Monday, May 05, 2003

Gustatory Delight: Weekend Wrapup PLUS WAKEUP PANCAKES

It was one of those weekends that seemed to last a week, but that was over so terribly quickly Regardless, I come not to bury weekend, but to praise it.  We started with an unexpectedly phenomenal dinner at http://www.cajunpacific.com/ >Cajun Pacific on Friday night, way out in the boonies on Irving and 47th, where the ocean foam in the air actually flavors the food.  I knew it was going to be a good night when, opening the car door in front of our apartment, I found a crisp new five dollar bill on the sidewalk - clearly a sign that I am God’s favorite.  We listened to a new gift cd on the way over - archaic Grateful Dead/Warlocks from 1965, charming and blazing.  Parking at a rare spot in that crowded neighborhood directly in front of the restaurant, I felt the ride was over too soon, but once I stepped inside I knew I was finally where I was always supposed to be.  The meal was outrageous: hot spicy cornbread and richly seasoned jambalaya and a salmon and crawfish etoufee that put my most expensive meal in New Orleans to shame.  We didn’t even have enough room for the bread pudding dessert, though it’s one of my all-time favorite foods (in case anyone out there is taking notes on how to keep me chuckling.)

I’ll skip a few moments of the weekend that I prefer to savor in the privacy of my intimate thinking, and advance the playing pieces to Saturday night and another festival of engorgement with Heidi and Dr. Andy, accompanied by the wise and gracious Ralph (who is lending us his Mendocino cabin for Memorial day weekend!) and his enthusiastic daughter Grace.  The evening was too richly textured to describe more than selected moments: a hawk hanging hungry in the air, hunting in black silhouette against the silver bay and the jagged blue horizon of downtown in the distance far below our perch atop the Berkeley hills; the cats all out for their dusk constitutionals in the rain-cooled evening; the glory of safely unpacking, bringing upstairs, and installing - correctly, on the first try - Andy’s new 32 tv to the cablebox, VCR, and stereo sound, in spite of nine-year-old Grace’s insistent help… but these are merely pale snapshots, sidewalk chalkart after a cloudburst.

More concrete in my recollection was dinner.  We began with antipasto - pickles and olives, roasted red peppers and marinated fennel root, cured porcinis (indescribably delicious, sublime flavor bombs with a texture like velvet), freshly home-smoked salmon (as good as it sounds - no, even better); Caesar salad with ethereal homemade croutons so good I had to fight Grace for them - the foregoing all served with a http://www.schramsberg.com/noirs.htm >97 Schramsburg Blanc de Noirs, dripping with apple and pear flavors, alive with pinpoint effervescence - the finest sparkling wine I’ve tasted in many years, hands down.  We followed up by diving headfirst into a huge tureen of Dr. Andy’s “I can revive you later with my car battery” pasta carbonara, little shells with squares of chewy meaty bacon and caramelized onions, rich with yolks and other unholy delectables, served with an Aussie red blend called Hattrick that Ralph, a consummate connoisseur, described accurately as “a purple hammer to the tongue.” Then Heidi’s chocolate chip banana bread and her pineapple bundt cake with vanilla frosting, and a relaxing post-prandial to settle everything down together.  In all, an evening that confirms that the good life is going on under my very nose - not such a small area, but one I occasionally overlook regardless.

And the evening’s surreal highlight: watching Former Prime Minister (of Japan) Hashimoto, resplendent in a black tux and incandescent smile, presenting a phallic crystal trophy to Iron Chef Sakai, the champion of the Iron Chefs, who withstood a challenge from France’s youngest three-star chef to earn the (entirely subjective and meaningless) title of greatest chef (of those agreeing to be on our television show).  Yes, there are four star chefs; they refused to join the Iron Chef menagerie.  Yes, there is no way for their competition truly to be objective; it’s like rating perfumes or supermodels or favorite episodes of the Simpsons.  Yes, http://birmingham.g8summit.gov.uk/images/profiles/hashimoto.jpg >Former Prime Minister Hashimoto was the only one wearing a tux and looked a bit out of place, as if he’d gotten a joke invitation or someone had failed to explain to him what was going on.  But this was the very last episode of Iron Chef (until they start filming more of them), and I was able to watch it on a huge television with a picture so clear you could feel the judges vacillate and masticate from the comfort of your own living room, or, in my case, from Andy’s.  The featured food was Ron Kon Kai chicken, which looked quite like the same damn chicken we ordinary plebes get to eat, except fattier - one judge actually mentioned as she delicately forked a slab of pure gourmet schmaltz into her piehole that I would usually hesitate to eat something like this.  History in the making.  Sorry you missed it. 

But hey, to make up for your tragic failure to participate in such an international culinary media event, here s my special new discovery, a brand new cinderblock propping up the dusty old RECIPE CORNER:

DAN S WAKEUP PANCAKES
I love my pancakes and make them in a variety of sophisticated ways.  Blueberry juice batter, cranberry-infused maple syrup, chocolate throughout with bits of fried candied banana… the pancake is my canvas, and I am its devoted artistic explorer.  But I tried a new trick this weekend that worked out shockingly well.  Frankly, I thought these pancakes would be so experimental as to be inedible.  Instead, Kel kept reaching over from her (really tasty) egg and tomato scramble with chicken and parmesan cheese to snag pieces of my hot puffy delight.  (Yes, pancakes.  I’m skipping the other bits of the story.) Here’s the trick: start with the normal ingredients and proportions: 1-1/4 cups of flour, 1 tablespoon of baking powder, 2 tablespoons of sugar, well-blended.  In a separate bowl, lightly beat one egg with a tablespoon or two of oil, same as usual.  And now here s the trick: instead of adding a cup of milk, add half a cup of brewed coffee (not hot) and half a cup of rice milk (which I frankly usually prefer to milk anyway, though typically not for cooking) and mix well.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry all at once; mix only till the dry ingredients aren t dry any more, and fry on a hot, lightly oiled griddle.  Really, they re surprisingly good. 

Next time: making your coffee with burned waffle crumbs and making flour out of dust bunnies.  Your guests will never know the difference.  Because they’ll be dining elsewhere.  Hey, more for you.