Birthday Fare

This year my birthday was a four-day festival, gastronomically bracketed by polenta and pork. Thursday night's dinner at Village Pub in Woodside was pretty-near perfect, from the oxtail consomme with marrow dumplings right through the dessert beignets, followed by superb mignardises -- my favorite new French word, learned from the sublime Clotilde at Chocolate & Zucchini. But the entree was particulary wonderful -- one of the best plates of food I've had in months.

I learned from our waiter that the chef marinates an entire rack of pork in apple cider for several days, sears it on the hardwood-fueled grill and finishes it in the oven. A thick slice nestles in a bed of creamy white polenta, caramelized apple wedges go alongside and a salad of shaved fennel and pink lady apple adds a finishing garnish.

Sunday's polenta and pork were part of the family-style Sunday night dinner at La Posta in Santa Cruz. This time they appeared in separate courses: the polenta with braised tripe as the primi and the pork roasted and accompanied by sweet and sour red cabbage as the secundi.
And even though this meal included an endive and persimmon salad to start and a slice of warm apple crostada to conclude, I still went home and ate a thin sliver of the devil's food cake (with mocha buttercream and raspberry jam) left over from the family celebration earlier in the day.

Thus endeth the Birthday Festival for 2008. Twas grand.

A Venetian Supper [with Mental Margin Notes]

Back in August I posted about my affection for La Posta restaurant in Santa Cruz, particularly the 4-course Sunday dinners, served family-style. The menu is fixed -- no choices; no substitutions. I never call ahead to ask what's being served; I like the surprises. But this past Sunday, my initial reaction to the menu was disappointment. Return with me:
The hostess seats us at our favorite table in the front corner near the bar and hands us the night's menus. First course: a radicchio salad with marinated anchovies. [Ho-hum. I make radicchio salad at home all the time.]
J orders a plate of the house-made salamis. [Because we've been eating so lightly all weekend we need five courses tonight instead of four.] The salamis are excellent. I eat more than my share [Because I'm just going to pick at the boring salad.]
Only, the salad is spendid. Tossed with the radicchio leaves are sprigs of flat-leaf parsley -- "Very Nigella," our friend R notes -- and the anchovies are the plump white boquerones I love.
The second course is risotto with squid ink. [I'd been hoping for pasta. Preferably a repeat of the pasta with duck we had here a few weeks ago] Of course it is delicious and certainly isn't something I make frequently at home. Like: ever.
Next comes petrale sole marinated in sweet and sour sauce. [Is there a more boring fish in the sea than petrale sole? And I hate sweet and sour sauces.] Ok, once again I decide chef Chris Avila is a genius. I LOVE this dish, redolent with mounds of sauteed onions, plump raisins and a perfect balance of sweet and sour notes. A side dish of kale with pine nuts is a fine complement.
Dessert is seckel pear poached in white wine. [Waah. I want my pears swathed in caramel or tucked between layers of pastry.] And my record is now 4 for 4 in the boy-was-I-wrong department. Each of us gets a perfect wee pear, perched jauntily in a pool of poaching liquid which tastes of lemon zest and cinnamon. Bliss: start to finish.
Dear Chef Avila: I shall not doubt you again. [Unless, of course, on some tragic Sunday you make a dish permeated with peas.]

And in a small spurt of serendipity, today's mail brings a beautiful new cookbook by Anna Del Conte: "The Painter, the Cook and the Art of Cucina." I turn to the "Veneto" chapter and find, on adjacent pages, a recipe for Risotto Nero and another for Sardines in Sweet and Sour Sauce. Perhaps I'll try them. Or perhaps I'll hope Chris Avila repeats last Sunday's menu before too long.