All That Fuss: Tartine Bakery

What is the obsession with Tartine Bakery? A few nights ago D. brought back a few desserts and between bites, I reflected upon my many visits to one of my favorite bakeries. Settled amongst a scattering of artisan eateries, which draw hipsters to the San Francisco Mission District it has captivated a cult following of foodies and food critics. Never mind a guaranteed line and the indifferent service, the crowd keeps coming back and growing. Ultimately it has several points which rub the wrong way, but it'll win you over in the end.

STRIKES
It's unapologetic attitude permeates the establishment:
* The store front lacks a proper sign to locate the bakery. (Nevertheless it has a distinctive presence and if you're lucky enough not to be confronted by a queue looping around the block, look for its dark green awning and trimming.
* ALL the employees adopt a surly, brush-offish demeanor, which never actually reaches rudeness but also lacks a desired coziness from your 'favorite' neighborhood bakery. (That being said many customers are willing to venture much farther than simply from their neighborhood to frequent Tartine).
* The cafe au laits and croissants dare you to return for more - portion sizes don't cater to dainty nibblers i.e. the hefty price is about right for what you get. Still, I'd prefer my coffee in European demitasses - the perfect amount to stay hot through to the end.
* Bread comes out only after 5pm Wednesday to Sunday. Who's ever heard of a bakery without morning loaves? As mentioned, it maintains a "That's right b!tches, roll to my tune" stance.

Even so I confess to being an unsolicited, ardent evangelist for the bakery and have recommended it to all Mission-bound foodies I've come across.

UNDERNEATH THE BRISTLES
The atmosphere is superlative:
* Live local music played on Wednesday evenings, maybe around 7.
* Fresh white (always white) flowers grace the narrow coffee table by the doorway and another display inside the bathroom. Usually huge lilies or roses depending on the season.
* Beautiful wood furniture with a casual, rustic feel: communal tables, benches, chairs, counter tops...
* The eye-catching crowd is perfect for people watching.
* Stellar cookbook

WHEN IT COMES TO TASTE
It's really a hit or miss depending on personal preference. But I'll give my opinion anyway...

Hits:
- Vanilla Custard Eclair - classic runny custard trumps cream-filled choux. My only complaint, the bittersweet ganache topping is obtrusively thick to the delicate custard.
- Bread Pudding with Seasonal Fruit - only if you're a bread pudding person and love custardy things. Rich, warm comfort with caramel sauteed berries, apples, pears etc.
- Walnut Sourdough Bread - of all their breads this is the clear winner. Huge walnut chunks embedded in finger-scorching fluffy innards. This fresh from the oven is alone enough to merit a visit.
- (Bowl) of Hot Cocoa - Scharffen Berger cocoa. A perfected recipe. It hits the perfect balance of bitter cacao to milky sweetness.
- Flaky tart shells - The puff pastry kinds such as their Coconut Cream Tart.

Misses:
- Passion fruit Lime Bavarian - dense and somewhat dry. Indistinct flavor combination
- Double Chocolate Tea Cake - dry again. Benefits from fresh, softly whipped cream
- Pressed Sandwiches - Overpriced and nothing special. Flavor combinations don't always meld so well.
- Sweet pastry shell - Smooth, not puffy. The one used for their Lemon Cream Tart is hard to cut through.

CONCLUSIONS
I've been to Tartine many times and will go there again. Skeptics are fully entitled, but give it a go when you're in the area. Newcomers, bring a friend (or many) and share a few items and one drink amongst the group. Loyalists, well there's no need to say much more.

Tartine Bakery & Cafe
600 Guerrero Street San Francisco, CA
415.487.2600

Burger Leftover = Mini Empanadas (Recipe)

The other day I was invited to a bbq get together with friends I hadn't spoken to since middle school. I was startled by this framing of the years that had passed. Time to rekindle old friendships! A few of us were going to supplement the meat part of the bbq with a potluck of snacks and I wanted to bring something more creative than my usual contribution of the latest baked good recipe from my stockpile of "to trys." A quick peek into the fridge uncovered some ground beef leftover from hamburgers D. and I had made a few days prior.

Aside: the burgers were incredible by the way. I hardly ever crave burgers, amend that, never crave. Yet even I was interested in the burger topped w. melted Saint Agurs blue cheese, thick grilled onion rings, sauteed mushrooms, and mesclun from the garden.



But back to scavenging through the fridge for odds and ends I could fashion into a picnic snack. Some wrapped pâte brisée (pie dough) was hiding out in my cheese compartment (is that actually meant for cheese? I've always wondered) along with a small portion of minced waterchestnuts. My first inclination was to form curried beef dumplings that you can buy in Chinatown bakeries or occasionally at a dimsum pallor. Waterchestnut = Chinese dish in my mind. I've always reverted back to my Asian roots when pressed for an idea, however this time I wanted to work with different flavors.

EMPANADAS DEFINED
South America's response to dumplings, or empanadas, can be found baked or fried and stuffed with a variety of fillings from cheese and vegetables, ground meats, and even fruits and jams for a sweet bite. Variations are specific by region and the dough can range from a simple savory wheat flour pastry dough to a coarser cornmeal or plantain dough. The savory ones are often served with a dipping sauce of pureed cilantro, vinegar, lemon, salt, pepper, and scallions called aji.

Perfect, a simple alteration of spices from Asian to South American and I was good to go. The empanadas or empanaditas as I like to call them were wonderful. The parcels puffed up beautifully in the oven and the beef was nicely flavored by the spices and herbs. D. loved them too, his only remark was that he could have done with more of the filling since the dough rose away from the meat during the cooking process. Por supuesto!

I baked the dumplings the night before and they heated up nicely on the bbq grill. They also recrisp nicely in a 350F oven or toaster oven for a few minutes.



THE RECIPE
South American Mini Beef Empanadas
(for ~ 20+ dumplings)
Dough:
- 2 C flour
- 1/2 stick cold butter in small cubes
- 2-3 tsp shortening
- ice water
- pinch salt
1) Add flour & salt to a bowl. Sprinkle the butter cubes over the flour and quickly work the butter into the flour to form a cornmeal-like consistency. (Alternatively pulse a few times in a food processor).
2) Add shortening and work into the dough in the same manner; the fat should be thoroughly dispersed throughout the flour with as minimal handling as possible.
3) Sprinkle the mixture with a tablespoon of ice water at a time and use a fork to scrape dough together to form a loose mass (3-4 Tb or more).
4) Lightly knead the dough just so it comes together in a ball, adding a little more water if necessary.
5) Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 min.

Filling:
- 1/2 lb ground beef (I used 23% fat, leftover from burgers)
- 1/4C waterchestnut, finely chopped
- 1 scallion, finely chopped
- 1/4 C cilantro, finely chopped
- 1/2 tsp cumin powder
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder (or fresh minced)
- 1/4 tsp coriander powder (or less)
- few shakes each cayenne, paprika, and white pepper
- a few pinches salt
- beaten egg, for brushing
1) Place beef in a large bowl and add the other ingredients.
2) Massage together with your hands or a fork until everything is thoroughly combined
3) Cover and place in the fridge to allow the flavors to marinate.
4) When you dough is chilled, unwrap on a floured smooth surface and roll into a thin sheet about 1/8" thick
5) Using a 2.5" round cookie cutter or round cup, cut out circles from the dough. Transfer to a floured baking sheet. Gather the dough scraps into a ball and re-roll for extra dough circles.
6) chill the dough circles 10 min
7) Preheat oven 350F
8) Take a dough circle and roll a bit larger (the dough will have shrunk a bit while resting in the fridge). Fill with a teaspoon or more of filling. Fold over to form a semi-circle, pressing the edges together tightly and crimp with a fork.
9) Transfer to a lined baking sheet and repeat with the remaining pastry and filling
10) Brush the pastry tops with a beaten egg. Bake for 10 min and check, flip the pastries and bake another 10 min or so.

*Play with different fillings to suit your palate. Tuna and hardboiled quail eggs, salted fish, ground turkey etc.

Fruit Tree Lane

Early summer reveals all sorts of growing wonders. On a one mile jog down one of the quiet avenues in my neighborhood, it has become clear that the landscaper in charge of this stretch of road had a fondness for fruit trees in public spaces. A scattering of loquat, apples, pears, and a variety of small plums can be found in a bee-line path bordering the road. Aside from providing shade and a return-to-nature feel, these trees offer ripening orbs of sweet and tart fruits available for the taking. The satisfaction of plucking fresh plums, deep purple, bright yellow, or light green, trumps buying any produce in a market, never mind their slight mushy imperfection or irregular shapes.

(Hunter)-GATHERER
Urban foraging has gained popularity amongst chefs and community members. This article from the New York times describes how the phenomenon has taken off.

Foraging is fairly straightforward. A set of rules describing what is public versus private domain set the guidelines for what falls within the playing field. Mostly even when the foragers are "caught" snitching from privately owned trees whose fruit happens to hang over publicly shared space, most owners are more than happy to contribute their bounty once the foragers' mission is announced.

Other websites have emerged to facilitate the exchange of home-grown fruit. Neighborhood Fruit is a community organizing website that allows people to register their fruit trees on their site and enable other members to find donated fruit in their area by variety and quantity.

PASTORALIST
A few weeks ago, I pulled the first of 98 carrots from its patch in the garden. It was a premature harvesting but delightful in every way nonetheless. This was soon followed by a tightly woven, gorgeous monster of a cabbage, zucchinis whose delicate flowers have slowly ballooned into deep green squash, a few precious strawberries protected from slugs...the garden was transforming with the arrival of warmer weather.



Many others before me have described the elation of planting their own vegetable garden and harvesting from it. I'm not merely talking about small windowsill herb planters (I've kept several), this is my first real garden complete with aligned planting rows and tomato bushes with upside down hoop-skirt supports. My mom's green thumb and knack for keeping most plants healthy and beautiful never took much interest in growing edible things. However only the sower of the carrot seed can best understand the satisfaction of dislodging a mangled, stunted root from the dirt behind his or her dwelling. (The carrots had developed into a mystery patch of artistic sculptures, a casualty of transplanting rather than sowing directly into the ground; you never know what life form you're going to pull up next). What first began as an interest in the produce I bought to cook my meals, developed into a curiosity about the background of these ingredients, urged me into the back kitchens of a restaurant committed to supporting local farmers (including a woman who had raised a pig in her Bay Area backyard), and has most lately left me digging my fingers into the dirt to nurture my own plants.


(Crossing her legs)

The journey is cyclical and unending, always spurred by curiosity. Curiosity in a new ingredient, where it is grown, how it is grown and how it can be prepared. One thing I've come to realize is that the snails and caterpillars who nibble on my mesclun have got it right, this stuff is damn tasty.

If You Dare: Hand-rolled Lobster Ravioli

You know you have confirmed an obsession when you spend several hours hand-rolling ravioli dough simply because you just haven't had the time to get a pasta roller and because homemade pasta tastes that much better than wonton wrappers. Is it a curse or a blessing? Neither I've decided, it's just a way of life.

I've been harboring this recipe for lobster ravioli in my mental catalogue of dishes to try for over a year now when it first piqued my interest viewed here. It never seemed to make sense to go through the trouble of securing a lobster, boiling it, grinding it, seasoning it, and sacrificing it to make raviolis until a fortuitous lobster sale at Ranch 99 offered the suckers for $7.99 a pound. Not bad for two (outstanding) meals (the first was lobster pad thai urgently prompted by Steve Almond's Death By Lobster Pad Thai. Anyhow, back to the raviolis, the texture of the claws and upper half of the body had been somewhat degraded by freezer storage while the tail was enjoyed fresh first. Perfect for churning into raviolis. (Add another step to the process, thawing).

I followed this recipe a little too precisely for my personal taste (reinforce note to self: go with your instincts, everyone's flavor preferences are different). The filling was a standard lobster and cream mousse to which chopped lobster meat, basil, and cilantro is added. No need for salt since there's plenty of ocean residue already. For the pasta dough I used a basic ratio of one egg + one yolk : one cup of 00 Caputo flour (extremely fine grind - it makes all the difference). Two cups of flour, two eggs, and two yolks for a total of eight decently large raviolis. Roll roll roll, fold, repeat until your arm workout compares to an afternoon spent at the rock wall. Two sauces - elaborate no? - both made with the lobster broth as a base. One, keeping with the Asian theme, is infused with lemongrass and coconut milk, while the other is more French with tarragon, carrots, tomato, and cream.



Improvements to consider:
1) only use the lobster mousse for the filling with maybe a touch of chopped basil (the additional meat does not add favorably to the texture)
2) separately reduce the lobster broth to a sauce
3) use cream for the base rather than the lobster broth) and infuse it with the flavorings. Also, stick to one sauce (I recommend the lemongrass coconut, keeping to just one continent)
3) boil the sauce down to a condensed, drizzle-consistency (these flavors are intense, a very little goes quite far)
4) oh, and invest in a pasta roller, even if it's just a hand crank one

All in all, it made for some tasty artwork and an accomplishment to bathe in for awhile. But I'm serious about the pasta roller, your ravioli sheets will be much finer and silkier.

Grilling with a Thai Stove

Summertime is the season for grilling. Sunny skies beckon for picnics, tikki torches, and backyard barbecues. However few of us are prepared to house the bulk and front the expense of an outdoor grill. That is unless... Enter the Thai clay stove, prevalent actually all throughout Southeast Asia as the primary, cheap form of cooking. The stoves are squat pottery vases similar to sturdy earthenware flowerpots with maybe 2-3 gallons of capacity. A horizontally dividing honeycomb layer allows the ashes from the coals housed in the top region to filter through to the base layer. Three ridges protrude from the lip of the vase to form an even tripod for setting a cauldron of stew or a cast iron skillet. The compact size and weight of the stove is portable and convient.



These stoves are so common along the streets of Vietnam where I last encountered them that they quickly melted into the background scenery. They had nearly filtered away from memory until I happened to glimpse one in a Food and Wine article featuring a Thai grill restaurant in Portland, Oregon. That article provoked an obsession to find this portable stove and respond to the summer calling to grill. Grilling is a superb technique that creates flavors and juxtaposing textures that cannot be adequately mimicked by a stovetop-oven combination. The Thai stove offers a perfectly petite version of a grill minus the mess and with only half the cost in materials (charcoal or wood, the clay pot, and some chicken wire to create a mesh cooking surface). Time to commence the search.

ON A MISSION
Finding a Southeast Asian styled clay stove in the states provided a bit of an adventure. Not having recalled ever seeing the stove in Ranch 99, the main Asian supermarket in the area, I first approached Oakland Chinatown, where all things are sold, disregarding the Southeast Asian origin of my prize. An afternoon was spent traipsing through the various markets and cramped, chaotic shops until a bit of maneuvering and creative descriptions placed me in a dingy side aisle of a produce-miscellaneous "general" store in the heart of Chinatown. Two pots sat side-by-side on the bottom shelf. One was much too large, more indicative of a miniature pizza oven than a portable cooking vessel. The other one peered up to me behind years of dust and disregard, the perfect little charcoal stove. It has been utilized in earnest ever since its return trip from Oakland.

A PLAYGROUND OF POSSIBILITIES
With just a sprinkling of charcoal and a breezy fifteen to twenty minute wait to let the temperature rise up, this new toy has brought the realm of cooking over an open flame finally within my reach. Experimenting is the key: starting with a solid grilled ribeye accompanied by thick slices of country batard drizzled with olive oil and herbs, moving onto yams buried in the top bunk along with the embers, and most recently blackening small mackerel which drew forth curling flames with its oiliness. The flavor is unbeatable and the simple set up is wholly gratifying. There is also something sensual and rudimentary about this primitive form of cooking, huddled around the flaming pot like a campfire.



* It may be difficult to find a clay stove in Chinatown (or anywhere else) without the aid of fluent Cantonese. I suggest bringing a photo of a stove along with you on your search. (Even so some storeowners may be completely perplexed by your request). $10-18 per stove, may be negotiable but don't pay more than $20.