Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Professional drinkers

April 30

I stopped by the French Culinary Institute last night (it has been sort of renamed the International Culinary Center, but I don't think it’s going to stick, any more than Avenue of the Americas has stuck as a name for Sixth Avenue). A chocolate company was launching a new truffle line. Deciding to go seemed like a no-brainer. I showed up and was handed a chef coat, which I put on and then dipped some plain chocolate truffles in couverture, and then decorated them. It was fun, particularly the dipping, because it requires taking chocolate spheres and throwing them with some force into melted chocolate, so they sink. Then fishing them out with a wire utensil that is circular on the end, allowing you to balance the newly covered truffle on it and tap it on the edge of the chocolate container, so the excess chocolate drips off before you set it down on wax paper for decorating. Fun.
Then I walked the scant mile to the Astor Center, where a rum cocktail competition was going on. Again, a no-brainer.
It turned out to be an extraordinary event, actually, or maybe it seemed extraordinary because I arrived relatively sober midway into a booze party.
Come to think of it, I wasn’t all that sober. I had sampled two chocolate cocktails and had a glass of Champagne at the chocolate event. But compared to most of the people at the Astor Center I was a teatotaller. Something like 24 or 28 cocktails were being served, and everyone seemed to want to try them all. I had a citrusy one called a Joan Collins (good name, right?), and another citrusy one with a sort of menthol bass note (from the yellow Chartreuse perhaps) that I think was called a Gowanus Sunset. I don’t know. My cocktail-drinking colleague Sonya Moore, who also was there, wrote a a much more detailed entry about the event than I have any interest in doing (although she apparently didn’t sample the Gowanus Sunset).
For me the highlight was simply witnessing the ability of beverage professionals to drink as much as they did, to be as gloriously inebriated as they were, and yet to be socially gracious and civilized. Perhaps a bit louder than they would be otherwise, sure. And more gregarious. But apart from just slightly slurred speech, a bit more abrupt changes of conversation topic than they might make otherwise, and bright red faces and noses, they were fine. There was no fighting, no falling down, no crying, certainly no vomiting.
The truly widespread drunkenness that was in evidence was what made the party seem so extraordinary to me.
I chatted with one guy (I don’t remember who — I’d had four or five cocktails and a glass of Champagne, remember, and it was only 8:30) about the widespread drunkenness around us that was so different from such situations out in the real world, among the amateurs, on nights like St. Patrick's Day or New Year's Eve. If I remember correctly, we agreed that people who can’t hold their liquor should know that and not embarrass themselves.
Of course, in New York we have the added benefit of a reliable subway and many taxis, so we can drink without having to drive.

COCONUT CHUTNEY


Ingredients:
Coconut ..................1 cup (grated)
Roasted gram dal .. 1/4 th cup
Green chillies ......... 1-2
Ginger .................. a small piece
Salt to taste

For tempering:
Mustard seeds ......... 1 tsp
Split urad dal ...........1/2 tsp
Dry red chillies ....... 1-2 broken
Curry leaves ............ 6-8
Asafoetida ................. a pinch
Oil

Method:
1. Grind the coconut, chana dal, ginger, green chillies adding a little salt and water to grind it.
2.Heat 1 tbsp. oil in a pan, fry all the ingredients and add the tempering to the chutney.
This chutney is served with idli, dosa, wada, pongal, upma.(all the South Indian snacks)

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Today is my BIRTHDAY!

Hello 30!

Today, I'm celebrating another birthday! Yeah! I love fresh starts and all the promise that comes with the first day of a new birthday year. Starting to have wrinkles? I can buy cream to smooth them out or go to Belo perhaps, but I wouldn't change my age or give back one minute of my life. Good days and bad, its been a tasty time so far! I like having birthdays because they humble me. They remind me to be grateful for my life, my family, my friends, my work, my artist chef thing and for my ever dearest boyfriend. Birthdays challenge me, too. Every year I get a little bit smarter about at least a few things, but the list of what I want to do and learn grows longer. Two years ago I wrote the same blog I'm writing now in a different journal. What I said then was "hello 28!" and wrote there that I wanted to enroll in a cooking class, go to Australia and have my intimate dinner business. All of them came true already. And today I have new wishes to write down but I'd rather keep them to my self and pray they will soon come true. Who knows next year or two years from now I'll write a blog again and tell you guys that my wishes came true. This is also my chance to thank all the people who visited my blog and to those who visit this site regularly. I am really overwhelmed by the statistic data showing all my visitors. Surprisingly, they come from all parts of the globe.

Thank You and Ciao!

---Joan

Love Del Rosario

Love is in the air during Valentine’s month. The couple that graced the lovers' seats in The Artist Chef intimate dinner were newly weds Love Del Rosario and her husband. Nicole Ardeña, boyfriend of Love's sister, arranged everything for the couple as her post-wedding gift.






The Gerbera flowers that Reggie gave me became the couple's centerpiece.



Boy Alnajes

A lot couples still try to find unique ways to celebrate Valentine's Day. Sweet guy Boy Alnajes and the lovely Jakki Blanco are among those people. Another addition to the roster of couples who have experienced the special Valentine's dinner at The Artist Chef's table.






I'm wearing my Sicily apron for the first time. From my dear friend Pedi who is now based in Europe. Shuffling from one country to another.


Friday, April 25, 2008

Baked Kibbeh - الكبة بالصينية



Serves 4
1 pound/lb or about 500g of minced lean meat
2 cups of fine bulgur wheat
1 onion chopped/diced
1 teaspoon of allspice or 7 spices
Salt & pepper (about half a teaspoon of each)
1/3 cup of vegetable oil

For the filling:
2 cups of minced meat
1/3 cup pine nuts
1 cup of chopped onions
Olive oil

Prepare the filling and let it cool while layering the kibbeh, so in a pan, add some olive oil, onions and pine nuts, after 1 minute add the minced meat and the spices, salt and pepper and mix. when the meat is cooked, set the cooked filling aside.

Preparing the kibbeh:
Wash the bulgur and drain, mix with the lean meat, onions, spices, salt & pepper and place in the food processor on low until the ingredients get mixed up together then place in a bowl and divide into 2 equal portions. Damp your hands in cold water (keep a small container next to you while layering the kibbeh, cause wet hands help even layering the kibbeh in the tray). When you finish the first layer add the filling, distribute evenly, then add the second layer of kibbeh, even the layer with your wet hand. Add 1/3 cup of vegetable oil on the top, and bake in a 375 degrees F oven until it's golden and the meat is cooked. Before serving you can get rid of the excess of oil. Kibbeh needs to have enough oil to cook and brown otherwise the surface burns quickly. Serve with plain yogurt or a salad (or both :D like I do).

Frasca

April 23

I turned 41 years old yesterday. Still in Denver for Passover, I convinced my family that dinner at Frasca Food & Wine in Boulder was in order.
Frasca is perhaps the hottest restaurant that Colorado, outside of Aspen, has ever seen. The chef, Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, is one of the hottest chefs in the country and you reportedly need to make reservations two months in advance if you want to eat there on weekends.
Even on a Tuesday, three weeks out, I was given the option of 5:45 or 8:45 for a party of 8 (mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, sister, niece Tahirah and nephew Harrison — and me).
My family is not impressed by a restaurant’s hotness, but 5:45 is actually a good time for them, because Tuesday is a school night, after all, and Tahirah, 12, and Harrison, 8, need their rest (Alia, who will be 2 in July, stayed at home with a sitter).
The dinner was a huge success for me because I introduced sister-in-law Helen to Moscato d'Asti for dessert, which she loved, and gave my mother her first taste of amaro as a digestive, which she also loved. And what greater joy is there than introducing people to something they like?

What I ate and drank:

Salumi of prosciutto di San Daniele, speck (from Alto Adige) and Fra'Mani Salame Toscano (from California).
Asparago bianco fritta (tempura-fried white asparagus)
Frico caldo (a sort of potato-and-cheese pancake)
Hawaiian big eye tuna crudo with pickled ramps, English peas and lavash
Tamarack Farm veal-stuffed mlinci (Frasca draws its inspiration from Friuli-Venezia-Giulia, on the border with Austria and Slovenia, and so they use terms from those countries, too) with olive oil-poached fennel, oregano and watercress
Snake River Farm Berkshire pork belly with warm farro salad and apple
Tasting of house-made chocolates

Corte Sant’Alda Valpolicella “Ca Fliu,” Veneto, Italy 2005, which my parents found a bit light, so we got a super-Tuscan of Cabernet, Merlot and Syrah: Tenuta Argentiera “Poggio Al Ginepri,” Tuscany, Italy 2006
Then I had Meletti Amaro

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Kebabs & Watermelon

One of my favorite concoctions is my famous Chicken Kebab. I love all the strong flavors of the spices I mixed together for the marination. It goes well with grilled tomatoes and yoghurt garlic sauce. Yum, yum, yum! This dish really makes me to eat mountains of rice. Whether eaten with Thai Jasmine rice or Basmati rice, it makes my meal a carbo-overload. I know you guys can't wait to find out how this dish is done.

Chicken Kebabs

You will need diced chicken breast fillet, paprika, curry powder, salt, pepper, turmeric and yoghurt. Mix all the spices, yoghurt and the diced chicken. Marinate for at least 3-5 hours . For extreme flavor, marinate the chicken overnight. Then the next day, ready your barbecue sticks and place four diced chicken on each stick. Heat the grilling pan to medium temperature and grill chicken and tomatoes until tender. Everything is ready. Serve hot with your basmati rice with butter plus the yoghurt and garlic sauce.



Look at these yellow watermelons in my bowl. They look so mouth-watering. I stumbled upon them in a supermarket and brought home a few pieces. Did you guys know that "watermelon" refers to both fruit and plant of a vine-like herb originally from southern Africa? There is a subtle difference between the red and yellow watermelon. When I close my eyes and eat a yellow one, it tastes just like a sweet red water melon. So I therefore conclude that the yellow watermelon is sweeter than the red ones. I've read the same opinions on the internet.

I gained a few pounds after lunch.


There is a sweetness in every bite of the yellow watermelon.

Aunt Donna knows Thirteen

April 21

It's much easier for me to be Jewish in Denver than in New York, because for me (and I think most people), religion is a family affair, and Denver is my ancestral homeland.
It was settled, for my family, by one of my maternal great grandfathers, Jackson Melman, who moved there in around 1909 from Columbus, Ohio, with my great grandmother Dora (the one who I believe gave me my dislike for raw tomatoes), and four of his seven children, including my grandmother Rose, whose husband, Harry Cohn, was born in Glenwood Springs, making me a third generation Colorado Jew.
Rose was the youngest child in the family. Her brother Ike stayed in Denver, too, while her sisters Millie and Anne eventually settled in southern California.
My father's parents moved to Denver (from Baltimore, although he and his sister Florine were born in Raleigh) to be with Florine when she married Phil Boxer, a Kansas City Jew who for some reason ended up in Denver and ran a restaurant with his brother called Boxers (long sold and gone; Phil became a humanities professor and his brother Martin opened a chain of shops called The Antique Trader). Dad joined his folks after he got out of the Navy.
Then there are in-laws and additions from other branches of the family who have found their way to Denver. It makes for quite a comforting web of family fabric, and so Colorado’s capital is a very nice place for me to spend Passover, which is exactly what I did this year.
The ritual dinner, or Seder, is the cornerstone of Passover observance and much is often made of the fact that Jews all over the world follow the same rituals that have been handed down for centuries. That, of course, isn't the case at all. As someone who is rarely in the same city as his own family for Passover, I have been to many seders all over the world. All have familiar elements (strangely, gefilte fish followed by matzo ball soup seem to be universal, at least among Ashkenazic Jews, or the ones from Eastern Europe), but each is embellished by family tradition.
Indeed, my immediate family generally spends the two seders with quite different relative-and-friend configurations on the two nights on which seders are generally held, and the rituals can vary wildly from one night to the next (this year a relatively traditional seder mostly in English was followed by a humanist one sent from Florida by my sister-in-law Helen’s grandmother).
But those little family things are why I want to go to Denver for Passover more often, especially for our after dinner customs.
Several songs are normally sung after dinner during a seder, although not among families who feel that the pre-dinner rituals are enough and simply end the evening with coffee and dessert, or among those who don't like to sing.
Our first-night seder has for quite awhile now been held at the home of my cousin Richard Kornfeld, the youngest son of my mother's older sister, my Aunt Donna. He is continuing the tradition of his father, my Uncle Eddie, who passed away about ten years ago. Our two favorite after-dinner customs are the singing of Had Gadya, and the singing in Hebrew, followed by the reading in English, of Who Knows One?
Had Gadya is a parable about a kid (a baby goat, that is) that is eaten by a cat (presumably a big, ferocious cat), that is bitten by a dog, that is beaten by a stick that is burned in fire that is put out by water that is drunk by an ox that is slaughtered by a butcher who is killed by the Angel of Death who is in turn done in by the Almighty. I guess it reflects the ephemeral nature of things, but one of the great customs of Passover seders is that the meanings behind such things are supposed to be discussed (except in families who don't want to discuss such things — because they find seders tedious and just want to get on with them, or because they enjoy the traditional flow of the seder, or because they are not curious about such things, or for other reasons I cannot fathom).
Anyway, in our version we replace the nouns with the sounds they make, highlighted by beating twice on the table instead of saying "stick." That is our custom.
Who Knows One is an accounting of how many of certain important things in Judaism there are.
In case someone is googling this and wants them enumerated, I'll list them here; everyone else, please skip down to the next paragraph. Jews are monotheists, so you’re just going to have to guess what there is one of. There are two tablets on which the commandments were written, three patriarchs, four matriarchs, five books in the Torah (the first part of the Bible), six books in the Mishnah (the first part of the Talmud), seven days of the week, eight days to circumcision, nine months to childbirth, 10 commandments, eleven stars in Joseph's dream (which predicted his dominion over his brothers), 12 tribes of Israel and 13 attributes of God.
It's performed very much like the Twelve Days of Christmans, starting with One, then Two, but repeating One and so on, except that the table asks "Who Knows One?" and someone says: "I know One," and reads what it is. But the custom in my family is that you must say it in one breath. That's no big deal if you just have to say "four matriarchs, three patriarchs, two tables of the covenant, one God in heaven and on earth," but 13 is trickier, and for as long as I can remember, that task has fallen to Aunt Donna.
Aunt Donna has never smoked and has lived a clean life, so she can do all 13. And remember, this is in Denver, so she does it at 5,280 feet.
I find what one eats at Passover seders to be mostly irrelevant, except for the gefilte fish and matzo ball soup, which are essential, plus the ritual foods such as egg and saltwater, greens (most often parsley) dipped in saltwater, horseradish and charoset (a mixture usually of apples, nuts, wine and spices meant to resemble mortar between bricks). Oh, and matzo, of course.
My brother Todd and I used to anticipate each year that Aunt Donna would declare that this year the horseradish was the spiciest ever, except for last year, which was really the spiciest. She doesn't seem to do that anymore, but she definitely did it from around 1973 to 1985, at least.
This year on the second night, though, the horseradish really was the spiciest. Cousin Joe Levi had to bang on the table after trying it (and Had Gadya wouldn't be for another hour, at least), and I thought my ears were going to bleed.

5 - MINUTE BARFI


Ingredients:

Milk .... 3-4 cups-to make chena (paneer)
Vinegar or lime juice - 2-3 tbsp.
Sugar ........ 1 cup
Milk powder ....1 cup
Cardamom powder ....1/2 tsp.
Saffron
Pistachios ... chopped (to garnish)
Almonds ..... chopped (to garnish)
Ghee .....1 tbsp.

Method:



1.Pour the milk in a glass bowl and mix the vinegar / lime juice.Place it in the microwave and heat it for 3-4 minutes to curdle it. (about 3 cups of full cream milk makes one cup of paneer.) Strain it well and set it aside to cool and then crumble it.(there should be no water left in the paneer)
2.In a bowl mix 1 cup paneer, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk powder, cardamom powder, saffron and ghee.
3. In a flat dish apply ghee and spread this mixture.


4. Sprinkle chopped pistachios and almonds on top.
5. Microwave it for 5 minutes. Let it cool and cut into pieces.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

US Girls - Cheska Garcia

This was last March when Reggie and I watched THE RAMP fashion show in Glorietta . Raya Mananquil is one of the known models who ramped during that night. The event was hosted by none other than Cheska Garcia. This picture was taken by Reggie at the backstage of the event.

Raya Mananquil in gray.


After the fashion show there were some pica-picas inside THE RAMP boutique located at the former Tower Records area.

Icon

April 16

I enjoy breaking bread with Travel + Leisure’s Clark Mitchell for many reasons. Quite apart from his winning smile, blue eyes and amusing observations about German linguistics, he has a keen yet egalitarian palate. He relishes what he calls “trashy food” (you might recall his periodic need for the queso dip at Lobo in Park Slope), but he also can make quite an excellent goose confit, and when I first met him he was enjoying a brief fascination with aspic.
This evening, as we had dinner at Icon at the W Court hotel, he explained how people from different corners of the German-speaking world pronounce “Gstaad” while also marveling at chef Michael Wurster’s version of Buffalo wings.
The “chicken lollipos” were wings (or possibly drummettes, I have forgotten) turned inside-out and crusted with a blend of Rice Krispies and panko bread crumbs. They were deep-fried and dressed with Maytag blue cheese. Fine celery shavings garnished them.

What else we ate:

Nantucket Bay scallop ceviche with Meyer lemon, pineapple, licorice root and nasturtium, encased in yuba (tofu skin) and garnished with golden char roe
jumbo lump crab with grapefruit gel, avocado, espelette, hearts of palm and yuzu “caviar”
line-caught turbot with mussel pistou, sea urchin panna cotta, spring vegetables and roasted Parmesan emulsion
rack of milk-fed veal with yellow corn polenta and fava beans
blood orange sorbet with candied lemons and limes and fromage blanc
“Snickers” — frozen nougat with peanut butter sauce and powder with chocolate ice cream

Monday, April 21, 2008

PONGAL


Ingredients:
Rice ............. 1 cup
Moong dal ...... 1 cup
Cashewnuts ... a handful (slit into half)
Cumin seeds ....1tbsp.
Whole black pepper ... 1 tbsp.
Dry red chillies ........... 2-3 (broken)
Asafoetida .................... 1/4 tsp.
Curry leaves ............... a sprig
Ghee ............................. 2 tbsp.
Salt to taste

Method:
1.Soak 1 cup rice and 1 cup moong dal together for half an hour.
2.Transfer rice and dal into a pressure cooker. Add 6 cups of water, salt and let it cook.
3.When rice and dal are half done, cover and cook until 3 to 4 whistles.
4.Open it, mix and simmer. Add water if required. (The rice and dal should become of porridge consistency).
5.In a pan, heat 1 tbsp ghee and fry a handful of cashewnuts till pink. Add these to the rice along with the ghee.
6.Heat 1 tbsp ghee again. Add 1 tsp cumin seeds. When they crackle, add 8 to 10 whole black pepper, asafoetida, 2 to 3 whole red chillies, a sprig of curry leaves. Add this tempering to the rice.
Serve with coconut chutney.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Hunter Valley

My Sydney Painting Series #1

This is series one of the four series paintings I did when I was in Sydney last November. I painted this using gold poster paint on red vellum. I used a white square frame which I bought from my favorite store IKEA. The four series paintings is now under the custody of my Australia-based cousin Gary Lejarde and his wife Yonni.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Time for a change...

Discovering new foodstuffs is a constant source of delight for me. I remember the first time I tasted Manchego cheese, the salty, almost fudge like quality of it balanced by a tiny square of quince jelly. My introduction to the soft, fluffy cumulo nimbus like qualities of sweetbreads, sweetly caramelised on the outside proved to be equally enlightening and I remember the slight frisson of trepidation the first time I sucked a brackish oyster past my lips and straight down my throat, the hefty shake of Tabasco sauce catching the inside of my lips and the sharpness of the fresh lemon juice heightening the whole experience with a raw, but expected, sourness. Incidentally, I still think that this is the best way to eat oysters, a supreme combination that offers a surge of heat, the salty hit of the oyster itself and the finishing notes of sharp citrus which leaves the eater with a delicious mixture of flavours and sensations rolling around the palate and lips. There is certainly an excitement about tasting things for the very first time.

Equally satisfying though is the realisation that one’s tastes have changed and a flavour that once provoked face-pulling and potentially even feelings of nausea ensuring animated and enthusiastic raptures of derision for the coming years has become not just palatable but pleasurable. Whilst tasting new and exotic items of food for the first time might provoke slight fear, being offered something that you know you do not like is entirely different. At least with unknown quantities there is a chance that it may taste good but with tastes one has experienced already this chance is removed. Which merely serves to heighten the pleasure on learning that it now tastes good.

I vividly remember the first time I tasted coffee. We had come to the end of a family holiday in a converted barn in northern France and were invited to enjoy a final drink with the aging proprietors who remain etched in my memory as the most French people I have ever met. I think the male half of the couple may have even worn a beret without displaying even the merest speck of irony. A small outhouse on the sprawling and mismatched property contained little more than a minimally fitted out kitchen and a mottled oak table large enough to comfortably seat 12. We sat there, talking in pigeon French and English about how much we had enjoyed the fortnight and nodded promises that we would return the following year, whilst the unmistakable aroma of freshly brewed coffee began to dominate the air. I accepted the offer of a steaming cup of mirrored black liquid and waited for the steam to subside before raising it to my lips and taking a tentative sip. I was astounded that anyone in a semi-sensible state of mind could actively enjoy the harsh acridity of such a drink but tried my best to make encouraging noises and not let my distaste register on my young face. Taking leaf from the others sat round the table, I reached for the two ceramic containers in front of me, thankful that I had only been given half a cup full and could fill the remaining space with a mixture of white sugar and rich, creamy milk. It turned the drink from something utterly unpalatable to one that I could taste without pulling my lips in and breathing in sharply with shock. But things change and since then I’ve graduated onto pungent ristretto style espresso, an intense coffee hit with a taste that lingers in the mouth long after the drink has been drained. Having said that, I am something of a coffee purist and I cannot abide the synthetic taste of instant coffee. There are some tastes that will never change.

I’ve had similar experiences with tomato juice and cheese. Though not together. Far from being the over-powering flavour I remember from my youth, tomato juice, liberally sluiced with Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco, a squeeze of lime, topped off with a generous grind from the pepper mill and perhaps even a splash of vodka is a great way to start the day, especially if is a Sunday. And despite my love of all things cheese-related, it is only recently that I have graduated from the milder varieties and been able to see the delicious appeal of those tasty examples studded throughout with a delectable and salty mould. Tastes change. Palates develop and the experience of eating is much more pleasurable because of it.

www.justcookit.blogspot.com

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Katrina Samaniego

When I first met my officemate Katrina, she was a chubby girl. A lot of people in the office told me she had an FHM-worthy figure before she got married. But because she was a workaholic whose only outlet was to eat and eat and eat, she gained some pounds.

But one day, she decided to get back into shape. After a few months of dieting, exercise and self-discipline, she's now skinnier than I am. She is no longer the chubby girl with a belly I can pinch. I'm proud of my dear friend Ena! (As most of her friends call her).

Up to now I still find myself smiling when I'm reminded of the day Ena became my friend. It was in 2006, during the last day of our office trip to HK, when I saw her in the lobby of the hotel and asked her if she waned to go to Ikea with me. She excitedly said yes. She was even proud of the fact that she's very familiar with the MTR so she'll be the one to guide me daw. Some funny things happened on our way there but that's just between me and her. I'm glad that up to now we are still good friends.


With Ena is her very charming husband Ariel.

I really got to know Ariel during their daughter's birthday. It was Alyssa's 2nd birthday when I went to Ena's house in Loyala Grand Villas to cook lunch food for their immediate family.


Trivia: Ariel used to have a Kodak developing outlet as his business. But due to the advent of digital technology, he sold the business. He is now an importer of unique photo albums for weddings. Different photographers order from Ariel's not-so-commercialized albums, and that's his edge compared to other photo album suppliers.

Since pictures are very much part of their lives, the couple didn't say NO when I brought out the camera. It was a success! I think both of them really enjoyed it.



This was the couple's pre-valentine's dinner. Ena reserved this last November for their anniversary but I was fully booked. December came and Ena tried to reserve for her birthday but I was again fully booked at that time. So when February came, I gave Ena the first Sunday slot.

Thanks Ena and Ariel! 'til next time :-)