Family Gathering

Thanksgiving dinner is my all-time favorite meal to cook. Something about preparing this dinner brings deep and intangible joy to my heart. There have been years when we've eaten great turkey, rich stuffing and sinful desserts that other wonderful chefs have prepared: terrific evenings where we enjoyed every bite and every minute. And yet, when that's happened, I've often succumbed to the compulsion to cook the whole thing again the next day*, not because I was craving my own food, but because I was craving the marvelous feeling of making this meal.

As I was puttering contentedly around the kitchen the last few days, I suddenly understood, at least a little. Instead of cookbooks, I was pulling out notes that had been hand written, e-mailed, or dictated to my scribbling. Every single recipe came from someone I love, who loved me back. With each tablespoon of sage or sizzle of sausage, they gathered around me, my family and friends. They were all here, filling the room with memories from childhood, from a rag tag gathering of refugees in my first apartment in NY, from long distance phone calls home for help, from dinners that welcomed me to a new town or a new family. While things were baking, I was unearthing wedding china**, silver from great grandparents, decorations the kids made in preschool, and wine from a cousin's ranch.

Before the doorbell ever rang, before grace was spoken, before a single dish was served, I was surrounded and embraced and profoundly elated by this gathering from the past. The comfort of hands clasped around the table and the rush for second helpings later just made my Thanksgiving overflow.

For this feeling, and so much more, I give thanks.

Specific credits to:
My mom, for the cranberry sauce and homemade rolls
My sister, for the secrets to a great brined turkey***
My business partner and his wife, for the mashed potato souffle
My husband's aunt, for the pumpkin pie and my brother-in-law, for requesting it
My NY roomates, for the gravy
My husband, for the stuffing
My niece, for the inspiration to make cheesecake on top of everything else.

Mom's Ridiculously Easy Cranberry Sauce

1 bag of cranberries
1 1/2 c. of sugar
2-3 Tbs. apricot or cherry jam

Preheat oven to 350. Rinse and dry the cranberries. Pour into 9 inch round baking dish. Cover with the sugar. Bake for about 45 minutes. While still hot, stir in the jam. Pour into a pretty bowl. Cover and refrigerate, then serve whenever you like.


* No one in our house ever complained about eating it again, mind you.
** From three generations of weddings: Mine, my sister's, my husband's parents' and his grandparents'.
*** I strayed from her tried and true method to try dry brining this year, swayed by the glowing reviews in the LA Times. Not a disaster, but I should have stuck with the one I love.

Foodie Girls Lunch Brigade - Episode 10

When my copy of LA magazine arrived and I saw the review, I knew immediately that our next FG stop had to be Mo-Chica. I alerted the troops via e-mail:

"I just read about another place downtown that sounds like it was made for the FG's...it's a Peruvian place in a Mexican mini mall run by a Japanese trained chef. Here's a rave from Jonathan Gold on their ceviche. Who's in?"

The FG's, that's who. Carpools have been arranged. We are converging from points all over LA. I have a visiting FG lined up. My camera is fully charged. I am heading out the door to catch my ride downtown when I notice a message has come in on my cell phone. Fatally, I retrieve it:

Hi. This is school. Your daughter is sick. Please come and get her right away.

Heart sinking, I return the call*.

Me: Hi. This is Sharon. What's going on?
School: She's sick. She needs to go home.
Me: Like, how sick?
School: [Silence]
Me: OK. I'm on my way.

Fortunately for my daughter, her tummy issues were of the non-swine, non-flu, non-contagious 24 hour variety. Fortunately for you, my fellow FG's came through with the scoop and the verdict. And fortunately for me, it looks like Mo-Chica is open for lunch every day.

I'm on my way.

Episode 10 - Mo-Chica's a Keep-a

A dispatch from FG2, with photos from FG3.

"It’s Monday and I drive down to my old digs, USC, and follow MapQuest to a Mercado to meet my hungry cohorts at Mo Chica, a Peruvian restaurant that is no restaurant. This is a counter in a bizarre food court that also hosts other places to eat and a few stands to get all of your Latino fashions. If you need a striped poncho this is the place to go.

I regress. Let’s talk food. I immediately YELP to get help in ordering, as FG1 has been yanked out of commission by a sick child. In true FG fashion, four of us intrepid souls powered through without her. But we did pout a little.

Here’s what we ordered:

Ceviche – Absolutely a must! Delicious tangy (read lemony) raw fish served with seaweed, hominy, and marinated red onions. Fresh and fantastic.

Potato appetizer – this was recommended on Yelp. Since it’s a daily special, ours came with crab. Two of us liked it and two of us really hated it. Order at your own peril.

Ling Cod – It was the fish special and the sauce it came in was fantastic. The fish was just okay.

Braised Ox tail – Another special. Another amazing sauce, but the meat was too fatty.

Lamb Shank – ORDER THIS!!!! We all agreed that this was the best dish, the lamb wasn’t too lamby and the braise it came in was perfectly spiced. To spoon this on rice was heaven.

Mushroom Quinoa (Keen-wa) – I personally ordered this because I love love love mushroom risotto and it didn’t disappoint. Unfortunately, two of us don’t eat mushrooms, which made me sad because this quinoa was warm and porridgy and really hit the spot.

Despite ordering so many things, we were all obnoxiously eying the filet with giant fried potatoes on top. We should have ditched the oxtail and had that instead.

Everyone's order came with a thick veggie soup that had a slight kick and creamy finish. It made us wish the bowls were bigger.

The drinks were weird. Two of us had a passion fruit drink that was refreshing and two of us had an oddly thick barley hibiscus tea. I say, stick with diet coke.

The woman who took our order seemed like she might be a problem, but when she heard all of our “oooing and ahhing” over the food she pepped up towards us. The seating is a small “rural” area in front of the counter.

Was it worth the trip? Yes, especially midday when there isn’t a whole lot of traffic. But next time, we're not going without you, FG1!"

Right back at ya, FG2!

FG Final Verdict? Mo-Chica is ON the list!
Pricing Information: Nothing over $13 on the menu
FG Value Rating: Fair deal

* Why didn't they call her dad? He has a cell phone, a car and, most likely, nothing more exciting than a couple of slices of pizza on his lunch agenda.

Foodie Girls Lunch Brigade – Dateline Paris

This just in from HFG1, our foreign correspondent on the ground and eating out on behalf of the Foodie Girls in one of the foodie meccas of, um, well...the earth. After posting this intriguing blurb just a few short days ago...

"I just heard about the 4 restaurants run by Christian Constant, all located on rue Saint Dominique near the Eiffel Tower. He quit the Crillon, a Michelin 3-star gastronomic palace, to set off on his own and to stop cooking, as he put it, in constant fear of losing a star. Each has a very different menu, but they all share his striving for excellence yet keeping it all affordable for ordinary people."

...in true FG fashion she proceeded to immediately go and try it out for all of us. Here is her report:

For anyone going to Paris*, I recommend Café Constant, on rue Saint-Dominique near the Eiffel Tower, for traditional French cooking at very reasonable prices. I had the sardine starter: fresh sardines on a crispy wafer topped with lightly seasoned tomatoes and very sweet onions. For the main dish, I ordered venison but they were out so settled for grilled "bar", a white fish from Brittany's Atlantic waters. It was very light, flaky and perfectly grilled. I was disappointed that the side dish wasn't pureed sweet potatoes, as indicated on the menu, but rather pureed pumpkin that was overly salted. To finish off the meal, I picked a dessert that I used to have with my Grandma Gladys at her favorite cafeteria in Long Beach, CA : stewed prunes. But these were nothing like the cafeteria variety. They were soaked in mulled wine, making them pungent and spicy. My French friend picked entirely different things. For the starter, it was minced salmon, oysters and ginger (a sushi-inspired mix) on the half-shell. He hit a bad note for his main dish : grilled veal brains**. The dark brown thing on his white plate looked like a twice-burned pork chop. Normally veal brains are served luke warm in their gelatin with a parsley-and-egg-yolk vinaigrette called "sauce gribich". I'm not one to like odd meats, especially gelatinous ones, but this dish is rich, dense and very satisfying. He finished off with a plate of tiny chocolate eclairs smothered in even more chocolate sauce. This café had very friendly waiters and a welcoming barman (yes! this is possible in Paris) and an international crowd that was clearly enjoying themselves and leaving their plates wiped completely clean.

* If this is you, then I (Sharon, that is, not HFG1, who is very nice and didn't include any snide footnotes in her dispatch) am extremely jealous and hate you, but hope you have nice trip and visit this restaurant and many others and write to tell me about it but don't gloat too much when you do.

** I subsequently received this clarification: The correct translation of "tête de veau" is calf's head, NOT veal brains. It's a sweatbread composed of the meaty parts between the skull and the brains. Maybe it's just me, but I would still go with the fish.

Labor of love

If you are extremely lucky, one day you will be invited over to make tamales at a friend's house.

Go.

You'll walk in and find they've put in hours of work already...braising meat in a smoky red sauce until it falls apart on a fork...soaking the corn husks until they are pliable and silky in your hands...roasting and chopping green chiles...assembling huge bowls of masa and cheese, and smaller bowls of raisins, olives and corn. Perhaps they've even been mixing up killer bloody Marys*.

When you go, the stuffing list may vary**. The people around the table with you will vary too. They could be generations of women, childhood friends, neighbors, aunts, grandparents, perfect strangers. Regardless of the connections or lack thereof, invariably you'll talk and laugh about everything and nothing as you try unsuccessfully to emulate your hostess' smoothness with the spatula and her tidy bundling moves.

As the afternoon flies by, the kids will come home from school and beg for samples. You will instead taunt them by savoring every bite of your tester batch.

The pile of finished goods will become impressively large. So large that it ought to last for months and/or feed an army***, because everyone knows this is way too much work to do everyday. But it doesn't feel like work to you. Instead, you will feel so at home and comfortable and just plain happy that it is clear where the phrase "labor of love" comes from.

You may have new found appreciation for the phrase, "bundle of joy", too.

* Don't count on the bloody Marys. I happened to hit the jackpot.
** Tamale composition, you will soon realize, is an intensely, deeply personal matter, and even within a nuclear family the differences are profound and unyielding.
*** But are so tasty that they will probably be consumed way before they ever make it to the freezer. Mine were.

Catastrophe

My husband called last night from Virgina:

Him: Is your mom OK?
Me: What? What are you talking about?
Him: Oprah. I'm worried about her.
Me: You're worried about Oprah?
Him: No! I'm worried about your mom because of Oprah. Don't you read The Wall Street Journal?
Me: Not anymore. What happened to Oprah? Is there another fire? Is she OK?
Him: She's fine. But she's leaving.
Me: Leaving? Where's she going?
Him: [Speaking slowly in an effort to get through to me] She is leaving the show.
Me: [Momentarily stunned] What? No. No! NO! That can't be right. Mom is going to...I don't know! Is it on the local news? You know she doesn't get some of those cable channels, so maybe...
[I trail off]
She must have heard. She's alone. She's devastated. Oh God! How could this happen!
Him: You'd better check on her. Now.
Me: I will. Gotta go.



Mom, broken up though she was, did not feel alone. She trusted that Oprah had made the right decision, even though it hurt. In fact, she was, as usual, able to think of others who were worse off than herself. As she told me when I called:

"We're all just so sad. You know, Ray Romano was on the show this afternoon. He was talking about his mother, and said this was going to be both the happiest and the saddest day of her life. Happiest because he was finally on the show, and the saddest because of the news. Can you imagine what that woman is going through?"

I might not know what she's going through, but I have a pretty good idea how Ray is feeling.

Let sleeping dogs lie

The flavor of fall

I'm typing this with big fuzzy socks on my feet, not as some kind of fashion statement*, but because it's downright chilly around here these days. OK, OK. Technically, its only chilly at night, but then it is really cold. That's why I am also sporting an especially tattered old heavy sweatshirt as part of this evening's ensemble. Some folks have the glorious fall foliage tour as a visual cue that the season has changed. My family has the nightly sloppy floppy mommy sightings.

Perhaps that is why we all prefer the cues that come from our other senses this time of year. The sound of rustling leaves in the driveway and USC fans crying their little eyes out**. The smell of wood fires burning*** and stews braising in the oven. That first crunchy, juicy, marvelous bite of a Honeycrisp apple. A steaming bowl of homemade soup with crusty bread to mop up every last drop.

And something, anything, everything laced with cinnamon, cloves, and ginger for dessert.

Comfort clothes and comfort food. Fall is fine by me.

Autumn Spice Cookies

I clipped this recipe from the LA Times food section years ago. It's got all the flavor of a great gingersnap, but the texture is a whole other wonderful chewy, rich, crispy edged kind of thing. They are amazing**** and unbelievably easy.

Preheat oven to 350.

2/3 c. vegetable oil
1/4 c. molasses
1 egg
1 c. sugar

Combine the above in a large bowl by hand until well blended.

In a smaller separate bowl, mix together:

2 c. flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon

Add this into the molasses mixture, and stir until completely combined.

Put about 1/4 c. of sugar into a small bowl. Roll the dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, coat lightly with sugar. Place about 2 inches apart on a baking sheet, then flatten slightly with your fingers. Bake for 9 minutes, or until the edges are just turning brown. Immediately transfer to a cooling rack (cookies will be really soft and bendy). As they cool they will flatten out and the edges will crisp up and the centers will be chewy and spicy and utterly wonderful.

If you do happen to keep them longer than a day, they will become crispier over time, but will still taste delicious.



* Despite the fact that I have recently had my nails done, I am still hopeless in this department.
** After Stanford kicked the &#$? out of them in their worst defeat ever. To quote their coach: ''I'm not sure I have the right words to describe being humbled like this. I don't really know where to put it. ... We have fallen apart and given our opponents the opportunity to do whatever they want, but you have to give Stanford a lot of credit.''
*** Intentionally burning with cut up logs in fireplaces, as opposed to out of control wildfires consuming vast stretches of the county. That is a summer smell.
**** To quote the e-mail I received from a guy who had one of these hot out of the oven this afternoon, "That was probably the best cookie I've ever had. Please email me the recipe if its not a secret." No secrets here. Enjoy!