Pat is in the Details

The fish tacos I had for dinner Friday night at Nick's Cove on Tomales Bay were so good I was tempted to order them again Sunday morning at brunch, but the "you must be kidding" look I got from across the table made me pick eggs Benedict instead. Thus bullied into choosing conventional breakfast fare, I skulked off to the open kitchen to watch the cooks.
"Do you make your own hollandaise sauce," I asked, realizing the absurdity of the question as soon as it left my lips. Every head in the kitchen snapped around as if jerked -- hard-- by invisible cords. I had just won "Stupidest Customer Inquiry of The Week." Bottled hollandaise sauce in a Pat Kuleto kitchen? Not very damned likely.

"These just came out of the oven 10 minutes ago," an adorably baby-faced cook said, holding up a pan of big, flaky biscuits that would take the place of the more common English muffins. Then he turned back to the cooktop and cracked eggs into the poaching water, and I scurried back to my seat, knowing that those eggs would soon be headed my way.

Less than five minutes later the eggs you see in the photo were placed in front of me. What you can't see is that nestled between the Hollandaise-swathed egg and the meltingly tender biscuit is a mound of sweet fresh crabmeat.

And look at the color of the egg yolk. The flavor of truly fresh eggs is so splendid it makes you want to swear off supermarket eggs forever. Quite simply, these were the best eggs Benedict I've ever eaten. And a reminder that even the simplest dishes can be supremely satisfying when attention is paid to each component detail.
(Of course, sitting on a porch alongside Tomales Bay, with sun sparkling on the water and kayaks gliding by, makes any meal more memorable, but I've had many a mediocre meal at restaurants with great views.)

Is is so much to ask that someone at Nick's deliver me an occasional meal in this little red truck? I live a mere two hours away.

You Say "Flatbread;" Soif Says "Farinata"

No matter how many "small plates" I order at Soif, I always include the farinata -- the luscious little chick-pea flour lovechild of a crepe and a pizza crust. Similar to a French socca, it's cooked to order and arrives at the table piping-hot. Usually perfumed with fresh sage, last Sunday's version sported fresh basil. And olives. And every bite made me want to moan with delight.
I adore Soif, a Santa Cruz wine bar and restaurant with a kitchen directed by the talented Chris Avila, whose food at La Posta I raved about in an earlier post. Soif's menu changes frequently, although a few dishes are nearly always available: crostini with pumpkinseed chevre and pomegranate molasses, boquerones atop perfect aioli, piquilla peppers stuffed with manchego cheese and sublime little lamb meatballs with almond sauce. (According to our waitress one evening, the lamb meatballs get a major flavor boost from caramelized onions incorporated into the mix.)
Most farinata recipes I've researched call for a combination of broiling and baking the batter, but I've come closer to replicating Soif's version by starting the batter stove-top, in a well-heated crepe pan, and then finishing it under a hot, hot broiler.
(Margin note: When I asked one of Soif's cooks for advice, he stressed the importance of letting the batter rest for several hours before cooking it.)

Farinata con Salvia (Chick-Pea Flatbread with Sage)
(adapted from a recipe from Gourmet Magazine)

2 cups chick-pea flour
1 1/2 cups cold water
2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup olive oil
Fresh sage leaves
Coarsely ground pepper

Gradually whisk flour into water. Whisk in salt and oil. Let batter stand, covered, at least two hours, preferably three.

Now, at this point Gourmet instructs you to pre-heat the broiler and set the oven rack about 5-inches from the heat. Oil a 13- by 9-inch flame-proof baking pan (preferably with olive oil) Stir batter and pour into pan. Tear sage leaves into bits and sprinkle sage and pepper over the battter. Broil farinata 5 minutes or until top is speckled with brown spots. Reduce temp. to 450-degrees and bake farinata 5 minutes more, or until set and pulling away slightly from pan sides. Cut into squares and serve immediately. Serves 6 as a snack or accompaniment.

OK, that's the safe and tested-in-Gourmet's-rigourous-kitchen approach. Mine is a tad different -- and a lot less precise. But I like the looks of mine better.
I, too, get the broiler very hot--although I haven't measured how far my top oven rack is from the heating element. Next I heat a six-inch crepe pan, add olive oil and heat til the oil almost smokes. Then I pour in enough batter to make a pancake about a quarter-inch thick, toss on the herb leaves and, occasionally, some cooked veggies.(At Soif the farinata often sports caramelized onions.) After a minute or two, I peek at the underside. If it's well-browned, I stick the pan under the hot broiler until the top has plenty of dark spots. I tip the crepe onto a warm plate and then repeat with more batter. Then I yell at people to eat them RIGHT NOW WHILE THEY'RE HOT, although I tend to mumble because I'm already eating a piece myself.

You can find out more about Soif on its gorgeous website: www.soifwine.com

Souffle Tuesday: Chocolate Challenges

Those tidy little dishes in the first picture? They're the "Before." No way are you seeing the "After." Suffice it to say that my previous proclamation about always filling souffle dishes to the rim should be ignored with this recipe -- unless of course you want to make them for a luau and label them "Oozing, Half-burnt Chocolate Lava Mounds."
Actually, the parts that managed to stay in the dishes were quite tasty, but the overall appearance: UGLY.
However, one of the reasons I wanted to try this recipe was the headnote promising the uncooked souffles could be frozen and then baked straight from the freezer. So, two ramekins went into the oven and the rest were wrapped tight and frozen. First, the recipe:

Do-Ahead Chocolate Souffle
(from Cooking Light Magazine)

butter (instead of the cooking spray suggested by C.L.)
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups fat-free milk
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg yolk
6 large egg whites

Preheat oven to 425-degrees.
Generously butter the interiors of 6 (8-ounce) souffle dishes. Sprinkle with the 2 tablesppons sugar. Set in refrigerator.
Combine remaining 1/2 cup sugar, flour, cocoa and salt in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring with a whisk.
Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly with a whisk, and bring to a boil. Cook 2 minutes or until slightly thick, whisking constantly. Remove from heat. Add the chopped chocolate and stir until smooth. Transfer mixture to a large bowl; cool to room temperature and then stir in the vanilla and the egg yolk.
Beat the egg whites util soft peaks form. Stir in 1/4 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and then fold in the remainder..
Spoon mixture into prepared dishes; place on a baking sheet and put on lowest shelf of the pre-heated oven. Immediately reduce oven temperature to 350-degrees. Cook for about 35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the side of a souffle comes out clean.

Two days after the flowing-over-the-rim-and-baking-solidly-onto-the-ramekin-sides episode, I pulled one of the frozen souffles from the freezer, scraped some of the frozen batter from around the inside edge of the dish, baked it about 5 minutes longer than the unfrozen ones and had a far happier result. Witness Photo #2. Now if I could just remember to set out the camera before I take a souffle from the oven I might actually get a picture at full poof.

Under the Saratoga Moon

Now *this* is the way to cook a whole pig/lamb/ox/water buffalo: on a sturdy grill with a rotisserie that actually turns and an experienced pro standing nearby. (Contrast with the lamb-on-the-beach July entry on this blog.) The resulting roast pork was just one course of a splendid wine harvest dinner I attended Saturday evening in the Saratoga hills.

Before dinner, some of the guests actually picked grapes. Seeing this little cutie pick a few, eat a few, pick a few, eat a few was the best kind of pre-dinner entertainment. As the sun set, we sat at long tables on an outside terrace and dined on the splendid fare of San Francisco caterer Paula LeDuc. (When I know I'm going to be eating a dinner prepared by LeDuc's crew my mouth starts watering about breakfast time.)

The Tuscan-style dinner began with passed platters of calamari salad, marinated cauliflower and heirloom tomatoes with mozzarella. Next came moist cod, followed by platters of the spit-roasted pork. A trio of chocolate desserts completed the meal -- although some of us wandered over to an outdoor fire pit where ingredients for s'mores were laid out -- including incredibly delicious home-made marshmallows. An American classic proved the perfect ending for a meal inspired by Italy.

Manresa Does Tomatoes, continued:

I always harbor a little guilt when I eat bunny, but the next course -- a rabbit daube with basil surrounded by a tomato vinaigrette and garnishes of new zealand spinach -- was so good that I banished mental pictures of Peter Rabbit and Thumper. The following dish was the only one I didn't love:a deconstucted "ratatouille" and sheep's milk rictotta with sheep's milk as a sauce. The ingredients were impeccably fresh and certainly each was delicious; I just didn't see the scattering of ingredients across the plate as "ratatouille" -- even with the qualifying quotation marks.
Following this slight disappointment, came a suprise course that at first rang my HO-HUM bell: three tomato wedges -- a red, a yellow and a pink-- drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt. OMG, it was fabulous. The olive oil was French; the salt was seaweed based and the combination with the tomatoes had us hailing the bus boy for yet more bread. Not a one of our plates went back to the kitchen with a drop of olive oil or tomato essence remaining.
And the food kept coming.
Roast duck and foie gras with caponata was simply magnificent, as was the dessert: caramelized brioche and a slow confiture of tomatoes plus vanilla olive oil ice cream. (Our friend, a sophistacted and long-time owner of numerous restaurants, was softly chanting "More brioche; more brioche")
Lovely LeRoy wines throughout the meal, exquisite Numi teas at the end and Manresa's marvelous little black olive madeleines: What's not to LOVE?

Tomatoes Triumphant: A Special Dinner at Manresa

On Tuesday evening I treated my tastebuds to a tomato orgy and they've been thanking me ever since. This tomatoes-in-every-course feast had four of us swabbing out plates with bread crusts -- a reaction that won't surprise anyone familiar with the cooking of Manresa's chef David Kinch and his staff and the exquisite produce grown for the restaurant by Cynthia Sandberg at her Love Apple Farm.
But let's get a disclaimer up here: Resident Gardener and I are investors in Manresa -- as are numerous other devotees of Kinch's food since his days at Sent Sovi. I don't write for newspapers or magazines about Manresa or Kinch, but here, well: it's my own space and I'll blog if I want to. And if these Tomato Feast posts send any of you running to Manresa it'll probably mean all of another 27 cents in our next investor's return check.

Back to the tomatoes:
We began with parmesan churros, served with an anchovy-tomato "hot bath" for dipping. I could have eaten a basketful. Next came a seaweed-citrus granite with a crisp little nori cracker --all atop "corn and tomato vers.4.2." [Another day I'll blog about "corn and tomatoes vers.1.1" - a Kinch dish friends and I are still talking about a mere 11 years after we first ate it.}
Following those savory little amuse-bouches we had "a delicate gel of tomato and ripe melon, a tisane of herbs and flowers flavoring crab and shellfish, and golden raspberies" which was a lovely lead-in to an absolutely sensational plate of
assorted cherry tomatoes with steelhead roe (cured in oak smoked salt) surrounded with roast tuna juice and a sprig of purslane.
I took one bite of the cherry tomatoes, turned to Resident Gardener and said: "Do not think that just because this is so good it's going to inspire me to PEEL CHERRY TOMATOES." An elegant touch, though.
The next course was one of my favorites of the night: fresh Monterey Bay spot prawns, cooked on the plancha, "perfumed with a rare virgin argan oil," and accompanied by tomato slices with beets and rucula sylvetta. I don't even *like* beets. Hell, usually I hate the little buggers. But in this dish they were wonderful. And the prawns were sublime. David told us they were split in half while still alive and then set on the hot plancha for a mere 10 seconds. Much more heat than that, apparently, can turn the delicate flesh to mush.

Thus endeth the first half of the meal. To be continued...

Souffle Tuesday: Lemon Souffle Gratineed

I know. I know. This photo is DARK, but I wasn't about to mar the candle-lit Friday night ambience at Bistro Elan with a camera flash. Yet this little souffle was so amazing, I had to capture its image.
Fresh huckleberries were nestled between two layers of lemon souffle and then a crackly creme-brulee-like topping finished off the dish. To discover how the topping was accomplished I'm going to have to sit at the counter of Bistro Elan's open kitchen and quiz the pastry chef. Until I do, I'm at least going to experiment with layering some berries in a dessert souffle. Perhaps raspberries in a vanilla base. Or diced super-ripe plucots between layers of strawberry souffle.
And when I discover the topping technique I suspect I'm going to have to buy a blowtorch.