(y)our food choices

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We cook a lot in our tiny kitchen and love it! Baked bread, simmering soups and homemade pizzas are just a few of the staples in our apartment. We are constantly experimenting with recipes and love a challenge. We’re not Iron Chefs but we do respect the men and women who are and their dedication to the craft. We’re just two men who are trying to get back into the simple ways of life. We’re all about farmer’s markets and grass fed beef. We believe that the food we eat is sacred, even if we are not of the religious state of mind, and that with every bite we take or every drink we consume we can all make a difference, for good or not so good. We hope you enjoy reading about what we are eating, peruse the pictures we take of our food, and tell us about what your eating and drinking. In the future we will be linking this blog to a new blog called Your Food Choices where we hope to get some lively discussions about food and how it affects us all. Cheers! Steve & Jason

Ah, Cupid! It’s that time of year, again, when everyone with a wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, mistress, lover (or one or more of the above, or just those who are pining over another) sweat over the little things and every gesture assumes the importance of all that is good in the world – love, life, and chocolate. Rose purveyors and chocolatiers the world over count on Valentine’s Day to boost the bottom line and every dimly lit dining room fills to the rafters on February 14th – a boon this year since romance day falls on a Tuesday.

Mix it all together.

We decided to celebrate early with these Saturday brunch blueberry pancakes. To gay it up, we used our heart shaped pancake molds (yes, we have heart shaped pancake molds in our equipment pantry!) and finished the pancakes with a deliciously tart raspberry ginger syrup. They were beautiful and tasty!

Hearts on a griddle.

America’s Test Kitchen inspired the pancake batter recipe. Fresh blueberries add a sweet, warm juiciness to each bite. The raspberry sauce is a bright alternative to traditional maple syrup. The leftovers will go into the freezer, ready for the toaster oven for this Tuesday’s quickie breakfast, before the rigors of work set in.

Corn Flour and Blueberry Pancakes

1 cup whole milk yogurt
1 cup milk
2 oranges (zest only)
1 cups (5 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cups (5 ounces) corn flour (do not use cornmeal or polenta)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 to 2 tsp vegetable oil
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries, preferably wild, rinsed and dried

Whisk the milk, yogurt, and orange zest in a medium bowl or large measuring cup; set aside while preparing the other ingredients. Whisk the flours, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl to combine.

Whisk the egg and melted butter into the milk and yogurt until combined. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients in the bowl; pour in the milk mixture and whisk very gently until just combined (a few lumps should remain). Do not over mix. Set aside to rest.

Heat a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes; add 1-teaspoon oil and brush to coat the skillet bottom evenly. Pour a cup batter onto three spots on the skillet; sprinkle 1-tablespoon blueberries over each pancake. Cook the pancakes until large bubbles begin to appear, 1 to 2 minutes. Using a thin, wide spatula, flip the pancakes and cook until golden brown on both sides, 1 to 1 minutes longer. Serve immediately, and repeat with the remaining batter, using the remaining vegetable oil only if necessary.

Note: If you are using heart shaped molds; spray the molds with non-stick cooking spray and place them on the skillet for 1-2 minutes to heat up before adding the pancake mix. Fill the molds about half full. Add about ½ tablespoon blueberries to the pancakes and gently press the blueberries to the center of the pancake. The blueberries may not be fully immersed in the batter. Cook in the molds for 2-4 minutes and gently remove the molds. Flip the pancake and repeat with the remaining batter. Remove any pancake stuck to the molds and spray with cooking spray after each use to avoid the pancakes from getting stuck.

Raspberry Syrup

Raspberry, Orange, Ginger Syrup

1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries
Juice of two oranges
¼ cup The Ginger People ginger syrup

Add the raspberries, orange juice and ginger syrup to a small saucepan over medium heat. Smash the berries and cook for about five minutes. Put the syrup through a strainer to remove the seeds and place the strained syrup back on the stove. Cook until thickened.

America Eats!

We love Jose Andres’ PBS cooking show, Made in Spain. It was a big inspiration for our trip last year to Spain. Jose and his food are amazing. Jose Andres is a product of Spain’s El Bulli, the once leader in molecular gastronomical cooking, and a master of all things Spanish nouveau. Jose’s approach to food captures the imagination and we’ve been hankering for a seat at one of his many tables since first seeing his program.

Our recent trip to Washington D.C. gave us the opportunity to try Jose’s interpretation of a number of classic American dishes at the former spot of his Café Atlantico. Currently flying the banner of America Eats Tavern, the effort is a partnership of Andres’ ThinkFoodGroup and The Foundation for the National Archives. Opened on the 4^th of July 2011, the effort will run a full year, closing on the 4^th of July 2012. We recommend you get there sooner than later!

Day One, Lunch: Hush puppies, root beer & ginger ale, Waldorf salad, and Maine lobster roll with housemade potato chips.

We liked the menu so much, we ate at America Eats Tavern twice over a long weekend. In round one, we kicked things off with Hush Puppies with homemade sorghum butter. Sorghum is generically sweet – sweeter than molasses and less minerally. The staple grain is refined to produce sweet syrup. We live in California and grew up in the Mountain West and we don’t know from sorghum, so this was an interesting treat.

A damn good crab cake.

Waldorf Salad, adapted from Oscar Tschirky’s 1893 creation, followed and while tasty, we thought it would have been better made with crisper, sweeter apples and celery, or at least celery leaves, instead of just an “essence” of celery. Sometimes the whole molecular cooking thing needs to be pared back a bit. This is one of those cases.

Chesapeake Crab Cakes were close to perfection with their toasty crust and pure crabmeat composition. We’re used to Dungeness crab in San Francisco but we thoroughly enjoyed the blue crab from the East Coast. The cake wasn’t gloopy with mayonnaise, it was just meat with a little seasoning. The way it should be. We shared a single generously portioned cake, but the glutton in each of us could have downed a whole one. They were very good.

And that Maine Lobster Roll! Let’s just say that while rich and satisfying, we could have eaten another and not felt bad about it. Thank goodness for Mr. Rockefeller’s mistake in eating a bowl of soup relegated to the status of servant fair. What was once a food considered “demeaning,” lobster has become one of the great oceanic delicacies and we couldn’t be happier about it. Served with housemade potato chips, this was a dish that will haunt us for years to come.

We washed all the savory stuff down with housemade ginger beer and Abita Root Beer from Louisiana. The meal ended with Pecan Pie, a tribute to George Washington’s love of the nut, and coffee with chicory a la Café du Monde (New Orleans).

Jelly donuts?

We returned for Sunday brunch to continue the trip through the restaurant’s Americana-inspired menu. This time, we started with Homemade Donuts with Blackberry Jam. Light and not overly sweet, these donuts paired nicely with the tart jam.

Next we dove into Vermicelli Prepared Like Pudding, an early American take on mac n’ cheese. We loved this surprising dish for its garlicy, buttery richness and the absence of soupy cream sauce. The accompanying intensely flavored mushrooms burst with big flavor. We were glad for the modest portion.

If you haven’t eaten grits, you must. The Shrimp ‘N’ Anson Mills Grits with a Fried Egg pays homage to 1607 Jamestown. The grits, milled from heirloom corn, is a reminder of early Native American contributions to the colonists’ subsistence. These grits are creamy and not too sweet, setting a nice neutral palette for the fresh briny shrimp and smoky bacon. And that egg. It was poached alright – poached in olive oil. The result was nothing short of delicious with the crispy fried egg on the outside, creamy yolk on the inside!

Brunch: Shrimp and grits, oyster po'boy, and vermicelli prepared like pudding.

In keeping with the prior visit’s classic sandwich theme, we jumped at the chance to order the Oyster Po’Boy. The sandwich came filled with lightly battered, crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside oysters on a roll. Served with a little mayo, a tomato slice and a bit of lettuce, this New Orleans original was delicious. The oysters were fresh and sweet. The nicely seasoned batter held the mollusks together without overwhelming the delicate oyster meat.

Even though we started the brunch with donuts, we also opted for dessert. This time, the kitchen’s take on Erma Rombauer’s (of Joy of Cooking fame) Pineapple Upside Down Cake. The pineapple puree-topped cake was accompanied by vanilla bean flecked Chantilly cream and Bachelor’s Button petals. The dish was both delicious and beautiful. This is a must try!

The beverage offerings include nearly forgotten shrubs, squashes, phosphates and lactarts. Think vinegar and fruit juice with sparkling water, maybe some milk (lactart). These drinks are dry and clean and slight on sweetness. They provide a nice alternative to beer and wine as their subtle flavors tend not to compete with the flavors of the dishes they’re paired with.

There's always room for desert. Pineapple upside down cake and pecan pie.

On both our visits to the restaurant we sat upstairs, surrounded by restored vintage posters and a James Beard saying. “I don’t like gourmet cooking or “this” cooking or “that” cooking. I like good cooking.” Jose Andres’ American rendition of classic favorites represents good cooking, but it would also be considered fancy cooking, sadly, in our day and age when portions are huge and fast food is abundant. “Typical” American food is now a far cry from what it once was. We’re grateful to Jose Andres for bringing back good American cooking and reminding us that American food is much more than a cheap hamburger and fries. If anyone needs a refresher on how great American cooking once was, and still can be, just sit back and enjoy this Spanish-American’s spin on vintage American cuisine. Viva Jose!