Eating Out Vocab Test

There are so many damn weird ass words for food these days that it’s a nightmare to figure out which language to learn, so you can speak the words of food with smartness. Give it up. Latin, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, on and on and on. So many fucking words for a cut up potato. But sadly, a lot of them do a good job of describing the state and condition of the food item in question, some intimating entire recipes or several combined, just by it’s name.

Motherfuckers.

So, in the short but illustrious history of Eating Out Fresno there have been some high falootin’ kewlinairy turms that have been bandied about that do bear a bit of explanation. We’ve got boil, fry, bake and sauté down. But what in the living fuck is a concasse? Great grandma knows. She called it getting ready for canning season. What jackass called cut ribbons of leaves a chiffonade? Fuck me sideways if I know, but I’ll do my best to tackle these fancy linguistic sudoku puzzles and put them in regular, if overly wordy terms.

Concasse: as in concasse’d tomatoes. This is where you quick boil (blanch) and shock tomatoes that you have scored on the bottom, so that the skin of the fruit will slide off of the flash cooked exterior without cooking the majority of the fruit. Then removing the seeds and stem area. Leaving them ready to chop or puree. (the ACTUAL definition is just to chop up something…stupid language)

Shock: (not the Shocker!  Dirty minds...) When you boil an item and then remove it from the heat and immerse it in ice water to stop the cooking process.

Score: In the case of tomatoes, to make a shallow ‘X’ at the bottom for the skin to peel away from or to otherwise make a shallow cut into the exterior of an ingredient in some form.

Sachet: Bunch of spices and herbs in a teabag or cheesecloth that you figure some magical way of closing (sewing anyone?)

Chevre: Silly French word for goat cheese.

Herbs de whatever: This is always a good one to Gooble. Whichever one it is (5 spice powder, chili powder, herbs de provence, etc) it’s usually pants-easy to make yourself and you might even have most, if not all of the components in your spice rack already.

Chinois, china cap: Fine mesh strainer and something to mash stuff through the mesh. Easily faked in the home kitchen with a decently tough wire strainer and a wooden spoon. If it’s about well strained, clear broth, a wide mesh coffee filter will serve the purpose in a pinch. After all, all they do is throw a cheesecloth into the chinois.

Brunoise: A tiny cube-ish dice. It’s the old trick with an onion or other veg where you make several horizontal cuts, then several vertical, then slice across the grid. Tiny 1/8th inch squares of whatever. At some point I think I’ll actually make a video of how to do it, or at least link a better example of how (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpqEu-YDWVQ)


And so there we go! A small handful of words that I had to bug the shit out of people to learn what the hell they really meant and how to achieve the actual reality that they implied. They’re all bloody sonovabitches, that’s for sure. And if there are any more bizarre food words that are puzzling you, send them to me! I promise to learn to the best of my interweb abilities what they actually mean and compile them into a further list of culinary vocab that I’ll wind up drunkenly posting at 3am. Promise!


-Pook

Eating Out My Uncle Vin's Ribs n Eyes

I sit before you, dear readers. Full to the gills, simmering in a fabulous gut stew of well wrought culinary artistry and not a little bit of the vintnery, distillation and brewery arts. And though the booze doth drive me to write out the insanity that dwells in my brain, the food is what gives me a subject by which to humble myself.

So has Veni Vidi Vici made me this evening. As Tower jewels go, this is the Star of India of the district. We all hear about it, but far too many people have never seen it’s beauty. I mean, we’ve all had drinks with friends on the most awesome patio in the entirety of the Tower. But how often do you eat there? I’ve studied the menu many times and for some reason the dishes never seemed to fire my imagination. They’re certainly not lame, boring, same old same old. But somehow it lacks the WEIRD that most “gourmet” restaurants have. No smashed duck livers or baby cow cheeks or artfully sautéed buttholes in a fabulous doo doo sauce.

What a fucking pretentious dick I have become. By reading a few French cookbooks and figuring out how to make a not-ass cream sauce, I have somehow joined the ranks of “holier than thou who dost not watch Alton Brown” set. If it doesn’t have the stench gland of a Micronesian weiner beetle in it, it’s not cuisine, right?

Thank god for Veni’s showing up on the set this evening to remind me what a high-falootin’ jackass I am. Their cuisine isn’t boring or plain by any means. But despite the many compliments that wiser Tower goers than I have offered, I always looked at the menu outside and felt that it just didn’t challenge me. Dinner tonight taught me beyond any doubt that familiar ingredients can be used in new and fabulous ways. Foods you know can turn into amazing nutritional chameleons of flavor.

Kicking off dinner we had the goat cheese appetizer. A nice little pond of olive oil, with a modest tower of peppered chevre and a flotilla of calamata olives in attendance. Tasty and nicely spicy from the coarse black pepper. Good amount of acid and tang from the olives, smooth creaminess from the cheese and a bit of girth from the olive oil. Smash some of the garlic confit into the bread and you’re in heaven.

Middle course was the absolute weirdest! This was the first lesson. I knew each ingredient fairly well. But what they became in combination in my gob was astounding. We ordered and split their pear salad with arugula, spinach, bleu cheese and candied pecans with a mustard vinaigrette. I swear to you, with the whole affair in your mouth a’chewin, it tastes just like a strong cumin pork. Not a lick of meat in the salad obvious. For a neophyte still learning what food means as an art form, it was a big epiphany.

Ok, touchy feely hippy crap over. Main courses are on and it’s animaltastic. First there’s the juniper crusted pork chop. Sweet! Crusty, the flavor of fire mixed with spice and the flavor of sweetness. Juniper didn’t leap out at me, but it blended well with all the other players. Then there was the portabella ravioli with andoulli sausage and cherry tomatoes. Lord how I hate un-pureed tomatoes. But this rocked! Earthy and shroomy as hell. The evil woman stole all the sausage goodness, so I assume it was fabulous. And I scored on their rib eye.

A quick aside about the eye o’ the rib as it was described. I was thinking it was going to be a rosemary and blue cheese with maple syrup affair. How pleasantly and non-advertizedly surprised was I going to be! It’s still on it’s roasted new potatoes (CRISPY! Look burned, but that’s the caramelized spices on the top) and broccolini. But my toppings were a crust of goat cheese with a ribbon of Guilden’s Brown mustard and stripe of Sriracha, or as I prefer to call it, Cock Sauce (there’s a rooster on the bottle!). Food snob says, “I can totally tell what’s on here, this is therefore crap!”. But fortunately, people I consider wise have given Vin’s food much praise, so I STFU and saw some meat into my face. And….dare I say?? Toppings made from shit I have at home can actually taste so hella good I won’t whine about it being served at a restaurant! Ok, doesn’t hurt that a friend was comping dinner…but still! I’m a huge pain in the ass about restaurant meals and this shit tasted good as fucking on a school day! I'm totally stealing their recipe and plating. Now I just need their meat vendor and I’m set!

So, I’ve picked on my foodie-wannabe ways for a bit. Time to pat myself on the back. For, you see, my dinner mates had no stomach for attempting to further stuff their frames with the wonders of dessert. But there’s friggin bananas foster out there! Braving the first step, we also score some of their white chocolate ice cream. The foster was fab. Nice caramel sauce, ripe sautéed bananas and a filo crisp for a bit of crunch. The white chocolate ice cream was really subtle, maybe a tiny bit icy-crunchy but really nice. But the (raspberry?) sauce at the bottom was hard as heck to taste outside of the vanilla base.

Hands down, great experience. We had all psychically decided on goat cheese for the appetizer, and from there we ate nothing but recommendations from our server. Everything was damn well made, my steak done to actual medium rare perfection and even then, rested properly. And the one taste I got of the pork chop was a huge reminder that swine can be divine when well cared for. Veni’s rep is safe and even well deserved in my eyes. There might not be fois gras on the menu, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not turning out meals that are well worth the ticket price.

At first I was a wee bit worried being the Eating Out Fresno guy offering to show a good friend where to eat well in town. Especially since I had my own worries about the lack of oddities on the menu, but I wanted to take them where it’s easy to relax and have fun. In the end, it couldn’t have been a better call. Erna’s Elderberry might have been fancier, Trelio might have been more haute cuisine. But Veni Vidi Vici perfectly fit the bill for friends to enjoy wildly delicious food and to feel able to be very casual and catch up on each other’s current lives. Right now, Vini’s is holding the trifecta top spot in my heart with Cracked Pepper and Tower Dogs. Odd combo, but to me it means love.

-Pook


P.S. and special shoutout to friend of EOF Tracy and her magical Italian stallion.  Many heartfelt thanks for a wonderful mealsperience and fun ass evening of draining the local watering holes of all of their booze.  This must occur again in your neck of the woods.  So it is written, so it must be!

Eaiting Out Originality

Thanks to Joan Obra from the Fresno Beehive for bringing something awesomely unique to our attention.  Apparently Fresno has just gotten it's very own Casa de Tamales!  A strictly tamale-centric restaurant.  It's everything tamales!

No longer do we have to wait for our wonderful friends and neighbors to begin the Christmas orgy of small business and family tamale construction.  Or suffer through the poor little frozen tamales microwaved and drenched in sauce that you get at Biff's Authentic Taco Shack and Surfboard Waxeria.  At least thats what we're hoping for.  Fresh steamed masa goodness.

And beyond the usual and obvious fillings (shredded beef, chicken mole, chorizo and potatoes) they're also doing a selection of sweet tamales that look rather interesting.  I'm insanely curious as to how a chocolate cake tamale will work out, or a blueberry and cream cheese.  Theres even soyrizo(an invention of the Devil) and potatoes for them veggie eating folks....still can't understand how y'all can survive without vitamin Beef in your diet...

Anyway!  The prices look reasonable at around $2.50 per tamale, so assuming 2 makes a decent meal, you're looking at a $5 lunch.  Sounds better than a Micky D's combo any day.  And if you're feeding an army, they sell by the dozen anywhere from $22 to $35 depending on the filling.

I love the premise and I love tamales.  We've still yet to find out if they can make GOOD tamales, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.  It's a pretty bold business move in my opinion.  Fresno does love South o' the Border cuisine for sure.  But many also know the burnout of having tamale stew for the 20th time in February, cursing your cousins for not taking more of Mom's tamales home during Christmas.  But then again, Mom didn't make spinach and artichoke tamales either.

Here's hoping that they're good and they succeed.  If you'd like to beat us out to try them first you can find them here.

-Pook

Eating Out My Hoppity Hop

So, Easter has come and went. I have sacrificed the sacred chocolate bunny to my confectionary lust. But after crashing into a sugar k-hole, I need nutrition of goodness to feed my hunger to make bad religious allegory. An herbal hiccup wound up keeping the whole rib roast in the freezer. So, it’s a pick up game dinner. To the cupboards we go!

The Sam’s run has us awash in good sausage, so we’ve got to make the cervelatta the centerpiece. It’s good enough to stand on it’s own. And we’ve got tons of tomato product, so we might as well dive into our newfound bounty of pasta and put together something there. Top it with some garlic bread and we’re golden! So here we go!

The sausage portion of the show is pretty self explanatory if you’ve cooked sausages before. It being a coiled sausage, you can’t cook it at too high of a heat, or you’ll burn the outside and leave it raw in the middle. I like to give it a good sear on one side, maybe 3-5 minutes depending on your stove. Give it a flip, turn down the heat to med-low and slap a lid on your cast iron. Did I mention the cast iron? It’s my favorite. You should have one, but it’s not a law. Cook until done, I give around another 8 minutes. If grilling, I recommend uncoiling the sausage so that it’ll cook quicker and evenly. Grills be HOT y’all! You can slice and portion out the sausage for plating, but we’s hungry up in this mug! So we serve a full coil per plate. And love it!


Another tomater sauce for tagliatelle
(No basil because it ain’t in season yet)

½ lb dry tagliatelle
1 can diced tomatoes
½ cup water
1 can tomato paste
2 tablespoons dry oregano
2 tablespoons fresh torn sage
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
2 tablespoons fresh parsley
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 pinch sugar
1 dash red wine vinegar

Pretty quick and dirty. Take all this mess except the bay leaf and tomato paste, and toss it into the food processor. Spin until smooth. Add your olive oil to a small sauce pot and heat on medium. Before fully heated, add your tomato puree and the bay leaf. Bring to a low simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Slowly add in the tomato paste until sauce comes to the desired consistency and simmer on low for another 5 minutes. Have the water for your pasta ready and cook to the directions on the package. About 7-10 minutes. Drain and pour into a bowl, then add sauce and toss together carefully. The tagliatelle is a delicate pasta. Grate some of your favorite hard cheese over the top and serve!


Cheese ridden garlic bread

5 slices of sourdough French bread
4 tablespoons of unsalted butter
4 tablespoons of minced garlic
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup grated fontina cheese

Again, easy peasy. Take garlic and butter and salt and mash together. Spread over bread. Top with cheese and place on a cookie sheet. Toss in a pre-heated oven set on broil for about 3-5 minutes or until toasty bubbling and golden. Not on fire and burny and stinky and call the fire departmenty.

Quick, simple, yummers and…holy crap? Did we accidentally throw down another vegetarian recipe of yummyness? I think we did! I hope I don’t tear a rotator cuff patting myself on the back. Really though, the prince of the plate for me is the non-veg sausage of pants-wetting goodness. Some achievements of culinary excellence are still far beyond me and I thank the reclusive god of fat guys that blesses these folks with their meat tube expertise. And big shout out to Mrs. Eating Out Fresno for throwing down on the bread and taking over pasta making duties. She’s the gritty drill seargent to my fruity aristocratic general who believes he’s the reincarnation of Auguste Escoffier and uses pearl handled boning knives. How she can resist throwing a pot of lava-hot tomato sauce in my face while I’m elbowing around to take pictures is beyond me. Truly, I are a lucky protein jockey.


-Pook

Eating Out My Buddy Sam

No, not friend of EOF and our buddy’s wife Samantha. Ewww! She’s pregnant! That’d be like Turducken or something, right? No, no. Sick, dirty, people. We’re talking about Fresno’s own, Sam’s Italian Deli and Market! Where they actually do stuff things into other things. But, with a much more pleasant and delicious surprise.

A family owned and operated Fresno landmark for roughly 3 decades, Sam’s is your go-to spot in Fresno for all things involving lovingly preserved meats. Oh yeah, they sell a lot of Italian foodly goods as well. Not to mention fresh bread, wines, cheeses, frozen homemade pastas, fresh made sauces, olive oils, fine vinegars. Pretty much anything you can think of to make a delicious Italian meal. Easy way, hard way, Sam’s offerings and service just give you a warm sense that they want you to eat well, no matter how much effort you want to put into the meal.


Want to make life easy? Pick up a bag of their frozen handmade raviolis, a pint of their marinara sauce, a half loaf of their pre-prepped garlic bread and a little parmesan and you’re golden. Boil the pasta, heat up the sauce, toss the bread in the oven. Mix, slice, serve. Done! Or, you can pick up some fine canned San Marzano tomatoes (4 different styles, 13 different brands), fresh or dried herbs, your choice of several different romano or parmesan cheeses, 3 different styles of Italian sausage, a mind blowing selections of pasta or everything you need to make your own, and a robust selection of different olive oils…see what I mean?

So let’s split it up a bit and tackle the grocery area first. The first thing you notice on your way in the door is their wine section. Not being much of a vino fiend, I can’t really speak with great authority about their selection. I can however say that their selection includes a large rack of Under $10 wines. Which always works for cheap ass, wine-ignorant me. But I also noticed that they had a few vintages that were climbing well over $75. I assume that makes it really great, bad grape juice.

Moving on! They have a nice, compact area for pickles, preserves and canned fish. Great selection of capers and anchovies. Plus, numerous toppings and spreads involving red bell peppers, eggplant and the like. Then we scoot around to the wall of tomaters. I’m pretty sure they stock enough to arm an entire Jr. High for a Spanish style tomato street war. Pretty much all San Marzano plum tomatoes, concasee’d whole or puree’d. And some of the nifty toothpaste tube Euro style tomato paste, so you don’t waste a whole can if you don’t need a whole can. I wonder if those will ever take off here.

Then we come to their frozen section of mass awesomeness. Here you can buy just about any delicacy that their kitchen can turn out. Soups, pastas, sauces, desserts and even 1 serving meals. Onto the cookie rack! If you like amaretto, you will lose your freaking mind over these little amaretti cookies by Lazzaroni. And shuffle next, to the wall of olive oils and vinegars. Pretty impressive! Much like the wine selection, there are decent olive oils priced just a low as anywhere else and there are very fine olive oils that one would use when you’re not just frying some veg and chicken. Some good looking basalmics and even some reasonably priced truffle products. I might have to hit these up to ease my morel withdrawls soon.

We’re ever so tempted to peek at the meat counter…BAD! No! Bad monkey, no sock for you. Next is produce! Got it? Ok, produce…kinda sad. But it’s understandable, with folks either shopping at farmers markets and organic hippy joints or just buying the cheapest stuff they can find, with little middle ground, a small grocery store’s fresh produce section just isn’t going to make them money. Sad little packets of sliced mushrooms were testament to this fact. But hidden in sadness is joy! For, a safe distance from the ‘shrooms, there were dirt cheap end-pieces of prosciutto!! Happy dance! Don’t get me wrong, I like fancy as much as the next guy, but this stuff was like 1/3rd the price of the full sized shank pieces. And, if one were INSANE, just the right size for a pot of beans…hmm maybe cassoulet? Cheese island is nice as well. Small hunks of parm and romano, a few other sliced bits and some odd looking little salamis.

Along this wall also, is the cold beverage case. Chilled wines, champagnes and beers. Strange as hell to watch a guy pull a 6 pack a Corona out of the same area there is Peroni and Moretti and other interesting Italian brews RIGHT THERE! No accounting for taste I guess. Once, I knew a full blood Irishman who loved the asshole right out of Budweiser. Still makes me weep on rainy Sundays. A Pelligrino Orange soda will make me happier. And so does the pasta section. We’ll just call it robust as hell and point out that they’ve got 3 different choices for risotto rice too!

Deli Counter!!!! I’ve been yearning for this for an hour of power shopping. The little indulgence (ok, huge, expensive indulgence) that’s gonna make me titter every time I open my meat drawer. Well, after I’m done tittering at yanking open a “meat drawer”…sounds like a rude title for an extendable vagina. Excuse me miss, could I put my prosciutto di parma in your meat drawer? It’s sliced very thin.

Oh yeah, they got prosciutto, and Spanish Serrano ham, and pancetta. Tip o’ the iceberg. So many kinds of salami’s that you mystically find yourself rubbing your bum bum on the glass like an pants wearing baboon in heat (they frown on this by the way). Next door is the cheese zoo. Many kinds, several countries, all tasty. Sitting above them are more traditional luncheon meats like turkey, a few different hams and fabulous baloneys like their mortadellas and a new, nifty, smoky, Weaver's Lebanon bologna that tastes, hands down, just like a Slim Jim. Just without all the grease, bone and skin. Must try it! Just don’t think about my description when you do.


Onto the salad portion! They’ve got a really nice selection of olives. All kinds, various preparations. Nifty little deli type dishes like bruscetta topping, tortellini salad, marinated mushrooms (fuggin GOOD!) and a nice selection of single/dual serving fresh entrees that you can whisk off to home or office and reheat. And bless ‘em, they’re truthful about their seafood salad being made with surimi. I still think it’s more elegant and truthful than calling it krab.

And at last, my favorite punctuation to every trip here and the only spot that wars with my undying love of the salami/prosciutto section…fresh meat! As wide as the salami section is, the fresh area is much more focused. Check my earlier rant about produce, so they’re not slinging every cut from cow or pig. In truth, it’s chops, good lookin’ chops I might add. Chuck steak and ground chuck. But I’m not here for a barbeque. I’m pre-moistening my undies over their amazing sausages! Each of their Italians are awesome. Sweet, med-hot and Red-Hot-Italian-Stallion sausage. Good on their own, with some sautee’d peppers or as a foundation flavor for your favorite sauce. And then we come to the Prince of Sausage. He’s thin, long and coiled…ready to strike…your taste buds. Cervellata sausage is a thin, fairly long coiled sausage with a handy skewer for turning. I’m told it’s just a little salt and pepper in the meat. But it is addictively delicious. I could grill and eat these babies all day.


The final note on Sam’s should be the most definitive. And that’s certainly their sandwich service at the deli counter. Wonder what that weird sausage tastes like? Ask the guy for a taste! Like it? They’ll make it into a sandwich! Oh, and they do actually have a menu too. Great meat combos, hot sandwiches, sauced and not. Even braggable pastrami and steak sandwiches.

I’m sure that I’m preaching to the choir here for a lot of you. But if even one person who lives around the ‘No and hasn’t heard of or tried the wonderous wares of Sam’s…because of living in a religious cult deep in the wilds of Clovis, led by a one eye’d buck toothed prophet named Pepper… Anyway! If you haven’t tried them and then you do, you’ll like, thank me or something. Or try to kill me because I blew yer shot on The Biggest Loser. Whichever it is, prosciutto is more delicious than fame any day.


-Pook

Eating Out Mr. Greenjeans

Okay, so he’s really hella dead. So it’d be more like eating old grandpa jerky. Gross right? So instead we’re going to take a cue from a friend of EOF Kattra and attempt a…oh god…I think I might have yarfed a little in my gob. A vegetarian recipe. Oh god! I’m sorry, I’ve gotta empty my sorrow into my porcelain Lord.

Ok! Upbeat again. So vegetarian right? Well crap, I guess I do have a bunch of farm fresh produce, I can turn out at least one semi vegetarian meal. But god damn it, I’m keeping my butter you bloody hippies! You can use your precious olive oil instead… Grumpily moving on.

Veg-gasm time!! We’re gonna make ourselves a tomato vegetable pasta soup with friggin barley! Cuz grains is good.

EOF Veg-gasm Tomater Veg Soup

1.5 pints canned or concassed tomatoes
2 cups water
2 table spoons unsalted butter
1 cup finely minced leeks
3 ribs celery chopped
4 medium carrots chopped
3 stalks of baby garlic minced (or 2 cloves)
6 fresh sage leaves ripped a new one by hand
1 table spoon dry oregano
1 table spoons fresh thyme
1 big pinch cayenne pepper
3 table spoons of violated parsley leaves
¼ cup barley
2 cups sliced zucchini (Italian sausage…SHHHH!!!)
2 bay leaves
¼ lb shell pasta
1 squeeze o’ lemon
Salt and pepper to taste (catching onto a theme here?)

Prep: Cut up shit like I said. You’re golden.



Firstly firstingham. You drop your butter in the soup pot, let it foam up a wee bit and add your minced leek. Cook until translucent and add your baby garlic. Cook for another minute, then add your carrots and celery and/or sundry hard, rigid veg. At the same time, have a food processor on standby and beat the living shit out of those tomatoes. Feel free to add half of your herbs and all of the parsley at this stage to be beaten into a horrible red slurry of yum. Hey, this is how the big boys make their tomato sauce. Keep up!

 So we’re beating our tomatoes for all the world to see. Then take your tomato whip and run it through a strainer. Get all the thyme twigs and machine missed tomato skins stained out, mash everything else past the wires and on top of your hot veg in the pot. Once all the tomatoes are mashed in, toss in your bay leaves and the remainder of your herbs and spices along with the barley and that squeezy lemon, then set to a simmer. Allow to slowly cook down for at least a half hour, adding water as necessary to maintain the consistency of the soup.

At this point sauté the “zucchini” in a little butter and dill. Once they’re just a little under done, toss the slices into the soup as well. For green zucchini, do it close to the end of cooking, for “meat” zucchini, much earlier. And for a more meaty taste, just add some fennel and paprika. Once the barley is al dente, add in the remainder of the water and the pasta and bring to a low simmer. Once the pasta is done, so is dinner!

So there you go. Eating Out Fresno turned out a vegetarian recipe with local ingredients and not so much as a whimper….ok more like a random substitution of zucchini for Italian sausage and some goat cheese on top. But what can I say? I love cylinders in my tomato and the randy smell of goat in my nose. All day.  Besides, zukes aren't in season yet.  But pigs totally are.

And with that we drift slowly off the cliff. With a sultry wave we bid you adieu, auf wiedersehen and who the hell stole my pants? Pants don’t go with soup! But an Irish soda bread with walnuts sure would.



-Pook

Eating Out Tubers and Shrooms

So spring is here and I have begun my seasonal plunder of the Vineyard Farmers Market. It’s still early in the season, so what these farmers lack in bounty they make up for in succulent tenderness. Sweet little tightly coiled bunches of baby romaine, tangy and sweet myer lemons, blood oranges. My money just evaporates every time I come here. It takes two trips to the car just so we’re not loaded down while we try to sip coffee. And naturally, I forget to bring my camera. So you’re stuck with what we brought home.

There were two major scores on the trip. The beloved ladies of Sun Smiling Farms offered their usual delicious array of mushrooms and some beautiful, young leeks. But, oh happy and special day! They have morels! Blow your truffles out your ass, morels rule the fungal world in my crystal castle! The comely lady is quite amused as I do my gangly-pudgy dance celebrating the extra fatness I shall be layering on for the sweltering summer to come. My other major delight was discovering that the veg folks on the northeast corner had Jerusalem artichokes! I have heard of sunchokes before, but have never worked with, or tasted them before. I’m giddy with delight at the prospect of working with a new and relatively rare (for Fresno) ingredient. Now, whatever shall we make with these beauties?

Glad you asked! Time for Sunday dinner. I’m an immediate gratification kinda fellow. So, we’re going to dive right into the middle of the market bounty and make all of the delicacies into a mess o’ vittles. Scouring the interweb for morel recipes is bizarre. Any ‘shroom hunter site pretty much offers 80 variation on fried morels, 1 cream sauce recipe and 1 soup recipe. The rest of the web offered morels and asparagus. How odd. You would think that such a wonderful mushroom would have more variation in it’s popular use. I guess fried highlights the flavor best. Screw that though, I want a brandy cream sauce with these bad boys. How I wish I could find green peppercorns in this town! But a good cook soldiers on. That’ll mean some steaks. Rib eyes look good. Ok, now onto the chokes. Hmmm, sautéed with sage and lemon? Nah. Oooooo! Sunchoke au gratin with ginger and garlic. Now that sounds delicious! And what’s this? Dilled horseradish red potato salad? Yes please. But what’s this crap about using a microwave? Screw that, I’ve got the idea, I can run with it from there.

Rib Eye Steaks with Morel Brandy Cream Sauce

2 med rib eye steaks
6oz morel mushrooms
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
¾ cup diced shallots
4 tablespoons brandy
1 cup cream
2 cups beef broth reduced by 2/3
2 tablespoons green peppercorns (if you can lay hands on these spicy little gems)


Prep: Soak your morels in salt water to wash off the grit and run off any potential hitch hikers. After the soak, rinse and dry on a paper towel. Prior to use, give a rough chop. I like mine fairly chunky. Put your beef broth on a low simmer to reduce. Add in a bay leave if you like. Give your shallots a dice and season your steaks with a little salt and pepper. 

Now, heat up your pan and add the olive oil and 2 tbl spoons of butter. Once the foam has settled, fry your steaks to taste, preferably medium rare. Once done, set aside and rest. Add 1 more tbl spoon of butter to the pan and then add in your shallots. I like to cook mine until they’re getting a bit glassy, around 5 minutes. At this point, add in the reduced beef stock and the brandy. Careful smokers! Booze evaporates. Keep that rockin Tom Selleck mustache in safety. Allow that to simmer a bit, then add in your morels (and peppercorns if you have them). Allow these to simmer until you start to smell the boozy brandy mellow and the mushroom smell starts to dominate. Now add in your cream and simmer until the sauce thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Plate your steak, then top with morels scooped from the pan, then spoon sauce over the whole affair. Your dinner guest will hail you as a golden god of cream sauces. Next course! In reverse.


Sunchoke gratin

2 cups of med sliced sunchokes
2 table spoons butter
1 cup cream
1 & 1/2 teaspoons of corn starch
1 tsp minced garlic
2 tablespoons minced ginger
salt and pepper
1/2 cup crushed walnuts

Prep: Wash and slice your sunchokes, then slice them about 3/16ths of an inch thick.  Crush your walnuts to the desired texture.  Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees and prepare a roasting pan with a water bath

Heat up a sauce pan with some butter, add in your sunchokes, ginger, garlic, salt and pepper and simmer for about 10 minutes.  Mix corn starch with a little reserved cream and add to the pan and simmer for another 5 minutes or until thickened.  Spoon sunchokes and sauce into 2 buttered ramekins, top with walnuts and place in the water bath and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.  Allow to cool and enjoy.

The recipe worked spot on and was insanely delicious. The only variation I made was substituting the bread crumbs with crushed walnuts. OMFG*! (*Oh My Felicitous Goat) It was insanely good! I had no idea that Jerusalem artichokes would taste so much like sunflower seeds. It makes sense, since it’s a sunflower tuber. But amazingly delicious all the same. And it mixes so very well with the warm oily flavor of the toasted walnuts on top. I think next time I might grate a little nutmeg into the cream as well to add a little bit of a perfume to the flavor. Happy happy happy! And last but first…


Dilled Horseradish Potato Salad

2lb red potatoes cubed
½ cup diced shallots
1 cup mayonnaise
1 heaping tablespoon horseradish (We like it HOT baby!)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons dried dill
½ tsp cider vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Prep: Wash and cube your potatoes. Boil until fork tender then rinse and cool. Dice shallots.


Take all of your wet ingredients and whisk together in a bowl large enough for your pertaters. Toss in your dill and shallots and mix. Then add in your chilled potatoes and toss thoroughly to combine. You can serve immediately, but the flavors will be more pronounced if allowed to rest overnight.

And that dear friends is, what I hope to be the first of many wonderful dishes made from fresh ingredients sold by Fresnans and from our own soils. This is only whetting my appetite for what bounties may come from the market as well as my own recently planted garden. Thumbs up to ole Maw Nature for kicking down some kick ass grub.

-Pook

Eating Out In Pain

Dear lord!  I had no idea that one weekend of the Rogue Festival would leave me so battered, bruised and exhausted.  Not to mention exhilerated and virtually bursting at the seams with pleasure at being exposed to so much artistic energy.  And somewhere in all of this we managed to get out at eat at a few spots

First meal of the Rogue was at a personal Tower favorite, Tower Dogs.  They're known for running various imaginative specials on top of their usual menu.  This month's was a very intriguing corned beef and cabbage dog.  And unlike the caliente dog or their cali(fornia) dog, this one needs some serious re-thinking.  The corned beef that is wrapped around their usual sausage comes out too crispy from being fried, as well as having no real corned beef flavor.  Same goes for the diced and sautee'd cabbage.  Poor, mushy texture and zero cabbage flavor.  Most of the time I'm overjoyed with my dog from them, but this one was a bit of a flop.  Points that could be improved, steam your cabbage and corned beef together!  Crockpot those bad boys together the night before, shred the corned beef and slice down the cabbage, portion and refrigerate.  When it comes time to serve, take a portion, toss into the saute pan and add on top of the dog.  In theory that will enhance the flavor of both and maintain the texture one wants when dealing with corned beef and cabbage.

Livingstone's was a frequent stop for cocktails and meals over this weekend.  We were exceedingly well taken care of by our waitress and I regret not getting her name, if for no other reason, than to give her a shout out for being a prime example of excellence in service.  Thank you darlin'!

So our first meal was a post-show dinner.  Included at our table was the british burger, black and bleu pasta and their chicken nachos for me.  The burger looked tasty, good looking bacon, juicy burger without the bun being soggy.  Next was the black and bleu pasta, which was very enjoyable.  It carries a nice creamy beef flavor without being dominated by the bleu cheese.  Onto the nachos.  All around a great appetizer for a group and a fine entree for two (the full order).  The toppings are generous without turning everything into a soggy mess.  The salsa and pico aren't exactly challenging or even very warm, but they do taste good.  I'm just more partial to a spicy sauce for my nachos.  Add to this a couple of their famous (infamous when you're hungover) long island iced teas.  Another long time favorite of mine.  I don't know what makes theirs different, but Stone's LITs get you lit pretty damn fast.  And I don't mind that so much.  Definately a good base buzz before we head into the Uncle Bucky show.

After a shower of fried chicken and Mickey's big mouths, we head out with a mixture of the casts of Uncle Buckys and Cap'n Scurvy's for some after-show celibration.  Both casts were buzzing pretty strong from great performances and excellent attendance by a hip and interested Rogue crowd.  So it's definately time for some debauchery.  We move on to The Landmark where the beer is flowing and the mixed drinks float by as performers and artists mingle with fans and locals.  Rogue lends a very relaxed and happy vibe to the Tower District watering holes.  People are smiling and laughing and sharing their experiences.  They're also a bit hungry and order some french fries and some zuccini sticks to share with a tipsy food blogger in need.  Fries were normal.  Hot, crunchy outside and pillowy inside.  Not bad considering the late hour.  The zuccini sticks also were fairly good.  They came out hot and still crunchy, so there was no sitting around under a heat lamp.  The ranch was ranch.  Not exactly gourmet, but who cares?  Hot, tasty and NOW is what one's wants with their drinks and we got it.  And again, great, friendly service by our waitress.

And I guess all this silliness begs for explanation as well.  What you're witnessing here is the post show chicken feed behind the Uncle Bucky's show.  Including the artist known as the Reverend Ezekiel Ignatius Flatbottom, Cap'n Scurvy and Mr. July along with his beloved Margeurita partipating in what was called the Group Grope Wing Ding.  Room temperature chicken, excessive amounts of questionably created liquors and inadvertantly shared bodily fluids created a whirling tornado of faith, filth and unsanitary food holding practices.  Simply being in the vicinity has had me riding the red hot rocket thrust of ill conceived culinary comedy in my bathroom for the past 2 days.  C'est la vie I guess.  When food gets funny, there is bound to be some collateral damage.  And on that note, I think we'll save the review of Sunday's fare until after I can stop mewling on the little pee-catcher carpet in front of my porcelain throne.

-Pook