The Wandering Table

I've been on a (largely unsuccessful) diet since New Year's Day, and I reached the breaking point on Thursday.  I was tired, cranky, and hadn't felt full for three weeks, so I made Jeremy take me to Luna for a burger.  I'm not much of a Luna fan.  I've just never found the food as exciting as it should be, and the atmosphere in the main dining room turns me off in ways I can't quite put my finger on.  But, I do love their burger, and I like sitting in the back bar and watching the older, richer, skinnier women of Spokane flirt shamelessly with the bartender, who is a better looking version of Joe Rogan (of Fear Factor fame).  I would go so far as to say that the Luna burger is my favorite burger in Spokane, although I have not had the Kobe and Foie Gras burger at Sante. I also like the fries at Luna, and the aioli with balsamic reduction that they serve with the fries at Luna.  All in all, a highly satisfying diet-busting meal.  I continued my bad behavior with a rueben at Savory (not even in the top five of Spokane rueben), and then drinks and noshes on Saturday.  Nectar doesn't quite seem like a finished product yet, but the wine bar at Niko's continues to wonderful.  I always learn something new about wine when I am there, and I always leave feeling happy and satisfied.  Can't ask for more than that.

All of this was just practice, however, for Sunday.  Jeremy and I scored last minute tickets to Wandering Table, an eleven course, innovative, faintly illegal dining event.  I first heard about Wandering Table reading Luke Baumgartner's thoughtful piece in the Inlander.  The short version of the story is that Wandering Table is the brain child of Adam Hegsted, currently executive chef of the Coeur D'Alene Casino. Looking for an opportunity to do a different kind of cooking and to create a different relationship with his diners, he organizes small dinners at different locations with different menus. It isn't exactly licensed, and not entirely clear whether it needs to be. I've been on the mailing list since since June, but never hit the website in time to get reservations.  But, Thursday evening, I just happened to be checking my email when a message came in announcing that they had a last minute cancellation, and two tickets were available first come first serve.  I think I had emailed back within 30 seconds, and I got confirmation the next day that we were in. We bought the tickets using a password, and on Saturday the secret location was revealed.

The location turned out to be a private home, owned by a doctor and an architect, quite near us.  In fact, we have run by this house often, as it is on our long running route.  In addition to Chef Hegsted and the home owners, there were two other chefs (his brothers), a perfectly gracious server, Deborah DiBernardo of Roast House coffee (wonderful woman!), a camera crew from KSPS, and sixteen other diners.  We were immediately given a glass of champagne and allowed to mingle for a few minutes before we were seated at one of three seating options:  the formal dining room table, the informal kitchen table, or the counter over-looking the kitchen work area.  We chose the dining room, on the thought that we would meet more people (and, honestly, to avoid the one other person in the room I knew, who I knew I didn't want to sit near).  We found ourselves next to our doctor host, a lovely couple from Coeur D'Alene, and a Republican/Libertarian Divorce Lawyer.

Then the food started to arrive.  The menu contained eleven courses, although all but a few were the size of an amuse, so the amount wasn't overwhelming.  The chef had designed the meal so that one ingredient from each course was picked up in the following course.  There were some big hits.  The scallop noodle with a light cream sauce with which the meal began had a beautiful richness, and the texture of the scallop in place of traditional pasta was surprising.  More surprising was the way the sweetness and flavor of the scallop came through even against the ribbon of parmesan on top of it.  The seafood and cheese flavors didn't fight the way they usually do, and the resulting bite was balanced and promising. The following scallop risotto with chorizo cream was also promising, showcasing a different facet of scallop flavor offset by a nicely spicy hit of spice from the chorizo.  The risotto also gave the first clue to what was, in my opinion, the weak point in the cooking:  texture.  The chef played with texture a lot, giving us creamy, fluffy, light, and rich, but he avoided crispiness and crunchiness almost entirely (a single crouton, and one parsnip chip were the only exceptions).

The chef played with temperature as well, in ways that made many of the dishes dance in my mouth.  The most successful and interesting dish of the evening was the hot-cold apple soup.  When it was time for that course, a soup dish containing the aforementioned parsnip chip, spiced and smoked to taste like bacon, some actual bacon, braised, and a smaller glass dish of frozen apple sorbet.  Then, as the chef was explaining the dish to us, he poured into the soup dish a hot, savory apple broth.  Each element was good by itself, but when combined, they played against and with each other.  The sorbet swirled into the warm soup, so that currents of hot and cold, salty and sweet alternated across my tongue, and the bacon-y parsnip and rich, belly-like braised bacon switched up my expectations.

There were also some misses in the meal.  I was very much looking forward to the promised truffle pate, but as can happen with truffle dishes, the flavor seemed to have dissipated with the scent, and the pate itself was the consistency of bread pudding.  The kale was the star of that plate.  Served raw, the dressing kept it from being either harsh or fibrous.  The next course, lobster truffle, had issues as well.  The lobster had been minced and formed into a small sphere.  The lobster flavor was distinct and pleasant, but the texture was off, resembling a superball more than the interior of a chocolate truffle.  The curry aioli was delicious, but overpowered the lobster. The vanilla braised apples were fine, but incongruous rather than being integrated with the rest of the plate.  The biggest miss was the cherry coke ice.  The ice had no flavor, and the cherry flavored gel mixed in had, I fear, overset, so that they were far more like something a gummy bear would leave in the woods, did gummy bears actually live in the woods.  This dish was almost designed to have me dislike it, given my dislike of artificial cherry flavors and all things gummy!  (To be clear, I'm certain the chef didn't use artificial cherry flavors.  It's just that when one combines cherry with coke, the flavor reference to such artificiality is hard to avoid.)

The meal was never off course for long.  The main course, and the largest, was a bacon-wrapped braised pork shoulder, was managed to be perfectly tender without being the least bit fatty or greasy, served on some delightfully toothsome spaetzle and a reduction of braising liquid that was, again, a wonderful play of salty and sweet.  I could have drunk a bowl of that sauce. This dish would have been perfect had it had a crunchy element.  The main dessert, a deconstructed carrot cake, was also smashing.  The cream cheese froth was rich, the carrot sorbet was cool and refreshing, and the powdered pecans and carrots combined to provide all the flavor of a traditional cake.

At no point did the meal provide one of those food moments.  You know the ones:  when the whole world drops away and all that matters is what is happening in your mouth and nose, when your body concentrates into a thing that experiences flavor, when time telescopes into an eternal present of yum.  But, it did something else that was wonderful and valuable.  It asked me to think about my food, really think about it, about expectations, about combinations, about texture and temperature, about what I like and why.  It took me outside of my food comfort zone -- I would never, ever have eaten anything with marshmallow in a different context, and yet the sweet potato gnocchi with pecan marshmallow was a sophisticated and delightful play on the traditional Thanksgiving candied yams.  It also took me out of my social comfort zone, forcing me to talk with people I wouldn't normally (the divorce lawyer), and allowing me to meet people I never would otherwise.  I may never run into out charming doctor/host again (except to return the book he loaned me), but I'm sure I will see the creative writer from Eastern often.

All in all, this was the kind of meal and evening that is both quintessentially Spokane and all that you would assume couldn't happen in Spokane. The food culture here is nascent, but it is as energetic as a younger, smarter brother of a star quarterback.  The evening was special and intense precisely because the rest of Spokane routinely votes The Olive Garden as the "best restaurant" (really, I don't know which word deserves the scare quotes in that phrase, since it is hardly a restaurant and certainly not the best).  There is a vibrant creative and intellectual community here, hidden like a morel underneath the forest floor of big box stores and Arby's.  It takes work and a sensitive eye to spot it, but once you do, it's so obvious that it is been there all along.  

The most expensive cookies ever; or how to make a New Yorker happy

Apparently, there is a whole category of foods that are only found in New York city.  I'm not even talking about the foods that New Yorkers claim are only good in New York:  bagels, pizzas, hot dogs, cannoli.  They may be right on that last one.  I've had some good cannoli here (especially the version they sell at Madeleine's), but of the two sublime cannoli experiences of my life, one was in New York city, and the other came thanks to a transplanted New York Italian woman with whom I was an undergraduate. I can't remember her name for the life of me, but I sure do remember her cannoli.  I remember her saying that she formed the shells on a broom handle.  I remember the tiny dots of candied orange peel and chocolate in the ricotta.  I remember being amazed that a non-cream cheese could be used in dessert to such great effect.

I must admit, I am still skeptical about the almost mystical superiority of New York bagels.  My "in-laws" were visiting a few years ago, and headed out one Sunday morning to buy breakfast for us.  They came home with lox, cream cheese, capers, but no bagels, even though we had sent them to Huckleberries with the instructions that they had a selection of the two best bagels in town (Ultimate Bagel and Humble Bagel).  We had warned them that we knew they were not NY bagels, but that this was Spokane.  We had told them that we like to eat these bagels.  And yet, they came home bagel-free, claiming that the bagels they had seen weren't even the same species of food. They explained to us, sad that we were so deprived and ill-informed, that bagels were supposed to be boiled and baked, which they did not believe these were.  (It was unclear to me how they thought they had been made -- perhaps they had been extruded from a faeries' bum?  Wouldn't that make them better?)  So, I had high hopes when they arrived for Thanksgiving with acceptable bagels in tow, and you know what?  They really weren't noticeably different.  Perhaps slightly chewier while still maintaining a certain lightness, but I'm talking nuances of distinction, not a difference of kind.  Undoubtably I just need to go to the city and I will be converted to bagel snobbery, much the way I've been converted to pizza snobbery by Italy.

The point is that bagels exist outside of New York.  What doesn't exist outside of the city (with exceptions, mostly made by transplanted New Yorkers) are crumb cake and rainbow cookies.  Crumb cake is basically a species of coffee cake, about half cake and half crumble and almost all butter.  I found a recipe for crumb cake on-line the first summer Jeremy and I were together, and surprised him with it one Sunday morning.  It's easy to make, messy to eat, and delicious.  I have to admit that I haven't made it in a couple of years, because the crumb is made with an amount of butter that even I found frightening -- a full two sticks!

But crumb cake can be found outside of New York, if you try hard enough.  Notice the recipe I just posted actually comes from a bakery in North Carolina.  Andronico's, a supermarket chain in San Francisco, had some on the occasional Sunday.  What I have never seen before, and Jeremy says he has never seen outside the city, are rainbow cookies (also known as Italian Flag cookies).  He says they are his favorite cookies, and a special Sunday morning treat when he was growing up.  He has described the various ways to eat them in great detail.  His eyes have gotten that misty, far away look of someone remembering an irretrievable childhood experience.  So, obviously, I had at least to try to make them.

First, let me explain that "cookie" is a misnomer.  They are really small petit-fours:  three layers of dense almond cake (dyed red, white, and green with food coloring), separated by a very thing smear of raspberry jam, sliced into small rectangles and given a jacket of chocolate.  There are a number of recipes on-line, and they are all remarkably similar.  I picked this one, which was well-reviewed on Epicurious.   I followed the recipe exactly, right up to the chocolate application and cutting, so I'm only going to link to it rather than illegally claiming it as my own.  Following Jeremy's memories, after layering my cake, I sliced it, shortways, into eight logs about 1 1/2 inches wide.  I covered that in melted chocolate (it took about 8 ounces), and then sliced them about 1/2 inch thick.  It is best to slice them about an hour after you coat them in chocolate, and then keep the logs together while they set up a little more.

My first batch of rainbow cookies must be the most expensive cookies I have ever made, but not because the ingredients were all that expensive.  A full container of marzipan, a full jar of jam, and two bars of good baking chocolate isn't cheap, but the real problem was the pans.  The pans called for were an unusual size (13x9), and I needed three of them.  That is what turned these in forty dollar cookies.  On the up side, I am now equipped to make these cookies anytime I want them, assuming I have five hours to devote to them.  That's the other thing about these cookies.  They are time consuming.  No one step is that difficult, but there are many, many steps, and all of them require a cooling or resting period in-between.  So between the shopping, the baking, the construction, the slicing, it took me pretty much an entire day.

Man oh man are they worth it!  Jeremy's joy in them would have been enough, but I loved them, too.  The flavors of raspberry, almond and chocolate maintain their identity while melding together beautifully.  The cakes are dense and rich, but tender and refined.  The appearance is not so refined, but is joyful.  In short, they are my new favorite Christmas cookie (the colors are supposed to represent the Italian flag, but they are Christmas colors as well).

Turns out that a lot of people feel this way about these cookies.  There is an entire Facebook group devoted to the rainbow cookie.  When I brought some to my friend Liz, who grew up in Connecticut, she said they had been her favorite as well (her family bought them at a nearby Italian bakery).  The three of us ate the entire batch within about two days, and I've promised to make at least one more batch before Christmas.  You should, too.  Why should New York have all the fun?