Fall Flavors

Today I cheated.

This blog is supposed to be dedicated to updates on my forays into the culinary world in which I am the chef. Today however, I have cheated because I have taken the time to write about someone elses cuisine. So for this I can only say, "forgive me father, for I have sinned."

This afternoon I was walking back towards the office, and from the break area I smelled an amazing scent wafting through the air, beckoning me with its ribbons of sweet and savory seasonings. Like a cartoon, my nostrils flared and I was floating toward the delightful aroma, curious as to who was enjoying such a delectable meal.

It was my associate, AnnMarie, nibbling on a piece of ravioli. "What are you eating?" I asked, another associate harmoniously agreeing with my inquiry. She replied quite simply, "Butternut squash ravioli."

I couldn't believe what I was seeing, a frozen meal so appetizing, it looked like it could have been served on china and in a Batalli establishment. Hmm, I might have to look into this.

Not usually a fan of mixing the sweet with the savory, I've been finding myself bending more and more on my old steadfast notions, accepting a change in palette with eagerness. I love ravioli, I am on friendly terms with squash, so why have I waited this long to try them together?

When I got out of work it was a later later than I was planning, and the air was cold and brisk. The first scent of fall tumbled around me as I was being whipped around by the blasts of cool air but it wasn't altogether unpleasant. I could smell cinnamon in the air, freshly fallen leaves were collecting into little piles for the night, and I sighed with contentment; I love fall.

Deciding that I wanted to capitolize off of autumn's emergence, I decided then and there that I would have myself some butternut squash too. Remembering that one of our local restaurants offered it on their seasonal menu, I asked Sean to call in the order and we went to pick up dinner together.

Taking the dinner home was a small treat. The flavors reminded me of a dinner that my best friend, Kristi and I had enjoyed last year when we were in New York. Around this time last year we went to the notorious "Butter" restaurant and treated ourselves to a scrumptious dinner. Kristi had herbed ravioli and butternut squash soup and I had mushroom soup and a lobster dish. I also enjoyed an apple cider martini. With those flavor profiles in mind, I compiled tonights' dinner.

A small caesar salad, butternut squash ravioli, with crispy sage leaves and a sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon, and lastly tiramisu. The topper was an apple cider hard liquor drink that Sean had picked up earlier that day. I was in heaven.

A waltz of flavors danced in my mouth, the creaminess of the ravioli curtsied to the sweetness of the sugar/cinnamon mix. They partnered together nicely in my mouth, begging to fill up my dance card once more. Bite after glorious bite I consummed my ravioli, savoring each herb, each crisp each seasoning. Fall had arrived in the form of my dinner.

A "Sand"y Lunch

Today I channeled a new chef in my (un) haute cuisine: the Barefoot Contessa. It seems that there aren't many fans of hers in my circle of friends, one friend even described her as very "sand". When asked why, she responded that she is very bland and lives in the Hamptons.

The thing about sand though, is that while it might not be mighty as a single grain, together it forms a formidable force in which something so simple can become something more elaborate. I use this as my topic today because of the inspiration that dear Ms. Ina has given me, creating a simple yet satisfying lunch for ones friends.

As of late, my little band of San Francisco girlfriends have formed a little group that I like to call the Movie Girls. So far our outings have revolved around seeing new chick flick releases, hence the name. Last time that we got together, we treated ourselves to the prix fix lunch menu which consisted of more prosecco then food.

This month, we are going to see the new Jennifer Anniston movie, and rather than going to another bistro, I have offered to make lunch for my little group. My menu is not very fancy nor challenging for a couple of reasons. The biggest being that I have no access to a stove, and I will be transporting said meal for over an hour before it will be consumed. While it does present a challenge, I decided to take the lone sand route and make a much simpler menu.

Years ago when I worked at Stanford, there was a small deli named the Oakville Grocery that I used to frequent. Besides having an amazingly gorgeous wine specialist, they delivered fresh, gourmet options, to the hungry mall goer such as myself. I would go in nearly every day and get a little variety of options. Some days it was a crab cake with a remoulade sauce accompanied by a small, shrimp caesar. Other days it was turkey breast panini grilled with roasted red peppers and a creamy pesto sauce. My absolute favorite dish was their Chicken, Orzo pasta salad. It was light, refreshing and provided a small burst of flavor that would instantly waken my tired palette.

I thought back to the Barefoot Contessa and saw that her best lunch options were portable, served best cold and were easy enough to eat without much utensils or condiments. With that in mind, I decided to re-create my own version of the pasta salad that I missed so dearly.

Going to the grocery store without a list allowed me to think differently about the dish. I shopped for what was fresh, and allowed that to influence my salad. I saw very green arugula, cherry tomatoes on the vine that were so sweet that you can smell their sweet juice when you picked them up. Finally I had my salad.

I got home, threw 2 boxes of orzo pasta into a boiling pot then added 2 cups of raw, chopped red onion, the fresh arugula, a handful of cherry tomatoes, diced chicken breasts that I had marinated in lemon juice, salt, garlic and pepper and finally a few, very generous spoonfuls of white, truffle oil. Yummo! It was the perfect dish for a lunch in the park.

I also knew that I wanted to make sandwiches but I didn't want to fall into the trap of turkey or tuna. Instead, I recreated my favorite sandwich, which I had when I was with my best friend, Kristi, when I last visited her in Orange County. We stopped by Lawry's for prime rib sandwiches on ciabatta, dripping in horseradish sauce.

When I asked the movie girls if there were any food allergies or dislikes I found out that one of the girls, Gail, does not take well to horseradish sauce. With that in mind, I set out to still make steak sandwiches, minus the horseradish. I started with potato, rosemary artisan bread, followed it up with garlic and herb cream cheese spread and completed it with vine-ripened tomatoes and peppery arugula. The steaks had been gently seared in my new, French skillets, in the same method as the other night save for shallots and substituting garlic instead.

Lastly, for dessert, I wanted to give my guests a small, easy treat that would be effortless to carry and ultimately selfishly indulge in: fresh baked madeleines. They were surprisingly easy to make and baking was a cinch. In the 10 minutes they were baking, I checked my emails.

Wrapped in little, cellophane bags they are the perfect end to a quick feast in the park. I enjoyed making my basic lunch for my friends and I especially relish the idea of eating it outdoors in the beautiful, Yerba Buena gardens.

For those of you who doubt the Contessa, or find vanilla to be a little too vanilla, I challenge you to take notice in the little things, and see that even the basic can be extraordinary.

The Wanna Be Italian

I think that I was born in the wrong country. Every little fiber of my being tells me that I should have been Italian. I'm sure many people believe this because they are fans of pizza and spaghetti. Not me, I think I should have been Italian because I love my familia, the great fashion houses of Gucci and Valentino and mostly because I sincerely think that the only way to eat pasta is when it is made from scratch.

If I was a true Italian, then I would have a huge family and especially a huge mama who would hand down her two hundred year old recipes for pastas, insalates and tiramisu. She would be nothing like Sofia of the Golden Girls, instead more of an Isabella Rossellini mixed with Giada DeLaurentis. My Italian husband would be a Rocco DiSpirito incarnate and I would take my little, pink Vespa to the local farmers market where I would meet up with my sisters, take in an espresso con panna and then terrorize the local farmers, demanding the best, and freshest produce.

Since I am not Italian, I shall have to resign myself to adopting the culture through my culinary exploits. I vow to make all my pasta from scratch, never again allowing a box of Golden Grain to enter my household. I also commit to tossing my pizza pies in the air as I am kneading the dough and I promise to throw my linguine al dente against the wall to check for doneness.

Firmly ensconced in my Italian fantasy life, I am listening to Pavarotti as you read along, sipping cold pinot grigio and embarking on my first homemade ravioli with beef. The filling has already been made. A quick saute of onions, butter, carrots, celery, ground beef, and seasoning cooked along merrily with a full cup of red wine. Once cooled, it went into the food processor where it was blended into a light and fluffy mousse that will be the filling for my pasta.

My dough was created also in the food processor, and from there it was rolled into long, lean sheets of pasta that was cranked through a pasta rolling machine. It's such a funny thing making pasta at home. There is flour everywhere and the dough that you use gets cranked and cranked and then cranked again until the little fist sized balls of dough get squeezed out into long sheets of pasta-y goodness. They are so long in fact that you actually have to take a knife and cut them to make it easier to handle.

I'm sure that my fantasy mama would knead, roll and cut the dough by hand, but I am glad to admit that my fantasies do not include cutting out modern equipment like food processors and KitchenAid attachments.

It was quite fun to make the ravioli, turning the pasta just so, lining up the savory filling, pressing the pasta back down and cutting out cute little squares with my pastry wheel. Cooking the fresh ravioli is also so much easier, because it is so much softer,and in 3-4 minutes it's done.

Tonight my in-laws came to dinner. They are good people and very all-American so I worried a little that my dish might not be the big hit that I had hoped it would be when I planned it. It wasn't until we sat down to eat that I realized it was probably not such a smart idea to serve an un-tested recipe to a group but I figured that if all else failed we could take them to Marie Callendars instead.

I needn't have worried. We started with a warm salad of green beans, edamame, and cherry tomatoes that I had left to marinade in a vinaigrette of olive oil, balsamic, dijon, soy sauce, honey and chili paste. It sounds a little odd but it was Italian-Asian fusion. The main course was the beef filled ravioli in a pomodoro sauce made very simply of tomatoes, garlic, basil and sauteed in olive oil. My in-laws seemed impressed.

What I realized tonight is that love for cooking can season the food and that you don't have to be an Italian to cook like one.

The Re-vitalized Chef's Menu

Today I worked another 10+ hour work day which isn't an abnormal occurrence but it felt like a lifetime since I was yearning to come home and break in my new All-Clad French Skillets.

Normally when I work a longer day, I tend to find myself picking up something quick and eating thoughtlessly, while watching Top Chef, and wishing I was having what they're having. Tonight, however, I decided to change that, in order to break in the new cookware.

I headed to the grocery store and picked up a filet of beef, 2 russet potatoes, a handful of brussels sprouts and fresh chive. I knew that I wanted to cook a steak because it would best showcase the sear that I was going to get from my new skillet and since I was a little tired, a quick, garlic and herb mashed potato would do just fine.

Calling my mom to ask her about how to best cook something is like asking a Republican if Clinton was the best President that ever existed. While there may be some benefit in asking their opinion, it is largely better not to ask at all. We got into a semi-heated discussion over the best cooking method for the steaks. Mom was all for grilling on our outdoor grill, where I was simply asking if I could stick aluminum pans in the oven without setting the house on fire. After 3 or 4 minutes of going back and forth, Mom just told me to do it my way and call her in the morning to tell her how it went. (Read between the lines and you will understand that she wants to know how badly I failed.)

Determined to proved mom wrong and show her that a sear is better than a grill for the occasion, I set out to cook the best damn steak that I have ever made.

Cooking for me is like a ritual, I begin and end very much the same way and each time I take precise steps, as I would imagine a priest might before giving communion to the congregation.

My ritual begins by putting on my white, Dean and Deluca apron. It's my favorite because it has a loop of fabric on the hip that allows you to string your favorite kitchen towel through, and it makes quickly wiping ones hands a cinch. (Plus it looks very Flay-like). Then I proceed to open a bottle of wine. Most times it's La Cream pinot noir. While it is my favorite and I do find that cooking is best done with red wine, I sometimes find it a necessity to sip white when a recipe calls for white in the sauce.

Okay, back to my ritual. I have my apron on, I am letting the bouquet from my red wine open itself and then I proceed to play relaxing music from my MacBook. It began with Chris Botti, then it was Andrea Boccelli, after I moved on to Ella and Billie and most recently I have begun with opera and am currently playing Pavarotti. Only then can I begin to cook properly.

If you have ever cooked with me in the kitchen then you would add another fact to a quickly progressing list of things that you would be learning about me. When I cook, I never go in on anything half way. It is always from scratch, gourmet, usually time consuming and seldom free of butter. In short, you get a real dinner at Chez Flay.

Tonight I started boiling the water for the potatoes. I peeled and chopped, and then with the prep work complete, I was able to turn my attention to the piece de resistance: le steak au poivre. I seasoned the two petit filets with kosher salt and fresh, coarsely ground pepper. I then set 2 tablespoons of real butter into my hot skillet to brown before I would allow my steaks to touch the pan.

With a snap, a crackle and little popping everywhere, my steaks went into their buttery bath where they awaited a crusty sear. Three minutes later I turned them over and added two tablespoons of my recently acquired Williams Sonoma beef demi-glace. I bought this very special sauce last year and with it's slightly hefty price I saved and saved it for the right occasion. Unfortunately the occasion never came because it expired and no more than a spoon or two was taken from the aromatic jar. This year it would be another story, no sauce or stew would make it out of the kitchen without a generous spoonful of this delicious reduction.

The steaks were properly cooked on both sides and they were put on a cookie sheet lined with foil into a 350 degree oven for ten minutes while I scraped and deglazed my pan to make a delicious gravy.

The little brown bits, stuck to the bottom of my glimmering new pan, were folded into a delicious gravy by sauteing 2 shallots until tender, de-glazing with a quarter cup of brandy, adding to the aromatics with a cup of broth and lastly adding flavor and depth with two more tablespoons of the demi-glace and two tablespoons of butter. Whisked together, it formed the most delicious gravy that I could have imagined for my revitalizing dinner.

The potatoes were properly steamed now, so I pulled the steaks out of the oven a let them rest while I mashed the potatoes into light, fluffy clouds. I then added two more tablespoons of butter, a half-cup (or maybe a full cup?) of whipping cream, an entire clove of garlic and a tablespoon of chive. Mash, mash here, throw a pinch of salt there, grind fresh pepper into the fluff and there you have delectably creamy mashed potatoes.

I asked Sean if he would like the other steak or some mashed potatoes and he said no since his dinner was two hours before. But, one whiff of my savory concoction and he was literally salivating.

I bit into my steak, had a bit of the garlicky potatoes, washed it down with a sip of La Crema and realized that no matter how long the work day, it is always best to take the time to make your own dinner than allow Monsieur McDonald to do the work for you.

Dipping My Toe into the Virtual Pond

For anyone who has known me for more than five minutes, you could say that I am one of three things: impetuous, cautious or a juxtapose. I live my life as someone who has only another week to live might do. I throw all caution to the wind when it comes to finances, I worry that I might have spent my last few minutes on earth doing all the wrong things, and ultimately, I throw myself wholehartedly into whatever I am doing at the moment.

I am not ashamed to admit that quite often my impetuous hobbies have been acquired by observing others first and then trying it out for myself. Once I see that the coast is clear and the waters are safe, I then dive into the deep end without so much as a life preserver.

Case in point. Last year some of my co-workers were telling me about their scrapbooking hobby. While it seemed fun at the time, it also seemed a bit daunting, and overzealous, to keep up the scrapping with fervor every time you had a spare moment. I had a change of heart when I returned from my first trip to New York with my husband, Sean. Rather than compile a bland, and generic album, I figured what the hell, why not go all the way with a few stickers and some pretty backround paper?

What began as an innocent pursuit quickly turned into a full-on obsession. I went to all kinds of scrapbooking stores looking for special scissors, punches, vellum paper, special glue, little hammers. I didn't stop at the specialty boutiques either, I went to the mecca of it's world: the EXPO.

A $5 ticket gave way to an approximate $1000 dollar shopping spree for totes, sheets, sheets and more specialty sheets, stickers, flowers you name it. Everything a new (or moderate) scrapbooker could ever want. My purchases littered the entire 6 person dining room table and I became consumed with my new hobby, often working until all hours of the night to get in a few more pages.

Then, one morning, I woke up and decided that I didn't want to scrap any more. I wasn't retiring per se but I also wasn't about to pick up a pair of scissors any time soon. That day my husband and I put everything into massive, plastic bins from Target and stored all my beautiful (and expensive) supplies into our shed in the backyard.

I feel that it is necessary to explain to you, dear reader, that I am cautious and impetuous in one. If you knew me for ten minutes more you would also know that technology is not a forte of mine, and because of that I find it to be kind of a miracle that I am writing this to you today.

What I am setting out to do, is to share how my one constant passion: food, has molded my perception of live and love. I have learned this in my day-to-day and in my limited travels. While I am not anywhere near the maestro, Mr. Flay's, level of expertise, I admit that I would like very much to be the Iron Chef of my own little kitchen and remind the world that you control the ingredients you work with, they do not control you!

As I had previously mentioned, I learn by observing and only when I see that it is safe to do, can I begin for myself. This blog is inspired by the film Julie and Julia. I admit to watching the movie first and am only now coming around to reading the book. The truth is that while this blog might look like a poor imitation, it is a coincidence and not an intention of mine that our common subject is food. I find that so many people can relate through the joy of eating which is why the universal pastime of friendships new and old is to break bread and pass along the wine.