Today was
Stephen’s Consignment’s semi-annual sale, so we wanted to get an early start.
Suzette had
saved about 1/3 lb. piece of grilled steak but we had no potato so I looked to
improvise. I cut open one of the long
yellowish green melons from the garden that Suzette said was a cross between a
melon and a cucumber and to our surprise we found out that it was really a
spaghetti squash.
So I sautéed
about ¼ cup of onion, and ¼ cup of spaghetti squash and then sliced three white
mushrooms and added them to the sautéed vegetables; then I chopped up the steak
and added it and grated ½ cup of longhorn cheese and stirred that into two eggs
and the three egg white from Thursday’s meal and scrambled the egg and cheese
mixture into the vegetable mixture and we toasted two flour tortillas over an
open gas flame on the stove and made breakfast burritos. I covered my burrito lightly with a lime
flavored Mexican red chili sauce and made fresh mint tea with three small
stalks of mint I picked in the garden yesterday. Suzette made a Bloody Mary and we ate in the
garden, watching the sun flicker across the cosmos. Suzette said she wanted to pull the cosmos
and lay them in the street side garden on 16th street in ho[pes that
they will propagate there and form a border for the fence. We talked about a big gardening day on Sunday
and I then told Suzette that the oriental basil and dill were propagating in
the front bed and we went to look and saw lots of small dill plants and one new
basil plant.
We then
drove to Santa Fe and stopped at the Flea , which was closed, We then drove to Stephen’s and looked at
everything and decided to buy nothing.
We decided to drive to the consignment large store on Cerrillos, where I
found a biography/art book on Gaugin and we bought two lovely Danish Modern
wall lamps that burned lamp oil.
Our other major
goal for the day was to visit the Galisteo Studio Tour. Suzette wanted to take a bottle of wine with
us to Galisteo to drink in the afternoon, after buying the Danish lamps, we
drove to Trader Joe’s so Suzette could buy toothpaste and we bought a bottle of
Sauvignon Blanc and Suzette picked out a bottle of Spanish Alero Rosé made with
the bobal grape for $5.99.
At around
12:45 we drove to Galisteo. While
visiting galleries in Galisteo, we received a text from Amy inviting us to
visit her and Sandy and Jan from Laguna Beach for drinks at her and Vahl’s
house. Almost as soon as we read the
message, Amy, Sandy and Jan walked out of the studio we were arriving at to
visit. We made a plan to visit them at
Amy’s house around 3:00 and I handed her the rosé and asked her to chill it, We
cut our visit to Galisteo a little short but did go to the Fire Station and the
Community Center. At the Fire Station we
saw lovely pots made by Frank and Barb Lux.
I bought a small bowl with a lovely yellow commercial glaze that Frank
said he had bought at Coyote Clay in Albuquerque for $35.00. At the Community Center we saw an attractive
wire sculpture made with a green Buddha beer bottle that Suzette said was the
perfect craft use of her Buddha Bottle.
The seniors at the Center for Ageless living have started making
wonderful crafts items, like plates and mugs and Suzette must be thinking of
adding wire sculpture to the list of arts and craft projects for use and sale.
We then
drove back to Eldorado to Amy’s but we had seen an Estate Sale sign so we
followed the signs to a sale way out on Dominguez Road. Unfortunately or coincidentally the sale was
not the estate sale but was a garage sale by a couple who owned an antiques
gallery in Santa Fe and had lots of high end fashions. I immediately saw a wonderful old Guatemalan
Huipil for $20.00 and realized we had hit pay dirt. Suzette bought for or five high fashion items
for about $110, that cost over $1,000 at retail. The owners of the house had put the original
retail prices on the clothes. In
addition to the huipil, Suzette bought an attractive green converted blanket
tunic, a gray German cotton and rayon crinkled fabric coat, and one or two
Bluefish dresses.
We then
drove back to the main entrance of Eldorado where we had seen the Estate Sale
sign to retrace our steps and found the house where the sale was. The house was owned by a lady who had a
fabric art shop in Santa Fe and again there were fabulous fabrics. The item that first caught my attention was
an unusual Romertopf fish baking covered ceramic baking set for $15.00. I asked the Carrie, who was running the sale
if she would take $5.00 for the fish roaster and she said, “Yes.”
It was after 3:00, so late in the day and they were
beginning to pack dome of the merchandise so I realized there was an
opportunity to buy lots of good stuff cheaply.
I next saw a French oil cloth table cloth and cotton 70” round French
table cloth still in the bag. Then I saw two hand woven Mexican square cotton
and Dacron table clothes of the kind we had purchased in Mexico that now cost more
than $30.00 after some hard bargaining and I called Suzette, who went through
all the table ware fabrics and picked out two more French Provencal napkins,
several white cotton tea towels, several vintage aprons (including a very
clever one with a butlers formal wear with long tails in black and white
printed on it and a lovely signed German bud vase hand painted with a red rose
on it. I started looking at other items
also and quickly found a hand blown signed Danish light blue glass bowl with a
lovely darker blue lip and a copper mold in the shape of a sea shell. Then I saw one of those hand painted guardian
angel tin ware wall hangings that used to be sold by Doodlets marked $12.00
hanging on the wall.
I approached
Carrie again and asked what would they take for all of the items we had
selected. She said $6.00 for the
Doodlets tin ware wall hanging and then quickly went through the other items
and came up with a total of $25.00, including my Romertopf fish roasting set. So we carried our selections to the main
sales table and she confirmed with Carrie that we were buying everything for
$25.00 and I handed the sales table attendant $25.00 in cash. We loaded our items into the back of the car
and drove toward Amy’s in amazement. I
later found that a regular Romertopf chicken ceramic roasting set sells for
$45.00 at Williams Sonoma.
Alas, a
great day of shopping.
When we
arrived at Amy’s house at 3:15 we found that the rosé was well chilled and that
Sandy and Jan had bought several wedges of cheese and some crackers at Trader
Joe’s; including a lovely semi-soft Asiago
dusted with caraway seeds. Here is some
info on Asiago cheese:
Asiago /ɑːsiˈɑːɡoʊ/ is an Italian
cow's milk cheese
that can assume different textures, according to its aging, from smooth for
the fresh Asiago (Asiago Pressato) to a crumbly texture for
the aged cheese (Asiago d'allevo) of which the flavor is reminiscent
of Parmesan.
The aged cheese is often grated in salads, soups,
pastas, and sauces while the
fresh Asiago is sliced to prepare panini
or sandwiches;
it can also be melted on a variety of dishes and cantaloupe.As Asiago has a protected designation of origin (Denominazione di Origine Protetta or DOP, see below),[1] the only "original" Asiago is produced in the alpine area of the town of Asiago, province of Vicenza, in the Veneto region. Asiago cheese is one of the most typical products of the Veneto region. It was, and still is, the most popular and widely used cheese in the DOP area where it is produced. The production area is strictly defined: it starts from the meadows of the Po Valley and finishes in the Alpine pastures between the Asiago Plateau and the Trentino's highlands. The officially designated area where the milk is collected and Asiago DOP cheese is produced, extends to four provinces in the north-east of Italy: the entire area of Vicenza and Trento and part of the provinces of Padua and Treviso. Asiago cheese which is produced and matured in dairies located more than 600 m (2,000 ft) above sea level, using milk from farms also more than 600 m (2,000 ft) above sea level, is entitled to the additional label "Product of the Mountains". Many imitations of Asiago, however, are produced elsewhere using different techniques and cultures that produce a cheese of a similar aspect but with a different taste.[citation needed]
There was also a Blended English white stilton with bits of
apricot in it.
Blended Cheese -
Also known as fruit cheese, herb cheese, cheese with bits or More
Than Just Cheese. Though we think of these as modern cheeses it is well known
that the Romans routinely blended their cheese with fruit and herbs. High
quality hard cheeses are chopped into small pieces and herbs or fruit
added and the whole mixed together before being shaped into cylinders or
blocks. Most popular examples in the UK are Wensleydale with Cranberry,
White Stilton with Apricots, Cheddar with Caramelised Onion, Double Gloucester
with Chives and Onion and Lancashire with Garlic.
We opened
the rosé wine and Suzette and Amy really liked it, although I thought it had a
fruity smooth flavor but lacked any sort of character. It was fun talking to Sandy, who is a
professional potter now, after a career of teaching math and Jan who still does
management training, who live in Laguna Beach.
I have loved Laguna Beach ever since I visited it the first time in 1969
when I worked in L.A. for a law firm in Beverly Hills for the summer. I mentioned the we had eaten at the Montage
resort and restaurant where we took the kids for dinner about ten years ago and
drank our first bottle of Savenniers.
Jan Immediately told me about the political heat that was generated by a
large resort being built in the ecologically sensitive hillside in Laguna Beach
and Sandy told us that they loved France and had spent two weeks in the small
village of Brantome in the Dordogne.
Sandy googled Brantome on his I Pad and then we googled Savenniers and
the mapping function even allowed me to show him the B &B we stayed in
Moulin de Géant in Rochefort sur Loire (http://www.france-voyage.com/chambres-hotes/chambre-maison-rochefort-sur-loire-15999.htm).
I marvel at the ability of use of the
internet to enhance one’s conversations.
Sandy and Jan are also friends with the Luxes, so we examined and discussed a number of the Luxes' pieces that Amy owned and ours with Sandy and looked at his pieces on his I pad and one in Amy's living room.
1.
Finally at 5:30
we said goodbye and drove to L’Olivier for dinner. We arrived a few minutes late and made our
apologies to the Madam at the front desk, who explained that she had called to
confirm availability at 5:30 to an earlier call from Suzette that said we would
only be two for dinner and questioned the availability of a 5:30 reservation,
which we did not receive through a mix up in telephone numbers. Anyway we were
seated at a table for two and soon were deeply engrossed in the menu. I was at first interested in the specials of
lobster salad and the cassoulet of duck and lamb. After our waiter, Anthony, introduced himself
and explained the daily specials Suzette said, Please look at the regular
menu. I can make lobster salad and the
cassoulet is simply using the day old leg of lamb that was on the menu
yesterday.” I then studied the menu more
closely and I found that there were two appetizers that we do not usually make
that I love, escargot and foie gras. The
waiter had said that the foie gras of the day was a torchon with German Black
Forest ham served with mission figs poached in red wine with toasted
brioche. The torchon was made in a
rather elaborate process including poaching the foie gras. Here it is explained by a step by step recipe
located at www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab
Foie Gras Torchon
J. Kenji
López-Alt Managing Culinary Director
[Photographs:
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]
Note: It is possible
to make this recipe using imperial measures, but I strongly recommend using
metric, as it makes figuring out how much seasoning mix to use very simple.
This recipe will make more seasoning mix than you need for one batch. I
recommend La Belle Farms foie gras, which is available online from Bella
Bella Gourmet.
About the
author: J. Kenji
Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore
the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can
follow him at @thefoodlab on
Twitter, or at The
Food Lab on Facebook.
Every recipe we
publish is tested, tasted, and Serious Eats-approved by our staff. Never miss a
recipe again by following
@SeriousRecipes on Twitter!
Foie Gras Torchon
About This Recipe
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Yield:
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Serves 10 to 16
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Active time:
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1 hour
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|
Total time:
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3 days
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|
Special equipment:
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Gram scale, cheesecloth, sushi
roller, spice grinder, kitchen twine, tweezers
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This recipe appears in:
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Ingredients
- 1 entire
Grade A or Grade B fresh foie gras, about 500 to 750 grams
- 75 grams
salt
- 25 grams
sugar
- 12.5 grams
pink curing salt (optional)
- 10 grams
white or black pepper
- 2 to 3
tablespoons brandy (such as Cognac)
Procedures
- 1
Let foie gras rest at room temperature for about 45
minutes before starting to clean. Split foie into two separate lobes with your
hands. Working one lobe at a time, using a paring knife or small offset spatula
and a pair of tweezers, carefully remove all the veins from the center of the
liver, following the
instructions in this slideshow. Discard veins and repeat with remaining
half. Return foie gras to the refrigerator.
- 2
Combine salt, sugar, curing salt, and pepper in a spice
grinder and grind into a fine powder.
- 3
Weigh foie gras, then weigh out exactly 2.5% of the foie
gras' weight in spice mixture. For example, for a 500 gram piece of foie gras,
you should have 12.5 grams of spice mixture (500 grams x 2.5%). Set aside
remaining spice mixture for future use.
- 4
Lay a triple layer of plastic wrap, 12 by 18-inches on a
cutting board. Remove foie gras from refrigerator and transfer to plastic wrap,
exterior membrane-side down. Carefully butterfly with your fingertips,
spreading the foie gras out and pushing it into shape with your hands until it
forms a rough 9- by 9-inch square of even thickness.
- 5
Place half of weighed spice mixture in a fine mesh
strainer and sprinkle evenly over top surface of foie gras. Sprinkle with half
of cognac. Lay a piece of plastic wrap on top and carefully flip. Peel of
plastic wrap from what is now the top, and sprinkle with remaining spice
mixture and cognac. Flip back over and remove top piece of plastic wrap to
expose surface again.
- 6
Slide foie with plastic on top of a bamboo sushi rolling
mat, adjusting it so the bottom edge of the foie is flush with the bottom of
the mat. Fold the trailing plastic wrap underneath. Carefully start rolling
foie, using bamboo mat to keep it nice and tight until a complete cylinder is
formed. Pull back tightly on bamboo to tighten cylinder.
- 7
Lay out a quadruple layer of cheesecloth about 16 inches
wide by 2 feet long. Roll foie gras off of plastic onto the cheesecloth a few
inches from the bottom edges. Carefully roll foie in cheesecloth, pulling back
as you go to keep it very tight and even.
- 8
Twist ends of cheesecloth and secure one side with a
short piece of twine. Secure other side with a 3-foot piece of twine. Twist
twine around end of cheesecloth to tighten the roll, making the torchon shorter
and shorter with each twist. Tighten until you see foie fat starting to leak
out around the edges of the torchon and it has the consistency of a bike tire.
Tie off cheesecloth
- 9
Hang torchon from a refrigerator rack for at least 1 day
and up to 3.
- 10
Bring a large pot of water to 160°F (bubbles should just
begin to appear on the bottom of the pan. Prepare a large ice bath. Submerge
foie torchon for 2 minutes, then transfer immediately to ice bath. You should
see little droplets of fat forming on the surface. Let rest for 10 minutes,
then transfer to a triple layer of paper towels and roll to dry carefully.
- 11
Repeat the tightening step, using more twine to twist and
shorten the ends of the torchon until the entire thing starts to show signs of
leaking fat. Hang in refrigerator for at least 1 more night and up to 3.
- 12
Slice off ends of torchon through the cheesecloth (eat
these ends for yourself), then unwrap the center portion. To serve, slice into
disks. For better presentation, use a round pastry cutter to trim oxidized
edges off of foie. Sprinkle with coarse salt, and serve with toast, preserves,
or dried fruits.
Dec 10, 2012
5:20PM
Filed Under:
About the Author
J. Kenji
López-Alt Managing Culinary Director
A
restaurant-trained chef and former Editor at Cook's Illustrated magazine, he is
the author of upcoming The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, to be
released by W. W. Norton.
He currently
resides in Harlem with his wife and dogs.
He can be
contacted at kenji@seriouseats.com
After reviewing the menu I suggested to Suzette, “Can we split the
foie gras torchon ($22.00) and the escargots served with tomatoes, spinach and sautéed
slivered almonds ($12.50) and you pick the entrée. “ Suzette obligingly said, “Yes. I will select the roasted suckling pig on
penne pasta with okra ($28.00)”.
We were next
confronted by a selection of a beverage.
We wanted a sweet wine for the foie gras, while red wine is usual drunk with escargot,
and we tentatively thought a bottle of apple cider would work well with the pork dish. But we could not agree on which wines to
order and Suzette settled the issue beautifully when she suggested that we
order a bottle of Gruet 25th Anniversary Blanc de Blanc champagne
and drink it with everything. The Gruet
was moderately priced on the wine list at $36.00.
We also agreed to pay $2.00 for
a split on the glazed suckling pig.
The meal was
amazing to say the least.
Suzette
suggested eating the escargot first, then the foie gras and finally the glazed
suckling pig
We loved the escargot with its attractive
combination of lightly sautéed spinach, fresh grape tomatoes, escargot and sautéed almond slivers served
in a small ramekin. The addition of the
sautéed almond slivers lifted the flavor of the whole dish by adding a toasted
nutty flavor to the traditional sautéed butter and garlic slices that both embraced and
transformed the otherwise mushy texture of the snails into a combination of
ingredients and textures that we loved.
Then came
the foir grass torchon, which was a ½ inch thick slice of foie gras poached
with Black Forest ham. It reminded me of
the torchon we had in France at Cheval Blanc in the Marne River Valley on our
first trip to France 17 years ago where the foie gras was poached with a fresh peach. Torchon is a lovely presentation and flavor because
it gently merges the flavors of the ingredients.
I ordered fresh bread and butter, so I could
smear the torchon on buttered bread, which I prefer as a way to eat foie
gras. I find the the toasted bread
points or, in this case, brioche usually served with this dish to be too tough
for my palate and the more tender bread and butter softer and more in keeping
with the soft texture of the foie gras.
The champagne
went well with both the escargot and the foie gras and we still had ½ bottle
after we ate the foie gras, so we decided to not order the cider.
Finally the
Glazed Suckling Pig arrived and I was a little surprised. I had forgotten that it was served over
truffle oil tossed penne and that the okra was lightly blanched. I guess I was thinking back to a Christmas party years ago where there was a whole suckling pig and it was served on massive serving platters. Instead this dish was about 1/2 pound of meat in slivers served on a mound of pasta and garnished with four or five lightly blanched halved okras. Actually, this was exactly the construction of many
dishes we make; a small portion of interestingly prepared meat, sliced and served
with a blanched vegetable with a light sauce formed when the meat is cooked. I loved it.
The au jus was flavorful and very light made from slightly thickening the
strained meat juice. The sauce had been
flavored with herbs and tasted of the meat, not unlike the Asian meat sauce
made by Devvan at the Greenhouse Bistro. The only negative about the preparation of the Suckling Pig was that the skin was not crisped. I guess the idea was to yield as much jus as possible instead of continuing to cook the pic until the skin crisped.
We tore into
the pasta dish with the gusto of peasants, which is probably exactly the way it was
intended to be eaten, spearing bits of firm okra with a bit of pork and a penne and then following each bite with a sip of water or champagne.
We loved each
of the dishes; the escargot for its creative combination of ingredients melded
together, the beautifully prepared and presented foie gras torchon for its classical
elegance and the Glazed suckling pig for its immediate freshness and simplicity
of ingredients and flavors. Sometimes I
get a little tired of the complexity and elaboration of Classical French food,
when in the right hands it can be a simple combination of fresh ingredients
cooked in a pleasing manner. I would
judge our dinner to be a explication of three different approaches to French
food. The Escargot was an example of a traditional
ingredient combined in a creative combination with interesting ingredients and
textures.
The foie gras was an example
of classical French Haute Cuisine at its best. And the Glazed Suckling Pig was an example of
what I consider one of the best characteristics of French Cuisine; creating an
attractive combination of the freshest ingredients with a flavorful sauce fused
from the natural by-product of the cooking process (the meat juices) with the
richness of herbs and truffle flavor lightly reduced into a natural sauce. The pasta was not only the palate on which the
combination was presented, but became a part of the dish as the sauce mixed
with it. There was a lot of sauce it
seemed but by the end of the eating the dish I was able to only dab of sauce left
to soak onto bits of fresh bread. And
the bottle of champagne lasted to the end of the meal also.
 |
| A view of the bar and our waiter from our table |
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| The escargot appetizer |
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| The torchon, toasted brioche and mission figs cooked in red wine |
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| The torchon appears to be flavored with black truffle |
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| torchon and mission fig on a piece of buttered bread |
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| The suckling pig on pasta with okra au jus |
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| The other plate of pig |
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| The end of a lovely meal |
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| The Dessert Menu |
Bon Appétit
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