COOKING BACK: A FOOD RUN

 

I have been writing on this platform (COOK REVIEW) for ten years now not counting cooking for the direct and dimensional creative task of food blogging it beginning in Portland, Ore. in the year 2000 continuing on to NYC as a professional cook (so that's more than twenty years of personal investment in food) - sharing my home recipes and my lifestyle adventures around the kitchen and my world travels in search of the perfect plate - not to mention my devotion to following and reading to works of my culinary teachers and chefs Anthony Bourdain, Patience Gray, Mark Bittman, Melissa Clark, Sam Sifton, Rachel Khoo, Pete Wells, Ruth Riechl, Ligaya Mishan, Bernardo Ayson, Claude Tayag, best of all my late grandfather and my dearest mother, and many others I'm met personally and those cookbooks and restaurant reviews I had read constantly and had influenced my writing every step of the way - counting all those times almost a generation of heart's work to fill the stomach (vice-versa) - I have to say that looking back: it has been a good run; or more precisely: cooking back, it has been a food run.  The truth is I wasn't really anticipating a pivotal decision about my beloved food writing at this juncture in my life (to be announced here shortly) until last week when I had compiled my life's work in food on book form using a blogger app that would design and format it automatically (see photo), and was astonished to behold more than 300 pages of cook reviews and recipes drawn from an experience I would not exchange for anything in the universe (my food writing is intertwined with poetry and that's why it had made all the difference and meaning to all my sacrifices to it - writing alone is hard but incorporating physical cooking is harder to synergize both to a creative force) that is profoundly and indefatigably a work of love. 

So my dear readers, without further ado, I had realized the other day that my soul for all this work had been put to good use, had taken its destined course, and that not growing any younger I had better reward it a rest I think it fully deserves. Yet, l leave behind a volume of paper memories I can proudly call my own COOK REVIEW in my lap, as I rock my sad heart for how bittersweet it has been (and will be) for having had the honor and pleasure to have written my "soul's food," and you were there to partake. Sundays is my blog day and this will be my last and I am sorely writing it. I had never considered my blog as just another social media post - it had never been that for all these years, and those intimate to me know that first hand - that, again, this blog, because my team here is poetry, therefore it has been my life's work (yes I am a cook but I am really a trained poet) and this tandem I will dearly, dearly miss. Tomorrow is the beginning of May month, a "new year" for flowers seasons, for mother's celebrations, for children's days commemorations in some parts of the world, like in S. Korea, my adopted second home where I had left behind a poetry school for gifted students. Tomorrow will be a new beginning I trust the universe to show me the way to a second wind I could ride out moving forward - and see what happens. It's not that I will stop cooking. I will only stop writing about it. Cooking will be what its provenance had always mean to me: it is about my mother gathering her two children around the table to eat, because food was her best expression and nurture of love for us. I will be like her now, so to speak, feeding the tired child in me having played all this time in the neverland of food, and it's time to go home.     

Thank you to my dear sister for printing my "book" (she will be mailing it from California and had send me the picture you see here). Thank you to Sal Paradise, my ghost editor (year 2020-21). Thank you to my muses; you know who you are, heaven and earth. Above all, thank you EDR for Portland, New York and the world (especially for our foodie friends in Paris and Brive-la-Gaillarde).

Farewell everyone. So long, my COOK REVIEW. I had loved you so much.

"And now, though I have not yet recovered fully from the fatigue of my journey, it is already the sixth day of the Ninth Moon, and I wish to go to Ise Shrine to see the ceremony that takes place only once every twenty-one years, when the Diety is transferred to a newly built shrine. So I shall set off once more in a boat and go to see the wedded rocks on Futami-ga-Ura shore where the clams are so delicious, but now, alas,

Sadly, I part from you;

Like a clam torn from its shell,

I go, and autumn too."

                             (my Master, Basho) 

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A BISQUE MEAL

 

"A dish belongs in a meal, and the cook has to plan the meal so that what goes with what makes gastronomic sense."                  (the Ms. Julia Child)

Gigandes beans long marinated in vinaigrette (and already cooked through tender; from Whole Foods) plus shaved raw brussels sprouts are the two main ingredients of the dish to make this Sunday (and thanks to another cook who'd mailed me some of her fantastic homemade vegan and gluten-free table crackers using sunflower and flax seeds) with this to enhance the ensemble food I was already thinking about makes total sense together and deliberately - a harmony of flavors given the base stock I have of tomato-broccoli (overcooked and liquefied and pressed down with a masher to tidbits chunks) - the key is thickness and smooth in texture of the soup that will be instantly rich (the beans will be mashed too in the process) leaving only the tendrils of the cabbage to delight you like strings.

I am a soup guy (I have written about it frequently here); there is something about the thermo-healing chest effect it does to my heart and health that's perfectly slurp-able hot straight from the edge of the bowl (oriental-style) that really makes me grateful to the universe I have this to eat (with my bisque, though, I will have it a little more formal with a silver spoon), and savor slow and dipping the crackers genteel. (This is a collaborative meal, and the invite to my table is vicarious in manner.)

My view of gastronomy is akin to the quantum concept of super-partner particles of matter paired up to create vibrational resonance (indulge me here, folks, a stretch, this reference is attributable to the current book I'm reading - Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe - I am steeped in its descriptive science, it helps the way I think by complement, as is with Ms. Child's. In other words, if a devout cook is to understand (or already had got it through his long practitionership in culinary) why things are the way they are, or why ingredients taste the way there are - in the most fundamental level - then his food will be beautiful and balanced, and presciently verified, as poetry is also his trade, so he will unify his food story and please the palette.   

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HER TAKE AND EAT IT TOO

Photo by T.M., from her kitchen in CA.

     It's beyond delight a follower of my blog created her version of fruits and greens salad using my recipe and sending me a photo message excited how it turned out - and here it is! I think it looks amazing and delicious, the combination of ingredients so colorful, the faithfulness to the use of my dates and edamame but with a twist of strawberries is great, T.M. said that the dressing was key and that the balance I had guided her to be sensitive about in incorporating everything was the harmony in the eating-to-taste satisfaction, and a food job well done. Kudos T.M.! May our sharing be inspiration to others as well through your initiative: transforming my writing into reality at your table. I feel so honored. Much thanks to you. Enjoy your fruits of labor.

"Some of the best cooking is done with virtually no tools" (Irma S. Rombauer, from the The Joy of Cooking). Gardening to grow your own food is fundamental to that artisanal kitchen. I remember this reader of mine sharing a story about her vegetable patch in the backyard prolific with sweet potato leaf-vines and harvesting them as salad greens to blanch lightly and juice with lime or lemon only, a little salt, and bowl it up with steaming rice laced with sesame oil and chili flakes and spoon away the uncontrollable umami - what a rustic take on a beautiful, simple meal connected intimately to your home, straight to your heart's health! There are other nutritious greens from roots vegetables you can use with this quick blanching technique other than all varieties of potatoes, so please eat beets leaves, parsnips, yuccas, yams. And don't forget the rice (bowl) presentation. Eat the flowers, too, if they have them after you decorate your plate. Above all love what you do in your kitchen while cooking - because your garden just outside will be happy. I can see it.

   

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A TAGINE OF DATES AND NUTS

This is pure-inspired by the ingredients I have and not because I wanted to make a tagine (a thick stew sauce of fruits, herbs and earthy spices perfect over scented rice with origin in N. Africa) - but there is a complementary surrender to the which comes first enigma, notwithstanding, and did just that. Just imagine the thick sauce:gravy this ensemble will produce in the braising that visually melts for each other a ragu of dates fruits and tomatoes flavored with hazelnuts, and thickened further by a day-old sunflower:caraway seeds German flat bread making a pudding in the process, but auspicious creaming is what we want to achieve here with hours of reduction in the cast iron pan using macadamia, oat, and coconut milks garni(ed) with fresh-cut oregano, dill, parsley, basil and lavender herbs from the garden - and the resulting tagine is divine (see photo below). The plate is a culmination of my Easter lunch of French buttered beans and dates and nuts tagine over a bed of power spinach greens spiked with sherry wine and exquisite olive oil in a quick blanch-fry (a vegetables replacement in absence of basmati, which would've been perfect over). But I can't complain. If you look closely you might wonder what that green "egg" at the center of the plate is, well, it's Easter after all I turned this dish vegan with guava (and purposely the guava actually mellowed the sweetness of the dates to a degree of complexity, a familiar sweetness turning nuanced). Let me list the ingredients for you, and I hope you will make this spring almost summer home food with delight.

       For the tagine:

         * pitted dates

         * nuts (hazel, almonds, cashews)

         * cherry tomatoes

         * leftover bread, preferably euro flat bread seeded

         * alternative milk/cream (oats, coconut, macadamia)

         * bouquet garni

         * guava (optiona)

         * sherry wine, olive oil, salt, pepper and chili flakes

      How to:

          Think of a crock potting technique by combining all these mentioned ingredients, but the better tradition is to cook this by hand and not by machine, so I encourage you to be devoted and use a masher to macerate everything when everything is tender and bursting soft but chunky, adding the herbs after, and letting everything reduce to half of its volume adjusting for taste with salt, pepper, chili flakes. Always keep an eye on the "gravy-thick stew-sauce" texture you want as end product by juggling out your ingredients to make that happen (don't forget there is bread on the list and this should do the trick as your alternative roux, and if you press the nuts hard enough they would break apart and release oil emulsions further). I have to qualify what "love" means in accomplishing great cooking. It's skill, technique and knack to symphonize food because of passion:knowledge in the home kitchen. Culinary love is gastronomic science. It is material and molecular. Brewing, fermenting, preserving, pickling, aging wine, etc. takes time, years even in enduring to feed you. Just like love. Happy Easter, everybody!           

 

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GROWING PEAS

 My favorite vegetables in the universe (in food form) are pea tendrils cooked classic Chinese-style (Cantonese tradition) of simply emboldening the ingredients with not much to it but a few confit of garlic, rice vinegar water to liquify and a dab of oyster sauce to braise quick. I could eat a platter of it by myself at any given restaurant that serves it, and if I'm really hungry (which is always due to the chronic exacerbations of stomach pangs because of my plants-only diet) while the rest of my group merry away at their dim sum baskets on Canal St. in NYC, I remember when still living there, I would order another plate of pea vines and chopsticks away to my heart's content. Speaking of restaurants not found on island serving authentic dim sum, that's the very reason I'm growing my own produce (hence in photo the success of seed to fruit) and just in a matter of few months of tending and caring, not to mention the exceptional growing climate here all year round, I have them peas growing. My vegetable garden has a variety of green edibles intentionally intermixed in the ground to create a natural environment of biodiversity mimicking a grazing meadow's multi-flora biome that left undisturbed would allow ecosystem services to take its own course (think of a rainforest creating its own bloomings and provisions, a climate of renewal food). I will leave the peas on the vine until full maturity (say a couple more weeks outside the sun) and flourish plenty to take; the tendrils grow aggressively in harmony to support the hanging pea pods and these green outburst-tendrils are gold to me when harvested. I can't wait to cook them and feast!

My food garden would not be possible without the green hands and generosity of Sal Paradise. (I have written about him many blogs ago entitled "Soul Food"; please check it out.) He plowed the field and cultivated the vegetables and herbs and sprinkled wild flower seeds and planted pansies and impatiens to color the land - for my sake. It's as if there's an invisible botanist Santa who'd climb down from heaven to gift me a self-sufficient and sustaining food source, and that all he wanted me to do in return is to water them with love regularly (he said touch the soil to know when it's time) like a heartbeat, and with my hand the relationship will thrive. Wherever you are "on the road," Sal, know that all is well with the plants - because of you.             

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