Made for Each Other. Chocolate Olive Oil Ice Cream.

   When it comes to hooking friends up, I confess I suck. I am the world's worst matchmaker. Had I been in the Garden of Eden introducing people, we'd be a planet of snakes. It doesn't matter, young or old, gay or straight, if I tell you I have your perfect Special Someone, you have my permission to ignore me. In fact just freaking run because I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'm just talking about romance here. As far as introducing people who I think might really get along in business or personally, I got that. As long as there's no candlelit dinners involved, I'm good. I also love it when people introduce me to people they know who are doing fun and interesting stuff.

   A couple of months ago my friend Chip told me he had someone he thought I ought to meet. Her name is Anne McKibben and she's the founder of  CocoaPlanet. How could I be living in this small, small, town with someone who makes such killer chocolate and not know it???? Beats me. That's fixed now. Anne's great and her chocolate is amazing, and from the moment I tasted it I just wanted to do something special with it. A couple of weeks ago I got my chance.

   While doing my dinner in honor of St. Martins' Press publication of the Essential James Beard Cookbook, I was introduced to California Olive Ranch Olive Oil. The minute I tried the Arbequina oil, I had a matchmaking idea. What would happen if I put this olive oil together with Anne's Chocolate Olive chocolate? After stepping into a cold shower and slapping myself around for a few minutes: "No Kathy, bad Kathy, leave that nice olive oil and chocolate  alone. What did they ever do to you?" However, I just couldn't get the idea out of my head. So, yeah I did it. I introduced them.

They're such a cute couple and together they'd have such a beautiful baby.

Chocolate Olive Oil Ice Cream

Here's What You Need:

6 egg yolks
1 and 1/3 cups of milk
A pinch of salt
1/2 cup of sugar
1 cup of whipping cream
1/2 cup of Arbequina olive oil
4 oz of CocoaPlanet Chocolate Olive Chocolate
Large crystal sea salt

Here's What To Do: 

Chop 4 ozs of chocolate into chunks and set them aside.

Mix the milk, sugar and salt together in a pot.

In a separate bowl whisk the egg yolks and set them aside.

Pour the cream into a large bowl and set a strainer on top of the bowl. Set it aside.
Heat the milk, sugar, and salt mixture until it's warm.

When the milk sugar and salt mixture is warm, pour it into the bowl of egg yolks. Pour it in slowly and keep whisking. You don't want a bowl of scrambled eggs.
Pour the egg yolk, milk, sugar, and salt mixture back into the pot.

Keep the heat on medium and keep stirring the mixture until you have a thickened sort of custard.
Remember to scrape around the bottom of the pot too so nothing burns.        
When it coats the spoon or spatula, it's ready.
Pour the custard mixture through the strainer and into the cream.
Add in the chunked chocolate and stir it  into the mixture.

Blend the olive oil into the custard thoroughly. Whisk it hard, so that it's combined thoroughly.

Then set the bowl in an ice bath and whisk everything well until it's cooled.

Set the bowl in the fridge for a few hours or even over night to chill thoroughly, then pour it into an ice cream machine. 25 minutes later you've got ice cream.

  The smooth chocolate blended well with the fruity olive oil and it was instant love. I sprinkled a bit of chunky sea salt on top of each serving, because olive oil was always served with a bit of that at my house growing up, and who doesn't love a bit of salt on ones' chocolate?

It had to work.

It did. I was relieved to have put two things together that were most defintely still speaking to me at the end of it all.

   I'd like to thanks the good people at California Olive Ranch and CocoaPlanet for helping me make this love connection happen. I'm most definitely making this recipe again, this time I'm working on a three way between the chocolate, the  olive oil, and an ingredient yet to be named. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

James Beard and Me, Indian Style

   Years ago I read an essay by the great New Yorker Magazine writer E B White  called "This is New York." It was a love letter to a place that I had never been and would not visit until I myself had become a writer and was there for business. I never forgot this essay however, and every now and then I take it out and read it, partly for the pure pleasure of reading E B White, and partly because of what he has to say about dreamers. The quote that has always stuck with me is this:

   “The city is always full of young worshipful beginners — young actors, young aspiring poets, ballerinas, painters, reporters, singers — each depending on his own brand of tonic to stay alive, each with his own stable of giants.”

   Stable of Giants. I like that. I realized when I first read it that each of us, no matter where we are  or what we aspire to, have our own stable of giants. I will never forget the first book that I read that made me want to be a writer, that made me feel I could be a writer, since there weren't a lot of writers where I came from. The book was Martin Eden by Jack London, and as I later found out that book has been the inspiration for a whole lot of people deciding to write.

   Writing is what I do for a living and also what I love, but right behind it, breathing down its' neck is cooking. Since the writing process is long and has many twists and turnings (especially the screenwriting process) cooking has become my own personal form of instant gratification. There are no "notes" in cooking. No one says, "make the eggs a little bit more prominent", "Do we really need the onions?"  "I just can't believe the baking powder would do that" or "Can't you make those beets a little edgier?" In cooking, the pork doesn't get up and leave in the middle of the dish to do another recipe. The chicken never asks what else is going to be in the dish before it agrees to go into the pot. There's a certain stability to the cooking process that I desperately need in my life. Cooking is fun, cooking is creative, and when I'm cooking it's one of the few places in my life where I'm in charge.

   Along with the writers I admire, I also have a stable of culinary giants. All I need to do is take just one look at the bookshelf in my kitchen. The oldest most battered volumes there, the ones used hardest, are by Julia Child, MFK Fisher and of course, James Beard.  What I always loved about James Beard was his way of transporting me right into the heart of his eating experience. When I read James Beard I wasn't just reading a recipe for pancakes, I was sitting with him in a diner in the Siskiyou mountains with thick steaming mugs of coffee in front of us made the old fashioned way with eggshells and eggwhites. The pancakes we were served were thick and golden brown, and 8 inches across. The chef had a checkered shirt, a three day growth of beard and his name was Danny. There was a three legged dog outside barking in the parking lot and a '56 Chevy pick up.... you get my drift.

   If you're looking for a muffin recipe, Mr. Beard is not shy about telling you that he personally doesn't think much of the muffin as a concept, or that he finds much use for them. Of course to each his own, go ahead and bake them if you wish. Here are half a dozen excellent recipes. Sucker.  I love that shit! Attitude and honesty about the food he cares so much about. That's pretty rare out there.

   So when I was asked by St Martins Press if I'd like to take a whack at some of James Beards recipes in honor of their publication of Essential James Beard Cookbook of course I said yes!

   Add to that The Califonia Olive Ranch was adding some of their excellent oils to the mix to work with, and it was an offer I couldn't refuse. I was sent a list of selected recipes of James Beard's to work with and the olive oil, and I set off to recreate them with my own sort of twist. I decided to ask a few friends to the feast including an old friend of James Beards and part of the creative team behind the founding of Bon Appetite, Cooking Light and Saveur, among others, Heikki Ratalahti. I asked him to bring along a picture of Mr. Beard.

Here's a closer look at the picture of James Beard and a friend at a party at Heikki's place in San Francisco, way back when.

   I planned a menu built around James Beard's Scallops Saute Provencal. Since scallops aren't found in India but shrimp and prawns most certainly are, I decided to add them to the original  dish and surround the whole thing with a layer of spices for a South Indian style twist.

Shrimp and Scallops Curry

Here's What You Need: 

1lb of medium sized shrimp peeled and cleaned
1 lb of bay scallops
2 medium red onions halved, and thinly sliced
6 tsp of finely chopped shallots
15 curry leaves or 5 bay leaves
9 Tbs of olive oil , I used California Olive Ranch Extra Virgin
3/4 tsp of mustard seeds
3/4 tsp of coriander seeds
3/4 tsp of turmeric powder
4 limes
6 tsp finely chopped shallots or garlic
3/4 tsp of Kashmiri chili or 1/2 and 1/2 mix of cayenne and paprika
salt to taste
3 tsps finely chopped fresh ginger
3/4 tsp of coriander powder
3/4 tsp ground black pepper
3/4 cup of coconut milk
3/4 cup of grated dried unsweetened coconut
additional 1/4  cup of olive oil
1 curry leaf or bay leaf
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro


Here's What To Do:

Heat 9 Tbs of olive oil in a skillet or kadhai.

When the oil is hot, add in the curry leaves, mustard seeds and coriander seeds.

When they start to sizzle and pop, add in the red onions and saute them until they turn a light golden brown.

Add in some salt and the ginger and shallots or garlic. Stir everything around for a couple of seconds.
Add in the chili, turmeric,black pepper and coriander.

Stir it all up, and  sprinkle in the dried coconut.

Stir it up.
Add in the coconut milk. If you need to add a bit more you can. What you're looking for here is a nice thick mixture.

This part of the recipe can be made ahead. Shrimp and scallops cook literally in minutes and seconds, so the dish is finished right before it's served.

Finishing it up:

Dry your scallops before cooking them by placing them on a paper towel. This helps to absorb the water in them. The water is a contributor to scallops that taste like eraser tips.
Set the scallops aside.
Heat a 1/4 cup of oil in a skillet.
While the oil is heating, warm up the coconut sauce.
When the coconut sauce is nice and warm, add in the shrimp and cook them until they turn a light pink. This usually takes only a few (like 3 or 4) minutes.

When the olive oil in the other pan is hot hot hot, add in the dry scallops, a curry leaf and a bit of the chopped cilantro.

Stir them around quickly, to cook them.

They're done when they've lost their translucent look.
Add the cooked scallops to the pan containing the shrimp coconut mixture.

Squeeze the juice of 1 lime over the dish and stir it up.
Put the mixture on a platter to serve.
Place quartered lime wedges around the dish.
Sprinkle chopped cilantro over the top.

I served this  dish with a lemon cashew rice, a simple green salad with caramelized shallot, mango and mustard seeds, and a vinaigrette dressing made with California Olive Ranchs' Arbequina Oil...

...James Beards' never fail Buttermilk Biscuits  and green beans with water chestnuts.
 For dessert, I baked James Beards almond torte and paired it with a saffron pistachio ice cream.


This dessert is a whole other story.
We topped things off with hot chai and a selection of excellent chocolates from Cocoa Planet.

   We lingered around the table till about 12:30. That's when you know the dinner party is working. I asked Heikki what he thought Mr. Beard would have made of all this. "He'd have loved it," he said. "He always liked to have fun."

   So do I, and I want to thank St. Martins' Press for inviting me into this celebration of James Beard, and The California Olive Ranch for providing me with some stunning oils to work with.
Coming up next, James Beards Classic Almond Torte, with a little help from Fran (my mom). Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

A Last Minute Save. The Hail Mary Almond Torte

   While working on the James Beard dinner with St. Martins' Press and California Olive Ranch Olive Oil, the one thing that I kept worrying about was dessert. My mission was to recreate James Beard's recipes using California Olive Ranch oil, all the while adding my own Indian twist. The dinner could be worked with. The dessert was another matter all together. For dessert, there could be no tinkering around... well, maybe just around the edges, an Indian twist here and there. With that in mind I went searching through my battered, falling apart James Beard Cookbook looking for something to suit.

   I poked through pies and creams, custards and ices, cookies, tarts, bombes, souffles and cakes until I finally found something I thought I could manage and add to. Almond Torte. What was it that hooked me about that particular dessert? The springform pan. I happen to have three of them and rarely use them. Why did I buy them? Well, I love tricky equipment when experimenting with food, the more complicated the better. I know there's no big whoop about baking with a springform pan for most people, but for me it's the equivalent of one of those MI6 guys showing James Bond some cool new piece of equipment you just know is going to be used against Penny Serenade or Thunder Pussy or someone like that in the third act.



   So there I was, cruising for a use for one of my spring form pans plus a partner for the pistachio saffron ice cream I'd made and I quickly found one.

   

Almond Torte

Here's What You Need:

6 eggs, separated
1 cup of sugar
3 Tbs of orange juice
1 tsp of orange rind
1 tsp of cinnamon
1 cup of unbleached almonds ground in a blender or grater
1/2 cup of toasted white breadcrumbs
1/2 tsp of almond extract
1/2 tsp of cream of tartar
1/4 tsp of salt.
1 cup of whipped cream
 ice cream

Here's What To Do:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Lightly grease the bottom of an 8 or 9 inch springform pan.
Separate the eggs.

 

Beat the yolks in a mixing bowl until they're nice and light gradually adding 1/2 cup of sugar.

Beat in the orange juice, orange zest,and cinnamon.

Fold in the ground almonds and the toasted breadcrumbs.

Fold in the almond extract. Set aside.
Beat the egg whites until they are foamy.
Beat in the cream of tartar and salt.
Keep beating, adding the other 1/2 cup of sugar gradually until it forms stiff peaks.

Fold in the yolk and almond mixture just enough to combine them well.

Pour the mixture into the springform pan.
Bake in a 350 degree oven for 50 to 60 minutes or until the cake pulls away from the pan.

Okay, so far so good, right? Not quite. The cake deflates a bit of course, but when it comes to unmolding from the springform pan, this is what happened.

    
   Not so pretty. I have unmolded things before and I've never baked anything in a springform pan without greasing it or lining it with parchment paper. But who am I to question James Beard???? The man says just grease the bottom, I just grease the bottom. So there I was with a sunken cake, a quart of pistachio, saffron, ice cream and the ticking clock. What to do?

    I was all set to toss the cake in the garbage when Alan broke off a piece and ate it.
"You are not throwing this out!"

   "Yes, I am."

   "Step away from the garbage and put down that cake!"

   "How the hell am I going to serve this? It's grinning at me like an open wound."

   "There must be something you can do. Can't you call your mother?"

   My Mother? Fran? That's the culinary equivalent of calling in Hervey Keitel from Pulp Fiction. I had no idea what she'd say. Turns out it was something like this. Put A Bird on it?



   "Cut it up and put some whipped cream on it. They'll never notice. It's what I always did." Now THAT explains a lot.

   Well, to prevent any kitchen dumpster diving, I did what she suggested. I broke up the cake and layered it at the bottom of wine glasses.
 On top of that I placed a layer of the pisctachio saffron ice cream
A bit more cake on top of that.
And a final layer of unsweetened whipped cream sprinkled with a bit of chipped pistachios.

    I don't quite know what to call this, a trifle, a parfait, a whatever? What I do know, is that it most definitely worked! Accompanied by a hot cup of chai, we had dessert  perfection. Coming up next a caramelized mango salad, and some more tricks with olive oil. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Mango and Shallot Thanksgiving Salad

   When I was a kid, there was only one sort of salad served by my Nana (mom's mom) at Thanksgiving Dinner. It was an avocado and grapefruit salad, and no matter what, that was always going to be the first thing served. My Nonna (dad's mom) served a small bowl of crystal clear brodo, a perfect chicken broth that all of the grease had been carefully strained out of. It looked so simple and plain but the flavor was unforgettable. She achieved that flavor with plentiful use of chicken feet.

  For years there was no other Thanksgiving starter known in my family but brodo or grapefruit and avocado. When the Grammas were gone and my mom took over, we moved onward but not necessarily upward to canned fruit cocktail with an unripe banana chunked into it. If I haven't mentioned it before, Fran hates to cook. Occasionally she'd change things up with those jarred shrimp cocktails. Sort of like this:

 
   She'd go around the table and pop the top for everyone with a church key. When we moved up to Sonoma full time a few years ago, the holiday cooking tasks settled on me. After all I was the one in the family who actually liked to cook. Of course I was then dealing with the one big problem of most family Thanksgivings: The menu never changes. It cannot. Those are the rules, so even if your family has only been here a few years, or a few centuries, when it comes to the Thanksgiving menu, it's as though they were there at that very first Thanksgiving and "dammit that's was what they served! "

   After a few Thanksgivings of canned fruit cocktail and a "please shoot me" attitude, I decided to take things into my own hands and make my own menu. Since most of the family likes salad, I decided to serve a salad but not the kind of salad they were used to getting. I've used pears and walnuts, persimmons and almonds, pomegranate pips and arugula in various combos, all with good results. But I finally came up with a salad that allows me to put a bit of Indian flavor in the Thanksgiving table.

Caramelized Mango and Shallot Salad

Here's What You Need:

2 large mangoes cut into bite sized cubes or a bag of frozen and defrosted mango
3 large shallots thinly sliced
1 Tbs of brown mustard seeds
Mixed salad greens
2 Tbs of Mango Balsamic Vinegar (I use Mango White Balsamic from Sonoma Harvest )
4 Tbs of Arbequina olive oil. (I used California Olive Ranch)
1/4 cup of finely chopped pistachios
salt to taste
1 dried red chili
2 Tbs olive oil for sauteeing

Here's what to do:

Heat 2 Tbs of olive oil in a skillet.
When the oil is hot add in the mustard seeds.
When they start to pop,  toss in the shallots and the dried red chili.

Saute the shallots until they start to brown and  caramelize.
Add in the cubed mango.

Stir them around and cook them down until they soften and darken a bit.
Take the mixture off the stove put it into a bowl and set it aside.

In a separate bowl mix together 2 tbs of mango balsamic vinegar and 4 tbs of Arbequina olive oil.

Mix it together well.
When it's all blended together, add salt to taste.
Mix the oil and vinegar into the washed and dried salad greens.
Place a portion of salad greens on every plate.
Place a pportion of the mango shallot mustard seed mixture on top of the dressed greens.
Sprinkle a dash of finely chopped pistachio over each serving.

   There it is, a simple easy to fix salad. Is it traditional? By my familys' rules, a big N.O. Is it delicious? Yes. Sweet and spicy it goes great with most everything one might find on the Turkey Day table.

  I'm not cooking my usual Thanksgiving Day feast this Thursday as we'll be eating with Fran over at rehab, but come Saturday night it's a friend's Thanksgiving at our house and I'm itching to get back in to the kitchen again. Coming up next, some old and new holiday favorites for celebrating. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Back to Basics, Saffron Pistachio Ice Cream

   It's been a mad two weeks around here and I still can't totally wrap my head around what's been going on. We've been spending our days and nights at the hospital and now rehab for Fran, and all of this was just Whammo right out of nowhere. We didn't see it coming. So before all the craziness started, I was innocently planning and cooking a dinner for St. Martins Press publication of The Essential James Beard Cookbook.

Excellent olive oils were  contributed  by the good people  at California Olive Ranch. For dessert because of a few unmolding "technical difficulties," I turned an accident with Mr. Beard's Almond Torte into a trifle layered with something I felt would go perfectly. To add a bit of Indian flair to the dessert, I decided on a  recipe I'd seen and admired from The Tartlette I tweaked it just a bit and came up with Saffron Orange Pistachio Ice Cream.

Saffron Orange Pistachio Ice Cream

Here's What You Need:

2 cups of whipping cream
1 cup of milk
1 cup of sugar
zest from 1 orange
5 green cardamom pods
A pinch of saffron
1/3 of a cup of raw pistachios

Here's What To Do:

In a pot or pan mix together the milk, cream, orange zest, and sugar.
Crack the cardamom pods and add the seeds from inside and the pods to the milk mixture.
Bring the mixture to a simmer on a low heat, stir things up a bit and make sure the sugar is totally dissolved.
When it starts to simmer, take it off the heat and set it aside to steep.
Let it cool to room temperature then refrigerate it.
It's best if it's refrigerated overnight.
Pour the fully steeped liquid through a strainer.

Press down on the stuff that's left behind to get any extra flavor.

Add in the chopped pistachios.

Add a few threads of saffron to the mixture.

Pour into your ice cream machine, and you're good to go!

As I mentioned, I layered this with cake and unsweetened whipped cream, but it's great just on it's own. Believe me, I tried it that way.

   I'd meant to write this up earlier, but today is the first day in two weeks I've actually cooked anything. It feels good to be back in the kitchen. Its been a rough three weeks and it remains to be seen what comes next on the parental front. So many of my friends are going through similar things right now. Hearing from other people who have been down this road or are on it right now helps and I'm very grateful for everyones' support.

   Coming up next, right now..who the hell knows? The one thing that is certain is that it involves chocolate and olive oil. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori