Queenie's Treasury

It's a dreary, gloomy Saturday here in New York - probably appropriate for Halloween, yes? - and I'm getting ready to head out to the Greenmarket. In the meantime, here are some fun links to see you through that sugar hangover.

Kate Spade has chosen Brooklyn-based artist Bella Foster to design the images for their 2010 monthly planner, and has posted the watercolors she created for the project on their Facebook page. I don't use a hard copy diary anymore (Thank you, Blackberry!), but I do love these. I may have to make some sort of desktop collage for my laptop...

Frau Haselmeyer, one of my favorite bloggers, posted these gorgeous cupcake and muffin cups from Bake It Pretty. These would turn any muffin into a festive gift, and have me thinking about all kinds of holiday presents - never mind what these awesome star-shaped mini-loaf pans could do for my pumpkin bread!

Finally, from Etsy, that pantheon of good ideas and gorgeous things, come Yeehaw's farmers' market prints. I love, love, love these. If I had any available wall space, I'd buy and frame them RIGHT now. There's a cabbage, an onion, a bell pepper and an ear of corn. I may have to give into temptation and buy the artichoke-decorated notecards.

Epically good.

Back when I was a staff member at eGullet, one of the most popular discussion threads was one about - and I'm not kidding - roasted cauliflower. Check it out; the discussion, thus far, has lasted 16 pages and 472 posts. How on earth, you might wonder, can a vegetable as omnipresent and seemingly boring as cauliflower inspire such devotion?

If you have to ask, you clearly haven't tried roasting it.

Roasted cauliflower is a revelation. A vegetable that was good and slightly cabbagey becomes delicious when roasted to an absolutely blackened crisp. Lightly golden won't do it in this case - the darker, the better.

Now, you can eat roasted cauliflower plain, right out of the oven. Toss it with enough salt and pepper, and you've got yourself a delicious side for pretty much anything. It's also great with capers and raisins, or a bit of curry powder. This week, I decided to try tossing mine with a light lemon vinaigrette and a generous helping of crushed red pepper. Thanks to the addition of lemon zest and the honey in the vinaigrette, the result was sweet, salty and spicy. Totally good for me, and totally addictive.

What could be better than that?

Spicy Roasted Cauliflower with Lemon

1 head of cauliflower, cut into stemmed florets (about 4 cups)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. honey
Zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
2 tbsp. finely chopped parsley

Pre-heat the oven to 450°F. In a large bowl, toss the florets with a tablespoon or so of the olive oil, and season generously with salt and pepper. Grease a jelly roll-style cookie sheet (or shallow roasting pan) with a bit more olive oil. Spread the florets out in one layer on the prepared pan.

Roast the cauliflower for 30-45 minutes, until it is cooked through and dark brown - even black - in most spots. Trust me.

In the meantime, whisk together the lemon juice, honey and a pinch of salt in a small bowl. Whisk in a tablespoon of oil and set aside.

Once the cauliflower is roasted to your liking, remove the pan from the oven and place the cooked cauliflower in a large bowl. Toss with the lemon zest, crushed red pepper, parsley and a pinch of salt. Mix well, taste and adjust for seasonings, and serve warm or at room temperature.

Serves 3-4 as a side.

Party hearty.

My friend Faith was an incredible hostess during my week in San Francisco, so I had to do something to thank her. That something turned out to be dinner at The Slanted Door, a legendary Vietnamese restaurant that moved from Valencia Street to the Ferry Building a few years back.

Loyal readers and friends know that I have a weakness for Asian food, and that Vietnamese is my favorite of the bunch. I love the combination of Asian and Western flavors, and, in particular, the melding of French and Vietnamese techniques. The banhi mi is a classic example, with its French baguette and charcuterie paired with Asian herbs, pickles and sauces. I haven't eaten a lot of haute Vietnamese in my day, so I was very excited to try The Slanted Door.

You enter the restaurant through a door on the pier, just down the dock from where commuters flow onto ferries to Tiburon, Sausalito and other parts North, East and South. We arrived fairly early, just as sunset was kicking in, and the view across the bay was crystal clear and painted with golden light. The restaurant was fully-booked, so we decided to order a cocktail and wait for two stools to free up at the bar. I went for a Pimm's Cup, which turned out to be delicious and not at all lacking in cucumber.

Once we'd snagged seats, we ordered a load of food and sat back to enjoy the parade. First up, crispy imperial rolls, strongly recommended by my friend YaeRi. Filled with shrimp, pork, peanuts and noodles, they were rich and a bit heavy, but served with steamed noodles, lettuce leaves and the omnipresent nuoc cham sauce (fish sauce, sugar, and pickled vegetables), all of which lent a contrast in texture and lightened the rolls considerably.

Next up, the salt and pepper quail. I have to confess, I ordered these mostly to get at the pickled cucumbers with which they were served - never a good move. The quail was tasty enough, but nothing to write home (or to the internets) about. I didn't dislike it, but I wouldn't order it again.

Next, the jicama, cabbage and grapefruit salad. We LOVED this. Or, I should say - Faith LOVED this, and I would have LOVED it if it hadn't been quite so chockful of cilantro. I am one of those genetic unfortunates for whom the flavor of large amounts of cilantro is closer to dirty dishwater than it is to anything herbal, and there was a lot of cilantro in this salad. The cilantro-free bites I managed to concoct were absolutely delicious, though. I especially liked the combination of the tart grapefruit with the candied pecans - heavenly.

For our main course, we ordered a Slanted Door classic, the shaking beef. Made with filet, it rises far above the (still delicious) shaking beefs I've had. The beef is cooked in the wok with red onions and watercress and served with a citrus sauce on the side (you're meant to pore the sauce over the beef - or dip, if you like). Citrus and beef are an unsual combination in most Western food, but I find that I really enjoy them together. The acid in the fruit cuts right through the fattiness of the meat, brightening the flavor and creating a bit of a part in your mouth.

And I do like a party.

The Slanted Door
1 Ferry Building, #3
San Francisco, California
415.861.8032

Cooking under a Sonoma sunset.

One of the reasons I rented a house in Sonoma (as opposed to booking a block of rooms at a hotel or bed and breakfast) is that I wanted us to be able to cook. We had a lot of talented cooks on the trip, and I thought it would be fun to work together in a big kitchen, looking out at the sun setting over the courtyard, and relaxing with cocktails while we chopped, peeled, sautéed and roasted.

As it turned out, that's what we did four nights out of seven - not a bad track record, if you ask me. We had a big bowl of spaghetti with raw tomato, basil and garlic sauce on our first night, Julia Child's boeuf bourgignon on our second, and my favorite grilled lamb on Wednesday. On Friday, my Aunt Cathi made a delicious chicken dish with bacon, figs, plums and garlic that matched the sunset pretty darn admirably.

Really, it's hard to decide which was prettier! Do you need some more help?

Oh, the butter.

For my birthday, Faith bought tickets to Margaret Atwood's reading at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. Atwood is one of my absolute favorite writers, and I brought her latest novel (The Year Of The Flood) with me on my trip to Sonoma - and finished it just in time. She's used her considerable sway over her fan base to turn her latest book tour into a series of fundraisers for local charities, which I thought was pretty nifty indeed.

Before the reading, though, we needed sustenance, and decided to head to Bar Tartine (the restaurant outpost of the legendary Tartine bakery) for an early dinner. As the offspring of a bakery, it's only fitting that Bar Tartine serve superlative bread. This being San Francisco, it was, of course, a sourdough, with a chewy crumb dark - almost black - crust. Served alongside, some of the prettiest, freshest butter I've had in a long while.

We decided to order a couple of snacks, a couple appetizers, and - in order to sample the brioche bun - to split a hamburger. First up, a round of housemade cheddar crackers. The crackers were buttery and rich, full of the sharp, only slightly smoky flavor of sharp cheddar. I never knew crackers could be this sinful, or this satisfying.

Next, we tried the radishes with fig and walnut puree. This was delicious - but we didn't really enjoy the radishes with the fig spread. We slathered the spread on our bread, dipped the radishes in the butter and sprinkled them with salt, and ended up much happier for it all. Gorgeous as separate entities, but a pairing that didn't quite work.

It was dark by the time our burger made it to the table, so I wasn't able to snap a photo of it. But I'm sure that the images we managed to grab of our appetizers more than make up for what's missing. First up, a tomato salad with Point Reyes blue cheese, frisee and edible marigolds. The tomatoes were of the late-summer variety: impossibly sweet and soft, tasting of sunlight and dirt.

Last, but most certainly not least, we shared a pork charcuterie plate. Rillettes made from the shoulder, and terrine from, well, the rest of the pig. Alongside were a little more of that sourdough (toasted this time) and some lightly pickled baby carrots. The rillettes were good, but the fatty richness obscured any other flavors that might have been waiting to get out. The terrine, on the other hand, was amazing. It too was bursting with piggy flavor, but was drizzled with an herbed vinaigrette. The sauce lent enough tang to bring a much-needed contrast to the pork, and it absolutely made the dish.

Our burger was similarly tasty. The brioche bun was (unsurprisingly, after what I learned on this visit) huge, full of sweet butter, and soaked up the burger's juices quite splendidly. All in all, a high point in a week of many good burgers.

My general feeling about Bar Tartine is that I would go back in a heartbeat, and that I'd love to actually eat at the bar. We sat next to the window (I wanted to take some gorgeous photos for you all), but the energy and activity all seemed to emanate from the rear - I want to see what that's all about.

Bar Tartine
561 Valencia Street
San Francisco, California
415.487.1600

When in Napa, dine on sushi.

On our Friday in Sonoma, a few of us ladies decided to head back over the ridge to Napa for lunch at Go Fish, a seafood and sushi restaurant in St. Helena. Go Fish is the newest (It opened in 2006, so it's not really new anymore, I suppose.) restaurant from chef Cindy Pawlcyn, whose Mustard's Grill was part of Napa's fine dining revolution in the early 1980s.

I ate at Go Fish back in 2007, when I was visiting Napa with my mother. A friend had recommended it to me, but I was still a bit skeptical. Seafood? In landlocked Napa Valley? Really? As it turns out, yes!

We started with a couple of appetizers. The vegetable tempura was tasty, but not particularly photogenic. The salt crusted prawns arrived in their shells, surrounded by crisped garlic, and with a chile-flaked, sweet and sour sauce. I dipped mine and then ate them, shell and all. Crunchy, salty, spicy - what more could you want?

Surprisingly, our favorite appetizer was the green goddess salad. A salad of little gem lettuces, thinly sliced cucumbers, razor-thin radishes and teeny little tomatoes, it was dressed with the best green goddess I've ever tasted. Creamy, tangy and bursting with tarragon, it was just plain dreamy.

The mains were similarly delicious. We had a tuna reuben, with grilled bigeye tuna and coleslaw on rye bread, and a black cod in miso, one of Louisa's favorite things ever. I had one of my favorite things, a chirashi.

Chirashi is basically a bowl of sushi rice topped with all kinds of sashimi, served with soy sauce, wasabi and ginger. Since the nori is the only thing I don't really like about sushi, sashimi is usually my fix of choice, and chirashi is sashimi on crack. I just can't get enough. This bowl was particularly good, with a variety of tuna, salmon and hamachi, along with a (cooked) shrimp and seaweed salad with sesame oil.

We were far too full for dessert, but managed a coffee or two before heading out for some serious shopping - what else would you expect from ladies who lunch?

Go Fish
641 Main Street
St. Helena, California
707.963.0700

Queenie's Treasury

Happy weekend, my doves! This week was a long one at the office (meetings, meetings, meetings), so a bunch of these Treasury items come not from internet research (The last thing I wanted to do when I got home at night was get back on the computer.), but from my daily NPR podcast listening - and my mom!

First up, what I learned on NPR this week. I listen to several NPR podcasts on a regular basis, since it's easier to listen to my iPod than to juggle a book on my daily commute, and Terry Gross's Fresh Air is one of my favorites. Last week she interviewed none other than my food writing idol, Ruth Reichl! Reichl is out and about doing the book tour for Gourmet Today, and the interviews she's been giving have been fascinating. She's been very open about the end of Gourmet and her experience of the news. She and Terry also talk a lot about Ruth's last book, the short memoir Not Becoming My Mother, and about sustainable fishing.

Speaking of sustainable fishing, Reichl recommends using this tool provided by the Monterey Bay Aquarium to keep track of which fish are OK to eat, since those things can change from week to week, depending on weather conditions, season and so on...

Next, the incredibly cool article my mom clipped from Travel & Leisure! Rufus Wainwright, one of my favorite musicians, spent a good chunk of his childhood in Montréal, and offers readers a few of his favorite spots. I'd already been considering a jaunt up to Québec sometime this winter (when prices are cheap), and now I'm all but decided. Rufus could probably convince me to jump off a bridge; luckily, he's more likely to croon something about opera or art.

Finally, another travel-related tidbit. If you're sick of staying in hotels or charmless corporate apartments when you're away from home, why not give airbnb a whirl? You can rent apartments or rooms for short- or long-term stays, and most of the homes I saw were gorgeous, design mag-worthy creations. I'm sure not every property on the site is perfect, but New York for $100 a night - without having to share a bathroom with strangers? Sign me up.

We looked, but we didn't touch.

If I learned one thing during my week in San Francisco, it's that San Franciscans are even more obsessed with their favorite haunts than New Yorkers are. The Saturday wait for Blue Bottle Coffee at the Ferry Building can top 40 minutes, and The Slanted Door books up weeks in advance. So I suppose it should have come as no surprise to me that the line at Tartine was out the door at 4:00 on a Sunday afternoon.

We'd already had pie, quiche and salad, so Faith and I just hung out in the line of clamoring customers, eliciting slightly dirty looks as we craned our decks to check out the display cases. The items on offer looked delicious, and ever-so-decadent.

Take, for example, those cream tarts. I thought they were the height of extravagance until I spied their mama, this insanely huge, over-the-top cream pie. Honestly - I wish I'd had something to show you the scale of this thing. It was immense.

Comfort through bounty is Tartine's guiding principle, something clearly reflected in their generous, casually sumptuous pastries. The heaping of cream in those tarts, the slightly overflowing lemon curd in the tartes au citron, and the just-a-bit-taller-than-technically-correct rochers: all of them create a feeling of off-handed luxury. They make me feel like I'm visiting the home of a most generous friend, luxuriating in her hospitality and talent.

So, yes, even though I tasted nothing, I do get what the fuss is about. Truly.

Tartine
600 Guerrero Street
San Francisco, CA
415.487.2600

Inspiration in the workplace.

Ever since I started my new role in January, I've been eating lunch with a bunch of colleagues from my new floor. I knew all of these folks by name before I moved to the new group, but I'd never spent a lot of time with them. Little did I know how food-obsessed all of them are, and little did I anticipate the ideas and inspiration I'd get from our daily talks about what we like to eat.

A few weeks ago one of the more avid cooks in the group, my friend Connie, told us about a dinner she'd made recently: a coq au vin-esque one-pot meal of chicken, barley and cabbage. The whole thing sounded so deliciously autumnal that I ran back to my office and added Savoy cabbage and barley to my FreshDirect cart right then and there.

This weekend I finally had a chance to work on the recipe itself (Connie had improvised her version, so I needed to recreate it.), and I can't get enough. It's nutty and hearty and rich, but not actually bad for me. I made the whole recipe, and ate it for lunch all week. Hopefully Connie approves.

Connie's Chicken with Barley and Cabbage

One whole chicken, cut into eight pieces (or five whole chicken legs, drumstick and thigh)
Olive oil
1 large shallot, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
2 small celery stalks, including leaves, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
2 garlic cloves, peeled and slightly bruised
1 tbsp. tomato paste
1 cup barley
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup water
2 cups chicken stock
1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
1/2 head of Savoy cabbage, shredded
5-6 thyme stalks
1 Gala apple, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes

Rinse the chicken and pat dry with paper towels. Salt and pepper the skin side of the chicken pieces. Heat a heavy-bottomed, 5-7 quart pot over high heat. Add enough olive oil to just coat the bottom, then add the chicken pieces, skin-side down, in one layer. (If you can't fit all the pieces in one layer, brown the chicken in multiple batches; don't crowd the pan, or the chicken will steam instead of browning.) While the skin browns, salt and pepper the other side of the chicken.

Once the skin-sides are golden-brown and slightly crisp (about 5-8 minutes), turn the pieces over and lightly brown the bottoms, about 4-5 minutes. Remove the chicken to a plate and pour off all but 3-4 tablespoons of the fat in the pot. Add the shallots, celery and garlic and cook on medium-high heat until the garlic is fragrant and the shallots translucent, about three minutes. Add the tomato paste, stir to incorporate, and cook for a minute more.

Add the barley and toss with the shallot mixture and the fat. Salt the barley (about a teaspoon should do it) and pepper it lightly. Add the wine, water and chicken stock, then stir briskly with a wooden spoon, scraping the bottom of the pot to loosen any browned bits of chicken skin or shallot.

Add the mustard and stir to incorporate. Add the cabbage, resting it on top of the barley and liquids. Salt and pepper the cabbage (again, about 1 teaspoon of salt should do it.) Then arrange the chicken on top of the cabbage, placing the thyme springs on top of it all.

Turn the heat to medium (you want the mixture to simmer, but not to boil, so keep an eye on it for a bit), cover the pan, and cook until the chicken is done and the barley is tender, about an hour and fifteen minutes. Remove the thyme stalks (all of the leaves will most likely have jumped ship by this point).

Remove the chicken to a plate for a moment. Add the apple to the pot, stir to distribute throughout the barley, and heat the mixture through for a couple of minutes. Taste and adjust for seasoning. Spoon the barley and cabbage onto individual plates, place a piece of chicken on each, and serve.

Serves five to six.

Plus de miettes.

On the Wednesday I spent in San Francisco, my friend Faith and I took a day trip up to Point Reyes and Marshall via the Pacific Coast Highway. (Much more on that trip soon.) On our way to pick up the Zipcar, we stopped into Miette (in French, "miette" translates to "crumb"), a confectionery shop in Hayes Valley, just down the hill from Faith's place near Alamo Square.

Miette is flat-out adorable. Vintage and girly with an edge (candy-filled, incredibly lifelike skulls abounded), Miette stocks its own candies and pastry along with an array of chocolate and sweets from around the world. I spotted Mast Brothers chocolate (from Brooklyn), Haribo gummies (from Germany) and Cadbury Crunchies (from England).

The shop is one of three locations in San Francisco; they have two freestanding shops (one in Hayes Valley and one in the Marina area) along with an outpost in the Ferry Building. We stopped by the Ferry Building location, too, and spotted these adorable, portable pots de crèmes (bring the jar back to collect your $1 deposit) and some gorgeous, sun-yellow marigolds.

We didn't try them, but the cupcakes (back at the Hayes Valley spot) looked delicious and adorable. I personally think candy-coated peanuts might be the perfect cupcake garnish. And as much as I enjoyed the macarons we tried (most of all the hazelnut one), I fell in love with Miette as much for its aesthetic and personality as for its candy.

If I lived in San Francisco, I'd have an unreasonably hard time staying away. Who wouldn't want to eat sweets while looking at that wallpaper, or chatting with people who love candy as much as you do? Good thing it's 3,000 miles away, or I'd be my dentist's entire retirement plan.


Miette
449 Octavia Street
San Francisco, CA
415.626.6221

France meets Sonoma.

After our lunch at Healdsburg Bar & Grill, Miriam, Nick, Louisa and I headed down Healdsburg Avenue to Costeaux, a bakery we'd read about in my guide book. I was expecting a tiny little hole-in-the-wall, but Costeaux turned out to be a big, airy, loft-like space with concrete walls, unfinished beams with a long glass display case running along one side.

Our goal had been to collect breakfast pastries for the next morning, but the croissants and brioches had sold out long before we arrived. We were disappointed, but realized this meant we had to take one for the team and sample some desserts to make sure a morning-time return trip wasn't a waste.

We each ordered a little something (including glasses of milk for Miriam and Louisa) and grabbed a table. We had a fairly good haul with us, including a chocolate-dipped macaroon (Miriam), an éclair (Nick), a brown butter blackberry tart (Louisa) and a cream puff (me!).

The cream puff and eclair were both made with the same pâte à choux (a dough that can also be used for savory purposes, such as gougères), but had very different fillings. The cream puff was filled with a combination of pastry cream and whipped cream, heavy on the whipped cream - meaning the filling was very, very light and fluffy.

The éclair, on the other hand, was filled with boozy pastry cream and topped with an obscene schmear of dark chocolate ganache. Big enough to take up most of a dessert-sized plate, the eclair won the day in terms of pure decadence.

Louisa's tart was delicious, too. The crust was flaky and buttery, and the filling was nutty (courtesy of the browned butter) but also fruity and light - almost like a fruit-filled nougat. Really, really good, and pretty to boot.

You're wondering about Miriam's macaroon, aren't you? Well, I can't help you there - she gobbled it up before I had a chance to capture it. She says it was awesome - maybe you just have to go see for yourself!

Costeaux
417 Healdsburg Avenue
Healdsburg, CA
707.433.1913

Come for the wine, stay for the garden.

On our Wednesday in Sonoma, Jeremy had arranged for a tour and tasting at C. Donatiello Winery in Healdsburg. Five of us bundled into one of the rental sedans haunting the driveway and drove north to Westside Road, a gorgeous, slightly winding street that follows a ridge perched alongside the Russian River.

C. Donatiello is a relatively new winery, founded in 2006. Chris (the C. in C. Donatiello) started his career in wine and spirits marketing & sales, moving west from New York to start this boutique winery three years ago. They specialize in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, two of the Russian River region's most popular grapes. The winery estate itself has a few vineyards; additionally, Donatiello sources grapes from several vineyards around the valley.

Our tour included a look into the entire process, including the harvest, de-stemming, pressing and fermentation - but the highlight, for me, was a visit to the garden planted down the hill from the winery's tasting room. Designed to echo the flavors and aromas found in Donatiello's wines, the garden is planted with fruits, herbs and aromatics representative of Pinot and Chardonnay. Even the steps are planted - each tread is lined with mint, rosemary, and the like, so that their scents follow you as you scuff your shoes against them.

After poking our noses in all around the estate, we headed into the tasting room for a different sort of tour: an extensive tasting of Donatiello's Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays. Most of the wines we tasted were single vineyard wines (meaning the grapes in that wine all came from the same vineyard), and there were a few that really grabbed me.

The Branley Chardonnay was slightly spicy and citrusy, with hints of apple. It's one of the few oak-aged Chardonnays I tasted and liked on our Sonoma trip. My favorite, though, was the Hervey Pinot Noir. It was full of different fruit and berries, but still smooth and round in the mouth - sometimes I find Pinot to be a bit too dry, but this one was creamy and soft.

Chris had joined us for the tasting, and mentioned that the Hervey would be even more perfect for drinking in about 15 years. My brother and sister-in-law conferred, and decided (Very generously!) to buy me a bottle for my 30th birthday, not to be opened till my 45th.

I'll keep you posted on how that turns out.

C. Donatiello Winery
4035 Westside Road
Healdsburg, CA
800.433.8296

Queenie's Treasury

Now that I'm back home in New York, it's time for Queenie's Treasury to start back up! It's been a crazy couple of weeks for me, both personally (I turned 30 on October 1st) and professionally, so I'm happy to be back in the groove, checking out what's going on out there on the interwebs - so let's get to it, shall we?

First, a lesson in perfect boiled eggs, courtesy of Serious Eats' Food Lab. While boiled eggs are pretty much my least favorite egg preparation, I'm still fascinated by the science behind the technique.

Looking for some pie porn? Getting ready to enter your holiday baking phase? Check out this amazing post from the Cookbook Chronicles' Lorna Yee for some major inspiration. Lorna participated in Seattle's Queen Anne Farmers' Market pie contest, and came in 4th out of 20 entrants! (She thinks this is a middling result; I am duly impressed, as I think you will be.)

Finally, a slight departure from food. I don't know about you guys, but as soon as I feel fall's chill in the air, my mind turns to thoughts of Christmas. Christmas music, Christmas foods, Christmas decorations. Etsy has fueled my obsession with that last one this week, showcasing a few decorations on their Storque blog. My favorites were these feather balls and woolen acorns, both of which would look just perfect mixed with my crystal snowflakes and hanging from some bare branches. Indeed.