Can o' Salmon

 

A quick and tasty lunch is a disk of canned pink salmon smothered with a spoonful of mayonnaise, Sambal Oelek chili sauce, sliced green onions and Japanese sesame and seaweed seasoning. Don't mix it all up or mash it just use a fork to break off mouthfuls and you can enjoy the many textural elements in each mouthful. the creaminess against the tartness, the pungency of the earthy onions against the sea full seaweed. Best seaweed sprinkle for this to my taste is an aonori and sesame mix from Takaokaya. There's salmon not so deep down there somewhere in that there picture.

Fish For The Landlocked

After a trip down to Angelino Heights this morning I scooted up through Echo Park to pick up the 2 freeway to Glendale for lunch at Fish King. Nestled in a green leaved, landlocked naeighborhood  on the edge of the foothills, it's hard to believe that some of the best fish in LA can be found here. I was first introduced to it verbally by a couple who would drive in from the west side to buy for the relevant course at their posh dinner parties. Fish King does have a couple of small tanks for shrimp and lobster, but if you want live, 99 Ranch (see sidebar)  on Valley Boulevard in Monterey Park has many huge tanks with more things than you can imagine swimming around in each. The big attraction at Fish King is the little restaurant adjoining it, with the most delicious platters cooked to order. I enjoyed deep fried oysters with coleslaw and fries, served with the usual cocktail and tartare sauces. If you need wasabes, sri rachas or hot sauces there is a condiment bar which would satisfy. Well worth a trip if you need to stop of at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's which are just a bit south on Glendale Boulevard and a block apart from each other.
      

Instant Lift

I have been a bit down in the dumps lately. At such times work becomes an uphill struggle and friendships become strained as the stories become stale after the third telling. It is difficult to think anything is worth it, let alone cooking for oneself, especially as the appetite is suppressed and one ceases to eat for all the wrong reasons. I am still a bit worried how quickly one loses weight when one is under real stress.

Today, still dumpy, I noticed half a dozen uncooked shrimp in the freezer, so I threw a saucepan on a burner to bring some shallow water to a boil. I took spinach out of its bag in the fridge, all crisp and fresh, rinsed it, then toweled it dry. 1 minute. I cracked an egg yolk into a metal bowl and whisked a little mustard, sweet white vinegar and sea salt into it until it took up some airy volume adding a dribble of oil and whisked it in and again and again adding more in a burst each time. I was keeping an eye on the water while whisking and when it came to a gentle boil after four minutes I salted the water and dropped in the shrimps and ignored them to finish the mayonnaise which was already taking up more volume. Three more minutes and the mayonnaise was finished and I turned to the shrimp which were nearly cooked. Time to finish the sauce. I was having a craving for Marie Rose Sauce, which perfectly complements spinach and, down right shouts "hello!" to shrimp. I mixed a tablespoon of tomato ketchup with the same amount of horseradish, a pinch of Maldon Sea Salt, a small dash of Tabasco sauce and mixed it together in a little bowl adding after three tablespoons of the fresh mayonnaise until completely combined. I poured cold water into the shrimp saucepan and drained them quickly and left them lukewarm. Shrimp with spinach and Marie Rose sauce made in about 12 minutes. I felt real good for having made a speedy and most enjoyable lunch. This paragraph has taken longer to write than it took me to make and eat the dish even though I slowly savored every bite.

A friend of mine has told me that I've put all my passion into cooking over the last year or so to make myself feel better and I agree I think I have to some degree. You have to eat, you get instant results from the cooking and a sense of complete satisfaction. You also get better at it the more you do it. I just don't understand why everyone doesn't cook every day since it is an amazing salve and a lot less work than you think, especially if you have a dish washer, and, I do not.

Nate'n Al, Jon'n Marissa

Nate'n Al is a Beverly Hills institution, on Beverly Drive, and still family owned since its foundation in 1945. It is the best Jewish deli in Southern California. Ragged around the edges and probably last decorated in the early 1970s it is packed and overflowing every lunch time and always has a smattering of celebrities and ancestors of celebrities who order their father's and grandfather's hearties, and their mother's and grandmother's delicacies, from the vast menu. No other deli in town can match or surpass it for delicious, fresh and tasteful excellence, to eat in or take out.

Which is why when my friend Marissa calls and says, "I am in Heavenly Bills and I am going to Nate'n Al, what would you like for lunch?" I get happy and excited! Today she did just that and see the picture for my pastrami sandwich at right with one anxious and unrestrained bite taken before the snapshot, and her Turkey Westwood on my tiny kitchen counter, the result of her care package complete with coleslaw, potato salad and their old and new pickles. Just delicious. Thank you Marissa!

A Pound of Flesh

I had my fiftieth birthday in January. Treated to a bash at Woolgrower's Basque Restaurant in Bakersfield with all the usual courses and the owner in attendance, it was a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Diaz and their son Matt. The pickled tongue was as delicious as usual and the fried chicken, one of the main courses, was about as good as the dish can get. At the after party, Sue Diaz, in collusion with my mother who was unable to attend, had baked a birthday cake of the kind I loved as a child and duplicated its flavor almost exactly, which we enjoyed a la mode. Many photographs were taken that day and many of them included me. I'm not one to fret about my looks or the odd ten pound excess from time to time, but I could tell that I was beyond a little overweight. There it was, the visual evidence, and I suspected that the intermittently high blood pressure and general malaise I had been experiencing for a while needed attending to.

Sue Diaz is recently recovered from cancer, and while on chemotherapy, she and her husband dieted to please the doctor using Agatston's popular South Beach Diet. She often had the cookbooks open in the kitchen to a recipe she was making. Browsing through the book the food sounded normal and delicious and I thought that would be the diet to try if I felt the need. About three weeks ago I picked up the book and read it. Concisely written by a cardiologist, I liked the whole premise, that weight loss was a by-product of eating healthily. I also realized that since I could cook it might be possible to make interesting dishes and hone cooking skills. The diet works in three phases the first giving the fastest loss and therefore the most ascetic, the second slowing the speed in Phase One, and the third is maintenance of the target weight. Each phase comes with a list of yes foods and no foods and basically each adds some of those that were absent in the previous phase. Phase One lasts two weeks and disallows all starches, sugars and alcohol and severely limits fruit intake and some high sugar vegetables. In the first two weeks I lost 12 pounds and am now into a third week to get less of a love handle on things before adding a little starch, whole grains, fruit and red wine. I have had no cravings and feel so much better and have recorded a loss of some 15 pounds. My blood pressure is back to normal and my head is clear, no more heartburn or digestive problems, and I suspect my blood sugar average is much better.

Interestingly enough I have not made a single recipe from The SBD cookbooks, and I will explain why in the upcoming posts but I have stuck rigidly to the allowed foods list and really trying out many of the leafy green vegetables I have neglected over the years such as chard and kale. One of my favorite lunches has been blanched brussels sprouts in a little olive oil and garlic with low sodium, sliced, herbed turkey with it. I am a huge fan of this compact little green ball and it's been a joy to get to know their subtle and complex flavors better.

Aromas

Yes, It's catch up time in order to do penance for not posting.

To my nose skunk spray reminds me of coffee. I love coffee's aroma, but skunk musk is to be avoided mainly due to its adhesiveness. If one gets sprayed, and they only spray if you really threaten them, you are surely in trouble. It's a common smell across the Americas, usually at night when they are out and about. We have a family of skunks here in the neighborhood and I have seen them on my doorstep and nose to nose communicating with the neighbor's cats. The neighbor has an elderly cat called Beanie who wanders into my house freely and when her owner is away I leave the back door open so that she can come and go when she likes. Beanie popped in the other night and settled down on the chaise and after a couple of minutes I heard the pitter patter of Mister Independent Stew, her companion from home. I looked down to welcome Stew but instead it was a four foot long skunk who had followed Beanie's scent and had stopped where the cat had jumped up on the chaise. My room was silent, no TV, no music, unlike most nights and if there was human sound then surely the skunk would have stopped at the back door. But there it was with its magnificent white stripes on black wiry fur, sniffing around. Beanie was sitting upright in disbelief, this was her domain as far as furry creatures went. I didn't panic, I stayed still. I thought about it. I said in a soft voice " Who is that Beanie?". Skunk heard me and looked back at me with the same surprise I felt inside and it made a one-eighty and was out and back along the path it took here. I cautiously checked the kitchen before I followed making as much noise as possible, but that piece of fluff was long gone and I put the TV on as a preventative measure.

I cooked Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding last night and as the meat was slowly charring I enjoyed the familiar fragrance of feasting. Americans cherish Thanksgiving as The Big Feast but in my family Christmas is always The Great Holiday. This year I was able to travel to my parent's home, in view of pelicans drop diving above the Atlantic, and shared a lovely Christmas with them beach-bound in soporific Florida. I embrace sentimentality as remedy for the hard shelled life we face these days, and feel that it has much more value than many of my peers would admit. This was a sentimental time in the best sense. On Christmas Day I cooked the family meal of roasted turkey and a roast duck, and loin of pork with prunes, for the twelve of us. It would never have gone so smoothly but for the able and intelligent Matthew Mills who sous cheffed for me and who on more than one occassion second guessed me. Mario Batali should be so lucky. Matthew was the only one allowed in the kitchen besides me. On other days I visited my favorite fish shop in the United States, Hull's Seafood, and in that week I made moules marinieres for them, and for the first time shucked two dozen oysters for my parents, at table. We also enjoyed shrimp and other aquatic delicacies.

After New Year's our friend Marissa stopped by with Champagne Comtes de Dampieres to toast it with a bang and we had a pleasant dinner featuring Flank Steak and a simple salad with it.

My Birthday in January was a fun time when friends and relatives feted me for a week, no less. We went to Woolgrower's one night and had a party the next night, both in Bakersfield, courtesy of the fabulous Diazes. Matt made me his perfect Shrimp Risotto for dinner on the actual day, after a lunch of more moules at Figaro with friend Marissa. Friend Shauna treated us to Korean barbecue down there in Koreatown.

Well ... I think I've explained myself a bit. It has been a beautiful time. Is beauty best experienced alone? I think not.

Sunday Luncheons

Two lovely consecutive weekends have just passed here in LA . And two pleasant afternoons beside mesmerizing swimming pools. Michael Golob is a true artist and a man I admire. I worked with him during my time in movie advertising and he hosted a backyard barbecue, Memorial Day Weekend, at his family home in a quiet tree shaded corner of Burbank. We feasted on teriyaki chicken and chicken sausage, well, just about every kind of cookout dish imaginable. His sweetheart, Liz, made pies that were to die for and I saw one member of the assembly, who shall remain nameless, go back at least three times to partake of the different varieties. I stopped at one brownie, not being of the sweet toothed. It was a wonderful family affair.

Yesterday, in South Pasadena, The Waymouths, newly returned from Tibet and Nepal, regaled us with stories of drinking yak butter tea, of conch blowing, and of flushing out tigers in the long grass on the back of trumpeting elephants. We enjoyed a brief show of Nigel's elegant snapshots of monastic life in the thin air of the Himalayas. Marissa (née Roth), while waiting for the Leica engineered Kodachromes to come back from Kansas, put together a smoked salmon and bagel lunch with whipped cream cheese, capers, organic tomatoes and onions, washed down with Vouvray spritzers and a nice Bandol. Plenty of fizzy mineral water kept us cool. The finches clubbed around the bird feeder while we ate, and our hostess' gorgeous garden is on the verge of blooming big time, providing a beautiful backdrop to the dancing surface of the pool. I am so glad they are back, always something missing in my life when they are travelling. What a great summer it will be.