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Criminals Attack a Recipe Box

What kind of person would smash an old wooden recipe box to the ground, spilling a stream of treasured recipes?

This was my mother's recipe box, stuffed with formulas for the dishes she loved, some handwritten, others typed, plus a few neatly folded clippings.

It was harmless and of no value except to me, filled with memories.

Those who did this added more ugliness to what must be hate-filled, hideous lives. Perhaps they get high from drugs, but never from homemade caramel-walnut cookies, Christmas peppernuts, chocolate rocks or a coconut layer cake. 

The police said they were career criminals, because they had tools and wore gloves. They burst through a security door, gouged out the lock of the old wooden door inside and went on a rampage.

They ransacked rooms, dumped out files, pawed through lingerie, scarves, anything in the drawers of my bedroom and tore apart my closet. Their score--four rooms and two closets trashed. And a terrible mess for me to clean up.

They took any gold jewelry that I had. There wasn't much--a ring my mother had made for me (that's her picture in the photo at right, witnessing a dreadful scene), a few pieces my sister had given me and some things that I had bought on my travels.

They threw aside most of the silver jewelry, because they only wanted what would bring quick cash. But they did take a Mexican basket filled with my travel photos and stuffed other tote bags with my things.  I still don't know the extent of what they stole. I'm too dazed.

In my office room, lined with shelves of cookbooks, they found the recipe box. They must have thought cash was inside and threw it down in disgust.

Then they tore apart the closet where I store Christmas ornaments. A little Oaxacan tin box of nativity figures was ripped open, the Christ Child hurled to the floor.

On the way out through the living room, they threw piano music onto the floor, opened a cabinet and looked in a ginger jar for money, tossing the lid onto a chair. 

I survived because I was away. My cats, those who cooked dinner in the previous post, survived too, so that one day we can all have dinner together again. But that will take time, a lot of time, because the thugs stole my appetite too. 

At Last--My Cats Cook Dinner

 

I've taken care of cats for many years, served attractive meals, given them treats, hoisted tons of litter and let them take up most of my bed. But never have they so much as cooked dinner for me, not even on Mother's Day.

That is, not until last week. One evening,  I caught the two of them going over cookbooks. Mr. Lucky was paging through "Women's Circle Home Cooking," while Miss Lily scanned "Our Favorite Italian Recipes," put out by the Central Coast District of the Italian Catholic Federation.
After some consultation, each selected a dish. Then they directed me in the preparation. Mr. Lucky chose linguine with garlic olive oil, a simple pasta for a beginning cook. 

Miss Lily decided on melanzana alla Parmigiana (eggplant Parmesan). I didn't have the mozzarella that the recipe called for, so she let me use Cheddar. But she insisted that I put Parmesan on top, even though the cheese I had was old and solid as concrete. It was hard work grating enough for a feathery topping.

The eggplant was Chinese, not Italian. And I had to substitute  marinara sauce and tomato puree for fresh tomatoes. But I did the best I could, because Miss Lily is strict and might enforce her orders with teeth and claws. 

To dress up their meal, I added a salad and a glass of red wine. Each one looked it over and was pleased.

 
   
Proud but tired, they slept while I ate. They slept some more while I put away leftovers. And they continued to sleep while I washed the dishes.  

Now that they've mastered Italian, we'll move on to something else. But we'll all have to take a few catnaps to get in shape for that.

There's a Flower on My Chicken

What's that rose petal doing on my chicken?

In a week of eating Chinese food in Taipei, it's the only floral decoration that appeared on my plate.

The rosy petal wasn't a chef's cute garnish but a nod to Taipei's mammoth Flora Exposition, which opened in November and continues into April.

The dish, broiled chicken with rose sauce, appeared at a lunch prepared by the Ambassador Hotel's Szechuan Court restaurant to celebrate the expo.

Even the appetizers were floral. Picture a slice of lotus root with rice stuffed into the holes so that it would resemble a sausage (right). Or a flower hidden in a rolled slice of cucumber.

Then came abalone soup with chicken, wolf berries and dried chrysanthemums. Lavender appeared next, in a delicate sauce for shrimp. 

Even the dessert got into the act. It was a clear sweet soup that contained jujubes (Asian red dates), lily buds and lotus nuts.

But before that, the restaurant switched to two non-floral dishes, Pei Ping duck and a small whole fried yellow fish garnished with crisp fried perilla leaves (shiso). Both were so good they almost stole the show, and the fish at least offered something from the garden.  

In the West, Szechuan food is usually fiery, but these dishes were not, possibly to avoid overpowering tender  floral flavors. The red chiles that appeared alongside the shrimp were there for decoration, not to assault the tastebuds of the guests.  

Szechuan Court Restaurant, Ambassador Hotel, 12F Chung Shan North Road, Section 1, Taipei, Taiwan.

Ichiza, a Chef's Hangout

Where do chefs go on their night off? In Las Vegas, they might head for Chinatown, a collection of Asian businesses on Spring Mountain Road within sight of the Strip, but very far removed from it.

One place they like is the izakaya restaurant Ichiza. As a matter of fact, I did see a chef there, Wazuzu's Jet Tila.

Ichiza is a real escape, a place where a tee shirt and jeans look dressy, where laughter can be raucous and the beer is icy cold.

Paper slips with the names of dishes that the kitchen can produce are tacked up all over the place, but there's a conventional printed menu too.

The cooks are Japanese, and the small plates they send out are quite good, with an occasional slip. But who cares, when you're this relaxed and having this much fun?

A beef and albacore tataki salad (at right) was first rate.

Stir-fried pork with kimchi showed Japanese restraint and simplicity, which is not to say that it wasn't delicious.

Chewy and gummy, bacon-wrapped mochi was a study in texture as well as taste. It's on the blue and white plate in the photo above the tataki salad.

Grilled corn on the cob with teriyaki seasoning was better than what you get at backyard barbecues.

Robata-cooked asparagus wrapped in bacon should have been just as good, but the cook was in a hurry and didn't grill the bacon sufficiently, leaving it flabby and pale.

No matter, a bowl of ramen provided some comfort. Grilled tofu with bean sprouts (right) was excellent, and spinach with enoki mushrooms and garlic butter was a very nice way to treat the leafy greens.

But the best was on its way, the dessert honey toast. 

Ichiza hollows out half a loaf of tender white bread, toasts it, puts in vanilla ice cream and glazes the toast with honey. 

This sounds like something Mom would throw together for the kids, but it's a grownup-pleaser too. And Ichiza deserves thanks for putting it on the menu.

The only other place that I've had this dessert was Tokyo Table in Beverly Hills, and that restaurant is now closed.   

Ichiza Sake House and Japanese Restaurant, 4355 Spring Mountain Road, Suite 205, Las Vegas, NV 89102. Tel: (702) 367-3151.

 

Finding Din Tai Fung in Taipei

Walking into Din Tai Fung was unreal, euphoric. And unexpected.  I had never thought of going there until I was led in the door to a friend's table.

I'm not talking about Din Tai Fung in Arcadia, near Los Angeles. But Din Tai Fung in Taipei, where this mother of all dumpling houses originated.

It is so legendary that when the Arcadia branch opened, the media went into a frenzy, and the lines to get in were monstrous. 

It's still like that in Taipei. The branch I went to had a line out the door, a mad clamor inside, servers whisking stacks of bamboo steamers back and forth. Crowded tables. A steaming hubbub of food.

Service is fast, and there's no lingering, just serious eating, and then you leave.

I wasn't in the original restaurant but in the second Din Tai Fung. This didn't make any difference, because food for all the outlets in Taipei comes from a central kitchen, I'm told. 

First to arrive was a steamer basket of the restaurant's most famous dumpling, xiao long bao.

These soup dumplings spurted into my teacup in Arcadia, but seemed less loaded with soup here. Perhaps I was just eating them more efficiently.

How does soup get into a dumpling?  Stock so rich that it congeals into aspic is the secret. A spoonful of that goes into the wrapper along with meat. As the dumpling steams, the aspic melts.

Our xiao long bao were filled with pork. There's another, French-inspired version that adds truffle to the pork. The plain pork dumplings are about $6.35 for 10. The truffle xiao long bao are $15 for 5, or $3 each.

A non-stop parade of steamer baskets brought vegetable dumplings with wrappers so thin the green showed through, followed by pork and shrimp dumplings, fluted at the top and steamed on their side. 

Xiao long bao are not fluted. They are round, carefully pleated to the top and steamed upright. 

A style of shui mai that I hadn't seen before had an unusual filling, sticky rice and ground pork. 

The pork was so finely ground that I didn't notice it. Perhaps it only served as seasoning for the rice. The shape was different too, pinched at the waist and ruffled at the top.

We ate cold dishes such as shredded dry bean curd with seaweed, bean sprouts, glass noodles, sesame oil and chile oil; bean curd with fat fresh green beans and deliciously spongy, sweet cubes of bean curd that were red, almost like meat. 

Fried rice appeared too. Then the waitress brought a bowl of beef noodle soup. As quickly as she set it down, she took it away. A mistake, I thought. The soup was meant for another table.  But before long it reappeared, divided into little bowls for each person.

The beef noodle soup that I had eaten at another restaurant in Taipei was dark with soy sauce and seasoned with star anise.

Din Tai Fung's soup wasn't so exotic. It could have passed for American beef stew. The noodles resembled spaghetti.

Our last dish was the restaurant's most famous dessert, dumplings stuffed with sweetened red bean paste, small, simple and all we could eat after such a fast-paced, filling feast.

Din Tai Fung, Zhong Xiao E. Rd. Sec. 4 No. 218, Taipei, Taiwan.  Tel: 886-2-2721-7890.

The North American branch is at 1108 S. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia, CA 91007. Tel: (626) 574-7068.  

A Wine to Remember

It was bottle number 408 of only 1,210  produced.

The wine was a Malbec. Not from Argentina, where Malbec is as common as tap water. And not from California, where Malbec is gaining recognition as a varietal rather than used primarily as a blending grape.

This wine came from Baja California's Guadalupe Valley.  It was the 2002 Malbec made by Hans Backhoff of Monte Xanic.

On the label, Backhoff says the 2002 harvest yielded only four barrels, of such notable flavor that the winery felt it a duty to share it with clients and friends. 

I was lucky enough to receive a bottle when I visited Monte Xanic some years ago. But I didn't open it until the other day. And I was amazed. Deeply colored, the wine was fresh, young and full of spirit. It was an admirable Malbec, not purple, soft and jammy like many Argentine Malbecs.

According to Monte Xanic's website, the 2005 Malbec is available for purchase now. 

Like the earlier bottle, it is a limited edition wine, and the description is the same as that on my bottle--concentrated black fruit and delicate notes of licorice and freshly ground roasted coffee, "complex flavor, voluptuous in the mouth, elegant and memorable."

It's a wine I would look for on another trip to Baja. After all, one must keep good memories alive.

 

Celebrating with los Tres Reyes

The holidays are definitely not over. There's one more, which has several names--Epiphany, Twelfth Night or what I'll celebrate on January 6, El Día de los Tres Reyes (The Day of the Three Kings). All honor the day the kings presented their precious gifts to the Christ child.

I like the Latino holiday because of the delicious tastes involved. You can't celebrate without a rosca de reyes, a sweet ring bread decorated according to the baker's fancy. 

I get mine at La Morenita Bakery and Restaurant in Cypress Park, where head baker Alex Peña tops it with fruit pastes in three flavors--quince, guava and green apple--as well as preserved figs and maraschino cherries.

All except the cherries come from Oaxaca. Bands of sugar-flour paste, like that used on conchas, and splashes of sugar add to the festive look.

Each of these light, airy loaves contains a tiny figure of the Baby Jesus. If the baby turns up in your slice, you're obligated to give a party on February 2, which is El Día de la Candelaria, or Candlemas day. What you are supposed to serve is tamales, which you can also order from La Morenita. 

The bakery is turning out hundreds of roscas this week, and the competition to get them on the final day will be fierce. 

The traditional accompaniment is champurrado, a steaming hot, chocolate-flavored masa drink. I tried to buy some at La Morenita last year, but I got there so late, it was sold out. That meant I had to make my own, because the celebration wouldn't be complete without it.

La Morenita's Pepe Peña kindly sat down with me and explained what to do, even giving me a little ball of masa and a tablet of Abuelita chocolate to make sure I had the right ingredients. He recommends Abuelita because it is less greasy than other brands of Mexican chocolate.

Then I went home, made the champurrado (the recipe follows), cut a slice of rosca  lit a log in the old tiled fireplace and turned on the  Christmas tree, which sparkled with tin ornaments from Oaxaca.

There had to be Mexican music, and so I tuned the radio to La Ranchera.  And offered a warm, fuzzy toast to the tin Oaxacan kings on my Christmas tree.

It was a nice way to make Christmas last a little longer.

La Morenita Restaurant and Bakery,  1157-1159 Cypress Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90065. Tel: (323) 222-7953.

PEPE PEÑA'S CHAMPURRADO

1/3 cup crushed piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar cones)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 segments from a tablet of  Mexican chocolate, which is about 1 ounce
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon finely ground cinnamon stick
1 1/4 cups water
1/3 cup masa for tortillas
2 1/2 cups milk

Combine the piloncillo, sugar, chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring until smooth. 

Combine the masa and milk in a blender and blend thoroughly. Add to the boiling mixture and cook until it comes to a boil again and thickens. Stir constantly, scraping up the bottom of the pan to prevent the masa from sticking and forming lumps. Serve very hot.

If leftover champurrado is refrigerated overnight, it will form a thick layer on top. Stir to blend and reheat.

Makes 4 cups, or 4 to 6 servings.