King Condiment

I'm not going to spend anytime in this posting justifying my opinion. Taste preferences aren't the type of topic that I enjoy debating, so I am simply going to state that mustard is above and beyond my favorite condiment. I love all kinds; horseradish, dijon, german, honey, garlic, chinese. However, what takes the crown for me are spicy mustards that are capable of doing a number on your sinuses. The type that you don't taste as much as get hit by. That is why when I recently got together with friends to make mustard from scratch I was insistent that the Grandmother provided recipe fit that bill. Now having a fridge full of the finished product, I can assure you, it does! It is the perfect accompaniment to sandwiches of all varieties and as a base for salad dressings it's extraordinary.

The recipe we followed was particularly interesting because it uses seasonal fruit (think peaches, apples, apricots, or pears) as it's base. The majority of recipes use vinegar as their main base and all this recipe does is place a steamed and then blended fruit underneath that vinegar layer. While I can't give away the exact recipe we used because it was a family heirloom, I've adapted a recipe below to closely resemble our blend. The fruit (in our case pears) gives the mustard a nice and unexpected complexity. I'm sure if you give it a whirl you will have equally delicious results.

Ingredients:

* 1/4 cup yellow mustard seed
* 2 Tbsp. black or brown mustard seed, heaping
* 1/4 cup dry mustard powder
* 1/2 cup water
* 2 cups vinegar (white, apple cider, red wine - you know what you like)
* 2 cups steamed and blended fruit of your choosing
* 1 tsp. salt
* 2 garlic gloves, minced or pressed
* 1/4 tsp. ground allspice
* 1/4 tsp. dried tarragon leaves
* 1/8 tsp. turmeric

Preparation:

In a small bowl, combine mustard seed and dry mustard. In a 1- to 2-quart stainless steel or nonreactive saucepan, combine remaining ingredients. Simmer, uncovered, on medium heat until reduced by half, 10-15 minutes. Pour the blended fruit into the mustard mixture and once blended add the remaining vinegar mixture. Let stand, covered, at room temperature for 24 hours, adding additional vinegar if you wish to thin the mustard. Process the seeds and mixture in a blender or food processor until pureed to the texture you like --this can take at least 3 or 4 minutes. Some prefer whole seeds remaining, others a smooth paste. The mixture will continue to thicken. If it gets too thick after a few days, stir in additional vinegar. Scrape mustard into clean, dry jars; cover tightly and age at least 3 days in the refrigerator before using.
Makes about 3-4 cups.

The Limoncello Started It

As you know, I regularly get together with a group of friends and make a variety of liqueurs and mixers. It was about a month ago, while I think we were desperate for Spring to arrive, that we made a batch of Limoncello. The lovely lemon liqueur that was so bright and citrusy that we got to dreaming … Wouldn’t it be amazing to gather our friends for a fun formal affair? An event where we could create a menu that celebrated springs bounty and get everyone in their finest cocktail attire?

Well, we didn’t dream long, because before I knew it, we had mailed invites for 40 and were gathering more dishware than any of us thought was possible. Three weeks (and an ungodly amount of group emails) later, the night was upon us. The tables were gorgeous with mixed dishware on simple white clothes, cut up spring fabrics for napkins, mason jar water glasses, and some foraged (wink wink) flowers and we had ourselves a bash. I rarely admit to feeling this way, but this time I have no problem saying that the night was spectacular. This is because everything went off as planned, but because of how much everyone enjoyed themselves and the fact that you could feel our guests were caught up in the spirit of the evening. I was busy as could be that night so I didn’t have a chance to snap photos however, here is a quick picture of the most important element of the night, the menu:

We served:

Fava Bean Crostini
Rock Crab on Micro Greens
Wild Salad with a Pear Vinaigrette

A Trio of Tarts
Pickled Carrots

A Citrus Coconut Ice Cream
Orange Walnut Crisps

And of course we finished off the evening with our homemade Limoncello. Cheers to Spring!

The Welcoming Gene

It has taken me a long time to come to terms with the type of host I really am. You see, I like to think I'm super chill, with a "time together is all that matters" vibe, when the reality is, that nothing could be further from the truth. I can't help it, I'm Joel Kleinman's daughter and I'll be damned if you visit me and don't have battle wounds to show for it. For me, a good trip is filled with unexpected settings, great food, a mishap or two, and of course a lot of booze and I work to make sure that my guests are guaranteed all of these things when visiting me. So when planning the itinerary for my brothers recent visit, I was shocked to find one place that actually had the possibility to meet all of my criteria; the Tourist Club in Marin. It was perfect. Those of you who live in the bay area might know about this German Chalet in the middle of Muir woods that servers Beer and has beautiful decks to drink it on. You might also know, that people tend to be put off by the Tourist Club because their website isn't the most welcoming. Their weekend schedule is irregular and since they are a private club they make it very clear that they have no problem turning you away no matter where you've hiked from. Furthermore, they have a long list of rules: no dogs, no parties over 7, no outside booze, etc etc. I could see where others might be fazed by this attitude but I didn't even bat an eye when reading the info. After all, these people are GERMAN. They don't have the welcoming gene and you can't let this stop you from enjoying their company. So off we went in search of good beer and bad service.



I should mention, that the Tourist club is generally described as a hike in location. They have a parking lot but they discuss that as only being there for truly lame and helpless individuals and encourage you to take 1 of 2 hikes to their property. Your choices are, a challenging hike clocking in at around an hour and a half, or a moderate hike lasting only 30 min. I choose the later because if a German person says a hike is hard, it’s definitely a torture trail and we were there to have fun. We go to the described trail head right off of Panoramic Highway. It is beautiful. We see the woods descend into the ocean and off in the distance San Francisco's radio tower. The trail takes us about 20 yards below the highway and back the direction that we drove in. We hike for about 15 minutes before we start to wonder when exactly the path will separate from the highway and descend down into the woods. We continue and by minute 25 we are sure that we have taken the wrong trail. There is no way that a Teutonic nature lover would knowingly lead us along a glorified sidewalk 60 ft from the street. After hikers assure us that we are indeed headed in the right direction we forge forward. Right around minute 35 we strangely pop back onto a spot on the highway that we had driven past three quarters of an hour earlier, we look down the street and sure enough, we've hiked to the tourist club parking lot (enter mishap) which totally insulted my hiking sensibilities. The funny thing is, that walking from the parking lot the true treachery begins. You are forced to descend down one of the steepest walkways I've ever been on knowing that once you're drunk you'll need to get up this trail. Needless to say, once the club came into sight I knew it was all worthwhile. It truly is a traditional Bavarian Hut with hand crafted wood detail on every corner. As we sat there with our pitchers of beer and beautiful surroundings I couldn’t have been happier, knowing that even Papa would be proud of the adventure I'd drummed up for my bro. Oh and for those of you who are curious, the beer is the real deal too.

This is not a food blog

For months now I've been reading nothing but John Cheever and Raymond Carver, and of their work, only the shorts. Perhaps it is because shorts are the candy of the literary world. These little treats that you consume quickly and that ultimately leave you wanting more. It's not that one isn't enough, it's just that that having had one perfect little bite doesn't stop you from wanting another. Anyway, I know that what kept me bound bouncing back and forth between these two authors was the similarity of their points of view and how uniquely American their work feels. Like equal and opposite characters, both write straightforward stories about the sadness and loss of everyday people. Funny, dark, candid pieces that make you want to do nothing but drink and smoke. Like suburban chroniclers on opposite sides of the track they give you moral-less stories of people you already know. Without pretense or trickery both authors write with a blunt realism that to me lies at the heart of American literature.

For those of you that don't know John Cheever is a product of the east coast/old guard world, writing about the upper/middle class, while Raymond Carver is from the next generation of west coast authors that focus more on the lower/middle class. What I realize is that by reading these men as a pair and seeing the disparity between east/west, rich/poor, old/new, that I was also able to see that they have captured what is common amongst these worlds. What Carver and Cheever make clear is that no matter where we are, and what sort of life we lead we are surrounded by incongruity. In their work the drunk and the reformer, the ignorant and the educated, the spiritual and secular, simply are. These counterparts are never put into conflict with one another, rather they exist side by side easily and without judgment. It is this acceptance of duality within everyday existence, that makes their work so tangible and addictive. I think it is also why their stories are able to make me feel at home in the chaos of the city. I could go on but instead I'll just urge you to remember them next time your looking for a good read.

An Ex-Lyer

Back in November, my good friend Jen of Eve invited me to an olive brining class at in Oakland. I was excited but had no idea what to expect. I have done my fair share of pickling but have never considered olive brining before. So off I went to the Bio Fuel Oasis co-op(I know stay with me) dreaming about the jars of bobbing little spheres that would soon be in my fridge. To my surprise the co-op is located in an adorable little brick gas station built in the 50's to resemble a pagoda. It was a building I passed often while living in Oakland, however, in my time it sat sad and abandoned with a bad paint job and shady characters in it's midst, so it was nice to see it being taken care of. Once inside, the olive lesson began. Of course there had to be some bad news before there was good. We learned that almost all of the olives sold in stores are cured with lye. Lye is a corrosive alkaline substance(I only partially know what that means) that will basically screw you up. The chemical is not only produced in mercury vats and transfers mercury to the foods that are produced with it, contact with lye can also cause everything from chemical burns to blindness. MMMMMMMM, who's hungry for olives? The real frustrating part of the predominance of the lye procedure is that the old world methods for brining olives may require patients but are incredibly simple.

Ok, so just to be clear the goal of brining is simply to remove the insanely foul/bitter flavor from a fresh olive to make it edible. As the chef that taught the class (and had studied cooking with italian grandma's in the countryside of italy) reminded us numerous times, olive brining is super straightforward. Follow one of these methods until your olives don't taste rancid; that's all there is to it. The first and oldest method we learned is my favorite although it isn't exactly practical for city. This is a salt cure which entails putting an equal quantity of salt and olives into a sac and hanging it up on a tree. Every day you simply go over and shake the bag, and three months later you have olives. Awesome right?

The two methods that we tackled in class were water brining and salt brining. For the water brine all you do is take olives, score them (which just means slicing them as you see in this pic) or crush them with a rolling pin, and then put them in a jar with water. Breaking up the olives just helps them to release their bitterness. Change the water daily and in 8 weeks they should be ready to season. The batch that we did in a water brine were green (less mature) olives. When using the water method you should be ready to see the olives turn a browner green when they oxidize in the areas that have been scored or broken. At first this bothered me but when I started to think about the green olives I purchase in stores, I realized they all have that sort of camouflage coloring and I decided to let the perfectionism go and love these little guys anyway.

Now in my opinion the salt brined olives were the real star of the show. Basically, take ripe olives and put them in a jar with a brine of 8 ounces of salt per gallon of water. Let them hang out in a cool place for a week. At that point rinse the olives off and change the brine to a 1 pound of salt per gallon of water ratio. Let those be for 15 days and repeat that process until your olives taste like olives, which took about 7 weeks total for me. At that point season them with whatever your pantry provides. I used balsamic vinegar, olive oil, lemon, chillis, thyme, rosemary, garlic, and honey and they were delicious. The only change I would make is to leave out the olive oil next time. It coats the olives in a way that is to greasy. Oh, and in terms of where you get raw olives..... look around you. Here in Northern California olive trees are everywhere so most people that do this go out with buckets and forage them in open spaces and friend's backyards. I've already spotted some trees that are perfect for picking but that info I'm not willing to share. You'll just have to go out and find a tree of your own.