Strunk, White and Ruhlman

With the Food Network going 24/7 and Culinary Chic so widespread that people are quitting real jobs to go to -- gasp -- culinary school (instead of film school or MFA poetry programs, like they used to), there's a greater need than ever to Define Terms in the food world.  Enter Michael Ruhlman, author of "The Soul of a Chef" and coauthor of "The French Laundry Cookbook," whose latest book, "The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef's Craft for Every Kitchen," is a reference guide based loosely on Strunk and White's classic grammar treatise, "The Elements of Style."

Ruhlman's book (the color of a school-zone pylon, which seems fitting) is a slim, condensed and workmanlike volume. After a 40-plus-page intro that alerts us to foundational kitchen wisdom (the importance of stock, say), the book yields a lovely catalog of culinary terms. It's far from a comprehensive list, and it's weighted heavily in favor of classic French cuisine. Ruhlman also has a rather mysterious operating principle: "time," "smell" and "oignon pique" are among the terms defined; "harissa" and "banneton" are not.  Whatever.  If you need a more exhaustive reference guide, you've probably already got Alan Davidson's "The Oxford Companion to Food" and "Larousse Gastronomique" weighing down the chaos of paperwork on your desk. 

What sets Ruhlman's book apart, and makes it worth adding to that stack on the desk, is his jaunty tone, the overall happy utility of his project -- and his prose. (You don't reference Strunk and White if you can't string together a well-wrought sentence.) What I missed, though, was more of the vehement humor that laces his blog. OK, we (and more specifically, the youthful Emeril-wannabes who populate cooking schools) can all profit by a lecture on the Importance of the Egg and more reminders of Thomas Keller's brilliance. But what about the grammar of the kitchen? How about the use of an independent clause, with or without a colon, or the use of "definite, specific, concrete language" when your sous chef has lost the shellfish tags or the saucier has broken the beurre blanc?  What I really wanted was a section like Chapter 4 in Strunk and White: "Words and Expressions Commonly Misused." 

Or maybe Ruhlman -- or Anthony Bourdain, come to think of it -- could just come up with a list like the one my editor once stuck to my computer screen on a yellow Post-it. I'll never use the word "bounty" again.

The Elements of Cooking, by Michael Ruhlman. (Scribner, 2007.)

-- Amy Scattergood

Photo by Amy Scattergood

More bread experiments

When I called Maggie Glezer, coauthor of "Artisan Baking Across America," to ask her questions about baking with sourdough, she listened as I recited my proportions and technique, then promptly suggested I skip half of the steps I was following.  Ever since reading about Jim Lahey's no-knead method (see Mark Bittman's article in the New York Times, Nov. 8, 2006), Glezer says she's been cutting out more and more steps in her own bread baking. "I wasn't really kneading my challah doughs," Glezer wrote in an e-mail, "but it didn't occur to me to do the same things with hearth breads." 

So I tried the recipe for whole wheat sourdough boules without going through the initial mixing, any of the folds or the pre-shape. I got up in the morning, after my sourdough starter was ripe, and just mixed all the ingredients together in a big bowl, covered it all with plastic wrap and let it sit for 2 1/2 hours.  Actually, I went back to bed. When I finally did get up, I divided the dough in two, shaped the pieces into two rounds and put them into baskets for another 2 1/2 hours. (Well, I'd forgotten the bannetons and brotforms and proofing baskets at work, so I stuck them into ordinary collanders that I'd lined with floured old linen towels.) Then I baked them off in my oven and took them into work. They were terrific, with good hole structure (although the hole structure is better when you fold the dough) and a fantastic crust. The crumb was moister than the others had been, a little denser and creamier. Bread does taste better when you're not sleep-deprived.

More bread tips (and pictures) after the jump.

-- Amy Scattergood

Photos by Amy Scattergood

Meyer mania continues!

We’re in the sweet spot of the Meyer lemon season and the tree outside my kitchen window is heavily hung with sunny golden fruit. The fragrant lemons will last for another month or so, but experience has taught me that gradually their thin peels will get coarse and puffy, so I’m trying to use as many as I can now.

As my colleague Amy Scattergood related recently, there’s almost no end to the possibilities of things you can do with a Meyer lemon. But somehow I keep coming back to the same thing: marmalade.

More a technique than a recipe, I came up with this Meyer lemon marmalade in 1995 after receiving a letter from Margaret Corbin describing how her mother had made the stuff. This is one of those recipes that won’t go away — every year I get several requests for it. It couldn’t be simpler: thinly slice the lemons, discarding the seeds; soak the lemons overnight in water to cover; add 2/3 cup of sugar for every cup of the lemon-water mixture; cook over high heat until the mixture jells.

Over the years, I’ve come up with a few refinements to the original recipe. First, I use more water now than I did then. My marmalade isn’t quite as intensely flavored, but the texture is much better. And as with all my jams and preserves, I cook the mixture in small batches of no more than 2 or 3 cups at a time. This cooks to a firm set more quickly, preserving color and fresh taste. Even better, working with such small batches, it’s much easier to tell when the jam has set — you can feel it change as you stir it.

The batch that’s on my counter now started with 2 pounds of lemons and 5 cups of water. That makes almost 8 cups of marmalade base, so I’ll add about 5 1/3 cups of sugar. And tomorrow afternoon, after I cook it, I’ll have about 6 half-pint jars of terrific marmalade. Supplemented by my annual batches of strawberry, nectarine and Elephant Heart Plum preserves, that should last me until about this time next year.

-- Russ Parsons

Photo by Russ Parsons

Barney's beer ballot

The age-old West Hollywood chili parlor, youth hangout and all-around beer fountain Barney's Beanery (now with branches in Santa Monica and Pasadena) plans to get a jump on Super Tuesday by holding its own straw ballot on Monday, Feb. 4. No actual straws will be harmed in this process. You just choose a $3 pour from the tap labeled with the candidate of your choice -- Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Romney, McCain or Giuliani -- and that counts as a vote. (By the way, does this mean Barney's knows something about Mike Huckabee's chances that we don't?) The three suds polling places will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Bartenders acting as election officials will record a running tally on whiteboards. The Barney's press release says, "Vote tampering will be encouraged," which one hopes shows they're not taking this too seriously. (It's not as if Barney's has much of a track record -- in 2004, the Santa Monica branch had a two-day beer vote that ended with John Kerry beating George Bush 2 to 1.) Maybe they're just trying to encourage people to "vote early and often," as the saying goes. Stuff the ballot box and yourself at the same time, as it were.

-- Charles Perry

Correction: The voting hours are 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. on Monday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Super Tuesday.

The Last Word

  Bar Keeper in Silver Lake announced its latest Bar Keeper Mixology Friday (Feb. 1., 7:30-10:30 p.m.). And they're featuring a cocktail called the Vieux Mot -- the recipe is from PDT in New York, which I included in a cocktail story in November. It's my favorite cocktail -- a classic-cocktail adaptation by PDT bar manager Don Lee (although we cut back on the simple syrup, to 0.25 ounce; see the recipe after the jump). I love the color, and the pretty grapefruit peel and passion fruit aromas that come through from the St-Germain liqueur. 

It was Robert Cooper, the creator of St-Germain, who told me that the Vieux Mot is actually a variation of a classic cocktail, the Last Word. But I like the Vieux Mot ("Old Word") even better.

We ran another recipe from PDT, the Martinez (recipe after the jump). That one was fantastic too -- gin with a good dose of Carpano Antica Formula vermouth. That stuff is amazing!! It's a sweet red vermouth that's great on its own as an aperitif.

One recipe we didn't publish with the print story was La Rosita (but see the recipe after the jump) -- it's an intriguing mix of tequila, vermouth and bitters. Another to add to your repertoire.

Bar Keeper, 3910 W. Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake, (323) 669-1675.

-- Betty Hallock

Photo by Jennifer S. Altman / For The Times

A brewery birthday in El Monte

We have so few local breweries that it's worth noting when one survives its first year. Skyscraper Brewing -- the only brewery in El Monte -- just passed that milestone, having fought its way into some notable markets and bars (there's a list on the website), so it had a birthday party Saturday, attended by at least 80 members of the proverbially sociable beer world. A writer for the beer magazine Celebrator was there. The L.A. rep of Stone Brewing in Escondido was there. Members of the Pacific Gravity home brew club were milling around ("pacific gravity" being a pun on "specific gravity," which is -- oh, never mind; it's something brewers have to keep track of).

Everybody  was sipping Skyscraper's two regular brews, a lager and a subtly honey-flavored ale, and brewmaster Phil Sutton  was showing off his Winter Warmer, a malty ale with notes of cherry and chocolate. Not that anybody needed much warming, since it was a typical L.A. January day, meaning shirt-sleeve weather. But the thought counts.

You could hear people saying things that might be beer-geeky or just beery. "Eating is a state of mind," said one Winter Warmer sipper. "This beer is like food."

"It's bread," said another. "It's just liquid bread."

Sutton was set up for barbecuing hot dogs for the hordes, and some Mexican food was coming from El Gordito down on Valley Boulevard. "The owner isn't even a beer customer of mine," Sutton said, "but a couple of months ago I donated some beer to his campaign when he was running for the school board."

Hey, that's how it works. One bottle washes another.

-- Charles Perry

Fro-yo at home

All the current hype about fro-yo wars ignores, perhaps, those waged at home. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood to stand in line at my neighborhood frozen yogurt (or ice cream) store, with or without sugar-crazed children.  And then there's the issue of all that sugar and fat, things which we get quite enough of already. 

So this Christmas, when I got an ice cream maker (thank you, Jenny!), I thought I'd try making something my daughters would like -- and that I could live with too.  Although I love homemade ice cream, I didn't really want them eating the 12 egg yolks and Armagnac that are in my favorite recipe; and the recipes for frozen yogurt that came with the machine called for things like canned fruit, whole milk and lots of added sugar. So we made up our own.

Here's our version of strawberry fro-yo. (I explained to Sophie that strawberries aren't in season, but she was adamant.)  First we macerated 2 cups of sliced strawberries and 1 tablespoon sugar for half an hour (to bring out the juices and flavor a little; with ripe summer berries I won't need this step -- or the extra sugar), then pureed them in a blender with 2 cups Greek-style plain yogurt and 1/4 cup wildflower honey. That, in turn, went into the ice cream machine; about half an hour later, we were done. 

The kids couldn't believe how easy it was.  Nor could they believe that I let them have seconds.  And thirds.  No more begging them to eat a "healthy" snack of plain yogurt, sliced fresh fruit, a drizzle of honey ... 

-- Amy Scattergood

Photo by Amy Scattergood

Gems at last!

For years I’ve been haunted by a peculiar fruit. The first time I read Lindsey Shere’s “Chez Panisse Desserts” (still my sweets bible), I was taken by her description of the Lavender Gem -- “A cross between a grapefruit and a mandarin orange.... The flavor is delicate and sweet and the peel is sweet and less tangy than that of some other citruses” -- I had to try them. But they were elusive. That book was published 22 years ago and just this week, for the first time, I found Lavender Gems at the farmers market. (I am not alone in my quest -- or my lack of success; every winter I get two or three e-mails asking me about them. I instantly know what book the e-mailers have been reading.)

So I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw a little sign for Lavender Gems at the Mud Creek Ranch stand at the Santa Monica farmers market Wednesday. I grabbed everyone I ran into and dragged them over to see. (Apparently, Shere is not as widely revered as she should be; most of my victims merely gave me a good-natured shrug.)

Robin and Steven Smith, who farm outside Santa Paula, have 10 Lavender Gem trees and will be selling the fruit at farmers markets for the next couple of weeks. Also known as Wekiwa or Pink tangelo (it’s actually a cross between a grapefruit and a tangelo), the fruit is fairly low in acidity, making it taste even sweeter than it is. (Most grapefruit have a sugar-to-acid ratio of 14- or 15-to-1; Lavender Gems can reach into the 20s.)

What’s the fruit taste like? I have to say that as 20-year quests go, this one was somewhat anticlimactic. Lavender Gems, at least on first introduction, are certainly nice and sweet with a slight floral quality. They seem to me to have more orange flavor than grapefruit. But after searching that long I had kind of hoped for trumpets blaring and fireworks flashing. That may be because the Smiths' trees are still fairly young; character sometimes develops as trees mature. I'm happy to give them time. After all, I've already waited 20 years.

Mud Creek Ranch sells at the Wednesday Santa Monica, Tuesday and Saturday Santa Barbara, Sunday Ojai and Sunday Hollywood farmers markets.

-- Russ Parsons

Photo by Russ Parsons

Meyer lemon footnote: Recipes

Of my catalogue of "100 Things to Do With Meyer Lemons" in today's Food section, a few items referred to recipes from cookbooks. Here they are, accompanied by a picture of the preserved Meyer lemons (No. 11) that I made for friends for Christmas this year. (Polito Family Farms Meyers, with spices.)

No. 10. Claudia Roden's orange-almond cake, from "The New Book of Middle Eastern Food." Note: the original recipe calls for two large oranges; I substituted Meyer lemons.

2 large Meyer lemons                                                                  

6 eggs

250 g. (8 oz.) ground almonds or almond flour

250 g. (8 oz.) sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

Butter and flour, for cake tin

Wash and boil the lemons (unpeeled) in a little water for nearly 2 hours. Let them cool, then cut them open and remove the pips. Turn the lemons into a pulp by rubbing them through a sieve or by putting them in an electric blender. Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add all the other ingredients, mix thoroughly and pour into a buttered and floured cake tin, preferably one with a removable bottom. Bake in a moderately hot oven (190C/375F) for about 1 hour. If the cake is still very wet, leave it in the oven for a little longer. Cool in the tin before turning out. (I served this with Chantilly cream flavored with Meyer lemon peel, No. 12.)

No. 25, Suzanne Goin's Meyer lemon salsa, from "Sunday Suppers at Lucques."

2 to 3 large Meyer lemons

2 tablespoons finely diced shallots

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon minced savory (you can substitute fresh marjoram)

1 tablespoon sliced mint

2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cut both ends off the lemons. Place the lemons cut side down on a cutting board. Following the contour of the fruit with your knife, remove the peel and white cottony pith, working from top to bottom and rotating the fruit as you go. Then, one at a time, hold each lemon in your hand and carefully slice between the membranes and the fruit to release the segments in between.  Discard the seeds and reserve the juice. You should have about 1/4 cup of segments and 1/4 cup of juice. Place the lemon juice in a small bowl and add the shallots and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Let sit 5 minutes and slowly whisk in the olive oil. Stir in the lemon segments, savory, mint and parsley. Taste for balance and seasoning.

No. 87, Gennaro Esposito's recipe for sweet and sour lemon sauce, from Faith Willinger's book "Adventures of an Italian Food Lover."

For the candied zest:

2 Meyer lemons

1 orange

6 tablespoons coarse sea salt

1/2 cup wildflower honey

1 cup sugar

Peel the zest from two lemons in strips, leaving 1/4-inch pulp attached to the zest. Peel the orange the same way. Put the zests in a bowl, toss with 2 tablespoons salt, add 1 cup water, and weight down with a small plate to keep zests submerged for 1 to 2 hours. Rinse and drain. Bring 10 cups of water to a rolling boil, remove from heat and let zests cool completely in the salted water. Drain zests. Combine the honey, sugar and 2 1/4 cups of fresh water in a small pot and bring to a simmer. Add the drained zest and cook over lowest heat, less than a simmer, for 40 minutes. Remove from the heat and let zest cool in syrup overnight. The next day, bring the syrup back to a simmer, lower the heat, and cook for 1 hour. Remove from the heat and cool completely. Repeat the process one more time, cooking zest on the lowest heat for 30 minutes. Store zest in its syrup in a jar.

For the sauce:

3 1/2 Meyer lemons

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 garlic clove, peeled

1 tablespoon minced celery

Fine sea salt

White pepper

3 tablespoons chopped candied lemon zest

Trim three lemons with a knife, cutting the rind away down to the pulp. Section the lemon into wedges, cutting between the white connective membranes. Squeeze the juice from the remains of the lemons into a measuring cup and add the wedges. You should have about 1/2 cup. Squeeze the juice from the remaining 1/2 lemon and add it to the wedges. In a small saucepan, add the oil and saute the garlic and celery over medium heat until the celery barely begins to color. Add the lemon wedges and juice and cook, mashing the mixture with a wooden spoon, until the mixture is pulpy. Remove the garlic. Season the lemon mixture with salt and white pepper. If the sauce is too tart, add a spoonful or two of syrup from the candied zest. Transfer lemon mixture to a blender and add candied zest. Blend until smooth.

-- Amy Scattergood

Photo by Amy Scattergood

Crabby about prices

People who love Dungeness crab will pay almost any price to get it. But this year, that devotion is being put to the test. I walked into my local Asian grocery Friday to pick up some crabs for a weekend dinner and found that my usual $4.99-per-pound splurge is running $7.99 per pound this year. Actually, they were the same price at Christmas and New Year’s as well, but I just figured that was due to the normal holiday inflation. Not so. The fact is, there just aren’t as many crabs being caught this year as in the past, and as a result prices are as high as anyone can remember.

Gene Mattiuzzo, who works for Caito Fisheries in Noyo Harbor near Mendocino, says it’s a cyclical thing. “I was telling people last year that the season was going to be short and sweet this year,” he says. “And lo and behold, I was right.” It seems the crab harvest runs in cycles and we were due for a downturn. “Mother Nature runs this business,” Mattiuzzo says, “we don’t.”

Pete Kalvass, a marine biologist for the California Department of Fish and Game, says that this year isn’t really all that bad, it’s just that we’re coming off a run of extremely large catches. “We’re coming off of three or four near-record years in a row,” he says. The state’s average Dungeness harvest is around 10 million pounds, but beginning in 2002 we had three straight years of more than 20 million pounds. Last year was about average, and this year will be slightly less. On top of that, this has been one rough winter up on the north coast, with repeated storms blowing through and keeping the fishermen home and high and dry. (And if it makes paying this winter's high prices any easier, remember that many of these are the same fishermen who were so devastated by the closure of the salmon fishery last spring and summer.)

This is one of those years when if you’re going to serve crab, cook it as simply as possible to show off its natural glory — it’s not like you’re going to be eating the stuff every day. Choose crabs that are lively and willing to put up a good scrap as they’re hauled out of the live tank. Put them in a large pot and fill it with room-temperature water. Add lots of salt (the water should taste like the sea). Bring the water to a boil and let the crabs cook about 15 minutes after the water comes to a boil. You’ll know they’re done when you pull one of the small back legs and there are little feathers of body meat attached.

To clean the crab, pry off the top shell, lifting from the back hinge, and rinse out the fat. Pull off the gills on either side, the jaws and the “apron” underneath. Pull off the legs and crack each large section using the back of a large knife. Cut the crab body in half lengthwise, then cut each half in sections between the leg joints. Put them all on a platter and you're ready to feast.

-- Russ Parsons

Photo by Russ Parsons