Wright Eats

We had the dessert assignment at this month’s dinner club. Dinner club is a regular event with five other couples who I either went to graduate school with, or who know one of the couples I went to school with. We rotate between homes each time and bring one course for the meal.

Since Eric and I were still on a quest to try recipes from David Lebovitz’s Perfect Scoop ice cream cookbook, we tried to think of something involving ice cream. I think the cover of the March issue of Gourmet was somewhere subconciously in mind when we came up with profiteroles. There was a salted butter caramel ice cream I remembered seeing, so we decided to do that with a chocolate sauce.

Then I went looking for the recipe but couldn’t find it in the book. Eventually, I realized that I actually had seen the recipe on David’s blog, not the book. He describes there how it didn’t make the cut since the book already had some other caramel ice creams, and there was a salted butter caramel sauce in his first book. It’s a good thing I stumbled upon it online because I can definitively say that this is the best ice cream I’ve ever eaten.

If you want to make it yourself, the ice cream recipe is here. We used the Gourmet recipe for the profiteroles. And then we went with David’s recommendation of pairing the caramel ice cream with his mocha sauce from the book. Here was the result:

We had been looking forward to the dinner all day.  Traffic was light and we arrived early for the 3rd annual Whole Beast Dinner at Lark last Monday.  We nibbled on marinated olives and Marcona almonds and sipped Cava while we read over the evening’s menu.  There were two different animals featured, one pig and two lambs, but the menu looked a little more manageable than the previous year.  We could hardly believe it then when veterans told us that the menu had been pared down from the first year.  We barely made it through three of the four waves of food!  This year’s menu didn’t look quite as intimidating. 

Several of the more interesting dishes were missing this year, such as the pork snouts, trotters, and lamb brains.  Michelle Magidow said that they had a little more trouble obtaining the “bits and pieces” this time around.  The Whole Beast Dinner is usually more involved than simply cooking the whole animals, since they actually need snouts from 50 pigs to serve a roomful of 50 people Pork snouts alla Milanese.

But they did bring back the pig ears.  These were served thinly shaved in a salad with watercress, green papaya, pickled chiles, and crispy shallots.  The salad was stellar and perfectly dressed with the right blend of heat and sweetness.

There were a number of other standouts.  We enjoyed the lardo that Lark served on toast with sweet mostarda di uva.  This is Lark’s own lardo, which they have been curing for six months so far; they expect to continue curing for another six months, but this dish was a preview of what’s to come.

We also really enjoyed the squid and chorizo skewers, along with the warm salad of lamb tongue with cauliflower and almonds.  Both dishes were prepared by David Hawksworth, who was the chef at West Restaurant in Vancouver until recently.  He’s working on a new venture now, renovating the Hotel Georgia to include a 6,000 sq ft. restaurant that will serve over 100 people.  After those two outstanding dishes, I’m certain we will be visiting after it opens.

Johnathan Sundstrom had invited David as a guest chef for the evening, along with Susan Vanderbeek, a venerable chef in the Pacific Northwest.  She recently sold her popular restaurant, The Oystercatcher on Whidbey Island, and is enjoying retirement by working at events like this dinner.  It was a memorable meal, and we’re already looking forward to the 4th annual dinner.

1st wave
Salumi and Fra Mani coppa and salami
Lark lardo on toast with mostarda di uva
Guanciale wrapped dates with Gorgonzola
Marcona almonds and marinated olives

2nd wave
Warm pork pate en croute with rhubarb, grain mustard and loganberry honey
Squid, chorizo, olive, confit tomato and grilled treviso
Lardo roasted white prawns with rosemary and Meyer lemon
Pig ears as a salad with watercress, green papaya, pickled chiles and crispy shallots

3rd wave
Lamb crepinette with pine nuts, fennel and pear
Warm salad of lamb tongue, duo of cauliflower and toasted almonds
Pork cheeks with spicy coriander broth, ramps and pineapple
Pan fried kidney with curry mustard, asparagus, dill and Basmati rice

Grapefruit Campari Ice

4th wave
Lamb sweetbread ravioli with peas, favas and mint
Pork tongue dolce forte
Grilled lamb kofta with spiced carrots, couscous and Mustapha’s olives

Dessert
Meyer lemon madelienes with custard sauce
Crackling chocolate cookies

Lark
926 12th Ave, Seattle
(206) 323-5275

Don’t miss this weekend’s edible plant sale, put on by the Seattle Tilth each spring.  We go each year to pick up plants for our garden (although we will unfortunately miss this year’s sale!), and we’ve learned that you’ve got to get there early for the best selection – the line starts a good half hour before the doors open at 9am on Saturday, May 3.  Bring some empty plant trays, boxes, or a wagon to carry your stash, if you want to bypass the line for purchasing trays.

If you don’t have a garden but have been thinking about starting one, now is a great time to do so.  How much closer to eating locally can you get than walking outside your kitchen door?  Michael Pollan actually had a great column in the New York Times a week ago about climate change and this very topic.  And if you don’t have a green thumb, or want to learn how to work with an edible garden, contact Amy Pennington at Go Go Green Garden.  Amy is a foodie who has recently started her own business doing veggie garden consulting.  I met her when the Dahlia Bakery first opened, when she was the bakery manager.  Now she’s helping people connect with their food by growing it in their own yard.  She can help coach you in getting started, or if gardening really isn’t your thing, she can even plant your garden and harvest the vegetables, leaving a basket of goodies on your doorstep.

For a list of what’s available at this weekend’s plant sale, check out the plant lists.  They’ve got great tomato starts, and lots of herbs which we love to sprinkle about our garden.  We also always make sure we’ve got rose geranium so we can make Jerry Traunfeld’s incredible strawberry ice cream.  The rose geranium isn’t a prominent flavor in the ice cream, but instead enhances the strawberries immensely.  Purchase the rose geranium this weekend and then make this ice cream when strawberries are in season this summer!  Not only is it among the best ice creams we’ve made, but it has no eggs and less fat content than most ice creams, making it a light summer treat.

Strawberry Rose Geranium Ice Cream
From The Herbal Kitchen, by Jerry Traunfeld
Makes 1 quart, 8 servings

2 cups half-and-half
1½ cups sugar
8 medium rose geranium leaves
1½ pints very ripe strawberries

Bring the half-and-half and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan.  Stir in the rose geranium leaves, cover, and remove from the heat.  After about 10 minutes, strain the cream and let it cool.

Wash and hull the strawberries.  Puree them in a blender or food processor until fairly smooth.  You should have 2 cups.

Stir the strawberries and infused cream together and chill in the refrigerator or over ice until cold to the touch.  Freeze in an ice cream maker.  Scoop the ice cream out into a lidded container and store it in the freezer until serving time.

I really like how the folks at Victrola take the time to share their passion for coffee with the public, whether it’s weekly coffee cuppings, or events like this mentioned on their blog:

If you’ve ever wondered what all these coffee roasters are doing when they “go to origin,” please come to the cafe and roastery on Pike and let us demystify! We’ll have our photo show up (well, it’s up now, but it’ll still be up on May 15th), some snacks and coffee from Guatemala, a slideshow presentation of our travels, and maybe a few other tricks up our sleeves.

We’ve attended a number of their coffee seminars in the past and found them to be interesting (and highly caffeinated!).

As Eric wrote last week, we are big fans of Espresso Vivace.  How about Espresso Vivace ice cream, though?  That sounds even more heavenly.  Check out Rebekah Denn’s blog posting about the new ice cream shop coming to Wallingford next month:

I know it’s 49 degrees, but can I please share this list of flavors anyway? It’s from the Molly Moon Ice Cream shop, scheduled to open in Wallingford (1622 1/2 N. 45th St.) on May 10, and I’m going even if the hail starts up again. (Free cones for kids from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.) Molly’s flavor list includes honey lavender (using Vashon lavender), salted caramel, Vivace Coffee, balsamic strawberry… but she had me at “cardamom.” Just as intriguing as the flavors is the news that Dana Cree, a chef who just gets more worth watching every year, will be making the toppings. Molly Moon is also going to offer two vegan sorbets.

I am so there on May 10.

We decided to try something new for brunch on Sunday, and had read that Veil started serving brunch late last year, so we headed to lower Queen Anne.  During the day, Veil’s interior is diffuse and glowing, giving it a bit of a dreamy feel – perfect for waking up while waiting for your food.

A number of options on the menu looked good, and Dawn was torn between ricotta pancakes with blueberry compote or malted Belgian waffles with bananas and nutella.  She eventually settled on the pancakes with a side of apple chicken sausage, while I got biscuits and gravy with poached eggs.  We each started off with a cappuccino, and they were pretty weak; it was more like drinking steamed milk (at least the foam had good structure).  Grapefruit and orange juices were fresh-squeezed and tasty.  When our food arrived, the plates were very elegantly arranged, as one might expect at a chic place like Veil.  My dish was better than expected (the gravy had a wonderful flavor, and the poached eggs were perfect), but Dawn’s pancakes and sausage were both dry.  She wished she had gone for the waffles instead!

Given that things were hit-or-miss, I doubt that we’ll go back for brunch anytime soon, especially since there are so many good brunch places in Seattle.

Veil
555 Aloha St, Seattle
(206) 216-0600

When there is ice cream, there are macaroons.  For years, I wondered what to do with leftover egg whites after making ice cream or a custard dessert.  Then I hit upon David Lebovitz’s coconut macaroon recipe and no longer have this problem.  These macaroons are what you imagine the perfect macaroon to be – chewy inside, toasted coconut outside, with a touch of honey flavor.  Now, I sometimes find myself wondering what sort of egg yolk recipe I can make just so that I can have some leftover egg whites.

Since we made ice cream on Saturday, I made a batch of macaroons yesterday afternoon.  Dipped in chocolate, they’re about the best use of egg whites I’ve found.

Coconut and Chocolate Macaroons
From Room for Dessert, by David Lebovitz
Makes 30 Cookies

4 large egg whites
1¼ cups sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon honey
2½ cups unsweetened coconut (see note)
¼ cup flour
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

In a large skillet, mix together the egg whites, sugar, salt, honey, coconut and flour.

Heat over low-to-moderate heat on the stovetop, stirring constantly, scraping the bottom as you stir.

When the mixture just begins to scorch at the bottom, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Transfer to a bowl to cool to room temperature.

(At this point, the mixture can be chilled for up to one week, or frozen for up to two months.)

When ready to bake, line a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Form the dough into 1½-inch mounds with your fingers evenly spaced on the baking sheet. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until deep golden brown. Cool completely.

To dip the macaroons in chocolate, melt the chocolate in a clean, dry bowl set over a pan of simmering water (or in a microwave.) Line a baking sheet with plastic wrap. Dip the bottoms of each cookie in the chocolate and set the cookies on the baking sheet. Refrigerate 5-10 minutes, until the chocolate is set.

Note: We purchase our unsweetened coconut in bulk from Whole Foods.

What had I gotten myself into?  Just before our friends arrived, I pulled the meat out of the braising liquid.  It jiggled like jello.  I hope Heath Putnam is right, because this stuff appeared to be almost entirely fat.  And here we were going to serve it to friends and call this dinner.

We have been obsessing about Heath’s Wooly Pigs bacon since it showed up at the U-District market last winter, but we had yet to try the pork belly that everyone has been raving about.  How could any pork be worth $25/lb?  Well, we wouldn’t know without trying, so last weekend we were determined to bring some home from our weekly market run.

When I told Heath that we wanted some of the Mangalitsa pork belly, he rifled around in the coolers and pulled out a package of belly and ribs.  I was about to pay when he said, “You know, if you like pork belly, you should really try the jowl.  I think it’s even better than the belly.”  I paused.  “Ok, I’ll buy some jowl instead.”  I paid up, and as I was leaving, he said, “You’re brave.”  Brave?  What was that supposed to mean?  He said that apparently most people are squeamish about this sort of thing.  I have never cooked with jowl or any of his Mangalitsa pig products, so I had no idea what he was talking about.

He sent me away with instructions to cook it at low temperatures to avoid ruining the pork and said that I could cook it the same way as pork belly.  The recipe I had in mind was the belly recipe Rebekah Denn wrote about at the Seattle P-I.

We prepared the jowl, along with some tiny Brussels sprouts from the market, and carrots.  While the jowl was crisping in the oven, we had a roasted endive salad with orange segments, from The Herbfarm Cookbook.  Then, it was ready.

It turns out that this pig is worth every bit of hype that’s been surrounding it.  What incredible flavor.  The stuff is tender, moist and just melts in your mouth.  It is insanely rich and I can’t recall a more flavorful meat I’ve ever eaten.  Just amazing.

What makes these pigs taste so different from other pork?  Heath has a very unique thing going here.  He imported the heirloom breed of Mangalitsa pig from Europe, raises them on a special diet (including access to herbs in the pastures), and slaughters them humanely.

He only started selling these pigs at the end of last year and has already created a ton of buzz, even in national publications.  A couple months ago, Saveur magazine started a new feature highlighting one U.S. state each issue.  The premier state was Washington, and Wooly Pigs was on the list of ten food items not to miss.  We are lucky because you can’t buy this pork outside Washington at the moment since it’s prohibitively expensive to distribute it.  But Heath is starting to partner with farmers in other states, and has just sold some piglets to a farmer in the Bay Area who will be raising and selling them there.

To complete our locavore menu, we ended with a rhubarb crisp topped with crème fraîche ice cream.  The first rhubarb of the season was at the market on Saturday, and we wanted to try an ice cream recipe from my new Perfect Scoop cookbook.  We picked up crème fraîche, eggs, and raw milk from Sea Breeze Farm, and when we stopped for our morning crêpe from Anita’s Crêpes, she suggested we add some vanilla bean to the recipe.  We figured that a graduate of the CIA who formerly worked at the French Laundry would know what she’s talking about, so we did so.  It was a nice ending.

Up until a few years ago, I didn’t drink coffee at all – drip, espresso, caffe latte, whatever.  That all changed in one night.  We were at a cooking class at Dish It Up! in Magnolia, and at the end of the evening our hosts offered to make espresso for everyone in the class.  As always, I declined.  Dawn took a sip of hers, and insisted I try it.  Now, Dawn had spent years offering me tastes of her espresso drinks, and I had concluded that coffee was just not my thing – I felt perfectly content exploring oolong and pu-erh teas.  But tonight, Dawn was persistent; I had to try this.  Ok, ok, fine, if it makes you happy.  And then – wow, what was this?  The flavor was amazing, complex, rich, intense.  One perfect shot, and I was hooked.  How convenient to be living in Seattle and suddenly loving coffee!  But then I thought of all the good coffee I missed out on during earlier trips to Italy.  Oh, the humanity!  I had a lot of lost time to make up for.

And so began my interest in learning all about coffee – trying new coffee shops every week, discovering what kinds of beans, roasts, and blends I liked, and watching amazingly skilled baristi pour rosetta patterns.  That first fateful espresso was made with beans from a small roaster in Seattle called True North, and we were lucky to find Cloud City Coffee just up the street using their beans.  We hung out at Lighthouse Roasters in Fremont, I dragged Dawn to four months of coffee cupping classes at Victrola, we sipped nutty cappuccini at Top Pot (made with Zeitgeist-roasted beans), and so on.  However, it didn’t take long for Espresso Vivace in Capitol Hill to become my favorite place for all things espresso.  While I like the atmosphere more in their Capitol Hill roasteria, we’re nearly regulars at their new-ish Yale Ave N location, which is a little more conveniently located for us.  I usually get a cappuccino or macchiato on the weekend, while Dawn is a fan of the caffe caramel.

Two years ago, I started making espresso drinks at home, and I like how the northern Italian-style Vita and Dolce blends from Espresso Vivace produce excellent crema with every shot.  I got so much into learning about making the perfect cup of coffee that I even bought David Schomer’s book and video (Schomer founded Vivace), and they’ve been excellent resources.  And we made a new discovery recently: raw skim milk.  We typically use skim milk at home, which definitely tastes different than the fattier drinks we get when we go out.  So when I tried using raw skim milk from Sea Breeze Farm for some drinks, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it had a consistency much like whole milk.  Dawn says she’s hooked on this new combination, and I like how it’s made latte hearts even easier to pour!

Espresso Vivace
901 East Denny Way and other locations, Seattle
(206) 860-5869

Thursday of next week is the annual event to raise money for AIDS, Dining Out for Life.  On April 24th, restaurants around Seattle will donate a portion of your bill to Lifelong AIDS Alliance.

The list of participating restaurants has gotten long over the 15 years this fundraiser has been going on, so there’s got to be a restaurant on the list for you.  My recommendations are: Quinn’s Pub, Cafe Presse, Red Mill Burgers, Tavolata, Cremant, and really, too many others to list.  And if you’re on the Eastside, Pomegranate Bistro and Shamiana are good options.

Eat Local is also participating this year, so you can dine in, or support the cause twice.  Drop by Eat Local on Thursday to pick up a dinner for the weekend, and then dine out at your favorite restaurant afterwards.  How to Cook a Wolf is just a half block away – last time we were there, we put our name on the list and then went shopping at Eat Local, stuck the food in our car, and returned 20 minutes later just as our table was ready.  Or, if you don’t want to wait for a table, Portage Restaurant across the street takes reservations and is also participating.

We went for brunch today at Lola which is one of our favorite brunch spots.  We haven’t been downtown for brunch in a while, but we were walking by and decided to change plans so we could stop in.

I was seriously torn about what to order, because I love their house made pork-maple sausage which comes with the pancakes, but the spring pea, mint, and feta omelette with bacon sounded too good to pass up.  Then I noticed the people next to us enjoying the made-to-order doughnuts, which came with rhubarb as the seasonal jam.  Rhubarb, peas, I didn’t know what to do!  I finally settled on the omelette, which comes with toast, and convinced the waitress to bring a side of the rhubarb jam for my toast (I nearly tried subbing the sausage for the bacon, too).  She was happy to comply.

Eric’s choice was easy.  He loves octopus, so he ordered Tom’s Big Breakfast with an over easy egg.

On the way out, I grabbed one of the Krinos Ouzo licorice-flavored candies by the door.  Lola is almost worth a visit just for these candies.

Lola
2000 4th Ave, Seattle
(206) 441-1430

Market fresh ricotta from Sea Breeze Farm, spread on Tall Grass Bakery bread, drizzled with local honey, and sprinkled with salt and some thyme leaves from our garden.  The weather inspired us to brew up some iced tea (Barnes and Watson Tahitian Blend, our favorite tea for iced).  What could be better on a warm sunny Seattle afternoon?