Posted on

Paso Robles and the Central Coast of California

Here’s a contender for ‘Best Road Trip Ever.”

The courtyard area of Hotel Cheval

It’s starts in Silicon Valley, goes south on Hwy. 101 to Paso Robles, then over to the coast on Hwy. 46 to Cambria, then north on Hwy. 1 through Big Sur and into Carmel. It’s that beautiful and varied, from the ranchlands and vineyards of interior California to the sea… just gorgeous. Everyone should be able to do this drive at least once in their lifetime.

Paso Robles should not be confused with Central California. Paso’s valley – indeed the 101 valley, includes the famed Salinas Valley in Monterey County that is north of Paso. The St. Lucia (coastal) mountains separate the coast from this valley on the west, and to the east is another range of low-lying mountains – I’ll have to look it up but I think it is called the Diablo Range, and east of that is the Central Valley.

Without explaining our business in Paso for now, I can tell you that the food scene is alive and well there. Our timing was off to try the best know restaurant in Paso Robles – Bistro Laurent, which was the first high-end restaurant to open in Paso Robles years ago when the region’s wine country began to be recognized for what it is – one of the best places to grow grapes and make wine in the world. So revered is Bistro Laurent’s reputation (French-inspired cuisine) that even though we didn’t try a morsel of Chef Laurent’s food, it deserves to be mentioned here. We were there on Sunday and Monday nights and the brick-building restaurant on the southwest corner of the square is open Tuesdays through Saturdays.

We arrived in Paso shortly after 1 pm on the Sunday in which the NBA Final Game 7 was to be played, starting around 5 pm. We spent the afternoon touring the local real estate market with a delightful Realtor originally from Pittsburgh PA, Wendy. It was 100 degrees and by the time we got to our hotel – the unbelievably perfect Hotel Cheval (in so many ways!), we were dying for cool showers and to get out of sweat-soaked clothes we worn looking at real estate. We watched the first half of the game wrapped in bath towels while the AC brought our temperatures down. We watched the second half of the game in the hotel bar sipping lightly chilled Rose with a few other guests. When the Warriors completed their historic collapse by losing the last three games of a final (a first!) and the Cleveland Cavaliers were crowned champions, it was dinnertime. While I nonchalantly proclaimed “it’s only a game,” inside I was deeply disappointed with the outcome of the series. And thirsty for a real cocktail.

We stopped at a bar on the way to Artisan where I knocked back a couple of double vodka sodas on ice.

So despondent was I actually from our team blowing the championship that I uncharacteristically lost my appetite. Not completely, but mostly. Over the years there been have championship series’ that I got passionate about – some of the epic Lakers-Celtics series in the 1980s, a Super Bowl here and there, the 2004 World Series when Boston ended Beantown’s 86-year drought.

At Artisan, she ordered the Hangar Steak with potatoes and bone marrow jus. We shared a green salad with local cheddar (light, somewhat creamy for a cheddar, delicious), honey mustard and oddly, a granola topping (but it worked, for texture). All I had was a simple small plate – Dungeness crab slider with pancetta and quail egg. The bread was an English muffin made at the restaurant, a very good call as the bread was sturdy enough to hold the moist ingredients together without a bunch of bread getting in the way of the featured ingredient, crab (which I was remiss in not asking where the crustacean was nabbed from the sea). The pancetta gave the pure, shredded and lightly seasoned crab meat with just enough of an accent flavor and the quail egg gave the sandwich a decadence as well as richness and subtle moisture without using mayonnaise. It was a great start to a superb week of eating.

The Hatch

The Hatch Rotisserie & Bar

Wendy the Realtor had recommended The Hatch Rotisserie & Bar and when we asked people at the hotel about it, they heartily reinforced Wendy’s recommendation. We went there on a Monday night after 5 hours of wine country touring and tasting at four wineries in 100 degree weather (not recommended!). In between the splendid afternoon and dinner, however, we took cool showers and a three hour nap at the Hotel Cheval. We arrived at The Hatch hungry.

For starters we shared the Grilled Caesar and Pork Belly, the latter of which was glazed with a blackberry “mostarda” whatever that is and it was yummy. For entre we shared another starter, the Cold Beans salad with Haricot verts, wax beans, roasted shallot vinaigrette, fennel, cucumber and parmesan. I rarely leave unfinished food at a restaurant but both salads were huge and I could not finish it. For protein, while the lady had seriously eyed the Farro & Roasted vegetables with Heirloom farro, burrata, sweet peppers, asparagus and fava beans with lemon vinaigrette, we settled on their roast chicken. The nameplate at the door does include the word rotisserie, after all.

The chicken was very good and served with house-made buttermilk dip and hot sauce, a good thing because the breast was dry. We make such good chicken at home (read the next blog, please), particularly whole-roasted bird, that we rarely order chicken out. Yet these days we’re trying to cut back on the beef and knowing that we were heading to the coast the next day for three nights and would likely eat from the sea mostly, we went for the chicken. I contend that no one can perfectly cook the breasts and the thighs in one dish. When I make roasted chicken, I remove the bird from the oven, cut away the thighs and legs and finish them in the oven while the body of the bird with all the white meat and wings rests before carving. That’s that.

I would still go to The Hatch again when in Paso Robles and highly recommend it. I didn’t get the chef’s name but looking at the menu now online and having been there and seen it (marvelous interior – brick wall, clean, simple, good lighting, and great wine list), you can tell that they get it and make good food. Some of the items I would have liked to have tried include Shrimp & Grits (with a smoked sausage side option), Harissa-Rubbed Tri Tip, Ramen with house-made Miso Broth, and the Crawfish Boil. We left Paso Robles after shopping at the local Walmart for me to buy some tank tops. I had not brought any from home and had not anticipated the blistering heat. It was 102 when we left Paso around 1 pm and the temperature would rise another couple degrees before it started tapering for the day. An hour later we were walking the tourist strip of Morro Bay in marine-shielded sun and a lovely 68 degrees. We popped into a forgettable restaurant for large, cold Sapporo beers and a side order of fried calamari. Before heading north for Cambria we drove over to the base of the Rock. If you’ve never been, it’s impressive, as if a giant rock fell out of the sky one day and happened to land on an otherwise flat beach. I am sure geologists have a logical explanation for this:

At the beach there was a warning sign about the rough surf and tides that is a classic: “Drowning is an once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

In Cambria we settled into our OK lodging for the next few days, El Colibri. It is on Moonstone Beach which further north has many smaller places of lodging and a few restaurants with ocean views. This section of town has a boardwalk that parallels the road (which in turn parallels the 101) and the boardwalk meanders along the cliff that is a few hundred feet above a rough and hardly trammeled beach. I took off on the mile or two walk to the end of Moonstone Beach to have some cocktails while the lady rested.

One of the beachside restaurants is locally famous and so popular that they demand and get away with their payment policy: cash only. The Seafood Chest reminds me of the Chart House in the 1980s – all the fish is lightly broiled and slathered with butter and lemon. How original! But the tourists love it and keep coming back for more. On our second night in town we decided to give it a try, lest we be snobs. We let the early birds and people that dine at “regular hours” do their early thing and got there in time to watch the sunset around 8:30, then walked in to get a table. We were told it would be about 90 minutes.

Fortunately, earlier that day after touring the Hearst Castle (amazing) we stopped at the Hearst Ranch winery in the little hamlet of San Simeon, which is right at the base of the road that leads to the Castle, to do a little tasting. My traveling companion is always good about asking locals for local information, including the question (that starts with a statement): “you live here, where do you go out to eat, and where do the locals go?” The guy pouring wine gave us a couple of names of in-town restaurants (vs. the strip of coast where we stayed). This information came in handy as we took a pass on what I labeled “Corporate Seafood” when told we had a 90 minute wait for a table.

Finding The Black Cat Café was easy enough and out of the 20 or so tables with white linen covers, only a handful were occupied. It’s too bad I couldn’t text all the people waiting for a table at Corporate Seafood, because they missed out on some great food. The Black Cat has a menu that appeals to locals and tourists alike and you could go there several times of month and not tire of it. In fact, I wished I could go several times because there were so many appealing choices – from the entrees alone: Maple Leaf duck breast, Bella-Sage Farm braised rabbit, chicken or shrimp piccata, chipotle shrimp linguine and wild caught salmon, to name a few.

My dining companion had stuffed pork chop with fontina cheese (pictured below).

Stuffed pork chop with fontina cheese

Two items on the menu had my attention from the start – sea scallops and rare seared albacore tuna, the latter of which appealed to me more so for its accompaniment that just the fish itself. I am a sucker for anything that starts with “Vietnamese,” as in “Vietnamese cucumber slaw, shitake, ginger, wasabi cream, shallots, peanuts, cilantro served with jasmine rice.

For as accomplished of a home chef that I am and student of food, I can’t cook scallops to save my proverbial life. It is one of those dishes that I just can’t pull off. I’ve tried brining them in milk, roasting them, sautéing them, you name it. It all turned into cat food, and we don’t even have a cat. So when I see them on the menu at a good restaurant, I want them. Our food server and the chef were gracious to make the Vietnamese dish and replace the tuna with the scallops. By far, this was the best meal of the trip.

My former wife, as was often her habit, wanted to meet the chef.

On a different trip — in Madrid (Spain), the day we arrived after flying the red eye from New York, we unpacked at our hotel, showered and went for a walk to get on local time. We ended walking near Retiro Park and looking for food, walked down a street to find Casona Retiro, which was open but with hardly any patrons. The food was so good we still talk about that meal. At the end of lunch (the last plate was chicken wings with a hunk of the breast still attached in a butter tarragon sauce) my wife asked to meet the chef. A big black guy with a gap between his two main upper teeth came out to meet us. After that I never set any expectations when meeting chefs in restaurants where we eat.

Back in “downtown” Cambria, Chef Mauricio came out to say hello upon the request for us to thank him in person for a wonderful meal. It turns out he is not only the chef, but also the owner. Mauricio is a Mexican-American, presumably legal, who worked in California restaurants starting when in his teens. He went to the Culinary Academy of America in Napa, so his skills were honed by hours of hours of work and formal training. I’m always curious how people manage the business side of restaurants so I asked Chef Mauricio if he had used a small business loan to buy the restaurant. “No,” he said, “just savings.” America is truly a great country.

Posted on

Chicken with honey and cumin

Normally when you opt to cook with boneless skinless chicken breasts, you are training for a triathlon or body building contest (or the guy that played Tarzan in the 2016 remake) in which you are eating super lean meats and steamed broccoli to get that “six pack” for Abs. The other reason to eat the breast without the merits of bone or skin is speed and flexibility in flavor profile. Well I adapted one of Mark Bitman’s recipes (from How to Cook Everything) into one transformative quick meal that featured one of the most harmonious ingredient combinations I can ever recall.

But first, the cooking vessel. If you don’t have a 4-quart Le Creuset Brazer with lid, you must buy one (these also make great wedding gifts).

This is the 4-quart brazer with lid on:

You can fry, saute, braze with lid on or make a killer “Grilled or Broiled Chicken Cutlets with Honey and Cumin,” as I did. Bitman called for grilling or broiling the chicken but I thought #1, firing up the grill is not worth the effort for boneless/skinless breasts, #2 it seemed that the great liquids and flavors in the recipe could get lost by basting etc. and #3 I could better control the done-ness of the chicken by cooking it on the stovetop in a deep skillet. Nobody likes dried breast, especially me (a lifelong dark meat guy). While I never did put the lid on to make this dish (thus, it wasn’t truly brazed) the depth of the skillet was great for handling the meat and the sauce without making a mess of the stovetop.

Other than changing the cooking method, I used peanut oil instead of olive oil (peanut oil can handle higher heat to brown the chicken), sake instead of dry sherry, white wine or orange juice, and I also added some vegetable stock, plus I added a 1.5-inch thick cut of butter from a quarter-pound section at the end of the cooking which gave the sauce a silky texture. Butter makes everything better, anyway.

  • Two halves of a boneless skinless breast
  • 3 Tbls Peanut oil
  • Half cup sake
  • Quarter cup vegetable stock
  • 3 Tbls honey
  • 1.5 Tbls ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
  • Salt and pepper
  • 3 Tbls butter
  • Steps: Heat the skilled and just before putting the chicken in add the peanut oil.
  • Brown chicken 3 minutes a side and then remove
  • Add sake, scrap brown bits off bottom of pan (on medium high heat)
  • Add minced garlic, honey and cumin – stir and cook for a minute or two
  • Cut the breasts in half (making four pieces)
  • Add veggie stock – cook on medium high heat two more minutes when some of the liquid starts to evaporate, add the chicken to the liquid and lower heat to simmer, cooking for 2 minutes.
  • Add the butter, stir the chicken and sauce gently and constantly for about a minute then turn off heat.
  • Let stand for 2-3 minutes, then turn the chicken pieces over and stir the sauce again.
  • Let stand for 2 minutes and serve.

We had this dish with sticky white rice and steamed broccoli. Fantastic!

Posted on

Hello World This is My Food Blog

My former wife was burdened by my love of food and frequent thinking and talking about food, which some may consider a compulsion, it was her that encouraged me to start a food blog or contribute to one.

But I resisted until one day I went ahead and did it, thinking it could have saved my marriage. It didn’t.

I am what is legitimately now called an “accomplished home chef” and my first career was as a baker, working in bakeries and restaurants. I was trained by a Master German Baker beginning when I was 15 and worked for Fritz Jansen until I was 19, when I moved to Aspen, CO and worked at Little Cliff’s Bakery. I worked in restaurants as a bread, pastry and dessert baker and was around some accomplished pro chefs when I lived and worked in Aspen. My last restaurant job was when I moved to Boulder to start college as a 24-year-old freshman and I got a job as a baker at a “Good Earth” restaurant, or some such name. But the early AM hours were killing me, in combination with morning school and night studying. Something had to give so I left the food business for afternoon retail work to get me through the rest of college.

Does this add up for me to be a natural blogger? Not so fast.

After a little research I found many food blogs, even awards for bloggers from Saveur, among others. Probably a marketing tactic (called reader engagement, like most social media; the word engagement used to be used nearly exclusively to describe a commitment to wed, but I am so old school).

Then I remembered my first book idea (still incomplete!) after my first trip to Spain, tentatively called ‘Good Eats.’ I was on a train from Barcelona to Valencia where I was to catch a ferry to Mallorca (which I did, but just a day later than planned) when our train broke down. Coincidentally and beneficially, the train came to rest next to a village. We were about 40 miles south of Valencia. The conductor told us passengers that we would be a few hours here so we might as well get off the train and visit the village.

The village was an old Spanish village and I don’t recall its name. You had to walk up a cobblestone road to get to the village. It was hot. It was hot on the train even when it was moving and the only relief from the heat was to pull all of the windows down in the train. Once the train stopped you wanted to flee, it was so hot. It was also hot walking up that road to the village in the afternoon sun. I think I felt like Hemingway walking toward the arena for an afternoon bull fight.

Not far inside the village I spotted a doorway to a square, stone building, with long rows of beads as a door. This is a genuine village, I thought, with a beaded door so that air could come in the building but flies would be discouraged. Isn’t it curious how it actually works? I mean a fly can slip between a row of vertically hung beads, given the size of flies and the gaps between the strung beads. But they don’t. Above the door a word said “Bar” and that was enough for me. A cold beer sounded heavenly.

Once inside I ordered the beer and drank it rather quickly. When the waitress came over to ask if I would have another, she also asked if I wanted food. I asked what they had. She said ham sandwiches. Eating a ham sandwich with a second cold beer inside a cool stone building on a hot September afternoon 40 miles from Valencia with no place else to go was exactly what transpired next.

What happened after that was transformative. When asked by others, as I sometimes am, “how did I become so interested, involved and active in cooking, eating and talking about food?”  Normally attribute it to my mother, a modest cook with a big heart. But she made great Italian food and I was a half-Italian (and half-Irish) boy. I cooked with my mom. The red gravy (meat sauce), hand-made raviolis and hand-made sausages were our favorite family meals and I mastered Italian while still a teenager.  

I realize now, however, that it wasn’t my mom or her cooking that made me love food and cooking. It was that afternoon in Spain when the dark-haired Spanish woman with perfectly tanned and toned legs brought me a second beer and a ham sandwich. The sandwich was small. The bread was the size of a large dinner roll. There was no spread or condiments on the bread. The only ingredient inside the bread were a few slices of ham and a thick slice of tomato. That was it. And one bite did it, sort of like when you meet someone and it is love at first sight, or “you had me at hello” as the saying goes, which to me is one of the best lines ever expressed in English and no, I don’t think it is a cliché.

That ham sandwich in Spain, I would later learn, was made from the infamous “Iberico” pigs that free-range and feast on acorns. Consequently, the pork is all-world by virtue of the black Iberian pigs’ environment and not surprisingly, what they eat or are fed. The sandwich transformed me from being interested in good food to becoming passionate about it. For years I have been saying “life is too short to eat mediocre food” and I mean it. It started in September, 1989, 40 miles south of Valencia.

When the 1990 recession hit I lost my income because I was in a sales commission industry and one day the industry was fine and the next day it was dead. I started freelance writing, pouring beer at a brew pub and doing neighborhood handyman work and chores to get by. I contacted an editor at Bon Appetite and pleaded my case to be one of their contributing writers. I sent proof that I had a degree in journalism (I still have it!). I sent some of clips, including one that published in the Boulder Daily Camera when I interned with a features editor on the daily newspaper while earning my degree at CU. That clip’s headline was called “Taming the Game” and I had done a story on how local chefs were serving venison, elk, goose and other game on their menus and how they took the gaminess out of the meat. Now I think, why would you want to take the genuine flavor out of the meat? But that’s another matter.

I received a very polite rejection slip from the Bon Appetite editor. But I persisted and sent more clips and another letter. The phone rang one day and it was the editor, who could not have been sweeter in telling me why she couldn’t hire me to contribute to her magazine. She spoke in the same tone as a would-be lover, explaining why she couldn’t give you her love.

“You seem very capable, Gary, and certainly enthusiastic. And your clips are solid. But we just can’t publish a person that is unknown to the food business. It’s just too much of a risk for us,” said the editor in her sweet tone.

She could have been saying, if I was pining for her, “Ah that’s awfully nice that you feel this way about me and you are a sweet man. And while I like you a great deal and hope we can remain friends, I’m sorry but I just don’t have the same feelings that you have.”

Rejected, and understanding why, I gave up that pursuit and got a journalism job at a business weekly. Immersed in my new career, I forgot about food writing, even though I remained serious about cooking. About that time I took a trip with friends to Santa Fe for a cooking class. I brought home a new passion for New Mexican food. For several years in the 1990s I barbecued a turkey for Thanksgiving, which I stuffed with lemons, limes and onions and rubbed the bird with a delightful spice package with the flavors of New Mexico. Served with creamy polenta and sautéed poblano peppers, it is a splendid meal.

Which brings me to now. So I am going to start a blog but it won’t just be about some cool dish me or a friend made. It will be some of that but mostly, I am going to talk about other people’s food – Pro and Amateur alike. I’m going to take food pictures. I am going to interview cooks and chefs, and take their pictures. I will write food stories. Some my own, and some other people’s food stories. For example, I will likely write about how we came to love Snake River beef from Idaho and in particular, its New York strip steaks. Look at these!

I may write about the history of food, or how the expression for corn came to be, “knee high by the 4th of July.” There is plenty of other food-related lore. I don’t know that I will get political about food but everything is open game, no pun intended.

You probably get the drift by now. Food stories. With all the foodies out there today, I think there is a ready-made audience.

Grilled Bourbon Chicken with Strawberry Rhubarb pie for dessert, anyone?

Blisteredonions.com

Boldly Flavored Food Stories

Because Life is Too Short to Eat Mediocre Food