Dinner for Four in Ojai

Pierino has a really good friend from college, now retired who lets him get eight hours of Ojai sleep in the guest bedroom. In exchange Pierino does all the cooking (except for making coffee) and occasionally donates one or two kitchen tools.

On the Saturday night after Halloween we had two good friends over dinner. For cooking away from home (far away from home) it's always best to stick to things that can be cooked competently. Never experiment with a new dish or technique without perfecting it. It doesn't matter how forgiving your friends might be. They are friends and need to be fed well to the best of your ability.

Enough blather, here's the menu from Saturday:

Cheese board: Mt. Tam from Cowgirl Creamery, Spanish Mahon, and Spanish membrillo (quince jelly). Both Cheeses were a hit so we were off to a good start.

Salad: Romaine lettuce, radicchio, thinly sliced radish, thinly slice cumumber, hearts of palm and chickpeas. Basic oil, vinegar, dijon vinaigrette. They taught you vinaigrette in kindergarten, right?

Main course: roast chicken. Any good cook can handle this one, and in fact it's what many chef's love to cook at home. It's almost failure proof. Pierino used a 4 1/2 pound Rocky Junior, filled the cavity with a small amount of kosher salt, some rosemary branches and two lemons---pierced agressively with a small knife and then tied up the legs, reversed the wings and then rubbed it all over with olive and more kosher salt. Figure 20 minutes per pound at 375, keeping in mind that no two ovens are calibrated exactly the same. Pierino carries his trusty Thermapen to get accurate chicken meat temperatures in seconds. Once the chicken rests you are ready to go, go, go. Let the carving begin!

With no false modesty the host and his guests did everything but lick the carcass at the end.

Pierino's two favorite kitchen jobs are roasting chickens and making stocks and broths. Easy and rewarding. Try this at home with no fear.

The Tea We Love to Drink Now

Pierino loves green tea in the morning and then around lunch time. It's good for you. We found this wonderful tea in a Japanese market. I can't tell you the brand because I can't read kanji.

The great thing about this tea is that it is made with popped rice. When you brew it you get this nutty, almost popcorn like fragrance and it's delicious.

We have it for breakfast and then for a lunch time pick-me-up.

A Little Spain at the Sea

Buy local, eat local! Go Slow!

When Mediterraneo opened five years ago it was a welcome addition to the Pier Avenue scene in Hermosa Beach. At first it was a very pleasant place to go, with a wonderful front of house staff. But at the beginning the food wasn't that great. However once Chef Amber Caudle took over the kitchen full time it came soaring back.

Amber grew up in Atlanta and graduated from Auburn. Along the way she developed a real flair for Spanish tapas. Last week I was in for dinner with my friends Jim and Adele.

Dinner begain with a beautiful cheese board which included cubes of membrillo (quince jelly). I can't remember the order of courses but we had morcilla in two courses, scallops wrapped in jamon, potato tortilla, shrimp skewers, a beet and arugula salad, a plate of olives and I can't remember what else. It's a good thing that my friend Jimbo brought along his Rabelaisian appetite.

If you are down at the beach I highly recommend Meditteraneo. Chef Amber is doing a fantastic job!

73 Pier Avenue
Hermosa Beach, CA

Oh' Paso

Pierino is back from a brief vacation in Paso Robles. We intend to live there in the not so distant future.

The place I always visit first, immediately on arrival is Villa Creek.

You can see it here with a full moon in the background.

On my first night in I ordered a cassoulet, not quite in season, but delicious.

While was eating my cassoulet at the bar (dining solo I'm always at the bar, where you can learn a lot of stuff) I noticed this pate plate come and be delivered to my neighbor. So the next night I went back and ordered it myself. Bread with rosemary, grilled fuet, salumi, olives, and at the right, a house made rabbit and chicken pate. Outstanding. I was able to chat with sous chef for a bit because he was working the front of the house. I knew the sources for almost all of the ingredients on the plate, so we had lively little talk.

Go to Paso, eat at Villa Creek.

There's a rumour around that Keller (the Keller) is planning to open a restaurant there. Makes some sense as Hwy 46 W takes you through local wine country and then over to the coast.

Apart from wine, if you visit Paso the things you should pick up are olive oil, cheese, and of course the local wines.

Bill's Place

Pierino just finished a much needed vacation up the Central Coast of California. I've been traveling up that way for years. At one point we decided to take the turn off to Arroyo Grande and instantly fell in love with with it because it is one of those old California towns whose history goes back to the late 19th century. There is this very cool steel and wood bridge which crosses the arroyo which is not so grande, but very pretty nonetheless.

Back to Bill's. After three years of dropping in maybe once or twice a year I finally learned that it was named "Bill's". What pulled me in the first time was this giant lion like thing in the front window. Inside there are a lot of dead animals who decided to hang their heads on the wall. This, I guess would be a Sarah Palin kind of place.

More soon because there are other good stories...

Eggs

This passage comes from Russ Parson's book HOW TO READ A FRENCH FRY. Russ, who is a really nice guy when you meet him also writes "The California Cook" page for the new LA Times Lite.

"If the way most foods work is fascinating, the egg is nothing short of a miracle. Eggs can be used as a protein glue to bind ingredients together, as in batters for frying. They can also be used as emulsifiers, performing the seemingly impossible feat of holding water and oil in a permanent solution. And they can be used as thickeners, turning water into sauce."

See, I don't make this stuff up.

Oh' Canada

Awhile back Pierino was up in British Columbia and picked up this souvenir patch. But we can't figure out what it is intended to represent. Is this guy frog marching a seal, garroting it, or preparing to administer the Heimlich maneuver??

Oh well, Canada has given us Leonard Cohen, KD Lang, the Hansen brothers and I guess Alexander Graham Bell.