Made in America

COSTA MESA -- In Orange County CA on a business trip for several days, and this morning partook of something quintessentially AMERICAN---the $10.95 all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. There is nothing better, IMHO, to start a long and when-will-I-have-time-to-eat day than with a huge breakfast spread: coffee, juice, pastry, scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, pancakes, and yes, a couple (O.K., THREE) strips of bacon. I'm good now till 3 or 4:00 p.m. easy. Really, you load up on the morning buffet and you don't NEED lunch. It's a great deal, a nice splurge, and yes, I'll walk off all the calories and such throughout the rest of the day. Life in Costa Mesa, at the Orange County Hilton, is very good today.

Wood-Fired Cooking

In my previous post, I shared my Food Fantasy about purchasing a wood-fired oven. I got the idea for this by attending a couple of months ago a "Wood-Fired Cooking" class through Healdsburg's Relish Cooking School.

The class was awesome. It was hosted by Andrea Mugnaini, whose Mugnaini company has helped re-introduce to the U.S. authentic Italian wood-fired ovens. Andrea cooked all kinds of goodies (see pics below) as well as went over the highlights of wood-fired cooking. Here are some of the tid-bits I took away from her class:

* Wood-fired ovens don't use gas or electricity, and have no moving parts

* You don't use a thermometer to cook: you look at the various colors of the charcoal and use your hand

* When the oven is fully heated, food cooks FAST (pizzas take about 3 minutes)

* While the floors are the thickest part of the oven (cause that's where the fire is), once the oven has heated, the TOP of the oven is actually hotter than the floor

Andrea prepping:

Pizza!

Simple:

Even desserts!

O.K., and if you really want to dream, how about this: every year Andrea leads a week-long "Art of Wood-Fired Cooking" class in...Tuscany. Now THAT would be cool.

My Food Fantasy

O.K., I’ve shared with Frequent Readers of This Blog (FROTB) a food confession, I introduced you to the Meat Monkey, and I’ve gone on and on about the Land Lobster. Now it’s time to take this one step further: I want to share a Food Fantasy.

And no, my food fantasy does not have to do with celebrity wonder chef Giada De Laurentiis and tomato sauce.

(No, you see, my fantasy about Giada goes like this. She makes me one of her special gourmet breakfasts, and serves it to me in bed. And because my hands are bandaged from some sort of non-lethal accident, she has to feed me the breakfast. And then afterwards, again because my hands are bandaged, she—wait! Whoa. Sorry about that—I started to get a little carried away!)

My food fantasy is this: I want to have in my backyard one of those big old wood-burning pizza/bread ovens. Then I could make really cool wood-fired pizzas and roasted veggies and awesome breads, and invite all my cool friends over and have great backyard parties drinking awesome Napa Valley or Sonoma County wine and playing bocce ball and so on and so on. Wouldn’t that be cool? You know, crank up the oven to 900 degrees or so and just go at it.

Here’s what I want:


Here’s what I have:


I even have the perfect spot in my backyard. You see, we had this old gazebo which began to rot away. So I knocked the darn thing down! All I need to do is knock out the deck and presto!—wood-fire oven spot.

Gazebo, eight minutes later (well, maybe 10-12 minutes later):

So what do you think? The ovens only cost about $5-$8K… plus delivery… and custom installation… and of course the cooking classes… and you need a couple-three cords of wood. I mean, that’s not a lot, is it?

Let me know what you think.

And stay tuned for my next post, when I talk about the wood-fire oven class I recently attended put on by Andrea Mugaini whose company re-established wood-fired ovens in the U.S.

Olive Ole'

Yes, the 2007 Napa Valley grape harvest has come and gone, as has the 2007 Sonoma County grape harvest. But there's another harvest going on right now still: olives!

I was hanging out with my friend Maury recently, who's the groundskeeper at The Wine Country Inn in St. Helena, and he stepped me through the process they go through to harvest and cure the olives from the 25+ olive trees on the Inn's property. I found it fascinating! Hope you do too.

First, the olives are picked green. (Apparently, if they have any color at all, they're "too far gone".) Next, the olives, which are very toxic, are soaked in huge plastic garbage cans in LYE. That's right, bleach, lye, the bad stuff (the Inn uses Red Devil Drain Opener). According to Maury, you mix 8 oz. of lye per five gallons of water. The olives soak for six to eight hours in this lye/water mixture, until they turn a straw color all the way to the pit.

Next, the olives are then soaked in water for six to eight DAYS to get all the lye out. These olives need to be stirred every hour, and the water changed every four hours.

So how do you know if you've soaked out all the lye? Someone (!) has to taste them! Yes: If they burn your lips, they need more soakin!

Anyway, I found it quite fascinating. And once the olives have soaked thoroughly, they are then put into a brine/lemon juice solution and canned. And of course, you can add goodies to impart onto the olives other great flavors, such as rosemary and garlic (my personal favorite).

Needless to say, it's a pretty labor-intensive process. But Maury says these Wine Country Inn olives are the best he's ever had. And I have to agree.

BTW: Maury has his own blog about the various garden goings-on at the Inn. If you're interested, check it out.

TIAGASIAB

There IS a god and She is a BUCKEYE!

Today: The Ohio State Buckeyes 14, that lowly team from Michigan 3

OSU is now 11-1, outright winners of the Big Ten conference two years in a row, and almost certainly headed to the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day. If you're a Buckeye, it just doesn't get much better than this....

My recommended celebration: A cold bottle of Anchor Steam, from San Francisco's Anchor Brewing Company. Every time I have one of these, I immediately get transported back to Fisherman's Wharf in San Fran and the smell of fresh crab and shrimp and fried calamari. This beer has history, taste, and character, and worth every penny.

Time to Talk to Mom

Countdowns abound at the moment. The BIGGEST GAME is now less than 24-hours away. And the BIGGEST DAY (for many, many people) -- Thanksgiving -- is now less than a week away. For a special Thanksgiving treat, do what we do every year: order a couple of homemade pies from Mom's Apple Pie in Sebastopol.

A little background. "Mom" is one Betty Carr, and for years she's been turning out high-quality fruit and other pies via a small store on Gravenstein Highway North, at approximately where it intersects with Guernville Road. Their pie selections for Thanksgiving include: apple, apricot, blackberry, cherry, peach, raspberry, rhubarb, wild blueberry, pecan, mincemeat, and, of course, pumpkin. Be sure to call and order ahead though: They have almost NO available pies the day before Thanksgiving; ALL have been pre-ordered.

Anyway, check out Mom's for great quality pies...and a big taste of homemade. 4550 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol; 707-823-8330

Da BIGGEST Game

That's right, this Saturday is not the Big Game but the BIGGEST GAME: The Ohio State University vs. that funky old Michigan team. Being a born-in-Ohio Buckeye, this means a lot to me, along with, oh, the other however-many-more-million of us Buckeye Staters. Here are a few fast facts about this legendary series:

* First game: 1897

* Played every year since 1918

* Last regular season game for both teams since 1935

* Voted by ESPN in 2000 as the greatest North American sports rivalry

This year's game: at Michigan Stadium (107,501) with Ohio State ranked 7th nationally at 10-1 and Michigan ranked 23rd, at 8-3. At stake (besides, of course, PRIDE) is the Big 10 championship and a spot in the Rose Bowl/national playoff picture. (Check out this countdown-to-game-time clock as needed. And see the cool pic of former OSU coach Woody Hayes below, too.)

No predictions; just know that I'll be tailgating in my living room, ready to cheer on the Buckeyes, and ready to call my dear friend Dave W (even though he lives in MI) once the Buckeyes win.

Now, what does the OSU-Michigan game have to do with food and wine, you ask? It's a chance to poke fun at Michiganders! So here goes. You know you're from Michigan when:

* You only own three spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup

* You go trick-or-treating for Halloween candy with your costume over your snowsuit

* You have 10 favorite recipes for venison

* You know which leaves make good toilet paper

* Your car trunk doubles as a freezer

* You actually understand what "hoagie", "chipped ham" and "pop" mean

* You learned how to read from Campbell's Alphabet soup

* You think Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is one of the best foods ever (because of a box of it only costs $.79)

Go Buckeyes!

Tony Comes to San Fran

Thanks to EMAF FROTB ckd for this note: Tony Bourdain will be doing a San Francisco event on Saturday, Nov. 17 from 7-10 p.m. to promote his new book No Reservations. The event will be held at the E&O Trading Company, 314 Sutter Street. The event is sponsored by the American Institute for Wine and Food, with tickets on sale at Green Apple Books. I've got a poker tourney that evening: ah, dilemmas, dilemmas!

Hidden Napa Valley Wine Bar

O.K., so I was little harsh in my treatment of Tra Vigne restaurant in my Shin-Kicking the Hostess post on November 5. But let me add this tidbit if you want to hang out where many of the coolest Napa Valley food and wine insider's hang out (and trust me, this tidbit is authentic, given to me by one of the BEST of the Napa Valley food and wine insider's); check out this: in the courtyard leading to the entrance of Tra Vigne is also a small wine bar called Cantinetta. It has a huge selection of wines-by-the-glass and some simple lunch-type fare made at, of course, Tra Vigne. While the food menu is short, it all looks good to me, especially the salume fatta en casa (house-cured meats with olives and toasted almonds), the salumi sandwich (house-made mortadella and salami with provolone cheese) and, of course, the tiramisu (with ladyfingers, mascarpone and marsala wine).

So here's today's EMAF food and wine suggestion: skip Tra Vigna and instead hang out at Cantinetta. It's cozy with a great atmosphere, awesome Napa Valley wine, some authentic Italian fare...and it's got the No. 1 EMAF requirement: character.

See you at the bar.

Shin-Kicking the Hostess

I'm an optimistic kind of guy, and EMAF is meant to highlight the fun and special in life when it comes to food and wine. But sometimes I can whine too, right?

Case in point: Recently, my good friend JS and I had a special business/pleasure lunch meeting at the trendy Napa Valley restaurant Tra Vigne (which means "among the vines"), located just south of downtown St. Helena. Again, I'm a positive guy, but I also have very high expectations, especially about a Napa Valley restaurant...at lunch in October...which just happens to be the height of the tourist season. (In other words, if you're a restaurant and you aren't on your A++ game in October, well...fuhgetaboutit.)

First, we were greeted by The Hostess with the Mostest. Now, I think you've run into this creature too. The Hostess with the Mostest is almost always: a female in her early twenties; attractive and yes, great curves (hey--if I didn't look, I'd be dead, right?); and has absolutely NO personality. Twice I tried to engage the Hostess with little comments, just to build a rapport, find out if she was human. Both times I got the same plastered-on smile, nod of the head, and glazed look from the eyes. I almost -- almost -- kicked her in the shins to see if she was, in fact, a real humanoid and not a robot.

So the robot, er hostess, leads us into the restaurant to our table...and we're almost overcome with this terrible sewer-ish smell. WTF? right. The hostess, of course, makes NO mention of this (she obviously can't smell), merely gives us our menus and plods off.

So I'm thirsty, right? So I take a drink of water that's on the table...and almost spit it out! Why? It has that terrible peppery/dishwatery taste from obviously being run through a dishwater. Please. It's the NAPA VALLEY. You have a FAMOUS restaurant. Can't you please provide water that's drinkable?

Anyway, the food itself was actually very good (I had the pizza con fichi e gorgonzola) though our waiter acted throughout the entire meal like he was the brother of the robot, er hostess. (Would it kill you to pretend that you might see us again, I mean, hey, we're not tourists--we're locals).

I was disappointed with Tra Vigne. You might not be. But if you do go, don't expect to actually connect with anyone there other than, perhaps, the unseen chef.

Sweet (Potato) Memories

Food and wine to me have a huge time element to them. I love the anticipation of a soon-to-be-had meal or restaurant excursion. Enjoying something wonderful, especially a great wine, has an immediate here-and-now, in-the-moment aspect. And of course there's the past, the memories of pleasurable meals, wonderful food and wine experiences, even favorite childhood foods. And when I think about childhood foods, I think too of the people involved with those. Two immediately pop into my mind: with my Dad at a Cleveland Indians game at old Municipal Stadium, eating foot-long hot dogs with their stadium mustard; and my Mom, and the special dishes she prepared around the holidays.

I say all that to say this: today is the anniversary of my mother's death, so she's particularly on my mind today. It's symbolic too that November 2 has been since the early 1000's (or so) a day to remember the deceased, and now Nov. 2 is both El Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and All Souls' Day. My mother was never a huge cook. As a working housewife, she fixed pretty basic fare, now that I know more about cooking. We had lots of pasta and potatoes and hamburgers and pizza made from bread dough. She did make a mean chocolate chip cookie (dunked in milk, of course). Again, great but nothing fancy. But she did have her special dishes, and one that I want to share now we had every Thanksgiving as a kid...and which I make every Thanksgiving at my house. So here's Grandma Polk's Sweet Potato Casserole. Enjoy.

Mix:
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. Cinnamon
3/4 cup honey
1 scant t. salt

Add this to:
2.5 lbs sweet potatoes (mashed)
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) melted butter
2 cups milk

Bake:
350 degrees for 45-60 minutes

Note: Actual sweet potatoes can look brown; yams are just as tasty and have more of the traditional sweet potato "orange" color.

Sandra Lee Evans Polk

1937 - November 2, 1993