Stories

Last night my cookbook club got together. We meet once a month, taking turns hosting at our homes. Our host chooses a theme and each member finds a recipe from a cookbook, usually a recipe they haven't yet tried. We show up for the gathering with a dish to share, a copy of the recipe for each member and the cookbook it came from. Thus, the name Cookbook Club.

Our theme last night was "Farm to Table." We started the evening with two appetizers. Watermelon Salsa was one of them. Pat didn't get the recipe from a cookbook, but from a friend in Arizona. She used a carved watermelon half to serve the salsa and garnished it with fresh flowers from her garden. Can you tell she's an artist? It looked beautiful and tasted wonderful. I've shared her recipe below.

The other appetizer was a delicious pizza made using a recipe from fine cooking magazine, Salade aux Lardons Pizza developed by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough.

From the L.A. Times

When most cooks read "season to taste," they automatically reach for the salt shaker. That's not a bad start: A judicious sprinkling with salt will awaken many a dull dish. But if you stop there, many times you'll be missing a key ingredient. Because just as a little salt unlocks flavor, so can a few drops of acidity.

Add a shot of vinegar to a simple stew of white beans and shrimp and notice how the seemingly simple, earthy flavor of the beans suddenly gains definition and complexity. Do the same thing with a soup of puréed winter squash and see how a dish that once was dominated by rich and sweet now has a round, full fruit character.

Though the results may be similar, salt and acidity work slightly differently. Salt is a flavor potentiator -- in other words, it works chemically to make other flavors taste more of themselves. Acidity works as seasoning by giving a dish backbone or structure, which allows other flavors to stand out and shine.

Read article...

We went for a cocktail-hour potluck last week at Paule and Flavia’s place. They’re both architects and they live in a house of their own design in the medieval village of Poreta.

We had been to visit them once before and I pretty much sort of knew where it was. It was up this steep little street, I remembered. Well, it’s not a street; it’s more like steps that you walk up but cars use it, too. It’s a medieval thing. I have driven up a number of stairways in my time, in quaint European villages, but never intentionally.

So, we parked at the bottom and trudged up the steps in the direction of the twelfth century castle that crowns the hill. I figured I’d recognize Paule and Flavia’s place when I saw it. By the time we got to the top of the hill, I thought I had seen three possible candidates but no clear winner.

We walked back down the steps, which was a lot easier than going up but Jill was tiring of carrying the bowl of hummus and the plate of raw vegetables that we were adding to the lucky pot. I carried the wine, which is a husbandly duty.

We all know there are four tastes - salty, sweet, sour and bitter. But researchers have identified a fifth taste and that is umami - the rich, savory taste of some foods. This taste is found naturally in certain foods - very ripe tomatoes, anchovies, parmesan cheese and mushrooms to name a few. It's why fish sauce and soy sauce make fried rice so savory.  

Cooks have known for ages that these foods enhance the taste of savory dishes. It's because these foods naturally contain glutamate. It is why MSG (monosodium glutamate) makes foods taste better. If you like the way adding a chicken or beef bouillion cube (which has MSG in it) enhances the flavor of a sauce or a stew, why not try adding a food that naturally contains glutamate?

It's why Italian cooks often add an anchovy in the beginning when cooking a sauce. Even if you don't like the taste of anchovies, you will never know it is there. It completely dissolves but it adds a depth of flavor you would not have otherwise.  Don't say, "Ew!  I don't like anchovies!"  Take advantage of the glutamate in this food and enhance your cooking - your umami!