Spinasse. Eat Here Now.

Constance and I did something that everybody who really enjoys food and restaurants and restaurants that make enjoyable food should do: we sat at the chef's table. And that table was at Spinasse.

SPINASSE


If you are in Seattle you must eat there. I think I counted 36 seats? Make a reservation.

The chef, Jason Stratton, was selected as one of Food & Wines Best New Chefs 2010. Rightly so.

I am still thinking about that meal. It was so sublime that it's hard to even talk about it. So I think I will talk about it in pieces, as I am able to articulate what a joy it was to share this [dare I say} experience of a lifetime with my LYLAS-Besty, CMB. And Chuck, can I call you Chuck?, chime in whenever.
No? okay.

So first I'll give you the list of things that were gently placed on the table for us to eat. I made this list on my phone, which self-corrected things in weird ways and my tiny typing deteriorated with each glass of wine... most of it makes sense. I will elaborate and make corrections at a later date.

Rabbit foie head crostini
Prescott with apple
Pork loin tuna mayo
Bread
Sparkling wine
Pig trotted w roast chestnuts mar. Beets
Cauliflower flan anchovy vain de cote
Ride wine
Gavi wine
Poached egg under glass on black truffles
Foie head w caremel onion blind orange
Old lady densmore red
Intermezzo: addiction w balsalmic & park.
Easiest eggs pasta with butter and sage and eggs
Buttwrnut sqyashravioli with amareei cookie & parmesan.
Tiny handmade pasta with pork shoulder & tongue in thin broth. The best chicken soup ever.
Barber wine twice
Taglietellie with true chickpeas
Salmongreens
Barberesco
Essentially cabbage roll wo veal breast & pork shoulder.
Barberesco
Chocolate & honey safety ice cream
Coffee

A very chocolate smoothie, Charlie Brown

I made this delicious smoothie for dinner-dessert two nights in a row. I would have made it again tonight, but I just ate my weight in a bad, drive-thru burrito. Regrets. I wish I could open that belly door and just take it out and have my smoothie instead. But it was rainy and I was hungry and we really needed to get out of the house for a while and there aren't many places to go when you don't really want to get everybody dressed to go inside a restaurant or store.

Charlie Brown Smoothie:

• 1 c. unsweetened rice milk [or almond milk] [or cow milk I suppose]
• 2 frozen bananas
• 1 tbl agave syrup
• a good shake/scoop of unsweetened cocoa powder [I used Dagoba - amazing/organic/delicious!]

Zoe asked if she could try the smoothie and I said "of course!" and she took a tiny sip and made a sour face and said "I think it's yucky, mom." It does have a very dark chocolate, unsweetened flavor. So if that is not your favorite thing, you will probably want to use a sweet milk, or sweetened cocoa powder, or add lots more agave.

Good Morning Lemon

In the oven right now is a loaf of Lemon Struesel Bread. Oh my gosh, it smells so good. Anything with struesel topping is irresistable. I bought a bunch of Meyer lemons and spent some quality time with them the other day. First I de-zestify them. Meyer lemons have a golden-orange-yellow zest, like a summer sunset. I like to put it in the convection oven and dehydrate it for storage. You can also put it in the freezer, or combine it with sugar and freeze it if you think you'll use it primarily for future baking. I use it quite a bit on meat & fish.

After the lemons have lost their yellow skins I juice them. I probably had a few dozen lemons - they are small. The problem with putting them into the juicer at this stage is that they still have the white pith on them and it's quite bitter, of course. When you put pith in your juicer it will be juiced. So I do it by hand with a pretty, yellow, citrus reamer. Did you know that pith is vascular? It stores & carries nutrients. So it's probably better to eat it for nutrition. But it tastes really bad, like chewing vitamins.

My bag o' lemons gave forth about 3 cups of lovely juice. I used some to make a very time-consuming lemon meringue pie and put the rest in the fridge. This morning it went into the sturesel bread. I am thinking of making the rest into lemonaid or maybe a few lemon drop martinis.
Meyer Lemons are sweeter and less acidic than regular lemons. They are in season in February/March and are always worth the time & money.

Broccoli, Mushrooms, Sausage, Cheese

These are 4 things that are always in my fridge. This is a great way to get "people" to eat vegetables. And it takes a few minutes to prepare. Easy Sqeezey.
Put some olive oil on a baking pan. Throw down some quartered mushrooms, broccoli, and sliced sausage. I use Evergood Hot Links. You guessed it, they are at Costco. Pete has written a haiku describing his love for them.
Add some kosher salt, black pepper... oregano/thyme/sage/garlic... whatever sounds good. Toss it up with your hands and then add some shredded cheese. I like something melty - swiss, provolone, cheddar. Put it in the oven, 350, until it is hot... about 20 minutes. done! If you have a lot of mushrooms, and a juicy sausage, this will get "wet" if you let it cool too long before eating it.

crab cheese puffs rangoon wontons

Nobody knows where it originated, wikipedia has some guesses. Apparently there is not cream cheese, or really any cheese, in Asia so this is obviously not a "real" Chinese food. But I think we all know that. It doesn't change how delicious they are.
I made my own wonton wrappers. It's really easy if: 1) you have made pasta before and, 2) you have a pasta [flat sheet] roller/machine or 3) John Cena stops by to assist with the rolling pin.

I Love Crab Cheese Puffs Rangoon Wontons, Fool!

The wonton wrappers are just dough. The same dough that humans have been mashing together for a zillion years: flour, water, salt. I put it through my pasta roller until setting #5 which is pretty thin, and cut it into squares. tah-dah! You can do this! It's fun!

I made the filling with cream cheese, salt, white pepper, and canned crab. Not imitation crab. I suspect that I am allergic to imitation crab as I get very ill when I eat it. Why do we eat ANYTHING that is named "imitation"? Would you order an "imitation" bowl of spaghetti to eat? Just saying.
Sometimes I add ginger and green onion. I think the filling is better when it's cooked slightly and cooled. For years I have owned a potsticker-maker-folder-thingy. I probably bought it at an Asian kitchen-what-is-that-used-for? store. Pete has asked me at least eleventy-four times "what is that" when he sees Zoe playing with it.  It's just a plastic thing that you put your potsticker/wonton wrapper on and put the filling in the middle and then you fold it in half [it's hinged] and it crimps the edges in a very pretty way.
I used this for my wontons. They were beautiful. However.... they were too big & puffy to handle deep frying and they exploded and lost their filling if I didn't remove them before they seemed done. Sad! So next time I am sticking with the triangles or the pointy versions. Or maybe my wontons were a shade too thin. Those that survived the deep frying were quite tasty.



canola oil - deadly or not so deadly?

I was baking and talking to Constance about ingredients and the question "what is canola oil made out of?" came up. A lot of vegan recipes use it, and allergen-free recipes like it because it is not made from soy. Incidentally, vegetable shortening is mainly soy, unless you can find a very expensive non-soy shortening somewhere. So I looked up Canola Oil in my nutrition book and was so surprised by the information. I guess that almost everybody asks "what's a canola?" at some point in the kitchen.

What's weird is this: my nutrition book and lots of online sources say that canola oil was developed by a Canadian company that pressed rapeseeds and named it "can" for Canada, "ol" for oil, and added the "a" for flair. If you read the stuff online, you will see information about how rapeseed is one of the most toxic, deadliest things you can grow and "even insects won't eat it."
However, if you read the Canola Oil FAQ website, you will learn that "Canola oil is the healthiest of all commonly used cooking oils" and this:
"Canola oil comes from pressed canola seed. The seed is harvested from pods that are formed after those beautiful yellow flowers you’ve probably seen in the summer fade away. North American farmers have been growing canola seed for over 30 years. "

very suspicious. and, "over 30 years!" Wow! Were people alive back then?

So if you know the truth about canola, please let me know.