Grape tomatoes redeem themselves

I just want to report, for the record, that I’m over the whole it’s-too-cold-to-eat-tomatoes thing. This week’s diet has included caprese salad (including for breakfast, and don’t you dare judge me, because you would have done it too if you’d thought of it first…), some amazing roasted gazpacho that I might have to write up at some point, my first BLTs of the season, and yellow Sungold and red grape tomatoes eaten like candy out of bowls on my kitchen counter.

Have I ever mentioned on this blog how much I hate grape tomatoes? I have, for years, hated them with a passion after eating, once too often, the Bad Grape Tomato. You know what I’m talking about: the one that looks OK as it’s going into your mouth, but that is rotten and bitter and grassy in a Very Bad Way? Yeah, so I started boycotting those at the store years ago.

And then I stumbled on them at the Civic Center Farmer’s Market on Sunday afternoon and bought some, purportedly to slow-roast them.

But instead, I can’t stop eating them. It turns out that even grape tomatoes, which I have long thought of as a grocery store-industrial standard to be avoided, are redeemed by eating them just after they’ve been picked.

You’d think I’d have all this figured out by now. Apparently not.

Farewell to Sher

I would really rather not be writing this post.

I would really rather not have eaten this particular meal at this particular time.

I would prefer to have stumbled across it, like so many other recipes posted by food bloggers I know and enjoy, and would prefer to have just made it whenever, unnoticed. I would prefer not to have been thinking about what I was going to way when I wrote it up.

Most of us in the food blogging community know this already: last Sunday morning, very suddenly, Sher of What Did You Eat? died of a heart attack.

Sher’s one of the bloggers I had not met. But I’d been reading her for awhile now, connected to her via Kalyn’s Weekend Herb Blogging, and because I have a friend who lives in Davis, I always felt like I could visualize where she lived as I read about her life.

And now she’s gone, and that’s left me with a lot to think about. She’s the first blogger in my regular reading to fall away, not because she abandoned her blog, but because life abandoned her. It breaks my heart, and I find myself thinking about the other food bloggers I know, the other people in this community of technologically-minded women and men who enrich my life so very much, and how they are not just glimmers on the screen to me. They are my peers, my friends, my compatriots. Any one of them gone leaves a hole.

Sher's stuffed mushrooms

My mother called while I was cooking up Sher’s Poblano and Cheddar-Stuffed Portabello Mushrooms last night. As I talked, I dried the spinach, and my salad spinner is a noisy thing. “What are you doing?” she asked.

I explained. “She was only 60,” I said. “I’m not very joyful about preparing this meal.”

The event: Remember Sher through her recipes. Kalyn suspended Weekend Herb Blogging in Sher’s honor, and asked those of us who take part in an event to take part in this one, organized by Mary, the breadchick, instead.

I spent some time browsing Sher’s archives, looking for something that spoke to me. This recipe did, partially because I love stuffed mushrooms, partially because it featured cilantro, an herb that, I’ll admit, I tolerate, but that I know Kalyn loves. And Kalyn and Sher were such good friends that it seemed appropriate.

I can tell you this: the “green taste” that Sher describes? It really shines in this dish. There’s no other real way to write about it, so I’m going to leave it in Sher’s hands. And the recipe is amazing. I do wish I had made more of it. I will make it again, to be sure. I’ll even keep the cilantro in there—I really enjoyed the recipe as Sher posted it.

But I hope to never make it again with as heavy a heart. To Sher’s family, I wish you consolation in your grief. To Kalyn, I wish you consolation as well, but I thank you for organizing this.

And to Sher, thank you. Thank you for this recipe, thank you for the other recipes that folks will have chosen and prepared in your honor this weekend, and thank you for your joyful writing. Know that we miss you.

The report from BlogHer ’08

If you’ve been following my Twitter account over the past few days and weren’t a BlogHer ’08 attendee, you’re probably about ready to abandon me, either because you wanted to be there and are madly jealous, or because you couldn’t give a whit about the conference and you would prefer I stick to my regular Twitter diet of odd musings about my walking commute down Oakland’s mean streets.

Note to those of you in the former category: keep an eye on registration for next year, because the conference keeps getting better and better.

But, to appease those in the latter category, I promise that the BlogHer-related Tweets will careen to a halt, and that this will wrap up my formal coverage of BlogHer ’08 for the week. Or the month. Or some other time period as yet to be determined.

Regardless, the conference provided one of the best opportunities in women’s blogging to put faces with words, and to meet new bloggers who I had not yet stumbled across in my prodigious RSS feed reading. One can never have too many posts in one’s feed reader, I always say.

OK, I never say that. But this is the age of the Internet, so I’m at least trying to get that phrase into circulation. It’s better if you say it in a slightly snooty accent, by the way.

I did end up going with my tagline (“It’s amazing what I’ll do for a good tomato.”) for Kalyn’s Food Bloggers’ Birds of a Feather gathering. Others interpreted the 10-word assignment a little differently, either stringing together 10 random words or not following Kalyn’s guidelines at all, or, in the case of one hapless PR person, meandering through a pitch for whatever site she represented (it does not speak well of her pitch that I cannot remember what she was talking about…) until she got to about word 75 and Kalyn reminded her diplomatically and firmly of all the other people patiently waiting to speak.

Friday night featured a terrific dinner at R&G Lounge with a bevy of amazing food bloggers: Kathy of Panini Happy, Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes, Shuna of Eggbeater, Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen, Sean of Hedonia, Elise of Simply Recipes (Thanks for the mug, Elise!), Lydia of The Perfect Pantry, Sara of Ms. Adventures in Italy, Amy of Cooking with Amy, Claire of Cookthink (Thanks for the tea towel, Claire!), Jennifer Jeffrey and myself. If I forgot someone, which I hope I did not, bug me via comments and I’ll happily update.

On Saturday, I finally got to meet Deb Roby, who is a Home, Garden and DIY editor for BlogHer and who also blogs at A Stitch in Time and Weight for Deb. She hosted a Home, Garden and DIY Birds of a Feather gathering Saturday that ranged through a variety of topics from everyone’s secret resources to sustainable products for the home.

On Sunday, I hit the UnConference, which is a free-form event where the attendees determine the agenda and take the discussion in whatever direction works best for all the small groups of participants. The move to Oakland has spurred me on to taking a closer look at my blog and where it’s going in its next phase (It’s like a teenager, this blog, with its phases and its moodiness and its storming around from topic to topic…), and I just happened to stand up and call for a session on going through a blog brand transition at the same time that Diana, maven of Of The Princess And The Pea, stood up and requested the same thing. We combined forces and ran the session together, and for those of you who joined that discussion, I promise to have the notes up by the end of this coming weekend.

I wrapped up the UnConference by spending about 45 minutes chatting with the only other Genie I’ve ever met in person—Genie Alisa of In a Bottle. We started the conversation by talking about WordPress, but moved on to life, how we depict it on our respective blogs, and how that affects the people around us and our relationships with them.

It was just the kind of discussion that makes BlogHer so rewarding—from a common platform, women who didn’t even read each others’ work before the weekend began went home feeling that much more connected to a larger community of women trying to do just the same thing: Tell a story, raise a hand and ask a question that might change the way someone else thinks, and maybe even make the world—online and offline—a little more beautiful.

Enchiladas for the journey

Remember how I said on Thursday night that I push deadlines but don’t miss them and that I’d report back about BlogHer, um, yesterday?

Well, make that tomorrow. The conference is still going on, it’s been an amazing weekend of networking and experiences and the occasional gratis glass of Prosecco (OK, maybe the occasional two glasses?), and I’ve gotten very little sleep because even when I get home, my brain is racing so hard I can’t get myself to go to bed.

And, in the meantime, I have a story to tell that has nothing to do with BlogHer, but is time-sensitive. Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen has made some tweaks to the rules for Weekend Herb Blogging, and technically, this story fits under the rubric of the old rules rather than the new. The new rules go into effect this coming week, so today is my last day to sneak this in under the wire. Sure, I could just post it without participating in WHB, but where would be the camaraderie in that?

And see? I’m just making a deadline!

So, even though I’m writing this from a conference room on Union Square in San Francisco, this goes back to my last days in Iowa, for a recipe that, much like my move to California, is not so much specific measurements, and more a wing-and-prayer approach of combining things that go well together, tossing them in the oven to bake, and enjoying what comes out.

I spent the first half of my last week in Iowa in California, actually, looking for an apartment. It was a crazy weekend of hoofing it around Oakland, following leads off Craigslist and taking deep gulps at the rents and the deposits required to move in. I signed a lease that Tuesday evening, boarded a red-eye back to Cedar Rapids, and then crawled into bed as soon as I got home in an attempt to avoid the amount of packing I had to finish in three days.

Because the move happened so quickly, I didn’t really have a chance to properly eat down all the food in my fridge and freezer, and because the winter had been so fraught with delayed travel, I hadn’t been home enough or rested enough to manage the proper cooking program I usually maintain.

This meant I still had some slow-roasted tomatoes in the freezer, and as anyone who reads Kalyn or Alanna of Kitchen Parade knows, you don’t waste slow-roasted tomatoes.

I also had made my last visit to the Iowa City Farmer’s Market that Wednesday night, planning mainly to pick up a few gifts for the folks who would be hosting me on my journey west, but deciding, while I was there, to grab a bunch of locally-grown asparagus. Even though I knew I had to stop using my cooking gear and get it into boxes, the asparagus looked to good not to buy it.

So, on Thursday night, I told Betsy to make time for one last dinner cooked in my big Iowa kitchen. It was time for enchiladas, which, over the course of my last year in Iowa, became one of my favorite go-to comfort foods. Fast, easy and, as I made them, arguably not that unhealthy, I started making large batches every couple of weeks, taking the leftovers for lunch or, on days when the comfort was necessary earlier in the day, eating them for breakfast.

Spinach and slow-roasted tomatoes

I use an informal recipe, so informal that I’m not going to write it out in traditional fashion. But trust me…anyone can do this. I pre-heated the oven to 375 degrees, then pulled out my stoneware 9” x 12” pan (stoneware’s not required). I sauteed the slow-roasted tomatoes and a bag of baby spinach over medium-high heat until the spinach wilted, then mixed the tomatoes and spinach in a bowl with a diced package of baked tofu (hickory flavored) and three or four spoonfuls of salsa. These ingredients, it should be noted, are not written in stone—if you like mushrooms, or chicken, or black beans, or corn, try any or all of that.

I rolled that filling into spelt tortillas, but you can use flour tortillas or even corn, although warming the corn tortillas first will help keep them from cracking as you roll them up. I placed each tortilla seam-down in the pan, nestling them against each other so they held each other together. I poured a 12-ounce bottle of Trader Joe’s enchilada sauce (that’s my favorite brand, but any enchilada sauce will do) over the top and then sprinkled the whole pan-full with shredded Colby Jack. Eyeball the cheese until it seems right to you – there are days when just a light touch works great, but other days when extra cheese makes all the difference. Gauge your own mood accordingly.

Then I baked them up, uncovered, for 20 minutes, until the cheese had melted and the sauce around the edges bubbled and hissed.

Enchiladas, between asparagus and avocado

I also roasted that asparagus, and plated up the enchiladas with the Iowa asparagus on one side and sliced avocado, which just happened to have been flown in from California, on the other. Betsy and I ate dinner at the kitchen table gleaned from another friend who passed it along just when I needed it most, as the light faded over my garden in the back. There would be no more cooking in Iowa, but it seemed just the right dinner to end on: one that featured ingredients from both states, that I served to a friend in the kitchen I’d loved since I first walked into it, and that offered nutrition and comfort for the journey.

This is my post for Weekend Herb Blogging, which is hosted this week by Archana of Archana’s Kitchen. Please stop by later in the weekend for the full round-up of posts!

Pizzeria Mozza: Familiar, but divine

About six years ago, while on a business trip to Monterey, I sat at the hotel bar late one night chatting with one of our consultants over a glass of wine. On that particular day, I’d given a communications workshop in the morning, attended another meeting in the afternoon, and then dashed out the door to go for a drive down Highway 1 to catch as many late-afternoon and early-evening vistas as I could before dark. Then I hit an amazing Asian fusion restaurant with a co-worker on the way back up the coast before returning to the hotel.

I gave the consultant a run-down of everything I’d done after wrapping up my work duties, and he sat back in the chair and shook his head. “You know what I do on business trips?” he said. “I fly in, I go to the hotel, I eat at the hotel, I do my work at the hotel, and then I fly home. I don’t have time to go look around.”

“You don’t have time?” I asked. “Or you don’t make time?”

He conceded my point, which is this: There are two kinds of business travelers. Those who are content to settle for underwhelming, overpriced hotel food and bland experiences, or those who make the time to do something to enjoy wherever their travels take them. I don’t care if you’ve been sent to Peoria—there has to be some coffeeshop or restaurant or local market or city museum that has something interesting to offer, and I operate by the philosophy that it’s important to, without killing yourself, make the time to not just work while traveling, but play, as well. After all, you’ve been sent to a different destination, so you might as well get to know it better.

This is how I ended up at Pizzeria Mozza for dinner last night. I’m on a quick business trip to Los Angeles, and was in search of good dining options for a solo traveler. A search of Chowhound led to a goldmine thread of ideas and information, which eventually took me to my destination.

Anything but pedestrian
Here’s what I had for dinner: Cauliflower all cheesed up, a breadstick, pizza and butterscotch pudding.

Sounds pedestrian, right?

Here’s the thing. Pizzeria Mozza is the brainchild of Nancy Silverton of La Brea Bakery fame, Mario Batali of orange Crocs and crazy-good Italian food fame, and Joe Bastianich of I’m-the-son-of-Lidia fame. (That’s actually hardly fair to Joe, who, with Batali, has basically built a restaurant and wine empire. He might be the most accomplished Mama’s boy ever…) With a pedigree like that, I should have expected an amazing meal, and that’s exactly what I got.

I started with the breadstick, which came with a couple of its brethren, loosely wrapped in wax paper. It was flavorful but simple, and crunchy without being a tooth-breaker. I would have eaten said brethren, but I knew I was in for a full-on meal, and didn’t want to waste any room in my stomach.

Recognizing that it was going to be incredibly heavy, I nonetheless ordered the cauliflower gratinee, which showed up in a little pottery dish, browned to golden on top and smelling so creamy-good that my immediate neighbors along the wine bar stopped their conversation and started talking to me. As I expected, it was a totally unnecessary indulgence, but whatever. It was good enough to write about, and therefore, I’m not sorry I downed it. In fact, I practically burned my tongue because it was so good I could barely wait for the steam to stop curling before I started eating.

The bartender, Nick, must have noticed my sheer lack of patience, because when he delivered the pizza I’d ordered—Coach Farm goat cheese, leeks, scallions and bacon (and, although it wasn’t listed, a healthy dose of roasted garlic)—he warned me to hold tight. “As it cools, the leeks get sweeter and the flavor of the goat cheese really comes out,’ he said.

Those of you who have told me all my life how I eat much too fast? Your approach was dead wrong. If a hot, foodie bartender explains how eating slower will be in my best interest as an enjoyer of goat cheese? Well, then I eat like a snail.

A dessert-related loss of dignity
Nick also endeared himself to me by delivering me a complimentary taste of a Moscato d’Asti offered by the restaurant alongside my dessert, the butterscotch budini. This was something like a butterscotch pot de crème, but with a layer of salted caramel sauce and a dollop of whipped cream on top, served alongside rosemary pine nut biscotti.

Nick’s recommended approach was to take a bite of the budini, then a sip of the Moscato, then a bite of biscotti. “There are plenty of other combinations, I’m sure, but that one’s worked the best for me,” he said.

“I’ll take your word for it,” I said. He was absolutely right—the combination was fabulous.

“Make sure you eat all the way to the bottom,” he said. “There’s good caramel down there.”

“Are you kidding?” I replied. “This is so good you’re going to be lucky if I don’t steal the glass so I can lick it in the car on the way home.”

I try to maintain my dignity, people, but when faced with such a luscious dessert, I lose all control. Apparently.

Not the only one enjoying myself
The diners around me were also loudly enjoying such treats as the roasted red peppers with tuna (including a diner who swore she doesn’t even like tuna, but loved that dish), the Rucola, funghi & Piave salad with a lemon dressing, the pizza Bianco, and the mint chocolate chip gelato. The buzzing conversations about film sets and upcoming location shoots stopped every time a new dish was delivered to any of the patrons within earshot so they could ooh and aah over the next eating adventure.

The meal definitely required me to kick in over my per diem allowance for dinner, but I would have paid for the whole thing, gladly. And I would have taken photos, but honestly, I was so entranced by the food, I completely forgot.

So…if you’re in LA, get thee to Pizzeria Mozza. It’s the familiar, elevated to the divine.