When I was in Taipei this August, my grandmother taught me the recipe for this version of stir-fried green beans.  This dish is somewhat similar to the popular “dry-fried green beans,” but delivers a completely different set of flavors.  This dish combines sugar and salt with just a hint of heat.  The soy sauce draws out the pork’s sweetness, and the pork accentuates the beans’ fresh, green flavor.

Perfect for a hot summer night, and fast enough for a weeknight dinner.

Ingredients:

• At least 1 lb of Green Beans or Yard-Long Beans (sometimes called “long beans”)
• Red chile peppers or red chili pepper flakes
• Garlic
• A dash of soy sauce (dark soy sauce)
• Thai basil
• 1/4 lb of ground pork or diced pork belly
• Dark brown sugar

Beans: You can use either regular green beans, or yard-long beans. If you choose to use regular green beans, blanch them first.  The green beans should still be crisp when you remove them from the water.  Long beans are much more tender, and don’t require blanching

Chiles: Depending on the level of heat that you desire, you can use fresh red Thai chiles (Thai Dragons or something similar), dried chile pepper flakes, or dried red chiles.  My grandmother prefers fresh red Thai chiles.  Note that in Taiwan, the fresh red chiles tend to be sweet and tender, with just a hint of heat.  The Thai chiles commonly available in the U.S. are much hotter.  If you’re not a fan of heat, do not slice the chiles.  Use them whole.

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a wok (or large skillet).  When the oil is hot, throw in the garlic and the chiles.  Once the garlic and chiles are aromatic, add your ground pork. In Taiwan, cooks sometimes use uncured pork belly, which gives this dish a darker, earthier flavor.

2. The ground pork should give off a bit of fat. Once the pork is brown, throw in your green beans/long beans.

3. Stir-fry in the wok for 5-6 minutes.  The chiles and the beans should start to brown and “sear.”  Add soy sauce, sugar, and a few sprigs of basil.

4. Once your beans are tender and browned (“seared,” like the beans in “dry-fried green beans”), they are ready to serve.

For a lighter dinner: Pair with white or brown rice and a fresh cucumber and carrot salad. If you’re serving a group: Pair this dish with red-braised pork, a cucumber and carrot salad, and a tofu or shrimp dish.

He MAKEs Absorbent Art:
An Interview with
Visual Artist Marty Coleman
Part 1

Read Part 2 of Marty’s Interview

Marty Coleman is a visual artist who has been working in multiple mediums throughout his career.  Based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Marty works in his own photography, design and art studio, MAKE Studio. In 2008, Marty’s “napkin art” piece “America The Beautiful” was included in Time Magazine’s Person Of The Year 2008 edition on Barak Obama.  Recently, Marty  published his first book, ‘The Napkin Dad’s Book of Absorbent Ideas’.

Visual Artist Marty Coleman

I knew Marty from my college days in San Jose, California at SJSU.  Marty was earning his Master of Fine Arts degree, and I was an undergrad music major.  During those student years, we became friends at a successful downtown dining establishment and art gallery, Eulipia Restaurant, where we were fellow waiters.  Eulipia was well known for its California Cuisine, and it was a major gathering place for artists, art aficionados, opera enthusiasts, serious art collectors and diners.  Indeed, it was a deeply creative (and truly gastronomic) atmosphere in which to work.

Almost twenty years went by where Marty and I completely lost touch, and through the Facebook revolution, we recently reconnected.  Back in the day, Marty was the wise-cracking sage who presided over the less experienced wait staff (I was in that group for a time).  Today, it is fascinating and fun to catch up with Marty on his progress and evolution as a full-time independent artist.

==============================

Here’s our interview/conversation:

JW:  Tell me a little about your background — where you grew up, what interested you as a kid, what kind of influences affected you as a child that contributed to your becoming an artist.

MC: I grew up on the beach in Southern California, moving to Connecticut in the summer of love, 1967.  Talk about a culture shock.  I moved back to California at my first opportunity.  Landed in Hollywood!

My Grandfather was my main influence in me becoming an artist.  He was a very good amateur painter.  On the one hand, he let me play in his studio, work at his drawing table, learn about his wood working equipment, etc.

Archipenko

Just as importantly though was his influence through being a collector of fine art.  He had a great collection of mid-century regionalist prints and drawings, as well as a number of larger paintings and sculptures.  He had a silver plated figurative sculpture by the Russian artist Archipenko that us grandkids would touch and stare at for hours because of it’s very cool cubist style.

Later, my mother inherited many of my grandfather’s art pieces and they surrounded me in my home as I was growing up.  It is no mystery why I ended up going into printmaking and drawing with my focus being on portraits and figures when I went off to college.

My interests as a kid were typical in many ways. I loved to swim in the ocean and the pool. I loved to make plastic models, mostly of monsters from movies like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Mummy, Frankenstein, the Werewolf, etc.

JW:  Why am I not surprised at this monster revelation?!

MC:  My father was an aviator and paid for me to be in a boy’s flying club from the age of 13 on.  I got my solo license on my 16^th birthday and my private pilots license when I was 17.  He had hopes at some level that I would go into aviation but, to his credit, he never pushed me. He saw early on that I was an artist and wanted to be an artist. He encouraged that, as did my mother.

JW:  Was there one defining moment that made you choose art as a profession and life style, or did it happen over time as the sum of many smaller moments – or in a completely different way?

MC:  The defining moment came when I was born.  I never wasn’t going to be an artist.  I never had any doubts nor entertained any other profession seriously.

JW:  After childhood, who or what were some of the influences that helped to shape your course as an artist?

MC:  I went to Brandeis University for a year or so and the print and drawing professor, Michael Mazur, was influential. I was just an undergraduate, taking beginning courses, but he taught me individually a number of times, and we talked often about creating art.

The #1 lesson I remember was that art was a physical activity.  That my hand and arm and shoulder should move in the way the subject moves. That if it is a straight and hard fence I am depicting, then my hand should have that hard gesture. If it is grass, with it’s sharp staccato rhythm then I need to move my hand to emulate it.  What is the thing doing? How can you move yourself to reflect that thing?

JW:  That is so akin to an actor’s process!  You are finding the character — knowing your subject, understanding how the character physically moves and discovering how she feels – and then literally becoming that character through the physical “reality of doing.”  I love to discover the universal elements or qualities that underlie all creative expression, regardless of the medium or genre.

MC: It is the same with me as a visual artist. I love to truly ‘see’ who and what a person is. What they really look like.   Part of the joy of doing photographic collage work is in finding the disparate elements of a person, their jewelry, clothing, feet, hair, surroundings, and combining those things with the face to create a portrait that says more about who that person is than just the face by itself.

Marty Coleman: "Portrait with Door to the Future"

Among artists I found myself most attracted to people who used narrative imagery to tell stories. Edward Hopper, Rembrandt and Matisse are the most influential 2 dimensional artists for me.  Roger Brown from Chicago is one of my favorite 2D artists.  Roy Lichtenstein is as well.

Edward Hopper                                               Rembrandt

Henri Matisse, Roger Brown and Roy Lichtenstein

One of my art heroes is Vera Lehndorff (formerly known as Veruschka the 60s super model).  She spent 16 years doing a project called ‘trans-figurations’ where she painted herself to match her surroundings.  Many have emulated that idea since, but she took it deeper and farther than anyone else.

Vera “Veruschka” Lehndorff and a work from “Trans-figurations”

Robert Irwin, the west coast environmental artist, is someone whose work I love. It is all about the transformation of a space with the use of translucent material so the space remains intact but is perceived differently.

Robert Irwin: "Two Running Violet V Forms"

One of the most important lessons I learned from him is in the simple title of his biography, ‘Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees’.  I taught this again and again to my art students over the years.If you really want to see something, forget the name and all its associations, all its symbols.  An eye has a very obvious visual symbol attached to the name (think Egyptian illustrations of the perfectly formed symbolic eye).  But if you really want to see a person’s eye,  you have to forget that and look at how the lines, colors, shapes, and contrasts really are in that particular eye. When you do that, you will really see ‘it’ instead of keeping the symbol in the forefront and never understanding that eye.

Finally, the best artist working today in my mind is Andy Goldsworthy. He is also an environmental artist, using only natural materials on his forays around his native british countryside.  His work is the grand and elegant artistic expression of that unexpected moment of joy when you walk around a corner on a hike and see a little pile of stones that someone has piled together in a fun way, or a bright red piece of tape on a tree in the middle of nowhere.

Andy Goldsworthy: "River"

Andy Goldsworthy: "Sticks Framing A Lake" sculpture

I know that many of these artists I am most enamored with aren’t working in the same arena I am right now. But I hope to move into a broader landscape for my work in the same way that these artists have. They inspire me.

Funny enough, though most of my work now is in photography (photo-collage) I have much more of an affinity for those who have been defined as artists throughout history and presently than those who have been seen as photographers.

Marty Coleman: "Cog Nation"

Marty Coleman: "Heads Growing Side By Side"

Marty Coleman: "The Logical Fallacy Stripped Bare By Her..."

What I mean is that there has historically been a separation between the photography world and the art world.  I came out of that art world and now happen to use photography as my media but I still see myself as an artist and look for others who are artists, no matter what the media.

JW:  Marty,  I have seen you work in a lot of mediums – painting, drawing, photography, photo collage, etc., — what does it mean to you as an artist to work in multiple “genres”?  What impels you to do that?

Mixed Media Sculpture, Charcoal Drawing and Photograph by Marty Coleman

I just never have thought of art as being within one genre or realm.  I understand it makes it harder for those judging my work to make decisions about where I am going to go or what they can rely on, but if they know me and my work they actually do know they can rely on it to always be recognizable as my work.

Marty Coleman: "The Stranger Juxtaposition #7"

JW:  What does creativity mean to you?  How is it expressed in your life as well as your art?

MC:  Creativity is creation.  Creation can’t take place without an open minded approach to possibilities.  Creativity is about fun.  I like to make people think and smile, those two things are my goal.

Here are the projects I have done in the past few years that weren’t primarily ‘art’ but combined creative thinking and creative fun.

Painted my picket fence to match my Dalmatian, Oreo.  The kids walking home from school would hear a barking fence:

I tore down a dropped ceiling in my kitchen and replaced it with recessed lighting. The remaining holes in the ceiling I covered with ceramics my daughters had made in elementary school.  I had a ready place to show off all their stuff and it didn’t take up any shelf space. And they didn’t get dusty:

I tore apart a 1915 upright piano (after getting it appraised and trying to sell it) and used the wood to make a 2008 bookshelf.  I am using more pieces from the piano as a frame for a 3Dimensional figurative piece that will be sold in a breast cancer charity auction later this year.

I remodeled my living room/dining room/entry way/staircase/upstairs hall (all seen at the same time in the open floor plan of the house). I used dark and light striped wood for the flooring along with an orange carpet. The walls were a deep gold, pale yellow and a deep red.  Nobody would think in advance they would go well together, but I knew they would and they did. The house sold in 8 days and when it was up for sale a year later we went to the open house incognito.  The realtor talked about how the house was the result of a very good artist a couple of owners before and that it had gotten a great response as a result.

JW:  Marty, you have a keen sense of humor – a wry wit and an often “warped” or “left of center” way of looking at the world.  Do you think of that as a part of your art or does that inform your art?

MC:  I think it informs my art. It is as if I speak two languages (or more).  The first language is the one inside me. It is me.  Then I ‘speak’ in my other language, the language of art, and I translate me, the first language, into the art language.  The humor is changed slightly, maybe milder, maybe funnier, maybe a bit more obscure and referential instead of straight out obvious.  The wit and warped me finds it’s way into my art somehow!

From Marty's Postcard Series: "Extra Hot Postcard"

JW:  You mentioned in a past conversation that “how Inspiration is accepted, allowed and nurtured” is of great interest and concern to you.  Would you share what you mean?

MC:  Here is the crux of my belief about being an artist.  Courage, perseverance and love are the three main criteria to being an artist.

You must be courageous. That means you must admit what you love and admit it to the world. So, you are inspired by God.  You must have the courage to tell the world that, knowing that some will say ‘God, what a dopey idea’. Or, ‘she’s in a cult’, or ‘how schmaltzy can you get.’  I am primarily inspired by women. I love them. I love how they look, how they make themselves up, how they look nude, clothed, sexy, plain. I love getting up close to see pores and freckles and scars and tan lines and wrinkles.  I admit that, knowing some will say I am just a dirty old man (or used to be a dirty young man).

Marty Coleman: "Wind ow"

I have this inspiration.  I have to accept that.  I have to allow it in my life. I have to nurture it. That means I have to find a way to turn that inspiration, obsession, passion, whatever you call it, into something positive and valuable for myself and others.

Marty Coleman: "C with the Pacific in her eyes"

Many are inspired but don’t have the courage to admit it.  They don’t want the world to know they love leaves, or bugs or roadkill or 7 headed monsters or naked men.  They are worried what people will think. They are worried about judgment and their reputation.  So they pursue some other path they have less passion about. As a result their art is mediocre and forgettable.

Inspiration comes to your door but it doesn’t mean you are going to let it in.

This concludes Part 1 of my interview with Marty Coleman.

Marty Coleman: Bubbles of Love

Read Part 2
Check out  The Napkin Dad
and what spirituality means to Marty Coleman and his art.

examples of Marty’s napkin art

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About Marty Coleman

When I asked Marty to supply me with his bio, he jauntily referred me to his site.

I’m glad he did!  Here’s what Marty tells us (abridged) in his own words:

“About:

• I have 2 degrees in art, a BA and a MFA. I emphasized printmaking, drawing, and photography.
• I taught Beginning & Figure Drawing, Design & Color, and Art Appreciation for 9 years at the college level.
• My work started out in grad school as photo-realist drawings. I liked the photos better by themselves so I started doing photography and photo-collage on its own.
• I continued to draw and paint, but from live models not photos, with imagined narrative imagery behind the portrait.
• I also started doing some commissioned photo-shoots; black and white portraits and figures.
• I left teaching and went into computer art. I moved, along with my family, to Oklahoma to get my first job in that industry. I created Educational CDroms for kids, and that led to Internet Design.
• I stopped creating large scale works or exhibiting my work during an 11 year period in which I worked and helped raised my 3 daughters. I did, however, continue to create a large amount of artwork on a small scale, including the napkins.
• When my youngest graduated from high school, my plan was to re-enter the art world as a practicing, exhibiting artist, which is what I am now doing. I am currently a full time independent artist, photographer and web designer. MAKE Studio is my business.
• In 2006 I fell in love with and married a wonderful woman, Linda. With the support of her and my 4 daughters (added an exceptional step-daughter in the marriage) I am continuing on my chosen path.
• That is what this is ‘about’.” Read the whole story!

Assaggiare Mendocino’s Eggplant Salad

Recipe and photo submitted by Julia Kendrick Conway

www.assaggiare.com.

Once again, a fellow foodie read my mind.  I was saying how much I loved eggplant to a friend and suddenly… a reference to this eggplant salad pops up on Facebook!  It looked so wonderful, I just had to get the recipe!

The wine country of California offers a bounty of wonderful people who are passionate about food and wine.  Julia Kendrick Conway of Assaggiare Mendocino is no exception.  Her love of food and the art of cooking guided her to the Mendocino area where she started her own business.  Assaggiare provides unique catering services and cooking classes.

Nothing makes Julia happier than sharing her craft with others.  She believes in using nothing but the highest quality local ingredients from neighboring farmer’s markets.

If you are visiting the Mendocino area, please consider Julia for catering needs or attend a class in her teaching kitchen.  For more information please visit www.assaggiare.com. Thank you Julia!

Ingredients:

• 3 small sweet peppers, Gypsy or Lipstick are recommended
• 1/2 pint home canned tomato conserva
• sea salt
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed and finely chopped
• 1/4 tsp dried aleppo pepper bits
• 1/4 tsp ground dried chipotle or spanish smoked pimenton (less spicy)
• 1/4 cup robust olive oil
• 4 fresh Italian or Asian eggplant, cut into 1” cubes with skin on
• 1/4 tsp LaMar’s Mendocino Seasoning Sand*

Cut peppers in to quarters, removing ribs and seeds, char, skin side down on the grill until skin blisters. Cool, peel and chop coarsely. Heat tomato in a saucepan (or substitute 1 whole tomato, peeled and seeded plus 3 tablespoons doppio tomato paste and thin with water) and add garlic, aleppo pepper and chipotle. Simmer about five minutes to develop and meld the flavors, taste and season with sea salt as needed or balance the sweetness of the tomato.

Heat olive oil over medium heat in a deep saucepan with a heavy bottom. Add eggplant, and stir to coat with oil. Cook until tender, 15 minutes +/-, stirring to prevent sticking. Add pepper pieces to tomato mixture and set aside. When eggplant is cooked through and translucent, add the tomato mixture and reduce temperature to low, simmering for 5 minutes. Season with LaMar’s Mendocino Seasoning Sand and serve warm or at room temperature with pan-toasted flatbread or flour tortillas.

The LaMar’s is a fabulous new product from our farmers’ market in Mendocino that is made from their locally harvested sea salt, garlic, onion, black pepper and brown sugar. Ask for it at your local retailers or order online here

Last night, I ate at the Chez Panisse Café (or “upstairs,” as some like to call it) for the first time. For the better part of a decade, I’ve passed by the restaurant’s front doors without entering.  I’ve studied the menus, bought the cookbooks, and even patronized restaurants operated by CP alumni, but until last night, I’d never actually eaten at the restaurant.

To access the restaurant, one must first climb a narrow flight of stairs. The dining room itself is long and narrow, almost a galley, broken roughly in halves by a semi-circular bar. The decor itself is very Arts & Crafts―all warm browns and soft creams. On this particular night, the powder-pink peonies dominated the floral arrangements, a reminder that June sits on the cusp between summer and spring.

Before, I agonized over what to wear. Though the staff sports crisp formalwear, the diners are a motley mix of high and low. But I was probably the only diner wearing a bright red dress. Red is not really a Berkeley color.

There were 8 of us, so we sat a single long table, broken in the center by two low copper lanterns. The dinner was a celebration, a welcome for some old friends from France.

We started the evening with a bottle of Domaine Tempier rosé (a Kermit Lynch favorite). Our guests had a friend in the kitchen, and besides the wine, he sent out another little treat: a small pizza topped with roasted squid.

Feeling lazy, I went with the fixed menu: a garden lettuce salad, dressed with a very mild vinaigrette (more olive oil than vinegar, with little gritty bits of sea salt and black pepper), a clam and sweet corn chowder with leeks and a fragile triangle of flatbread, and a pluot sherbet with moscato d’asti and sliced nectarines.  The pluot sherbet was the piéce de resistánce. Light, ephemeral, the sherbet delivered tiny, concentrated bites of pluot essence. Dessert was pure summer, delivered on a spoon, the perfect coda to the meal.

Alice Waters describes menu planning as something akin to the playwright’s art. According to Waters, a well-planned menu should follow a clearly defined narrative arc. Last night’s menu took us from late spring (the garden lettuces) to full summer (the sweet corn), closing with the velvet-dark of a summer night.

I hadn’t expected to like Chez Panisse. I wanted to be an iconoclast. I wanted to hate this restaurant, or at least play the snob and declare myself “underwhelmed.” And there were things that could improve. But overall, it was a lovely, understated evening. The food was plain, almost like home cooking, the flavors were familiar and warm. Chez Panisse has a very Northern California approach to aesthetics. It is very Old Money, exacting a measured rejection of fireworks and flash. There’s no edge here, and no desire to find it.  Chez Panisse places its trust in those things that are classic, timeless, eternal.  Never be ashamed of cashmere and pearls.

Jeremiah Tower Cooks

by Jeremiah Tower

After there was Julia Child, Paul Bocuse, Pierre Franey and Jacques Pepin and before Thomas Keller, Paul Prudhomme and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, there was Alice Waters and her chef Jeremiah Tower. Her restaurant Chez Panisse was legendary in the Bay Area and became famous nationwide through the Chez Panisse Cookbookand other writings. The restaurant, which opened in 1971, is credited with creating “California Cuisine” and Tower is considered its Godfather. He is the creator of the “gourmet pizza”, a concept later taken to massive heights by Wolfgang Puck and others. Even though Waters’ and Tower split less than amicably and the two have traded barbs in print and through the press, I suspect that Ms. Waters has more respect (if not affection) for her old head chef than she’s willing to admit (and vice versa).

Tower became one of the earliest “celebrity chefs” in America (transplants like Child, Graham Kerr, Bocuse, Pepin and Franey notwithstanding). He did it without having a cooking show or a raft of popular cookbooks but did it though is association with Waters and his subsequent restaurants Sana Fe Bar and Grill and his most famous joint, Stars. He was (and is) legend in the culinary world and this cookbook will show you why.

If you’ve read any of my cookbook reviews, you’ll know that I treasure a cookbook that opens the door to a chef’s inner workings. The best cookbooks written by chefs are more than just the sum of recipes, but almost manifestos of their cooking philosophy and the passing of house secrets that can transform the readers’ own culinary efforts. And this book has it in spades.

A book that has the outer appearance of an artsy-fartsy coffee-table book, you’ll find the insides almost utilitarian, with sparse illustrations and a matter-of-fact look and feel. It starts with Chapter One, “ Delights and Prejudices”, with the admonition that errors and improvisations are allowed (his individual gourmet pizza was the result of a happy accident). He runs the gamut of a glossary of cooking terms and phrases and a concise list of techniques that are used through the book. And his description of “salt and pepper to taste” is very blunt – that’s exactly what he means.

His 250 recipes are fresh, healthy and mouthwatering, just what you’d expect from the best California cuisine.

As we are on the cusp of summer, I can’t recommend this book more highly, nor is any other cookbook more appropriate to this time of year. You’ll learn many quick tips and insights about combining food in palate-pleasing combinations. You’ll discover that great food doesn’t have to involve jumping through hoops.

But let’s let croc-wearing Mario Batali have the final word:

Jeremiah Tower became my instant hero the first time I set foot in Stars, three days after it opened. To this day I consder him my ultimate mentor, and his voice, style, and opinions the arbiters of taste and truth in the restaurant world. The recipes and words within this book are timeless classics, as is Jeremiah himself. I love this guy. 

A new study shows that the gender of one’s children is a contributing factor to one’s attitudes about politics, and that those with daughters are more likely to be liberal than those with sons.

Parents, and particularly fathers of daughters tended to vote for such typically liberal on issues such as reproductive rights, public policies benefiting women, equal pay, affirmative action, etc.  Because parents invest a significant amount of themselves in their children, the authors argue, they want to create a world that is more beneficial to their offspring’s best interests.

Something to mull over next time you head to the voting booth.

Speaking of Liberals, have you ever been to Berkeley California? My father and his brothers went there – my father during the crazy days of the late 60’s.  Here are his daughters at the most recent Big Game, all bedecked in Cal gear and face tattoos.

So the reason I bring up Berkeley is that I’m reading a really fascinating book that every foodie really must pick up. Tout de suite. It is called Alice Waters and Chez Panisse – The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution by Thomas McNamee.

Chez Panisse, for the 12 of you who don’t know) is the famous Berkeley eatery started by Ms. Waters in Berkeley back in the early 1970s.

Her singular vision changed the landscape of food in this country.  When she began, you could not find olive oil, mesclun, or goat cheese on supermarket shelves.  The highest end restaurants in American were serving canned vegetables in their entrees! If you love your Whole Foods and your local farmer’s market, I implore you to fix up a little olive tapenade sur la baguette, pour yourself some California wine, and sit down and indulge in this book.

Chez Panisse was conceived with ample helpings of sex, drugs, free-living (hey, this was Berkeley) but most of all, an absolute passion for food. If there’s one thing I love reading about more than food, it’s stories of passionate people – the truly talented ones – who create their dreams out of thin air. Most of the chefs in Chez Panisse, including Ms. Waters, did not have formal training, but rather impeccable buds and a desire to create something that did not exist. Anywhere. This was to be more than an eatery.  It was to be a gathering place for artists and musicians, film makers and traveling gypsies. A place to congregate and enjoy the finest food around.

Ms. Waters’ vision created the cuisine for which California is now known. Her story reminds us: those who become truly great followed no worn path, but blazed their very own.

Available at Amazon for $10.20.

I was at the ever-wonderful Connecticut Forum in Hartford.*  The topic was “Food for Thought.”  On stage were three chefs:  Anthony Bourdain (of  his memoir Kitchen Confidential and the TV series No Reservations), Duff Goldman (Ace of Cakes, a big hit on the Food Network) and Alice Waters (Founder of Chez Panisse).

Anthony and Duff are media personalities.  Anthony states, rather charmingly, “I’ve never been an innovator.”  I’m not sure what Duff would say on that topic, but I get the sense that the combination of his endearing personality, big beefy athletic build, and his highly improbable career as a pastry chef is what makes him a big deal.  Not being an innovator either.

But Alice Waters….oh, that Alice.**

To foodies, she is revered as the first prominent American restauranteur to promote the notion of eating only fresh and locally grown foods.   She created California Cuisine.  More than thirty years later, her “let’s only eat food from healthy sources” aspiration is widely spread and understood, if not widely adopted.

But the soft-spoken and slightly dreamy Alice has been steadily living and POUNDING that message for three decades.  As the familiar words kept coming out of her mouth (getting close to the source of our foods, concern about American fast food culture) I had to keep reminding myself that this was not some copycat idealogue parroting a very familiar and, sadly, tired mantra.  This is the woman who FORMED these ideas.  She is the ORIGINATOR.

It was disconcertingly difficult for me to experience Alice’s ideas that way.  I kept thinking “Yeah yeah yeah, I have heard this all before.”  And then I would stop and think, “Hold on.  This is ALICE.  These are her ideas. and she is presenting them with the same conviction and passion that she did when she created them.”

And I realized, how rare is it for anyone to be in the presence of a truly original thinker.  We forget how fresh and radical those ideas were when they first surfaced.  And how deeply valuable.

(Thanks to The Connecticut Forum for consistently presenting these thinkers, in their 17 year history.

*Photo from Forum event taken by Kathleen Cei, and also presented in this article from the New Haven Advocate.

**Photo of Alice is from the Chez Panisse site…no photographer name is listed there.

It occurred to me that some of my newer readers may not know why I have Issues(tm) with California Cuisine.

I spent 9 months traveling almost every weekend to research Moon California. During this period, I ate California Cuisine, Wine Country Cuisine, Haute Cuisine, Fusion Cuisine, Pan-Asian Cuisine, and just about every other form of Cuisine imaginable. Much of it tasted amazing. I got great service, cool atmospheres, original menus, and stunning wines.

At the 6 month mark, I found myself standing before a nice inkeeper who desperately wanted me to get dinner at the new high-end wine bar and restaurant in Nevada City, California. My traveling companion had to physically restrain me from grabbing the poor man by the collar of his shirt and screaming into his face, “I just want a burrito! Is that so wrong?!?!!?”

(That night I compromised with a plate of ravioli, then hit the wine bar afterwards for a glass of dessert.)

The bottom line: there is such a thing as too much of a good (or even wonderful) thing. California’s fine restaurants serve some of the best high-end fare you’ll ever eat. But you, or at least I, can’t eat it 2-5 times every week. It’s too rich, too fancy, too *much*. I understand now why all major restaurant reviewers end up waxing poetic about their favorite hole-in-the-wall sushi joints and taco trucks.

Happily, my beloved home state also hosts an endless array of fab cheap ethnic eateries. (“American diner” is an ethnic food, as far as I’m concerned.) And in my ‘hood, the year-round farmer’s markets and sustainable meat and bread purveyors make it easy to cook great food at home.

Okay, I’m hungry now…

Just got back this afternoon from a lovely long weekend in Southern California, one of my favorite places. I lived in Los Angeles from 2000 to 2002, and also in Sonoma from 2005 to 2006, so I’ve gotten decent tastes of both southern and northern Cali. Literally. Anytime I get an opportunity to go back to the Golden State, my mouth immediately starts watering at the thought of In ‘N Out Burger.

Hubby worked at the Long Beach Grand Prix over the weekend, so baby and I tagged along. Although we stayed with hubby at his hotel in Long Beach, I did make it up to L.A. for a couple of occasions, including an overnight stay at my gracious cousin’s apartment in Hollywood last night.

On prior visits, hubby pointed out that I often refer to my favorite L.A. restaurants as having the best fill-in-the-blank-here ever. Well, with the abundance of fantabulously fresh California produce, seafood and such, it’s hard for it to be anything but! Plus, the ability to dine al fresco year-round always makes everything taste better in my book.

In no particular order, here are several of the culinary reasons I love L.A.:

In ‘N Out Burger. Those who know are nodding their heads right now. The yummiest burgers, fries and shakes in the Southwest – bar none. Everything is made fresh on site; no freezers and no microwaves anywhere on the premises. For added hipness factor, there’s a secret menu you can order from. Well, it’s available on their web site, so I’m not sure just how secret it is, but it’s not posted at the restaurants themselves. If you really want to sound like a true aficionado, saddle up and order your cheeseburger “animal style” to get it loaded with grilled onions and special sauce. The employees are the nicest fast-food servers I’ve ever encountered anywhere, and why shouldn’t they be? You know when you’re working for the best. And, it’s CHEAP-ass. Less than $5 gets you a high-quality burger, fries and drink. Seriously, what more could you want?

Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Chicken? And waffles? Together??? WTF! Trust me on this. Roscoe’s is awesome southern soul food in the heart of Hollywood (and several other locations). Order the Carol C. special to get the quintessential sampling — one juicy  succulent chicken breast and one toasty-good buttermilk waffle. If you feel really bold, toss in a side of gravy, cornbread or some greens. Imagine a steaming hot waffle, a little trickle of the syrup oozing its way over onto the crisp crust of fried chicken just like your grandma made, only better. It sounds weird, but it WORKS.

Toi Rocking Thai Food. A great place to take out-of-town guests, the walls are filled with music memorabilia, it’s dark and kitschy and the food, indeed, rocks. You may even see a star or two. I ate there last night and I swear the guy who sat behind me was one of the Lakers. I couldn’t tell you which one, but anyone that tall has to be a basketball player of some sort. The menu offers Americanized Thai food the likes of which I curse not being able to find in Indianapolis. I always get the yellow curry with chicken, a rich and fragrant coconut broth with chunks of chicken, potato and onion swimming within like buried treasures. They also make some darn good brown rice and a terrific peanut sauce I could eat with a spoon.

Griddle Cafe. Pancakes bigger than your head with crazy good toppings and fillings including but not limited to fruit, chocolate, nuts, caramel, cinnamon, butterscotch chips, coconut, Oreos, Kahlua… and the list goes on. Come early, the place is small and tables fill up quick, plus the Sunset Blvd. location makes for good star-sighting potential.

Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. True Angelenos turn up their noses at Starbucks and go here instead. With good reason. The coffee’s damn good, and there’s a more diverse selection of better muffins, pastries and such.

Pinkberry. A relatively new addition on the L.A. food scene, Pinkberry burst onto the market a couple years ago and has been going great guns every since. It’s a frozen yogurt chain, but what makes it special is that their yogurt includes some sort of healthy enzymes or bacteria or something that actually makes the stuff good for you. There are only two flavors to choose from and a handful of  fresh fruit and cereal toppings to mix in, but this is a great example of creating your own niche  by sticking with a small menu and doing it well.

Koo Koo Roo. Awesome rotisserie chicken and sides that put Boston Market and the like to shame.

Alas, jet lag is catching up and overtaking me. More additions to come as they occur to me…

If you know me well, you know that I love pickles, spicy stinky kimchi, and japanese tsukemono.  So, when I found the Cultured Pickle Shop online, I really felt as if the owners founded the company just for moi!  Go here to see their adorable products….http://www.culturedpickleshop.com/Welcome.html.  Their raw sea kraut looks divine and what a nice blend of east and west! 

Cultured Pickles

Photo Credit: http://jordanferney.blogspot.com/2009/04/cultured-pickle-shop.html

We fly to a friend’s wedding outside of San Francisco (we are lucky enough to be attending/have attended 3 weddings in CA from 2008-2010!) Nothing screams fresh, local, and organic like San Fran’s innovative restaurants and food culture.  We are attempting to make reservations at the oh so famous Chez Panisse (http://www.chezpanisse.com/) for August too.  There are too many places to go/see and we will only have 3 days!

Asparagus season is short. The thin, delicate stalks soon mature, and develop a tough exterior and woody core. Here in California, the season starts in late March, and is over by mid-April. Early-season asparagus is easy to prepare — just toss it in an iron skillet with a bit of olive oil (and maybe a few pieces of bacon, for something decadent), and season with salt and pepper.

As the asparagus ages, it loses its sugar and develops a stronger, more pronounced “asparagus” flavor. Then, it’s time to apply some creativity.

I never paid much attention to asparagus until I experienced “spargel saison” in Austria and the South Tyrol. Spring asparagus, through my childhood, was simply a given, something that appeared on the table in early spring and disappeared a few weeks later, replaced by other vegetables. Asparagus typically appeared on our table as a simple stir-fry — young stalks cooked quickly, over high heat, with slivers of pork belly and a clove of crushed garlic.

In Austria (and neighboring regions), asparagus is something to be noticed, and celebrated. The mood is festive — for asparagus heralds spring, closing the chapter on a long, cold, and often wet, winter. Asparagus season starts later in Europe–perhaps due to the northern latitude. The first asparagus shoots appear on the market in late May or early June.

We arrived in Fulpmes, a small town just outside of Innsbruck, in late May. The asparagus season was in full swing, and we ate asparagus for lunch and dinner. In retrospect, I am a bit surprised that we didn’t have asparagus for breakfast as well, though perhaps I should be thankful. (We had fresh milk and farm eggs for breakfast, instead, with homemade jam and fresh brown rolls.) While in Austria, we had green asparagus, white asparagus, asparagus lightly blanched in a salad, asparagus dressed with olive oil, asparagus in soup… And when we moved south, to the part of the Tyrol included in present-day Italy, we encountered more asparagus. It starred in festivals, in culinary contests, in daily specials. Perhaps it was Stockholm Syndrome, but by the end of our trip, we found ourselves in love with asparagus.

Today, it’s enough for one to look at the other and mention “spargel,” the German word for asparagus, to conjure the spectrum of asparagus-related dishes that we consumed that spring.

If you should find a bunch of tender young asparagus at your local green market, try this pasta recipe. While not a perfect recreation of the Tyrolean dishes that capture our hearts, it does bring a bit of the Dolomites to California. This recipe uses green asparagus, instead of the white spargel so popular in Europe.

Fresh Spring Asparagus with Hard-Cooked Eggs and Speck

1 bunch of tender, young asparagus, tough ends removed, chopped into pieces (you may julienne the stem if you like, but keep the tips whole)

1 package of good-quality egg pasta (fresh egg pasta is even better), tagliatelle or wider (commonly known as “nudeln” in German)

6 oz. of speck
4 hard-cooked eggs
1 clove of fresh garlic, finely diced
Finely shaved Parmesan or Pecorino Romano (really, any hard cheese will do)
Olive oil
White wine or champagne vinegar
Salt
Black pepper

Optional: fresh herbs, finely chopped (typical Tyrolean herbs include chives, basil, chervil, oak-leaf arugula)

Prepare the hard-cooked eggs in advance. Slice thinly. Reserve.

Prepare a pot of salted water for the pasta. Heat the olive oil in an iron skillet — adjust quantities to your taste — and when the oil begins to sizzle, add the garlic, some freshly ground pepper, and a bit of diced speck. When the mixture is fragrant, add the chopped asparagus. Once the asparagus is cooked through, remove from heat. Dress your egg noodles (bandnudeln, or “band noodles”) with your olive oil and asparagus mixture. You may add more olive oil to moisten the pasta. Add a bit of vinegar to bring out the asparagus’s sweetness, and then add the eggs, the shaved cheese, and the herbs (if you are using them). Toss. Plate, and then garnish with shaved cheese and sliced eggs.

You can also substitute butter and cream for the olive oil and eggs, to create a completely different dish. You can make the cream-based sauce with white or green asparagus, though white asparagus is not easy to find in the United States. In this case, you will also want to substitute white wine for the white wine vinegar.

Serve the pasta with a dry white wine.

Marillenknoedel (apricot-filled dumplings) would be the perfect finish for this meal, but it is not an easy undertaking. Easier, and equally authentic, would be a cream parfait with a fruit sauce (the bed-and-breakfast in Fulpmes served us a divine honey cream parfait with a strawberry-rhubarb compote).

A special cut of lamb breast squared off are called Denver ribs. I’ve decided to call the breast of Bill Niman’s Bolinas goat simply Bolinas ribs as they are that good and deserve a name unto themselves as the lamb deserves Denver! Read more about how I prepared them!

We hate to break the news to Denver but you’ve met your match in Bolinas!

While digging around, I found this great article on the top 5 guilt-free beer companies. Apparently two of my top favorites, Long Trail and Sierra Nevada, made the list. However, I’m wondering if Sierra Nevada is truly “guilt-free” for me, as it has to travel all the way from California to reach me in New Jersey. For me, then, Long Trail is the most eco guilt-free, except for those times in which my friends make beer, which would be by far the freshest and least travel miles possible.

Clay’s La Jolla
7955 La Jolla Shores Drive
La Jolla, CA 92037
858-551-3620

4-7:00 p.m. Daily
7:00 p.m.-Close Sushi (Thursday & Friday only)

Drinks
$4 Well Drinks
$3 Drafts
$5 House wine by the glass

Food
50% off regular menu: View Menu
Thursday & Friday Sushi include $3 hand rolls, $5 Large Kirin, and Sake specials

Azul La Jolla
1250 Prospect St
La Jolla, CA
858-454-9616

All night Monday
4-6:00 p.m. Tuesday thru Sunday

Drinks
$6 apple-tini, lemon drop, cosmopolitan, azul margarita
$2 off wines by the glass
$1 off beers

Food
$8.00 Crispy Tempura Calamari wasabi mustard dipping sauce

$9 Sweet Corn Fritter Crusted Soft Shell Crab braised artichoke salsa & mexican cotija chile sauce

$9 Oak Roasted Oysters Trump pernod creamed spinach & tarragon glacage topped with black truffle caviar

$11 Maine Lobster Pot Pie thousand layer pastry crust & saffron vegetable fondue

$10 Tour of the Mediterranean assorted mediterranean dips & spreads served with crispy coin papad

$9 Humboldt Fog Fondue parmesan crostinis, grand marnier soaked golden raisins, candied walnuts
& 25-yr balsamic reduction

$9 Hawaiian Ahi Tuna Tartare sashimi-grade tuna, napa cabbage, toasted almonds, wasabi tobico
& soy-ginger vinaigrette

$6 Mixed Baby Greens toasted almond-coated laura chenel goat cheese and honey-balsamic vinaigrette

$8 Anjou Pear & Walnut Salad mixed young lettuces, gorgonzola cheese & raspberry vinaigrette

$7 Azul Caesar whole baby romaine leaves, parmesan crisp & garlic croutons(topped with grilled chicken $9 or topped with sautéed shrimp $10)

$9 Ginger Chicken Salad grilled chicken, almonds, orange sections & ginger dressing

$9 Crispy Romano-Crusted Chicken Salad gorgonzola cheese, avocado, orange sections,
pine nuts & balsamic-honey vinaigrette

$9 Kobe Burger smoked bacon, bleu cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, garlic mayonnaise & fries

$8 Grilled Chicken Sandwich smoked bacon, swiss cheese, crisp romaine, avocado, tomato & dijonnaise

$8 Grilled Fresh Fish Sandwich salmon, ahi or cod on a buttermilk bun with basil mayonnaise

$11 8 oz Flat Iron Steak served with classic mashed potatoes, baby carrots & cracked peppercorn demi-glace

$9.5 Grilled Iowa Pork Chop ginger spoon bread stuffing, buttered french green beans & rhubarb compote

$12 Balsamic Glazed Lamb Loin Medallions bruleed goat cheese, oven roasted tomatoes, mint-curry couscous & tunisian harissa

$9.5 Macadamia Crusted Mahi Mahi forbidden black rice, baby bok choy & red thai curry sauce

$10 “Kyoto Style” Cedar Smoked King Salmon wasabi mashed potatoes, buttered asparagus & black cherry glaze

$10 Yellowfin Ahi Tuna Steak [one-sided grilled rare] truffled beluga lentils & shaved fennel salad
with a saffron, onion & kumquat compote

$8 Grilled Zucchini, Eggplant & Goat Cheese Flatbread portuguese tomato sauce

$9 Canadian Rock Shrimp Flatbread basil pesto, cherry tomatoes & goat cheese

$9.5 Mongolian BBQ Beef Wood-fired Flatbread cilantro aïoli

Azul La Jolla would like to thank the local farmers, fisherman and ranchers whose dedication and commitment to quality make it possible forus to provide you with the finest, freshest ingredients available.

You know you have a good book in your hand when time simply evaporates – poof! two hours gone just like that. This is what happened when I boarded my flight from San Francisco to Seattle and cracked the spine of Alice Waters and Chez Panisse. If you’re interested in food, and I’m assuming you are since you’re reading a food blog, then this gem will keep you spellbound and salivating in no time flat. It’s the perfect balance of cuisine, biography and history.

If you are unfamiliar with Alice Waters and her famous restaurant Chez Panisse please allow me the honor of an introduction. Alice Waters was a young woman with a passion for food, an unwavering vision, determination and virtually no restaurant experience when she opened the doors to her Berkeley, California restaurant in the early 70’s. What set her apart from other restaurateurs during that early era was her obsessive devotion to quality local and organic ingredients; something she experienced during her months as a student in France, but relatively unheard of stateside. This revolutionary approach to artisanal cooking resulted in the birth of California Cuisine.

I won’t give any more away, you should indulge in it yourself. But I tell you this, if you are a food lover you will gobble this book up.

Enjoy the feast!

Blanca
437 South Highway 101
Solana Beach, CA 92075
858-792-0072

5:30-7:00 Tuesday thru Sunday

Drinks
$8 Select Martini and Cocktail
$2-6 Select Beer and Wine

Food
$4 Small, $7 Large Heirloom Wisconsin Black Popcorn
$7 Truffled French Fries
$9 Dungeness Crab Cakes
$8 Tempura “Salt & Pepper” Prawns
$7 Seafood Sausage “Corndogs”
$9 Market Oysters on the 1/2 Shell
$7 House-Made Pita Bread
$12 Selection of California Artisan Cheeses
$12 Charcuterie Plate

Le Papagayo
1002 N Hwy 101
Leucadia, CA 92024
760-944-8252

5:30-6:30 p.m. Daily
5:30-Close Tuesdays

Drinks
$3 pints on Tuesdays
$7 drink specials Thursdays on
Cuban night

Food
Various food choices under $5
Cuban night on Thursdays include various tappas $6 or less

Sbicca Bistro
215 15th St
Del Mar, CA 92014
858-481-1001

4:00-6:30 p.m Daily

Drinks
Monday Martini Madness-Over 100 Martinis for $5
Tuesday and Thursday-Almost all bottles of wine at 50% off

Food
parmesan-dusted calamari white truffle dip happy hour 5.5/regular 9

rock shrimp havarti quesadilla avocado habañero-papaya salsa happy hour 7.5/regular 12

artichoke & hearts of palm dip grilled flatbread happy hour 5/regular 8

shiitake grilled chicken spring rolls blue cheese, arugula, almonds, currants, lemon plum sauce happy hour 5.5/regular 9

roasted artichoke tomato bruschetta grilled radicchio, fresh mozzarella, basil pesto, crushed pine nuts, féta happy hour 5/regular 8

new zealand green-lip mussels hearts of palm, oil-cured olives, garlic, tomato cream, pesto drizzle
happy hour 5.5/regular 9

louisiana blue crab cakes chive chipotle rémoulade happy hour 6/regular 10

grill fired rosemary beef skewers crisp spinach leaves, horseradish sauce happy hour 6/regular 10

grilled chicken tortilla salad warm black beans, tortilla strips, corn, chopped romaine, ranch dressing, avocado, salsa fresca, féta happy hour 6/regular 10

warm spinach wild mushroom salad pear tomatoes, bacon, balsamic vinaigrette happy hour 5.5/regular 9

roast turkey cobb salad avocado, bacon, tomato, hard-boiled egg, creamy gorgonzola dressing happy hour 7/regular 11

1/2 pound bistro burger sautéed mushrooms, onions, cheddar happy hour 7/regular 11

beer-battered fish tacos avocado, salsa fresca, black beans happy hour 6/regular 10

blackened albacore sandwich lettuce, tomato, tartar sauce happy hour 7/regular 11

avocado turkey burger havarti cheese happy hour 6/regular 10

grilled chicken breast foccacia lettuce, tomato, melted fresh mozzarella, pepperoncini, pesto mayo
happy hour 7/regular 11

Menu and prices subject to change. Accuracy of menu and prices not guaranteed.

Pacifica Del Mar
1555 Camino Del Mar
Del Mar, CA 92014
858-792-0476

4:00-6:30 p.m. Daily

4:00 p.m.-Close Monday & Tuesday

Drinks
$1 Off: All Drinks
$5 Martinis Wednesday ONLY: All martinis, all night, any flavor

Food
Discounted Bar Menu Items.
More info coming soon…

Menu and prices subject to change. Accuracy of menu and prices not guaranteed.

1517 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, California 94709

Café Reservations: (510) 548-5049
Restaurant Reservations: (510) 548-5525

http://www.chezpanisse.com/

Dear Alice,

Someday I hope my name will invoke awe as yours does.  I dream about a time when seating hosts will know me and clear the best table in anticipation of my arrival.  I hope to inspire back-end kitchen flurry and savor the best that modern dining has to offer.  When I get to this point, it would be fun to sit with you and discuss the future of the food universe as Foodies emerge.  How about it?  For now, let me say this.  I picked Chez Panisse for Mother’s Day this year 2008.  It was nice sitting next to the kitchen, because I was able to capture this shot of your pretty bread basket, but the table was a little drafty to be honest.   The food was wonderful obviously.  But next time can we be towards the window?  Hey restaurants, you know you’ve made it in my book, when I allow my mother to enter your premises.  Know that and be on the lookout for me.  World, here I come. 

About me: I like warm fresh bread with cold hard butter.

(Me, mom, and LDC)