Kauai, Day 3: The North Shore and Bar Acuda

Na Pali Coast in the rain

Anini Beach

Local avocado type #2 of ??

Mango from the Waipio farmer's market

Hanalei

Bar Acuda: Local honeycomb, Fuji apple, Humboldt Fog goat cheese

Arancini with lime, honey, and truffle sauce

Blackened tiger prawns

Chocolate pot de creme with toasted macaroon

Kaua'i, Day 2: Beaches, Fish, and Farmers' Markets

'

Kaua'i, Day 1: Purple Long Beans with Garlic and Mustard Seeds

The downside of cooking away from home is navigating a foreign kitchen. For instance, I would have thought low heat was lower than medium, but that may just be me and my sheltered mainland ways. And under no other circumstances would you be likely to hit upon the idea of trying to rinse rice with the aid of a coffee filter. (Tip: Don't.)

The upside to cooking away from home? Grabbing the most unusual things in the market to make for dinner.

Found on the way north from the airport: Fresh-caught moonfish at Fish Express, local purple long beans at Papaya's Natural Foods, palm trees, green cliffs, bougainvillea and bromeliads, a vast and shimmering sea.

The long beans I just threw in a wide pan with some olive oil, a smashed clove of garlic, and a scattering of black mustard seeds, then tossed, covered, and cooked till al dente.

In the face of what I can only assume is an island-wide drought of coconut milk (since I can't imagine why else a store would be completely out of it...maybe coconut-obsessed island gnomes who strike in the dead of night?), I bravely abandoned my go to recipe for moonfish in favor of a new one (sprinkle with salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes, pan fry until almost cooked through, serve over black rice...then melt a pat of butter in the pan, toss in a couple tablespoons julienned ginger and let caramelize, throw in some cilantro and a glug of white wine, simmer briefly, pour over the fish).

It'll do.

Intermission

This blog is a blog about food, of course. But it is also, implicitly, a blog about social connection—about creating meals that we share with others, about food as a communal experience; about cooking with and for and because of, about smell and taste and texture that we experience with rather than alone. After all, what are we doing here, you and I, if not creating a shared space, a mutual reality?

Pull up a chair. Let me tell you something.

A friend of mine was recently remembering his dad, who passed away a few years ago, and I overheard an acquaintance tell him two sentences that have been echoing in my head ever since. She said something like: The people we love are concepts in our heads. They live on as long as we remember them.

Which is true, right? In a profound, ringing kind of way.

You can hear them. What they would say. Or see them and how they would look. Corner of the mouth pulling up into a smile. Eyes that crease at the corners. But more than that—you can feel them like a warmth, a presence, a concept in your head that's as real as anything (because everything, when you think about it, is a concept...our whole world is filtered through our minds...so why should one mental representation be any less real than another? There they are, nestled between our memory of yesterday and our thoughts of tomorrow).

So next time you sit down to a meal, bring them. The father or grandfather who passed away. The faithful companion who rested his head on your knee for eleven years. The friend who you somehow lost and the ex who you never stopped loving. Invite them to dinner. Lean into them. Breathe.

Feel that?

Right there.

Concepts in our heads. Food on the table.

Live on.  

 

Arugula Salad with Sardines and Preserved Lemon

You know the saying. When life—in, say, the form of two lovely dinnertime hosts who have just plied you with roasted pastured chicken and grilled eggplant and zucchini from their garden and just-plucked tomatoes and homemade pâté and a veritable panoply of stunning wines and a wide night sky pinned up with constellations, into which a shooting star slips, sudden and silent, as if from another world—when that life, goes the saying, hands you a jar of preserved lemons, you go home and you make lots of things that involve preserved lemon the next day.

 

Okay, maybe that's not the saying. It lacks a certain ring. But it's true. The corollary is, when life in any form does not hand you preserved lemons, you make your own. (Shortcut here). And then, in either case, you make lunch.

Lunch, since you asked, should be this.

Ingredients
4-5 oz baby arugula
Good quality olive oil
About 1 tbsp preserved lemon, chopped
Fleur de sel (or sub kosher salt)
1 medium carrot, coarsely grated
1/2 cup canned navy beans, rinsed and drained
Liberal scattering sprouted sunflower seeds*
2 tins sardines, drained**
Freshly ground black pepper

Drizzle arugula with olive oil, sprinkle with the preserved lemon, and toss well. (Use enough oil to lightly coat the leaves. I just do this directly on the plates, using my hands, or you could do it in a bowl and then arrange beds on the plates).

Sprinkle lightly with salt, then scatter liberally with carrot, navy beans, and sunflower seeds. Top with sardines and freshly ground black pepper.


Serves 2 for a light summertime meal, and pairs well with a cold glass of Torrontés.



*Available at Costco.

**Current favorites: Wild Planet Pacific sardines in extra virgin olive oil with lemon.

Smoked Bacon and Apple Farro

This post brought to you by our formerly far-flung, recently returned Kansas correspondent.

Ingredients
1 cup farro (preferably not pearled)
2 slices Niman Ranch applewood smoked bacon, diced
Olive oil
1-2 medium Granny Smith apples, flat-diced
1-2 leeks, white and light green parts, halved lengthwise, rinsed well, and sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 large carrots, coarsely grated
1/4 tsp Aleppo pepper
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Prepare farro according to package directions.

In a large, nonstick skillet, cook the bacon until crisp over medium heat. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Drain half the bacon grease and replace the volume with olive oil, then sauté the leek and apples until tender and translucent.

Add the garlic and carrot and sauteé another 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently to make sure the garlic doesn't burn. Stir in the Aleppo pepper, then fold in the cooked farro. Add salt and pepper to taste, then stir in the bacon and serve immediately.

Serves 2-3.

Slow-Baked Salmon with Lemon and Thyme

I recently found myself in the alarming position of agreeing to cook dinner for 25 people.

Actually, I should rephrase. "Agree" implies that I had some say in the matter. I was unilaterally volunteered to cook dinner for 25.

I raised the possibility that perhaps this was an egregious error. Maybe they meant 2.5? 2.5 people seems feasible. I could do 2.5.

"2.5 people?" I asked.

No. Definitely 25. And they definitely meant me.

At this point, I may or may not have seriously considered moving to a small island off the coast of Thailand.

Here's the thing: I don't cook for 25. I don't cook for ten. I cook for one or two or sometimes four. And a lot of the things I make aren't particularly scale-uppable...you can't quintuple a risotto and expect it to cook the same way (in fact, we tried once in college and dinner was about three hours late). Pan-frying is obviously limited to the number of things you can fit in the pan. Homemade pasta would take days. My obsession with vegetables is heavily contingent on them caramelizing in some way, which gets harder or impossible if you crowd them together.

Plus: Most people tend to expect dinner to involve some central meat thing, and I don't really do central meat things. (Let's be clear: I haven't the foggiest. I would undercook, or overcook, or accidentally make kale instead of a pork roast.) The point being, I had no idea what to do. None.

Fortunately, I was saved by the miracle of slow-baked salmon. Miraculous because—are you ready?—it is easy AND dreamily delicious AND scale-uppable AND fancy-looking. Oh, and it tells you when it's done. The technique was made for a dinner party. Or in my case, a small team of intrepid chefs determined to serve up California cuisine to a couple of dozen hungry academics in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Adapted from this recipe, and perfect over Israeli couscous (especially if after cooking the couscous, you stir in a tab of butter, a pinch of thyme, some chopped parsley, a bit of lemon zest, and some lemon juice).

Ingredients
12-13 oz wild salmon fillet*

1 tbsp olive oil
Zest of ½ lemon (about 1 tbsp)
½ tbsp chopped fresh thyme
1 small clove garlic, pressed
Small slosh white wine (just enough to moisten mixture slightly)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Lemon wedges & parsley for garnish

Preheat oven to 275°F.

Combine the olive oil, lemon zest, thyme, and garlic. Add about 1 tsp of white wine—just enough to make the mixture easier to spread, without being runny. (If you're scaling the recipe up, still start with this much wine and then add a little bit more if needed.)

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Lightly oil it, then place salmon skin-side down. Spread the lemon zest mixture evenly over the top, then sprinkle with salt and (lightly) with pepper. Let sit 10 minutes for flavors to blend.

Bake for 20-21 minutes until the fat melts out the sides (it will often start by melting in little pools on the top, but you're waiting for the tell-tale sign of it melting at the bottom of the sides of the fillet, just like you see below).

Garnish with lemon & parsley. Serve hot, or warm, or cold—this fish can really do just about anything.

Serves 3, or multiply by six for a crowd.

And, if you are feeding a crowd, other suggestions include:
Quinoa Salad with Slow-Roasted Tomatoes
These Fish Packets
Grilled Asparagus with Balsamic Reduction
Roasted Bell Peppers
Israeli Couscous
Jasmine Rice

*Definitely splurge on wild salmon for this recipe—and in fact, if you can only find farmed, do something else with it. Slow-baking salmon changes the texture completely, in a wonderful way if it's wild, but in a mushy way if it's farmed. Note also that if you are scaling up, you can leave the fillet (or fillets) whole and let people cut their own, or cut before cooking into individual portions—it works either way. I left them whole, just because it was easier.