Chile Nights In New Mexico: Santa Fe, Part Two

It was once said of Hamlet:
"[t]hough this be madness, yet there is method in it." Something similar can be said of New Mexico: "Though this be desert, yet there are bagels in it." Sunday morning, we breakfasted at Linda's boyfriend David's apartment, where there was delicious hickory-flavored Cafe du Monde coffee from New Orleans and a cornucopia of bagels from Bagelmania. In a just universe, you can't call your restaurant Bagelmania without being a maniac about bagels, and bagel maniacs tend to produce good bagels.

Fortunately, this is a just universe, or at least it is just when it counts: at breakfast. There was lox, peppers, onion, different forms of cream cheese, some with scallions--I think that's what it was, but I could be wrong. In any case, it was delicious. [Marina: It should be noted here that my friend Linda is from New York, and like all good New Yorkers, knows how to do bagels right, with the full spread. There was a Green Chile bagel flavor in deference to our presence in Santa Fe, and it might have been quite good, but the notion offended my classist bagel tendencies. I have always taken bagels seriously, by the way. I'm the girl who doggedly searched most of Europe in the 90s for a decent bagel, before Europe was finally bagel-vangelized this past decade.]

Also, we nearly convinced David's children that pumpernickel bagels taste like chocolate. I've never been clear on what exactly pumpernickel is. Once I stopped confusing it with the Scarlet Pimpernel, I was left with the impression that it tastes like pumpkin or liverwurst. I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON:

After a sojourn north to the Pojoaque reservation to watch a local tribe celebrating the Feast Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a fascinating blend of native dancing and costumes with Catholic imagery and sprays of pine needles, we met two of Linda's friends at a BBQ bar named Cowgirl in Santa Fe.

To go with a delicious nut brown ale from Santa Fe Brewery, I chose an appetizer of Chicken Wang Dangs, thereby violating my lifelong principle of preferring to have my tongue ripped out rather than eating anything called "Wang Dang." They were quite greasy and hot, and I couldn't finish them, but they were totally acceptable, although as always with chicken wings, I couldn't help but feel like I was leaving food behind because of the meat that stuck to the bones. You never get as much food as you think you will, because you always forget about the bones until you take your first bite. [I had the posole, which is New Mexican stew with hominy, and the hearty and spicy dish was perfect for a California low-lander adjusting once again to the high altitude, cold and wind of northern New Mexico.]

The waiter, dressed in jeans and flannel, kept coming over to ask, "Who's ready for another whiskey?" As no one was drinking whiskey, that is apparently a standard Santa Fe greeting. I think I could love this town.

SUNDAY NIGHT, PRE-PRANDIAL DRINK:

Prior to meeting Linda and David for dinner, Marina and I wandered around the twisting, narrow side streets off the plaza in Santa Fe, past the cute yet pricey shops, until, like Odysseus without the benefit of being lashed to the mast with a crew with their ears plugged with wax, we heard the siren call of The Matador [or as Devin is too nice to say, I dragged him down there. One can only endure so much tasteful art, adobe architecture and wide-open, big-sky landscapes for so long in a single day.]:





























The Matador, a (literally) underground punk bar in Santa Fe, was appealingly dark and grungy, with one narrow bar and no tables. Clearly, the only thing to do was order shots of Patron silver tequila, which arrived in pint glasses. If that's not edgy and awesome, I don't know what is. However Linda later pointed out that a New Yorker who spent time in real punk rock clubs, the Matador is not a totally legit punk bar, because all the tattered posters on the wall for concerts were neatly framed. Still, salt, lime, tequila, on a cold December evening. You can't argue with that. Plus, the bartender gave us our drinks and then totally ignored us. See? Edgy.

SUNDAY NIGHT DINNER AT MARIA'S

What do you get when you go to a restaurant that has been running since the 1950s and literally wrote the book on great margaritas? Brilliant sopapillas, obviously. Yes, the margaritas were excellent, and they offered a great price on a 3-tequila flight [one silver, one reposado, one anejo. I enjoyed getting schooled by David who offered insights into tequila versus mezcal, and why Patron is over-rated. Oops! My favorite was the reposado.]

Yes, the food was also tasty. [I had the chicken adobo cooked in chile spices, a bit too spicy but quite tasty. Devin had chicken tostados, I was rather impressed at his boldness given I'd always perceived tostado-eaters as advanced.]

But what I remember most are the sopapillas, the light and fluffy pastries drizzled in honey that could put beignets to shame for amazing desserts.


For one thing, they don't have the danger of powdered sugar, and if you don't think powdered sugar is dangerous, you haven't tried eating a beignet under an air conditioning unit going full blast in Fort Collins, Colorado, in the middle of summer. Trust me, you don't want to know what I've seen in my life.

MONDAY BREAKFAST:

On Monday, we were set to drive north to Taos, which I will describe in a later blog. But before we left, we needed a hearty breakfast, which was to be found in the heart of Santa Fe at Cafe Pasqual's. I assume it is the heart of Santa Fe, because it is near the plaza, and because that is the area where I spent most of my visit. If I was there, it must be the heart of Santa Fe.


Words can't do justice to the breakfast burrito I had there.

The first exposure I had to breakfast burritos was in Missoula, when Ben, Vaughn and I would trek twenty yards across an autumnal walkway on campus to Mama Zoola's, where we would order hot bundles of scrambled eggs, hash browns, and onions, which, when seats were not available there, we would port back across the way to Knowles Hall, tracking muddy water and crumpled leaves into the lobby.

Now picture that brilliance infused with a kick of chile, wrapped in a tortilla seared ever so slightly, and you get this:



The other reason why I'll always remember Cafe Pasqual's is that it features the world's tiniest bathrooms and hallways. Seriously. There is a main door into a small 'hall', off of which are the doors to each restroom. I almost literally filled up that hall. I felt like Alice in Wonderland, or Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians. You couldn't open the door to the men's bathroom without having the door to the dining room open at the same time.

As a final Santa Fe culinary note, I went to a local bookstore, bought gifts and a hot chocolate, which I drank on a bench in the wintry plaza on a lazy Monday morning with an accordion player doing his thing. That was quite peaceful and lovely.

Next, on to Taos!

Chile Nights In New Mexico: Santa Fe, Part One

New Mexico, a state slathered in Christmas, desert sun, and colonialism. Marina and I took a trip to Santa Fe and Taos from last Saturday through Tuesday, and saw a lot of all that. But this blog is about food, so we're not going to tell you anything about that other stuff. At least, not here. You'll have to look for my other blog to read about that. Shameless plug? Yes.

But if you were feeling a bit depressed over missing the desert sun shining against colonial buildings where Indians sell intricate artwork, right across the Santa Fe plaza with the monument to "Federal Soldiers who died in battle against Indians," you'll be glad to know I've finally convinced Marina to share her thoughts on our culinary traveling. [Marina: Yes, here I am, at last contributing to a post! New Mexico is a foodie mecca, and I'd been craving another visit for a fix of posole, sopapillas and anything involving chiles, so it was great to be able to introduce Devin's virgin Montana palate to these delicacies.]

SATURDAY LUNCH:

Driving north from Albuquerque (which has a Weird Al Yankovic song named for it but is surprisingly not the capital of New Mexico), we chose to shun the direct route of I-25 and take the Turquoise Trail on a scenic winding route through a resurrected coal-mining town of Madrid--no, pronounced the other way.

There was talk of meeting Marina's friend Linda in 'MAD-rid' at a biker bar, but having woken much earlier than a decent hour, then starved by the delights of air travel, we were way too hungry to wait that long. A bend in the road brought us to the Cedar Point Grill, and we cut across six lanes of traffic to get there. No, there weren't actually six lanes, but we were hungry enough that it felt that way. [I was skeptical, but it was open. Hey, you never know.]

In the middle of nowhere, you run into family-run places like this, which I think is part of why I do love traveling and this country. John Lennon was playing on the stereo when we walked in; the ceiling was decorated with long chains of paper rings like I used to make in school; pictures of Kokopelli decorated the walls. [It was quaint, but not promising for culinary fireworks.]

"Ooo, fish and chips!" I exclaimed, on opening the menu.

"No."

"But . . ."

"No. You can't come to New Mexico and eat fish and chips."

I couldn't find a compelling argument against that theory, so instead I ordered a New Mexico Open Face sandwich, complete with chile and pictured here:


Chiles would be a predominant theme of my meals throughout the trip, which were therefore quite warm. Let's just say that if I had had any sort of head cold or congestion before the trip, it would have been incinerated. [Devin was very brave to at least temporarily give up his fish and chips meme, while I delighted in a well-executed plate of huevos rancheros.]

I've always wondered about the expression open face sandwich. I had this half-formed idea that it meant a sandwich cut in half and presented so that you saw the 'face' of the sandwich instead of the crust, the honest soul of the sandwich turned to the light. As it was, I was perplexed. Can you call it a sandwich if you have to eat it with a knife and fork? But regardless, it was tasty, and the onion rings were surprisingly good.

From there, we drove on to the Mine Shaft Tavern in "MAD-rid." The greatest T-shirt slogan I've seen in some time was there: "We Don't Have A Town Drunk. We All Take Turns." That says a lot about a Tavern that had a bull wearing a Santa hat on one wall and a refurbished coal-mine museum outside. More on this little town--which I think is the best little town I've ever seen and which practically demands a short story collection of its very own--elsewhere. I was beer-thirsty by this point, and the Mine Shaft had a good selection.

I almost selected a beer from Odells in Fort Collins, just because I had been to that brewery and because it wasn't New Belgium--not that New Belgium isn't fabulous. So I chose a local beer, Santa Fe Pale Ale, and I was quite glad I did. As with fish and chips, Denver-area beer was the past, and Marina and Santa Fe beer were the present and are the future. [awww.]

Drinking beer in a New Mexico tavern in the late afternoon while the sun sank towards the bristly hills seemed very apt. I'm not sure in what respect it was apt, but once I figure it out, I'll let you know in a popular short story or poem. In the meantime, just take it as read that it was apt. The point is, I was drinking beer with Marina in New Mexico, and in March we are going to Mexico to see the whales in a lagoon, and it is all perfect and something I would not have done without her, so that is one of the better beers I've ever had, I would have to say.


SATURDAY NIGHT:

We piled in Linda's car and entered the heart of Santa Fe, taking a quick drive past the Christmas-lit Plaza and winding up at the Rio Chama Steakhouse, across the street from the Capitol building.

The building was a cozy labyrinth of white-adobe walls, tan wooden floors and beams, with different dining areas tucked around each corner. We settled in a comfortable bar area, quiet and peaceful on a Saturday, in three big chairs around a table to the side of the fireplace, where we enjoyed appetizers and drinks.



Santa Fe was celebrating a 400th anniversary; it would have been rude of me to decline a margarita in a souvenir pint glass, right? Exactly. It was the perfect pairing with fried calamari, and the capstone to the spicy food from earlier that day. [I had a "margarita old-fashioned" which nicely blended the requisite margarita with the old-school cocktails that I usually prefer.] It was a grown-up, warm place - and a good way to wind down after our travels.

Culinary Landmarks On The Road Of Life

If people question whether I am a sophisticated, big-city adult, I shall look scornfully at them, disdainfully brush invisible dust off of my immaculate shirt-cuffs, and count off the following points in a dramatic-yet-suavely-amused manner:

1) I belong to a wine club;

2) Marina and I have successfully hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner;

3) I can now whisk my own whipped cream, and as God as my witness, I will never use Reddi-Whip again;

and 4) I have baked pumpkin bread all on my own.

I defy you to find anything less than adult and sophisticated about those achievements. See? You can't. And that's because these are all awesome culinary developments.

In order, then, a recap, full of pictures to make you hungry. If I make you hungry, you'll keep reading. That's how I figure it, at any rate. After all, who doesn't love food?

WINING FOR DINING



Whenever we go to Santa Cruz, we stop by the Bonny Doon tasting room to buy a bottle of Calvadoon apple brandy, or better yet, two bottles, because I have a strong taste for the warm fire of golden apple brandy. The last time we went, I was offered a discount if I would sign up for a quarterly wine club. How could I refuse?

Well, obviously I could have refused by saying no, but I didn't choose to.

How could I refuse wine that comes in bottles whose lids feature an alien?

Some would argue that the newsletters that come with the wine are bit much--I couldn't tell you what it means to say that a wine is "fine-boned, lithe and feminine"--but they are fun, the wine is terrific, and the names are great. This most recent shipment featured two bottles of Le Cigare Volant. As the label states, "it is named in honor of the cigar-shaped alien crafts banned from landing in the vineyards of Chateauneuf-du-Pape by decree of the village council in 1954." A wine named for an incident in which a village deemed vineyards worth defying an alien invasion would have to be good!

And the bottle of Le Cigare Volant en foudre that we opened for our home-cooked (or mostly home-cooked) Thanksgiving dinner was certainly as fine-boned, lithe and feminine a wine as I've ever had.

THANKSGIVING DINNER

Thanksgiving has always been a meal cooked by other people. Well, no more! Marina and I organized a successful and small Thanksgiving dinner with my sister and Marina's mom and friend Tim.

It seemed like an intense undertaking until we realized we could order some of the dishes in advance. We ordered a small natural boneless turkey breast roast, mashed potatoes, stuffing and rolls from Whole Foods, which provided a surprising customer service delight. I had an initial problem with the online order changing my requested pickup date from Thanksgiving Day to the day after, which would not be terribly useful. When I called the store, not only was I assured that it wouldn't be a problem to pick it up earlier, but the woman I spoke to reviewed my order and advised that given the type of turkey we ordered, it would be best to pick it up on Wednesday night to allow it to thaw properly in the fridge. And when I went in to pick up the order and get the rest of the ingredients for what we would make ourselves, every employee was cheerful and helpful despite the chaos swirling around them.

The turkey needed to be roasted in the oven. I learned it can be a smattering mess to snip off the netting at the end, and that turkey can take a long time to cook. Overall, though, it turned out quite well. We also had roasted butternut squash--the instructions for which, having said to toss the squash with the other ingredients, gave me only a momentary confusion before I realized it didn't mean to flip the squash up in the air. In addition, there was a salad of green beans and slivered almonds, brandied cranberries, cheeses and salami and olives. Pictures will describe it best. Overall, it was a wonderful day, lasting 8 hours, food, drinking, and Wii-playing in a great big celebratory outburst, in mellow fashion.






All I need to say in addition was that Tim's pumpkin-pecan pie with hand-whipped cream was sublime. Seriously, the best dessert we could remember having.

WHIPPING CREAM

Speaking of hand-whipping cream, after seeing Tim do it, Marina and I wanted to replicate it. When we started, pouring whipping cream into a steel bowl and attacking it with a whisk, we thought we must have neglected something yeasty to solidify it. But we kept at it, tag-teaming the arduous whisking and churning, and all of a sudden, the liquid cream frothed up into something light and foamy and more-or-less solid, without the need of steel cans and propellants and what have you. Very liberating.

PUMPKIN BREAD

Yes, I have learned to bake, too. Okay, it was from a kit, but there was a heck of a lot of mixing involved, especially when the bread mix had to be combined with the oil, water, pumpkin and eggs until it was just moist. I wasn't sure what that meant, so I just kept stirring in portions of the bread until it blended in to the rest of the ingredients. A great workout for the arm, I have to say.

As it was baking, I kept sticking in a toothpick, expecting it to come out clean. I thought this meant absolutely no crumbs or hints of chocolate, until the peanut gallery advised me this was not the case.

I was quite happy with the outcome!

Brewery Fare: Good for What Ales You

Let's say you have a Thursday afternoon free from work. You could do worse than spending it in Berkeley on a sunny East Bay Veterans' Day enjoying brewery food.

That's what Marina and I did, meeting her mom and sister and brother-in-law and nephew at Pyramid Alehouse on Gilman Street. We sat in the beer garden, surprisingly vacant except for one other woman drinking ale and reading a book. It was enclosed by metal walls, decorated with climbing plants with pink flowers and room for Boden--the nephew--to march around the table at will. The sun slanted down between the vaulted ceiling in a soothing fashion until it got too hot and we had to retreat to the shade.

Marina and I arrived first and ordered nachos and a beer sampler, the latter proving a fantastic deal. It was comprised of five generous pours for $7.50, which amounted to close to two pints. My two favorites were the Snow Cap and the Thunderhead IPA. The remnants of a six-pack of the latter are in our fridge as I write. Ironically, the two that I can best describe are the two I liked least, which seems to offer a commentary on something about human nature, but I'm not sure what. Or maybe just about me. Maybe I'm a glass half-empty kind of guy. The Apricot Ale was sweet and pleasant enough, but the taste of apricot was undermined a bit by an acrid taste of popcorn butter. The Crystal Wheat Ale tasted like flat tonic water. But they were good, and there is always another beer to order, so really, I think I'm a glass half-full kind of guy when it comes to a brewery, especially when I don't have to drive.

You really can't go to a brewery without eating fish and chips. Well, apparently you can, as most of the others ate something other than fish and chips, which bewilders me, but who am I to judge the eccentricities of others? I'll be honest in saying that I can't always taste much difference between fish and chips from different establishments, but they would have to be really poorly done for me not to enjoy them, and that was not the case here.

And after the beer sampler, a full pint of Snow Cap to go with the food. It's a simple meal, but perhaps that's why I find it so tasty. I've enjoyed other meals at pubs in my time--I often had very tasty pasta dishes at Sean Kelly's in Missoula--but I always come back to beer-battered fish with a side of beer.

What are your favorite pub-dining experiences? You might expect that my all time favorite would have been in Wales, but actually, my memory of the fish and chips from the shop across the road from the University is a bit soggy from excess grease and oil. That's right, even the memory itself is soggy; that's how greasy the fish and chips were. I would say my top five favorite pub-dining experiences, in no particular order and encompassing all sorts of criteria beyond just the quality of the food, are The Irish Bank and The Pig and Whistle in San Francisco, the Drake Hotel in Toronto, Sean Kelly's in Missoula, and Pyramid in Berkeley, but that could be way off. Still, it's a jumping-off point for conversation.

Chicken or Pasta? Why Compromise?

"Anything but seafood." That was Marina's response to my inquiry as to what she would like for dinner on her return from a week's trip to Mexico for work. This was not just because of the prevalence of fish in her Mexican dining options, but also the fact that people constructed a three-kilometer fish burrito outside of her hotel window. As you can imagine, this colored her perception of fish for the moment.

This left a choice of chicken or pasta. But I decided to be daring and combine the two, and not just in the frying chicken to be served over instant couscous paradigm. After some internal debate and exhaustive recipe research--I browsed through THREE magazines--I settled on this recipe for Chicken Puttanesca With Fettucine. I have no idea what Puttanesca means, but it sounds serious and sophisticated, doesn't it?

I also needed an appetizer appropriate to celebrating the Giants winning the World Series, but since I couldn't find any gigantic crackers, and any cheese colored orange and black would raise some questions, I settled on Drunken Goat, as I already knew it was delicious, and I'm sure there were many post-Series parties in which people acted like drunken goats.



Cooking the pasta and slicing the chicken into one inch pieces were simple tasks, as much as trimming fat from chicken and slicing it can be considered simple. Then came the question of gathering the ingredients. It asked for a quarter cup of pitted and coarsely chopped kalamata olives. Apparently you don't measure this before chopping the olives:



Which I guess makes sense, especially because it is hard to pour olives into a measuring cup without letting all the olive juice out of the jar too. Drain first, then chop, then measure, Marina taught me. How counter-intuitive. Also, apparently you can buy pre-pitted kalamata olives. This would have been useful, yes, but I'm not some kitchen lightweight who can't pit his own olives. I can't pit them tidily, true, but I pit them just the same.

As the chicken cooked, I added the sauce, the capers, the chopped olives, and the crushed red pepper. I was a bit worried that the capers would be overwhelming, as the lemony scent suffused everything for a bit. However, it seems like that scent simmered out by the time it was all done.

Visually, it didn't look much, until the garnish was added. What a difference a garnish of fresh basil made!



The only thing with this was that the noodles didn't separate quite as much as they should have, as the package said to cook for three minutes, and the recipe then had me set them aside while cooking the chicken and sauce mix. Otherwise, it was a sucess, a light but warm and tasty meal for a late Saturday night.

What sort of twists on the chicken/pasta combination do you like?

Summer Simplicity

Sometimes there is something to be said for simple. When I'm on my own, I tend to favor buying a burrito or making a peanut butter sandwich. In my more profligate and less slender days--which is relative, I grant you--I would sometimes order a pizza, reasoning that I could live off the leftovers for two or three days, or at least one day.

But sometimes I rise to better things. When I was in college, I often made brown rice, black beans, and salsa, a combination suggested by my friend Peter and facilitated by the fancy rice cooker I bought from him on his emigration to New Zealand. Cheap, easy, and light, kind of like me.

I made it again last week, while Marina was on vacation, but instead of salsa, I sliced up an apple. It proved a good combination, feeding me for three nights. I was kind of surprised at how quickly the apple slices took on a brownish tinge once I cut them, browning with almost as much unbridled enthusiasm as the padron peppers showed in shriveling out of the frying pan last week.



It was quite nice, the warmth of the rice and beans combining well with the cool juice of the apple.

What similarly simple meals do you like to prepare?

You Know You're Advancing When You Fry Something With A Spanish Name

For months, Marina has been touting pimientos de Padrón, or Padron peppers. We finally procured some last week, but before we could eat them, Marina had the burden of going to Hawaii for vacation, poor thing. So she asked me to make sure to cook and enjoy the peppers enough for the both of us.

If that was not enough pressure, there was just a little bit more in this case, because of something I overheard when we were getting the peppers. For reasons that will become obvious, I won't mention where or how we got them; suffice to say, I was waiting for Marina next to the woman who was distributing the small bags of peppers to customers. A friend of hers pedaled up on a bike, and she greeted him cheerfully enough, and then started to speak in a quieter voice, and told him that her breast cancer was back, and that she was trying to tell everyone she knew in person.

This put me in an awkward position; I tried to disappear, as it were, steadfastly looking in another direction, not because I wasn't saddened for her, but because why would she want a complete stranger to react to such intensely personal news? How should one react in these cases? Discretion is the best response, but it was a little more ambiguous once Marina showed up and I realized that we were going to purchase peppers from the woman. Did she know that I knew what she had just told her friend?

I acted as though I had heard nothing, and simply smiled and thanked her as Marina completed the transaction, assuming she would want nothing more from a stranger than to be treated in completely normal fashion.

This meant that I would be cooking peppers provided by someone who clearly cares a lot about them, is dealing with breast cancer, and who advised us to serve the peppers by frying them in a little oil, adding a dash of salt, and matching them with a good white wine. So as I said, just a bit of pressure.

I decided to pair the peppers with scrambled eggs, just to have something else to eat in case the peppers proved intensely hot, and also because I didn't know how filling they might be. Looking online, I saw that the unique trait of these peppers is that only 1 in 10 is considered particularly hot, which seems interestingly random. I thought about putting them in the eggs, but I opted to have them on the side.

My first effort last night was not entirely satisfactory, so I am going to try again today to see if I get a better result.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 21ST

I crossed the hill to the Good Life Grocery and bought a bottle of Spanish white wine and organic brown eggs from Petaluma--outside of the industrial-agriculture complex and therefore not touched by the recall of eggs.



When I got home, I put a cast-iron frying pan on the stove, started heating the oil, dumped in the peppers, and turned on Mexican Football, Tigres versus Santos, because I figured that maybe listening to the Spanish of the announcers on TV while drinking Spanish wine and cooking a food item with a Spanish name would make me instantly more fluent in Spanish overall.

That's when I realized I had no idea how long the peppers needed to be cooked.

I madly powered up my computer while the peppers and oil sizzled and the excited Mexican television announcers spoke at a rapid fire clip about the football, and found that it should only be fried for 1-2 minutes, or until the peppers started to blister or turn brown or black.

This sounded counter-intuitive to me. All my life, the media has portrayed a blister as a bad thing. Media conspiracy, perhaps? I could understand if they said the ideal pepper should develop a callus, as if it had spent a lifetime of hard work on the vine--peppers grow on vines, right? But, as Socrates is reputed to have said, I only know that I know nothing. And yes, a little known fact is that Socrates was saying this with respect to learning how to cook peppers and pair them with kalamata olives, because even philosophers need to cook. A philosopher who can't cook can't throw dinner parties, and a philosopher without a dinner party is like a panhandler without a bus stop. (Okay, so a Google search for what Socrates/Plato actually said or might have meant complicates things beyond the scope of a blog about food; let's just move on.) If Socrates can accept that he knows nothing and can learn from other people, then so can I. I took the website's advice without a grain of salt.

Actually, that's not technically true. I added a few grains of sea salt to the oil and peppers as I fried them. As they burbled away, blisters formed and they turned brown and black, maybe a little more so than they should have done. I removed them from the heat and put them on a plate, where I dried them with a paper towel. As they dried, they lost a little of the swelling that happened during the frying process. I added a little more salt, and as I started on the eggs, I tried some of the peppers. They seemed to have a little more spice than a normal pepper, but otherwise, they were a little sweet, but nothing extraordinary. Next time, I should use less oil, I think, or dry them more, or cook them less. Or add more salt. The third pepper I tried had a little lingering heat, but nothing I couldn't handle with a sip of wine.

I decided to cook the eggs in the same pan as I used to cook the peppers, to experiment with what flavors might infuse the eggs.



Cooking the eggs in a deep pan rather than the shallow pan I normally use didn't seem to make a whole lot of difference, although the eggs bubbled a little more than I expected, which is probably due to too much heat, or maybe the remnants of the olive oil. I added salt and pepper, some basil and oregano, and then served up.



It was okay, but not as great as I would have liked. The eggs were a little oily, not as dry and crisp and fluffy as I would like, and the peppers were damp as well, and could have used more salt. However, the sixth pepper I ate after serving up was hot, leaving two delicate, parallel lashes of heat that ran the length of my tongue. Nothing unmanageable, but definitely memorable. The wine was cool and pleasant.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 22ND

Today I decided to fry some more of the peppers with a little less oil and a little more care, and accompany them with a couple quesadillas and more wine.

As I fried the peppers, I could hear them popping, absorbing the oil and heat, and I could see the blisters materializing along the green flanks. This time, the peppery scent was unmistakable.



After a couple of minutes, I scraped them onto a plate, and even as they were hitting the porcelain of the plate, they were deflating, shrinking with a quiet hiss; it felt like time-lapse photography. I put them in a small bowl, added more salt, and this time, they are more flavorful, a little hotter, though so far, nothing like the surge of heat from the one pepper from last night. The trick may have been less oil, less cooking time, more drying, and more salt.

They tasted sweet and hot, an excellent counterpoint to the texture of the cheese quesadillas. I feel much better about this effort today. Has anyone else done anything special with this type of pepper? What sort of recipes do you have?

North Of The Border, There Is More Than Maple Syrup

Work has felt more manageable of late, despite a barrage of non-stop calls from start to finish, Tuesday through Thursday, but for some reason, I've been feeling pretty good and at peace with it. In part this is because I've had a good book to read at lunch and on breaks, The Pillars of Hercules by Paul Theroux, describing his journey circumscribing the Mediterranean. There is something about travel literature that I always find soothing, especially when the author talks about eating; plus, I have now realized that my lifelong ambition has always been to eat bouillabaisse on the French Mediterranean coast, while reading and watching the sea. The closest I have come so far was eating seafood paella in a cellar restaurant in Palma (featuring cuttlefish, one tentacle of which went flying into the ashtray due to poor knife skills on my part).

Or perhaps my sense of well-being was imported from Canada, on the heels of our mad dash through Ontario for Ben and Yona's wedding. It was a lovely trip, if too brief--for instance, I did not have time to meet a writer friend of mine from various websites who lives in the area. Here, then, is the diary-by-food retelling of Toronto and beyond. The individual experiences I write about will be ranked on a scale, not from 1-10, but from 1-10.5, because of the exchange rate. I'm hoping to get Marina to write a response to this, a culinary rebuttal or supporting statement, as the case might be. Look for that soon, when she returns from her Hawaiian escape.

I. ARRIVAL

We flew into Toronto on Friday, August 6th, landing and clearing customs around 4 p.m., and after some traffic confusion--missing the exit, and having to bail out of a traffic jam--we defied the advice of a stereo equipment salesman and did not get back on the highway, but instead cut through the middle of various villages surrounding downtown Toronto until we reached Queen Street West. Our destination was here, the Drake Hotel.


Queen Street West is considered a hipster, artistic neighborhood. I don't know what that means, in general, but for me, it was full of interesting stores, old bars, and people having fun, so that was good. We ate in the Sky Yard Patio at the Drake, which was as good as it sounds. Benches ran around half the perimeter of a courtyard, under a transparent roof; the middle of the yard was open to sky, full of tall tables and stools. At one end, below the movie screen where they sometimes show films, was a tiki bar, and the other end featured a regular bar where you could buy "tubs" of beer.

The exciting part was that fish and chips came with mushy peas, which reminded me of England--I can't imagine why. Mushy peas are surprisingly good, better than you might think from the name. I've found several good fish-and-chips places in San Francisco (The Pig & Whistle, The Irish Bank), but I haven't found any places that serve mushy peas. Apparently, this might be a west coast thing, because after we commented on this, our waitress, from Vancouver,remembered that she couldn't remember seeing mushy peas in B.C.

Unfortunately for my theory, I think I just remembered eating mushy peas at John Foley's.

Also, I had a very good Maple Jack Sour cocktail.

There was a persistent fly of some description that buzzed around for a bit. That, and the fact that I don't want to overinflate the grades, means that I will give this a 10.23 out of 10.5.

II. LIMBO

Our first night in Toronto was spent at the Sheraton in the downtown. A cheap room booked on Hotwire in a massive, business-conference environment, all you need to know about the experience at the Sheraton was that I had no interest in the room service breakfast meal, which never happens. I ALWAYS want room service breakfasts. The Sheraton, therefore, gets a N/A rating, because it was indifferent.

III. TOURING TORONTO

In the morning, we were eager to explore, so we stopped to eat at Tim Horton's. As I understand it, Tim Horton's is to Canada what Dunkin' Donuts is to the USA.



The thing that struck me about Tim Horton's was that the bagels, coffees, and cinnamon rolls all seemed rather small. My theories were either that the exchange rate also applied to portion size, or that in the United States, we are used to inflated portions. Tim Horton's provided good fuel for the day, hence a 6.3 rating.

We finished up the morning in the Distillery District, a collection of shops and restaurants in old brick buildings, and where, apparently, everyone in Toronto, if not Canada, goes to get married--seriously, we encountered three separate wedding parties in the hour we were there. Great architecture, cool photos, more of which will be posted in other, non-food-focused blogs, but here is this picture from where we ate:



Yes, it was a pub, and a good one, notwithstanding the sign's disturbing similarity to the logo for Budweiser, American for bad beer. Interestingly, I had fish and chips that were completely different in preparation and shape than the fish and chips from the Drake. I also tried a Canadian beer, Tankhouse Ale, which was satisfying.

Set in one of the narrow, cobblestoned side streets of the Distillery District, the outdoor seating gave a great chance for people watching. Overall, I would give the pub an 8.73 out of 10.5.

THE CANADIAN VINEYARDS, WEDDING LIFE

So, apparently in Toronto, it is considered a good idea to shut down the Gardiner Expressway, the major freeway to get from downtown out to the QEW to head south and east to Jordan and the Niagara region where Ben and Yona were getting married. Seriously, the freeway was a ghost road above our heads, as we and thousands of other cars crawled along the city streets, trying to get free. We learned that Canadians, while stereotypically polite and nice people--and we generally found this the case--can be evil drivers (who drives down the left side of a residential street past all the other cars stuck at a stoplight ahead of you, only to cut in to the line at the last possible moment?)

In this manner, a 1 hour, 20 minute drive turned into a three hour slog.

So it was indeed a lucky thing that a) there was a Dairy Queen at the Ontario Road exit, where we got blizzards--no Butterfinger flavor, but something with a different name that was totally Butterfinger--and directions to the country road where Yona's family farm could be reached, where we had a lovely meal of various salads--I think there was couscous, veggies, etc--and meats, light and tasty, along with a good local chardonnay and pastries.

The meal served the next day at the wedding was also exquisite, bread, salads, chicken, so good! I can't do it justice of describing it in full, because I was focusing on the wedding, but the wine was great, and the cupcakes for dessert were highlights! Because a wedding is such a unique, isolated event, I won't attempt to rate the food, because that would steal the focus from what was a lovely ceremony, a lovely gathering, and a happy moment in the lives of two wonderful people.

We stayed at the Best Western in Jordan, on the edge of Lake Ontario, with great views across the water from our private patio. During the Saturday evening twilight, you could see the outline of the CN Tower and the Toronto skyline in the mist of distance. It was a much more relaxing hotel experience, much friendlier service. We swam, we watched TV, and of course, we ordered room service for an early Sunday morning breakfast. French Toast, a side of eggs, orange juice and coffee. Lots and lots of maple syrup, because this was Canada. It would have been rude not to have tried the maple syrup, you know? I'll rate it a 7.23 out of 10.5.

After that room service idyll, we dashed down the freeway to Niagara Falls, because it was there. It was impressive, for sure, though not as impressive as the Yosemite waterfalls. It was, however, impressive in a much more interactive way, because we took the Maid of the Mist boat ride to the base of the falls, and I have never been more soaked in my life. The little plastic ponchos they gave were of little help.

It certainly whet my appetite. On the way out of Niagara Falls, we drove down Lundy's Lane, because, well, we had to see the doppelganger to the Lundy's Lane where we live in San Francisco. For all the charms of the SF version, proximity to the Mission and Bernal Hill, being home, it does not have a diner in the shape of a flying saucer, called, appropriately, the Flying Saucer Diner.



And of course, when at a diner, one must have pancakes. It's the raison d'etre for diners. Plus, the maple syrup imperative must be obeyed.

All that needs to be said was that I could not finish the scrambled eggs/house potatoes/five large pancake combination, and that wasn't because they were bad, but because there was so much food. And two such meals, one for me and one for Marina, with coffee and orange juice, all for less than $28 Canadian. Amazing deal in a fun atmosphere, decorated in sparkly red booths and mirrors, like a disco flying saucer. I'd rank it 8.12.

So, yes, there was more to Canada than maple syrup. There was also fish and chips. What can I say? When I travel, there are certain routines I have when it comes to meal selections.

Do you have certain foods that you find yourself choosing when you travel? Was there something else I should have tried in Canada?

6 Degrees of Pasta Cooking

It seems like we cook a lot of pasta. Variations on a pasta theme would be the symphonic version of our cooking experiments, or at least mine. That's because the pasta part is easy, and gives you a baseline from which to experiment with sauces and salads, appetizers and wines. I'm okay with that for now. We did, however, take a step forward by heeding the advice of others and buying a grill/griddle fixture for the stove, which I'm sure will come in useful (discussions of pancakes have commenced).

Here are some pictures from our recent meals we've prepared. You'll see some familiar things, but with pictures, everything can look fresh and new, ideally, which is the joy of cooking, watching a meal come together in rich color, taste, texture, etc.

In honor of Mad Men, here's a picture of a cocktail that Marina made, in front of two bowls of farfalle, cream sauce, heirloom tomatoes, and walnuts:



And then, because sometimes one cocktail just isn't enough:



Before you eat a lot of pasta and drink cocktails, you should have flowers around, just to prove that the city isn't so foggy that nothing vibrant can be found, even if this is the coldest summer since 1973--proving once again, in comparison with the record heat across the country and out east, that San Francisco is so darned contrarian:



And what are flowers without a little wine and some appetizers?



(This wine is produced close to my grandparents' house on the Sonoma Coast, where I spent the best parts of my childhood in California. It is produced in Cazadero, familiar to fans of Jerry Garcia.)



I liked this wine, but to be fair, my tastebuds have a default setting of liking wine.

My creativity is shifting from the world of salads to the world of presenting appetizers. For the one pictured below, Marina gets the credit for suggesting the combination, which was sliced tomatoes, mozzarella balls, balsamic vinegar, and basil:





Anyway, that's enough for now. Tomorrow I'll write about our dining experiences on our mad dash trip to Canada for our friends' lovely wedding in Canadian wine country, with a brief sojourn in Toronto beforehand.

In the meantime, what are some of your favorite and unusual appetizer combinations?