cook: dining out disappointments

You know you're on a vacation away from home when you're eating a salad not made by yourself. On my first night in Pasadena, I was disappointed by my salad from a Thai restaurant. I was expecting shallots, mint, cilantro, and scallions. Well there was only spring greens and coriander in my salad, and I certainly couldn't taste any lemongrass, galangal, and makrut lime leaves in my protein. Where was the toasted rice powder in the dressing? Instead it tasted like salty lime juice. And I ordered an appetizer of fried crab & cream cheese wontons. Huh? Isn't that a Chinese hors d'oeuvre?

The restaurant is called Daisy Mint, but where was the mint? Below was the egg of my dreams, my destination dine on this SoCal trip.

According to one blogger's post: The Slut chef fills a small glass jar (think handleless mason jar) about halfway with creamy, buttery “potato puree” (aka mashed potatoes). Then he cracks a fresh organic egg on top of the mashed potatoes, seals the jar closed and sets it in a warm bath of water (a technique Cailan refers to as “sous vide”). An hour later, he removes the jar, opens the lid–revealing a perfectly poached egg atop warm mashed taters–and sprinkles a little gray salt and chives on top. He sets the jar in a cardboard serving dish, adds a few crispy baguette toasts on the side and hands that Slut over to a drooling patron. To clarify: Customers don’t wait a full hour after ordering The Slut. Clearly, the staff is making them throughout the day. Right on! Send me there pronto.

Unfortunately when I arrived at Eggslut in Glendale this morning, they had sold out of the signature dish. Waaaaah. I had no idea then what to eat. I wanted just that little gourmet bite. And the menu was overwhelming. I saw egg salad on a brioche bun, and I do love a delicious egg salad if I can't eat my gourmet poached or herb baked eggs in cream. And so I ordered a lunchtime sandwich and the hash browns.       

Right?!? How could those potatoes not be delicious? Well here's what I got.                            

And it was all underwhelming. The egg salad was just okay, bland in fact. I eat a low sodium diet, but those hard boiled eggs needed a sprinkle of gray salt. The ratio of egg salad to bread would've been okay, but even the brioche was not flavorful and therefore the whole sandwich was too damn bready. Maybe they should've omitted a couple of the egg whites. And the hash browns were perfect in texture, but they didn't have enough truffle or rosemary flavor. Sigh. I told Cecilia, and so when I get home, I'm going to cook Cailan's recipe from his Amboy cookbook I checked out from the library. And I know I've got those teeny, tiny mason jars somewhere in my cupboard. My day at the Getty Center was thankfully more rewarding. Not having finished breakfast other than the hash browns, I was starving when dinner time rolled around. I finally decided on El Portal off the main drag of Colorado Boulevard because the Indian restaurants I had wanted to dine at weren't open yet for dinner. I started with a blood orange margarita.                  

I'd been sweating all day, and so that margarita and a glass of water were so refreshing. I got indecisive though at my entrée. I finally decided on Yucatán Trio.    

I wolfed Cochinita Pibil, pork marinated in achiote and lime juice, wrapped in a banana leaf and roasted (I loved it); Mayan Poc-Chuc, pork grilled with garlic (also yummy); Yucatán tamales, shredded chicken with a bit of epazote and achiote, folded in thin masa and all wrapped in banana leaf and steamed and then finished with a thin tomato sauce (meh) because I was so ravenous. Everything tasted wonderful when I first dug in, but toward the end of my meal, I was finding all a bit too salty, and I was decidedly not into any kind of tamale and made a note to self to not ever order tamales. I did love the black bean soup which I spooned over my rice and wolfed down because it was so reminiscent of the black beans and rice I ate in the school cafeteria of my Puerto Rican girlhood. And so the lesson of dining during my travels is to lower expectations. I am so okay now with a Mexican pizza at Taco Bell or a Veggie Delite at Subway while on the road. The pandemic has made me such a better cook than even some of the ethnic restaurants I used to love when dining out. And so one of the things I look forward to when I return home is expanding my repertoire in the kitchen.                               

But in the meantime I’ll live off calories provided as part of my hotel stay.

cook: summer rolls

I didn’t know I had bought two bags of shrimp, which overcrowded the freezer, and so I made rolls (and a few seafood salads with 1000 Island dressing) to celebrate June. And I was reminded of my summer staple when I saw this recipe on Instagram.     

The first time I made Vietnamese spring rolls was a visit to my colleague, Noah’s house where he showed me how to use rice paper. It’s fiddley work, and my rolls below are not the most elegant-looking as this brand of rice paper kept tearing on me. I’ve found the key is to keep things wet, both my cutting board on which to roll and wrap and my hands. It helps to work near my sink. And instead of stuffing my rolls with rice noodles, I make my rolls more keto-friendly with just shrimp, spring greens, mint, basil, cilantro, cucumber, and jalapeños.

I also forgot about the Vietnamese fish sauce and lime juice concoction in my fridge, and so I’ll use the remainder of the shrimp in a rice noodle bowl. I love the leisure to make these kinds of light, vegetable forward meals.

cook: lemon and onion pizza

It had been a year since I had made my lemon and red onion pizza, and I knew this because my Facebook memories showed the pizza I had made this time last year. My cooking has become seasonal and improvisational, based on what Patrick has harvested from our garden and me making do with only the ingredients in my pantry and fridge rather than running to the grocery store. And the latest harvests are alliums--spring garlic and red onions though I did buy sugar snap peas because the flowers in the garden crowd out the choice to grow even more vegetables. Also my friend, Donna gave me two Meyer lemons though I had one in the fridge leftover from the batch, my friend, Michaela gave me.     

Luckily I had bought a ball of pizza dough a week ago which I had set out Saturday morning to thaw and rise. I also made myself a sumptuous lunch of a seafood Louis salad before heading to the ceramics studio.

After my Saturday afternoon at the clay studio, it was time to assemble the pizza and some kind of salad.                          

I tried to keep my Saturday supper simple. Just arugula and spring greens with balsamic vinaigrette and Parmesan flakes. I parbaked the pizza crust for 10 minutes in a 480 degree oven and sprinkled sliced red onion, lemon peel and wheels of the lemon minus the pith, goat cheese, a bit of mozzarella, a sprinkling of grated reggiano, some of the parmesan flakes, a bit of rosemary and sage, and a generous sprinkling of thyme.                            

I popped the pie back into oven for maybe 20 minutes or until the toppings were golden brown.                           

I tossed the greens with dressing and even more cheese. I drizzled olive oil and Maldon sea salt atop the hot pie.                  

Patrick had to comment about lemon in a pizza which I ignored, but the onions were sweet and savory and complemented the tart goat cheese.               

Our light Saturday supper done, I then dug into dessert and nothing heralds spring to me more than strawberry rhubarb pie.               

Everyone I know who bakes biscuits and pies tells me that these doughs are easy peasy, but I’ve no inclination to master baking. I am happy enough to open a can for biscuits and to buy pie with perfect flaky crust from a good bakery.             

A slice of a sweet and tart pie (because berries and crust reign supreme for me as a dessert) with a scoop of Tahitian and Madagascar vanilla ice cream made me a happy diner on a Saturday night.

cook: bahn mi again, but it gets better and better each time

Before going to the ceramics studio, I gardened. That is, I removed dead foliage from my succulent pots.       

I also admired the olive tree that Meral gave Patrick and appreciated my dog sunning herself beside me.                    

And my rooftop garden in the pottery studio was a more successful attempt. Let’s hope I can finish it next Saturday. Afterwards Cecilia came over in the afternoon with baguettes, and oh heck I needed cook the pork belly, which I roasted while Cecilia grilled pork shoulder. Luckily the carrots and daikon were already pickled.   

  

The pork belly came out crispy.        

As before, I had a sandwich making station where Cecilia split the baguettes, I filled them with pate, grilled pork, roasted pork belly, Kewpie Mayo, hoisin sauce, Sriracha sauce, cucumber, jalapeños, pickled carrot and daikon salad, and cilantro.

I think I constructed 7 sandwiches total including one for myself and Patrick.                                

Fresh bread makes for a superior sandwich and has become a fun way to feed a crowd.

cook & clay: the search for pâté and window shopping as inspo

I forgot all about Cecilia baking baguettes and grilling Vietnamese pork for bahn mi sandwiches this weekend. And so I shopped at my favorite produce shop for cilantro, jalapeños, Persian cucumbers, daikon, and carrots. Since I was downtown, I stopped at the fancy grocery store for pâté since the French grocery store would have already been closed. We are all set for this evening’s Saturday supper. While at Draeger's, I also browsed their awesome kitchen goods store and their floral department.      

I love the hand lettered text look of the cookbook on the above left, and I love the idea of no-recipe recipes or of cooking without exact measurements and improvising with the ingredients you have on hand of the cookbook to its right. And definitely my cooking has gotten a lot more relaxed and casual since returning to in-person learning and work in this pandemic. 

The cookbook above left encapsulates what's important to me while cooking: flavor, and I aim for beautiful food when I try to incorporate color. And of course, I adore Jack Pepin--both his philosophy of not wasting food and being resourceful as well as his watercolor illustrations. I’m on a journey to someday publish my own cookbook, and so the plan is to put all these cookbooks on hold at the public library and incorporate what I love into my own. I love a cookbook with heartwarming personal narrative or an interesting backstory and sumptuous photography. I want my cookbook’s pages on thick paper that’s almost card stock (Chronicle Books has that down pat) and sturdy binding. I would love for a cookbook to lay flat, but I hate those plastic spiral bindings. I’m particularly interested in the Filipino American cookbook below.

I’ll have to find an Eggslut when I go to Pasadena and Anaheim next month. There were planters in the floral shop downstairs that I’d like to try my hand at making in the ceramics studio.            

Okay the vase above is glass, but I like that the rim which resembles the curves found in Cala lilies. Surely I can build that rim and then score and slip it on to a coil pot? And the fluting on the vase below is fantastic.                              

I’m wondering if I could handbuild such a vase, or do I have to get good enough to throw large and then carve? But today my ambition is only to make some pots like the ones below.                    

I need to seek out patterns for rolling texture or carving. Okay lunch time and then off to the clay studio.

clay: rooftop garden practice

I never did get around to sowing the Thai basil seeds, but I did plant three succulents in the new speckled buff clay pots that came out of the kiln this past week and eyed my flower bed. I'll deadhead next weekend.

And there are three more succulent planters I still have to make. Whom I kidding? I’ll be forever making planters, but they are useful and good practice for joining seams. And I think the wee pots made from scrap slabs are cute. I also got to fucking around on Saturday with making planters I’m calling my rooftop garden.                       

I liked the width and the height of the planter, but my staircase needed to be narrower and the steps less high, but I brought it home anyway to perhaps finish.                         

The weather was gorgeously sunny, but the wind and lack of humidity was drying my clay beyond leather to almost bone dry. I already quashed this house to reclaim later and remake. I’ll make paper templates to make a better looking staircase and ponder the measurements of the whole building. Cecilia was in the garden too reading and said vines would look terrific hanging over the house. Oh yeah! Also fire escape-like stairs on one side of the building with windows on the opposite side would look cool too. My brain is spinning with ideas on how to execute that design.

cook: asian noodle bowl

I had leftover lemongrass pork from bahn mi sandwiches last week and decided to make a salad noodle bowl yesterday for lunch. I took some of the leftover grilled pork and pork belly and reheated in the oven to crisp up the belly.       

Next I boiled the soaked noodles in boiling water for 2 minutes before draining.

 

While I had been waiting for the water to boil, I had made a dressing of fish sauce, Palm sugar, lime juice, sriracha and water.                          

Lastly assemble all the ingredients and toss with the dressing.          

I like the contrast between the hot meat and noodles with the crisp, cool vegetables and herbs. I wish I’d had used more mint and made more dressing. I did not have any holy basil either for the salad, and so I’ll be spending some Sunday sowing these seeds.        

Huh? I didn’t know my seeds had come from Missouri. I thought I ordered from a seed company north of me in Petaluma. Alrighty then. My friend, Cecilia just bought pork shoulder and wants to make bahn mi sandwiches again, and so I’ll chop up vegetables and boil rice vermicelli noodles to include this dish into her rotation. Satay chicken and fried Indonesian tofu with peanut sauce too for this noodle salad bowl next.