morsels & sauces

When we first moved to the Bay Area about 13 years ago, the husband and I lived with the in-laws. There, I learned how to cook for more than just myself and the occasional impromptu party. Certainly, I was well versed in how to make all the things I liked--eggplant Parmesan, veggie burgers, salsa--and I knew how to get excited, make three lasagnas, realize I couldn't possibly eat that much, and invite a dozen friends over. What I didn't know how to do was cook on a daily basis for someone other than myself. Further, a recent conversion back to the eating of meat left me with no idea how to cook anything that was once clucked, bleated, or mooed. Thus, the nightly dinner with the in-laws spurred me into learning how to cook. With rotating dinner-making duties, we all gathered in the kitchen, talking, sipping wine, and tossing together a simple salad. Somewhere in that time, the mother-in-law began cooking from Julie Sahni's  Classic Indian Cooking , a cookbook I ...

I could move to Seattle. Since moving to California, I have learned the following lesson again and again: I love the water. I love the crash of waves while I walk on the beach with a cup of hot chocolate, the splash of sidewalk puddles (especially when I am wearing my polka-dotted rain boots), the penumbras of light from streetlights in heavy fog, the ping of rain on the roof of my car, the rush of fog over the Berkeley and Oakland hills, the sweep of the Bay as I round the curve on 24 just heading west from the Caldecott Tunnel, and most recently the stillness of the surrounding Delta while hundreds of ducks dip beneath the water's surface for food. However, we just ended the driest January on record here in the Bay Area. As in, literally no rain whatsoever during the wet season: the first time since 1850 that no rain has fallen in January. Yikes. I miss the rain. And I miss the mushrooms that come with the rain.  The other day, I had planned to mak...

I present to you: Potato Salad. That said, it's a pretty special potato salad with smoked trout and piquant arugula, but potato salad. I find that I have many disparate thoughts about this potato salad, and I lack the inclination (and talent) today to string together these thoughts into something coherent and clever.  Instead, I present to you a bullet-point list about a savory, peppery and smoky potato salad that I urge you to give a try should you have the inclination (and time). Deborah Madison (our cookbook's author) tells the story of finding smoked albacore at her local farmer's market. I had smoked trout, instead. Indeed, smoked trout is a boon. Not only is it caramelized and earthy-sweet-smokey, but it is one of those treats with lovely, pleasant memories associated with it. Earlier, I wrote an homage to a friend , who often served smoked trout before a massive Canadian thanksgiving feast. Before the meal, we would all crowd on his and his wife's litt...

Oh, this past weekend was spent at the ocean. W ell , technical ly, it was spent in a cabin in the woods, b ut last Sunday evening was spent on a winter run that ended with a winter sunset at a winter ocean, and let's face it, that was the highlight of th is winter weekend. And , in addition to that wonderful sunset, y es, there was squash. I do what I can, when I can, to ea t squash , f or my CSA s ends it almost every week. I  have roasted it with cardamom and nigella seeds , wrapped it in pastry ,  roasted it with dates and thyme , and  pureed it into soup . And this past weekend, I had it in a squash cr umble , which is a savory equiv a l e nt o f a crisp (as in what the Americans might t hink of when we think of Apple Crisp) . Apparently, the Brits serve these crumbles in a swath of varieties and have been doing so since the middle of last century. America ns know them usually only under their sweet variety, but the Brits are onto something...