CocoGarcia

Tara's Raw Salad Gift

In roughly equal amounts as the crow flies and coarsely chopped; parboiled kale, tomato, red bell pepper, corn off the cob, cooked cannelli beans, 2 green onions, 3 cloves garlic.  Dress with olive oil, lemon, salt and cajun seasoning or pepper.  Serves 2.  Scrumptious!  My dear friend Tara surprised me with these ingredients, gave directions on how to prepare this salad and left me to my own devices.  What a gift on a late Sunday afternoon!  Perfect with opa cooked on the grill atop a cedar plank.  The last days of summer live on.

Delicious Ways to Love Downtown LA

How exciting this morning to find my current favorite downtown LA restaurant Church & State reviewed in the NY Times Travel Section along with enticing recommendations on four more; Lazy Ox Canteen, WP24, Rivera and Starry Kitchen.  As hard as it will be to stray from Church & State, I'm now on a mission to branch out and hit all these new opportunities.  Lunch anyone?  How about it?

TC Farmer's Market Duck Eggs for Breakfast

This morning Karen scrambled enormous fresh duck eggs from the Traverse City Farmer's Market and served them over toasted buttered artisan rye bread as we buzzed about the movies.  Our commentary has been deliciously accompanied by bounty from the local summer harvest.  Yesterday  between showings we poured warm al dente whole grain pasta on fresh tomatoes chopped up with garlic, basil, olive oil and lemon.  Popping tart local cherries enroute, we rushed to an evening showing of Infidel after an afternoon showing of Please Give.  Topped off with late night vanilla ice cream garnished with ripe fresh local peaches.  Earlier in the week we saw Nowhere Boy and Tiny Furniture with steak, fresh corn and salad in between.  All of this heavily seasoned with dearly beloved friends, much laughter and love.  Today we frolick outdoors and hit a local eatery.  Tomorrow we're back in theatre for the Cuban baseball documentary Dreaming in Blue at high noon and Heartbreaker at night, with more lake lounging and eating in between.  Sunday we'll close the festival with the documentary 11-4-08 on Obama's election.  Food for heart and soul.

 

 

Happy Mother's Day!

My hands are redolent with the sweet fragrance of farmer's market greens and flowers.  Dill, sweet pea, garlic, curly kale.  My mind dances with how to prepare the succulent game hens I found on this morning's foraging expedition.  Flatten, brown stove top then sear them in the oven at high heat for about 12 minutes and accompany them with fava beans ever so lightly scented with garlic and saffron?  Served on the freshest green salad imaginable since I just spent an hour washing and separating them from their critters. 
Topped off with ripe strawberries and an evanescent slice of sweet potato pie?  Sounds worthy of Mother's Day to me!  Meanwhile my dear visiting friend Teri recovers from our morning expedition and prepares for our repast with a nap on her favorite couch, the one she has always said would mother us through this life.  And so it is. 

A Perfect Margarita Surprise

Lunch this week with a dear friend at Church & State in the very funky downtown LA garment district deliciously reminded me of what's important in life.  Friendship coupled with good food and a healthy dose of fun goes such a long way.  So does a killer margarita at the end of the day.  We need more surprises!

The Perfect Margarita

In a pitcher mix equal parts of just 3 things, start with one cup of each...Silver or gold tequila, Freshly squeezed lime juice, and Triple Sec for an austere margarita or Cointreau for a sweeter one.  Serve on the rocks accompanied by chips, salsa and guacamole.  An added benefit?  Dinner may become unnecessary!

My New Favorite Chocolate Cake!

When I quickly repeat a recipe without even thinking about it, I know I've found a winner.  Chocolate Buttermilk Sheet Cake with Chocolate Glaze from A Place at the Table is in my top ten these days.  Dorothy gave me the Immaculate Heart Center for Spiritual Renewal cookbook and I baked from it for her birthday as an experiment.  Can you tell I like danger, trying a new recipe for a meal I'm gifting?  Love that edge!  And today I'm making it again for a gathering of friends.  While it calls itself a sheet cake, I chose to bake it in a large round 10.5" spring mold so it looks more like a torte.  Either way, it's delicious.

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake with Chocolate Glaze

CAKE

Combine in a large mixing bowl 1&3/4 C sugar, 2 C flour, 1/2 t salt, 1t cinnamon, 1 t baking soda.

In saucepan melt 8oz unsalted butter, add 5 T cocoa, 1 C water and whisk to mix.  Remove from heat and combine with dry cake ingredients above.

Add 1/2 t vanilla extract, 1t almond extract, 2 lightly beaten eggs and 1/2 C buttermilk.

Pour batter into generously buttered baking sheet or large round spring mold.  Bake 15-20 minutes til an inserted toothpick at center comes out clean and cake springs back to gentle touch.  Cool and unmold.

GLAZE

Sift 3.5C powdered sugar and set aside.

Melt 4oz butter with 5T milk, 5T cocoa SIFTED, pinch of salt.  Remove from heat and add 1t almond extract and 3.5C powdered sugar SIFTED.

Toast 1C sliced almonds and sprinkle on top.

If exuberant, adorn with a flower!

Lunch by Celebrity Chef Tara

 

How lucky am I?  A dear friend arrives at the door with a basket of goodies and creates an amazing lunch for four in under an hour.  Kabocha squash halved, seeded and placed upside down in a cast iron skillet to roast in a 450 degree oven for 30 minutes, served as is to butter, salt and pepper at the table.  Boneless chicken thighs, salt and peppered before cooking and sauteed for about 20 minutes in equal parts of olive oil and butter.  (There's a reason my mother's family refers to chicken thighs as "el filete de la gallina."  They are the tenderest juiciest cut.)  Beet greens sauteed quickly in a splash of olive oil then dressed lightly with toasted sesame oil and gomasio.  Gomasio was new to me, a seasoning mix of sesame seeds, salt and seaweed.  Delicious with the strongly flavored beet greens.  Quinoa cooked in about 15 minutes like brown rice with 1c grain to 2c water then while warm folding in a cup of broken pecans and dried cranberries.  Yum!  Four dear ones around my small round table with this feast in serving dishes so we really appreciate the bounty.  Bright orange squash, dark green beet greens, browned chicken, and quinoa pilaf.  Lunch, our enjoyment and the afterglow lasted for hours.  Thank you Tara!

 
 

Malfatti for Dinner Last Night

Ingredients: 1 lb ricotta cheese drained in cheesecloth overnight in fridge (or as is in a pinch), Four bunches of swiss chard, 4 ounces of melted butter,  1/4 cup flour, 1/2 tsp fresh nutmeg, 1 whole egg and 4 egg yolks, kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, additional flour for coating, 4 more ounces of melted butter, 24 sage leaves or dry sage in a pinch, parmesan cheese for serving.

1. Strip chard of stalks and large veins, plunge in boiling water for 3 minutes, drain and then plunge in ice water to cool.  Drain well, squeeze the chard dry with your hands then with a tea towel and again with your hands.  Lose as much water as possible.  Chop the chard fine in a food processor or by hand.  Dry again if necessary.  You end up with about a cup of finely chopped very dry chard.  Use it all!

2. In a large bowl mix chard, ricotta, 4 oz melted butter, 1/4 cup flour, 1 heaping tsp salt and nutmeg.  Drop in eggs.  Season with salt and pepper.  Shape mix into 25-30 small balls the size of a large tablespoon and place on a floured surface.

3. Put a tsp of flour into a narrow wineglass.  Drop a ball in an swirl until it forms an oval.  Add flour and change glasses as needed.  Malfatti may be frozen at this point.  I have 12 in the freezer for somebody's lucky night coming soon.

4. Bring pot of salted water to a boil and drop malfatti in and cook til they float, 8-10 minutes.

5. Melt 4 ounces of butter in a pan til bubbling, add sage and cook about 30 seconds.  Season with salt.

6. Drain malfatti and place on plates, 4-6 gnocchi per person.  Spoon on butter and sage.  Grate parmesan over each plate.

And enter the kingdom of heaven!  Almost flourless nude pasta!  Simply divine.  For more guidance visit the restaurant Girasole on Larchmont in Los Angeles for their spinach gnocchi version.  It is so good I always read fellow diners the riot act.  Order your own piece of heaven or now, make it at home.  Messing up the kitchen will never feel so worthwhile.

Christmas Eve's Eve

Life is full of surprises these days.  Suddenly I am home concocting last minute plans for Christmas Eve.  At the eleventh hour we are home for Christmas for the first time in years.  Excruciating nerve pain shooting down my left shoulder and arm put an unexpected halt to all holiday travel.  So today, while biding time til this afternoon's neck injection at the neurosurgeon, I'm preparing for a lovely Christmas Eve dinner at home.  Dungeness crab steamed, cracked and cleaned from our local fish market served with warm lemon butter.  Risi e Bisi, my favorite rissotto with peas and parmesan.  Chilled champagne and Spanish natillas for desert.  Heartwarming food celebrating one of my favorite nights of the year.  Because we are home I get to do exactly what I like without accommodation.  As a young girl I came to love Christmas Eve best of all holidays.  There was something about the tropical night air at this time of year, the festiveness of midnight mass, people in the streets, the late night meal, sparkling lights, music and rejoicing everywhere.  It is a time of year when lovely memories float up in my consciousness and warm my soul.  Natillas always remind me of the many flans and custards of my childhood and of my great-aunt Pilar who for years ate custard as her evening meal.  The first time I encountered Risi e Bisi it was served to me as a main course at Harry's Bar in Venice on a warm dinner plate by a handsome Italian waiter who flattened it as one would for a child to cover the entire plate's circumference.  It was accompanied by possibly my first taste of Venetian Prosecco.  That dining room was magical and the tasty dish beyond belief.  The Dungeness crab and crisp romaine salad are foodie legacies from an old  friend.  Most of my memories are attached at the root to food.  This Christmas Eve will be no exception.

 

Summer Tomatoes Just in from the Garden

Bursting with flavor they are, my mystery summer tomatoes, a gift from our friend Marie.  Months ago she surprised us with these heirloom plants and we gave them a home in our front garden.  Today for lunch we enjoyed them in a Caprese Salad served on a bed of crisp romaine.  Delicious!  Pair fresh buffalo mozzarella with summer tomatoes in roughly equal amounts, add a splash of olive oil and lemon juice, rock salt, coarse pepper, ample chopped fresh basil.  Mix, chill, serve and enjoy.  Summer just doesn't get any better than this!