LA, Korea and Oaxaca

Was down in LA this weekend. A friend took us to Kobawoo House, a Korean place specializing in pork. Angelenos have fanatical opinions about their food, which you can read about on Yelp. Search the comments on Kobawoo for "b*itch" and "Fermat" for some enjoyable reading. We also tried various mole dishes at Monte Alban in Santa Monica. I picked up some Oaxacan drinking chocolate and Elotitos Xtreme candy (Elote is Mexican corn on the cob, usually with butter or mayo and chili sauce). The Juquilita drinking chocolate is in crumbly dry cylinders, which is typical of South American chocolate, but I was disappointed to find that this was pre-sweetened with sugar rather being pure cacao.

That candy sure looks spicy!

The Lazy Locavore

A Locally Grown Diet With Fuss but No Muss
By KIM SEVERSON, The New York Times
Published: July 22, 2008
A new breed of business serves city dwellers who insist on eating food grown close to home but have no inclination to get their hands dirty.

Also check out The Palo Alto edible landscaping tour in August.

Absinthe, Alameda CA

Sat July 18, took a tour of St. George's Spirits, otherwise know as Hangar One with Amanda and Donna. They have a generous flight tasting of brandies and whiskeys for $10. You can also try the absinthe for $10, which I believe is the only absinthe made in the US as of this time. They don't serve the sugar cube or opium/laudanum though. That evening I also stopped by the Save the Yuba Salmon film festival.

July 4th: Kayaking for Oysters

Took my guests on a kayak trip Sunday afternoon/evening, July 4th weekend. Launched from my brother's house in Inverness across Tomales Bay (about 1 km) to Tomales Bay Oyster Farm and beached there. The ultimate West Marin local food adventure. We arrived 20 mins late and were two dollars short for a dozen smalls and a dozen extra-small oysters, but they sold them to us anyway. The ride back with the oysters was warm and flat/calm. I had never been a big fan of oysters until I had them shucked raw and fresh from the ocean. Very environmentally sustainable too.

#C4 Panch Phoron Plus One

ELEMENT SPICE COMPOUND #C4
Panch Phoron Plus One
Inspiration: Bengal

Panch Phoron (Bengali for five spice) is staple spice combination from Bengal. We add poppy seeds, another common ingredient in Bengali cooking, to lighten this slightly bitter spice combo (mustard, onion, nigella, cumin and fennel) for Western tastes. In this mix, we only crack the slightly, rather than grinding them. Place about 1 teaspoon of Panch Phoron in a skillet with butter/ghee, and heat until the seeds begin popping (a technique called bagar). Use this spice mix in any curry recipe, or simply use it to grill fish or vegetables. Click here for a good generic curry recipe.

INGREDIENTS: Yellow mustard seed, onion seed, fennel, nigella seed, cumin, poppy seed.

#C3 Indochine Eight Spice

ELEMENT SPICE COMPOUND #C3
Indochine Eight Spice
Inspiration: SE Asia

Chinese/Vietnamese Spice is a canonical spice mix. The "five" in five spice supposedly does not refer to five spices but to five tastes, sweet, sour, savory and salty, or five elements, earth, fire, water, air, and metal (see, for example,
Chez Pim. Most five spices mixes do indeed contain five spices however: star anise, cassia cinnamon, fennel, cloves and szechuan peppercorn. Szechuan peppercorn is not a peppercorn at all but a flower bud with a mild numbing/analgesic property. Our modern update, Indochine Eight Spice, also includes ginger, black peppercorn and citrus rind.

The simplest way to use Indochine Eight Spice is to put in a broth. Add 1 tablespoon (5 ml) per liter of broth, then salt/pepper to taste. Indochine Eight Spice also works as a great base for pho (we like this vegetarian pho recipe). You can try it as a beef rub as well.

INGREDIENTS: Cassia cinnamon, cloves, star anise, fennel, szechuan peppercorn, black peppercorn, citrus rind, ginger.

1962 Cessna

The day after I got back from WA, Deepa and I were at work late and Ron was going to pick up his girlfriend in Monterey, so we tagged along. The two of us had never been in a small plan before. We flew from Palo Alto, touched down in Monterey, she jumped in and we headed right back.

Organic farm in rural Washington

In June, I visited Ginni Callahan's Slow Boat Farm - Columbia River Kayaking. I reserved an economy car but Thrifty gave me a Suzuki SUV. Slow Boat Farm is on Puget Island in the lower Columbia River. I did a moonlight paddle with her crew. I did a little farm work, and came home with some souvenirs: garlic bulbs, garlic scapes and some apple wood chunks from the apple tree we pruned.

Singapore Street Food

I was in Singapore the last week of March. The city-state has a deservedly authoritarian, straight-arrow reputation, but it is at the equator, so it is too hot, lush and tropical to be that uptight. And it is an hour or two plane ride from many exotic beaches and jungles in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Singapore also has an interesting diversity, quite different than what you would see in the West. Signs on the subway/MRT are in English, Indonesian, Malay and Tamil. And the street food there is great.

Chinatown, Oakland, California

This past weekend I spent some time in Oakland Chinatown. The Berkeley culinary school Kitchen on Fire was doing a food tour there, so I tagged along with them for a few minutes. I was able to procure some Szechuan peppercorns at the Silver View market on 10th Street for $7.50 a pound. If you want to know why Szechuan peppercorns (they're not related to real peppercorns, piper nigrum, at all), read this.

A great place for cheap Dungeness crab, in season, is Lucky Seafood Market #2 on 8th Street. I'm certainly wary of buying processed seafood in Chinatown, since it might have come from some toxic fish farm in China, but live dungies and ling cod should be fine.

The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is have a Taste of Asia culinary event Fri/Sat April 25.