Food city area

Cooking with basic ingredients

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjptIbxvlD2TBDM977aabG63p2ovGhnb8NINQ9RBCcH2BeXD5wIKP8FmGvq-27MFQxkjUwcuS7zX9XD0nbFnvN4XxMCNUFikZckHkr6PgA-XqiRF7XF5kxpkY2o1Y1F1d0RlQcffOaZxGqd/s1600/basicfood6976.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618966945618833746" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjptIbxvlD2TBDM977aabG63p2ovGhnb8NINQ9RBCcH2BeXD5wIKP8FmGvq-27MFQxkjUwcuS7zX9XD0nbFnvN4XxMCNUFikZckHkr6PgA-XqiRF7XF5kxpkY2o1Y1F1d0RlQcffOaZxGqd/s400/basicfood6976.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 299px;" /></a> Last night I cooked two dishes: baked chicken with Spanish smoked paprika (I brought it with me from Santa Barbara) and Gratin Dauphinoise, my favorite potato dish. I learned this Alpine dish when I was in Grenoble, France, so it's appropriate to make it here in the Rocky Mountains, I think. Also, it requires no special condiments or spices. It's made of sliced potatoes, a chopped shallot (could be onion or garlic), milk (I discovered long ago that it's good with skim milk though the authentic version uses cream), real gruere cheese, and butter. I heat the milk with a bit of salt and pour it over the vegetables, cheese, and butter, which are layered in the baking dish. After baking it for an hour at 300, I turned it up to 425 and put the chicken in the oven. That's it: very basic. So far, here are the only condiments I have: <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8-wQ2aAZyouVtE_pUGD1mcAnB05NXYFAWqTTVolkey878vivoamTIxM8CAAYkD25EgPG7AeqDEEHWZupwRdUFFWkPfBvida6o2kl37m2Vt0vZBVyDigsNEJCNv8_5tS8SVEGZxvKu40Cc/s1600/basicfood6961.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618966951257868498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8-wQ2aAZyouVtE_pUGD1mcAnB05NXYFAWqTTVolkey878vivoamTIxM8CAAYkD25EgPG7AeqDEEHWZupwRdUFFWkPfBvida6o2kl37m2Vt0vZBVyDigsNEJCNv8_5tS8SVEGZxvKu40Cc/s400/basicfood6961.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 301px;" /></a>Mayonnaise, olive oil, white wine viengar, Dijon mustard. And you can see my temporary kitchen.

Cooking with basic ingredients

Last night I cooked two dishes: baked chicken with Spanish smoked paprika (I brought it with me from Santa Barbara) and Gratin Dauphinoise, ...

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16.40

Food and Art in Spain

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeTVVxB0xx4mjtcKSi-zc24LE7EXhepjn5d3DlC65DNS5-0gYzJGqD0o1Ji4Qw8WEOzv8nxk2M8ex90C2P7Kdu8JQO8V207uDb1xk7RWnxIebLxHDcCDq7gwxeaRTdbav38sMxlo544FhT/s1600/mondrian.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618271900558993586" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeTVVxB0xx4mjtcKSi-zc24LE7EXhepjn5d3DlC65DNS5-0gYzJGqD0o1Ji4Qw8WEOzv8nxk2M8ex90C2P7Kdu8JQO8V207uDb1xk7RWnxIebLxHDcCDq7gwxeaRTdbav38sMxlo544FhT/s400/mondrian.jpg" style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" /></a>In today's New York Times I read an article about Spanish restaurants: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/dining/el-bulli-is-closing-but-spain-looks-forward.html?_r=1">After El Bulli, Spain Looks Forward</a>. The description of Spanish restaurants that may become famous or popular after El Bulli closes included a description of a dish called the Mondrian. It intrigued me with its intersection of food and art. The Mondrian comes from a restaurant called Sant Pau where: "dishes like a gorgeous, lightly jelled Mondrian made from green almonds, red peppers and olives, and a juicy chunk of roasted foal (horsemeat is not unusual on local menus) are jammed with flavor." Obviously I'm not among the few hundred people per year who have eaten at El Bulli during its long season of fame (or notoriety), and I'm not really that interested in its closing. However, it was an example of the most extreme gap between restaurant food and what I am tempted to call real food. I'll get back to blogging about my basic, limited-ingredient, not-at-all-like restaurant cooking tomorrow. Today was the group picnic for the workshop Len is attending -- to which we brought some quite good sausages and crisp rolls. The organizers supplied us with relish and catsup -- not even those are currently in my small larder.

Food and Art in Spain

In today's New York Times I read an article about Spanish restaurants: After El Bulli, Spain Looks Forward . The description of Spanish...

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19.34

Back to Basics

Well, here we are in a condo in Aspen for 3 weeks. As is normal for such rentals, the kitchen is pretty well-equipped but NO food at all is left between occupants. I've done this in temporary condos before -- stocking a pantry and frige without spending a fortune on stuff that will be thrown away when I leave. This is a real challenge. How can one make simple meals with only a few ingredients. Home cooked food can use better materials, as I discussed in the <a href="http://regional-food.blogspot.com/2011/06/excellent-point.html">previous post</a>. But how to give them full-scale flavor? I thought I would keep track of what I did to try to make food that we'll like better than restaurant food. The nearest market (half a block from here) is called City Market, but it's really a Krogers. Last night when we first arrived, I bought some flavored rolls, sliced beef (of my preferred brand, Applegate), gruere cheese, a tub of whipped butter, and prepared potato salad. For dessert: strawberries and cookies. I also bought a box of cereal, coffee, milk, and orange juice. Somehow I brought my Trader Joe's Himalayan salt grinder with me. Tonight I needed to start cooking. Happily, City Market had a special on wild-caught Alaska salmon that they said came in today. I bought a pound of the salmon, various vegetables, a sour-dough bread, and three basics: olive oil, vinegar, and mustard. In the apartment's handy no-stick pan, I seared the salmon in a bit of olive oil, salted it a little, and covered it til done. Then I swirled in a spoonful of my butter and a splash of wine from my glass. (We had one bottle of Santa Barbara white wine that we babied in the hot car for the whole week on the way here!) Salad: avocado, lettuce, fresh cilantro leaves, tomato, and classic vinaigrette I made from the oil, vinegar, and mustard. The bread was good with a sop of the butter sauce -- after all, we're at home. Yes! The flavor of the simply-prepared never-frozen Alaska salmon beats every piece of fish I've recently tasted in any restaurant. The salad is fresher. And the total dinner is lighter and more enjoyable -- at least I think so. I'll be using the oil, vinegar, mustard, and cilantro in lots of ways.

Back to Basics

Well, here we are in a condo in Aspen for 3 weeks. As is normal for such rentals, the kitchen is pretty well-equipped but NO food at all is ...

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19.40

An Excellent Point!

I've been traveling and eating all my meals in restaurants (or just crackers and peanut butter or something like that). So I appreciated this point from the Atlantic food section: <blockquote>"I'm perturbed that people have gotten so turned around that they think restaurant food is the best food, and that today's modern, self -aware 'foodie' thinks that the highest level of cooking is to cook restaurant-style food in the home. Even in the finest restaurants, restaurant food, while delicious and deserving of its place as entertainment and theater, is really not the best food at all. It's over-sauced and over-salted and over-rich, because the only thing restaurant chefs have to worry about is that the food tastes exquisite on the table. They don't have to worry about whether you should eat less salt and fat or eat more vegetables or if you are consuming trans fats or saturated fat or petroleum. Even very good restaurants buy industrial commodity chicken and veal bones for their stock, and bulk up the plate with cheap commodity vegetables. What you pay for in most restaurants is for the transformation from ordinary into good or exquisite. And one of the ways that food is transformed is through copious amounts of butter, salt, and stocks." -- from <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/06/why-home-style-cooking-will-always-beat-restaurant-style/240195/">Why Home-Style Cooking Will Always Beat Restaurant-Style</a></blockquote>

An Excellent Point!

I've been traveling and eating all my meals in restaurants (or just crackers and peanut butter or something like that). So I appreciated...

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06.38

Zion Lodge Restaurant

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdRjDvW_KFMijm2KPLgcCDRGKtcZuMJTCTChDafN1eNlo69rybzI520U6MFcDnNAULByiA7eFrAutHn9pRtgfNRFETUALAuWcuGEfCsG0-ozPHVERyfGn9PHu3kzBidrkDxZdsEYssrm4p/s1600/zionrestaurant.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5616789585312580034" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdRjDvW_KFMijm2KPLgcCDRGKtcZuMJTCTChDafN1eNlo69rybzI520U6MFcDnNAULByiA7eFrAutHn9pRtgfNRFETUALAuWcuGEfCsG0-ozPHVERyfGn9PHu3kzBidrkDxZdsEYssrm4p/s400/zionrestaurant.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" /></a>The terrace of the restaurant at Zion Lodge has a magnificent view of the cliffs that overshadow the valley. Besides the view, the restaurant offers a very nice menu of Southwest-style food: I enjoyed the quesadilla. <div> </div><div>As we ate, the sun still vividly lit the eastern wall, though the cliffs to the west had been in the shadows since shortly past noon. Look carefully at the wine glass: you can see the reflection of the cliff!</div>