Why I prefer taste over hearing

I had an interesting conversation with a colleague yesterday, a very smart man, professor of Romanticism, vegetarian, and somewhat obsessive cyclist. He told me this summer that he wants to weigh two pounds for every inch of his height, which would put him at ten pounds less than I currently weigh. He has about five inches on me, so I'm trying to discourage him from this extreme dieting plan.

I digress. We were having the standard, which sense would you give up first conversation. Amazingly, neither of us were high, nor were we eighteen year old philosophy "majors." We both agreed that sight is the most important sense. That seems a given to all except the most die-hard of musicians. He, however, said that he would give up his sense of taste long before his sense of hearing. This seems to me crazy, but perhaps you will think that I'm the crazy one when I say, in all seriousness, that I would gladly give up my sense of hearing before my sense of taste. The interesting this is that we both have the same reason for our very different responses: we both think that our chosen sense is crucial to some essential human experience, and that our lives would be flattened out and nearly unendurable without said sense. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this all is that we both actually used this language, even though we are both post-modernists who believe the entire concept of an "essential human experience" is mystifying bunk constructed by some big eastern syndicate.

I was thinking about this conversation as I made dinner tonight, and I am more convinced of my position than ever. Just to get rid of any unpleasant sense of suspense in this blog, I'll tell you right off the bat that dinner was good, but hardly great. It's just that the whole process confirmed why I love food and cooking so much. Here's the story: my grades are in, and I am officially on vacation for at least a week or so, so for the first time in a while I have some extra energy to devote to cooking. My idea for dinner tonight was a) to try something new and 2) to recreate an amazing dish I had in Florence last February. It was baked crespelle, filled with ceci beans (aka garbanzo beans, aka chick peas) and goat cheese. Crespelle are italian crepes, and traditionally used for cannelloni or manicotti (which are the same dish, just from different parts of the country) -- so much lighter and more delicate than some sort of dried pasta tube! The dish I had in Florence was so beautifully balanced: the beans were smooth and earthy and a little sweet, the cheese was melted and creamy and slightly tangy, and the crespelle themselves were lightly crisped.

I began the experiment with a ceci bean puree that I have made before, and that I love intensely. I sweat onions and carrots (have you all tried the amazing sugar carrots from Green Bluff? They sell them at Huckleberries -- so worth the extra money!) and maybe a very little celery in olive oil, hopefully with a couple of fresh bay leaves and/or rosemary and some flattened garlic. Once they are soft, add a can of Progressive ceci beans, drained, and some chicken stock, and simmer uncovered for about twenty minutes. When you are down to a couple of tablespoons of liquid, remove the herbs, and transfer everything to a food processor (or blender, or immersion blender -- you get the idea), and puree until very smooth. Add more liquid if the puree seems too thick or starchy; the consistency should be like loose mashed potatoes. Add salt and pepper to taste. I use this puree instead of mashed potatoes sometimes, dressed with just a little good olive oil, or, when I'm feeling really fancy, truffle oil.

Now I had my ceci beans, and some goat cheese, so it was time to work on the crespelle. I found a recipe: 2 eggs, 1 1/4 cup milk, pinch of salt, pinch of sugar, whisked together. Then whisk in 3/4 cup flour. Let stand for thirty minutes. Use about 3 tbls per crespelle, in a hot oiled non-stick 8 inch skillet. It took me a couple to get the hand of swirling the very thin batter to get a thin crespelle, and a few more to figure out how to flip them, but they weren't all that challenging. A silicon spatula helped with the flipping. I got about 12 good quality crespelle, which was about twice what I needed for my fairly small casserole and my small amount of filling.

I rolled my crespelle with the cheese and ceci beans, and here is where I went wrong. I should have just brushed with olive oil and put it in a hot oven. But, my head was turned with recipes for manicotti and memories of cannelloni, so I added a béchamel sauce and a little of Tulia's tomato sauce, which some grana on top. I baked it until it was hot and bubbly, and then broiled it until the cheese was brown. The result was tasty and satisfying, especially given my love of all things cheesy, saucy, stuffed, and baked. But, the goat cheese was all but lost, as was the balance and delicacy of the original dish.

So, hard to chalk this one up to a complete success, and yet it contained so much of what I love about food: the wonderful memory of Italy, and that big boisterous dinner with all my friends old and new from the conference. I remembered Marc trying to explain to Jeremy why Proust is the greatest modern novelist, and what is going on with the madeleines. I remember Mike's great ribbolita, a tuscan vegetable soup thickened with vegetables, and Erik's perfectly grilled swordfish. I remember Pat, the quintessential host, keeping the wine flowing and the toasts coming. And, I was able to be creative in my own small way -- researching some parts of the recipe, winging others on experience and hunch. At the end, I had something satisfying to share with Jeremy (he liked the finished product more than I did, I think). I know that, for many people, maybe even the majority, music offers this kind of rich experience, a blending of aesthetics, intellectualism, and memory. I like music, a lot, but what it offers me is just ambience compared to food.

Try the ceci puree. It's really good. And try the crespelle next time you are in the mood for cannelloni. They are totally worth it.

Saving face at Christmas time

There are two times of year when it is especially awesome to be a foodie: late summer, and now. Late summer rewards us with beautiful heirloom tomatoes and all the glories of the farmer's market. The holidays console us over the fact that we are half a year or half a planet away from a tomato worth eating by placing decadent, baked, roasted, high carb, high fat food wonderfulness in front of us, and telling us that we should eat it all in the name of festiveness. I say, yea for festiveness, and bring on the cookies!

The holidays also bring wonderful social occasions, many of which ask one to bring a little something for the nosh table. I love appetizers, and I am unhealthily competitive, so between the two, I tend to go all out for these events. But, there is always a party too far -- one that starts too close to the end of work, or is hosted by people I don't much like, or I'm just tapped out in terms of creativity. But, my pride won't let me buy a pre-made crudite tray (or anything else pre-made). What's a foodie to do?

To help with this dilemma, here are three (and a half) tried and true, super easy noshes, suitable to bring to any party. They are all worth eating, are all festive, and are all guaranteed to protect your reputation as a cook:

1) Marinated feta. So easy, and yet so surprisingly good. Start with a hunk of feta, and it doesn't have to be anything special. Cut into chunks, and mix with about a 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, and fresh and/or dried herbs of your choice. I particularly like fresh rosemary or dried oregano. You really can't go wrong. Pour on enough good olive oil (here's the place not to skimp) to moisten the whole mess, and then a little bit more. Stir, let sit at least ten minutes but up to a week, stir again, and serve with crackers or bread.

1 1/2: herbed goat cheese. This really isn't a separate recipe -- more of a variation on a theme. Take the same herb mixture (fresh really pays off in this one), and roll a log of decent quality chevre in it. Serve with crackers or bread.

2) Stuffed peppadews. This one comes from my friend Nicole, a simply sublime cook. Buy some of the bulk peppadew peppers. Stuff them with a decent quality chevre. The peppers are a little hot and a little sweet, and the cheese is creamy and a little tart, and the whole thing just works like magic. Nicole, I believe you have improved my life by turning me on to this recipe.

3) Warm smoked salmon spread. Mix 8 ounces of hot smoked salmon -- make sure you get one with no bones -- with 8 ounces of cream cheese, a little minced onion or green onion, a tablespoon of milk, and a tablespoon or more of horseradish (you want enough to taste it, but not enough to make it hot). Stir together, and transfer to a small baking dish, and heat in a 350 oven for about 15 minutes, or until it is hot all the way through. Serve with crackers or bread.

Thanksgiving Bliss

It's the end of the semester, and I should be grading. I've been grading non-stop for the last month, or at least it feels that way, which is why I am a month behind in blog posts and over a week tardy in singing the praises of my father's Thanksgiving. My dad can cook. He is largely hampered by having to cook for my mother, who does not have an adventurous palette. Things she doesn't like include: any cheese with noticeable funk, mushrooms, and salt. My father, who is a generous soul, believes my mother is a super-taster, and thus is overwhelmed by strong flavors. Me, I'm far less generous, so I just think she has an aversion to flavor. I remember her response when I asked her what the food had been like during a month long trip to New Zealand. "It was good," she said, "I suppose. If you like fresh herbs." Fortunately, my mother has a large list of good attributes to offset her gustatory shortcomings.

One of the results of the mother's food preferences is that my father has become a master of the basics. His vegetables are never mushy, his fish is always just the perfect side of flakey, and he can roast a mean bird. This year's fowl of choice was a ginormous fresh turkey from Costco. He stuffed the neck cavity but not the body cavity with my mother's traditional stuffing: pork sausage, seasoned bread crumbs, and diced apples. The rest of the dressing he roasted in a casserole, spooning some of the fatted drippings from the bird over the top during the last half hour of baking so that it tasted like turkey and had a glorious crunchy top. The bird he roasted almost entirely breast down. We took it out to flip it, only to discover that it was done early. Incidently, flipping a fully hot, twenty-three pound, partially stuffed turkey is difficult. We had clean towels and giant utensils, but we forget the most important equipment of all: safety glasses. A little bit of hot, fatty stuffing hit me in the eyebrow. Don't worry, it wasn't my scorning eyebrow, so I can still teach. But still, Norm Abrams would be so disappointed. Other than having to sacrifice my face for the meal, the meat was sublime. Dad worked a double thermometer, one in the dark meat and one in the breast meat. Both turned out beautifully, and the dark meat skin was dark and crispy. The picture does credit only to the frenzy this turkey caused on its arrival at the table.

The other result of my mother's palette peccadilloes is that when my dad and I get together, we feast ourselves on all that is strong, funky, and makes life good. When he visited Spokane in October, we went to Saunders for a cheese plate. I picked out a goat cheese that tasted like the inside of a none too clean barn, and Dad found a soft, fragrant blue. Mom got some sort of cheddar. In keeping with this tradition, I picked up a couple of fresh Oregon black truffles for Dad and I to play with for Thanksgiving. (I bought them at the Whole Foods in downtown Portland, but Huckleberry's also carries them during the season, which is right about now. I've even seen them at Rocket in the past, but I haven't seen there this year yet.)

Truffles taste like sweet earth. They are not exactly mushroomy, at least not the way criminis or even porcinis are. You feel the flavor as much as you taste it and smell it. They can overwhelm other flavors, and it is hard to think "delicate" and "truffles" in the same sentence. We knew that we wanted to do something with these nuggets of goodness that would showcase their flavor without killing the turkeyness of the star attraction. Dad and I hit the cookbooks while Mom went to the internet. We came up with a variation of the classic french Sauce Perigeaux. We grated about a third of the truffles into a cup or so of good Madeira and reduced it to a syrup. We added that to about half of the gravy, grating in the rest of the truffles. The result was rich, a little sweet, with a good hit of truffle balanced with the richness of the homemade turkey stock and pan drippings. Plus, the less adventurous eaters at the table still had half of the gravy.

At the end of the feasting, there was plenty of plain gravy left, but only about two tablespoons of the truffle gravy. Mom asked Dad if it was worth saving it, and he just grabbed a spoon and ate it like soup. I was jealous he got to it first.

I have a wonderful life, and I am thankful for more things than I can list. I want to add to that list that truffles grow in the Northwest. And that I will be done with this semester's grading in a few short weeks.

Comfort food.

I've been thinking about comfort food lately. It's the season to need comfort, as everyone in Spokane knows. And, as everyone in Spokane knows, it is not that it is getting cold, that snow is in our near future, or the overcast skies that makes us need comfort: it's the time change. Thanks to Daylight Savings, it gets dark at 4:30 in the afternoon, and that is just not right. It took me a while to figure out why it gets so dark so early in the winter in our fair city. After all, we are no farther north than Seattle, and their days do not get quite so short. My father finally explained to me that it's because we are so close to the time zone line. If we lived in western Montana, it would get dark at 5:30 instead, and that feels at least slightly more civilized.

Comfort food generally refers to the high calorie food made from readily available, lower price ingredients. In other words, it is peasant food. Comfort food tends to be high in starches and carbohydrates and fats, both of which have a high calorie to price ration, and meats tend to be cheap cuts slowly braised until they are rich and tender. We turn to it because it is incredibly satisfying. It fills us up, the fat delivers richness and flavor, and the carbs convert to quick energy. Heck, even the napping that comes when that quick energy burns off and we crash feels good this time of year. Plus, we have nothing else do to with our weekends except cook a pork butt roast for nine hours now that it is too cold to be in the river but not cold enough to be on the mountain.

Comfort food is great if you have the calorie output of a peasant laborer, but it is not so good for us city-dwelling moderns. It is especially cruel that we crave these comfort foods at exactly the time of year when we can't be outside all evening taking advantage of all that Spokane does have to offer. So, the question becomes: what can we eat that is fully comforting but won't turn instantly into our clothing not being comfortable? I am not particularly health- or diet- conscious in my cooking or my eating. I believe fully in Julia Child's approach: better to have a small amount of something worth eating than a large portion of flavorless, textureless diet food. However, this approach fails when it comes to comfort food, since so much of the comfort comes from feeling satiated and full.

So, I offer my own spicy squash soup. If you roast your own squash, it takes a while to make, and it has the full mouthfeel of a higher fat carbohydrate. It is nearly fat free, and I'm pretty sure it is low calorie. I was so proud of what I thought was a unique combination of spices that I had put together, until I started cooking a lot of Indian food and discovered that I had reinvented a pretty basic garam masal. Next week, I have this great idea for this round thing that I think could have big applications in transportation . . .

Spicy Squash Soup

2 cups (about) squash puree

2 tbls. canola oil

1 large onion

1 cup apple cider or chicken stock

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cumin

up to 2 tbls brown sugar

1/2 tsp cayenne

1 cup plain yogurt

Start with your favorite of the hard orange squashes. I've made this soup with butternut, golden butter, hubbard, even acorn. Turn it into a puree. My preferred method is to roast it, which means cutting the squash into either halves or quarters, removing the seeds and strings, and putting it in a hot oven until soft, usually around 45 minutes. Scrape the flesh out of the skin. If you are short on time, you could microwave the pieces until it is soft, but I don't think that concentrates the flavors as well.

Once you have your puree, slice your onions into thin slices, and caramelize in the oil. Take this slowly, so that you get a consistent, deep brown color. To these, add the spices and toast for about a minute. Then add squash and apple cider, and stir to combine. Absolutely all of the listed amounts are approximate. Add enough cider or stock so that the consistency is where you like it (I like mine about the consistency of a bechamel). Taste, add sugar, and adjust until the spices are in balance, which means you should taste some heat, and you should not be able to tell when the cumin ends and the cinnamon begins. The sugar should bring out the flavors, but be careful not to turn this into pumpkin pie filling. If you use a sweet apple cider, then you most likely won't need the sugar at all. Make sure you add enough salt to bring out the savory-ness of the soup.

Once you have the flavors balanced, let the whole thing simmer about twenty minutes. Stir in the yogurt and heat through. If you are using fat free yogurt, don't bring the soup back to a full boil or it won't be smooth. You can either serve it as is, or you can blend it with an immersion blender to make it bisque-like.

Interesting article in the Inlander this week. It turns out that the current front runner on Top Chef, Kevin Gillespie, had a short and unsuccessful stint as head chef of Luna in 2007. According to the article, he left after two months because customers rebelled when their favorite dishes disappeared from the menu to be replaced with fare more in keeping with Gillespie's southern comfort food style. I believe the coconut curry prawns were a particular problem. The article quotes several local chefs to make the point that Spokane menus are -- and have to be in order to find a consistent clientele -- almost completely static. Chester Gerl, formerly of Fugazzi, has the following quotation: "I see the same things on people's menus that are ten years old." This is true, and this is sad.

There are some good, fine dining meals to be had in Spokane. I am partial to the food at Mizuna -- they do fine seafood, and their lamb is often spectacular -- and the service at Wild Sage almost always makes up for the rather astronomical price. Scratch I hate, but I need to preface my comments about Scratch with the disclaimer that I haven't been there in over a year. I went twice in their first six months, and both times my table was completely dropped. The menu was all over the place: three different steaks, stir fry, and game? Find an identity! And, I ordered the artichoke ravioli, and found on my plate two enormous, gummy pillows of flavorlessness. They may have worked out some of the kinks by now, but I may never know. Luna is not my favorite. It seems to me caught in between wanting to be casual fine dining and real fine dining, and taking the worst of both worlds. The prices are too high for the food offered, and the service and table settings too informal for the kind of food they want to serve. Sante started strong, but it remains to be seen if they can maintain their level of interest. Latah Bistro is often nice, especially once you get over the view of the supermarket parking lot.

While it is possible to have a good dinner out in Spokane, there really are no great fine dining restaurants. For me, to be great, a restaurant has to earn my trust. It's the difference between picking out what to order because I like the listed ingredients and I can imagine how they would go well together, and ordering something because I can't imagine what that would taste like and I can't wait to see how the chef pulls it off. It's the difference between ordering something because it seems well within the comfort zone of the restaurant and ordering something because I couldn't make it at home. It's the difference between eating as an experience and just paying for someone else to do the cooking and hosting for you. There's a need for both in this world. The problem is that we only have the latter.

The Inlander is right about one of the problems with Spokane fine dining when they talk about the fact menus don't change. Not only does that keep a chef from surprising you, and I imagine stifles their own growth, but it also means that the menus here are incredibly dated, and the ingredients being used are not necessarily fresh. Crab cakes are always on the menu at Luna, when the Dungeness season is from December through February. What does that suggest about the crab that they use?

But there are other problems. For one is the insidious over-pricing. One of the great things about Spokane is the low cost of living, but a top-tier meal here costs what it would cost in Seattle. While one can pay much more in California, it is only because their is a whole other tier of restaurant quality there. Of course one pays a premium for Fleur de Lis or The French Laundry! Another problem is the inability to understand service -- but on that topic I have already vented my bile.

And then there is the problem of restaurant and menu identity. Scratch is not alone in being unable to decide whether it is a steak house, an asian restaurant, or the kind of place where you can get rabbit. Moxie (and I will always love Moxie for the Moxie Mojito, one of the best cocktails ever) has a Japanese mural on the wall, puts olive oil and balsamic down for its bread, and has meatloaf on the menu. And even at Latah Bistro. . . the head chef there, David Blaine, makes a point in the Inlander article about the need for a chef to learn what Spokane diners want. Apparently, he decided what we want is pizza along with our filet and half priced bottles of wine and cocktails. I'm not complaining about the half-priced wine -- I have drunk many a bottle and gratefully -- or about the pizza, which isn't bad. But it is insulting and condescending that what he learned about us is that we need gimmicks and a stable of non-threatening items. Just acknowledge that that is the kind of place Latah is trying to be, and lose the pretentious line on your website about how often you change your menu. The wild mushroom ravioli has been on there for at least three years, and I don't think the filling ever changes, even though mushrooms are -- wait for it -- seasonal.

Trust must be mutual. I'm sure Spokane diners have let down good chefs. I'm sure Gerl couldn't have won a James Beard prize here, but Fugazzi failed for many reasons, and not all of them are our fault. Let's both do our part. Chefs, give us a restaurant that really is seasonal, where the specials are fresh and challenging and thoughtful. In turn, we diners will come, and we won't throw a fit if there are no coconut curry prawns from the nineties. We promise.

Agave

I have a new found appreciation for Mexican cuisine. Part of this can be attributed to Rick Bayless' win on Top Chef Masters. I have seen him on TV for years, and always found him pretentious and awkward, telling me to make recipes using ingredients I would never be able to find where I lived. I think Top Chef Masters is a much better medium for him than his own cooking show. I still found him pretentious, but in a thoughtful, academic way that was legitimately interesting, and rendered charming by his (at least appearance of) complete enthusiasm and sincerity. What major American chef admits on national TV that it took him twenty years to learn how to make one sauce? Charming. And, of course, my foray into Taco Truck cuisine in August contributed to my new appreciation. Fresh food with a beautiful complexity sounds like a recipe for yummy to me, and it is exactly what I learned good Mexican food should be.

So, I will admit that I went to Agave on Friday with a moderate expectation. It is, after all, a joint venture between the owner of Moxie, always a good standby for good pricey food, and the owner of DeLeon, whose name is legendary here on the Spokane food scene. Surely those two owners would be enough to overcome the odor of failure lingering from the previous tenants of the space, Blue Fish. I actually really liked Blue Fish for a couple of years, but the quality went down hill precipitously towards the end, and then they made things worse with that ill conceived asian bistro disaster.

I was wrong. Now, there is a lot to like at Agave. The service was prompt, professional, and friendly. Some of the food was outstanding; indeed, the smoked paprika grilled prawns rates as one of the best shrimp dishes I have ever had. Ever. It was spicy and smoky and grilled, the shrimp were tender but with a nice char, the salad underneath was fresh and well dressed, and it all came together in a harmonious, exciting dish. I ordered the mahi mahi tacos, where too the fish was perfectly cooked and wonderfully spiced. And my margarita a delight, with fresh citrus and clear tequila presence. Plus, it came in a glass the size of a chalice, which is not a bad thing.

So, what went wrong? Why was it that Jeremy and I both walked out feeling no desire to revisit Agave? Was it that the food wasn't consistently exiting? That was certainly the case. The rice was underseasoned and underflavored, as were the ranchero beans. Jeremy's wild boar chile verde was an awful lot of gammy funk with very little other flavor. The fresh fried chips were excellent, but the salsa bordered on having too much raw garlic. But the food wasn't really it. Even very good restaurants can have less successful dishes, and usually one dish as good as those prawns would be enough to bring me back.

I believe the entire problem with Agave is that they didn't de-Blue Fish enough. They didn't paint (I believe). They didn't remove, or apparently clean, the blue-lit fish tank in the entrance. They didn't rethink the awkward table floor plan. Blue Fish was a dated hipster doofus establishment when it opened, and the passing years have exacerbated the dated and the doofus part of the establishment, and Agave shouldn't be hipster anyway. Adding some Latin knickknacks and some of the ugliest curtains I have ever seen just isn't enough to give Agave it's own personality and vibe.

There's an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season four, when the misunderstood but psychotic Faith switches bodies with our hero Buffy. Badness ensues. That's what Agave feels like: like a good restaurant shoved into a completely different restaurant's body. It just isn't right. It's a shame, because I think Agave deserves better.

In the meantime, since the wild boar chile verde is a disappointment, here is a recipe for a Pork and Green Chile stew that, I think, makes up for it:

2-3 lbs trimmed pork butt or lean country style ribs, or some other fatty pork (you can do it with a lean pork, but the meat won't be as tender at the end), but into 1 to 2 inch chunks

6 poblano (also called pasillo) chiles, roasted, peeled, seeded and ribbed, and cut into 1 inch squares*

1 jalopeno, also roasted, peeled, seeded, ribbed, and chopped. *

6-10 tomatillos, roasted and chopped*

1 large onion, chopped

1 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes

3 large garlic cloves, chopped

1 tbls dried oregano

1 tbls cumin

about 3 cups chicken broth (canned is okay)

flour, salt, pepper, oil

1) coat the meat in flour, salt and pepper, and fry in a couple of tbls of oil until the meat is well browned on all sides. Do in batches so as not to crowd your pan.

2) in the same pan, add a little more oil if needed, and saute onions until they are soft and browned. Then add everything else, including the meat. It should be quite a loose soup at this point. Simmer uncovered for about two hours, adding more stock if it looks like it is drying out. You know it's done when the meat is really tender and the sauce is thick.

3) Serve -- I like some grated cheddar and a little sour cream, but any of the usual chili toppings would be fine.

*Preparing these roasted ingredients is a little time consuming, but not difficult. I have a grill built into my stove, and I can get a good char all over the peppers in about ten minutes, but your could do this on a conventional grill, under a broiler or in a heavy duty skillet, or even over a gas burner using tongs. The only trick is to get the entire surface of the peppers charred, and then stick them in a bag until they are cool enough to handle. The charred skin will just rub off, and the you can open up the peppers and rinse out the seeds without losing flavor. The tomatillos just need to be softened up and browned a little bit, then chopped up.

Green Tomatoes

Spokane is exceptionally lovely in the fall, and this fall has been exceptionally lovely, even by Spokane standards. The sky is crystal blue, the air is crisp, and the nights, alas, the nights are cold. As in frosty. Which is, as we all know, very bad for tomato plants. It held off for a good long time, long enough for a few more of my mammoth heirloom tomatoes to ripen to red, purple, and black deliciousness, but as always happens here in the land of the short growing season, frost has found many, many big tomatoes still green on the plant. This used to make me very sad, until I discovered how yummy green tomatoes are. Now I get excited when I get to go out and harvest a big bowl of fruit. Besides, look how beautiful they are!

Given my personal history, I have to start with fried green tomatoes (don't get the joke? Read the book!), although I have to admit that I didn't make these for ages because I wasn't sure if the tomatoes were green because they were unripe, or if it was a special recipe for green heirloom tomatoes. Sometimes a little pretentiousness can be a bad thing. Just to clarify, we are talking unripe tomatoes. Just slice the tomatoes fairly thick, coat in cornmeal or breadcrumbs, and fry in the oil of your choice. I think bacon grease is traditional (it is a southern recipe, after all), but I prefer olive oil. The only hint I have: don't fry them in too hot a pan. You want to give the tomatoes themselves a chance to cook and soften before the coating burns. Otherwise, you are just eating unripe tomatoes. Wild Sage often has a beautiful fried green tomato appetizer, served with crab, bacon, and remoulade (i.e. really good homemade tartar sauce. If if you are going to make tartar sauce at home, shouldn't you get to reward yourself with a fancy french name for it?) Another good reason to go to Wild Sage.

Last year, I had a bumper crop of green cherry tomatoes, so I pickled them. I got this idea from some local pickles I found up at Green Bluff, in the Walter's store. Mine were better -- eventually. Here's what I did: I packed small canning jars with green cherry tomatoes, fresh dill, dried red peppers, and chunks of garlic -- about half a medium sized clove per chunk. I put in a lot of the seasoning agents, since I like my pickles strong and spicy. Then I made up a batch of pickling brine, which involved boiling the following ingredients together for a few minutes:

2 cups white vinegar

1/2 cup water

3 tbls kosher salt

1/4 cup sugar

3 tbls pickling spice

1 tbls mustard seeds

1 tbls black peppercorns

Once this mixture cooled, I poured it over the tomatoes and then tightened the lids. You don't have to worry about sealing them, because nothing noxious can grow in that much acid. Then, I put them in the refrigerator until Christmas. I tried some earlier, but they weren't pickled yet. In fact, they seemed to reach their height of goodness around May.

The absolute best thing I know how to do with green tomatoes is green tomato curry. I adapted this recipe from my beloved Mangoes and Curry Leaves. It's rich and spicy and easy and so, so good. Really, I like this one a lot.

Ingredients:

2 tbls vegetable oil

1/2 an onion, chopped

2 green serrano peppers, seeded and chopped (unless you like heat, in which case, don't seed them)

6-8 fresh or frozen curry leaves (you can find these frozen at Bollywood on Sprague. They seem to keep eternally in the freezer, and are definitely worth the trip)

1/4 tsp fenugreek, powder or seed

pinch of turmeric

About 2 cups green or blushing tomatoes, coarsely chopped

2 tsp salt

1 can coconut milk (which may be high in saturated fats, but is apparently also very high in anti-oxidents, so this is even a healthy recipe!)

Heat the oil, and add onion, chilis, and curry leaves. Cook until onion is soft and the edges have browned. Add everything else but the coconut milk, and cook over medium heat for about fifteen minutes, until the tomatoes have broken down. Add the coconut milk (you might not want to add some of the watery stuff at the bottom of the can if your curry looks too thin). Cook about five minutes, uncovered, or until the curry is thick. It should be the consistency of applesauce, with some chunks still in it.

This stuff is great over rice. It's great next to roasted or grilled meat. It's great with a spoon. I heat up leftovers at work, and people start to stick their noses out of their offices.

A final word: unlike their ripe brethren, green tomatoes freeze. Just put them in ziplock bags, and you can have green tomato curry into the winter. Or, if you lack will power, until about next month.

Any other favorite green tomato recipes out there?

Pulled Pork Redux

You know you've reached a new low in terms of slacking off when your mother starts asking about your blog. Yes, the thing I set up as a diversion and procrastination aid has now become a public way for people to track my ability to not do things. Try to think of it this way, Mom: writing my blog really means I'm *not* doing important, career related things. You should start worrying when you see me post too much. That will be a sure sign of slacking and over-eating!

Seriously (which is clever code for "none of the previous paragraph is serious"), the beginning of the school year has cut down precipitously on how much of my brain I can devote to food, since now at least some of it has to be taken up by "how not to offend my colleagues or my freshman," "Milton," and "where am I supposed to be now?" But, I do have a brief pulled-pork update.

The faux-log truck on Division next to the White Elephant is in fact a BBQ truck called Smokies, and since none of you offered any insight on its qualities, I bravely sacrificed my own waistline. I had the beef brisket and tried the pulled pork sandwich, and the verdict is: pretty good. The texture is quite good, especially if you like your meat a little on the lean side (although not so lean as to be tough or dry). The flavor is acceptable. I could use more smoke, but I believe that both meats were in fact truly barbequed, which means long, slow, low cooking. The sauce is a cross between Memphis and North Carolina, so thin and with a strong vinegar component, as opposed to the think, sweet, Texas style. I like it, although it is sadly lacking in heat. My best recommendation, however, is to ask for extra sauce. I'm know: over-saucing is a sin. But so is under-saucing, and Smokies needs to do some penance for that one. Would that be three Hail Marys and one Our Father?

I also tried the pulled pork sandwich at Clinkerdagger's, off their lunch menu. I admit it. I like Clinkerdaggers. It is not haute cuisine, but it is haute above the river, and I find its old-fashionedness charming. I'm not sure they mean it in quite the ironic way I enjoy it, but these are the vagaries of interpretation. The sandwich was a perfectly adequate pulled pork, and about what you would expect from a place that doesn't say it has a smoker. I would put in on a par with the pulled pork at the Safari Room at the Davenport Towers, and they say they do have a smoker. Now, the sweet potato fries at Clinks -- those were crispy little works of art! And somehow, the twelve top of blue hairs all wearing red and purple hats sitting at the other end of the room made the whole experience a little sweeter.

That's it for now, and that's probably it for pulled pork (although I have a tip that the pulled pork at Chick'n'More is worth trying). Next installment (unless a different fancy takes me): what to do with the bumper crop of green tomatoes my Spokane garden inevitably produces. I know. You'll be holding your breath.

Taco Trucks

Loving street food has become a foodie cliche, thanks to the stylings of Anthony Bourdain, who has at long last confirmed that, yes, one can be both gritty and pretentious. The world had been wondering since the Marquis de Sade first raised the possibility. I like each equally. But, cliche aside, street food can be very, very good, and some of the best can be had from taco trucks. Spokane currently has a bounty of taco trucks. The question is, which is worth your time?

In the past week or so, I have been to the four trucks nearest to downtown. I ordered tacos, and when I could talk Jeremy into having mexican food again (it's not his favorite cuisine, even though we met in a Mexican restaurant and he lived in San Francisco, home of the Mission burrito), I ordered a burrito. I made sure to try the rice and beans at each place. The menus at all the trucks are pretty similar: tacos, burritos, enchiladas, tostadas, sopas, and tortas ( kind of sandwich/Mexican sloppy joe). They all have a similar selection of meats: chicken, pork, a couple of beefs, chorizo, and -- a surprise to me -- lengua, or beef tongue, which is excellent. The texture is a little like pot roast. The good news is, all four trucks are all pretty darn good. I do, of course, have some favorites and some observations.

Patty's Taco Truck, on Division just north of Garland/Empire. Of the four I visited, this is my favorite, even if the truck itself is pretty, shall we say, low impact. Their pico de gallo is wonderfully fresh and lively, the guacamole is creamy and abundant, and the refried beans are wonderful, clearly the best of any of the trucks I tried. There are (I read on-line -- not the most rock solid research I have ever done) two Pattys who co-own the truck. The woman working the counter when I was there (Patty the niece, I believe) was incredibly pleasant, and told me that they have only been open since June. On her suggestion, I tried an enchilada, which was elevated by a lovely hit of salty lime.

Tacos Tumbras: On Division, just north of Rowan. I believe there is in fact a Tumbras chain, including at least one other truck out in the valley, and a sit down restaurant. The tacos are lovely, the refried beans well seasoned, and if you prefer some texture in your refried beans, you might even prefer theirs to Patty's, which are very smooth. The pork burrito was lovely, with tender meat and a great spicy kick. I am dinging them for very bad chicken, which was rubbery, not carefully cut up, and flavorless. (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of this one.)

Tacos el Sol: This very fancy truck is parked downtown, in a parking lot on Washington in between Sprague and First. The great news about this place is that it is open both for business lunch and for late night cravings: they are open until 3 am! Again, very good tacos, especially the beef, but the refried beans taste canned, and the salsa lacked punch and freshness. Also, as one might expect from the fancy digs, this was the most expensive of the trucks I hit, although only by a fraction of a dollar.

El Mariachi, located on Hamilton and Augusta, just north of Mission. I will admit, this was my fourth truck, and I was getting more and more adventurous. Here, I tried both the tongue and the beef cheeks, and both were excellent. The barbacoa (beef braised in chile sauce) was, in comparison, mushy and uninteresting. The burrito was Jeremy's favorite, because he prefers pinto beans to refried, but I found it bland. The big disappointment was the rice and beans, which in texture was like a Cuban rice and beans, but without the flavor. Also, as much as I appreciate the cheeky, musical theme of the truck, I was put off by the fact that you couldn't see inside to see the food prep at all, and by the length of my wait. Still, it's proximity to work means that I'm likely to return.

There are a lot of arguments to be made about taco trucks. Some say that they are an easy way for a business owner to play fast and loose with all sorts of rules that should not be played with: food safety laws, worker's benefits, even taxes. I'm sure this can happen, but I think Patty's Tacos is an example of the other side of the argument. This is a low capital way for someone to become a small business owner. To me, this sounds like a venture worth supporting. So, go out and be brave. And if they have named some of their tacos, those are the ones to get. Otherwise, try the tongue!

Bad waiter

I ate at Cafe Marron over the weekend, and it wasn't the best experience I've had there. I like Cafe Marron, even if I do find the name unfortunate, since it seems like the only options for pronouncing it are either to make it sound like Cafe Moron or to sound pretentiously French. Even they seem to struggle with the name; when they opened, they had it spelled one way on their sign and another on their menus. Nonetheless, I like the casual atmosphere, I like the brunch food a lot (especially now that Bittersuite is gone and, from what I have heard, will be reopening prohibitively far from my house), and I have had really good meals there.

I remember one dinner, a little over a year ago, with particular fondness. The waiter not so subtly steered us toward the halibut and the top sirloin. It took no arm twisting to get me to order the halibut, a fish I adore. It arrived perfectly cooked, in that sublime nano-second when there is still a hint of translucency in the center, and in a light, citrusy cream sauce that complemented the fish without taking it over. The top sirloin was a harder sell. After all, that is no one's favorite steak, and badly done, it can be chewy, mealy, chalky, or any of the other bad beef dwarves. But, when a good waiter recommends something, you trust him (in this case, it was a him), so . . . The sirloin was also sublime: beefy and and almost meltingly tender, with a terrific sear. In fact, the beef was so good by itself that I have forgotten if it came with a sauce, and I can remember nearly every sauce I have ever tasted. Good food, good service, good atmosphere -- this was an experience to cement a restaurant in my firmament for a while.

Things were very different this weekend, and it wasn't that the food that made the difference. It was the service. Our waitress was a very nice woman on her second day, and I wish her well in her new job. I see no reason why she can't become a fine waitress. But, she wasn't for us. I want to be very clear here: I don't blame her. Service is an art form, and one so rarely practiced in Spokane that I wonder if most of the people trying to be good servers have actually experienced good service. Waiting tables, even at its most straightforward, requires an enormous amount of multi-tasking, organization, presence of mind, knowledge of the menu, of the wine list, of what the kitchen will and will not accommodate, plus tact and people skills. It is a hard, hard job, and one that takes a full apprenticeship to master.

No, I don't blame her. I blame the management. It was their decision to put a woman with little to no waiting experience on the floor on a weekend night. It was their decision not to give her a lesson in the menu with the chef, allowing her to taste all the plates on the menu. This is, by the way, standard practice in nearly all fine dining restaurants. It was their decision not to have her shadow an experienced waiter, who probably would have remembered to bring the salads before the entries. And let us remember, the management of Cafe Marron is the same as the management of Luna, so these are experienced restaurant people who ought to know better. They surely know standard industry practice in hiring and training wait staff, and they certainly ought to know the importance of service in a successful restaurant. This shows more than a momentary lapse on their part. This shows a failure of priorities.

I'll go farther than that. I think this is an ethical issue. Sure, it shows a complete lack of respect for the diners who are paying up to twenty dollars a plate and have, therefore, a reasonable expectation that what they asked to be on that plate will, in fact, be there. But, more than that, a waiting job is typically a minimum wage job, and therefore all servers rely on tips to earn a living income. Hiring a person and then not giving them the tools they need to earn the income you have told them they can expect is dirty pool, in my book. (Washington State, thankfully, both has the highest minimum wage in the country and does not have the exemption for tip earners that many states have, so the situation is not as dire here in Spokane as it is some places.)

Service tends to be bad in Spokane. We tend to accept friendly in lieu of skilled (not that the too are mutually exclusive). I had dinner at Gordy's a few weeks ago, and the our waitress knew the menu inside and out, and guided us toward ordering a great meal. But, she seemed to think that we wanted to spend our evening talking with her, when in fact I was with a group of people who did just fine creating conversation all by ourselves. It ranged from awkward to horribly uncomfortable. Wild Sage is a notable exception; I have never gotten anything but top notch service there. Luna is a, maybe the, prime culprit. There service would be great for a Denny's or a sandwich place, but not for a restaurant that charges thirty bucks a plate, a la carte. We will never have a real restaurant scene until service becomes a priority, both for restaurant owners and diners. The catch-22 is, we can't protest bad service without hurting innocent, individual servers. So, here's a call to owners and managers: train your servers. Send them to good restaurants in other cities to experience their craft. Teach them about the food they serve. (I know of one restaurant in Tacoma that sends their entire staff to Italy for a week each year to gain in knowledge and experience. Tacoma, people! Are they that much better than we are?) As for us, let's demand more than nice. We deserve it.

Pulled Pork

I've been thinking about pulled pork.

This isn't unusual. If I exerted as much brain power thinking about the impact of Protestant theology on Renaissance narrative structure as I exert thinking about pulled pork, my book would be long finished. But really, can you blame me? Is there much in the world as beautiful as the confluence of smoke and pork? I would put it right up there with Paradise Lost in terms of highly satisfying aesthetic experiences.

My first introduction to the glories of pulled pork came in the back yard of my friend George's graduate school house. He had a smoker and knew what to do with it. He would transform a big, fatty hunk of boston butt (a big cut of pork shoulder) into a minor -- make that major -- masterpiece: succulent, unctuous (a much better word than greasy, don't you think?), smoky. We would stand in his tiny kitchen together, pulling at the still steaming meat with forks, with George getting final say about how much fat and caramelized rind would make it in to the final product. Then he would top the whole thing with just enough barbeque sauce to make it sweet and spicy and moist, without covering up the taste of the pork itself. His sauce of choice was Montgomery Inn, which he would bring back from his trips home to Ohio by the caseload. I would bring the coleslaw, made very simply with cabbage (red and green when I felt fancy), mayonnaise, vinegar, sugar, pepper and celery salt. I didn't have a recipe, so I'd just taste it until it seemed right. The creaminess and fresh crispness of the coleslaw added a little balance to the rich pork.

The only pulled pork I've had that really matches George's is from Everett and Jones in Oakland, a fabulous barbeque establishment. Actually, they have two restaurants. The one in Jack London square is big and friendly, with photos of celebrities and the owners' families on the wall. The other is a hole in the wall take-out counter in Berkeley; no tables, just a counter, some hungry patrons, a whole lotta smoke and a little attitude toward the only white girl in the place.

I have not had good pulled pork in Spokane. Lonestar BBQ is highly disappointing -- the sauce there is the star, and it isn't a particularly bright one. The meat is dry and smokeless. Better is the pulled pork sandwich at the Safari Room in the Davenport Towers. The pork is truly smoked, but the sauce is overly sweet, and the sandwich as a whole seems cloying rather than succulent. Chicken-n-More doesn't have pulled pork, and given how oily and strangely flaccid their ribs are, I'm okay with that.

I had great hopes for Lazy Bones on Regal. They have pretty good baby back ribs, and their sides are a nice blend of traditional barbeque -- corn bread, beans, greens -- and healthy, although I am deeply suspicious of their decision to have vinaigrette cole slaw. But what they serve instead of pulled pork is a "smoked, chopped pork." The taste is okay, but the consistency is all wrong. It feels steamed more than smoked, and there is no caramelization. None. No crisp, no char, no intense smoke, no malliard reaction (aka that beautiful chemical voodoo that happens to meat when you brown it. Don't forget, people: Brown means flavor). In my book, this nearly disqualifies them as a barbeque joint at all.

I get it. Pulled pork is hard. It takes all day, and it requires some sort of smoker. I've never gotten great results in my Weber, because I can't keep the temperature low enough to not leave the pork tough. Alton Brown describes a great, McGyver style smoker using giant flower pots, wood chips, and (I'm not kidding here) a heating pad, but I've never tried it. If you would like, here's the clip on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ka2kpzTAL8. Let me know how it goes.

So, here's my version of "cheater" pulled pork. It isn't smoked, which would make me skeptical too, and it isn't the real thing, but it has a great texture and lots of good, brown, crispy, caramelized bits. I usually make it for sandwiches, but I've also served it on a pita chip as a cocktail nosh with just a little pickled onion on top.

One package boneless country-style ribs (between 2 1/2 and three pounds) -- DO NOT USE LEAN OR EXTRA LEAN. It just isn't the same.

2 cups water

1 1/2 cups orange juice

lots of whole, peeled garlic

1 tsp salt

Cut the pork into chunks. Don't worry about trimming it. Put it and everything else in a big pot with a lid (I use my endlessly useful Le Crueset). Boil it with the lid on for about one and a half hours, or until the pork is almost tender. Take the lid off and turn up the heat, until the pork is basically dry. This takes about half an hour to forty-five minutes. At this point, I usually have too much pork to work with in my pan (and certainly more than two people can eat at once), so I freeze half of it. The other half, I transfer to a 12 inch non-stick skillet on high heat. The fat will render out of the pork and fry the meat, and as you stir it around, the meat will basically pull itself. Fry until most of the meat is dark brown, and you have some crispy strands. It is very oily, so I usually drain it, either in a colander or on paper napkins, before I add my barbeque sauce. Then, eat it up however you like your pulled pork.

I adapted this recipe from one for Carnitas (mexican fried pork), and the meat works brilliantly for any number of mexican meals as well, without the barbeque sauce, of course. I like it just on a crisped corn tortilla, with a little fresh salsa and guacamole.

By the way, has any one tried the faux-log barbeque cart, seen sometimes on North Division? I would gladly trade my fake pork for a good version of the real thing!

Mercado Ambrogio

Here are some beautiful photographs of the Mercado Ambrogio, the Sant Ambrogio market near my apartment in Florence.

This last one is actually from a market in Pistoia. That's my zucchini a fiori, a vegetable I love so much I tried to smuggle its seeds into the US. Damn you, conscientious border guards!

Thank you, Chris, for these beautiful images.

Stores I love

Spokane does not have a Trader Joe's, a fact much bewailed by my foodie and faux foodie friends. I'm not so cut up about this -- while it was nice to have a handy supply of cleaned, frozen calamari rings for spontaneous frying, for the most part Trader Joe's supplies pre-made food. Sure, their dips and frozen entries are better than what you can find at the supermarket, but they are not nearly as good as dips I can make on my own. And their hummus stinks. There, I said it. Spokane does, however, have a number of food stores and stores with food gems that I frequent as often as time and budget allow.

Saunder's Cheese Market. I love this place. I love the beautiful woman who seems to always be working when I come in. Yesterday, she remembered that I was on a raw sheep's milk cheese kick. I love that she wouldn't dream of selling you cheese without offering you a sample, and that she understands the beauty of really good cheese. I love that she recently described a lovely semi-soft goat's milk cheese as "my crack cocaine." That's how I feel about cheese. I love their cheese boards, and that they let you bring in a bottle of wine from Vino's next door. I even love the look of the store: crisp, clean design, completely functional and completely keeping with their older building.

Bollywood. I love this place, too. Sure, the front half is a particular skeezy Quik-E mart on yet to be gentrified section of Sprague, and only the back (and to the left) couple of aisles are devoted to Indian food. But, come on, we have our own Indian food store! Between Bollywood and the bulk spice rack of Huckleberry's, real curry is within easy reach. I mean the kind you roast and mix and grind yourself. And about ten different kinds of dal. And frozen curry leaves! Spokane does not have a great Indian restaurant. It doesn't even have a good Indian restuarant. It has an "okay if you haven't really eaten Indian food before" restaurant. (I would say the same about our Thai selections). But with Bollywood and a good cookbook, outstanding Indian food is within reach. I strongly recommend the following cookbooks: Mangoes and Curry Leaves, by Alford and Duguid, the lovely people who brought us Hot, Sour Salty, Sweet, and Indian Cooking by Marhur Jaffrey. And, you can get a wonderful Bollywood video to accompany your meal!

Cassano's Italian Food. When I was in Italy (and, no, I won't stop talking about Italy for a while), I learned some stuff about pasta. We can't make it here in America. Not really. Maybe it's the wheat, or the water, or the type of press they use, but al dente there means this amazing chewiness, combined with a porous texture that has an incredible ability to hold onto sauce. For American pasta, al dente means kinda hard in the middle. But Casello's sells imported pasta that allows us to come pretty close to what real pasta should taste like. So does Rocket Market, by the way. Casello's also has truffle oil, a lot of balsamic, and a nice selection of cured meats. They do not, alas, sell Bresaola, but I will try not to hold that against them. Much.

DeLeon's Mexican food. I have to confess, I don't get here much, since it's north and I'm not. And, honestly, I'm not much of a Mexican cook. But, I do know that their fresh tortillas are superb, and that without them, my enchiladas are always disappointing. And I know that this is the place to get Latin ingredients that can be hard to find elsewhere. Maybe I'll go on a Mexican cooking adventure just so I can do this place justice.

Egger's Meats. Every good cook needs a good butcher. Except for vegetarian cooks. I suppose. See the name of the blog. The nice men at Egger's will, on request, cut you a pork chop of Fred Flintstone proportions. They are the most likely place in town to have lamb shoulder (although I've learned to call ahead before I get my heart set on lamb curry). They have the most delicious smoked turkey breast that they will slice thin for sandwiches. They have duck, ground veal, and perhaps most importantly, they have bones. Can't make stock without bones. In short, this place is essential.

Rocket Market. This place has really turned into a foodie dream -- they do a lot of things well. They sell locally farmed produce, and have a nice little grocery section, with a fantastic selection of balsamic and olive oil, including my favorite, Columela from Spain. Their deli serves pretty consistently tasty, healthy food, and some of their soups are great. I had a tomato, arugula and goat cheese penne there last week which was rich, fresh, and complex all at the same time -- not bad for a three dollar lunch for the lazy! And the wine . . . They have a great selection, and Carl Carlsteen personally tastes, selects, and then writes up tags for each wine there. Sure, every one of his tags tends towards the hyperbolic, but you can read past that for a solid description of the flavor. Oh, and Jeremy wouldn't let me forget it if I didn't mention their selection of cakes; he is particularly fond of Frey's Paris cake, on sale there.

Super 1. A surprise entry, I know, but did you know they make and smoke their own sausage? At least the one on the corner of 29th and Grand has a great meat department for when you can't make it to (or can't afford it at) Eggers, and they have the best smoked sausages for grilling I've had. I particularly like the Hot Beer sausage. I've never heard of these before; perhaps they are a mid-West thing? The beautiful creation of a local genius? Is there beer in the sausage, or is it just that they go well with beer? Because they do.

You may notice Huckleberry's is not on my list. I used to go there a lot, and I still go there for their bulk spices and takeout sushi, but for the most part, I'm over them. They are high priced, and there is nothing there I can't get somewhere else, either better, cheaper, or at least with a sense that I'm supporting a local small business instead of a big local business. Not that I have anything against Rosauer's (they own both Huckleberry's and Super 1). They seem to treat their employees well, they are big donors to Gonzaga, and I'm considering writing an ode to their deli fried chicken. But they get enough of my money without me supporting their high seeming mark-ups.

So, guys, what have I missed?

Produce and Fresh Abundance!

I had the amazing opportunity to live in Florence, Italy for seven weeks this spring, and it has totally changed my attitude toward cooking. I had an apartment with a small kitchen (and, for a while, every time I turned on the air conditioner and the stove at the same time, I blew the electricity for the entire apartment!). It was about four blocks from the Sant Ambrogio market. Six days a week, until about two in the afternoon, the outside part of the market is filled with the most beautiful produce. The inside is filled with butchers, fish mongers, cheese and fresh pasta. It is a foodies' fantasy land.

The Italians just don't sell produce if it isn't fresh, local, picked ripe, and therefore intensely flavorful. I was there when the zucchini a fiori were in season -- these beautiful, long, ribbed zucchini with big, orange flowers still attached and stuffable. They were so sweet that I didn't have to do anything to make them delicious. I just sliced them thick, sauteed them in olive oil, seasoned, and that was it. Sometimes I tossed them with fresh pasta and some cheese. Seriously, my boyfriend (a full fledged foodie in his own right) and I ate them nearly every night for three weeks. When they were out of season, they disappeared from the market. Fortunately, by that time, the tomatoes were ripe . . .

I grew up eating French food, and before going to Italy, I don' t think I'd met a meal that I didn't think would be improved by a nice sauce. I now see the Italian attitude, that a sauce is cheating, covering up bad ingredients. I did the best and the simplest cooking of my life there. A pork loin, already herbed and tied by the butcher, some fresh noodles, and whatever caught my eye from the produce venders. That kind of food needs very little cooking -- just a little oil and salt, and not to be over- or under-cooked.

Since coming back to beautiful Spokane, I've been on a mission to try to recreate at least some of that cooking. The thing is, it is pretty hard work. I won't repeat what we all know about the evils of American supermarkets: produce from South America, picked green and gassed in ripeness, varieties developed for durability and aesthetics rather than taste, etc., etc. etc. The farmers markets are good, and I go regularly both to the Downtown and South Perry market (although, let's be honest, the South Perry market is pretty small). Rocket Market and Huckleberries can help out. When I can stomach the drive north up division, GreenBluff is wonderful?

So, I've joined Fresh Abundance. They deliver organic and, when possible, local produce to your house once a week. The price is high -- thirty five dollars a week for their standard basket -- and you don't select what is in your basket. When there isn't much in season in Spokane, they supplement with organic produce from elsewhere, which is no better than what you can find in the organic section of Super 1 for a good deal less. Since our growing season is short, our harvests tend to all happen in late July through early September, so there seems to be a lot of non-local stuff in my baskets: romas from Mexico; nectarines from California. But, it's a start. The stuff that is local is ugly and dirty and flavorful; just what I wanted. This week's basket had the most tender butter lettuce, and last week's sugar snap peas were a treat, raw and sauteed with a little butter and garlic. Also, I like the cooking challenge. How am I going to use five apricots? (Answer: apricot barbecue sauce on smoked pork chops.)

It's a start, and since I was in Italy when I should have been planting my own garden, I'm happy to have it as an option. What I would really like to find is a reliable CSA (community supported agriculture). But I'm just starting that hunt, so I'll leave that for another post. In the meantime, I'm off to order zucchini fiorentini seeds from the internet for next year.

Hello and Sante!

I am a food lover, living in the Inland Empire, otherwise known as Spokane, Washington. Even though Spokane is surrounded by amazing agriculture, it does not have much of a foodie reputation. Nor does it particularly deserve one. But there is good food to be had in Spokane: some of it in restaurants, some of it from shops and markets around town, much of it being made in home kitchens. I am writing this blog to chronicle one foodies successes and failures, surprises and disappointments living in the inland Northwest.

I have no particular credentials as a food expert, unless one counts my great-grandmother on my father's side, who was a professional chef in Bar Harbor and Bermuda. I wish I had known her. My father is a pretty good cook of the french persuasion, and some of my most cherished childhood memories are of watching The French Chef with him. I am a good home cook, and I have eaten in some very good restaurants (I even worked in one, once, but only as a waitress). Mostly, I just like food. There is nearly nothing I won't eat (except Doritos, licorice, and any candy whose name begins with "gummy").

For my inaugural entry, I want to talk about the meal I just had at Sante, the new restaurant in the Aunties bookstore building. I like it. I think this is exactly the kind of restaurant that Spokane needs, and that those of us who like food should support. The menu is thoughtful if not adventurous Northwest fare: steak, pork, salmon. I had the wild boar roulade, which was sausage-like and meaty, served on a disc of mashed potatoes so rich they were almost too much, with a lovely demi-glace jus. I also tasted the pork chop and the chicken, both of which were perfectly cooked and juicy. And herein are the two reasons why I like this place: first, the food is carefully and respectfully prepared. A juicy porkchop can be sublime, but it takes good seasoning, better sourcing, and perfect timing. Second, everything else on the plate adds to the meal, rather than competing or detracting from it. The chicken came with a spring pea and morel risotto (which avoided all hints of mushiness). The entrees were the work of a chef who knows how to work with fresh, seasonal ingredients and put them together so that the total is greater than the sum of the parts.

I also like that Sante has charcuterie roots. The first and cold courses include duck confit, their own sausage (they called in salami, but it was really more of a tasty summer sausage), and house-cured duck prosciutto. These are not items that are typical of Spokane menus, and I am happy they are around. Indeed, my entire time in the restaurant said that these people like food, and like people who like food. The waitress encouraged us to ask questions, and seemed happy when we did. This attitude seemed to fit with their commitment to local farmers and produce, and well as their "slow food" orientation. The service was pleasant and enthusiastic, if not four-star polished.

A final word: the wine list is really interesting. Not in the "faint praise," I don't know what else to say way, but legitimately interesting. Our waitress said that because so many of their diners choose the three or seven course option with wine pairing, they don't feel as constrained to offer recognizable labels. We ordered a French varietal that I have never seen as a varietal (it's usually blended), but it was exactly what we said we wanted. None of the wines on the menu were above fifty dollars a bottle and all were available by the glass, although I believe there were more bottles available on request.

Sante began as a daytime lunch/snack place, and now offers dinner Wednesday through Saturdays. It's dinners are definitely going for fine dining. Meals are expensive by Spokane standards: twenty-five to thirty dollar entries, with tempting first and cold courses running around ten dollars. They offer a three and seven course menu, with wine pairings. Given my current respect for the kitchen, I would hazard that they are options worth exploring.

I wouldn't call Sante a world-class restaurant, but it does seem to be a place that is serious and sophisticated about food. At this point, I'm hoping Spokane can show itself to be the same.