Kebab of the Week: Refrigerator Raid

This week’s kebabs were born, basically and simply, out of a lesson in frugality. It’s only midweek but it has been a busy week, and I didn’t feel like thinking about the optimal meat/vegetable combination for our skewers, nor did I want to put much effort into researching the most delicious imaginable marinade.

Clearing out our full-to-bursting refrigerator is always a priority so I raided the veggie bin, hoping it would turn up some serviceable goods. What good luck to find yellow summer squash, a yellow bell pepper, and a red onion. Roughly one-inch chunks of these vegetables were threaded loosely on skewers with same-size pieces of chicken breast that had been marinated briefly in white wine (the last three fingers from the previous night’s dinner), olive oil, fresh thyme, and salt and pepper.

While Hambone manned the grill I made some rice and a batch of chimichurri, rescuing a head of parsley and dregs of cilantro.

reading: Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper

Recently I finished reading Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, British food writer Fuchsia Dunlop’s delectable memoir of eating in China. The Guardian called this book a “cultural immersion,” which is apt, as the memoir entails much more than food.

Beginning in the early 1990s, Dunlop lived in China, off and on, for over a decade. As a student—and as a professional writer—she has traveled to remote corners of the country, engaging every person she could in conversation. That rich experience certainly imbues her writing with great depth. Between descriptions of food and meals, Dunlop dazzles with history, geography, modernization, growth, and more.

In the early 1990s, Dunlop lands in Chengdu in Sichuan province—the area recently devastated by earthquakes—where she researched Chinese policy on ethnic minorities. She falls for street food, as well as the incendiary food of Sichuan province and the snout to tail eating of China. When her visa expires, she enrolls in a professional training school for chefs, as the only Western student and one of three women.

As a student of Sichuan cookery, Dunlop learned about mastering the arts of flavor, starting with fu he wei, the complex flavors. Sichuan cuisine boasts twenty-three official complex flavors, one of which is “home-style”—salty, savory, and a little hot. In her travels, she had an opportunity to challenge her culinary comfort zone by eating a lot of truly exotic foods, including civet cats, goose intestines, and more. The chapter on food textures and mouth-feel—an integral part of Chinese cooking—is eye opening.

All is not delicious. Dunlop explores the SARS health crises, which temporarily put a damper on eating in restaurants, where the risk of disease transmittal was high, especially with such practices as “public” chopsticks. She also looks at other issues, such as food safety (use of toxic food additives is rampant) and the controversial consumption of endangered species (shark’s fin and bear paws, to name a few).
In addition to Shark's Fin, Dunlop has written two authoritative cookbooks, one of which—Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook—was nominated for a James Beard Award (Asian Cooking) this year.

If you’re interested in China, food, or travel—or if you simply appreciate sparkling prose—this book is for you.

nibbles

~ The redesigned website for City Pages, the Twin Cities alternative weekly, is live. Best part—the food blog, Twin Cities Eater, is more prominent and more attractive. I encourage you to check it out. Also, Rachel Hutton reviews Obento-Ya this week. Must. Eat. There. Soon.

~ Fueling my summer passion, the Pioneer Press (by way of syndication) offers kebab recipes.

~ At the Star Tribune, Rick Nelson interviews Catherine Friend, the Zumbrota (MN) author of The Compassionate Carnivore, a meat-lover’s handbook to eating local (no matter where you live).
~ 2008 James Beard Award winners have been announced. None of our outstanding Minneapolis chefs (Isaac Becker of 112 Eatery, Tim McKee of La Belle Vie, and Alex Roberts of Alma and Brasa) won in the Best Chef Midwest category. Still I’ve thoroughly enjoyed re-reading the list of nominees, adding restaurants and cookbooks to my lengthy to-do lists. Dara weighs in on the awards with an insider's perspective.

Kebab of the Week: Barefoot Contessa's lamb kebabs

Kebabs are summer’s perfect one-dish meal. There’s nothing easier than skewering succulent chunks of meat and jewel-toned vegetables (or just vegetables, if you’re so inclined) on a stick. Few foods are quicker to prepare and cook. Typically, about five minutes of cooking time on the first side, then a flip of the skewer for five more minutes; less time if you’re using fish or seafood. Plus, there are infinite combinations of skewerables, which keeps the summer menu lively.

We’ve had best results when meat can be marinated overnight, though any amount of time will do. A quick brushing of a high-quality oil and a liberal sprinkling of salt and pepper can coax great flavor out of meat and vegetables, too.

This year for Mother's Day, oldest son Alpha thoughtfully gave me a copy of Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa at Home because he knows I enjoy watching her show. As we were flipping through the gorgeously illustrated cookbook, the lamb kebabs caught our eye. Two nights ago we seized the opportunity to make the red wine vinaigrette in order to marinate the lamb, and last night we grilled. The meat was tender and flavorful, enhanced by bathing in marinade. I cannot wait until lamb comes into the kebab rotation again. Garten's recipe includes a side sauce—stock, lemon juice, olive oil, and a pinch of rosemary, quickly brought to a boil and reduced—which we ran out of time to make. We may try it in the future, but we didn’t miss it this time round.

Lamb Kebabs
adapted from Barefoot Contessa at Home

1-1/2 pounds top round lamb
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1 T fresh rosemary, minced
1 T fresh oregano, minced
olive oil
1/4 cup dry red wine
2 T red wine vinegar
salt and pepper
red onion, cut into 1 to 2-inch pieces
cherry tomatoes

Cut the lamb into 1-1/2-inch cubes. Place cubes in a large zippered plastic bag. Make marinade by combing garlic, rosemary, oregano, 1/4 cup olive oil, red wine, vinegar, and salt (to taste). Cover lamb with marinade, and refrigerate overnight.

Heat and prepare grill, per your custom.

Loosely thread lamb on skewer, alternating every few cubes with onion pieces. Thread the cherry tomatoes on skewers. Brush with olive oil. Season both sets of skewers with salt and pepper. Place the lamb skewers on the hot grill. After 5 minutes, turn the lamb. Add the tomato skewers to the grill for five minutes.

Serve the skewers on a bed of couscous or rice.

love clancey's

The last time I visited Clancey's, the Linden Hills meat and fish market, I signed up for their e-mail list. Now, I love Clancey's for many reasons, chief among them: it's a small, independent business; the owners are friendly and interested in how you're going to use the goods they've just sold to you; the meat is of the highest quality, as local as possible; the store is dog-friendly (I don't have a dog, but I get a kick out of watching the owners sneak ground beef to visiting dogs). The house-made sausages are to die for!

But who needs more e-mail clogging up the ether? I guess I do if it arrives each week with flair.

it’s in the air, and

it’s almost a summer wind;

warm enough to garden in the rain,

ideal for added heat from the grill…

so come to clancey’s:

we’ve got lamb (all cuts) and a killer garlic & yogurt marinade

we’ve got all cuts of beef (try our kebabs), chicken (try it on the grill, halved & under a brick), pork (smoke some), halibut cheeks (yum),

all kinds of sausages (that beef, blue cheese & cherry

w/ surly bender is pretty special);

invite some warmth into the weekend, some friends & neighbors into your backyard and welcome some significant change:

in the weather, in the wind, in the overall climate of

everything that matters

buy good food

from good farmers

every tiny bit

makes a difference!

love clancey’s

I think even the coldest, cruelest Grinch heart would have to love Clancey's.

The New Luxury

Sometimes luxurious meals aren’t measured by the exclusivity or the expense of the ingredients. Truffles, Kobe beef, foie gras, caviar, Barolos immediately come to mind. Rather, some meals are luxurious because you’ve been granted the space and time to spread out and cook in as unhurried a manner as possible.

Saturdays are great for throwing multi-course dinner parties. Sundays are ideal for tinkering over a slow-cooked meal. Both allow an opportunity to crank the tunes and spend the afternoon carefully peeling and chopping, sautéing and braising ingredients.

Weeknights, however, call for quicker fare. Dinner cannot take longer than an hour to prepare: We’ve got school-age children who need to do homework and take showers, plus decompress, before bed. And, twice a week, we have to factor in Alpha’s soccer games and practices, as well as drive time, all of which cut into the dinner hour.

Imagine then, when one doesn’t have a game to work around, that the hour or so one has to make dinner suddenly seems like all the time in the world.



Tonight, Hambone fired up the grill while I whipped up a lime juice-soy sauce-ginger bath and set a nearly two-pound flank steak to marinate. We poured ourselves the last two glasses of Albarino and had an actual adult conversation. The boys did their parkour maneuvers, jumping off the terraces in our “backyard” patio. Then we all tucked into grilled steak (still trying to find the sweet spot between rare and medium rare, as shown above), new potatoes, asparagus from the farmers market, and a 2005 Desert Wind Ruah from the Columbia Valley (WA), and we talked about our day.

Luxurious—like rich, creamy foie gras and crisp vintage champagne.

Viva Las Vegas

The Amateur Gourmet isn’t the only food blogger whooping it up in Sin City this weekend. I’m also off to Vegas, to help a girlfriend celebrate a milestone birthday. It’s my first visit, and aside from neon and casinos, I don’t really know what to expect. I’m not a gambler but I am a keen observer. My flight lands at McCarran at 10:30 a.m., which gives me just enough time to get to the hotel and be poolside with a cocktail and a book by noon. The group has plans to see a show and dinner reservations at the Bellagio's FIX (not linking as Flash crapped up my laptop) on Saturday night, otherwise I’m keeping an open mind and stomach for culinary experiences.

Back Monday...

RIP: Irvine Robbins

I owe a debt of gratitude to Irvine Robbins, who gave me almost unfettered access to ice cream during my foodie formative years. The perfect scoop, in myriad flavors, never failed to give me ten minutes of pleasure in a sea of mediocrity. Coconut, black licorice, lemon drop, and Daiquiri ice were a few favorites.

The only bright spot in my hometown's crappy mall was a Baskin-Robbins. From the time purchasing power was bestowed upon me I always had just enough change in my pocket for a single scoop of something. Much to the chagrin of my friends, who always chose a sugar cone, my preferernce then (as it is now) was to eat ice cream with a spoon from a paper cup.

If the chain nature of Baskin-Robbins gets you on your artisanal high horse, just remember that a Baskin-Robbins ice-cream cone, perched in a cone holder, inspired Thomas Keller's signature salmon tartare "ice cream" cone.

Photo, as it appeared in the NYT, from Tony Korody/Sygma

H&S Restaurant Week: 112 Eatery

On the Monday night of H&S 3rd Annual Restaurant Week, we visited an old favorite: 112 Eatery. It had been awhile—over six months—since we’d last eaten here. The food had begun to seem predictable and a little heavy. But I was craving the ambience—exposed brick walls, warm lighting, shotgun-style layout. Another reason 112 was an inspired choice: executive chef/owner Isaac Becker had recently been nominated for the James Beard Foundations’ Best Chef: Midwest award. The strength of Becker’s menu lies in upscale but unpretentious food, such as blue prawns with rooster mayo, grilled lamb scottodito with goat’s milk yogurt, steak tartare, a Vietnamese-style duck pate banh mi, and more.

This snowy, windy, cold April evening invited the comfort of my all-time favorites.



To start, I ordered the radicchio and duck salad—crispy, bitter radicchio and supple, dreamy duck confit are each shredded and dressed with a miso vinaigrette and garnished with slices of hardboiled quail eggs and buttery breadcrumbs. The kitchen used to send this salad out in a cup, but the portion has recently grown to fill a bowl. I shouldn’t complain about getting more of a good thing, but the cup was more elegant and better suited to being a starter—i.e., piquing the appetite rather than serving as a small meal.



Hambone took the white anchovy crostini with avocado, as beautiful and delicious as always.



My main was the stringozzi with lamb sugo—handcrafted, shoelace-thick pasta tangled in a rich, long-cooked sauce.



Also enamored by the pasta offerings, Hambone ordered the tagliatelle with foie gras meatballs. You heard correctly: Foie. Gras. Meatballs. The meatballs were so meltingly rich, the noodles seemed like a silly addition.

We shared the tres leche cake, to fortify ourselves for the treacherous drive back to Saint Paul. Wink, wink.

Chef Becker and 112 Eatery still deserve the accolades. Occasionally I feel as if we’ve eaten everything that interests us on the seldom-changing menu. Then I’ll take a closer look to see that there is an entire section I’m missing—the tweaked bar food, which includes the 112 cheeseburger with Brie, the bacon egg harissa sandwich, the gougère and fried mortadella sandwich, Chinese eggs, and, well, that should keep us busy for awhile.

H&S Third Annual Restaurant Week: An Amuse Bouche

In early April, Alpha and Beta spent their spring break at Grandpa and Grandma’s house in South Dakota. While they were away, Hambone and Spice imposed a restaurant week upon ourselves—an extraordinary treat with no need to pay a sitter ($10/hour is the going rate in these parts) or mind the sitter’s curfew. We dined out each night, in as leisurely a fashion as possible, and were able to snag a table wherever we chose, making the Cities’ hottest reservations more attainable.

Since Hambone and Spice have been on a tear lately, ticking off line items on our list of the newest and/or most popular Twin Cities’ restaurants, we decided to address our cravings and revisit our favorite restaurants. Herewith, a teaser (sorry, no photos):

La Cucaracha
After handing over the boys to Gpa and Gma, Hambone and Spice made a beeline to the Mexican restaurant nearest our house. As we pulled into La Cucaracha’s “parking lot,” we tried to recall when we ate here last. It had been a long time—late August 2006—and we had such a disappointing meal, convincing me that the end had finally come to decent Mexican food in St. Paul.

Serving solid Mexican fare—enchiladas, burritos, tacos, margaritas, and cervezas—La Cucaracha is a St. Paul institution. Hambone and I have been eating here for a long time. We'd started dating when we were each just out of college, biding time at trivial jobs during the first Bush recession, which left us plenty of time to have existential conversations at the coffeehouse. Spending $10 on an entree and $1.50 for a cervesa at La Cucaracha would have signaled a splurge.

The menu, which hasn’t changed much in twenty years (though, yes, inflation has driven up the prices slightly), still holds a few go-to items for me. Dishes such as Gina’s Yucatan tostadas—corn tortillas layered with savory black beans, sprinkled with tangy feta cheese and crisp onion slices, then garnished with creamy avocado slices—are pure heaven to me. That said, there is only one way to start a meal at La Cuc—warm, salty queso dip, slathered on homemade tortilla chips and chased by large, sweet margaritas. On this visit, I tried an item I've never before ordered: the pork guisado burrito with tomatillo sauce. Perfect in its porkiness, brightened by the salsa verde, this burrito has quickly catapulted up my list of favorites at La Cucaracha.

The decision to eat at La Cucaracha was spontaneous. I didn't have my camera with me. I didn't pull out my notebook to capture the subtleties of the meal, the ambience, or the service. And what I took away from the experience was a reminder that La Cucaracha remains a lively, comfortable restaurant, serving delicious, uncomplicated food. My faith has been restored, and I look forward to returning with Alpha and Beta.

local food writing roundup

Dear Dara reports that, like D'Amico & Son's family-friendly Sunday dinners, the Parasole Group has rolled out an $8.95-a-person, kids-eat-free Sunday supper at three of their restaurants: Salut Bar Américain in Edina, Pittsburgh Blue in Maple Grove, and Figlio. Works for me, as the Grand Avenue location of Salut opens in June!

Also, check out Dara's eloquent review of The Strip Club. She's spot-on about the duck, and I couldn't have said it better myself.

At City Pages, Rachel Hutton has a delightful look at Lynne Rossetto Kasper's new book, How to Eat Supper.

At the Star Tribune, fourteen local restaurants join the tap water brigade and Rick Nelson profiles local CSAs.

Saga Hill Cooking School

Marianne Miller, the former executive chef at Bobino and Red whom I recently learned about on Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl's blog, sent me an e-mail, with encouragement to check out the April schedule for Saga Hill Cooking School, which she runs in Wayzata.

Now you have to go check it out, too, because what Miller is doing is very interesting and smart. This is not your mother's cooking school. One of the coolest things SHCS offers is corporate team building through cooking. Sessions include a wine and cheese tasting and a timed, Iron Chef-style competition, which sure beats a relay race of coworkers waddling down a beach with an inflatable between their legs. The April schedule includes a mother-daughter high tea, a kitchen basics class targeted to girlfriends (clever and timely), a class featuring French wine and cheese pairings, and a class celebrating the eight hottest ingredients for 2008.

I've taken a few cooking classes around town, and while they've generally been good, a certain element of fun is missing. Participants are quiet. Instructors often seem like they just want to get through the long list of things they're hoping to teach you. Miller's innovative cooking school clearly puts fun and camaraderie at the heart of learning.

Alpha and Beta, if you're looking to give something to someone who has everything—your mother, for instance—consider the gift of a cooking class. Let me be less subtle: I'd love to take a cooking class from Marianne Miller in that beautiful space overlooking Lake Minnetonka.

~
Saga Hill Cooking School
307 East Lake Street
Wayzata, Minnesota 55391

back in the saddle

It’s 10 p.m., and our house still smells really amazing. Rich, meaty, warm. Here in St. Paul, we had our first rainy day of spring, and I took an opportunity to braise some meat. I had two very pink veal shanks, each weighing in around a pound. They were dredged in flour that had been seasoned with s & p, and then browned on all sides in a few glugs of olive oil and butter. When the shanks had reached a golden caramel color, I removed them from the Dutch oven and added the aromatics—chopped onion, carrot, and celery, parsley, bay leaves, and thick strips of lemon peel.

After the vegetables had softened, I made little nests for the shanks and added them back to the pot, covering the mixture with a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and setting to simmer for half an hour. Beef broth, hand-crushed whole tomatoes, and salt and pepper went into the pot before it was covered with a lid and placed in the oven at 375 degrees for an hour and a half. The lid was removed and the shanks remained in the oven for another thirty minutes, during which time I made a gremolata* (toasted pine nuts, garlic, an anchovy filet, orange zest, and parsley) and Alpha made perfectly creamy mashed potatoes.

While the veal shanks were doing in the oven, Hambone and I watched the Tour of Flanders, a one-day cycling race set against a backdrop of falling snow and slick cobbled hills. But mostly we participated in aromatherapy, breathing deeply the scents wafting from the kitchen. It felt so good to be cooking again after more than a week of eating in restaurants.**

As for the osso buco, I shredded the meat from the bone to make serving four people easier and to appease two children who were a little uncertain about the large bones and the rustic sauce. The mashed potatoes were a great vehicle for the silky meat and the delicious gravy, which positively glistened. And, we drank an outstanding 2003 St. Emilion from Chateau Gaillard. Still, Hambone and I concurred that for the expense and the reputation of veal shanks, they should be better, less scary. Even after nearly three hours of cooking, the veal shanks still exhibited a fair amount of connective tissue, which I did my best to remove. But fat is fat—and it wasn’t great.

I’d like to eat osso buco in a restaurant, where I imagine the dish would be a little more refined, but I’m not likely to make them at home again. Pork shanks and lamb shanks, however, may get a nod.

*I loved the gremolata. The little bit leftover will garnish another meal this coming week.

**The kids were at my parents’ for spring break and while they were away, Hambone and I partook in our third annual restaurant week. More to come.

local food writing roundup

Rachel Hutton reports on Pan-Asian Otho in City Pages: The first fine-dining restaurant in a gentrifying neighborhood has its share of hits and misses.

Dear Dara has the best news I've heard this week. She says that spring starts this Friday—because that’s when Sea Salt, the wonderful seafood restaurant in the Minnehaha Falls Park Pavilion, will open. Hambone and Spice and their offspring had some of their best meals of 2007 at Sea Salt. And, some of their best memories as it's where Alpha fell in love with calamari, tentacles and all. Forget about all the fancy and hip restaurants where we've dined this week, just give me Sea Salt. Oh, happy day!

Eating out: Heidi's

Hambone and I recently ate at Heidi’s, Stewart Woodman’s new south Minneapolis restaurant. A few years ago, we had a really memorable meal at Woodman’s last restaurant, Five—housed in the former Fifth Precinct building in Minneapolis. I still dream of the “Bhopal style” lamb loin in yogurt-cilantro sauce, essentially a deconstructed but refined Indian “curry,” as well as the lemon crème brulee with candied pink peppercorns, one of the most unusual and refreshing desserts I have eaten in a Twin Cities restaurant. With our coffee, the chef sent out house-made mini donuts, an homage to the building’s origins as a police station.

No sooner had Hambone and I vowed to return than Woodman was bought out by his partners and shown the door. The restaurant closed soon after as part of the Great Restaurant Massacre of 2007, which has been detailed by others, so no need to dwell. Good news: Stewart Woodman is back with Heidi’s.

The restaurant, named after Woodman’s wife (who is also the pastry chef), occupies a tiny space in south Minneapolis (next to the [also] very hot Blackbird). To say it’s a jewel box would seem a little clichéd, and nothing about Heidi’s is clichéd.

The concise seasonal menu offered approximately eight appetizers, eight entrees, and a handful of sides, including such items as stewed mustard greens and buttered papparadelle. The wine list boasted intriguing bottles in a range of prices, some under $30, as well as a handful available by the glass. The dessert list featured the gamut from creamy (“dreamsicle” crème brulée) to chocolate (cake), with fruit in between. There’s even a cheese trolly [sic] ($17 for a "selection") for those who don’t require a sweet to end the meal.

For the sake of not making a circus out of our meal, I left my camera at home, so you’ll have to trust that every dish was gorgeously presented.

We shared this wonderful meal with friends, Tracy and Bill.

To start, I took the warm fingerling potato and raclette salad with leeks, mustard sauce, cornichons, while Hambone ordered crepe with foie gras, curried Beluga black lentils, hibiscus syrup, which I didn’t try but trust was delicious from Hambone’s discrete groans. I wish I had brought my camera if for no other reason than to document the exquisite presentation of Tracy’s butter lettuce salad. The leaves of which were removed and arranged to resemble a flower. Bill’s crab spring rolls were garnished with jalapeno “jelly beans,” a nod to molecular gastronomy. We drank a Gruner Veltliner (Anton Bauer Gmork ’06), which paired nicely with all entrees, but especially well with my potato "salad."

Each main course was stunning. My off-menu lobster in a parsnip puree and ginger emulsion, offered unique flavors and textures that were at once innovative and comforting. Hambone’s sautéed Australian sea bass was perfectly prepared, the flesh fluffy and soft between a nice pan-seared crust. Tracy’s homemade ravioli stuffed with beets, goat cheese and chives were singular though. The wrapper was whisper thin and held a beet slice, which was surprising as we all imagined the ravioli filling would be a puree. The truffle foam surrounding the ravioli felt essential, not gimmicky in the least. Bill’s anise-scented lamb shank on a wild rice salad was priced cheekily at $17.76. With our mains, we drank a well-balanced and flexible French pinot noir (Domaine Joseph Drouhin “Laforet”, ’05).

I’m looking forward to returning so I may order my own portion of lamb shank or the grilled lemon fish on stewed mustard greens in a bacon fumet. Bacon fumet, say no more.

The table shared an outstanding chocolate dessert—in fact, the best chocolate dessert I’ve had in an MSP restaurant, in a long time. This flourless chocolate cake had a dreamy, boozey finish. A quenelle of luscious espresso ice cream on the side was unnecessary but much appreciated.

The only misstep in the evening was the thirty minute wait for our reservation. Even though we were twenty minutes late, our table wasn’t ready for us. The front of house was backed up, packed with a couple four-tops waiting to be seated. You can do the math. I know that Heidi’s has been booked solid practically since the restaurant opened last fall—because the food is amazing. Kudos! But there is no bar and no comfortable sitting—or standing—area in which to wait for your table. The Woodmans absolutely have to figure out how to handle reservations or the effect of small, charming, and exclusive is totally ruined, and the food may not be worth the inconvenience.

That said, I will be back as soon as I can secure another reservation!

delivered

My Rancho Gordo order arrived today. I can't wait to curl up with my cookbooks and research recipes for the giant limas, marrow beans, and eye of the goat.

local food writing round-up

Dear Dara blogs about Marianne Miller—a hot local chef whom no one knows by name—and her new Wayzata cooking school, as well as a tip on a cheap, tasty, secretly located Indian buffet.

More Dara: a cool round-up of six no-guilt meals from some of MSP's hottest chefs. Fugaise has been under my radar, with absolutely no word of mouth from my foodie friends, but I've vowed to remedy the situation by checking it out for myself.

OMG—a local Easter candy survey at City Pages.

If you're in town this Easter weekend, looking for a special brunch, try one of these recommendations from the Strib's Rick Nelson. I'd put my money on the Red Stag or Grand Cafe.

reading: Service Included

One Sunday morning, when the boys woke me up early to watch cartoons with them, I took an opportunity to sample a few pages from each of the books piled on my coffee table. It didn’t take long to get totally hooked by Phoebe Damrosch's Service Included, an account of the author’s time spent as a captain at Thomas Keller's New York restaurant, Per Se.

I had the great fortune to celebrate my most recent birthday at Thomas Keller’s Napa restaurant, The French Laundry. In addition to the outstanding meal, I noticed that the service was different from that which we are accustomed to receiving at higher-end restaurants. Unlike the excellent NYC restaurant, Jean-Georges, where a squadron of servers descends upon your table for every single course, administering sauces, cracking pepper, and applying other touches to your plate that, quite frankly, should have been done in the kitchen, the French Laundry’s service is designed so as not to be noticed. Servers are out of your way, but are also attentive to your needs, trying to anticipate what you might want before you have to ask.

In Service Included, Damrosch writes about taking a position as backserver—serving bread, replacing silverware, refilling water glasses—at Per Se, before the restaurant opens to the public. She details the lengthy training she and the staff receive. Her aptitude earns her a quick promotion to captain, presenting the menu and managing the multitude of servers assigned to a number of tables.

The training is intense. Keller is exacting—always described as a perfectionist—and the stakes are high for his new restaurant’s success. In addition to knowing which silver or crystal to set with particular food, the servers can tell any inquiring diner where the tiles covering the floor came from or who sculpted the statue in Central Park marking their view. And Keller has many rules, such as “No cologne, scented lotions, scented soaps, aftershave, or perfume are to be worn during service,” and “If you’re going to be more than five minutes late for your shift, you must call—even if it means getting off the subway to do so.”

Damrosch is smart and has a great sense of humor, and both qualities clearly come through in her writing. She leaves tips for diners at the end of most chapters, such as “Please do not ask us what else we do. This implies that (a) we shouldn’t aspire to work in the restaurant business even if it makes us happy and financially stable, (b) that we have loads of time on our hand because ours is such an easy job, and (c) that we are not succeeding in another field.”

And, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that there’s a lovely little romance. Damrosch finds herself drawn to a wine captain who has come from The French Laundry to help with the training. The attraction is mutual, even though he’s come to New York with his girlfriend, who also happens to work for Keller. A messy, forbidden affair ensues, and I found myself rooting for Damrosch, who gets the guy in the end.

Service Included is a great read for anyone who dines in restaurants as well as for anyone who enjoys culinary essays, such as Bill Buford’s Heat or Tony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential.

Dining out: The Strip Club

Hambone and I eat out a lot, but I do a pretty lousy job of blogging about our restaurant meals. Each time I sit down to write about that great meal we had the previous night, I always remember the three or four restaurant meals that I haven’t written about yet. Would it be fair to them if they were never mentioned before I pressed on?

Well, no more.
Last night Hambone and Spice ate at The Strip Club, a sizzling new St. Paul restaurant. For the record, I love this restaurant’s name, which definitely has sass, but mostly refers to the house special, a NY strip steak. The owners are Tim Nivers and Aaron Johnson, the dynamic duo behind the Town Talk Diner, the hip, no-reservations Minneapolis joint. J.D. Fratzke, whose menu we enjoyed last August at Muffuletta, is in the kitchen. At The Strip Club, as at Muffuletta, Fratzke offers as much local fare as he can, including grass-raised beef from Thousand Hills and beer from the Summit Brewing Co., which is the vehicle for steaming mussels.

The Strip Club is in a highly unlikely location—the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood of St. Paul. But this location grants an unexpected, well-framed view of downtown St. Paul—certainly one of the restaurant’s best assets. Inside, exposed brick walls have been painted a cream color, the ceiling and most trim is black. A brass-trimmed railing lining the upper-level balcony nods to the building’s Victorian (1885) roots. It’s a fun, if not a little dark, revamp of a mom-and-pop restaurant, located in a working-class neighborhood that is gaining popularity for the affordable housing it offers young families.

In addition to the NY strip steak, the dinner menu features a few salads, a long list of small plates, a handful of upscale burgers, and six or seven entrees. In our opinion, the small plates are the stars of the menu. We enjoyed the mussels, which were steamed in Summit pilsner and studded with crumbles of spicy, fennel-spiked sausage. Hambone and Spice make mussels from time to time and found this treatment to be a neat alternative to the Albarino and chorizo that we typically use. I’d love to try these at home.

The other small plate we tried, I’m not likely in this lifetime—the lifetime with small children—to make at home: duck confit. This meltingly soft duck was served no-frills—a whole leg for the diner to pick over, adorned with a simple, bitter frisee salad (that we ignored) and sweet roasted grapes, which served a near-perfect counterpoint to the salty duck. Hambone and Spice had a Proustian moment over that duck confit. We were transported to Bordeaux, France, December 1995 and a post-holiday, restorative meal of sautéed goose liver and grapes.

But I digress.

As for the entrees, they need some work. While tempting, to be sure, we passed on the romantic pork loin for two with mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts. Hambone took the strip steak with which you’re encouraged to order a topper, at an additional charge. He selected a compound butter studded with chopped escargot and garlic, an amazing way to enhance an entirely lackluster steak. The side-order fries could make a best in the Cities list, and if there was a best ketchup category, the Strip Club’s bacon version would win, no contest. Yup. Bacon. Ketchup.

I had the ahi tuna, which was cooked rare as I asked. Points awarded for execution, sure, but I didn’t love it with its accompanying barley risotto. The risotto was soupy, which is a desirable quality when Arborio rice is the main grain, but didn’t work with the barley. I would have preferred brighter flavors, such as citrus, with my ahi, rather than the earthy version, rich with mushrooms, on the menu.

There were a few low points. The wine list had many unfamiliar selections, which isn’t bad, since we enjoy an introduction to new bottles, but the markup was steep, killing our adventurous spirit. The desserts don’t merit further mention. Service was slow, which was fine since we didn’t mind lingering over dinner and each other’s company, but it would be an issue for the less forgiving. I forgot to request my negroni up, so it came in a lowball over ice.

The restaurant has only been open since mid-January, still it was packed and many walk-ins were chancing a table. The reviews have been fairly glowing, so who knows if the shortcomings will be addressed.

We will return, with friends in tow. We’ll request the table(s) in front, with the picture window and the great downtown view. We’ll order a bunch of small plates, including the deviled eggs and the foie gras and the fries with bacon ketchup, and we’ll drink local beer. My office is just a few minutes away in Lowertown, and Hambone’s office just a few minutes away from mine. And, I look forward to trying the burgers on the lunch menu.

reading: Trail of Crumbs

For the past couple of weeks, I have been dipping into Kim Sunée's Trail of Crumbs. The New York Times called this a "compelling, confessional memoir," to which I take no exception. Part of the confessional is a coming-of-age, much of which centers around an intense affair with Olivier Baussan, the founder of L'Occitane, but also details a young person's universal search for a place in the world. Sunée was abandoned by her mother in a South Korean market at the age of three, giving her search additional meaning.

Nearly every page of Sunée's story is made compelling by her confident and luscious writing. Descriptions of landscape, of meals prepared and eaten, of friends, of pain, and of love are ripe, full to bursting.

Most chapters end with recipes. I've never liked the use of this device in prose, even in culinary mysteries. I think it can make things a little precious, but something about Sunee's recipes caught my eye. Perhaps it was the spirit in which they were presented, as well as a nicely conversational tone. I flagged Wild Peaches Poaches in Lillet Blanc and Lemon Verbena, Quick-Fix Kimchi, Croque Madame, Jansson's Frestelse (Jansson's temptation—potatoes, cream, garlic, and anchovies—my favorite Swedish food), Almond-Saffron Cake (inspired by Santa Lucia buns)—among others. But, Uncle Kerry's Monday Red Beans and Rice forced me to run out and buy dried beans and a ham hock.

Midwestern born and raised, I'm about as far from the South, geographically and metaphysically, as you can get. But last April, I got a healthy dose of Creole food on the Mothership—for my money, and yours, New Orleans Jazz Fest has best festival food in the U.S.—and I haven't been able to get the meaty white beans off my mind since then. Now I know that meaty white beans are a different thing from red beans and rice, but when I found this recipe in a section nostalgic for food from Sunee's, I was inspired to make and eat something similar.

If you follow the recipe, which I did since I have no experience cooking vats of beans, it takes about two hours to cook. While I was cooking, Hambone spoke to his Southern-born father, who, in addition to being thrilled that I would endeavor to make red beans and rice, advised that I let them cook a good long time so all the marrow would melt out of the ham hocks. So, although it hadn't been my plan, I let the beans cook for closer to four hours, occasionally adding water to keep the beans from getting too thick.

I thought the beans were heavenly—creamy and smoky and soul-satisfying. In her notes, Sunée says you don't need to soak the beans, but I will next time as some were tough and undercooked—even after four hours. And next time, I'm going find some nice heirloom beans, for the sake of experimentation. (I'm sorry that my photography skills are sorely lacking so that these beans don't appear as appetizing as they could—you'll just have to trust me!)



Uncle Kerry's Monday Red Beans and Rice
Kim Sunée (Trail of Crumbs, Grand Central, 2008)

1-1/2 tablespoons butter
1 medium yellow onion, chopped (about 2 cups)
1 green bell pepper, chopped (about 1-1/2 cups)
4 celery ribs, chopped (about 1-1/2 cups)
3 garlic cloves, smashed
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
1 smoked ham hock (about 3/4 pound) or pickled pork
1 (1-pound) bag dried kidney beans (soaked, if desired)
1 teaspoon liquid crab boil
1 teaspoon Creole seasoning
2 to 3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 pound smoked sausage (such as andouille or kielbasa)
2 tablespoons cornstarch (optional)
Hot sauce, to taste
Garnishes: green onions, shallots in vinegar, parsley

Heat butter on medium high in a large pot or Dutch oven. Add onion, bell pepper, and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, about 7 minutes or until soft. Add garlic, salt, and pepper and cook 3 more minutes. Add smoked ham hock, beans, liquid crab boil, Creole seasoning, and thyme and stir. Add enough water (about 2 quarts) to cover beans. Stir, bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, and let simmer stirring occasionally, about 1-1/2 hours.

If beans get too thick, add more water, about 1/2 cup at a time. Add sausage to pot and let beans cook another 30 minutes or until tender. (For creamy beans, Sunée like to smash some of them on the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Her uncle Kerry mixes 2 tablespoons cornstarch with cold water and adds to sauce.) Season to taste with more salt, pepper, or hot sauce. Garnish, if desired. Serve with hot boiled rice and shallots in vinegar (combine 3 to 4 tablespoons rice or white wine vinegar, 2 thinly sliced shallots, and herbes de Provence or fresh thyme leaves in a bowl and stir to combine.)