The singular remarkable fact about the Basques is that they still exist.”

- Mark Kurlansky, The Basque History of the World

Buenos Aires - Leandro “Koko” Egozcue is not a name that’s familiar to everyone who dines in Buenos Aires, but it’s a name that ought to start being so. He’s the young and quite talented chef behind the restaurant Burzako, México 345 in Monserrat (right near the edge of San Telmo), 4334-0721. The restaurant, with cuisine based in his family’s ancestral Basque traditions, is not named after anything “over there”, but for the town of Burzaco, just about 16 miles south of Buenos Aires, where he lives. While in his early 20s, he headed over to Basque country, in Spain, and spent a couple of years working with famed chef Martín Berasategui, who he considers his mentor. The style of the cooking at Burzako is much more traditional, even rustic, than that, but it’s easy to see that he learned his lessons well - Berastegui is known for spending countless days working on each dish to get it just the way he imagines it before putting it on the menu. Egozcue’s food, while more down home, still shows that level of care and balance - one dish after another was simply delicious.

A trio of us dug into plates of small baby squid, perfectly tender and accompanied by caramelized onions, and mildly fiery piquillo peppers stuffed with ham and cheese - oozing melty goodness all over the plate. Then we moved on to the main courses, which are huge portions that will leave you incapable of movement (and unfortunately unable to even think about sampling desserts), but so good that you cannot not finish them. A squid ink risotto chockful of lightly charred chunks of octopus and squid was laced with drizzles of fresh, green olive oil that added a wonderful nuance to the dish; braised lamb bondiola (neck/shoulder cut) with wild mushrooms was so soft you could eat it with a spoon; and the chef’s specialty, an amazingly rich and flavorful oxtail braised in red wine and served over the smoothest potato puree I think I’ve ever encountered was so good I really didn’t want to share it with my dining companions, though, in order to try their dishes, which they were happily digging into, I had to give up some.

The space is as barebones as can be - brick walls, some of them casually painted in white, few decorations. The waitresses are friendly and helpful, and happy to make recommendations for dishes (after, of course, the obligatory “everything’s good” cry). It gets a trifle noisy, with not a single soft surface in the room other than the diners and the food, but we didn’t find it annoyingly loud, since most of the noise was the happy buzz of customers digging into their food. Their website is a bit over-designed, and would benefit from the addition of offering up the hours that they’re open - which are Monday and Tuesday lunch only, Wednesday through Saturday lunch and dinner.

 You shouldn’t speak until you know what you’re talking about. That’s why I get uncomfortable with interviews. Reporters ask me what I feel China should do about Tibet. Who cares what I think China should do? They hand me a script. I’m a grown man who puts on makeup.”

- Brad Pitt, Actor

Buenos Aires - A couple of recent interviews have come and gone. The first was conducted by Max Morales via e-mail and appeared today on his website, Andeswines.com. It was fun getting to talk about the thoughts behind how the various projects I’m involved in got off the ground and what inspired them. Besides, I can do e-mail interviews in my jammies…

Laura Gambale of the local weekend newspaper Perfil called up and asked a few questions about how Casa SaltShaker works. It was a fairly short interview, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t say the things she quotes me as saying, but as producer Aaron Spelling has noted - it likely sounded better than anything I actually did say. We have to get some new publicity photos though, the re-use of photos that have already been published in other places and are just off of our website is tired. Most interesting in the article, for me anyway, was finding out about two other local in-home restaurants that I didn’t know about!

More interviews or articles that look like they’ll be coming out in the near future - the Spanish language version of Cosmo… Smithsonian magazine… and local paper La Nación (who’ve already written about us thrice over the last year and half. Phone calls from three local radio stations asking for live interviews (I passed, that’s just a bit much, and I can’t think of anything that I’m going to say coherently in Spanish when I’m on the spot…) about this “new trend” (they clearly haven’t read my piece in the Guardian). Life is taking some interesting twists and turns all of the sudden.

 There is an element of truth in every idea that lasts long enough to be called corny.”

- Irving Berlin, Composer

Buenos Aires - One of the things I get asked about most with Casa SaltShaker is “do dishes ever just turn out terrible?” or something similiar to that. After all, often, especially when I’m in the kitchen playing around with a cuisine I don’t know well, it’s total experimentation. To a certain extent that may be mitigated by using traditional recipes, but then there are those weekends of whimsical themes, like this last one, where we celebrated the 120th birthday of the famous composer Irving Berlin. I hadn’t stopped to think about it when picking the theme, sort of building on our past Carmen Miranda, Bette Davis, Anna Magnani birthday dinners, but they have recognizable personalities and something that could be played on for a dinner theme. Good old Irving was more of a behind the scenes guy, even if well known. It was his work, not his personality that shone through.

My first thought was to look through many of his lyrics and come up with a dinner theme from that, and indeed he mentions many thing in various songs… but it just didn’t feel like it was coming together. In the end, I decided to look back at the year of his birth, 1888, where I was able to find inspiration in the “new foods” that were introduced in the U.S. that year: tomatoes, grapefruits, Thomas’ English Muffins, Log Cabin syrup, canned pineapple, canned corned beef, Cream of Wheat, Fig Newtons, Coca Cola, Dr. Pepper, and Oysters Rockefeller. I didn’t use all of them, but picked out a few that led to ideas for a dinner, which was, overall successful, but at least from my perspective in the kitchen, left more room for improvement than what I’m happy with. So, away we go…

We started off dinner with a classic martini - gin and vermouth, though not that whisper of vermouth that these days passes for the cocktail - a properly made traditional martini, depending on who you ask, has somewhere between a 7:1 and 3:1 ratio of gin to vermouth, and mine fall somewhere in between. A twist of fresh lemon peel as a garnish, get everyone’s appetite whetted, and we were on to the first course. Oysters Rockefeller, a now classic dish from Antoine’s restaurant in New Orleans, is one of those secrets that has never been revealed. Lots of folk have come up with guesses as to what constitutes the classic, but they’re all just imitations of the original. Mine, perhaps even more so. Instead of oysters on the half-shell, which are, strangely, hard to find here (all the seafood markets seem to have this penchant for removing the oysters from their shells and packaging them in small bags, I went with oysters that were poached in their own liquid in the oven until just set, and then served with a puree, almost like a pesto, of roughly equal parts of watercress (not spinach!), celery leaves, tarragon and parsley, some green onions, a fresh chili, salt, pepper, butter, a splash of anise liqueur, and just enough cream to smooth it out. It wasn’t the bubbling, broiled version, but tasty in its own right. Still, the presentation lacks alot over the original.

On to a soup, inspired by Cream of Wheat, canned corned beef, and tomatoes (which were not really a new food stuff, but amazingly, were not introduced as a consumable fruit/vegetable until just 120 years ago in the States). The base of the soup was simply chopped onions and celery, and some finely diced pastrami (no corned beef available here) from a nearby butcher shop. I cooked those in a little bit of butter until soft, and then added in wheatberries (without the husk), cooked for a few more minutes, than topped it up with a couple of pureed tomatoes and enough water to fill the pot. I left that to cook over low heat until the wheat was cooked through and had absorbed most of the liquid - added a little more water to give it a soup-like consistency, seasoned it with salt and pepper, and that was that. Really quite good, and one of the two dishes that I thought were quite successful for the evening.

Next up, my least favorite dish. Based on one I’d made before where it was far more successful - my “oyster mushroom mcmuffins“, but this time, no oyster mushrooms available in the market. I decided on pine mushrooms, and rather than cooking them the same way, cooked them with chilies and molasses, as I’d done for our Pi dinner using a mix of mushrooms. Somehow, they just didn’t turn out right - they stayed very wet, and started to fall apart when cooked. Also, I couldn’t find my old recipe for homemade english muffins, and resorted at last minute to Alton Brown’s recipe that I pulled off the net. Those didn’t turn out right either - very dense. The sauce was fine, but as a whole, the dish was one of my least favorite dishes I think I’ve made for Casa S during our two year history…

Thankfully, the main course made up for it - at least for me. I found a source of nice, plump duck breasts - really quite expensive, coming in at 64 pesos a kilo, each breast was huge, however, and ran at about 375 grams (13 ounces) - enough to make two portions. I pan seared them and then finished them in the oven to somewhere between rare and medium rare - truly the perfect temperature for good quality duck breast - and all but two of our guests went with that, it was easy enough to quickly cook the other two’s portions a bit more in a skillet. To go with them, and the inspiration for the dish, a reinterpreted Fig Newton - phyllo dough wraps filled with a cooked down mixture of preserved figs, onions, garlic, thyme, and red wine. For the sauce, some reduced chicken stock (duck would have been better, but I didn’t have any on hand, ya know?) infused with a bit of the same mixture and some fig coffee (a coffee substitute made from roasted and dried figs). Yum.

Finally, my normally quite successful cheesecake. This time flavored with pink grapefruit juice and a splash of campari and topped with a sweetened, reduced syrup from the liqueur Punt e Mes. Good, but not one of my best cheesecakes. Everyone seemed to enjoy it immensely, maybe I was just feeling a bit off with two courses that I already wasn’t happy with… hmmm…

 To do justice to the figure of Kafka in its purity and its peculiar beauty one must never lose sight of one thing: it is the purity and beauty of a failure.”

- Walter Benjamin, theologian, essayist

Buenos Aires - There’s no question that much of what Franz Kafka wrote had a major impact on the western literature that followed. He is best known, perhaps, for his works (many of which were published posthumously) that reflect the struggle of the ordinary man against a faceless, nameless, bureaucracy. No wonder his work is popular here in Argentina. Popular enough that someone recently decided to open and name a restaurant after him, Kafka en Praga, Paraguay 1846, in Recoleta. But as Dr. Benjamin notes in the quote above, it’s worth remembering that essentially what Kafka wrote about was a certain grace in the face of failure. That may end up applying to this restaurant.

Now, that’s not to say that it’s horrible, or even bad. It’s not to say that I see the end in sight. The place has a lot of promise - some good ideas - I’d first heard about this from a couple of people who let me know that Kafka en Praga actually offers flights of wines on their menu, a chance to sample several similar wines to get a sense of a particular grape or style. Their food has the seeds of creativity in it. They’re clearly artistically minded - dishes are plated with a certain flair, the room is well decorated and comfortable. The two waiters on board the night we were there were both friendly, neither of them managing the usual complete avoidance of eye contact with guests when they needed something, so we, and the few others who were there, were well attended. And, the prices aren’t bad.

But the problems are there, though easily fixable. The wine flights do exist - or at least one - and it’s only a few average quality Malbecs - and that’s all they were offering by the glass. On the flip side, there were a variety of bottles around from their moderate wine list, and when I spotted one that I particularly like, the Bodega Lariviere-Yturbe Cuatro Estaciones, they were happy to open it and pour a glass for me. That earns them big points and says they’re on the right track. The food, as mentioned, is creative, and prettily presented. It’s even pretty well seasoned. It was also, at least on the night we were there, all overcooked. The kitchen is interminably slow - when we arrived there was one other person in the place, sitting at the bar and just finishing a snack and glass of wine. By the time we left, there were two couples at different tables. Yet, somehow, it took nearly forty minutes from the time we ordered until our food arrived on the table.

And we didn’t order anything particularly elaborate - which suggests, along with the overcooking, that either whoever was in the kitchen was out of their depth, or at least one component of one of the dishes simply hadn’t been prepared in advance and had to be started from scratch. Still, there was nothing that ought to have taken that long… ravioli (which on the menu were described as raviolones, or big ravioli, these weren’t, they were small, regular, roughly 1½” on a side versions) filled with salmon and topped with a tomato basil sauce; pan-seared salmon, suggested by the waiter to be medium rare, requested medium, and delivered far into well done territory, accompanied by a quite good ratatouille; and barbecued pork with sweet potatoes, likewise finished off to a leathery consistency. Our first comment was to note how small the portions were - but that just brings to mind the lines from Annie Hall…

I realize that on the face of it, it sounds like this place isn’t worth heading to. And that may turn out to be the case. But, we enjoyed the room and the service, and the food, was flavorful and creative - just not quite right… The question is, I suppose, whether they’re going to wake up and realize they need to fix a few pretty minor things - a more interesting selection of wines by the glass, or, just make the offer that anything on the wine list is available that way (which would require an investment in some sort of wine saver system); speed up the kitchen, and watch the overcooking. All easily correctable, and could be done overnight without problem. Let’s hope they get the message, because this place could be a great addition to the neighborhood.

 [America’s] first settlers were emigrants from different European nations, and of diversified professions of religion, retiring from governmental persecutions of the old world, and meeting in the new, not as enemies, but as brothers. The wants which necessarily accompany the cultivation of a wilderness, produced among them a state of society, which countries, long harassed by the quarrels and intrigues of governments, had neglected to cherish. In such a situation man becomes what he ought. He sees his species, not with the inhuman ideas of a natural enemy, but as kindred; and the example shows to the artificial world, that man must go back to nature for information.”

- Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

Buenos Aires - It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been more than two years since I set foot in the Reserva Ecologica, but there you have it, times flies, and my posting on my one and only visit there is from January 2006! It helps, I suppose, that Buenos Aires has so many parks and green spaces of one sort or another, because I love spending time away from the city streets - though it does seem like I’ve done less of it here than anywhere else I’ve ever lived. Something to rectify. This last Sunday I just went and spent a couple of hours wandering around in the reserve, snapping photos, chatting with people, and enjoying the sunshine and the plants, birds… you get the idea. A few of my favorite photos from the day… though I snapped a bunch of general views, mostly I was taking closeups on various things that caught my eye.

 Everybody has a plan to save the Middle East. That guy with the bumper sticker does. Most of your friends do. Neocons have a plan. Peaceniks have a plan. Likudniks have a plan. The Bush Administration certainly thinks it has one, and we’re told the Democrats are working on theirs. Tom Clancy imagined deploying the Vatican’s Swiss Guards to keep peace on the Temple Mount. Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis told the Contra Costa Times in July that he knew how to fix the situation—but he kept the details to himself. The policy debate resembles my family’s Thanksgiving dinner conversation after I knock a glass of red wine onto my mother’s white tablecloth: everybody has an idea about how to fix it, everybody is eager to share their thoughts, many ideas sound superficially plausible, and it’s difficult to distinguish among competing solutions.”

- PolicyMatters.net

Buenos Aires - I vaguely remember some famous statesman being quoted once to the effect that most international conflicts, in the end, are settled over dinner - i.e., at some point, the conflicting sides have to sit down at the table and have a conversation - and its usually eased by having food on the table. I can’t find the quote, and I don’t remember who said it, but it makes sense to me. Now, of course, there’ve been many dinners, both big public affairs, and probably a good number of small, intimate private ones, aimed at solving the “crisis” in the Middle East. Clearly, they haven’t served the right menu yet. No guarantees that we did either, nor was it really our intent, but given my recent series of classes in the cooking of the region, which, in answer to the folks who’ve been inquiring as to “whatever possessed you to take a class at the Club Sirio?”, came about because I really like the cuisine of the area, and I recently acquired a copy of Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews by Poopa Dweck. Oy, I feel for her - I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, and no doubt where she grew up in Aleppo, Syria her name didn’t cause much commentary, but I have no doubt that in Deal, New Jersey, where she lives now, it just might…

My point, however, is that “middle eastern” or “arab” cooking doesn’t mean “islamic jihad” and suicide bombers showing up hors d’oeuvres. The region encompasses muslims, jews, christians, and probably the odd hindu or buddhist; and a dozen and a half countries, many of which are locked in various “other” conflicts, or not - Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, and Cyprus… there was lots of play room. On to the food, which was drawn from ideas garnered in the class, the aforementioned book, a couple of others that I already had, and a few ideas thrown in passively by the internet.

We made stuffed grape leaves in class… or watched them being made anyway. Traditional meat and rice filling and all that, and someone in class piped up with “what about vegetarians?” Well, while he didn’t have a recipe to hand out, Chef Abdala threw back a sort of “hmm… well, there’s this really delicious, cool filling you could make from: rice, almonds, golden raisins, tomato, cilantro, cardamom, baharat, coffee, and olive oil…” He left it at that and moved on, but I scribbled it down thinking it sounded interesting… First off, “baharat”? He referred to it a few times during classes, but passed it off as “a mix of spices, don’t worry about it, you can use allspice”. Interesting, as it turns out, and in fact, Poopa, our erstwhile author, uses allspice throughout her recipes - I wonder if its because baharat is hard to find in central NJ? The mixture, as it turns out, is readily available in middle eastern markets here - and looking it up it’s a blend of nutmeg, black pepper, coriander, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, paprika, and chili powder. To me, it doesn’t taste anything like allspice. Oh, and wait, coffee? Yup, he assured us on being questioned, that some freshly ground coffee in the mixture was a good thing - okay then. I winged it, as I generally do, and came up with this filling - note that the rice is raw - it’s just rinsed briefly in cold water…

… and then about a heaping teaspoonful went into each grape leaf, then I rolled them up - being careful not to overfill them, nor roll them too tightly - remember, the rice is going to swell up to nearly three times its size when it’s cooked. I like the method of cooking them too - line a pot with slices of tomato, then put the grape leaf packets in a ring, side by side, around the outer edge, wedged in pretty well together. Then fill the center with vegetable stock and a few crushed garlic cloves, put a heavy plate in to hold them in place and under the liquid, bring the pot to a simmer and cook for about 40 minutes. I served these cold, but they’re good hot as well. Alongside, a take on the Aleppo version of hummus, bringing in a bit of Turkish flavor - I made a blend of chickpeas (just cooked, and the skins removed - not canned, though I’ve tried that and it works well for this recipe too), olive oil, salt, lemon juice, tahini (sesame paste), garlic, cumin, and in place of Aleppo pepper, which as far as I know isn’t available here, I used some urfa-biber, a mildly spicy smoked Turkish pepper that I picked up a package of on my last trip to NY. Given that we hadn’t covered pita bread in class, I decided to defer to the internet and a recipe that, as assured, works out “perfectly”.

Sticking with the book for a moment, though combining two different recipes, a simple vegetable soup (celery, carrots, chickpeas (hmm, that was my addition, not in the original recipe, but I cooked too much for the hummus…), garlic) and flavoring it with lemon (juice and grated rind) and mint, and then meatballs made of ground beef (better to grind you’re own…) with some dry rice, baharat, cinnamon, and salt mixed in. Packed tightly into small meatballs and then simply dropped in the simmering soup and left to cook until the rice is done. Delicious! I loved the combination of flavors in this one, and it drew a couple of rave comments from guests.

This is my own twist on a couple of different dishes from different places. Traditionally, small eggplants are hollowed out and filled with a meat or vegetable stuffing, then layered with quince in a pot, cooked slowly for a couple of hours in the oven in a bit of stock, and then served topped with candied quince. I took out the latter as too sweet, but I got to this recipe because quinces and baby eggplant are in the markets this last week or two. I decided to simply braise them together with the spices that would normally have gone into the meat filling, just without the meat. So into a pot went the cleaned and destemmed baby eggplant, then I topped those with slices of quince, tomato, and white onion. Seasoned with good amounts of mint, allspice, cinnamon, garlic, some sugar and salt, olive oil, the juice of a lemon, and some pomegranate molasses. I covered it and cooked it slowly for a couple of hours, and it comes out great! Since I was playing with some spice mixture ideas, I spotted an Egyptian one called dukka, which I modified only in leaving out yet more chickpeas, and simply made a mix of sesame, coriander, cumin, thyme, mint, and salt, and then a quick flatbread that I rolled out really thin, topped with the spice mixture, and baked until it was chewy with just crispy edges.

Okay, not thrilled with the presentation, thrilled with the flavor. I’ll work on the former. The chicken leg/thigh combination skinned (save the skin, preferably in one big piece), and then marinated for about ten hours in a shawarma marinade - very typical throughout Israel, Lebanon, Jordan - white wine, vinegar, lemon, dried chili peppers, allspice, salt (all blended together) - and then quickly sauteed in a pan just to lightly brown the outside. Meanwhile, I cooked some spaghetti until it was just barely al dente - you want this on the undercooked side. Tossed it with some olive oil and then put it into little casserole dishes line with the chicken skin (for flavoring and to help brown the spaghetti a little was the idea, turns out it prevented the latter but added a whole lot to the former). Set a chicken piece atop each little casserole and into the oven to finish cooking, letting the meat juices drip into the spaghetti, which does crisp up a little bit, but not as much as I was hoping for. Flipped the spaghetti out onto the plate aside the chicken, removed the piece of chicken skin, and voila. At the very least it needs to be sprinkled with a little chopped parsley, no?

Taking off from a traditional dessert that involves little mini-empanadas filled with plain ricotta, then deep fried, and soaked in syrup and then served cold. I decided to go with a full sized empanada filled with our homemade ricotta that I’d sweetened a bit and added raisins and walnuts to. I baked them instead of deep frying them, then soaked them in a syrup made from sugar, water, lemon, cinnamon, cloves, and orange blossom water (pretty much right out of the class), topped them with a mix of cinnamon and sugar and served them up hot. They’re also really good the next day, cold, with coffee in the morning… trust me.

So, our little contribution to middle eastern multi-culturalism. To the best of my knowledge, no one attended who’s going to have much say in the solving of any conflicts in that part of the world, but, hey, you never know…

 A waiter arrived with a tray of falafel, the one item on the menu that didn’t taste as if it had been scraped off the wick of Aladdin’s lamp.”

- Tom Robbins, skinny legs and all

Buenos Aires - Continuing on my educational journey about one cuisine or another or method of cooking, I noted in passing, about 5-6 weeks ago, that a class in cocina arabe was coming up at the Club Sirio Libano, nearby to the house. I’ve eaten in their restaurant, and wasn’t overly impressed - good, but nothing exciting - however, it sounded like an interesting opportunity to see some of the techniques that go into the recipes, if not the recipes themselves. I contacted Chef Abdala of the restaurant, and he responded quickly with details on the class. Upfront, 350 pesos didn’t sound too bad for a four session, hands-on, limited enrollment class, as he stated it. Turned out, that enrollment wasn’t so limited, when I showed up on the first evening there were twenty students in attendance, and a few more joined the class at the other sessions, and a few didn’t return - so all in all it ran at about that number. But the disappointment was that it wasn’t hands-on. I clearly wasn’t the only one who had been under that impression - in the first few moments of seeing the classroom demo style setup for the course, someone piped up with the question about it - the chef’s response “well, if you want to come up and push the on/off button on the food processor, you can do that…”.

It didn’t turn out to be totally non-interactive - on a few of the dishes he asked for volunteers to come up and scoop one thing or another into a mold or roll a grape leaf, but overall, it was a demo class, followed by eating. Still, I learned a few tips and tricks to making some things turn out right, and I have the set of recipes from the class - some of which were very good, while others were simply okay - but given that I’ve got other recipes to use, I now at least have the methodology to help make them work out well. So hmm… do I recommend the class? I’m not sure - if you don’t mind paying 80 some pesos for a two hour session where you’ll watch someone make and explain how to make 4-5 dishes, and then getting a chance at the end to sample them - I suppose it’s a decent value and it was certainly interesting. And given how expensive some of the organized cooking classes here are getting to be, it’s probably not at all out of line - I may have just been spoiled by the private classes in cheese, preserve, and sausage making that only ran about 40-45 pesos for a 3-4 hour session… on the other hand, I certainly got far more out of those.

Over the course of the course… we learned the basics of: hummus, tabouleh, kebbe (both cooked and raw styles), fatay (arab style empanadas), babaganoush, falafel, salsa taratur (sesame-lemon sauce), various stuffed vegetables, rice and vermicelli, persian rice with chicken, chicken with honey and cous-cous (well, instant cous-cous, though he told us how to make the real stuff), a braised lamb dish (the last two not on the original lesson plan, but added in), and four different pastries. Promised in the upfront communication, plus on the list of recipes we received at the beginning of the class that we could count on learning - but never materialized - making pita bread, two other pastries, making both the drinkable and the thick styles of laban (more or less yogurt), and shawarma (though he did list off the marinade ingredients and talk about how to make it).

Met some new people. Got some ideas for recipes. Got some ideas for teaching… overall, I suppose, not a bad return on the investment of cash and time…

 When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

- Jenny Joseph, Warning

Buenos Aires - Ten years ago, artist Sue Ellen Cooper gave a friend of hers a red fedora and a copy of this poem for her 55th birthday. Via word of mouth, as she repeated the same gesture for other friends “of a certain age”, her circle quickly became a group, and then an organization, The Red Hat Society, or, as they prefer to refer to themselves, a dis-organization. Basically, it’s a bunch of women, most of whom are over fifty (those under fifty wear pink hats and lavender dresses rather than red and purple), who like to have a good time. Given that I’m approaching that milestone myself this year, I empathize. If you see me on the streets in a red fedora and a purple shirt, just know we’re headed out somewhere for some fun…

Since the tenth anniversary of the founding of this group fell on this weekend, it seemed a fun theme to play with - a little red and purple on the plate, as it were… and I managed a red t-shirt with a purple shirt over it, a few guests went for a purple or red sweater or shirt, and one arrived with a red fedora, which he claimed to have bought just for the occasion…

Leading off the evening was a simply named “Red Cocktail”, a blend of rum, banana liqueur, bananas and strawberries. Something to put us in the festive mood. Once seated, we served up these fun little Radish and Brie Terrines - well, maybe more of mousses… hard to say - I suppose they would seem more terrine-like if I’d one them as a long loaf sort of thing and sliced them, but I molded them in ramekins and then warmed them slightly to get them to pop out, accounting for the slightly melty consistency of the top, which had been the bottom, if you know what I mean. It’s quite easy to make - a blend of half a pound each of ripe Brie and fresh Chevre cheeses, a cup and a half of heavy cream, a couple of pickled hot red peppers, and some salt, all blended together until smooth. That went into a bowl along with a handful or so of toasted pistachios and a roughly equal amount of finely julienned radishes (say, ½-¾ cup each). Then, I heated up five teaspoons of powdered gelatin dissolved in a little cold water in the microwave for about 20 seconds, made sure it was well dissolved, and then quickly mixed it into the rest. Poured into the ramekins, and into the refrigerator to chill and set for a few hours. Topping the “terrines” are some bread and butter radishes, a favorite that comes from a recipe I found awhile back on Chow and which I like to have around the house, because, well, pickles are pretty much my favorite vegetable, regardless of what fruit or vegetable they involve.

Moving on to a roasted red pepper soup - a bit different than the usual simple purees that I find most places dish up for this moniker. Into a soup pot, lots of chopped white onions, celery, and sliced garlic. Cooked those in a bit of olive oil until soft and just starting to turn golden. Meanwhile, I’d already blackened several red bell peppers over the burners, let them steam a little, and removed most of the skin, and the stem and seeds. Those went into the blender with some chopped tomatoes (2:1 is a good ratio), a couple of fresh, hot red chilies - seeds and all - some powdered bay leaf, red miso, and freshly squeezed orange juice. Pureed all that and poured it into the soup pot with the cooked aromatics, and then topped it up to give it a soupy consistency with vegetable stock. Let it all simmer together for about twenty minutes, and, voilá. The garnish is some cubes of feta cheese lightly dusted in flour, salt, and red pepper flakes, and fried until just golden on both sides - the feta has to be really cold when you do this or it’ll melt too fast… trust me.

Not thrilled with that photo, but so be it… The idea of a tomato and shrimp risotto or pasta came to mind while planning this out, and, since I’m a big fan of risottos, even though they’re a pain to cook right, I went that route. I cooked some red onions in a little olive oil, then added arborio rice, chopped up sun-dried tomatoes (reconstituted from dry), and tomato paste, and cooked that in a mix of vegetable stock and a bit of red wine for color. Seasoned simply with a little salt and pepper, and then topped with small shrimp that were sauteed at the last moment in a mix of lots of garlic and chopped red rocoto peppers. This was my personal favorite of the evening… well, maybe the dessert… hmmm…

I knew I wanted to make something via the Chinese “red-braising” technique, which is probably one of my favorite braises. It’s also really simple. I sauteed short ribs that had been trimmed (not completely, a little fat in this dish helps the braising process) in a big pot until they were lightly browned. Then I added a mix of 2 cups of light soy sauce, 2 cups of dark soy sauce, ½ cup of shaoxing wine (a Chinese wine with a flavor similar to dry sherry, which you could also use), some dark loaf sugar, a handful of slices of fresh ginger, some fennel seeds, star anise, black peppercorns, and lots of szechuan peppercorns. Brought it up to a boil, reduce the heat to minimum, covered the pot, and left it to slowly cook for about three hours, until the meat was tender and near to falling off the bone. Accompanying it, some oven roasted radicchio that I’d marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, and salt - I wouldn’t do that again - it’s fine on its own, but the lemon was too aggressive to pair well with the ribs - maybe in olive oil and garlic, because I liked the radicchio itself with the ribs. A few pickled grapes rounded out the plate, and they made a nice flavor contrast with the ribs. (Wash, halve, and remove the seeds from about fifty red grapes, meanwhile boil together 1½ cups of sugar, ¾ cup red wine vinegar, a cinnamon stick, and ½ teaspoon salt. Make sure the sugar and salt are dissolved, let it simmer a few minutes, and then pour over the grapes. Let them sit for a couple of hours and they’re ready to use.)

I’ve got to start remembering to take photos of desserts sans whipped cream, which always just sort of comes out as a white blob on a a flash photo and besides it obscures the dessert. These were pretty little tarts - or perhaps they’re little cakes, or kuchen, it isn’t relevant, they’re delicious, and well, delicious. First, a batter made by creaming together 4 ounces of butter, 2/3 cup of white sugar and 1/3 cup of light brown sugar. To that I added 1 whole egg plus two egg yolks, and a teaspoon of vanilla paste. Then I folded in 1 cup of pastry flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon of salt. I buttered some tart pans, and then spread the batter mixture evenly across the bottom - this amount made an even dozen tarts. I finely ground some walnuts and sprinkled them over the batter. Then I sliced up some fresh figs and put a couple of slices atop the batter in each tart pan, plus some wedges of purple plums - make a pretty pattern, you know? Into a 350°F oven for about 40-45 minutes and there you have it. You can also do this in one big tart pan. It’ll take slightly longer to cook, maybe 50-55 minutes. Thinking about it, these were so good the whipped cream was unnecessary, photo or not.

Happy Anniversary Red Hat folk!