Crossing the Rubicon

Last time we checked in on our heroine, in September 2010, she had recently returned from a month-long tour of western Europe.   That was three four years ago. 

Much has happened during the hiatus, but I'm going to skip over all that, except to say that my journeys over the past three years have brought me to a major transition point in my professional life and led me to the following conclusions:

• I don't like the work I have been doing for the last few years--I find it neither meaningful nor enjoyable--to the contrary, I have found it to be, for the most part, soul-sucking and miserable, and I haven't been able to contribute anywhere near the level of my capability.
• Mario and I have kicked off the process to scale back our current lifestyle in the next couple of years, so future financial constraints are reduced.

So, cool!  That was easy!  I know what I don't want to do, and that I don't have to earn as much money....

OK!  But, um, now what?

I both need, and more importantly, want to work.

Yet as I walked myself down potential paths that seem logical given my professional experience--finding a "better" job, an adjacent, marginally different job, trying to make a go as a consultant--a mixture of dread and resentment bubbled up.  Why are those my choices?  Why should I be beholden for my work to the current institutional corporate structure which is not only outdated overall in unlocking human potential, but is particularly myopic in its inability to recognize and value insights that challenge the status quo (and particularly as offered by women)...

It took quite a while to accept that I was not going to return to "that" and that I needed to go someplace truly different.  Which is why I'm posting this here.  I have always gotten tremendous satisfaction from delighting people with my cooking.  Not only am I an excellent cook, but I have professional kitchen experience and have been successfully entertaining large groups (think 100+) for the last fifteen years.

My initial thought was catering.  I have lots of people who know about my skills and I could probably call on them to assist with marketing...I could offer more creative options than a typical large scale caterer...there is a commissary kitchen a few blocks away that I could rent...low capital investment...lots of flexibility...yada yada.

But after the initial excitement and some further research, it didn't seem like such a good idea.  How many people in the area want to cater relatively small events?  Unless you're doing corporate events and weddings, the opportunities are probably heavily clustered around the holidays.  So although I had no doubt that I could do a fantastic job, I concluded that the local market is too small to support the kind of catering I was interested in doing.

This being Portland, I naturally moved on to thinking about opening a food cart.  And, after some significant research...I think I can do it.  And I want to do it, despite (or including) the long hours and stress of starting up a business.  After all, I can't count the number of times I've said "I could happily cook 18 hours a day."  Might be a *slight* exaggeration, but I will truly be doing something that I love--making people happy with my cooking.

So, I'm launching a new blog, The Peri Cartography, to record and share my ideas, planning, progress, mistakes, and, I hope, success!  I will hugely value your input and feedback as I kick off this adventure.

In belated honor of monkey friendship...

I offer for everyone's delectation:

Homemade Banana Ice Cream (makes 1 gallon)

Heat until lukewarm 2-1/2 quarts of cream and half and half (for richer, or for poorer)

Beat 3 eggs, pinch of salt, 2-1/2 cups sugar, and 3 teaspoons a vanilla until thick and light yellow

Dissolve 6 rennet tablets in a little cold water

Combine egg mixture and cream in freezer, stir in rennet slurry. Let mixture stand until clabbered. Add 4 VERY VERY VERY ripe bananas and freeze.

According to my mom, my grandpa made this most Sundays in the summer...

Dinner, Sunday, August 22, 2010

• Baby back ribs
• Sliced heirloom tomatoes with sea salt and olive oil
• Sauteed zucchini, corn, and poblanos
• Macaroni salad
• Hot fudge sundaes

Great to catch up with friends we haven't seen all summer. Mario outdid himself on the ribs. Anointed the racks with our friend, Jeff's, fantastic rub overnight, then cooked them low and slow for four hours over indirect heat with hickory chunks carefully monitoring the temperature to keep it between 220-280℉. They were pink 2/3 of the way to the bone, still moist and tender...accompanied by some Gates sauce they were spectacular. Nice homey sides.

Mom's Hot Fudge Sauce

• 1 c. sugar
• 1/3 c. cocoa
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 c. light corn syrup
• 1/2 c. water
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 Tbs butter

Mix sugar, cocoa, salt, corn syrup and water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook to 228℉ or to very soft ball stage. Remove from heat and after it has cooled slightly, stir in vanilla and butter. Transfer to a glass jar if not using immediately.

Reheat by setting jar in simmering water--but DO NOT STIR as the sauce will break.

This is my favorite hot fudge of all time not only for the flavor, but because when spooned over ice cream, it partially hardens to chewy candy-like ribbons. Vanilla ice cream, this fudge, and a scattering of chopped walnuts. Nuff said, although to truly gild the lily, make a brownie sundae, using Joy of Cooking's recipe for Brownies Cockaigne. Booyah!

Dinner: Saturday, August 21, 2010

• Black cod with miso / mirin glaze
• Kristin's "Pad Thai Improv"

Ever since I got the sore throat / coldish bug in London, I've been having ups and downs related to my sinuses, or more specifically, my left sinuses. My right sinuses have been just hunky dory, my left sinuses have ranged from mildly stuffy / tolerable to keeping me in bed going through 1+ boxes of tissue per day plus chills, aches, exhaustion, with a middle ground of sore upper teeth, pounding headaches and other unpleasantness I will not describe since this is supposed to be an appetizing, food-related blog.

I share this here only because as we sat down to dinner, I found myself musing on how difficult it must be to be a noted chef with a head cold / sinus issues.

Here's the story: When we picked up a lovely piece of black cod at the Farmer's market today, I naturally bee-lined to the stand run by a Vietnamese family that has a wonderful assortment of Asian produce (green beans, snow peas, various forms of "chinese broccoli", shallots, cilantro, mint, Thai basil, bitter gourds, yada yada) for some baby bok choi for my standard menu of roasted black cod on brown rice and stir-fried bok choi with my ginger garlic sizzle. Simple as a pimple.

But it turns out that our 10 lb. bag of short grain brown rice from Costco (subdivided, vacuum-sealed and frozen) had been exhausted. My search for a replacement starch identified some rice stick noodles with a very rudimentary Pad Thai recipe on the package. Hmmmmm......

Peanuts, check; green onions, check; fish sauce, natch--but I have about 1/2 c leftover nuoc mam cham which might enhance as a substitute; add a little sesame oil when scrambling the egg...and we have some Thai basil in our garden.

Seem credible so far? I'm thinking a Pad Thai-ish thing, with the roasted cod on top, enhanced with a miso / mirin glaze (forgot my usual pinch of sugar...remember bad sinuses make you stoopid).

All is proceeding according to plan--skillet, oil, garlic, egg, soaked rice sticks...nuoc mam cham...quick stir-fried bok choy...tasting it... nothing. I taste NOTHING. So far it is just pallid, bland, wet noodles. Crap. Green onions and peanuts? NOTHING. A little thick soy sauce for color and a spoonful of fresh chili sauce....NOTHING. But my frontal lobe is telling me that this can't be tasteless. I know what I'm doing--there is an adequate amount of seasoning on the noodles and since I'm not perceiving any difference as I add things, I'd better stop before I render them inedibly over-seasoned.

Imagine my relief when Rachel and Mario deemed the whole concoction delicious. But it still tasted like nothing to me...

Dinner: Monday, August 16, 2010

Park Kitchen

Small plates:

• Watermelon and beets, bbq watermelon vinaigrette
• Flank steak with blue cheese, parsley and sherried onions
• Corn and zucchini papardelle, duck confit, and goat cheese
• Grilled octopus, sea beans and new potatoes
• House cured tesa, long cooked zucchini, basil pesto

Mario and I were determined to fight our tendency to choose an existing favorite restaurant in favor of something new this evening while Rachel was staying with my mom. A few years ago, I had an excellent meal here with a group of folks celebrating Qualcomm anniversaries, but it's been such a long time, it might as well have been new to me, and it was to Mario.

We got an al fresco table across from a bocce game on the Park Blocks as the evening breeze cooled the air, and sampled two of their "classic" cocktails. Mario commented that even the the Sazerac is a NOLA drink, their version "tasted redolent of Portland." My G&T featured house-made tonic water--I believe it had some tamarind.

The small plates were all terrific, two stood out as "wow, I'd never have thought of doing that, and it's really great"--the watermelon and beet salad, in which the watermelon had been lightly salted and the small julienne of pickled watermelon gave it some snap; and the papardelle, which included a garnish of popcorn cooked in duck fat and seasoned with smoked paprika.

Tesa, in case you didn't know (we didn't), is flat cured pork belly. It was just on the borderline of too salty, but the smoky, with the long stewed zucchini and pesto was luscious and put an end to any thought of having dessert. Phew!

Dinner: Saturday, August 14, 2010

• Sliced tomatoes dressed with sea salt and olive oil
• Buffalo mozzarella
• Baguette from Fleur du Lys Bakery
• Spanish-style Chorizo from Olympic Provisions

Another day in the upper 90's, decided to keep it light and simple.

Costco has been carrying imported fresh buffalo mozzarella that is quite good, and though it seems spendy, it is, comparatively, a great deal.

Chorizo is delicious, with quite a kick. Need to visit Olympic Provisions--they have a wide range of house-cured meats besides the dry sausages they're selling at the Farmer's Market as well as a restaurant. Prices are kind of ridiculously high...we are keen to support a new genre of local food business, but...

Paris, 30 Juin - 3 Juillet, 2010

Lunch, 30 Juin: Les Artisanes, 14, avenue Daumesnil, roughly equidistant between Gare Lyon and Place Bastille

• Salade Niçoise (Kristin)
• Salade Aveyronnaise (Mario)
• Club Sandwich au Saumon Fume avec frites (Rachel)

Our first meal in Paris. We'd had some minor challenges getting in from CDG, but we'd found our hotel and dropped our luggage. It was hot and humid and we had that slightly dazed and woozy first day jet lag feeling. Stumbled into this friendly, comfortable neighborhood place around the corner from our hotel. Servings were massive and very good. Mario's salad had hard boiled eggs, blue cheese, tomato, bacon, walnuts, mayonnaise. Mine was a classic niçoise. Rachel's club sandwich was speared on a skewer and was delicious, with tomato, lettuce, mayo. Good bread, some white wine, and a "Coka" (cola) for Mademoiselle.

After lunch we walked to Notre Dame, strolled along the Seine to Saint Chappelle and then back to the hotel where we gave in to the inevitable and took a long nap. Headed out to dinner ~ 8:30 PM

Dinner, 30 Juin: Brasserie Bofinger, near Place Bastille (Mario subsequently learned from Drew Brees' book, that Drew proposed to Brittany right across the street at "Petit Bofinger")

• Grand plat de fruits du mare
• Saumon Tartare (Rachel)
• Cotes d'agneau persillés (Kristin)
• Salade d'Homard (Mario)
• Sorbets de cassis, framboise, et mirabelle
• Alsatian pinot blanc

A grand and venerable brasserie, specializing in Alsatian food. It was far too hot to consider choucroute garni, Rachel wanted the coolest item on the menu. The seafood platter was eye-popping and impeccable. Oysters, clams, mussels (raw! a first for us), a whole crab (the only let down--a little overcooked and mealy), prawns, delicious briny little bitty shrimp in the shells that we dubbed m&m shrimp (cuz we popped them in our mouth and ate shell and all), and whelks. Oh, those whelks! Chewy, sweet, salty, rich. We learned to avoid the whatever it was in the shell beside the actual whelk--too funky even for us. Delicious brown bread and mignonette to accompany.

Rachel's was a refreshing salad of diced raw salmon with mayonaisse, celery, some tarragon... She was very hot and tired and didn't come close to finishing, but we all agreed it was good.

Mario had a whole small shelled Maine lobster atop haricots verts and greens with a viniagrette.

My herb-crusted lambsicles were served with baby turnips, haricots verts, potatoes and a light but intense jus.

We shared a trio of sorbet for dessert--cassis, raspberry, and lemon.

A leisurely walk back to the hotel...and we slept until seven the next morning.

Dinner, 1 Juillet: Chez Janou, near Places des Vosges

Entrées

• Assiette de ratatouille froide, anchoïade et tapenade
• Petit chèvre rôti au romarin
• Carpaccio de courgette

Plats

• Rougets à la tapenade
• Cotes d'agneau
• Confits de lapins

Desserts

• Creme brulee

After a siesta to recover from our scorching, crowded, but very interesting day at Versailles, we headed out to a wonderful al fresco dinner at an excellent Provençal restaurant in Le Marais. 77 types of pastis (we didn't try any), and a gruff black maître d'hôtel who wordlessly communicated the proper repository for our olive pits (forefinger tapped impatiently next to pile of pits on Rachel's napkin, then again in the ashtray)...we soon discovered that most everyone did something to incur Monsieur's demonstrative but short-lived disapproval...

Dinner, 2 Juillet: Café du Marché, near Tour Eiffel

• Steaks-frites avec bearnaise
• Cheeseburger-frites

We spent the day at the Louvre (Do get reservations--you get to skip the lines!) and barely made a dent, but hit the highlights. Had a very good lunch in the restaurant but were all jealous when we saw the hamburger go by--it looked absolutely amazing. I think this stuck in Rachel's mind, as she was determined to have a burger . It was good, though the "cheese" was a gloppy processed cheese food product. Our steaks were very tasty. This cafe has a good vibe and is a solid value, and as long as you looked past the fact that seemingly 2/3rds of the customers were Americans who'd been steered there (like ourselves) by Rick Steve's...