Flat out of matzoh

Hey kids! If you find the afikomen this year, you might not want to give it back. Turns out there's a city-wide matzoh shortage going on. Is this the first evidence of the looming food crisis? An anti-semetic conspiracy? An indicator that the small shops are too reliant on big purchasing power?

I looked up a recipe for homemade matzoh and, as the story goes, it's insanely simple. Flour water and salt. Mix it up, roll it out, poke holes and bake it. Then get the hell out of Egypt. I'd be all over DIY flatbread, but I woke up with a mean little cold.

Maybe tomorrow.

Hot Knife Action

Impromptu photo shoot this morning for an upcoming project. Fuck, I love my knives.

Sunday Dinners

The Sunday dinners have continued, both big and small. Two weeks ago was Louise for simple broccoli pasta with green garlic. Then there was Heather for rainbow chard fettucine and roasted beets with burratta. It’s been easy and casual and the food has finally been as good as I’ve wanted it to be. I’m no longer frantically trying to cook and eat the last of my CSA goods before the new delivery comes. In fact, my fridge ends up despondently empty by Monday night, leaving me happily justified in ordering Chinese.
Last Sunday I upped the guest list to five, meeting what might be the maximum capacity for my studio dining nook. I had to reach behind the linens to pull out one of the extra leaves for the table for the first time. It was a proud moment.

And it wouldn’t be the first one.

I didn’t have too many initial ideas in menu planning, thought I’d let the produce and the season give me some clues. But with a fridge full of winter-facing veggies and an outside temperature climbing to a freakishly lovely 77 degrees, I was clueless.
All I had were heavy foods and a desire for bright, happy flavors. The answer? Lemon.
But I’ll get to that.
As I’m in the process of working on my first catering job, dinner guests and co-workers have become unknowing test subjects for the menu. Some have been good, some haven’t. Starting with the thyme-onion jam on crackers with goat cheese? Kicked ass.

Continuing with these kale chips I’ve been reading about? Not so much.


The main course was a sweet, bright happy medium of winter ingredients and summer cravings. I did a chicken breast braised with fennel and lemon, served with some herb roasted yukons and some rainbow chard with leeks.


To finish, a shard of homemade matzoh toffee and some strauss vanilla ice cream. Any pic I would have taken would have been blurry, because that damn matzoh toffee is so good, it doesn’t stay in one place too long.

Good show, me. This is exactly the kind of food I love to do. Seasonal, simple, influenced by the weather outside and the feeling inside. Timing was dead-on, company was great. This will be happening again soon.

simple pleasure

A few years ago I was having a quick cocktail party in Portland. I had put together a nice little array of little bites. I had visited my cheese guy and picked up some good pieces, fleshed it out with some charcuterie plus salad bites in endive leaves. I think about ten minutes before people were supposed to arrive, I realized I wasn't going to have enough. I needed one more thing on the table. I turned to the fridge and had some celery, which I cut up as pretty as I could and, realizing I had nothing to make a dip out of, sprinkled some black hawaiian sea salt I'd recently picked up in LA. I thought, it might not taste good, but it'll at least be pretty.

I was wrong. It tasted great. Simple, bright celery tempered with a minerally salt. And it looked more than pretty. Contrasted on a black serving dish picked up by the salt, it was striking. It didn't look like just celery and salt.

It's become a regular snack for me, or a side to my latest lunch plan of charcuterie and cheeses. Seemingly a little fancy for the office lunch table, maybe. But I like it.

Clement Adventures

In terms of things to eat, I’m pretty lucky with where I live. I’m just a short walk away from Clement St, where you can track down a satisfying Bahn Mi, or the best red-tablecloth pizza joint in the city , or a veritable villa of tasty and impossibly cheap dumpling houses. Going down Clement can feel like going on a little adventure, a quick trip to another country where all bets are off, where you’re bound to stray from the usual because the usual is nowhere in sight. And this sense of adventure that’s triggered, it gets you to try new things, to go a little further off the map then you might be used to. Suddenly you’ve got that invincible vacation feeling and anything goes.

And it can be great. Last night dinner was at a little dumpling place I know only by sight and by sense memory. Somewhere on Clement between 5th and 6th is a little pink place with windows boasting egregiously thick Chinese donuts and trays on trays of steaming dumplings. The menu is expansive, dizzying and encourages trial. Why get mu-shu chicken when you can get wok-fried rice cakes with pork and greens (below).

That plus a platter of hand-crafted leek and shrimp dumplings plus a large-family size plate of pork with mustard greens over noodles. It was a lot of food. It was also $20.
But there are times when adventure can go a little too far. Especially when the adventure leads to Genki Crepe.

Genki Crepe always seems like a good idea at the time. “It’s so cute! It’s so fun! It’s packed full of endlessly amusing Japanese candy and packaged goods! We hardly spent anything on dinner, so let’s go be frivolous! I’m all jacked up on sodium and adventure that I could get anything! A crepe! Yes, a big crepe, the biggest one they have! Wait, they make them with ice cream? And cheesecake? Both? With whipped cream? Let’s get one! Ha ha ha this is so fun!“

And it is. It is fun. It’s fun until about five minutes after you bite into that sweet concoction that sets in a crippling stomachache coupled with a very, very intense sugar rush. All of a sudden the five blocks left to walk home seem impassable and all you’re inclined to do is giddily laugh, hold your stomach and wonder why, why , why you do this to yourself.

But it’s the adventure, the fun of it. The fact that in those five blocks you’ll discover another place to try. A little thai cafe or pho house with no legible menu in the window that just begs you to come in and explore. And to finish the adventure, you’ll wander into Genki Crepe, marvel at the candy and consider the strange sodas but, having learned your lesson, probably head out empty-handed.

not easter eggs

For the last couple of weeks, the eggs I've been getting from my CSA have been a beautiful collection of colors. A few brown, a few white and a few of a delicate blue hue. They look like spring in an egg carton, make me wonder about the origin of dying easter eggs around this time, make me feel lucky. It feels like a treat to get these really pretty eggs that taste so damn good. I like to eat the blue ones last.

something new

I think winter had finally caught up with me. My palate was downtrodden by a parade of root and leafy green vegetables that I’ve been roasting and sautéing again and again. All I could think to do to meats was roast them with garlic and herbs. Totally boring. Totally uninspired.

I wanted to taste something new. I thought bi-rite ice cream would help me out. Bring a little brightness, and it did. I picked up a pint of the oddest flavor I could find, Orange Cardamom, and for a minute or two, it was damn resplendent. But still, orange is a citrus I’m burning out on and cardamom, though I love it, I could already anticipate the taste.

Something newer. Brighter.

I turned to my fridge, and I found a bottle of sparkling red I hadn’t opened yet. I read about sparkling reds years ago as the perfect go-with for a BBQ. I figured why not bring in some brightness to another roasted dinner?

Good call, me.

The Brachetto is lovely. Kind of like a Moscato d’ Asti with a bit more fruit than flowers. Sparkly and refreshing and though it might not make sense seasonally, really cheered up a dinner of roasted lamb loins and sautéed chard.
This is a flavor combination that’ll be happening again soon. Maybe at my next dinner party, say?

The Jam Cartel

I’m not one to linger in denial. I know that I have the capacity and history to be a little obsessive about things. Food things. There’s a particular candy bar sold in Portland I’ve been pining after for awhile. I’ve been known to have the same breakfast over and over again for months on end.

And when I write months I might mean years.

An obsession is different for me than a craving. A craving can be assuaged in a few simple bites. I’ll crave pancakes or steak, but don’t need to have it day after day.

But I got in a little jam with a recent food obsession. I wrote about it a little while ago- the preserved fruits from welovejam. The kumquat marmalade was insanely good. I tried to pace myself, I knew it was in limited supply, but there was nothing I could do. I ran out.

So, being the reasonable person I am, I turned to my jam pusher. I emailed Eric at welovejam:

“Hi there

So, I'm nearing the bottom of my jar of the kumquat jam and I'm getting worried about my next fix. My breakfast has come to depend on good jam. Since I know the apricot jam is months away still, is there another product you recommend to tide me over? I'm in San Francisco, so if there's a grocery I should go to, point me there!”

Like I said, I’ll admit a problem when I have one.

So Eric wrote back, understood where I was coming from, and like a good dealer, came through. He didn’t have the apricot, but he could deliver some elephant heart jam.

And he did. Literally.

At a specified time (10:30 a.m. on a Sunday) at a specified place (my apartment building), Eric dropped by to deliver the goods. It couldn’t have been more like a drug deal if we had planned it. And it’s been good. Completes my latest breakfast kick of slow-cooked scrambled eggs, Niceragua La Union coffee and toast with butter and jam.

I’m really trying to pace myself this time. To hold out until the Blanheim apricot jam is ready. I’ve got about half a jar left of the good stuff. Wish me luck

And now, back to our regular food writing.

In an ongoing effort to resist the call of the take-out menu, I’ve been turning to the contents of my fridge and pantry for simple dinners. And they’ve been coming out really good. Plates of food with only a few ingredients that add up to a lot more than the sum of their parts. I made a broccoli pasta last week that was so good, it felt selfish not to share. In fact, two bites in, I brought it back to the kitchen so I could take a damn picture of it. Which is here:

So, I got this idea in my head that I should really start sharing this food a lot more. Have people over for dinner as much as schedules will allow. I can see my friends, share some food and enjoy food the way it should be enjoyed: with friends.

I kicked off my big plan by inviting my upstairs neighbors over for Sunday dinner But somehow, wrapped up in the idea of Entertaining, I abandoned my simple plan and ended up making something a lot more complicated. I spent all day browning, braising and simmering oxtail stew. I baked fresh bread to start and madelines to finish. It was nonstop work for most of the day and by the time I heard the knock at the door I was exhausted.

And to make it that much more unsatisfying, I wasn’t happy with the food. It was a lot of work for not a lot of payoff. I hadn’t let the liquid separate enough so the stew was too fatty and the meat didn’t get as tender as I hoped it would. And there wasn’t enough salt either.

Still, the bread was good, the cookies were fine, and it felt good to have people over. I’ve just got to go back to my initial idea. Simple, good food. Make a dinner I’d usually make for myself, just make enough to share.

I’ve got more than a few dinners lined up at my place in the next few weeks, and I will try damn hard to resist my cache of clipped recipes and scrawled ideas. I’m going to plan, but not overplan. Keep some charcuterie and cheeses on hand for snacky starters, turn to the CSA contents and basics for ideas. Let the ingredients do the impressing.

More to come on the dinner party series, for certain.

False Advertising

Fair warning, this isn’t a post about food. About a meal I ate or a restaurant I visited. This is about something else.

When I’m not shopping for food, cooking food or writing about food, there is an entire other life I have. I have a day job that keeps me in organic produce and grass-fed beef. And I’m lucky. I have a true love for what I do. As a copywriter, I get to spend my days thinking and writing and working with some of the smartest, funniest people I’ve ever come across. And even though I’m writing in the voice of Starbucks or WaMu, the real voice that comes across is still mine. It’s not uncommon for someone to see something I’ve written and come back with the comment, “That’s so Margo.”

There was a time last year when I was looking for work and I had to go to yet another headhunter to show off my book. It’s something I’d done 100 times before and I wasn’t looking forward to it. But something in that meeting, in that presentation of telling the story behind each ad, remembering the moment when the insight clicked or the perfect line came into focus I realized how much I’m really proud of what I’ve done. My work is good. My work is personal. My work is me.

Which is why what happened yesterday was so hurtful.

Yesterday it came to my attention that a (former) friend of mine had stolen my portfolio and passed it off as his own. We had never worked together. We had never collaborated on a single thing. In fact, nearly all my entire print and interactive work and my resume were swiped and re-packaged with his name on the cover. He even took a few food essays and photography pieces and threw them in too for good measure. That part stung even more.

The ad world is really small. There’s a one degree of separation at best. Someone I had worked with years ago came across the work, put two and two (and two and two) together and he was escorted out of the building by end of day. He’s tried to get in touch with me but I haven’t yet responded.

If imitation is the highest form of flattery than plagiarism would be the basest form of it. I’m not sure what the lesson is in all this for me, but I’m glad I can take away the bragging rights that my work is so damn good, someone tried to steal all of it.

To see the work, click over to www.margostern.com

CSA pressure

It's almost become too much. I pick up the produce every week and by Sunday, I've defaulted to roasting everything that can be roasted and cutting up anything else for snacks. Yesterday's lunch involved a baked Japanese sweet potato, sauteed chard with garlic and enough carrot and celery sticks to complete the lunches of a dozen 5th graders.

But I'm trying. I'm trying to be innovative when I can. To try new produce and experiment with cooking styles. And some of it is working.

For instance, kohlrabi.

It's an odd little root. Somewhere between broccoli stalk and cabbage-like, I'm pretty confounded by it. I've snacked on it raw, made it into soup and left it in the fridge to wilt to inedible. I felt bad about the last one.

So I decided to do something new with it. Kohlrabi Vinaigrette.

I peeled the little sputniks, sliced them, then blanched them for a quick 3 minutes in salted water. Then I plunged them into icy water to stop the cooking. Arranging them into disks, I then poured a simple dressing of red-wine vinegar, dijon and olive oil. A quick crackle of black pepper and done.

And you know what, they weren't half bad. A really nice, simple starter. Clean and fresh. A good stalky vehicle for dressing. Next time I'm faced with a bunch of kolhrabi, this is the way I'm going.

Cauliflower is not yet played.

I ignored cauliflower for a long, long time. Raw, it was oddly numbing and tasteless. Steamed was worse. Even with butter, it would be a non-entity on the plate, pushed aside for more tasty veggies that offered even a hint of color or flavor. To describe the taste of cauliflower seemed like a pathetic venture at best.

But then I read a recipe last year for roasted cauliflower. Said that just a dash of salt, some olive oil and some high, prolonged heat made the florets into what they called “cauliflower candy.” Interesting. I like candy. I gave it a shot.

And I’ve been converted. Roasted cauliflower is ridiculous. Crazy tasty. I went further.

I started making cauliflower soup. Added some crispy shallots and shallot oil. A little prociutto. I found chedder cauliflower. Purple cauliflower. Green too. I experimented with romanesco. At one point in August I probably had at least three assorted cauliflowers in my fridge at one time I was cauliflower mad.

But I learned I wasn’t alone. Other people had joined the floret bandwagon and then I read that somehow, somewhere cauliflower had become the hip vegetable of 2007. And that killed me. I didn’t realize I’d been riding the same trend, that I had fallen victim of produce fashion. I crossed off cauliflower from my CSA order.

But something happened. I craved it. I read about something called cauliflower steaks. And if there’s one thing I like more than candy, it’s steaks.

So I put them back on the list. I cut the head cross-wise into 1” steaks, salt and peppered them and cooked ‘em in a pan for 4 minutes a side. Then into the oven to bake at 250° for 10 minutes. The result? Magic. Cauliflower candy gives way to a cauliflower main course. Cauliflower is back on my plate and I’m not looking back, damn it.

Cookin' with Crazy

Cookin’, a vintage cookware store on Divisadero is all kinds of crazy. Honestly, I think they specialize in it. Well, that and an astounding collection of mainly vintage cooking and servingware. It starts when you walk in, winding past stacks upon stacks of china and dishware and you see the staggering array of stuff in front of you. It seems like a total mess, and by and large it is, but soon enough an order comes into focus from the chaos. Like items are grouped around the store in abundant collections, ranging from the quaint to the quasi-absurd. Copper pans and meat grinders. Egg cups and martini shakers. No matter what you might be looking for, they have it. In fact, odds are, they have at least five.

High quality Le Creuset is stacked on a table with an abundance bordering on grotesque.

There are tin molds by the gross and ramekins apparently breeding like bunnies.

There’s something a more than a little packratty about the place, to be certain. And the prices are such that make you think the seller isn’t too eager to let any of the collection head out the door. There’s a vintage French offal sign I’ve been eyeing for months. With an asking price of $160, it hasn’t moved further than the few inches needed to check the tag and, eyes wide, put it back down again. Once you meet the owner, you see where the crazy stems from. Engage her in a chat and it’ll continue long after you’ve left the store, whether there’s anyone there or not.

Still, it’s a place worth a visit, if not a purchase or two. There’s something to be said for an original shopping experience, and I know that the Madeline pans I picked up there have a more interesting patina and character than what I might find at sur le table.



Cookin'
339 Divisadero
SF 94117

wharf-bound

Though it's fashionable to hate tourists in this town, I have a secret love for them. They make me feel better just knowing they're around. They wear incredibly ugly clothes, making me feel fashionable. They're usually really fat, making me feel healthy. And as evident from what I overhear from my office window, they're pretty unhappy. The chorus of regular complaints including, but not limited to: "I'm hungry," "I'm cold," and the timeless "I don't want to walk anymore."

What's even better about San Francisco tourists is that, if you live here, you don't have to interact with them much. They're confined to the Wharf and Union Square and Chinatown. They have all that space to eat up the sidewalk, take pictures in front of chain restaurants and spend $50 on San Francisco sweatshirts. They boost the economy and stay out of the way. We get the rest of the city, which is pretty damn nice, unless you're in the market for a souvenir mug with your name on it or anything that references the existence of Alcatraz.

But after a year of living in San Francisco and a good two months after starting work near Fisherman's Wharf, I finally decided to venture into hostile territory to get a bowl of clam chowder in a sourdough bowl. I did it in the name of craving. In the spirit of kitch. I did it because my office is just 100 ft from Pier 39 and it seems almost ridiculous not to.

So I went. I made the unprecedented right turn out of the office building, was soon wading through a sea of pre-teens making their way back to their tour bus, nearly got hip-checked by some gull-gazing German tourists and had my image captured for eternity in the background of a number of vacation photos before I made it to Boudin, the birthplace of the clam chowder bread bowl.

I don't know the history of the bread as bowl phenomenon. I like to imagine that there was some devastating war-time crockery shortage, and the people were at a loss at how to enjoy their soup. Plates were out of the question and there were untold number of palms burned as people attempted to ladle soup directly into their hands. Then there would be the one genius who, spying a round loaf of bread, quietly began carving in, tunneling to create a vessel that seemed almost made for soup. Thus, in my head at least, the bread bowl was born.

Stepping up to the counter, I feel an urge to set myself apart from the tourist population. I remember that there's a discount for people who work in the area, and with the slickness of passing along a secret code, I get my 10% off. Before I have a chance to claim my table with a copy of 7x7 my number is called. My bread bowl is ready.

I was prepared to hate it. I was in a chain restaurant eating tourist fare off a black plastic tray. But I didn't. The bread is good and the chowder, besides being a fun word to say, is comforting and tasty. As someone in the office said before I headed out, "There's a reason it's famous." The bread to soup ratio is way, way off and I feel a bit guilty throwing away almost an entire loaf of perfectly good bread.

Heading out from the cafe into the belly of Pier 39, I considered hitting the taffy shop or picking up an Oyster With a Real Pearl Inside, but I resisted. I made my pilgrimage to the tourist mecca and I could leave in peace, my only souvenir a nice lunch and a moderate stomachache.

coffee tragedy

So in a perfect storm last week of logistics and a very clear lack of attending to priorities, I was without coffee. I didn't have time to make it to Ritual, I still haven't picked up a grinder (nor do I have the counter-space for one) and on, and on and on.

Finally. Sunday I go. I bike down to the Mission, pick out my coffee of the week and even treat myself to a Clover-brewed cup of the El Yalu, the same coffee I've been enjoying by French Press at home. I wanted to see if how I've been doing it even comes close to how the Clover machine can extract a cup. What I make is damn good. But the Clover makes a perfect cup. No tang, no smacks of acidity. Just sweet, clean awesome coffee.

Bean-wise, I opt for the Bella Vista (El Salvador, COE #9). It's a new one for them (and thus, for me). I can't wait to have it the next morning.

Monday. Back from the gym. So excited to start a lazy day off with a leisurely breakfast. I put the water on, the eggs to cook, the toast to, um, toast. My timing is dead on. Just as the water comes to a boil, I remember that I want to write about the coffee and quickly snap a pic of the bag before I even open it (hence the lack of sharpness).


WIth Belle and Sebastian singing sweetly from the speakers I hum along and open the bag to measure out the perfectly ground coffee to find that-fuck- they didn't grind the coffee. I was left staring, frowning, into a half-pound of whole beans I couldn't do a damn thing with.

I made crappy Irish Breakfast stupid tea instead.

I biked down to Ritual again yesterday and garnered a little sympathy while I waited patiently for them to grind my beans for French Press. I had a cup this morning. Two, in fact. It was really, really good. And not just because I'd waited over a week for a cup.

A side of greens

Though it seems a strange thing to say, I've always been compelled by collard greens. I think it's because they were always wrapped up in that Southern BBQ mystique. Big oil-drum grills manned by gigantic men in fields and on the sides of roads in the timeless South. I haven't spent much time there, if at all, and being from California, I know that any opinion I have on BBQ is immediatly dismissed. Rightly so. In CA, we don't BBQ. We grill. But I still like the art behind slow-cooked meats, and the sides that come with it. Creamy mac and cheese, sweet cornbread and smoky beans. But then there are the greens. I've never liked them, though I've really wanted to. I usually find them a sad, dishwater green with a tough consistency and drab taste to match.

Still, I know there's good there. There has to be. I think that with any traditional food gone bad that there's a great recipe back in the day that made it outstanding. And over the years corners are cut and less-than-stellar ingredients make it into the dish until you're left with the sad food in front of you. Like boring collard greens. So when my CSA listed collard greens as an option for the week, I decided to see if I could make them magic.

And magic they became. I went simple. Just bacon, onions and greens. That's it. No cider vinegar, no sugar, no broth. Recently a friend noted to me that starting a dish with bacon is cheating. Well, if using bacon is cheating, then I'm not inclined to play fair.


Simple Collard Greens:
2-3 slices thick-cut bacon
1 onion
1 bunch collard greens

In a large saucepan, cook the bacon over medium heat. While the bacon cooks, wash and dry the greens, ripping off the woody stems, rolling the leaves into a cigar and cutting them into 1" strips. Dice the onion.

Remove bacon from the pan, reserving the rendered fat (this would be the cheating part). Add onion to the pan and cook over medium heat until it's translucent. Maybe begins to brown around the edges.

Add greens and 1/3 cup water and cover. Simmer greens over medium-low heat. About 5-7 minutes. So they're nicely wilted but still really green. Cut the bacon into 1/4" strips and stir back in with the greens. Serve.

And that's it. Simple, good greens. All that's missing is some kick-ass BBQ to go with it.

CSA: mid-february

Though it was a bit of a runaround to pick up my produce this week, there was a lot of goodness in that unassuming brown paper bag. Sadly, the farm-fresh eggs were auspiciously missing. Looks like I'll be turning to the Batter Blaster in the fridge for breakfast this week.

The bounty this week includes: Broccoli, German butterball potatoes, fuji apples, heirloom carrots, beets, cilantro, collard greens and purple kohlrabi.

This is my third attempt at kohlrabi. The first time I was short on time and on ideas and let the poor little bulbs wither to nothing in the fridge. The second time I made soup, which, beefed up with some ham and black pepper made a fine lunch. I'm not sure what's going to come of this bunch.

Collard greens are the other challenge. New to me, the only experience I have them has been as uninteresting, cooked-to-death sides at otherwise standout BBQ joints. Something good will come of them, I'm sure.

A little help

Ok, so I’m having a bit of a math problem here. Cancer = bad. Gummy candy = good. But somehow, this just doesn’t seem to add up. Gummy Ribbons of Hope = bad, right?

my funny valentine

pictured: Michael Recchiuti's Ginger Heart, slightly damaged.

sweet somethings

We Love Jam is a very small micro-jammery not far from San Francisco. They make their exceptional product in insanely limited supplies. Their Blenheim Apricot Jam became something of a cult following late summer last year. The only way to get their product is to get on a mailing list, to stay close to your in-box and act fast. It’s how I got in on their Mariposa plum jam a few months ago and their most recent release, Fukushku kumquat marmalade.

It isn’t cheap. $14 runs you an 8 oz jar, with shipping. But it’s totally worth it. The marmalade is run thick with deft pieces of rind and pith off-set by a sweet jelly that just kills on a piece of crusty bread with butter. A little jam goes a long way.

I’m on the list for two jars of their famed Apricot jam, coming out this summer. I have just enough time to perfect the scone recipe for it.