what's so wrong with simple?

I saw a post on facebook today about this "great" new product meant to save time and space in your tiny kitchen...

Here is the immediate vision that popped into my head when I saw it...and I would predict the same level of frustration in using either...(maybe the designers sensed this as well, after all they did decide to leave the tomatoes on the vine)...Oh, and the CLEANUP TIME!

photoshoot with Relic Wines and serendipitous timing...

A while back I did a photo shoot with the fine folks at Relic Wines.  


I first met Mike Hirby and Shatzi Throckmorton (the proprietors of the winery) when we had the chance to collaborate on a winemaker dinner for one of my clients a couple years ago. 


Recently they were looking to update their website with new images and I was looking for subjects to shoot.  We decided to make a trade...I would provide them with the images and they would provide me with their wine.  If you have had their wine (and if not you NEED to) you will realize that I made out on the deal!


Soon after the shoot they were contacted by Wine Spectator who indicated they were working on a piece about Rhône style wines and asked if they had a photo of Mike (the winemaker)...great timing, indeed.


Here is the shot that ran with the article in the March issue. 

You can see a few of the other shots I took on their website here.  And here is a shot of Schatzi from the same day...

My first on page photo credit! (albeit dwarfed by peppercorns)

nowhere to hide

When you put just a few ingredients on a plate they better be good...

This is a dish that is a work-in-progress and will likely take many forms this spring but is based firmly on my favorite new-to-me ingredient.  A couple of weeks ago at the farmers market I decided to try this clabbered cottage cheese from the great cowgirl creamery.  WOW!  (mind you, I haven't eaten cottage cheese since I was a toddler)

It cannot get much simpler...I just roasted the asparagus in olive oil and topped it with a mixture of the cottage cheese, great olive oil (this one from soul food farms...yum!), a chiffonade of sorrel and some fresh ground pepper.  There was already enough salt in the cheese.  Sorrel can be hard to find, but if you plant it in your garden it is hard to make it NOT grow...and I love the vibrant lemony zing it provides!


Fava beans are just about here, so I'm thinking a few of those and a sprinkling of some crisp-ity chruch-ity sourdough breadcrumbs will send this one over the top.

winter in four parts...

... celery root soup, crisp pancetta, fried sage ...

  

... little gem salad, beets, tangerines, mint, toasted pepitas ...

... crisp duck confit, du puy lentils, braised savoy cabbage, black pepper gastrique ...

... olive oil/almond/citrus cake, crème fraîche, candied mandarinquats ...

contrast

I really do love cooking in the cold weather months...braising, roasting, caramelizing, slow long cooking...


But as individual dishes need contrast, so too does the meal...


This salad was the perfect way to refresh the taste buds between a bowl of creamy, warm celery root soup and a plate of crispy duck confit with lentils and cabbage.  Most often I would write a menu that progresses from salad to soup to main course, but I didn't want to go back-to-back with two fairly rich dishes. 

The crunchy, salty roasted pepitas made for a nice contrast both in texture and flavor within the dish itself.


Every ingredient in this salad was excellent, but the show stopper was without a doubt these tangerines!  Firm and sweet, but with great acid.

... the gems ...

I removed the larger leaves from the outside and relegated them to sandwich duty.  I like the inner light green/yellow leaves for this salad. 

... the toasted pepitas ...

A key ingredient in the Mexican dish mole, these are great on their own.  I always buy nuts and seeds raw and toast them myself.  Put them in a dry sauté pan and roast them in a 400 degree oven until they are slightly crunchy and take on a little color.  As with all nuts/seeds, a little color means flavor, a little too much color means bitter.  Hit them with a bit of good olive oil and kosher salt when they come out of the oven...delicious.  Make sure you toast some extra because they are great snacking on their own.

... the beets ...

These great beets were simply roasted in a hot oven with olive oil, a little water, salt and pepper (covered)...then peeled, cut into wedges and tossed with their own vinaigrette.

... the mint ...

feel free to use a lot in this salad...and whole leaves are great!

... the tangerines ...

Oh...my...the...tangerines!  You can cut them into segments or "supremes", but I like to first cut off pieces of the fruit almost like you would cutting around the core of an apple.  From there, I just cut slices against the direction of the membrane that separates each section...you can see what I mean if you look at the slices of tangerine in the salad above.  I like the way it looks and the way it eats.  For larger citrus like grapefruits I tend to cut out the individual segments.

... the vinaigrettes ...

I hadn't planned on using two different vinaigrettes for one salad, but I happened to have some blood oranges on hand.  I made a meyer lemon vinaigrette for the salad, and dressed the beets separately in a blood orange vinaigrette.