Ice cream dream/the beginning of the reversal of seafood hatred.

Yesterday had many highlights, among them my acquisition of an Amy Hempel collection at Half-Price Books, our eating lunch on a median with a handful of other pizza enthusiasts, and my discovery that I actually like salmon (more on this later), but the highest highlight was a visit to Ici in Berkeley. Ohhhhhhh, man: their ice cream was the best I've had in a long time, if not ever*. I had a scoop of creme fraiche-muscat in a cone, and I did truly feel that, were the confection somehow endlessly self-replenishing, I could have eaten it forever. The flavors were so subtle (especially the muscat), and the texture of the ice cream was beautiful and velvety. The cone, too, was the best of its kind that I've ever tasted - it reminded me in some ways of a pizzelle, and the chocolate in the tip was fresh and creamy. Sigh. I had bites of the wildflower honey and Thai curry-candied peanut creams, too, and both were equally well-crafted.

Part of Ici's appeal, I think, beyond the outstanding quality of the product, is the establishment's presentation. Flawlessly neat, with white-tiled walls and the daily ice-cream flavors displayed (individually) in ribbon-strung picture frames, the shop is quaint and precious (in a good way: only in a good way) without being overwhelmingly so. It felt like a confectionery should: dainty and neat and a little bit frilly.

But enough about that: major discovery: I like salmon(!) Here's how the revelation came about: H and I went to dinner at Adam and Jen's last night, and they prepared salmon as a main course. Never a rude dinner guest, I told them that I love salmon though I did harbor a secret fear about eating such a large fillet. Well, folks: success. I discovered that salmon tastes good, that I do not (as previously thought) dislike it. What's next? Oysters?
I'm kidding! I will hate oysters forever!

Coffee time.


*Sebastian Joe's in Minneapolis and Herrell's in Northampton, MA give Ici a run for its money (esp. S.J.'s), but in a throwdown, I'm confident that Ici would blow both out of the water.

Total pizza bliss

Yesterday's pizza experiment was an astonishing success. I say "astonishing" not because I lack confidence in my/H's cooking skillz, but because the pizza far exceeded our (moderately-high) expectations. Without further ado, here's the method we followed to produce the bad boy featured at left.

First, the dough. I'd never made pizza dough from scratch before and was indeed a bit intimidated about the prospect - but, as it turns out, this fear was unfounded. The recipe I used is really quite simple:

Ingredients

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2 cups bread flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons white sugar

Directions

1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, combine 2 cups bread flour, olive oil, salt, white sugar and the yeast mixture; stir well to combine. Beat well until a stiff dough has formed. Cover and rise until doubled in volume, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
3. Turn dough out onto a well floured surface. Form dough into a round and roll out into a pizza crust shape. Cover with your favorite sauce and toppings and bake in preheated oven until golden brown, about 20 minutes.
We made a few amendments to this recipe - I let the dough rise for an hour (or just over), having consulted with my mom (a pizza making veteran), who correctly advised that half an hour isn't a long enough rising time. Also, we baked the pizza at 400 degrees, but that's putting the cart before the horse...

Rather than using a tomato-based sauce, we made a fig pesto. H followed Epicurious' classic pesto recipe and added five fresh mission figs, chopped coarsely.

Classic Pesto Recipe @ Epicurious Ingredients

4 cups fresh basil leaves (from about 3 large bunches)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup freshly grated pecorino Sardo or Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

Directions

Combine first 4 ingredients in blender. Blend until paste forms, stopping often to push down basil. Add both cheeses and salt; blend until smooth. Transfer to small bowl.

While H made the pesto, I rolled out the dough and placed it on a greased pan. We then topped the dough with the pesto, chevre (about 5 oz.), crumbled feta (1/3 cup or so), sliced white mushrooms, sliced figs (three), a chicken breast that had been sauteed in olive oil with black pepper and rosemary and then chopped, and a wee bit of grated Parmesan. The pizza baked for 22 minutes at 400; the crust was lightly browned and perfectly chewy, and the cheese melted evenly. This was total pizza heaven and a great way of using fresh figs.

One small note: in case you're wondering, the other half of the pizza was a traditional Margherita, made with one heirloom and one Roma tomato. Why make a split pizza, you ask? Having just whipped up the fig pesto idea (and not knowing if the flavors of that pizza would complement one another), we wanted to have a backup pizza in case the experimental one totally sucked. Which it did not, but, you know: precautions.

On that note, make some fig pesto this weekend! You will be filled with so much joy.

I'll eat the chocolate hidden in the fridge.

It's been a week of culinary excitement! Highlights:

1) This weekend was the annual Ghirardelli Square Chocolate Festival. Did I plan my weekend around this event? Um, yes. Initially, H and I had planned to go only Saturday, but as it so happened we could not manage to eat fifteen chocolate samples in one afternoon and so we also attended on Sunday. (Aside: I was surprised by my inability to eat fifteen samples in one go. For one, chocolate is one of my favorite foodstuffs, and for another, I've been known to consume prodigious quantities, of chocolate & otherwise.) Without meaning to sound like a betch, I'm not fond of Ghirardelli - it's like a less waxy Hershey's with sliiiightly better packaging - but fortunately, the festival included tons of booths from local vendors. Here's a comprehensive list of what we sampled/who provided it:

- Ganache truffles (Ana Mandara)
- Chocolate martinis (Boomerang Vodka)
- Chocolate Hazelnut gelato (Ciao Bella Gelato)
- Chocolate stuffed marshmallows (Gued Fued)
- Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting (Kara's Cupcakes)
- Brownie bites (Sugar Bowl Bakery)
- Raspberry Rooibos-infused dark chocolate (The Tea Room Chocolates)
- Double chocolate pancakes and vanilla pancakes with chocolate butter (Bo's Best Pancakes)
- Chocolate-dipped pumpkin marshmallows (Pete's Gourmet Confections)
- An unknown gelato made of whole milk, sugar, and chocolate nibs (Gelateria Naia)
- Chocolate malts (Lori's Diner)
- A host of inferior Ghirardelli products

Of the abovementioned items, my favorites were the cupcake and the tea-infused chocolate bar. The cupcake was moist and the frosting was buttery and pure. (I'm salivating just recalling it.) Least-favorites included the martini, which was watery, and the chocolate-dipped pumpkin marshmallow, which was just too sweet - even for my forgiving tastes. Needless to say, I'll be returning to the festival next year.

2) Just before hitting up the festival, we got brunch at the Pork Store. I'd heard a lot about this diner (all good, minus the extravagant wait on weekends) and am a fan of greasy breakfast grub, and I approached the counter with reverence and raised expectations. Were I to rate the dining experience using the letter grading system, I'd give it a B. The food: pretty tasty - I ordered the "Eggs in a Tasty Nest," two eggs scrambled with assorted veggies on a bed of hash browns, accompanied by toast. The browns were as I like them (crispy), the eggs were eggs, but the veggies were super greasy - the tomatoes (which probably don't belong in scramblers in the first place due to their high water content) were sodden, and the other vegetables were just loaded with oil. The atmosphere: meh. The dining room wasn't as crowded as I expected it to be, our waitress was moderately surly (forgivably so), but the restaurant was ueber-humid and I left with frizzy hair and smelling of bacon. Sexxxy. I'll probably go back, but I sure as hell won't wait for an hour.

3) Tomorrow, H and I are going to prepare a pizza for entry in the latest RecipeHacking challenge. The basic premise of the group is to rework common recipes in a manner that makes them healthier and using sustainable/eco-friendly(-ier) ingredients. This month's challenge is pizza, and we have an awesome idea: rather than using a tomato-based sauce (or creating a white pie), we're going to make a fig pesto. Yum. Toppings: chevre, mushrooms, finely-diced dried apricots, and possibly roasted garlic. And anything else that strikes our fancy. There is the chance that this recipe could totally bomb (and we're having company), in which case: takeout. There's always takeout.

Beet it.

Lately I've been eating a lot (a lot) of Swiss chard, either with sweet potatoes and onions or just sauteed in broth. I'm not sick of it, per se, but I feel that I should branch out to other leafy greens: Collard greens, Kale, and the like. Which leads me to the topic of beets.

As a kid, I hated the cold beet soup my mom made during the summer. It was the same shade as Pepto-Bismol and made the whole fridge smell like hard cooked eggs. Summers of Borscht fostered my early, negative association with beets, which lingered until approximately April, 2005, when I tried (and loved) pickled beets. Beyond the pickled variety, though, I know nothing about this richly-hued veggie - a knowledge void I would like to fill.

Yesterday afternoon, while bumming around the grocery store (I had to stay out of the apartment while it was being shown to a prospective renter), I almost bought a bunch of beets. "Hey," I thought, "I can eat the greens per usual, and..." And what? Roast the beets proper? I chickened out, not having a recipe in mind (and also remembering the bunch of chard I already had in the fridge). Consider this a call for beet recipes: how do you all eat your beats? Baked in the oven? Sauteed? And how do you prefer the greens? I'm going to sniff out some recipes and will report back with my results.

The miracle need not be explained:

My life has taken a turn for the miraculous: my car's engine light unprecipitatedly went off. For those not familiar with this mechanical mini-saga, my car's engine light went on in early August and stayed on, even after a diagnostic at the dealership and my purchase of a new gas cap. I was freaked out at first, not wanting to inadvertently wreck my not-quite-paid-off car, but this anxiety waned as friends and friends told me that, really, this glitch is nothing to worry about.

I hadn't thought about the light in a long time. As I was driving to campus yesterday, something seemed amiss with my dash panel. It took me a minute to realize that the engine light was absent (so used to looking at it I had become!), and that chances of imminent mechanical failure had just decreased like, tenfold.

Hallelujah.

Sys and I are having a "harvest potluck" tonight, in appreciation of 1) Autumn! 2) Friday 3) Delicious fall cooking. On the menu are:

Country style pork ribs
Stuffed mushrooms (vegetarian and non)
Ali's famous cheesy, oniony mashed potatoes
Pumpkin cake
[Possibly] Corn bake
Spiced cider

Perhaps the only thing I like as much as walking in the fall is cooking in the fall. Lovely, the warm home and aromatic sage and onions, cinnamon and cloves.

This afternoon, having completed my sundry errands - grocery shopping for the week, picking up a few school supplies, dropping off library books, mailing a letter - I returned home and opened a beer. The beer was an Opa-Opa IPA. It was my intention to sip said beer while starting a new book - Joan Didion's The White Album - in the few quiet hours before dinner. The beer was bad: undrinkably bad. I dumped it down the sink and had seltzer, instead.

I used to love IPA. I distinctly remember, on more than one occasion during my first year of grad school, proclaiming that IPA was my "new favorite beer." What's going on, here? Does Opa-Opa's version just suck? Do I have rapid-cycling changes of my taste buds? Maybe I'm having an off day.

It fascinates me to remember the foods and beverages I used to love which I now approach with lukewarm enthusiasm: Gardetto's snack mix, Sunny Delight, pickled beets, any variety of personal-size frozen pizza. Sweet wine. Microwave popcorn. Diet Coke. This exercise begs the question: what do I like?
Here are a few: sharp Vermont cheddar, Belgian whites, fresh corn, snap peas, pumpkin anything. Some Cabernet Sauvignons. Chocolate with a 70% or higher cocoa content. Red licorice. Seltzer. The list continues.