A Break In The Weather, Sun In The Sky

 We've had a break from the rain today. Errands were done, time once again to discover that the clay pot sale at Bram was still going on. I was able to snag a ginormous La Chamba oval roaster for I dare not tell you how much, the price was that good!

 I had to compare it to the equally dashing La Chamba pot I picked up a couple of days before. They looked like mother and baby.

I also scored a platter

Thrilled with my clay triumphs, I was enjoying the out-of-doors, wandering around the property taking pictures of Almost Spring.

    ( Out the kitchen door)

       ( looking into the neighbors' vineyard)

 

                                                      ( the plum tree in bloom)

         ( the big rock that always reminds me of petrified elephant poop)
   If I  hadn't been suffering from premature Spring fever this afternoon I would have posted my next piece where I tell you how to Put The Lamb In The Coconut And Stir it All Up. But I was, so I didn't. Stay tuned.

Light and Creamy Apple Kheer, Queen of Puddings!

Ok, so maybe it's not the Queen of Puddings, but it sounded really good to me. Especially since I cooked it yesterday while waiting for the new Queen of the Ice Yu-Nah Kim to win Olympic gold.

I must confess, I love watching the Winter Olympics. The Summer Games aren't as interesting to me, mainly because I have actually participated in winter sports. Believe it or not, I started out as a figure skater. My mother was on the figure skating team at school and she first put me on skates when I was about 5 years old.  She sent me to Harris Legg and amazingly, poor little unathletic me took to the sport. While the other kids were sliding around on their butts,  I, Miss- Last- One- Picked- For- Every- Team, was gliding along doing pirouettes. It was the only sport I have ever shown an aptitude for (ask me about tennis sometime, go ahead ask me!) and I loved it. There is no "last one picked" for figure skating. There are no balls to bounce off one's head; there is just the cold unforgiving ice. When I was in my late teens I started downhill skiing and also did pretty well with that. Then just as suddenly as I started, I stopped. No more skating, no more skiing. I started running and writing and cooking. But even though the closest I've been to ice since then has been my fridge, I still have a weakness for all the winter sports. It's the one Olympics that actually makes me feel like an athlete!
  Naturally I've been waiting the last week and a half for the ladies figure skating finals. I wanted to plop down in front of the TV and just enjoy. Of course while enjoying I had to have a treat.
  I wanted something light, airy, but with a twist. I wanted  the triple lutz triple toe loop of desserts.  I also wanted to work with what I had in the house, lazy slug that I am.
  I had milk, I had apples and a whole lot of Indian spices.  I decided to make a Kashmiri Apple Pudding, better known as Apple Kheer.
  There are a lot of recipes for this dish out there. Most of them basically the same with a few slight alterations according to ones' taste, and in my case, what happened to  be on hand.
I started out with 2 lbs of apples. Granny smith apples to be exact. they're a crisp semi- tart green apple which cook up great . Peeled, core and dice the apples and put them in a kadhai or pot with:
1.) 1 cup of sugar
2.) 2 cups of water
3.) 1 two inch piece of cinnamon stick
  Put the apples on a medium heat and simmer them for about 10 minutes or until they're just this side of soft. They shouldn't be too mushy,  they should still maintain their shape.

 In a separate clay pot or other deep vessel put
4.) 6 cups of whole milk
  Bring the milk to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer well for about 1 hour. Check in every now and again and give it a nice stir with a wooden spoon. In an hour, the milk will have reduced down to about 2 cups.

  In a separate bowl soak 1 tsp of toasted crumbled saffron in 2 Tbs of warm  milk.
  Add this mixture to the clay pot of boiled down milk along with
5.) 1/2 cup of sugar
6.) 1 tsp of ground cardamom

  Stir it all well. Add in the apple mixture and keep stirring till it's warmed through.
  Take the pudding off the fire and add in
7.) 1 tsp of rose water
   Give it another good stir then
   Transfer the pudding to a metal bowl and chill it in the fridge for several hours.
  I served it with a few mint leaves  and a bit of sirkhand flavored with saffron and sugar. I should have also sprinkled some chopped fresh pistachios on top but the skaters were coming on and I also forgot. I bet it would have been good though. Oh well, maybe next time.

Kathy in Cheeseland

 Usually a cheesy weekend might involve Vegas, a Bachelor Party, Zack Galifinakis and Mike Tysons' pet tiger. At least that's what I'd think if someone mentioned their big fat cheesy weekend to me. Real cheese would be the last thing on my mind. It's not that I don't love cheese. Cheese and I have a had a "thing" for quite a number of years. I have loved cheese since I was a little tiny kid and stood barely reaching the counter of Hermans' Delicatessen on Geary Street in San Francisco and watched the counterman slice the thick soft milky Teleme just for me. Since I ran home from school to cut a big slice of Monterey Jack to go with a crisp Gravenstein apple and do my long division. Since I bought my first wedge of Gruyere and a pair of of Palazzo pants and threw my first Fondue party back in the 70's.  I am a cheese-eater through and through. However Cheese is not something that crops up frequently in Indian cooking, at least cheese that's not paneer or chenna cheese.
 Imagine my delight when my pal  Cheesemaker Sheana Davis invited Alan and me to the Winter Artisan Cheese Fair here in Sonoma. Did I want to go?? Hay-yell yeah I did!

 Sheana Davis is the chef/owner of the Epicurean Connection  and the maker and creator of Delice de la Vallee cheese. She is also a very good friend and my main cheese connection.
 So there I was on a rainy drizzly Sunday in Sonoma heading for  Mac Arthur Place and more cheese than I could shake a bread stick at.

I actually was wearing a skirt  and heels to be more cheese presentable. I rummaged through my bureau before leaving the house search for  a pair of panty hose to really look like a "lady" (which turned out to be another adventure altogether). Let me be clear. I have one skirt. I'm always in jeans and boots because I live in the country now. All my Stuart Weitzman and Casa Dei heels are packed in the closet to be looked at and admired occasionally, but I'm not in LA anymore Dorothy. Boots are the thing here. But there I was.  I dutifully dressed up in my hose and heels to go to cheese-fest out of respect for the cheese-makers and mongers, vintners and brewers who had converged on my tiny town from all over the country to  bring the delicious!
 Once inside Mac Arthur Place's Saddles Restaurant I looked around. Cheese, as far as the eye could see!!

There were also tables of wine from some of the best wineries,  Porter, Stout and Ale including one manned by this guy from Uncommon Brewers..

    ( Alex Stefansky Uncommon Brewers)
from Santa Cruz California, made with Bacon!!!

      Another brewed with lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and Indian coriander .

And of course Saddles galore! Cause it's called Saddles' ...get it???

 

And what would be Cheese Fest without a life size model plastic horse surveying the surroundings??!

      "Wiiiiiillllllbur, where is my Cheese?"
There were Cheese makers as far as the eye could see and they were all more than willing to have us sample their tasty wares.

There were goat, cow and sheeps' milk cheeses. There was even the famous Black Pig Bacon from chefs Duskie Estes and Jon Stewart of Zazu Restaurant off the Guerneville Road in Santa Rosa, and Bovolo Restaurant in Healdsburg. I'd actually seen these guys on The TV and here they were, (at least one of them) up close and personal.

 (above) Chef Jon Stewart of Black Pig Bacon and Zazu

They incorporated it into a delightful warm salad involving brussels sprouts and what else? Cheese.

 Even the kids got into the act.

While we stuffed our faces and tasted everything, the cheese makers got acquainted with each other

swapped stories,

  (above (L) Sheana Davis (R). Chef Sangeev of Mac Arthur Place)
posed for cheese groupies (people like me)

(Cheesemasters Daphne Zepos, Janet Fletcher, Max Mac Calman, Sheana Davis)

 and sat down for a radio chat with their hostess .

                       ( Max mac Calman and Sheana Davis)
 Now in the middle of all this cheesy frivolity I had my own cheesy moment. I had a panty hose malfunction. In short, they began to slowly set in the West.  Even I, who so rarely have a need for panty hose knew that I was in big big trouble.
  It was in the middle of the afternoon, I still had a cheese-makers reception and cheese-makers dinner to go to that evening, and here I was about to drop my drawers in the middle of the Winter Artisan Cheese Fair. Not cool.
  Slowly and carefully I scrabbled  my way to the car and hurried over to the nearest pharmacy for a new pair of L'eggs.

Then with stockings no longer at half mast,  I sailed off with my driver/ photographer  Alan, to the Cheese-makers reception and dinner at Rocket Cafe.
  While there, I got to chat with another Sheana,  artisanal cheese-maker Seana Doughty of Bleating Heart Cheese, who we like to call "Seana 10 Sheep" since that is what she has in her back yard and since we know a lot of Sheanas and happen to like the sound of that name, it's gangsta.

                                                  (Seana 10 Sheep milking sheep)

                                    (Seana 10 Sheep when she is Not millking sheep)
Seana had brought along some of her excellent Fat Bottom Girl sheep milk cheese. Between that and Sheana Davis' delicate creamy Delice de la Vallee cheese and some of the most brilliant artisanal cheeses in the whole US of A, we were in hog (or cheese) heaven.

   
  My sister- in- law who got me started on Indian food 20 years ago and who we call the Queen of Cheese because of her love of all things rennety, would have been out of her blooming mind over all the goodies we got to eat in this one day. You see Elizabeth, that is what you get for living in New York City!
 My thanks to Sheana Davis who invited us to step through the looking glass and see what's on the other side of the udder.

My Cheesy Weekend

 It's not got anything to do with Indian food, but I had an amazing cheese and fun filled Sunday at the Winter Artisan Cheese Fair in here in Sonoma.
  It was truly an adventure to enter the cheese world. So coming soon, I explore Cheese-Fest 2010 and discover something new and strange to accompany an Indian meal...hint: it's not cheese.

Something's Fishy In Kerala!

My two Italian grandmothers were amazing cooks, but after them the foodie gene in my family seemed to have skipped a generation. The homemade pasta, gnocchi, gravy and cookies of my childhood gave way to my moms' "personal Chef", some guy named Boy R Dee. Maybe you've heard of him.
  Beside all the usual Italian favorites, I also grew up eating fish dinners on Fridays. I use the term fish loosely because the "fish dinners" usually served at our house came frozen solid with a picture of a smiling fisherman on the box. I think it was the guy in the slickers' American cousin. Living in San Francisco there wasn't much excuse for this sort of fish behavior. One of the largest Fisherman's wharves on the west coast with a huge variety of seafood was just blocks away. So, how the heck did that guy in the slicker seem to get in our fridge so often? To be truthful, we also had fresh fish on occasion, but by the time it got to the plate, it looked more like something that would be flung into the air after someone called "pull!." No one ever asked what kind of fish it was.
  With that kind of early experience, it took me years to get into cooking fish. I'd had too much finny trauma. Then I started cooking Indian food and began exploring the wonderful fish dishes that the cuisine offered. It was a whole new and delicious world. I was finding my inner Nemo.
  The book Prashad has a lot of fish dishes in it, and since I've been reading it lately I decided to harpoon myself some fish.
  This recipe is done with pomfret but since we don't have any of that up here in Sonoma, I used basa instead which is a nice mild firm fleshed fish. Since the origins of Basa are in Southeast Asia, I figured it would be a good match for what I was doing which was
                     Fish with Tamarind Curry

I was able to whip this up pretty quickly for lunch for the two of us using about 3/4 of a pound of fish. To  make it for 6 people  as the main dish for a meal, you'll need a little more. Start with :

1.) 1 and 1/2 lbs of fish chunked into pieces and set aside
Heat 2 Tbs of vegetable oil in a heavy pan or kadhai
When the oil is hot toss in
2.)  1 tsp black mustard seed
 When the seeds start to pop toss in:
3.)  1/2 tsp fenugreek seed
4.) A 1 inch piece of finely chopped ginger
5.) 4 green chilies splint longways down the middle
6.) 1 crushed clove of garlic
7.)  2 onions thinly sliced
  Cook this down until the onion is soft and translucent.

Then toss in
8.) 1 tsp of turmeric
9.) 1 Tbs of coriander
Fry it up for about 2 minutes then add in:
10.)  1 cup of coconut milk
11.) 4 peeled, chopped tomatoes ( since there aren't any good fresh tomatoes around here about now, I might suggest one 16 oz can of good quality chopped tomatoes)
12.) 2 Tbs of tamarind puree

Bring all of this to a boil and then lower the heat and simmer it all for 5 minutes.
Then add the fish to the mixture

Simmer it all again for about 2 to 3 minutes or until the fish is cooked through.
13.) Add salt to taste and then scatter a few curry leaves about the top.
I served it with a cauliflower and pea dish and some nice roti.

 There it is. Nothing in a box. Nothing frozen, and no guy in a bright yellow raincoat hanging around the kitchen...unless that's the way you roll.

Clay-Pot-A-Palooza!!

 I love my clay pots, I cannot get enough of them. Paula Wolfert  gave me this habit. She started me off by giving me some clay pots, I went out and bought more and now I'm hooked. The other thing I like almost as much as clay is a SALE!!! I am like that dog in the beggin strips' commercial. All I hear is one word..SALE and I'm there.
 Today is the annual seconds sale at Bramcookware. It started at 10 a.m. and I was right there for the kick off.

While I was busy elbowing the crowd to find a treasure, Alan took some snaps  of all the claypot action. For those of you who are clay enthusiasts..these were real and I mean real bargains with a capital B and it's still going on. So, if you live in the Sonoma area I'm just sayin....I got mine !
  I managed to grab a gorgeous La Chamba Pottery roaster at a fraction of the normal price.

Which I placed in one of my clay pot holes  in the kitchen, beside two old Weller twin vases.

 I also found a great serving piece!

  Today I'm back to my Indian Masters Cooking from Prashad. I've got fish, and coconut milk and curry leaves and tamarind and I'm going to town. This recipe is courtesy of Syed Naseer, the chef who claimed to have learned by numerous thrashings so it ought to be good! Stay tuned! More to Come.