March 2007

Upcoming Classes

Let's start the newsletter with the classes this month—we have, as always, a number of excellent classes to choose from, and my one solo class for the spring is coming up very rapidly—I hope some of you find the menu intriguing, and will join in.

On Thursday, March 15th, I will host a Spring Menu class that takes advantage of the lovely produce just coming into the market (see the market section for more on that subject). We'll pair early spring asparagus with delicate salt cod puffs and greens, follow it with my magical (in the sense that everyone that tries it loves it) leg of lamb, with green garlic flan and seasonal vegetables, and then make a chocolate roulade and fill it with spring strawberries and whipped cream. A fabulous meal and class for only $60.

My spring Basic Cooking class will be on Wednesday nights beginning April 4th, and registration at Piedmont Adult School starts on Monday, March 19th. This six-week session will focus on fast, easy foods for spring, and the class is not only fun, you'll learn a great deal that will make cooking in your home kitchen more fun, relaxed and flavorful. The class session often fills the first day of registration, and the school will not take a wait-list, so sign up early!

Our wonderful Japanese cooking teacher, Ayako Iino, has gone back to working full-time in a restaurant, and therefore has ended her teaching assignments at the kitchen for now. Find her at Boulette's Larder, in the Ferry Building in SF. We hope to have her return one day soon!

Rosetta Costantino will hold a new class, Springtime in Southern Italy, on Friday March 30th. Rosetta is from Calabria, the very bottom of the boot in Italy, and you'll find Calabrian cooking to have influences from many cultures. One of our recipes of the month this time is a wonderful and very simple cauliflower salad typical of her region, soon to be featured in her cookbook, which is set for publication in 2008. Rosetta's next class in April, which features ricotta cheese, is a perennial favorite—if you have ever wanted to learn to make ricotta, and to use it in every single course of a meal, this is the class for you.

We will soon schedule another Knife Sharpening class with Eric E. Weiss, as the last one, held just a week ago, was well-attended and I'm sure there are many more of you who would love to learn how to keep your knives honed, to make prep work more pleasurable. We will hold this class at least quarterly, so look for another one early this summer. We will also schedule another Knife Skills class, with Charlie Vollmar, soon. Charlie has been very busy with house building, but is eager to get back into the kitchen with a new group of students. There are other classes 'in the works' that will be announced in the next newsletter, which will publish right around the first of April.

In the Market

Winter is waning, or at least it seems so when the sun is shining, or when you taste the tender new shoots of asparagus and delicate spring artichokes recently arrived at the markets. Lettuce has gone from rubbery to tender, too. Big bulbs of fennel can be braised, roasted, or slivered and made into a bright-flavored salad, paired with some of the excellent blood oranges now in the market. The strawberries have lost their white shoulders and are tender, sweet and red. There are still plenty of wonderful winter greens, in fact my own red Russian kale is producing beautifully right now, and the beets, turnips and rutabagas are still crisp and wonderful, and the broccoli and cauliflower are great, too. New in the market are little baby-sized celery roots, which can be peeled and julienned for salad, or cooked in a variety of stews or even mashed—try cooking it with an apple or pear, and whirling in the food processor, for a great accompaniment to a pork roast. Cabbage is plentiful—we are coming up to St. Patrick's day, when cabbage is traditionally at it's cheapest price of the year. I'm adding my St. Patrick's day menu as our recipe of the month—while I understand that corned beef and cabbage is not really the traditional Irish meal we pretend, it is still a great, one pot meal, one of the easiest you can make.

We are not fully transitioned to spring produce yet, especially when it comes to fruits, which (other than the strawberries and some kiwis) are mostly apples stored since the fall—and that has make me think a lot about one of those truisms that chefs hold to: use what is in season, and local, and eschew the fruits and vegetables that have had to travel from afar, and have lost a great deal of flavor in the journey. But, in our shrinking world (I wonder whether the produce travels faster than the people), excellent Chilean blueberries and Hawaiian and South American mangoes, are often a great treat this time of year. We don't often think about where our fresh vegetables were grown—but many of them have been coming from Mexico. Cherry tomatoes from hot, sunny Baja are almost as good as summer tomatoes at times. Especially at the end of winter, when you've had the same produce for many months, brightening up the flavor palette with these imports seems to make sense. Turning up our noses at foods that don't grow here, or don't grow now, seems to me like turning down a good wine because it wasn't produced locally. Embrace what is good, and ignore what is not—although indeed, you have to experiment a bit to find out. I can only hope that the rest of the nation gets a share of the bounty—whenever I travel, I am reminded that here, we do have locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables to choose between in the winter, but in many parts of the country, that is just not so. And, our winter ends a lot earlier, too. For my many east coast readers, you too will find a few hints of spring soon, I'm sure!

And Now for the News

Look at the Photo Gallery for a slide-show from a recent kitchen event. Cambridge Systematics, a corporate client that came to play in the kitchen for their holiday party/team building event, has kindly agreed to share their photos. You'll see a group of 35 people having a lot of fun making and enjoying a Tapas meal, although they were too busy eating the dessert to take pictures of their gorgeous almond cake with poached quince and sabayon.

Paulding & Company will host your event if you want us to—think about it: no dishes to wash, no pre-event house cleaning, and no question about it, great food. Whether we do the cooking for you, or you bring friends and family to play in the kitchen, you'll have a great time, just as you can see these folks have had.

The kitchen is about to undergo yet another wonderful improvement. Nothing you will notice unless you come to a class or an event with your friends or co-workers, but something that will make group events at the kitchen much more wonderful—we are getting sound dampening ceiling tiles installed. Soon, large groups will experience cooking in the kitchen and be able to converse at the same time—something I've long wanted to happen. The tiles take time to arrive, but will be installed in one day, hopefully by early April.

In addition, our good friend and neighbor, Periscope Cellars is now open for wine tasting by appointment. We have been incorporating wine tasting into many of our events, a wonderful and synergistic extension of what we can offer.

On Restaurant Dining

I think all the time about what comprises good restaurant food. My family and I eat out a moderate amount, and find ourselves going back to the same places again and again, because we know we can eat well and not come home disappointed. When we try a new restaurant and find ourselves wondering why even they bothered opening the doors, it is very discouraging. We have recently had that experience in one well-touted new place, however since it just opened, in all fairness we need to give it at least a second chance before passing judgment. Blogs such as Chowhound are very useful in figuring out what to try, or comparing our experiences with those of others, to determine whether to give a place another chance. Professional reviews are also interesting—I have reviewed a lot of restaurants over time, and always tried to do so fairly, by dining three times, trying a variety of dishes from the menu, and evaluating the restaurant carefully on food, service, décor and overall vibe.

Restaurants often don't get second chances with new diners. One bad experience is enough for most people, and that makes the business a very demanding one. You just can't have been served an off dish, or by a server lacking in basic skills, and come away thinking "I'll go back here soon". Personally, I don't care if a place is haute cuisine or simple ethnic food, I just want to find the food exemplary in terms of what is being offered. If I'm paying a bundle for the meal, I want every sauce to sing with flavor and every dish to be perfectly balanced, the wine list to pair well with the food (and not be priced beyond reason), with service that is attentive but unobtrusive. If I'm going out for a bowl of Vietnamese Pho, or a plate of Pad Thai or Korean Barbecue, or a pizza, I want to be well pleased by what I'm eating, and come away thinking that the price, for the effort that went into the dish, the composition, and the flavor, was a fair trade. That if I want THIS cuisine tomorrow, HERE is where I will absolutely return.

We've recently discovered San Maru, a Korean restaurant at 43rd and Telegraph in Oakland, which was touted in an article in Edible East Bay, a lovely little subscription magazine. Different than the smoky Korean barbecues, this place has some interesting specialties—black goat stew among them. Everything we've tried, from the bubbling hot kimchee soup to braised pork (neck, on the bone) with yams and dates, to spicy barbecued pork or braised mackerel, have been wonderful. Without making this a restaurant review, I do want to let you know that this clean, cheerful restaurant is one I and my family return to frequently, because the food is exactly what it ought to be—the little dishes (panchan) fresh, the flavors of every dish we've tried bright, and the food to cost value reasonable. Korean food is generally more pricey than Chinese or Thai, but still a good value considering the generosity of the cuisine. Although it can be spicy, the heat is rarely incendiary, and the flavor palette is very bright. If you've never tried it, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Happy dining, and happy Spring!