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Heirloom Cherry Tomato and Olive Salad with Israeli Feta and Mint

 Heirloom Cherry Tomato and Kalamata Olive Salad with Israeli Feta

 

Yesterday, I spent the day attending the 35th annual Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. A day at Playboy Jazz is quite a committment, and while exhilarating, can be exhausting, too. After you get to the Bowl, and park, and walk up that hill to find your seat, there's a full 8 hours spanning from the mid-afternoon sun to the cool nights of sitting and watching the parade of fellow festival goer's (with many fantastic hats) pass by, and listening, and dancing to a diverse array of lively acts. 

Because of the time span, there's the packing of clothes to carry you through those eight hours- sun hats, sunglasses and sunscreen, and jackets for later. For some, there are beach balls to toss around through the Bowl, and bubbles to blow. There are Mardi Gras beads, handkerchiefs for any second lines that may break out, and lots of glow sticks, for the nighttime parading and dancing. And most importantly, there's the lunch (and snacks- often shared with your bench neighbors - and dinner) to pack, one of the most important parts of the experience. All of which is generally washed down with much wine, champagne, beer and/or Margaritas.

 

The food, obviously, has to be the tasty, easy to pack picnic food of summer. Since I attend with my vegetarian brother, it generally means salads, hummus, cheese and olives, and lots of sautéed and roasted veggies accompanied by aioli (this time it was a preserved lemon aioli). Yesterday, I brought along this Heirloom Cherry Tomato, Kalamata Olive and Israeli Feta Salad with Mint that I served at last summer Rosé Fest. 

 

The highlight of the day was seeing the amazing powerhouse, Trombone Shorty, neé Troy Andrews, native of the 6th Ward of New Orleans aka Tremé, and latest break out star in a long line of New Orleans trumpeters (and yes, he's a trombonist, too). He just tore down the house!

It was so amazing to see that while da' funk and beat of New Orleans are still present in his playing, how much the music has evolved, and successfuly incorporated other styles of music. I think Pops (aka Louis Armstrong) would approve.

 

I've shared a video of him below to give you a taste of Trombone Shorty, although it can't at all compare to seeing him live. Please - run out and see him, and his fabulous band, when he's in your neck of the woods.

Cherry Tomato Salad recipe is on the next page...

How California Changed the World of Food- and Influenced Your LA2LA Chef

Salad of Mixed Baby Greens with Oven Roasted Tomatoes and Chèvre (recipe on the next page)

 

I lived in Berkeley in the early 70’s, just after finshing college. I lived in a communal house, barely two blocks from a large empty lot, which in 1969- the year I arrived at college- had been commandeered by a group dubbing themselves the Robin Hood Park Commission and referring to themselves as “agrarian reformers”. They called it People’s Park - which, btw, in spite of much political fighting and hand wringing over the space in Berkeley throughout the years, is still there. They planted vegetable gardens and trees. Samuel Fromartz, in his book Organic, Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew, cites the founding of People’s Park as one of the seminal events of the organic food movement.

 

Several of my housemates tended a backyard garden. I was one of the residents who chose to remain in the kitchen, using what they grew, and whatever else we could scrounge up to produce the sort of meals communal households in Berkeley were cooking in those days- i.e many of them the cheap Diet for a Small Planet (which we all had a copy of) sort. 

 

I was hearing stories of a recent Berkeley grad who was hosting dinner parties for her friends. The dinner parties grew, and eventually she opened a restaurant on the northside. She named it Chez Panisse, after a character in French film maker Marcel Pagnol’s films.

 

From the beginning, Alice Waters insisted on using fresh, locally grown produce for Chez Panisse’s kitchen. Ms. Waters was first introduced to mesclun salad, the mix of several baby greens and herbs, on a visit to southern France, where it was a specialty of the region. She returned to Berkeley with a handful of seeds to grow the mix, so that she could serve the salad at her restaurant, where it became a signature dish, and incidentally, started a revolution.

 

To say that these were times of tremendous change in all parts of American culture is an understatement.

 

Today you can walk into almost any grocery store and buy a bagged mix of baby salad greens aka “spring mix”. You can even walk into a McDonald’s (not that I’m recommending it) and order a prepackaged salad, that while mostly iceberg and romaine lettuce, will have a sprinkling of friseé, radicchio and baby spinach mixed in. Those produce items (along with fresh herbs which I routinely throw into my salads, and other dishes, now) were almost unheard of then, and certainly not easily available.

 

 All of this was brought back to me recently, when I sat at the recent International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) conference in San Francisco, listening to Joyce Goldstein, a chef in the early days at Chez Panisse, who went on to open her own restaurant, Square One in San Francisco, and eventually to write many cookbooks, Sue Conley, founder and owner of Cowgirl Creamery, and Andy Griffin, one of the original farmers of the mesclun mix in California.

 

Ms. Goldstein recalled that they were innovative, mostly self-taught chefs, many of whom were women, who created California cuisine. They changed the structure of restaurant kitchens, and changed the way we eat at home, as well, because unlike many other regional cuisines, it originated in and grew out of restaurants, moving into home kitchens, rather than the other way around.

The environment they worked in was very supportive- chefs shared information, rather than being secretive as in the Eurocentric and Euro- influenced kitchens that had reigned in the past.

 

It was a communal effort beyond the kitchen, too. Chefs continued to bring back seeds from their travels in Europe, asking farmers to grow these products for them. Today we have an abundant variety of produce that have become almost commonplace to us (i.e. the now ubiquitous Tuscan kale and radicchio) that we hadn’t even heard of 25 or 30 years ago. They encouraged artisan cheese makers, like Sue Conley, and bread bakers, like Steve Sullivan (who also began his cooking career in the kitchen of Chez Panisse) of Acme Breads, to make products for them. I, for one, make sure to bring back Acme Breads and Cowgirl Creamery cheese from almost every trip I make to the Bay Area.

 

“They created food of memory and dreams” Ms. Goldstein said, and operated with the dictum that “feeding someone is a very intimate act.”

 

I love that. Indeed, feeding people is a very intimate act.

 

Your LA2LA chef feels so fortunate to have been nurtured by the original farm and coast to table culture of southern Louisiana as a child, and then by the pioneers of California cuisine as a young adult. In fact, one of my colleagues, when introducing me to someone at the IACP conference referred to the food I cook and write about as California cuisine with a southern accent. I humbly and gratefully accept the banner.

Cowgirl Creamery's Red Hawk Triple Crème Cheese

 

Please continue to the next page for a Mesclun aka Mixed Baby Greens, Oven Roasted Tomato and Chèvre Salad Recipe...

Blending a Grand Reserve Cabernet with Kendall Jackson

Randy Ullom of Kendall Jackson Wines

 

“Being big can sometimes hamstring you in the wine industry with buyers and consumers” Randy Ullom, winemaker at Kendall Jackson (yes, of the huge supermarket brand label), began his presentation to a few invited guests.

 

One of the groups KJ has chosen not to be hamstrung by is stockholders. The company has been family owned for over 3 decades, continuing to reinvent the wine business, and choosing to gain more control of their own destiny. He continued with a brief overview of what makes a great wine, and what goes into the creation of KJ wines.

 

KJ owns 40,000 acres in California, and has recently purchased land in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Also, in further pursuit of controlling their destiny, they even source their own trees and logs for the barrels used for aging their wines. 

 

Okay, before I go any further, I know there may be some of you out there who are wondering why I would spend time going to my second tasting of Kendall Jackson - of the super market label - wines (I visited their tasting room in Sonoma County a few months back where, by the way, they included some of their Grand and Vintner Reserve wines.) They also happened to have sent some of their wines to serve at a luncheon of Southern food I hosted back in January which made me realize I definitely had to rethink that big supermarket profile. So I was delighted to receive an invite to a wine blending seminar they held here in So Cal, where I would get a chance to try my hand at blending one of those Grand Reserve wines.

 

Have you ever wondered why a certain varietal- say a Cabernet- can vary so much from  label to label, from year to year? I was about to get hands on insight into why that’s so.  

 

The Second Line

 

  Second line at a Mardi Gras ball in L.A.- photo courtesy of Reiss DuPlessis

 

A couple of years a back - at the LA Helps LA event, my friend and fellow food blogger, Erika Kerekes, turned to me quizzically and asked “what are they doing?”, as a line of guests broke out their handkerchiefs and napkins and started marching around the room to the distinctively New Orleans beat of When the Saints Go Marching In?

 

They’re "secondlining", I responded. She still looked stumped. I just smiled.

 

Whenever a group of New Orleanians is gathered, either in Los Angeles or the Crescent City, they rise to their feet and start waving their handkerchiefs, and often umbrellas, when the funky beat of their hometown wafts over them. 

 

Shrimp with Tequila and Orange for Cinco de Mayo

Shrimp with Tequila and Orange

 

I recently attended a session at this year’s International Association of Culinary Professionals conference, on two views of Mexican food today.

 

The prominent food world personality who was moderating the discussion stated that she was trying to educate the American public that Mexican food wasn’t, as she put it, “endless chips and salsa, or beans covered with gloppy cheese.”

 

She needn’t have been spoken in the slightly patronizing (IMO) manner that she did. First of all, I kind of like endless chips and salsa, and every once in a while, I have a yen for gloppy cheese covering my beans, too. But more to the point, those of us who have lived for years in So Cal do understand that Mexican cuisine is one of the world’s greatest and most complex, and varies greatly from region to region, across this vast and diverse country.

 

This weekend on the Cinco de Mayo (and yes, I know that it's a relatively minor holiday in Mexico, but we love any excuse to drink Margaritas and eat great Mexican food), I intend to celebrate that cuisine with a south of our border luncheon.

 

I’ll be serving this delectable Shrimp with Tequila and Orange, which is rooted in the coastal region of the state of Jalisco, from which tequila hails. 

 

 

California Avocados-and a Recipe for Avocado Hummus

 

There aren't many things I like better than avocados. It's safe to say they are a constant staple item in my house. And I especially love California avocados. Some of you may know that I got a big lesson in the superiority of California avocados during the years I lived in New York. East Coast avocados, grown in Florida and Puerto Rico, are just not the same. In fact, nowadays, 80 percent of all avocados consumed worldwide are the Haas variety- a variety developed right here in So Cal, and which accounts for 95 percent of the total California crop volume.

 

Luckily for me, the California Avocado Commision invited me, along with several other food bloggers, to a tour of a working avocado farm, followed by a factory packing tour a few weeks back, to welcome the opening of the California avocado season.

We were treated to a lovely brunch on the patio of the home of longtime avocado farmers, Dan and Susan Pinkerton. The menu featured - what else, avocados- in many forms, from ceviche to dessert. Here are a couple of pics of the lovely valley their farm overlooks. 

 

Then we were off to a grove, where I developed a new appreciation for those who pick my avocados. While we neophytes were able to pick a few, it took some doing on our parts.

 

And then to the factory- again, much gratitude to those who work sorting and packing avocados so that I can easily pick them up at my local grocers.

 

 

And if you know that I truly favor California avocados, you probably know that there's many a night, when I just cozy up to a big bowl of guacamole and chips for dinner. But every once in a while, one has to try something different, right? And it happens that in the last year, I've become acquainted with the Avocado Hummus at a wonderful local Eastern Mediterranean restaurant, Momed. In toodling around the Internet, I noticed that almost all of the recipes I saw for Avocado Hummus, contained garbanzo beans. Not so at Momed- they use only avocado, tahini, lemon juice and seasonings in theirs. And theirs is mighty tasty, so in my first try at making it at home, I decided to stick with what works for them. Hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do.

Grilled Tomato Salsa

 

Last December, I was invited to a holiday party at Melissa’s Fresh Produce, where they debuted their new cookbook 50 Best Plants on the Planet: The Most Nutrient-Dense Fruits and Vegetables, in 150 Delicious Recipes, which showcases the most nutrient dense fruits and vegetables. Now, I think I eat a fairly healthy diet, but I was excited to see just how nutritious some of my favorite veggies and fruits are. BTW, I’ve been featuring a few of those most nutrient packed plants in my last few posts. You can find links to them at the bottom of this post.

 

Was I ever glad to find out that chiles and cilantro made the list because here in So Cal, we eat a lot of salsa. And wouldn’t you know it, the cookbook offers a delicious salsa recipe which was served at the party. Definitely one worth adding to the repertoire!

 

Here's a pic of me with Sharon, co-owner of Melissa's, their in house chef, Ida, Cathy Thomas, who wrote recipes for the book, and Louise of Geez Louise at the party, and if you click through to the next page, you’ll find the recipe for that scrumptious Grilled Tomato Salsa.

 

Braised Baby Bok Choy and Onion with Ginger

Baby Bok Choy at the Santa Monica Farmers' Market

 

In spite of its tastiness (Melissa's Fresh Produce's new cookbook 50 Best Plants on the Planet: The Most Nutrient-Dense Fruits and Vegetables, in 150 Delicious Recipes  describes it as having a sweet vegetal taste, sometimes edged with peppery spice), I have found bok choy to be somewhat of a tough sell to my clients. When I read further in the book, what a nutrition powerhouse it is- high in fiber, chock full of vitamins (A, C, K, B6 and folate), and very low in calories- I was re-encouraged in my efforts to present it on menus.

And what do you know, I recently had the opportunity to serve it at a spring engagement party for a client who told me "I like being different."  

Kudos to her! Turns out her guests loved it, too, as it was the hit of the party.

 

And luckily for you, I've decided to share the recipe with you, so that you, too, can take a leap and consider serving something a little different.

Braised Baby Bok Choy and Onions with Ginger

Roasted Asparagus with Lemon Caper Mayonnaise

  

 

Melissa's Fresh Produce' s wonderful new cookbook, 50 Best Plants on the Planet: The Most Nutrient-Dense Fruits and Vegetables, in 150 Delicious Recipes states that asparagus "is one of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet", calling it an excellent source of vitamins A, C and K, as well as a good source of dietary fiber and potassium, and an impressive source of minerals and the B complex vitamins, and flavonoids. Gosh- who knew? 

 

I mean, I knew I loved them - as, btw, does a majority of the American public according to recent Bon Appetit polls, but it sure is good to know they're so good for me, too.

 

I've come a long way from my 1950 and 60's childhood, where asparagus were of the canned gray green variety whose spears turned to mush in the mouth.

 

When I was in college in the eary 70's I learned to lightly steam them. I remember one particular Easter Sunday afternoon when some classmates and I took some, along with a creamy local Montery Jack cheese, and freshly baked whole wheat bread, on an afternoon hike through a forest in Santa Cruz. One of my best Easter meals ever. I still enjoy them steamed on occasion, with a excellent quality blue cheese dressing.

 

A decade or so down the line, I learned to grill them, and then (even better), oven roast them, which is now a regular favorite side dish. Lightly tossed in some extra virgin olive oil, with a sprinkling of coarse salt and freshy ground black pepper, they don't really need anything more, but this luscious Lemon Caper Mayonnaise is the perfect sauce to accompany them on a special occasion- like say a Sunday afternoon hike through the forest.

 

Double Kale Caesar

 

Double Kale Caesar

 

For years, I used kale only as a garnish, until one day one of my brothers asked with astonishment, as he watched me about to dump my garnish, "What are you doing?"

 

"It's just garnish", I said.

 

"Well, I'm going to eat your garnish."

 

Since that day, several years back, kale has become a much consumed food, and was, no doubt, the "it" food of this past year. Many varieties of kale are now available, showing up everywhere, in all sorts of applications. One of the most popular of those applications is a Kale Caesar (I like the punny word play aspect of it, myself). So when Iloveorganicgirl sent me a selection of their beautiful greens, including I heart baby kale (a mixture of baby kale, tango and baby spinach, chard, romaine and oakleaf lettuce), my thoughts went there first. 

 

For a little textural contrast, I've mixed their baby greens with a chiffonade of larger black kale aka cavolo nero or Tuscan kale (one of the most "it" of the "it" ingredients) leaves- a nice combination, as sometimes the larger kale leaves on their own can be a bit too toothsome, if you know what I mean.

Iloveorganicgirl will be running an "All Mixed Up" Trivia  contest beginning tomorrow (April1st) on its Facebook page.

By the way, back in January, I was invited to a holiday party at Melissa's Fresh Produce, where they were unveiling their new cookbook, 50 Best Plants on the Planet. And, yes, kale-a powerhouse source of vitamins- is definitely one of the 50. The cookbook is filled with encyclopedic information on the nutritional value of the top fruits and vegetables. Want to know what to eat to loweryour triglycerides, up your level of potasium consumption, protect and repair cells, or improve arthritis symptoms. You'll learn that and so much more from this book, with 150 quick and easy recipes developed by Cathy Thomas, along with less formal suggestions for adding these nutritional powerhouse foods to your diet. I'll be sharing more of the 50 best plants over the next few posts, so stay tuned.

 

Oh- and the hardcover book is available for purchase directly from Melisss'a website, or get a paperback version of 50 Best Plants on the Planet: The Most Nutrient-Dense Fruits and Vegetables, in 150 Delicious Recipes from Amazon. And the simple recipe for the Double Kale Caesar follows on the next page...