i joined the crowd...

...not my usual m.o. to be sure, but i had been driving - crawling really - through the thick afternoon traffic of beverly hills & west hollywood & was feeling frustrated & cranky. couldn't wait to get home, kick off my shoes, wash my face, & settle down with a cup of tea & the latest issue of the new yorker.

just then i looked up & saw the sign, huntley drive. my mind made quick associations: the street of pink berry, l.a.'s latest, most trendy place for frozen yogurt with fresh fruit that people are so crazy about they wait on long lines & park illegally, risking huge fines & getting towed, just for a hit of this cool refreshing delight.

instinctively, i made a quick right turn onto huntley drive thinking there won't be a spot so i'll just keep driving & go home. from the corner of my eye i saw a small crowd of people lingering around in front of the shop & thought, not me, i don't go with the crowd...

but this was my day to win the lottery. just as i was about to accelorate down the street someone pulled out of a legal spot directly across the street from the place. i parked and found the meter still had 30 minutes to go. a young woman in short shorts sat cross-legged on the grassy patch on the street beside my car spooning pink berry yogurt into her mouth. is it good? i asked. great she replied.

i followed my destiny & joined the line outside the shop, composing my order in my mind while i waited. plain yogurt, of course. chocolate chips? no. papaya? no. fresh berries? yes. pineapple? yes. i looked around at the people waiting in line & inside the shop: mostly females, young, thin & beautiful; many blondes, many asians. it could have been a modeling agency, or an open commercial audition. where were the boys? i noticed one or two including a cute young man with curly brown hair & big blue eyes on line ahead of me. then suddenly it was my turn & i felt the same excitement i felt as a child when i was allowed to go to the corner candy store & order a chocolate malted.

another few minutes' wait & a large plastic cup, labeled with my name & choices, heaped with dazzling creamy frozen yogurt, piled high with the freshest sparkling berries & pineapple chunks was handed to me. the blue-eyed young man ahead of me asked for a bag of ice. what for? i asked. i'm bringing this home to my girlfriend, he said, fitting a clear, plastic-domed cover over his large, overflowing container. i wish i had a boyfriend like you, i said.

i grabbed a plastic spoon & a napkin & sat down at a table. slowly i savored my treat; slowly i let the cool, creamy, slightly acid substance melt on my tongue. slowly i chewed the freshest sweet plump blackberries, raspberries & sweet ripe pineapple that burst with flavor inside my mouth & blended with the creamy stuff. slowly, my frazzled nerves relaxed; traffic was far away, there was no crowd after all. i breathed deeply; was happy; read the sign on the wall: yogurt is good for you. it has calcium, improves your complexion, makes strong bones... and other things like that. just what i needed.

the onions are coming.....

by popular demand here's the recipe for onion butter & a few pictures showing the various stages the onions pass through in the cooking process. the pictures are for novices & to stress that one must never let them get watery during the process.

this dish takes time and work but it's well worth it & a little goes a long way. cook it the day you have to wait for the cable guy; listen to an opera or talk radio while you stir. keep kleenex handy for tears & pretend it's the aria that brought them on.

onion butter -- no sugar added!

6 - 8 firm large brown onions (preferably organic)
the size of your fist.
4 - 6 tablespoons roasted sesame oil
2 - level teaspoons sea salt
1 - 2 cups spring water
(use 2 skillets for this quantity of onions &
combine them later, after they've cooked down.
or... cut the recipe in half & use one skillet.)

Yields about 4 cups.
Preparation time 45 minutes. Cooking time 4 - 5 hours.

1. Peel onions and chop coarsely.
2. Heat skillets, drizzle 2 tablespoons of oil in each.
3. Throw half the onions into each skillet. They should sizzle immediately.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PHASE ONE: about 30 minutes

-- Continue to sizzle, brown, and turn those onions, scraping up the little blackened slivers that stick to the bottom of the pan.
--Don't stop until all onions are brown.
-- keep heat high so they don't get watery.

PHASE TWO: about 15 minutes

Lower heat to medium and continue to cook more gently. Stir often. Don't let onions burn or get watery.
-- Watch and stir.

PHASE THREE: at least 3 hours. 4 is better.
Combine onions into one skillet and
continue to cook overmedium heat,
stirring and turning often while onions
soften and darken to rich brown.
Turn down heat if necessary.

PHASE FOUR: about 45 minutes

Lower heat, add salt. Add water in
stages 1/4 cup at a time, letting it
boil away each time. Stir occasionally.
Let those onions sweat and melt to a
shiny rich mahogany.

Cool, pack into jars, & keep
refrigerated. Use as a spread or,
diluted, as a sauce to which
you can add tamari, garlic,
miso or other seasoning.

Good job! Reward yourself with an onion butter sandwich with arugula and sliced tomatoes on 9-grain bread for lunch. Or drop a thick dollop on a bowlful of hot, cooked millet and find out what makes the birdies sing. Or, smear on your kobe burger & be glad there's no sugar in this onion butter.

***

the chef puts sugar in his onion jam

my good friend patrick, an avid foodie, took me to dinner last week at a place on melrose called taste. at first we thought of going to the great luques next door, but luques was nearly empty & rather sad looking. taste was hopping & anyway, we wanted to try something new.

we sat outside on the patio which was pretty & inviting. the waitress was friendly & helpful without dominating our brief but important relationship, which we appreciated. i must say at the outset the food was good & the portions huge. my glass of merlot was at least double a normal portion. this is not a complaint; i liked the wine; it didn't sting the inside of my mouth, which i hate, but there was so much of it that i got drunk from one glass.

yes, i could have stopped before i was done but i'm not like that.

as it was about 10 pm i had already had my dinner, but couldn't resist ordering crab cakes from the appetizer menu. patrick was starving & went for it, ordering a 1st. course & a 2nd. course, & looking dangerously like he might even order dessert.

we asked for bread but they were out of bread. what could we devour while waiting for our food?

fortunately there was a group of skinny, pretty, animated young blonde-haired girls wearing shockingly short skirts for patrick to ogle & comment upon, which helped pass the time. next to us a table-full of young handsome men with short hair and stylish clothes kept up a lively conversation & from time to time burst into hysterical laughter. a celebrity anchorman stood outside on the street in the valet parking area shouting into his cell phone about something terribly important. new customers arrived & went inside the restaurant.

time passed & soon two thick juicy crab cakes were set before me; they were fairly good except they were made with canned crab. yet they were tasty & there was a nice pile of fresh green leaves in a tangy sauce on the side. by this time i had consumed about half my wine & was feeling pretty perky; i was not going to crab over the crab. while i nibbled patrick polished off his starter: beet salad; a humongous portion with mounds of both red & golden beets, two big rounds of fried goat cheese, & a big splash of nicely dressed salad with bits of orange segments.

for his main course patrick ordered a kobe burger (yes, they had buns), which came with, among other things, onion jam, which i had to taste since it's one of my own personal specialties. actually, i call it onion butter, but i won't split hairs over the name; it's the same thing. but horror of horrors, i detected the taste of sugar in taste's onion jam, & being of a feisty nature i could not let it go.

i admit, too, i wanted to show off my fine, sensitive palate & impress patrick with it.

when the waitress showed up to ask if everything was okay, i said yes, but -- in my sweetest voice -- i'm interested to know if the chef puts sugar in his onion jam. she seemed to like my question & went straight to the kitchen to find out. when she returned she told me yes, the chef puts sugar in his onion jam.

the chef puts sugar in his onion jam!!!

i raised my eyebrows so high my double chin disappeared. really? i said, sounding like a perfectly arrogant asshole. patrick, who knows me well, laughed. he knew what was coming.

and he was right. it was at that moment that the idea for this blog was born. i decided to dig out my recipe for onion butter which was originally printed in the west hollywood weekly (now defunct), where i wrote a regular column entitled, confessions of a macroneurotic, and post it on the world wide web, where no one will ever read it, but one can always hope.

in those days i aspired to be the mfk fisher on the art of healthy eating. i still do...

and so, i herewith reprint the original article because i still like it & believe the recipe is pretty terrific. i wish the chef at taste would read this & give it a try.

i know, i know, it takes a long time to prepare, about 6 hours, at least, but he could delegate the work to one of his assistants. isn't that why they employ so many workers in a professional kitchen?

p.s. at the end of our delicious meal patrick was satiated & skipped dessert.

the west hollywood weekly article will follow - as soon as i find it. patience please...

skate on ice

i first tasted skate wing at the casino de divonne, a bustling, glitzy gambling establishment located in a tiny village on the outskirts of geneva where i lived for eighteen years. at that time, the swinging sixties, the casino boasted one of the best restaurants in the region, and my (ex) husband and i used to dine there often.

yes! those were the days, my friend.

over the years i've eaten my fair share of haute cuisine in many parts of the world, including unforgettable meals in the best three-star restaurants in france. i observed that french cuisine has a solid tradition & follows strict rules, including which ingredients go into certain classic dishes. for example, making soup begins with a leek, boiled potatoes accompany fish, string beans are a course unto themselves, salad is served after the main course. true, there are exceptions; renegade avant-garde chefs in france now use unusual ingredients & far-fetched (for france) food combinations, but if you ask any good french housewife how to prepare skate wing (aile de raie) she'll answer without a moment's hesitation, avec du buerre noir et câpres. that's how they prepared it at the casino that first time i ate it, and how it was prepared everywhere else i ate in france. skate wing is pan fried & served with blackened butter (not burnt but carefully darkened with heat) and capers. A good squeeze of lemon too, bien sur. delicious!

i've been well trained: until yesterday, if anyone asked me how to prepare skate wing i'd have told them, "with blackened butter and capers." a quick peruse in my french cookbooks confirms this combination. americans, horror of horrors, bone their skate wings before they bread & fry them up like schnitzels. mario batali bones his too. i'm sure other cultures have different ways to prepare this marvelous fish, but i never came across any until a recent visit to a korean market where i found myself standing in front of a glass display case filled with fresh skate wings lying on a bed of chipped ice. What joy! Memories came flooding into my mind. Excited, i told the fishmonger i'd take one, pointing to a thick, bony chunk, glistening white & shiny, as i thought about good, sweet butter & briny capers. while he weighed & wrapped it i turned to the korean lady who stood beside me waiting her turn, and asked how she would prepare it.

"steamed," she said, "with sauce made of sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic & green onion. And a little red pepper too," she added with a wink.

i was shocked. steamed? really? she smiled & nodded with the same conviction a frenchwoman would have shown describing the buerre noir avec câpres sauce to pour over pan-fried aile de raie.

so i did it; came home & steamed that wing in a bamboo steamer lined with parchment paper, & now i can say with complete assurance that steamed is my favorite -- dare i say the best -- way to prepare skate wing. it was so tender & moist & delicious; the succulent flesh slid off the bones like butter, & the sauce, contrived from my own ingredients, similar to the korean lady's recipe, was a delicious accompaniment.

never once thought about butter & capers.

food

one last rant before the day is over

since the radio in my kitchen plays all day long, & i listen to it while i cook & when i sit down to eat, i want to know: how much must i contribute to npr to get them to get rid of garrison keeler? i mean get him off the air. now! some things are worth the money & this is surely one of them. he ruins stews, deflates soufflees, burns the toast, & kills my appetite.

something black in my kitchen

this is not about food but about telephone answering messages, & since i've got a phone in my kitchen it qualifies. anyway, i promised to talk about anything on my mind so here it is: i cannot bear to listen to the robot telling me to leave a message after the beep, and then after i'm done i can hang up! really? imagine that. what else would i do? we've had answering machines for years & years & none of us need to be told how to leave a message, & certainly not that we can hang up when we're finished. we know we must speak after the beep & when we're done we hang up. is there anyone who doesn't know that? and what's that garbage about pressing 5 to leave a page number? & other options? who needs other options? it's about leaving a message. right? i believe that interminably long robot message is designed to give extra time to the cell phone company that charges by the second. it drives me crazy listening to it when all i want to do is leave a message. am i the only one?

inside carol's kitchen

more like inside carol's mind, i must admit, but since food is on my mind so often there's not a huge difference. i think about other things too & i'm sure they'll be popping up. as i'm a new yorker by birth, you know what they say, in the mind - out the mouth... or through the keyboard in this case. anyway, i've got ideas i want to talk about, food being one of them, and as soon as i get the hang of this blog thing i intend to let it rip.

more later...