Friday, September 28, 2007

why my commas go where they do

September 28

I’m in Los Angeles for Culinary R&D, a conference that Nation’s Restaurant News holds for corporate chefs at chain restaurants. I arrived a day early, yesterday, to run through the presentation I have to give and settle in before the conference starts this afternoon.
Coming early also gave me a chance to catch up with my old friend Matt Shapo.
Matt and I were co-features editors at The Tufts Daily long, long ago in the mid-1980s. We entertained the rest of the staff by engaging in witty banter while editing things. We had different editing and writing styles. Matt would take commas out and I would put them back in and probably add some more, or vice-versa, depending on who saw the article first. Matt taught me a looser style of writing, so that when I was editing stories in Bangkok, I would take commas out that Dave Peters — a brilliant Anglo-Icelandic Canadian with a certain penchant for order, who also was my immediate superior — would then put back in.
Dave is now a consultant of some sort in Toronto, and Matt is in charge of the web site for All Access, a trade magazine for the music industry. You might also recall that his wife, Jenn Saltzman, is the niece of former New York Daily News food writer Liz Forgang, making Liz and me friends-in-law.
Matt and Jenn have a two-year-old named Evan whom I hope to meet on Sunday, but yesterday the babysitter canceled so Matt and I ended up going out alone. We ate at Grace, partly because chef-partner Neal Fraser is giving a presentation at Culinary R&D tomorrow.
Matt had pumpkin gnocchi followed by diver scallops in matsutake mushroom broth and I had a warm autumn fruit salad (figs, persimmons, pomegranate etc.) with lentils, mizuna and curry dressing, followed by braised pork shank with garlic rapini, smoked shallot & chorizo home fries in a cider sage sauce. I drank a glass of 2005 Château Soucherie, a Cabernet Franc from France’s Loire Valley.
We had huckleberry donuts for dessert, and ordered a chocolate hazelnut torte to take home for Jenn, because it’s very important to be kind to your friends’ spouses.
Grace is on the cutting edge of water service. They use a reverse-osmosis process to make their own still and sparkling water, for which they charge $2.50 a person. Matt and I sampled that, too.

Adas Bi Hamoud (Chards and lentil soup) - عدس بالحامض



Ingredients:
1 bunch of Swiss Chards (sele2 in arabic)
1 big onion (chopped)
2 cloves of garlic (chopped)
1 cup of lentils
2 medium potatoes diced
2 tablespoons of allspice
1 tablespoon of sumac spice
Salt
1 cup of fresh chopped cilantro
Juice of one big lemon
Olive oil (2-3 tablespoons)

In a pot, add 1liter of water, bring to the boil, add lentils and let them cook for about 12 minutes. Meanwhile, you've washed the chards and chopped them, so you add those to the cooked lentils. In a pan, cook the onions and garlic with olive oil until light golden then add them to the lentils and chards. After that you add the potatoes, sumac, allspice, salt and let it cook for about 10-12 minutes then you add the lemon juice and the cilantro and let it simmer for like 5 minutes, then serve.
This is a great vegetarian soup, healthy and tasty.

Mjaddara (Vegetarian lentil paste) - مجدرة


Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 cup of lentils
1/4 cup rice
1 onion
olive oil
Salt
1 tablespoon of cumin
1 tablespoon of allspice (= 7 spices)

Wash the lentils and put in a pot with 4-5 cups of water, let it boil gently and cook for 15 minutes. Soak the rice in water. After the lentils are cooked all the way, drain the lentils and grind them but keep the water on the side. Meanwhile in a pan, add the chopped onion, olive oil, salt and cook the onions for few minutes on medium flame, don't brown them just until they turn a bit gold.
Add the grinded lentils to their water, then add the onions with olive oil, add the soaked rice, spices and cumin. Cook for another 15 minutes on low. You have to stir it every couple of minutes because it can stick and burn easily. you might need to add a bit more water if you feel that it's too thick to cook the rice. It's done when it thickens. Not too lumpy but not too thick. Pour it in a bowl and let it cool off for few minutes.
Serve with bread and salads. (Fattoush is perfect with Mjaddara).

Red Cabbage Salad


Few leaves of red cabbage (depending on the amount of serving)
1 small onion (shredded)
Juice of one lemon
Olive oil
salt & pepper

Place the shredded cabbage in a plate, add the onion on to, salt & pepper and the dressing. Voila!