salvaging the rewards of a hard-fought season

It was only a matter of time. Friends had warned me of these backyard bandits. For some strange reason I believed I would be immune to them. My secret garden would be impenetrable. There was no way they would make off with my shimmering emerald, citrine, and ruby jewels. And then one day it happened. The clusters of San Marzanos, just ripened Italian fruit, were gone. A few other plump, juicy heirlooms were freshly gouged — sweet tangy juice still dripping from open flesh. Yes, the critters had invaded, and they would be back for more.

I couldn’t believe it. After months of digging, preparing the soil, nuturing seed to seedling to overgrown jungle, and hours of watering, staking, and pruning. The raccoons and opposums had snuck in and pillaged my tomato village. It wasn’t bad enough that they would sit in my orange tree late at night and hollow out orange after orange, leaving empty rind shells behind on the lawn. They had to come after my prized summer fruit. I had encountered these intruders a handful of times before. Loud rustling in the bushes at ungodly hours (they were actually rummaging through the compost pile). Glowing eyes prowling the patio outside. I once had managed to thwart a single raccoon attack by desparately tossing whatever I could find at the masked bandit (which happened to be some pennies sitting on my nightstand). Though I had won that battle, I knew I wouldn’t win this war.

Short of enclosing everything in chicken wire, there would be no way I could keep them from enjoying the all-you-can-eat tomato smörgåsbord. My only saving grace, is that these animals are smart enough to only eat ripe fruit. Since indeterminate tomatoes flower throughout the season, staggering the maturation of the crop, I could possibly pick the ripe ones before the critters returned. I can only hope. The tomatoes above were picked this past weekend, and some of them were enjoyed sliced and dressed simply with sea salt, cracked pepper, and good olive oil, and topped with luscious milky slices of real buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil from the garden. Oh boy. Let’s just say the plate was cleared in an instant, with big silly grins on our faces.

I still have a few ideas for the remaining tomatoes, so stay tuned!

I saw this post about summer fest on mattbites, so I thought I would join in on the fun. If you’re a fan of Japanese food, shiso needs no introduction. It’s unique flavor and floral aroma I find, tastes like mint, basil, fennel, cilantro all rolled into one. Shiso is commonly served with sashimi and sometimes tucked under nigiri like ika (squid sushi). Chiffonade of the herb tops rice bowls, salads, and pastas. The leaves can be found in Japanese and Korean markets, and is also refered to as ohba (the term used when accompanied with raw fish), perilla, or Japanese beefsteak plant. I found shiso seeds a few years back at my local Armstrong Garden Center (to my surprise). Shiso grows extremely well in hot climates, and will tower about 3 to 4 feet high with its frangrant fringed-edged leaves. I’ve grown shiso for the past 2-3 years, and it usually ends up serving no purpose besides adding some nice greenery to the garden. So this year I decided to make better use of this quite awesome herb. My plants this year were overshadowed by the crazy mess of a tomato patch, which has taken over the whole space (and then some). Fortunately, the shiso still managed to produce some usable leaves.

shiso plant; basil blossoms; dill flowers

One of my favorite uses for shiso is for grilling. The herb imparts a subtle perfume and herbaceous quality when wrapped around meat and grilled. Shin Sen Gumi (the local yakitori shop) marries shiso beautifully with pork belly. The pork belly in this case,  is wrapped around the shiso, possibly to protect the herb from the intense heat of the robata grill. When skewered and grilled over Japanese oak charcoal (binchotan), it’s just sublime.

Another regular order for me while getting yakitori is tori no tsukune, or grilled chicken meatballs. Torehei in Torrance makes a killer one. Their version utilizes jidori (free range) chicken, and while softer in texture to most I’ve sampled, they include bits of cartilage that adds a nice crunchy contrast. Though I doubt shiso is commonly used in the meatballs (maybe it is? I don’t know), I decided it would be a nice touch.

soaking kushi in water; hida konro and binchotan; mix for tori no tsukune; chiffonade

So I headed off to Marukai in Gardena to get some goodies in order to make these two dishes. Like a kid in a candy store, I got a little carried away. I came home with all the ingredients, plus a mini hida konro (Japanese charcoal grill), binchotan, and the same cute bamboo skewers (kushi) they use in the restaurant!

pork belly and shiso; grilling on the hida konro; tori no tsukune on the weber

The pork belly and shiso was fairly straightforward. Just wrap and skewer. The tori no tsukune recipe I found from Tess’ blog (Thank you, Tess!). The little grill as you can see from its size, isn’t going to cut it for more than one person (I couldn’t part with the $50 required for the larger one. This cheap one was only $8.)  But it was fun playing with it, and boy for its size, the grill and the Japanese charcoal puts out tons of heat! While we persevered and cooked the pork belly on the ‘lil grill that could’, I put the meatballs on the trusty gas Weber.

Well, I’m happy to report that the Japanese grilling slash shiso experiment came out great. The pork belly was just as good as the restaurant version, and the tori no tsukune was quite good as well. I probably could have cooked the chicken a bit less, but for the first time I erred on the side of caution. They were delicious nonetheless.  All these two needed was a nice cold Sapporo (which we had) and all was good.

I must say that it’s been quite a hectic year. Buying my first home, jumping in for the first time in the midst of a crisis, tearing apart my new purchase, struggling with contractors, meticulously scrutinizing every detail of my dream kitchen (albeit a small one), moving, welcoming new additions to the family, and saying goodbye to precious ones, settling in, unpacking, furnishing, making my house a home. All the while, good friends and loved ones were there every step of the way, and to them I say thanks.

Since the dust has finally cleared, I’ve been trying to get back to business. Getting in the the kitchen, familiarizing myself with a new space and toys (appliances), reacquainting myself with basic skills, senses of touch and smell, taste, dexterity, and timing, after what seems like an absence of almost a year. One word: rusty. It feels good though. Like the first workout or run after the holiday eating season. Hurts like hell at first, but so exhilarating afterward. My design and programming skills also got a thorough workout recently, and after many late nights of wrestling with CSS and PHP, I’m proud to say I finally have a collective space to store my thoughts and images, and a reason to get back in the kitchen and behind the lens.

I knew all along that for my first entry, I wanted to do something with ice cream. Nothing says comfort like a warm dessert with a scoop or two of that cool, luscious, frozen treat. I originally planned to make an apple nougatine tart from the Tartine cookbook, but after a miserably botched attempt at making flaky pie dough which sent me whimpering with my tail between my legs, I settled on something a little more approachable to ease myself back into cooking (or baking in this case).

This past weekend I dined at the wonderful Church & State in downtown LA, and fell in love with their strawberry rhubarb crisp. Already bowled over by a delicious meal, good wine and conversation with friends, the understated offerings on the dessert display table barely perked an interest amongst those at our table. The last second decision to order a pair of desserts was a well-made one, as the simple crisp was an unexpected surprise. Sweet, tart, crunchy, gooey, hot, and cold. Obviously the combination of strawberry and rhubarb is nothing new, but delightful for someone who always thought the strange looking red vegetable would taste somewhat like celery. I sought out to recreate this dessert at home.

A weekend visit to the local farmers’ market yielded beautiful, ruby gems of strawberries, but no rhubarb (this novice didn’t know rhubarb doesn’t do well in the hot summer months and therefore isn’t available). So I ended up making the crisp with strawberries alone; the rhubarb will have to wait until next year. Though the resulting crisp was good, singing with floral notes of summer, it lacked the structure those crimson stalks would have brought to the table. I do have to say that the vanilla bean gelato I churned up a few days ago in anticipation of the pairing was sinfully rich, dense, and creamy, like a tall glass of cold milk. And when added generously to the dish, delicious. Because you know, everything tastes better with ice cream.