Bistro Jeanty

Twenty four hours ago I was ordering dessert in Napa Valley at Bistro Jeanty. I decided it would be my last meal in Napa Valley and so I perched myself at the bar at around 7:00 and settled in for one last taste of amazing food before I headed for home. I knew it would be a good night as soon as I walked in the door. I put myself in the hands of Bob the bartender, who poured me some Chimay that was on tap, and told him that I wanted to have the best on the menu and eat things that I could never find back home.

I was thinking about trying the pork belly with foie gras and a lentil ragout or a salad of smoked salmon. He steered me towards the pork belly telling me that if for any reason I didn't like it, he would buy it and eat it for dinner himself.

He could tell by the smile that lit up my face when I took my first bite that he wouldn't need to be buying. I savored every bite, lapping up the juices in the bottom of the bowl with slices of baguette. Bob and I talked a little bit--he was the perfect bartender, talking when he sensed I was chatty and letting me enjoy my meal in peace while I was eating. When you have a good waiter or bartender you realize that they are hard to come by and Bob was great--and he was from Kalamazoo too. He moved out to California after several years in Chicago to get away from the cold and hasn't looked back.


I struck up a conversation with a couple sitting next to me who were up for the week from San Francisco house sitting for some friends. They had been to the Bistro several times and made some suggestions for the main course. I decided on trying something that most people probably wouldn't find appealing. I had read about it so much and since it was on the menu, I just needed to try it: bone marrow. (Yum, right?) The French bistro's history stems from farmhouse cooking in France where anything that could be cooked was never wasted, like bone marrow or pig's feet. That was another option on the menu that I couldn't bring myself to try this time around, but maybe next year.

The bone marrow is slow roasted and you spoon it out onto little pieces of baguette toasts, dipping everything in au jus (that was the best I've ever tasted!). It was a decadently rich meal, though I don't think I'll have it again. I needed to try it and since it was available I pulled the trigger. I had it with some spinach beurre blanc that was fantastic--nothing like spinach from the Jolly Green Giant!

By this time the couple next to me and I had been enjoying some good conversation. Since they only needed to walk home, they were feeling pretty happy. I was content with my two Chimay beers, but I was ready for dessert. Looking at the menu I decided I would try the Tarte Tatin, served with creme fraiche on the side.

I had looked with envy at the Calvados selection at Bouchon a year ago as well as at Dean & Deluca this year, and so I decided that some good French apple brandy would be the perfect accompaniment to the Tarte Tatin and I was right--it was fantastic, and better than the Calvados I get here at home. I think next year I'll stock up and bring a bottle home with me instead of wine.

I finished dessert almost exactly 24 hours ago. It's quarter to 12 here and at 9:00 last night I had paid my bill, said farewell to my new friends and headed for home with a full stomach.

Napa does something for me--it injects me with a renewed passion for food and ideas about pursuing a career in food. It shows me the possibilities for excellence that exist and it gives me the awareness that few people pursue the kind of level that exists in Napa. After a brief nap tonight, I found myself lying awake thinking about my trip and about all kinds of possibilities. I go to Napa to eat, to try great food, great chocolate, great pastries and bread of all kinds and to learn about wine. I eat at the kind of restaurants that don't exist anywhere near where I live--one needs to go to Chicago to eat this kind of food. The best meal I've had here doesn't compare by any stretch of the imagination to what I've had in Napa.

When I touched down in Detroit I saw that there was a chocolate company from Royal Oak that has a shop in the airport. I tried their chocolate. I had sampled chocolate a few times from Woodhouse Chocolates in Napa while I was there. How can I describe the difference most effectively? It's like Madam Tussaud's version of history--it's Epcot Center's version of France. The chocolates I had in Detroit were certainly tasty, but most people haven't had the opportunity to try GREAT chocolates, so they don't know what's possible. And here's the thing: this person has a career making chocolates that are certainly good, but not anywhere near great.

I keep thinking about the Farmer's Market. I think if I were to open a stall there sometime, as I've thought about doing, I believe I'd do well. I think most people don't know what is possible, and they don't expect anything above what's readily available, simply because they don't know. And because of the way I'm wired, I wouldn't sell anything that I didn't think was the best I could do and I'd love to hand them a sample and say, "Here--try this."

Over time, I've discovered that I enjoy the pursuit of perfection and excellence. I don't enjoy the background stuff of working on a house remodel, but give me spackling compound and sandpaper and I'll work for hours making something look perfect. I believe it's how I was made. I think I could do well at food, but the problem for me would be all of the background stuff--the bare bones structure that makes a business flourish. All I know is that I think that if I were to actually buckle down and pursue something in the food field, I'd flourish and enjoy making people happy by giving them great food.

I don't really know what to do with this passion or this belief, but what I do know is that I want to do something with it. I love pursuing perfection, and Napa is all about that, and I'd love to do that here.

Even though I'm tired from my trip, my brain's in over drive. I think it's going to have to be an Ambien night.

Dinner Tonight

You gotta love salmon, right? I was at one of my favorite places in town, a great grocery story that recently came to town called the Fresh Market. It's sort of in the Trader Joe's/Whole Foods Market camp of grocery stores. Bottom line it's a food lovers paradise. I walked in there this afternoon and unconsciously started humming, a surefire sign that I'm having a good old time.

I hadn't planned to buy dinner there, but then I saw some wild Alaskan salmon on sale that was calling out to be in my belly. I've made salmon with a lemon/thyme cream sauce a couple of times before and I think it's delicious, so I decided to buy some and try it again. Since they have Meyer lemons, I knew dinner would be even tastier than before. I also bought the shallots and fresh thyme the recipe calls for, and everything else I needed beyond that were things I had at home already: white wine, cream and butter.

I find as written the recipe is a bit too tart for my taste. It calls for a dry white wine and I think a sweeter wine, like a Riesling, would be much better. It also calls for a tablespoon of white wine vinegar--that's a lot of acidity, especially when it gets reduced down and concentrated. When you add the lemon juice it takes it even further into the acid range, which I feel is a mistake. I had to add a bit of sugar to tame down the acidity and balance out the flavors, along with a bit more cream to help mellow things down. (For next time, I need to remember that I should use some lemon zest instead of the white wine vinegar. That will bring lemon flavor without bringing an overwhelming tartness.)

This is all I can say: it was lick-the-plate-clean tasty. I do love to cook, and a good meal is hard to beat in my book. Life was very good tonight.

Fun In the Kitchen

I really enjoy cooking with cider. A month or so ago, I brined some pork tenderloins in a mixture with cider as its base and put a couple of them in the freezer surrounded by the brine. A few weeks ago I thawed one out and decided to experiment. I bought a skillet that can go in the oven at that time (the first time I've ever owned one) and so I decided to start out on top of the stove. I put a great dry rub on the pork and then browned it all over in some olive oil. I looked around my kitchen to see what I had that might work well and so I added some sliced red onions and the surprise ingredient: some orange slices.

Once everything was nicely browned, I added the cider brine to the pan and then popped it in the oven for about 20 minutes or so. I then pulled it out, removed the pork and then boiled the remaining liquid down until it was reduced to a thick syrup. I strained out the onions and the orange slices then put the liquid back in the pan. I added some more cider, some cream, some spicy ground mustard, a couple tablespoons of butter, a squeeze of orange juice, a dash of apple brandy and let it simmer until it was nicely thickened. I sliced the tenderloin and poured some sauce over top and was grinning from ear to ear from how tasty it was. I think it's the best improvisation I've ever come up with, and so I tried to recreate it last night. I've decided it's my signature dish. It's got one of those sauces that you want to lick clean. I derive a lot of pleasure from whipping up something tasty from the top of my head like this. It's a good diversion from thinking about a certain woman.

Pork Tenderloin

I really am finding that the one place where I can be happiest these days is in the kitchen, creating something new. It's the one area right now where I can get so caught up in the creative process that I can momentarily forget about everything else. I believe that when we're going through something difficult, hobbies and interests can be a gift to us since they help ameliorate the pain we might be going through without resorting to something that is self-destructive or a historic crutch we've clung to in the past. I suspect that for awhile, the only non-depressing posts in my blog will be related to food, so I'll try to keep a smattering of these throughout my entries.

Because it's fall, I really like cooking with apple cider. I bought some pork tenderloins the other day from Costco and since brining's on my mind, I put them in a brine with about a half gallon apple cider, a half gallon of water, a cup of salt, 1/2 cup of smashed garlic cloves, a bunch of fresh thyme, about a dozen bay leaves and a couple tablespoons of peppercorns. It's a modified recipe I use from Thomas Keller's Bouchon Cookbook.

I popped the pork in the brine before I left for work yesterday and let the brine work it's magic. A brine is much more than marinating. With the large amounts of salt included in a brine, a chemical imbalance is created between the moisture in the meat and the high salinity of the brine liquid. The imbalance forces the salted water into the pores of the meat, bringing with it all the flavor you've introduced into your brine. Given enough time, the flavors will permeate the meat and also make the meat much more moist when it's done cooking. That's why people recommend brining turkeys at Thanksgiving. In this case, six hours was enough time and so when I got home, I fired up the grill and then made a dry rub to put on the pork. I started with some paprika, then added some ancho chili powder, some chipotle powder, a little smoked paprika, a boatload of cracked black pepper, kosher salt, then some dried onion and garlic, a little ground mustard, thyme, dried sage and the surprise ingredient that took it to a different level, and made it very tasty: about a teaspoon of cinnamon. This rub is a keeper and I'm going to try it again and actually come up with measurements so I can have a recipe for it when I need it.

I rubbed that all over the tenderloin, oiled the grill and got it grilling. I saw that it was getting a little more charred than I hoped, so I bopped into the kitchen and mixed up a little quick sauce with apple cider and a lot of spicy ground mustard. I threw a bit of my spice mixture in for good measure, and then added some oil. I started basting the pork with the sauce until it was done.

It was tasty, and one of the easiest meals in the world! This one's a keeper, and it made me happy. When I grin from ear to ear with the first bite, it doesn't matter what cards life deals me--I forget about anything but the food. This is a recipe I'm going to try and recreate sometime, and the addition of the apple cider mustard sauce made it better, so I'm keeping that one. Besides the pork, I fixed a little broccoli to go alongside which made for a happy camper.

I grilled two tenderloins last night which will be dinner for the rest of the week. I had two others that were in the brine. I put them each in a ziploc bag, covered them completely with cider, and placed them in the freezer. I think when I pull them out in about a month or so they're going to be even tastier.

Summer Living

This was dinner tonight. I love this time of year--produce is bountiful, whether it comes from my own garden or from someone else's. I bought the zucchini and squash at the farmer's market, and grilling is always my favorite choice for them. I like to cut them on the bias, and then just pour olive oil, salt, pepper and whatever seasoning sounds good. Tonight it was a Mexican seasoning that I picked up a couple of days ago called Adobo. I highly recommend it, and I think this will be my go-to seasoning for awhile.

My tomatoes are starting to come in, and I have more basil than I know what to do with. I decided to make the traditional salad of tomatoes, basil, olive oil, salt and black pepper, but instead of mozzarella, I used queso fresca, which is a terrific cheese. It's a traditional Mexican cheese that crumbles nicely, and has a creamy and salty flavor. I like it just as much as fresh mozzarella.

I wasn't sure what the main dish would be, so I popped my head in the freezer, and saw that I had some frozen ahi tuna steaks. I had a eureka moment, since I had a few oranges floating around from test baking my pumpkin cake (which uses orange zest). I made a simple marinade for the tuna: orange juice, soy sauce and a little rice wine vinegar to give it a clean, bright flavor. I've used a variation of this marinade for about a year or two, and I love it. I usually add some ground mustard or ginger, but I think I've moved on from that. I like how clean and fresh this was with only the three ingredients. I let it marinate for about a half hour, and then dug out some black poppy seeds to line the edges of the tuna steaks. That adds a really nice crunch to the tuna that I enjoy quite a bit. The dipping sauce is made just like the marinade, and man, it's tasty!

I think this has to be one of my favorite meals, one I'll be making for years to come. And I happen to think it would be a meal that would impress a date. I just gotta find one.