Strawberries in Balsamic

Happy Birthday to Eric!

We had a preview of the upcoming Zin tasting extravaganza over the weekend, a sort of low key private preview designed mostly to allow us to take a breath and drink a nice glass or two, or three of wine, after a crazy month of February.

For dessert, since it was all Zin all the time, I made the classic strawberries and blackberries in balsamic vinegar, but with some black pepper added. I think the pepper has always been the missing note that this dish needed.

Strawberries and Blackberries in Balsamic Vinegar

1 quart strawberries, rinsed, hulled and sliced
1/2 pint of blackberries
1/4 cup of sugar
1 tsp balsamic vinegar (use the highest quality you can get)
1/8 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

Toss the berries in a bowl with the sugar, and then let sit for 10 minutes or so. Do not refrigerate.

Sprinkle with vinegar, toss gently and taste. It may need more sugar and/or vinegar if your berries are tart. Sprinkle with pepper and toss again. Serve in individual bowls.

Our La Cornue

This is our La Cornue oven.

It just happens to be housed at Williams-Sonoma.

And they don't yet know that it's ours.

Details.

Observant readers will note that it's a Chateau 165, which I sourly remarked was the stove that Jake Linzinmeir owns in his "tiny" kitchen. Okay, I know. I'm not supposed to obsess over them. And I feel that yes, I should cut Jake a little bit of a break, because after visiting the website for Chair 8, his Telluride restaurant, I see that they have fondue -- that would be only MY favorite thing to contemplate: cheese melted with cheese and liquor. "Lobster and Brie with Wildflour Bakery Breads..." Okay, you have my attention there.

But I digress. Back at Williams-Sonoma, we only made a brief stop in and actually it was to see the All Clad (my other enduring obsession).

Since, oh, about 1992 I've had only one dutch oven, and it came in a set that I bought at Target. $49.99. Pretty good deal, I thought at the time. For that price, I got a frying pan, a one quart sauce pan and lid, a two quart sauce pan and lid and this six quart dutch oven, and lid. Now before you laugh at my thin, non-stick-lined, aluminum post-college cookware, this battered dutch oven has served me week in, week out, for fourteen years. Ms. Food Snoot when we were rooming together, turned up her snoot at it and bought me a proper sauteuse, but I never did get rid of the dutch oven because there are some things you really need it for. Heck, there are LOTS of things you really need it for. Braised Short Ribs, Coq au vin, Garlic Soup, Mushroom Pate for 60 people.

However, it is looking a little battle-weary, shall we say? So among a myriad of possibilities, I selected a few contenders for a replacement and we went to look at some of them. We got a curiously hard sell from the guy at Williams-Sonoma, who seemed really determined to show me some Mauviel copper pans. Are you kidding? For the price of a .9 quart butter warmer, I could eat at Jardiniere. I also have a little trouble with the copper thing. In my mind's eye, I keep seeing the horribly scarred land outside of Bisbee, Arizona, where strip mining all but destroyed the mountains.

No. These were our choices, which we've examined at W-S as well as other fine cooking stores around the Bay Area.

The Red 7.25 quart Le Creuset Dutch (or is that "French") oven, with enameled cast iron surface. Weight: 12.5 lbs. We had a rabbit stew served to us at a French restaurant in a mini version of one of these, and I fell victim to the reaction typically described as "female"-- "Oh, it's SOOOOO cute!!!" So that kind of counts against the Le Creuset.

The 7 quart Lodge cast iron Dutch oven, pre-seasoned "with a prized heirloom finish." Weight: 16 lbs. Okay, this one got points for maximum durability. I could see busting that out when the earthquake happens, building a small fire in it and cooking eggs over the top. Could be very useful. But 16 LBS.??? Are you kidding? In the store, I can hardly lift the cover, much less the pot. I shudder to think of trying to move it full of hot short ribs.

The 8 quart Staub, the classic--I guess that would be "French oven" as opposed to "Dutch oven"--preferably in "Grenadine" which looks to be the color of blood. Oh yeah, cast iron, pretty... 17 lbs. Ooof. Staub is out. I can see dropping that lid on my foot and it would all be over.


The Mario Batali 6 quart Essentials pot in Persimmon. Tempting, very tempting. Cast iron with ITALIAN enamel. That makes a difference (??) But the fact of the matter is, 6 quarts sounds small. We cook a lot of food, and plus, it still weighs in at 17 lbs.
Okay, so maybe what we're looking for is just the good old standard, and All Clad stockpot. They say stockpot, although it has the traditional Dutch oven size ration 2:1 width to height, and at 8 lbs. I'm willing to bet that it will serve quite nicely as the pot of my dreams.


And so we have ordered one. It's not quite the same as purchasing a La Cornue, but it makes me happy. Farewell, my faithful little Target Dutch oven.

Boule aux Truffes: Everything's better with truffles

Our cheese this week? From the fresh cheese case we were enticed into truffle-land by the cheesemonger -- "Oh this is my favorite cheese of everything. Would you like to try it?"

Well, with a lead-in like that, how could we possibly refuse? This little pouffe of goat cheese is a Boule aux Truffes from Fromagerie Soreda in the Perigord region. Tiny flecks of truffle give off a delicious scent that hits your brain before you even get the first creamy bite to your lips.

A guest appearance from our shadow kitty, deep in contemplation of the truffle boule.

The Omnivore's Depression... assuaged slightly by Nevat and Chabichou de Poitou

I am in a state of despondency. Shopping for dinner at the grocery store, a prospect which once filled me with anticipation and glee, now puts what Eric sometimes calls the "Sad Kitty" look onto my face.

And it's all Michael Pollan's fault. In last week's New York Times, Pollan, that purveyor of buckets of sunshine, wrote "Unhappy Meals," a huge article about food. Food, and the lies we've been told about it all my life.

Pollan's article ably covers a planet's worth of territory that I couldn't possibly hope to summarize -- it took us three days to finish the article -- but let's just say that at the end of it, I felt a flood of emotions. I was melancholy, despondent, feeling not smart enough to make it through the dizzying swath of food studies and sift out what is truth and what is lie like a good conscientious consumer should. Basically like the victim of poisoning who realizes that not only has she been lied to and betrayed, but in the process, also has been stupidized.

The very idea of making dinner filled me with a kind of resigned emptiness, because even though we shop at Golden Produce, one of the nicest greengrocers in the whole city, and get that nice grass fed beef at the semi-reliable Whole Foods, how do I really know just what in the dickens I am eating?

Take our menu for the evening: Braised Beef Short Ribs, with a side of mashed Yukon Golds and a baby arugula salad. Okay, certified organic produce? Check. Fresh local producers? Check. Beef: Niman Ranch, all natural, hormone-free, grass fed, not raised in horrifying conditions, but in a low-stress environment with dignity and respect? Check.

So you might think we're doing okay. But as I wander the aisles I start to think too much about it all. I'm going to have to use all-purpose flour-- where was it milled? Is the bulk stuff organic? How about the olive oil? It's not locally produced, so how can I be sure nothing weird was added to it in processing? The tomato paste -- it doesn't have corn syrup in it, but what else is in there to enhance flavor? And what do I really know about where that arugula was grown anyway? Was it sprayed with E. coli. ridden water? And don't those carrots look a little too perfectly formed to be all natural? And what about those onions? What if the onions weren't HAPPY while they were growing up? How can I possibly even think about putting unhappy onions in my meal?

Suddenly our Saturday dinner has disintegrated into one of those awful Thanksgivings where Uncle Beef Broth is souring into his autolyzed yeast extract and Auntie Shallot is weeping over her troubled childhood in the fields.

Thanks a lot, Michael Pollan, for ruining my meal.

Thanks to you and the New York Times, I feel hamstrung, I don't even trust Cheerios anymore --I can't even drink the water.

Kitty thinks this is all ridiculous. "What's your problem?" he sniffs, "Just buy lots of French cheese and wine."

Okay, kitty. I'll set aside my hysteria for a moment and get back to loving food.

To assuage my despair, I purchased a slice of Nevat -- a tangy Catalonian goat cheese which is soft and inviting, though never got as runny as I wanted -- and half a round of Chabichou de Poitou--a delightful little Loire Valley goat cylinder with a brainy rippled rind that we love so much, I can't believe I haven't mentioned before. Why did I get only a half Chabichou? I have no idea. I must have been insane. We polished off that unctuous perfectly balanced ripe little gem in about five minutes.

In preparation for Eric's Zin Mania birthday, I also put together a little sampler of classic zin tastes for us to try with some samples of wine: Blackberries, black cherries and dark chocolate. And before you ask, no I have no idea where the fruit and the cacao beans were grown or who grew them, or whether they had happy lives. I merely closed my eyes and threw the petroleum-product plastic containers into my cart made of steel whose smelting process has probably poisoned a lake someplace in China, and proceeded to propagate the horrible unwitting consumerist rape of the environment. Okay, okay. Just let it go...

Cherries and chocolate were the overwhelming winners in Zinfandel notes for Ridge and Paso Robles' maverick Zin Alley. Notes of Fennel and Star Anise interestingly made it into the nose of Zin Alley. I'll let my Omnivore detail the rest on his blog.

He can cover the dessert wine too, a Muscato with which we had with a bit of Montbriac and some slices of Comice pear. Not a recommended wine for blue tinged, creamy Montbriac, but hey, it was worth a try.

I'm going to drink myself into a stupor and have some JOLLY TIME® Healthy Pop® Kettle Corn Microwave Pop Corn.