grandma's test kitchen

Each week when we cross the bay and visit grandma, I try to get something done that is food related. Whether it's hitting the store, or driving out to west marin for a visit to one great food vendor or another, we usually come home bearing some kind of sustenance (even if we cross the bridge back home empty-handed and have to get a burrito on the way). This past week, I brought some whole wheat dough and the ingredients for a winter version of great-grandma's rice torte and spent the day experimenting in my mom's kitchen.

I've been wanting some rice torte lately. It is a family recipe from italy that incorporates rice, milk, veggies, cheese and eggs, and it is certainly one of those things where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Its flavor is imbued in my genes from eating it so much. Each time I take that first hot bite, it is like hugging the memory of my ancestors, but somehow doing it with my mouth. But in my quest to eat more seasonally I've been unable to make it, for there are no local zucchini at the moment. So I rummaged around the farmer's market veggies we had, picked some of the spinach from my planter box outside my bathroom window, made a few adjustments to the recipe in my head, and dragged it all to my ma's and began.

I cooked my rice with butter and milk while beginning to saute my veggie items. When the cooked items were done and ready for combining, I lightly beat a few eggs, grated some cheese, then combined the whole mess together and threw it into a caserole dish to bake. I topped it off with a sprinkling of more cheese and baked it for almost an hour. Even though it had many different ingredients than usual, it smelled familiar. I mentioned to my ma about the dry jack in particular and she told me that my great-grandmother sometimes used it in place of parmesan in her torte.

Whoa! I had unknowingly re-created a tweak on nana's torte recipe by using a different cheese. No wonder it smelled so familiar. Can you say: "deep-seated aroma memory being recalled........*deep nasal inhale*......ahhhhh."

The finished product looked like the real deal. I couldn't wait to cut into it, but it really needs to cool some and de-gas a bit. I put my flat whole wheat baguettes in the oven and prayed that they would poof up some. I had brought a "new" whole wheat sourdough with me, but it really needed to be fed more before having the strength to lift all that whole-grain goodness. The baguettes tasted nice in the end, even if they could be yielded as weaponry as soon as they cooled. The torte though, was worthy of note and needed to be recorded so that I may re-create it some other winter or spring while awaiting the arrival of garden fresh zucchini.

WINTER RICE TORTE

1 head of broccoli
1 large yellow onion
6 small stalks celery
3-4 ounces trumpet mushrooms
1 bunch Italian parsley
6 ounces baby spinach

1 c arborio rice
4 c milk
1/2 stick butter

4 eggs
1 c grated dry jack

cook rice in milk and butter with salt and pepper to taste, until tender but not completely done (about 20 minutes). while cooking rice, saute onions, mushrooms and celery in olive oil. when onions are translucent add chopped broccoli and most of chopped parsley. saute until most of moisture is gone and the veggies are soft. toss in spinach and remainder of parsley and continue to saute until popeye begins to wilt. remove from heat and set aside. do the same with the rice. crack them eggs and mix with the grated cheese. combine the rice, veggie saute, and egg/cheese mixture and mix thoroughly. pour into a 12 inch oval caserole dish or 9x9 inch square and sprinkle with more grated cheese. bake at 375 for 45-60 minutes, depending on the initial wetness of the cheesey rice n' veggie glop and the degree of brown you like on the top.

As usual, this goes well with a nice dark, high-alcohol beer. In this case, I was wishing I had a Moretti La Rossa. For you TJ's folks out there, it's that Italian 6-pack in the red carton with the guy who looks like he's gonna blow the head off his beer. I think it's $5.99 (a great deal considering it says "doppio malto" and carries a 7.2% rating). The green lager Moretti makes is fine and all, but the dark red is MMMM! If you've never had two or three of them, go get yourself some and give it a try, when they open at 9 am.....

breaking rules, breaking eggs

I've always had a healthy disrespect for rules. My parents were of the hippie-variety, so as you can guess, there were a few things growing up that I learned to disregard as truths. You're probably thinking about breaking the rules regarding musical preference, drug usage, sex and stuff like that right about now, but I'm thinking about food primarily. For the folks who split the world into the pathetically narrow realm of "us vs. them," (don't worry George Dubya, I won't mention any names here) my sis and I would have been called terrorists as children, considering how much bulgar wheat and goat milk we consumed at dinner time. While most good 'merican kids were stuffing their faces with fluffy white sandwhich bread smeared with Goober, and being told that it was nutritious, I was eating seedy jam with gravelly textured peanut butter on slices of bread with the weathering capabilites found in a composite roof-tile. In other words, at lunchtime in school, I attempted alot of food trading. Mmmmm, unsweetened carob-date-oat groat cookies anyone? Going once, going twice.......

It has been dawning on me lately that my foundational sense of "food," is being re-awakened with my current emphasis on buying more local, organic, and home-made items. It all reminds me of growing up in rural Sonoma County (not on a commune, but some friends of the family were worm ranchers) where we had some great gardens that I spent mucho tiempo in as a kid, chowing on raw corn or carrots between picking up wheel barrows full of apples off the lawn, or the side yard rocks and bark, or out of the ivy.....

Between the sunburned days in the yard, my folks' cooking, and witnessing my grandmother use ALL the parts of every animal product that set hoof, beak, skin or guts in her kitchen, I'd say that early on I had a firm idea of what constitutes real food. But I forgot some of that. It took years of being subjected to bad advertising and misleading food claims, coupled with leaving the house, in order to dismiss portions in my sense of acceptable foodstuffs. It's too bad that we have to rebel against our parents on so many levels, because they more or less knew what they were talking about when it came to food.

As the older folks in the buying organic and local scene might recall (or not recall, giving rise to the saying "if you remember the 60's, you weren't there") the so-called revolution in the food world that we are currently experiencing was going full force at least 40 years ago. It was just alot smaller and wasn't all corporate and faceless. It was most certainly not USDA approved. It was typically hairy, smelly, grubby and populated by folks who were often trying to live off the land, AND in accordance with it. Wow, what a concept huh?

Okay, back to this post though: lately I've been purchasing eggs that came out of a chicken's butt only one or two days before I eat 'em. (I'm sure there are folks out there with their own chickens who gather them still warm, but did I mention I now live in Oakland?) Just like grandma had on the counter; they are unrefrigerated, have nice tight yolks, strong shells, and are muy, muy sabroso. I was wondering about making a different dish and didn't want any ol' fluffy egg thing. I wanted THE fluffy egg thing. Considering the freshness and flavor, I thought what better way to showcase an egg than by making a souffle. I was thinking about having something seriously good, so I consulted "the man," knowing I'd be pointed toward a fantastic recipe. I figured the eggs were of a high enough quality to fly me more than halfway across the abyss of failure. Could I glide the rest without feathers or wings?

The recipe I went with was a basic cheese souffle one, as I was hoping to keep it simple. I used only one cheese (Old World Portuguese), ground my spices by hand, and incorporated non-fat and half-n-half for creating a cup of milk. I made my "sauce," let it cool, whipped up the egg whites, and set about folding them in with the greatest of ease. I gently poured it into a buttered, bound and parched dish and placed it in the oven. With the timer set for "first peak at it" time, I cleaned up some of the mess in anticipation of enjoying it scorching hot.



Forty minutes later, the oven gave birth to a fluffy yellow cloud, trying it's best to escape confinement.




I carefully set it on the kitchen table and took off the parchment paper. The escaping steam was hissing "eat me," and the monkey was frantically blowing on it while clutching her fork in anticipation, so we commenced sitting and dished up. This level of fluffiness had never been reached in my house before, and the spice was perfect. We ate the entire thing in about four and a half minutes. The dish was still burning hot as we attempted to clear the table.

Damn dude, it was really good. Like, seriously.

Oh wow man........I'm thinking that with the rain we've been starting to get.........the next one I attempt should have a few 'shrooms in it. And no man, not the kind you were thinking of when you caught a glimpse of the Dead shirt. Although I can't guarantee it won't contain a shake or two of sugaree....