Deviled Morsels

I am always captivated by Love is the Devil, a most excellent film about the painter Francis Bacon. which I watched on DVD three times in the background while I was doing other stuff today. It has food content in that there are oyster slurping scenes set in a seafood restaurant: Bacon was a nightly regular at the now closed Wheeler's of St. James, traditionally a rich man's haunt. In print, I just finished The Devil's Picnic by Taras Grescoe, a wonderful journey exploring taboo food, drink and plant life. And I'm on to a new book, by Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Delight, which is well written and interesting but far less engaging than Picnic mainly because Grescoe's prose is illuminatingly precise and economical but personally engaging unlike Pollen's fan dancish style, though it is full of fascinating facts, and, reader friendly. I look forward to Grescoe's new book on seafood. Picnic and Love are different media and it it amuses me to join the two in this entry as the word Devil figures in both titles. They both speak to life on the edge and are about dark and disturbing things.

Yesterday my mother told me she was going to make 200 deviled eggs for a wedding. At her age she should not be making eggs deviled , or sainted for that matter, but for her own family. And especially not the deviled ones since she is a devout Christian.

The Eternal Sunset

Yes, it is another national holiday and my desktop is packed full of open Adobe CS3 applications as usual. So I labor through Labor Day. I am thankful for the work and the fact that the power has kept up today. The air conditioner is cranking as we suffer yet another freak heatwave with temperatures of 100°f and climbing. In my own block we have had two four-hour power outages in a two day period. As a result I enjoyed an impromptu stoop party with the neighbors and discovered that Roni and Nina shared a fascination with me for things cuilinary. It was a pleasant, spontaneous, event and took the strain out of the situation. A strange silence pervades the air in these blackouts, one might be in Montana. I was still able to cook, but I'll get to that as you read on.

Such is life in The City of Los Angeles, a behemoth beset by small town logistics and blinkered, questionable, politics, growing way too fast for its feeble infrastructure. I first came to Los Angeles in 1976 and it was a very different place. With smog that you could cut with a knife, despite a quarter of the population we have now, it was then considered a provincial, albeit vast backwater where hedonists ruled. Large patches of open space still existed down the coast and even more so inland, all gobbled up now in the insane and continuous lebensraum. Film, Television and the Music Industry ruled the roost. No place stayed open after 10pm on The Sunset Strip apart from Ben Frank's Coffee Shop (Mel's took over the location and revamped the building) and Canter's on Fairfax in the general neighborhood. There wasn't much "culture". All that changed in the early 80s when some things were lost and some things gained, mainly tons of people who came for newly implanted industries especially the expansion of the military aerospace industry, and the resultant stress on the resources came with it. They brought their love of preservation to a town that chewed up and spat out after each bite. Live in The Now and Fix it Tomorrow Because it Might Never Come. Los Angeles is what it is, and it will be something else tomorrow. I love it for that vitality if nothing else, but it is Promethian in the worst sense.

My first taste of the southwest came with a trip to Phoenix, Arizona in 1976 with my family on one of their Grand Tours. My parents' connections in the west were limited, though they took their honeymoon here years before. They visited Paramount Studios as a guest of one of its executives and met Cecil B. DeMille, riding crop and all, on the set of The Ten Commandments. They also met Hitchcock, Stewart and gang on the remarkable set of Rear Window. Our trip in '76 was extensive, beginning in Phoenix and ending in Seattle, with the LA area, Grand Canyon, Portland and The Cascades all thrown in along the way. One of my most vivid impressions of being Someplace West came within two days of landing in the dry 100 degree heat of Arizona. It was also a shock: in the parking lot of Smitty's, in Scottsdale, a now defunct general goods chain, I locked eyes with a man who walked by me with his young daughter wearing a holstered revolver strapped to his waist cowboy style. The law in Arizona, a hangover from the olden days, made a lot of sense to gun lovers - you could not carry a concealed weapon, it had to be in plain sight, so that anyone had a chance if a fracas developed near or around you. The Southwest has gentrified itself over the last 30 years, but that is but a thin veneer over the ruff tuff frontier underbelly. Its best to remember that this is still boom or bust territory, and that includes Los Angeles.

If you picked up a copy of Sunset Magazine in those days, which seemed to be a ubiquitous coffee table staple, you might have thought that the west had been civilized with the goldrush. Gracious haciendas and majestic getaways, from Wyoming to Maui enhanced its pages and helped to maintain the staid fifties flavor the magazine still possessed in the seventies. Sunset- Living in The West is its full title, and it has stayed true to its purpose. If any magazine is successful its partly because it offers up instant pleasures. If one can't afford a holiday to Bora Bora one picks up a copy of Condé Nast Traveller and one is immediately transported in one's own head to distant exotic shores. Lackluster social life? Town and Country will give you a glimpse of your future with the glitterati. Lousy Cook? Gourmet will give you a taste of what super food is like. Jennifer Aniston not currently your friend? Get People magazine and it will give you tips on how to be her friend when you eventually do meet her. All this for a few dollars and a savings of thousands. Life by proxy.

Sunset is a special magazine that truly reflects middle class western life and it has kept up with the times. It has retained all those cozy traits of gracious living but these days it also offers up articles on some of the darker and more difficult things about living out here, such as the besieged ecology. In keeping with the dignified but never stuffy tone each article builds hope in every sentence. Sunset has become very sophisticated, by any European standard, and even more of a pleasure to browse as the west matures like a rebellious adolescent, around us. I have taken a subscription to it once again and eagerly await its monthly arrival.

Amongst the getaways and ideas for better living are the food pages which always offer a handful of nice recipes. This month's edition shows off varieties of the pears available out here with correspondingly luscious, sensual recipes to show them off. But it is the article on New Mexico chiles that caught my eye in amongst the How to Make a Pathway and How to Make a Fountain articles. I am not a connoisseur of chiles, mainly because I don't like too much pepper heat in my dishes, whether they be Indian, Thai or Mexican, but the article assured me that Anaheim chiles were mild provided you de-seeded them properly, and the recipe for Green Chile Enchiladas seemed just too mouthwatering to keep pagebound. It would not be fair to copy out the recipe here but follow the links and all is revealed. I went to market and bought 2 pounds of fresh Anaheim Chiles which I roasted on the open gas flame (this recipe calls for skin on chiles) and roasted a chicken and used its stock in the sauce. My only additions were a finely chopped carmelized onion and a little cilantro to fleck more green and flavor into the sauce. The results were fabulous and mildly peppery and I will make it again. Comfort food to be sure. Thank you, you people at Sunset Magazine, and may you comfort me on into my sunset years.

(While writing this entry we suffered a 12 hour power failure last night and really suffered for it all round).

Wild Dreams

The last three weeks have been a whirlwind of intense problematic work and concomitant outsourcing difficulties. Family troubles and tragedies, and friends' equally saddening woes, have added to the general malaise and confusion that accompanies these things. It's not strange for me in such times of stress to sleep wild dreams that vividly imprint, and also occasionally to sleepwalk, which mercifully has not been a problem. Last night's dreams featured a segment in which I was checking into a very grand hotel whose interior was graced with lyrical ironwork not unlike that in The Bradbury Building, except such elements were enameled in apple green with corresponding soft furnishings in assorted lime greens and ceruleans, and had a layout reminiscent of London Heathrow Airport's International Terminal departure lobby in the seventies, but saved by that nice Stateside Sullivanesque turn of the century twist. I vividly see the faces of this dream's people milling around and waiting like me to be taken up to our rooms. Once, while staying at the The Ritz-Carlton: A Luxury Hotel in Chicago (A Four Seasons Hotel) near Watertower Place one weekend, I awoke having had a dream in which I had walked around late in the night in its very swish second-floor foyer completely naked and alone but for the many milling guests and staff who seemed to be keen on helping me. There were no smirks at check-out the next day and I trust it could not have actually happened as some things in the dream were out of place. As a Chicago hostel, I always loved The Mayfair Regent facing onto the Gold Coast, where the Sunday brunch was hard to beat anytime then or now. Sadly, it has been converted into opulent condos. Perhaps the curry I made last night helped last evening's dreams along, or my sleeping mind was just working overtime to sort everything out. I have never taken acid.

Weekdays, work is heavy and demanding and perpetually interferes with what should be restful evenings. It's often the same story on weekends. Since most nights it's cook or starve, I have to divide attention between the stove, and the bread and butter matters at hand. The alternatives are to stand over the stove making an efficient, quickly prepared meal or salad. Dinner may not be evening's end but it is an important occasion for me every day. To obtain more complex flavors on such a harried night a simmered or roasted meat is the solution.

Last night I made Loin of Pork Bolognese, one of my all time favorite dreamy dishes, and something of a salve. Take a lean pork loin, with top fat on, and brown it in a heavy pot, lid off, with some salt and pepper. I add a crushed clove of garlic at this point, husk intact, which is not usually part of the recipe but adds a subtle note to the dish. When fairly uniformedly browned add a cup and a half of whole milk and put the lid on ajar. Turn the heat down. The milk reduces to a bunch of nut brown nuggets after a half hour or so, and, only at this point do you add another cup of milk, scraping the combination of meat juices and milk product away from all sides and turning the roast once again. Heat goes down once more and the lid goes on firmly. After about two and a half hours the pork is supremely tender and ready to transfer to a carving board. The contents of the pot can then be thinned with a little more milk and then brought to the boil and spooned out as a sauce. Fantastic - no herbs, no stock, just the milk and the pork stovetop. This time we served it,untraditionally, with Couscous and Matt made a delicious Greek salad to provide leafy nourishment. Marcella Hazan's recipe from her have to have book is a good starting point. Expect to tailor the ingredients by experience as you cook it again and again and again. I slept much better last night and I don't recall the content of my dreams.

Pottering About

I've never read the Harry Potter books though my friend Jeff has already cast Daniel Radcliffe as me in the forthcoming, sure to be ridiculous, movie of my life. Newcomer producer Jeff swears we met at Santa Monica College in Home Ec 101, but I beg to differ: I met him panhandling outside some fancy shop on La Brea Boulevard. Back when I worked in movie advertising the company worked on the first Potter movie for a couple of weeks before Warner's moved the project elsewhere. We each received a copy of the book to get us into the swing, but in that stressed out world, when you move on, you move on like it never happened. The latest hottest brief, book or script takes precedence. So I didn't read that one or any of the other Potter books and each new movie remains a fresh treat. Controversial or not, I find them very entertaining, and we went to see the latest last week at The Vista Theater, a block from where I live. The Vista Theater has been restored during my time in the neighborhood and there is no place in the world that I like to see a movie more. The Vista has wide open aisles and a wooden floor sprung like timpani, which bounces and magnifies the sound of its remarkable speaker system. Sound has become one of the most interesting parts of a movie for me and a concrete floor does nothing but soak up the acoustics in most other theaters. The Vista was built with remnants of the set for D.W. Griffith's Intolerance in the late 1920's, filmed on that site and which provided inspiration for architectural elements at Hollywood and Highland which houses the Oscar driven Kodak Theater, and in The Vista some of the original re-gilded golden busts look down at you as you sit in front of its single silk framed screen. It is now privately owned. I am excited by the fact that I live in a building that was part of the original studio row.

Hogwart's Dining Hall, in the first of the Potter movies, was filmed on location in a place where I ate frequently for the first two years of my tenure as an Oxford undergraduate until I took to the countryside in my last year. Lunch and dinner were served to us by our Scouts, individuals assigned to our residential staircases and who took care of our apartments and us. To attend Oxford University, a federation of 40 or so colleges, one has to be admitted to one of them to attend The University, and I was absorbed into Christ Church (they drop the "college" nomenclature). Built around Oxford Cathedral by Cardinal Wolsey as his country seat, it was quickly appropriated by Henry VIII when Wolsey fell out of favor. It is mentioned a couple of times in The Tudors, Showtime's semi-fictional, melodramatic and rather strange miniseries that has just ended here on cable TV. I don't subscribe to cable and my neighbor Shauna Tivoed it for me as she thought it was important that I see it. As a result of Christ Church's passage of ownership, the reigning monarch is always its head, and is called The Patron. Charles I, as Patron, held court here, on the run, from The Deanery during The Civil War and surrendered to Oliver Cromwell from there after he lost The Battle of Oxford. Like Wolsey before him, Charles, having tested Cromwell's favor, subsequently lost his head and then the country spent 10 years or so under Cromwell's Protectorate. Since then, traditionally, Christ Church is the College of England's Princes and aristocrats if they attend Oxford. Christ Church is the largest College in The University with about 350 Members. "Students", at Christ Church are actually the college faculty, the students are called "Members". I have no idea what the current figures are but the entire university in those days numbered but 7,000 heads. As a Member of Christ Church, the staircase to Hall, Hall itself, and The Cathedral Cloisters, in the Potter films are familiar. The success of the movie franchise means that all these places have been rebuilt digitally and on permanent set to avoid regularly disrupting life at the college. After all, in England, you are instilled early on with the idea that food is mostly a time to enjoy bounty and to "network", and that , in my time was considered an important part of an education. Would not be good to perpetually interrupt that. The Hall, its gothic staircase, and the cloisters, can be seen here in the college's excellent QTVR virtual tour.

Institutional food is always lacking and I remember little of the food served there. If one got tired of it, The Sorbonne, which closed its doors in the early 90s, served a good Rable de Lièvre (saddle of hare) in an alleyway round the corner from the college above The High, or if you felt like venturing further there was the excellent Quat' Saisons then in not so grand a location. I do remember trying to get invited to next-door Merton College as often as possible, as some rich American had left an endowment to them just for food, and any day of the week you were able to choose from roast duck or beef and a dozen other main dishes decently cooked. Amongst the most pleasant memories of dining at Ch Ch was sitting at the long tables with those glowing lamps neatly interspersed along them, we in our gowns, our voices rising up into the rafters, dark wooded paneling and ghostly portraits, many by the leading practitioners of each century on English soil. I personally loved the Lely's, a Dutch portraitist who did well in England during the 17th century. I remember The Grace spoken in latin by a Scholar stood beside their table at one of the large fireplaces near High Table before we ate, and the feigned boredom of many of The Dons at High Table. I have not yet used my right to sit at High Table.

A great visual joke in the Potter movies is the attention to detail with regard to the arrangement of food down the center of the long tables in Hogwart's Hall. In this last movie I felt some envy, for they seemed cornucopial in a Regency sense, smacking of Careme's accomplishments, visually at least. If school cooking had been this elaborate back in my time, even and only with regard to presentation of such don't touch just look centerpieces, you might have justifiably called us all "spoiled". I haven't had to deal with institutional cooking since those days, except for a couple of times in a federally funded kitchen here in Southern California, and I'm glad to say the food there was worse than anything I remember before at University in England, or at prep school where we were subjected to pretty horrible spam fritters and toad in the hole. Like bad teeth, bad food is one of those myths we Americans love to perpetuate about the English.

The Windswept One

I call Peter Huck "The Windswept One", on account of his man-of -action good looks and fiery coif. Peter is a man of action though, a journalist, international traveler, bon vivant and superb raconteur, and we gave him dinner last night. Matt made one of his own amazing risottos, devoting a half hour after chop-prep, to the labor intensive ebb and flow of successive reductions which results in the soft and creamy, but never mushy, dish of rice; every kernel retaining its firm interior. This is perennially a dish to die for. Matt usually makes risotto with shrimp, but, last night he made it with triangles of portobello mushroom that released their flavorful moistness in the mouth, and garnished with mildly smoked bavarian ham. The risotto was finally confettied with flat leaf parsley and topped with parmesan cheese. A simple salad provided fresh greens. Peter always brings food for thought to his dinner conversation, and, by midnight, we had chewed much fat off the world. Hopefully today it is a better place as a result.

I have a great time when I commune with Peter and - or Barbara Drake (his other half). Barbara is enduring 150kph winds in New Zealand at the moment or she would have further polished the evening. Recently, the two of them took a vegetarian Indian cooking class with a luminary of the cuisine. A couple of weeks ago they shared some of the fruits of that occasion with friends, me in attendance, at a dinner in their luxuriously appointed pied a terre located Hollywood proper.

Here is that menu sans dessert courtesy of Peter:
* Dahl.
* Palak Paneer which is spinach combined with paneer. Paneer is a milk-based protein made from curd after it has been separated from the whey somewhat similar to tofu in texture and appearance but actually a cousin of cheese. They boiled the milk, added buttermilk and goat's yogurt.
* Gobhi, which is cauliflower in a sauce made with jalapeno, cumin, mustard seeds and ginger.
* Basmati rice.
* Chapatis, which Barbara bought at a shop on Venice Blvd (the only pre-bought item with the relishes below).
* Coriander chutney
* Mango chutney

They made this feast completely from scratch, including the paneer (see pic above) which is an elaborate process in itself. Palak paneer is a favorite of mine at Indian restaurants and such establishments often make it in advance to keep it on hand but I have never eaten it in total fresh. The difference is immense partly because the spinach retains its rich viridian color and correspondingly clean flavor, and the paneer its own mildness, whereas in restaurants the spinach is often browned from age, and the paneer is too, having soaked up that same brown "flavor" with time. The whole thing usually tastes, texturally or flavorly, like bad risotto: a mush. Not the case this night.

A prep heavy dinner in itself, The Huck and The Drake must have been slaving for half a day or more to put it all together and the results were obviously special and delicious. Their Dahl, anyplace a favorite of mine, could easily have been a meal in itself with a couple of dabs of their piquant chutneys on the side. I would advise them to look into the possibility of packaging the Dahl. I'll negotiate my cut for the suggestion later.

Rest, Faithful Servant

Yesterday, this intrepid gas stove (left), which has resided in the apartment for many more years than I have, was replaced. Suffering a wacky thermostat that has been kaput for some time, broken hot plates, and a dangerously sprung eat-you door, I regretfully asked my landlady for a new one (on the right). Every stove has its idiosyncrasies and I surely knew this one's. Built like a tank, it was probably a relic of the sixties. The new one seems not so solid but hopefully will be more efficient. I cook almost every day so it's important. It is shiny and spotless, but I will soon change that.

Heatwave Remedy: Rosemary's Iced Cream

This is foremost a commentary on food-ish experiences in and around the region that surrounds my little kitchen and it's not really a recipe write. I also think its a no brainer that South Africa popped up prominently in the last post, as I am continually reminded that our local landscape echoes that of The Cape and its hinterland. Many of the flora we take for granted originated down there: the bird of paradise, aloe and certain palms to name some. A place in Capetown made, to my memory, the best malted milk shakes I have ever had. I sat in a sea-breezed, palm shaded garden near the beach, and stood a spoon in the thick creamy delight which seemed twice my size, a treat which was akin to a love gift by my parents.

Today, in LA, we suffer a rally of the heat wave that punished us last week. I wish I was at Rosemary's. I would pop in there now but for the fact that Rosemary's Ice Cream Parlor is in downtown Bakersfield, a sprawling oil town with 300,000 plus inhabitants and a corresponding real estate boom. "Ole Bako" regularly enjoys temperatures of 100 degrees and worse. It's an hour and forty five minutes north of us, in the South Central Valley and is its agricultural epicenter. Most of our country's table grapes, pistachios, almonds and carrots, come from this rich, masterfully irrigated part of the valley. Bakersfield is famous for its style of country music, for Merle Haggard and Buck Owens, and also for its oil. As Gloria Swanson bullyingly cajoles William Holden in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard:

Norma Desmond: Shut up, I'm rich! I'm richer than all this new Hollywood trash! I've got a million dollars.
Joe Gillis: Keep it.
Norma Desmond: Own three blocks downtown, I've got oil in Bakersfield, pumping, pumping, pumping! What's it for but to buy us anything we want!

When you drop down from the beautiful mountain ride into The Grapevine, named for both its luge-like passage and the vines bounded by the triangle between the north and southbound lanes of I-5, you immediately see a fantastic birds-eye view of the valley. When you hit the floor, the oil is ever pumping and here my allergies start to kick in. After a half hour of what is still a beautiful drive, now on I-99, you streak past vineyards and orchards, and depending on the season, potatoes, mustard, and cotton. This is where Cary Grant gets threatened by a crop duster in Hitchcock's North by Northwest and you occasionally still see them swoop over the freeway from field to vast field. Then you hit Bakersfield. Most people in LA will tell you that it's a place they rush through, from-to. When I gingerly turn onto White Lane I momentarily come under the impression that the world's supply of oil is endless and the environment is a nagging aunt you should ignore, on account of the fact that probably at least seventy-five percent of the vehicles are huge flat-bed trucks or SUVs. The occasional Honda, small Chevy, Lexus or Bentley provides light entertainment. I have a small economy car, and once in a while I feel a little threatened by leers from aggressive flat-bed drivers, as if a small car is a sign of my worth. Sometimes one will roll by with Haliburton or Schlumberger emblazoned on its side as a reminder that this is a company town, conservative and somewhat dated despite state of the art gated tracts. When my much loved natively resident in-laws went shopping for a hybrid vehicle recently they easily purchased one from surplus on the lot. Here in LA you have to get on a list. That will change as there is now an influx of disenchanted Angelenos moving in, but I'm still not sure if modern Bakersfield is the American Dream personified or a hastily manufactured illusion of it.

Bakersfield is certainly a great town for old-school food. There are the usual "luxury" chains, from Tahoe Joe's to P.F.Chang's, but what remains of the town's past are excellent Basque restaurants, five or six of them from the old pack, lead by Woolgrowers'. French Pyrenees' Basques settled here in force a century ago and are still a great influence in the region. A gem is the Pyrenees Bakery, near Woolgrower's downtown, their breads and pastries best sampled at their own outlet. Not far from there a fifties flavored Chinatown barely hangs on, and two leading ice cream manufacturers, Rosemary's and Dewar's (pronounced there dwars). Dewar's is famous for its iced milk and salt water taffy. They have a couple of outlets including the original, rather tattered, location. But, there is no frozen delight that compares to Rosemary's iced cream served in its single hallowed location. A family business, established in the mid-seventies and named for the founder's daughter, they make their iced cream on site, and toppings too. Chances are, one of the chit-chatting daughters, if not the maestro, will break away from family talk and quietly help you at the till when you leave. Their dining room is large, muraled with cherry topped enticements, and filled with white painted steel chairs on a checkerboard floor and marbled tables that remind me of a famous, lime green hued soda fountain in Cambridge, Mass. I have sent many people to Rosemary's when they have called me from the freeway, between towns, asking where to go for lunch, as they also serve straightforward toasted sandwiches (my favorite being the liverwurst). I am such a fan of theirs that I would do a website for them for next to nothing. In all forthrightness, a Black and Tan (see picture), overflowing with chocolate and vanilla ice cream, layered plentifully with hot fudge and butterscotch, topped with their own confectioner's cream and a cherry, glass of water on the side, will leave you full of its own accord. I won't mention the voluptuous banana splits and countless other fabulous standards on the menu. And you feel you are in your hometown.

In this LA neighborhood, gelato shops abound and the trendy, in my mind overblown, Pinkberry's "iced delight" is a stone's throw from my door. Rosemary's iced cream in Bakersfield beats and trounces them all, hands down, and if I could I would sniff disdainfully at them if I were passing by on my way to a local Rosemary's outlet. Rosemary's is a positive American Reality now, in Bakersfield, my hometown for almost four years.