At a dinner party for six, I made a few quick courses that ended up with a fabulous “bang” on an easy, warm weeknight in the backyard.

- Pluot slices with seasoned Sheep’s ricotta and Prosciutto

- Grilled pork tenderloin with “5 spices” & rum braised peaches + rainbow chard

- Dark chocolate ice cream with bergamont olive oil & sea salt

The first and the last were partially stolen from a previous dinner and a local creamery, so aside from giving you a brief hint* on the first I’ll leave you to your own devices.

*mix your sheep’s milk ricotta with some orange or lemon zest, some bergamont olive oil, and vanilla salt, then drizzle the whole combo, once wrapped and held together by prosciutto, with balsamico.

1 pork tenderloin, rubbed generously with mixture of dried pepper & salt, and five spice powder. Allow to marinate as such for 30-1hr, then drizzle with high heat oil such as macadamia, and throw it on a medium grill, turning a little frequently to prevent charring.

1 bunch rainbow chard, stems removed and chopped 1 inch, cooked at medium heat in olive oil, with salt and pepper, the leaves added to wilt at the end.

Peaches into the chard pan once the chard is removed, brought to high heat with butter, get them golden on one side and douse in bacardi 151 or another rum (or calvados). Flip them, get them golden on the other side, add more rum. Cook it off and serve it all together!

I’ve been procrastinating on this one, which was probably not the best idea since it is painfully difficult to remember the details of 10 courses the same night, let alone weeks later, delightful as they were.

We had the opportunity to dine at Quince (Yelp) with a friend who once worked there making pasta and other duties. Because of this, we had a rather fantastic 10 course pasta meal with multiple desserts and interludes that took up our whole Tuesday evening.

As a normal denizen, I’d recommend going on Tuesday evening simply because the chef’s tasting menu IS a pasta tasting menu on Tuesdays…except, we had the expanded, customized version.

Frankly, I was so mesmerized by the food we were eating and the wine we were drinking that I didn’t manage to whip out my camera until we were nearly through; it was dark anyway.

We ate a little lobster salad with speck and watermelon to start with, a little amuse bouche. I will not be able to fully recall what we ate but I’ll try:

Francobolli (postage stamp style ravioli) filled with cipollini onion and with a frothy fresh english pea sauce–this was incredible, delightful, light

Spaghetti with clam, melon, espresso — surprisingly tasty

“Cannoli” (i think??) with ricotta

Little hat shaped pastas with a rim in an amazing broth i could not figure out with some orange, stock, etc

Tortelli of carbonara – filled with speck, egg, parsley in a carbonara type sauce (egg yolk)

A thick, northern noodle that was firm and dense made with farro and with a confit or braised meat and other rich, delicious things

Dessert included blackberry gelees and sorbettos, exploding honey domes, chocolate crunchies, peaches–there were several, followed with a plate of cookies and miniture cakes and verbena truffles.

(Officially, we had June Pride Peaches with Greek yogurt sorbet and poppy seed cake, Frozen blackberry tart with coconut sorbetto and buckwheat crumble, and provencal almond gelato with soft chocolate, lavender and honey.)

I’m doing a poor job of reconstructing this so I will consult with our ex-cook friend and see what we can remember.

And then, we snuck into the kitchen and had a peek. Apologies for the low light photography but I had to be a little discreet.

Well, it’s not the first time I’ve taken a hint from something I enjoyed at The Sentinel in San Francisco. It’s probably not the last.

This serves 3-4 people.

1/2 lb ahi tuna, fresh
1/4 lb green beans, chopped evenly and blanched in salted water
1 gypsy pepper, sliced very, very thinly (this is a green mini bell pepper type thing)
1 T tomato paste (I use san marzano)
2 T Lemonaise (mayonaise with seasoning and lemon flavor)
1 T dijon mustard
1 tsp tumeric powder
1-2 T cajun seasoning (I made my own–chili powder, paprika, garlic powder, black pepper, salt, thyme, nutmeg/mace, etc)
juice of 1/2 lemon
handful cilantro, minced
3 T homemade bread n butter pickles, small dice (use your imagination to sub)

Cook the tuna in olive oil after seasoning with salt and pepper. Flake apart and chop. Mix the sauce using the lemonaise, dijon, lemon juice, tumeric, cajun powder (use more as necessary, feel free to add chili powder), tomato paste. Mix the tuna into it, then start adding green beans, gypsy pepper, cilantro, pickles. Adjust as needed. Enjoy.

I really enjoyed this, especially since these damn pickles have been sitting in my fridge almost as long as the homemade preserved lemons I made last year.

Orange Scallops for two:
6 dayboat (nitrate free) scallops
1-2 tsp thyme
1 orange
4 cloves garlic (don’t go overboard)
4-6 T butter
Cointreau or brandy

Melt the butter at medium low heat, zest the orange. When butter melted and water evaporated, add the garlic, minced. Reduce heat to not color the garlic, cook until softening. Add half the orange zest, the thyme (rub between fingers on the way into the pan, or use fresh thyme minced–triple the amount) and the juice of the orange. Turn up heat to medium high. Cook down until thickened, add the booze (use judgement), cook off the fun part and then set the sauce aside into a small bowl.

Put the pan back on the burner and add another T or two of butter. Add the orange zest with it, let it melt and get hot on medium high heat. Turn the heat up once it’s stopped bubbling, and add the scallops almost immediately. Let them brown quickly on each side, flipping only once. Plate the scallops when cooked (DO NOT overcook. Get the dayboat scallops so they are OK to eat raw and eat them rare).

Put the sauce back in the pan and cook more, heat it up, soak up the scallop leftovers. Serve on top the scallops.

For golden chard side:
small bunch golden chard
olive oil
salt & pepper

Simply clean the chard, seperate the stems from the leaves. Chiffonade the leaves, chop the stems in even pieces. Heat a pan to medium, add some olive oil. Cook the stems until nearly tender. Add salt and pepper. Add the leaves and reduce heat to low, cook until bright and tender.

Scalloped Potatoes (serves 4)
8 small yellow creamer potatoes, washed
3 oz cheddar, or other cheese that doesn’t become stringy
1 small/medium spring onion
1 cup milk
1/2 cup cream
salt & pepper
2-5 T butter

Preheat oven to 350. Slice the potatoes using the side of a cheese grater or a mandolin, ideally. Grate coarsely the cheese. Slice very thin the onions in half circles. In a 8×8 baking pan or something similar, put a few pats of butter on the bottom, very thin, or grease the pan. Add alternating single layers of potatoes and the onion broken into single pieces, add salt every other layer, a little cheese on the alternate. Add pats of butter again on top. End in onions.

Heat the milk and cream until just hot. Pour over the layered poatoes. Cook for 40-50 minutes, covered for the first 35 minutes, uncovered for the rest. I turned the heat up for the last part, to 400.

It’s nice to get up on Sunday and walk a few blocks in the morning sun, meander around and buy some scallops, some beautiful flowers for $10.

Is anyone feeling generous?  This one I have mixed feelings about, though.

I had the lovely chance to discover and attend an event at 18 reasons, an art gallery and gathering place for those interested in the production and consumption of (good) food, which is owned by BiRite (Creamery & Market) in the Mission District of San Francisco. I even ran into a co-worker…

There was an exhibit of photographs Julio Duffoo featuring mostly people in the livestock/slaughter/butcher industries, from industrial/large scale down to the urban farmer with a turkey coop in the back yard (in Oakland!). The photos were interesting but the real draw for me was a friend of a friend making the delicious chaucuterie platters we snacked on with our wine throughout the evening.

We had headcheese. We had rabbit pate. We had two kinds of salami, two kinds of prosciutto, lamb sausages (from a class the chef of the evening had taken on lamb butchering), some things I didn’t figure out. It was delicious.

And, because it’s around the corner from BiRite Market and the block of the mission with some of my very favorite food vendors, I scored a few things from Tartine, took a spin through BiRite, and nomnomnom’d on a bowl of ice cream (creme fraiche, salted caramel, cookies n cream) with my ‘boo.

6 hardboiled eggs (instructions follow)
2 T capers, rinsed & drained
1 carrot, small dice
2 sticks celery, small dice
1/2 red onion, small dice
1/2 C homemmade or b’n'b pickles, small dice
rice vinegar
olive oil/macadamia oil
mustard powder
1 tsp sugar
salt & pepper generously

For hardboiled eggs: Put the raw eggs in a pot with water, not too large of a pot, and with a lid that fits. Start with cold water. Cover and heat to just under a boil, hold at that temp for about 1 minute. Turn off heat, leave covered. let rest until water cool enough to put hands in, then rinse eggs and peel (you can wait until cold if you want). The reason to use this method is so that the yolk is yellow and not grey, creamy and not too crumbly.

In a bowl, mix 2-3 T of rice vinegar with 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, cracked pepper, 1-2 T macadamia or olive oil, 1-2 T mustard powder. The dressing should be thicker than vinaigarette and thinner than store bought creamy dressing. Reserve the prior ingredients in case you need more dressing.

Dice the eggs into cubes as best you can. Don’t worry about the yolk falling apart, but be sure not to discard it. Put it in the bowl. Add the other diced vegetables, mix together with a spoon. Eventually, and over the following days, the egg yolk will blend into the dressing. From the beginning, it should be fairly dry, but flavorful. Will develop liquid over the next day. Serve on a fresh roll.

This recipe was inspird by the egg salad sandwich available at Blue Bottle Coffee in SF.

I’ve posted about my favorite Italian comfort food before, but I’ve decided it’s time to wow you with its deliciousness in a way that will allow replication. This dish was the very first recipe (and demonstration of technique) I learned in Marcella Ansaldo’s introduction to Italian Regional Cuisine course at International Culinary School Apicius in Florence.  Marcella was fabulous and ended up to be one of my very favorite and most professional teachers while I was there.

Typically you’d make your own pasta (once you’ve done it a few times, it’s really not overwhelming), but if you’re in a hurry you could use dry pasta, preferably something with texture like rigatoni, penne, or egg fettucini.

All of the measurements below are approximate. You’ll develop your own liking over time. Serves 4.

1 large carrot, small dice
2 stalks celery, small dice
1/2 medium/small onion, diced
1/2 C red wine
1/3lb lean ground beef
1/4lb ground pork
50g (1 quarter inch thick) slice of pancetta (if you can get it smoked, that’s the best option)
1.5-2 C san marzano or other good quality tomatoes, preferably whole
1 tsp chili flakes (this is non traditional)
olive oil
salt & pepper

Heat about 1T olive oil in a large sauce pan. Start your water to boil at the same time, or soon after. Sautee on medium low heat the onion, carrot, and celery which are chopped a small dice, evenly sized. You do not want to caramelize anything here–simply soften and cook. I remember Marcella telling us that Italians 1) do not like to see their vegetables and 2) do not over cook them like the French. Don’t forget the salt at this point, either.

Once softened but not brown, add the pancetta, diced the same size, and if it’s not smoked, allow it to cook until almost crispy (you may need to adjust the heat upwards). If it’s smoked, cook together for 1-2 minutes, and add the ground meat. You should mix the meat together first and make sure not too add too large of chunks. Once the meat is mostly cooked, crank the heat a bit up and add the wine*.

When the vapor coming from the pan is no longer astringent, add the chili flakes and the tomato, and reduce to simmer. Adjust salt & pepper.

Mix your sauce and pasta well in a large bowl/in the pasta pan and serve with good Parmesan (I will cry if you use the pre-grated stuff, seriously).

*If you’re smart, you’ll buy a dry, red Italian wine that you might actually want to drink not only because it will taste better, but because then you’ll have an appropriate wine to go with your dinner.

As a side note, we ate it up with some Liguria Bakery Foccacia, which I am very pleased to say is being retailed at my neighborhood Andronico’s, for four times the price as at the bakery and not as fresh, but it is so freaking good and so inconvenient to get at the bakery that I am happy to pay it.

For the Tri Tip (can sub skirt or flank steak, etc)
1 tri tip, marinaded at least 2 hours, up to 36
marinade:
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup teriyaki or similar sauce
1/4 cup oil (your choice)
1 tbsp chili flakes
2 shots whiskey/brandy/etc
2 cloves garlic
salt & pepper

Grill to your best ability.

For the Favas:
1-2lb fresh fava beans in their pods
2 large shallots*
pecorino ginepro (romano will do if you live in the middle of nowhere, but if you don’t i expect you to seek a better alternative, really, for shame)
juice of 1/2 lime
salt & pepper

Boil water, salt it, and put the fava beans in (take them out of their pods first). Cook 1-2 minutes until color has brightened a little. Drain them and put them into iced water, and immediately use your fingers/nails to remove their outer shell. Set aside the inner meat/bean.

Heat a bit of olive oil in a non stick, and add your shallots sliced in rings, with some salt & pepper. When softened, add your favas, salt, and pepper, and cook quickly until warmed and coated. Add juice of 1/2 lime (a tart orange is ok too). Serve with shaved pecorino ginepro or other firm, sheeps milk, salty cheese.

*If you’re feeling naughty you could add some pancetta at the same time as the shallots and skimp a little on the oil.