Mmm, postage

Posted by Anita on 03.29.06 3:13 PM

USPS announced their new Crops of the Americas stamps today. You can buy ’em online or at the local post office.

levity
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You say pozole, I say posole

Posted by Anita on 03.20.06 3:22 PM

(links updated 1/2010)

I made a huge batch of posole verde yesterday, with Rancho Gordo hominy, and pig parts from Prather Ranch. I am drooling as I think of eating the leftovers for lunch.

The recipe was from the Williams-Sonoma Mexican book, which I still have checked out from the library, with some reality-checking of quantities from Rick Bayless. Tausend calls for 3 pounds of posole for a single batch, which would have been an amazingly awful mistake. I also used Bayless’s larger ratios of meat (2 pounds) and bones (3+ pounds, and substituting water for the chicken stock accordingly) and his suggestion of adding a pig foot for broth texture. I did use the W-S recipe’s sauce components, although I don’t think I’d bother with the pumpkin seeds again — a lot of effort and expense for very little payoff.

Dessert was a nearly flourless chocolate-almond cake frosted with with ancho whipped cream — from the same cookbook — which I liked very much.

cookbooks, cooking, Mexican
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SOTF: Italian (part II)

Posted by Anita on 03.17.06 4:31 PM

For my second attempt at Italian soups for the fortnight, I made tortellini en brodo. Actually, I made about 100 tortellini, and now I have LOTS in the freezer…

cooking, Italian, Soup o' the Fortnight
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Dosa do-si-do

Posted by Anita on 03.16.06 10:17 AM

Don’t underestimate how hard it is to get a table at Dosa: Kathy, Neil, Cameron and I tried to walk in and eat here a couple of weeks ago, and gave up. Trying to work within the system, we gathered up 2 more friends — Dosa takes reservations for groups of 5 or more — and emailed early the next week to get a table. After 3 days without a response, I called and left voicemail. A very sweet woman called me back and apologized for the problem, and found us a table at the time we wanted.

Needless to say, my expectations ran pretty high after all of this rigamarole. Largely, I think they were met. The food is interesting, tasty, flavorful without being incendiary, and thoughtfully presented. Service was crisp but a little stand-offish, and our server was very helful when it came time to figure out what (and how much) to order — once we asked.

I was really pleased with how reasonable the prices were. For less than $45 per person, including tax and tip, we had 2 bottles of wine and a handful of beers, plus a ton of food. Our order included a refreshing chickpea salad, a pair of appetizers — crispy-spicy potato croquets and lush lentil dumplings — three dosai (paneer, egg, and rava masala), and two of the curries: a deeply spiced Tamil lamb, and a prawn coconut masala… oh, and a giant bathura. Each dosa came with its own bowl of sambar, plus two smooth chutneys: a gingery coconut one and a spicy tomato version. Needless to say, we didn’t have room for dessert, although I was tempted by the cardamom ice cream.

On the downside: The tables are awfully close together, the noise level is out of hand, the decor is warm but a tad bit stark — some art on the walls would help. Worst of all, the hordes of drooling, hovering patrons (staring daggers while you try to enjoy dinner) is really, really annoying. The hosts were letting people hang out in the dining area, not just the bar, and I found that extremely inappropriate.

If I could make a reservation for a party of 2 or 4, or better yet, walk in on a weeknight with a reasonable expectation of a table becoming available within the space of a leisurely cocktail, I’d become a regular. But given the hassle factor, I can’t imagine it being more than an occasional thing. I hope that once things calm down a bit, the owners might consider opening at least a few tables to reservations, while leaving the majority open for walk-ins.

Dosa
995 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415.642.3672

restaurants, The Mission
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Un trés grand Boulevard

Posted by Anita on 03.15.06 10:02 AM

Back in the ancient days, before I was Mrs. — yea verily before the dot-com boom — Boulevard was the place we always went for special occasions. We dined here Monday night to celebrate Cameron’s newfound employment, and it tickles me to no end that Boulevard is just as good as ever.

The service has gotten a little more sniffy, the clientele noticeably more swank, and the prices (never a bargain to begin with) have climbed proportionally. But the Beaux Arts decor is still gorgeous, the wine list is still deep without being impenetrable, and — most importantly — the food’s still creative without being too far out in left field.

There were a couple of missteps in our recent dinner — a desperately over-dressed salad, a server who left us sitting without water or drinks or so much as an “I’ll be right with you” for nearly 15 minutes, an awkward gap between the appetizers and the mains — but all was forgiven when our entrees arrived.

My heirloom pork chop was easily the best pig I have eaten in the states, perfectly cooked and richly porky with a perfectly salty, herbal flavor. And the accompanying pyramid-shaped raviolo was like a minature meal in itself: mascarpone mashed potatoes on the bottom, with shredded wild boar ragu in the top. Yum!

It’s nice when old standbys age well. I hope that Boulevard will still be around serving excellent food when we’re celebrating our 20th anniversary.

Boulevard
1 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
415.543.6084

downtown SF, restaurants
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Soup of the Fortnight: Italian

Posted by Anita on 03.06.06 4:27 PM

We made a Fettuccine and Garbanzo soup from Molto Italiano. It called for a whopping 1 tsp. of saffron threads, which (of course!) gave it a lush, decadent flavor — even though the soup was entirely vegetarian — and turned the fettucine pieces a lovely shade of gold. It was very simple and tasty, although the quantity of pasta seemed way too generous; next time, I will reduce the pasta by half.

cookbooks, cooking, Italian, Soup o' the Fortnight
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¡Que bueno!

Posted by Anita on 02.28.06 4:50 PM

Finally got the Fernet Branca we needed to try the Porteño… my oh my, what a lovely cocktail.

It helps that it’s courtesy of my friend Murray, the best bartender in the universe. But I would love it anyway…

drinks, Seattle
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Soup of the Fortnight: Gumbo

Posted by Anita on 02.27.06 4:25 PM

Jumping the gun on Mardi Gras a little bit, we made gumbo this weekend.I followed Mayhaw Man’s step-by-step from his eG foodblog, scaling down to about 1/3 of a recipe (4 chicken thighs and 13-oz package of Aidell’s andouille). Had to wing it a bit on the veggie ratios — it’s more of a pictorial than an actual recipe — but it turned out fabulously.

Another gumbo recipe said that you really want the veggies (onion, garlic, celery, pepper) to be really well chopped before adding them, and apparently using a food processor is more than OK in this case. I took that advice, and ended up with a gumbo with plenty of good mouthfeel and body.

Even with the scaled-down recipe, we had enough for 2 generous bowls last night, plus 3 lunch-size servings. We’ll definitely be adding this to the regular soup repetoire.

cooking, food boards, Soup o' the Fortnight
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Who’s your Mamacita?

Posted by Anita on 02.16.06 10:23 AM

We had a lovely dinner at Mamacita for my birthday. The food was great, and the waitstaff was competent and helpful.

We started with an order of very good guacamole, then some chilaquiles. The latter was very spicy and a little odd — creamy chipotle sauce? — but reasonably tasty. I wouldn’t order them again, though. Good carnitas tacos, perfectly prepared Rancho Gordo frijoles de olla, and a surprisingly good bistek. We didn’t have room for dessert, not that they looked terribly interesting.

The server told us off the bat we’d probably only want 3 items for the 2 of us, so we weren’t surprised that we’d ordered too much food. Still, with 2 margaritas and 2 cervezas, the bill was really reasonable… somewhere in the $60-70 range. Considering the location and the level they’re playing at, we were very, very happy with the value.

I think the only downsides were the snotty hostess who kept talking to all the Marina chickies who came in after us before deigning to ask us what the hell we wanted, the clueless Marina clientele (I could almost hear them thinking “Ew, this isn’t like El Torito!”), the parking, and the lackluster margaritas.

We’ll definitely go back…

Mamacita
2317 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA 94123
415.346.8494

Mexican, restaurants
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Soup of the Fortnight: Chinese

Posted by Anita on 02.13.06 4:18 PM

Last night, I made the world’s simplest Chinese soup: Egg Drop Soup.

Now that I know how easy it is, I’m sure I’ll make it a lot more often. Let’s see if I can resist the temptation to tinker with simplicity.

It took about 2 minutes… this was the sum total of my mise-en-place, not including 3 cups of stock.

The small dish is soy, a pinch of sugar, and a pinch of salt; the large one is simply a beaten egg.

cooking, Soup o' the Fortnight
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