maybe it was the vodka talking.
Nilay brought another bottle of Kalyra, a 2001 Reserve Syrah. The wine definitely needed to age for another year or two. While it was still good (especially after it breathed for a while), it was, in Nilay's words "green".
About halfway through the wine, we decided to make dinner. Dan had left a beautiful piece of salmon in the fridge, so we decided to bake it and make a spice rub of Old Bay and cumin. Thinking back now, Dan might use coriander instead of cumin. He does such a great job with his spice rub...and each time i try, it flops. The spice rub was too salty, which made the salmon too salty. Still edible, but it definitely ruined what could have been an excellent piece of fish.
But on a good note, I made a wild rice pilaf, partially in a trial run for Christmas dinner. From Cooks Illustrated, a mixture of wild and white rice, each cooked separately, and then combined at the end. Also added were some carrots and onions, dried cranberries and pecans. It was fantastic - and definitely made up for the disappointment of the salmon.
Dinner was accompanied by a Figini Gavi, an Italian white wine. Quite good - crisp flavors that accented the meal well.
[ Sun Dec 21, 03:46:57 PM | Schelley Olhava | edit ]
The office's annual holiday pot-luck, gift exchange and pie baking contest on Thursday. My contribution to the pot-luck was a tomato tart (cook's illustrated) and a pecan, caramel and fudge pie. It was good enough to earn second place.
[ Wed Dec 17, 10:54:59 AM | Schelley Olhava | edit ]
For the past several years, I've gotten into the habit of spending a day or two in mid-December baking cookies, which I then distribute to co-workers and friends. Usually, I'm in the holiday spirit, have thrown up decorations over the house and hum Christmas tunes constantly, a theme that starts right around Thanksgiving time and goes all the way through the 25th. Thus, baking cookies, the essence of which is so holiday spirited, fits.
This year has been a bit different. For some reason, I haven't been able to really capture the holiday spirit. The only decorations in the house are a little painted Christmas sign on my front door that says "Let it Snow", and that's only because I realized the Halloween skeleton that I replaced it with was a little dated. The only Christmas carol that I've had stuck in my mind has been that horrible Xbox radio ad.
As a result, I didn't really feel like baking this year. However, when I mentioned to my co-workers that I was thinking about not baking cookies, they seemed shocked, sad and had looks on their faces that said, "How can you not make US cookies?" So, baked, I did.
I made six different types of cookies:
Gingerbread-molasses men. The dough was actually made a year ago, so everyone getting a gingerbread man has been warned. It's a bit weird and overpowering - I think the molasses give them an interesting taste. I decorated with icing using a pastry bag; some of the cookies were very cute, little pinafores and overalls. But then, the pastry bag developed a few holes, and suddenly, exploded. About half of the cookies just got slathered in icing, some with the spatula, others with my fingers.
Lemon Shortbread. These are my absolute favorite. Thin slices of lemon shortbread covered in a lemon icing. Soft, delicious, wonderful.
Dried Cranberry Biscotti with White Chocolate. I've made these for the past several years, and they are always a favorite. A basic biscotti recipe with the addition of almond extract and dried cranberries and white chocolate drizzled on top.
Almond Cardomon Tea Cookies. I've always been a big fan of tea cookies, and made these last year for the first time. On it's own, cardamon is overpowering and strong. Combined with toasted almonds in the form of a cookie, it's a wonderful aroma and taste.
Hazelnut Sandwiches. Two hazelnut cookies sandwiched between a slathering of Nutella. Enough said.
Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies. Any type of cookie with a Hershey's kiss stuck in the middle is great. Making it a peanut butter type cookie is even better.
[ Sun Dec 14, 02:31:47 PM | Schelley Olhava | edit ]
Several years ago, Claudine pulled a frozen bag of seafood out of freezer, held it up and said "This is from Trader Joe's, it's great in the Moosewood Cookbook seafood stew recipe". I've always remembered that, and about a year ago, finally bought a bag of the mixed seafood, comprised of calamari rings, shrimp and baby scallops.
For the past year, I've looked at the seafood stew recipe, but for some reason, have never been able to get really excited about making it. Yesterday, I pulled out the recipe again. I'm sure it's delicious, but it just didn't sound appetizing. Nevertheless, I still pulled the bag out and defrosted in a big pan of cold water.
The cooking instructions on the bag said that the seafood could be added to anything, and to cook, simply stir fry in some olive oil, and if desired, some garlic. Hmmmm, I thought. And suddenly, I realized - seafood risotto!
Risotto is one of my favorite dishes to make. Not extremely difficult, although one has to keep a close eye on it, and extremely versatile. My all-time favorite risotto is with roasted shallots. But, there are so many wonderful variations.
I made the risotto as usual, sauteeing some garlic and an onion in olive oil with a little salt and pepper, adding a cup of rice, sauteeing for about a minute (with a wooden spoon, of course) and then adding liquid gradually. Usually, I add white wine, although I keep forgetting to buy cheap white wine at the store, and couldn't bring myself to open up the nice bottle that someone gave me a while ago. So it was all chicken broth.
When the risotto was almost cooked, I sauteed the seafood...some was still frozen, and it let off enough liquid that I had to drain some out. I also threw in a couple of diced tomatoes. After letting it cook for a few minutes, I folded it in to the almost finished risotto. The last bit of liquid ended up being the shellfish liquid, which added a nice flavor to the finished product. A bit of chopped fresh parsley and a handful of freshly grated parmesan completed the dish. Absolutely delicious.
BTW, I watched Scrooged for the first time since about 1989. Bill Murray is fabulous...no real food, although a lot of drinking of vodka (the Stolichnaya label hasn't changed) and Tab!!! A great film, wonderfully ironic take on christmas and an excellent retelling of A Christmas Carol. A bit schlocky in teh end, but the movie was made in 1988, so it's to be expected.
[ Sun Dec 07, 05:29:55 PM | Schelley Olhava | edit ]
Last night was baked ziti night. I've made it once before, and I think from now on, will make about once a year. My college friend Nilay has been present for both (he helped cook a year ago), plus whoever else is around.
About a year ago, someone gave me the Soprano's Family Cookbook, which features an incredible baked ziti recipe. It's fairly time consuming, but well worth it.
First, one must make the Sunday Gravy. Brown three types of meat - veal stew meat, spareribs and Italian sausage - and then add to the tomato sauce. The recipe actually said to throw garlic into the pot that the meat was browned in and use the fat, and then discard the garlic. Instead, I used a separate pot for the sauce, sauteed about three times as much garlic as the recipe called for, left it in, and then added tomato paste, tomatoes, water, salt, pepper. It also called for a ridiculously few 6 basil leafs, for which I actually substituted about 3/4 of a bunch of basil. I added the browned meats and let it cook for about 2 1/2 hours, and then added meatballs (that I had made in the meantime) and let it cook for another 1 to 2 hours.
The sauce had a mellow, fresh smell. It almost smelled like the sun, the tomatoes were so pungent. Definitely, it was homemade. I would have added some wine to add another dimension of richness, but sadly, was out of the cheap white cooking wine that I normally use.
I tossed the sauce with a freshly boiled batch of ziti (minus the meats, except for the meatballs) and some mozzarella. I layered about half the ziti in my cast iron dutch oven, spread a layer of ricotta and more mozarella and parmesan, and then placed the rest of the ziti on top. Sprinkled with more parmesan, realized that I was supposed to add another cup of sauce on top of the first layer, so dumped more sauce on top and layered with more parmesan.
Baked ziti is very similar to lasagna - the same elegant mixture of pasta, cheese and rich red sauce. It's also different too. Less cheese is added, so the noodles hold their distinctive shapes. And since the ziti is tubular, sauce coats the entire piece.
Four of us feasted on ziti, salad, french bread and wine. Nilay brought a bottle of Kalyra, a winery based in Santa Barbara. Of what we drank that evening, it was my favorite, a 1998 blend of 75% Merlot and 25% Cabernet Franc. We also drank a 2000 Robert Hall Syrah and a 2001 La Crosse North Coast Cab. I liked the cab the least.
Leftovers for at least the next two nights...not a bad thing, in my opinion considering how fabulous the baked ziti was.
[ Wed Dec 03, 08:18:29 PM | Schelley Olhava | edit ]
Woo-hoo! The newest Cook's Illustrated arrived today!!!
[ Tue Dec 02, 09:16:47 PM | Schelley Olhava | edit ]
I've been thinking a lot about how food is interwoven with emotions. Food is a necessity: without it, one would die. But it's also used as a central component of celebrations, an emotional crutch, and social lubricant.
Up until I was in my mid-20s, I would use food to make me feel better. This happens a lot less now; in fact, when I'm depressed or upset about something, I tend not to really eat. This is probably a good thing in the course of life.
I wonder why food fills so many different roles? It is gratification and sin, wrapped up together in a nice little box. We feel better when we eat a piece of chocolate, but at the same time, we make ourselves feel guilty. Maybe it's because there are so many unpredictable things that we can't control - and what we eat and what we choose to eat is one thing that we can attempt to control.
[ Mon Dec 01, 05:15:33 PM | Schelley Olhava | edit ]
In an effort to continue my Martha Stewart-esque streak (minus the insider trading habits), I again made dinner last night.
The tuna steaks at Trader Joe's looked very nice, so I encrusted the steaks in sesame seeds and seared them on the stove. I sliced each one up on the plate, and then poured a sauce made of soy sauce, water, rice vinegar, shallots, ginger, hot pepper flakes and sesame oil over. The presentation was quite beautiful.
I also made a creamy tarragon salad dressing. The recipe is good...except it did turn a bit bitter and too garlicky; I didn't realize the garlic supply was almost gone until I started to make the dressing, so had to scrounge around and used some relatively old cloves. Still edible...so in the end, it didn't really matter.
My rooommate is very lucky, and tonight he's cooking dinner as we attempt to clean out the fridge.
