Fettucine with Porcini Ragu

Friday Jan. 12 -
Sounds like something you'd labor over for days, but in fact we just diced up the leftover pork and porcini stew and warmed it up with some cubes of veal stock to make it more saucelike. (See attached picture of the jellied essence of veal). On a Friday night, we didn't have the energy to make fresh pappardelle, so we used the broadest dried noodle we had.

Chicken in Champagne sauce

See post for Oct. 31, 2006.
Holt won a very nice award, complete with check, at this year's convention in San Diego. So we celebrated with a nice bottle of Champers (Taittinger, Domaine Carneros 2002: lots of yeasty, bready tastes). And with it chicken in champagne sauce. Don't worry, the actual cooking wine was Trader Joe's "Two Buck Chuck" Chardonnay (now $3). All the champagne went into us directly.

Pork and porcini

One of the great dishes for a cold night. It was served to us by Don and Fee (thanks, guys!), who got it from Marcella Hazan. This is one where Marcella's strictures are right. It does require real dried Italian porcini: expensive but absolutely necessary to the dark, woodsy flavor of the dish. Also, as porcini are "little pigs," it seems appropriate that they taste so good with pork - see http://www.lifeinitaly.com/food/porcini.asp
So, first soak a generous handful of dried porcini bits in hot water. Cut up a pound or so of pork (butt, shoulder, etc.) into biggish cubes and fry in a pan with olive oil, in two batches if necessary. (This is one of the occasions when we actually dirty two pans, rather than just frying in the bottom of the stew pot, since the meat really does need lots of space to brown). Remove the browned meat to your stew pot. Back in the pan, brown half a onion, chopped, in the leftover oil, then add one clove minced garlic. Deglaze with 1/2 cup of white wine and 1/4 white wine vinegar. Pour all that into the stew pot, together with the porcini water, filtered though a paper-towel-lined sieve. Chop up the porcini and a half pound of whatever other fresh mushrooms you have. We had a bag full of Bluefoot mushrooms that were a bit dry (perfect then for a stoo) but even basic old white button 'shrooms will soak up a lot of the porcini taste. Add a bay leaf, 3 anchovy fillets, a Tbsp. of marjoram, and 20 or so lightly crushed juniper berries for that boscaiolo flavor. I stress lightly crushed, since the juniper berries stay pretty hard, not unlike peppercorns, and all you want to do is smash 'em a bit to help release the essential oil. (At this point Julia would say that you can add gin for that juniper berry flavor; so you can, but just pour it into the cook).
Now walk away for 2-2 1/2 hours, until the pork becomes meltingly tender. Like most stoos, it's even better the next day. You can serve it and the gravy over polenta, but we think it's even better over mashed potatoes, that other great gift to the Old World.

Any friends visiting Italy are hereby requested to bring us back porcini. We bought a kilo the last time we there and managed to make it last for a couple of years, but we can't buy it wholesale here in the US, and those tiny packets are both stale and sinfully expensive. Any amount will be gratefully accepted. Give what you can to

Holt and Barbara Need Porcini

London Broil

Jan. 9
This is not our favorite cut of meat, but there was a lovely thick chunk of it on sale at Kroger's. We marinated it in Worcestershire and liquid smoke, then grilled it in the frequent-flipping fashion, while also sautéing sliced coins of parsnip in goose fat (for source, see Christmas, below). Oven-baked parsnips get tender so quickly that we were surprised when these didn't, but a splash of white wine and some simmer-time in the covered pan solved that. The steak rested in the meantime, and was then sliced thin and served with its own juices, avec choix de sauce Américaine ou HP (stands for Holt Parker). Chewy but good.

Home Again

Jan. 8
On our checklist of things to do before we leave the house to go on a trip - after "hide jewelry" but before "garbage out" - is "put bottle of white wine into fridge." So when we got back we had a nice cold bottle to enjoy, despite the fact that the heat was off and we had to drink it with our coats on while we waited for the temperature to rise to normal. After all the indulgences of the past weeks, we chose an easy, light dinner: penne with six cubes of pesto (see Sept. 26). There's no place like home.

San Diego Dining, Last Day

Jan. 7
The last day of any convention is still spent hurrying to papers, and also scrambling to see the friends you didn't get to see on previous days. Fortunately, we didn't have to rush back and teach (hearty laugh here for our colleagues who did), so we were able to relax a bit that evening and go out alone together, WITHOUT NETWORKING.
We wanted a hot spot, and Holt had forethoughtfully scanned the web and printed out the reviews. We settled on Café Chloe, again in the Gaslamp district, so walkable. It had a nice buzz even on a Sunday night, with Man Ray photos maintaining the bistro décor of place and people - apparently the well-dressed crowd wears black even in pastel San Diego. The waiters were pleasant and obliging without crawling into your lap. They brought us an appetizer of smoked trout cakes - good idea, that - on a bed of a fennel and Granny Smith apple slaw, with a sauce of crème fraiche, mayonnaise, capers and cornichons. To go with it, a bottle of Bannister Chardonnay 2003, from the Russian River valley, nice and varietal.
For main courses, we had sliced pork tenderloin in prune sauce, with baby green beans and carrots, and lusciously rare steak-frites with sherry butter and asparagus. Of course, the latter needed red wine, so we ordered a glass of Leal Syrah 2003 from San Luis Obispo, probably because the wine list described its overtones as "blueberry pie and dark chocolate." Not so's you'd notice, but that was in its favor. On the whole, we give San Diego a big plus, for food, climate, and everything.

San Diego Dining, Day Four

Jan. 6
Barbara's cousin David lives in San Diego, and as soon as it turned out that we were going to this convention, a big reunion was planned. Unfortunately cousin Gail, who was going to travel down from the Silicon Valley with her whole family, had to go in for knee surgery at the last minute; we missed them a lot. Nonetheless, on the chosen day we bravely crossed the street from the hotel and boarded the bright-red San Diego Trolley for a ride out to La Mesa, where David picked us up.
David, Sheila, and their sons Daniel and Ben live in a beautiful house on a hill - so beautiful, with decor so carefully chosen and well-arranged, that you wouldn't believe that two actual children and an even more actual black labrador (Buca) live in it, if you didn't see them standing right there in front of you. Though everybody had been out at Ben's soccer tournament until shortly before we arrived, tasty appetizers were instantly produced, wine was poured, and Sheila's hearty, satisfying beef stew (with good bread to sop up the sauce) soon appeared on the table. We had great conversation during the meal and after, with the kids holding up their end in a very mature fashion. And when everyone was yawning at bedtime, Sheila sent us home with a new-age, nukeable comforter, velvety and soft even when un-nuked. We thank her, David, Daniel, and Ben for a wonderful family time, a memorable contrast with the soulless ambition of even the best professional convention.