May 17, 2012 | 11:24 am

The goat herd: A story of chevre, Shavuot and backyard goats [RECIPE]

Posted by Rob Eshman

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The most common question people ask when they visit our home is: “Why the goats?”

We live in the city. A few houses west of us, four lanes of Lincoln Boulevard traffic roar past day and night. Planes from cursed Santa Monica Airport buzz overhead. And on any given night, sometime between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m., an LAPD helicopter will make sure to flood our bedroom with its searchlight. It’s Venice, man.

Two years ago, into this urban landscape, I brought our first goat.

Yes, I said goat. Yes, I said first.

My daughter and I were at John’s Feed, buying chickens. John’s, I assume, is a holdover from the days when Huntington Park was surrounded by farmland; there is no other reason for a ramshackle feed store in the midst of a treeless landscape of warehouses and strip malls.

John’s Feed stockpiles the chickens that end up next door at a live butcher shop called La Princesa. I usually buy chickens there for egg-laying. They are already full-grown, and I get the added pleasure of taking a creature off death row. On this day, when my daughter and I showed up, we noticed that, in the same crowded, feces-filled pen with the chickens, stood one miserable goat.

She was standing on her hind legs, straining to look out the window to the street.

We took her.

But why have goats? I often wonder if it’s in my blood. Eskimos have 30 words for snow. Jews have more than a dozen words for goat. You and I are generations removed from our agrarian ancestors, but their relationship with the world’s first domesticated animal lives on in our language. Azmaveth and tsaphir are he-goats. Gaddiel, a holy goat. Gedi, a young goat. Jaala and seirah are young she-goats. Ez, a she goat. Tayish, a butting he goat. Uzzah, a strong goat. Zibiah and aqqo, zemer, dishon and yael — mountain and desert goats. Ancient Jews depended on goat meat and milk for food; they slept in goat-hair tents. Their closeness created empathy: Jews were revolted by the thought of boiling a kid in its mother’s milk, and so, today, we can’t eat cheeseburgers. There is a Hebrew word for hell, familiar to us from Yom Kippur: azazel.  It translates literally as “lost goat.” Hell, for Hebrew, was when you lost your goat.

The Christians saw goats as the devil. They were repelled by the very qualities in goats that seem most, well, Jewish.

Sheep huddle together and look to the shepherd for direction. Goats are stubborn and willful. The word capricious, meaning picky and discerning, comes from the Latin capro, for goat. Goats break fences and, thus, rules. Sheep are grazers, content to munch the grass at their feet. Goats are browsers — they refuse the grass and strive to eat the trees and bushes just beyond their reach.

Goats are deeply communal, bonded to one another. Sheep run, goats stand their ground. (Thoroughbred trainers used to calm their skittish horses by placing a fearless goat in their stall. To throw a race, you would sneak into the stall at night and get someone’s goat. A cliché was born.)

Rob Eshman’s goats: Ollie, left, and Goldie Horn

So, the apostles saw themselves as obedient sheep,  Jesus as their shepherd and the Jews as unruly goats. In Matthew 25:33, the Parable of the Sheep and Goats, Jesus tells how he will judge nations when he returns: “And [Jesus] will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on his left.” Sheep go to heaven, goats to hell. The horns Christians imagined on Jewish heads did not make them look like the devil: They made them look like goats.

Is it any wonder that goat beside the butcher shop called out to me? It’s not just that I couldn’t see her ending up as birria — Mexican goat stew — or chavito — split, grilled goat. It’s that we shared cultural DNA.

I had driven my wife’s Prius to John’s Feed Store that day. The goat, a black-and-white Nigerian pygmy about the size of a small spaniel, went into a cardboard box and into the trunk. Somewhere on the 110 Freeway North, I heard a crash. Her two devilish horns had busted the packing tape, and I drove home with a goat in the rear view mirror.

We named her Goldie Horn. When my wife arrived home from a work trip, she found her car had been completely waxed outside and detailed inside. She said I was the nicest husband in the world.

Then she saw the goat.

We moved Goldie into a spacious side yard. But goats, every goat book informed me, care about two things: food and companionship. See, I explained to my wife, they are Jewish. Soon my daughter and I visited a goat rescue, and returned with a dun-colored mutt goat we named Ollie.

But why goats, people still ask.

To which I often answer: Why not? Nobody walks into your house and asks, “Why dogs?” even if your pet is not fit to protect, or hunt, or even play. No one asks, “Why fish?” though you can’t eat them, or, “Why canaries?” though they don’t lay eggs. And no one asks, “Why cats?”— except me.

Goats don’t bark or scratch. In our urban ecosystem, their odorless pellets work like plant steroids, replacing the need to buy fertilizer. They come when I call them, will stand on two legs for treats and enjoy a good scratch. As I write this, Goldie is rubbing her head against the card table I’ve set up in my backyard. In a moment, I’ll let her butt the palm of my hand.  It’s a game we play.

It is weird, I know, but it really isn’t.

On Sunday mornings, I use a broom and dustbin to scoop up the layer of goat pellets, crushed dry hay and soil that carpets the animal pen. The dust plumes up and coats my face and fills my nostrils. It’s a fantastic smell — exactly like a fine unlit cigar passed under your nose. Next time someone is reaching for words to describe their $200 Cohiba, just say, “Hay, dust and goat s—-.”

I don’t even mind when I forget to feed them first thing in the morning. I have to go out after I’ve showered and dressed in my suit, carrying a slice of timothy hay, their pebbly poops squishing under my black polished shoes. I can see my wife, Naomi, at the window, watching — just like she did at the window of the Mendocino B&B one morning of our honeymoon when she saw me down by the shore tasting the seaweed. It’s a look that says, “Who, exactly, did I marry?”

I don’t tell her that when they break out of their pen and tiptoe into my study, Goldie always tries to nip a page from the same book — one of Naomi’s ancient Hebrew treatises on Jewish mysticism.

These goats, I swear to her, have made me a better Jew. Abraham, Itzhak, Yaakov, Moses and David were not scholars or preachers. They were the original men who stare at goats. Not surprisingly, the cycles of our holidays play out according to the cycles of these animals. That’s especially true now, during the holiday of Shavuot.

Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. It’s traditional to eat dairy foods like cheesecake and blintzes during the festival. The rabbis will tell you that’s because Torah is like mother’s milk to us. But my goats teach me something different.

Goldie and Ollie have been fixed. But when spring arrives, Ollie still yearns after Goldie, and a long-dead urge reawakens, and he tries. If they weren’t city goats, rescued from other people’s appetites, Goldie would be kidding now, her milk flowing. There would be more than we could drink, and we would be making cheese, and out of the cheese, blintzes.

The first milk the Hebrews drank, the first simple cheese they made, came from goats.

“Why goats?” people ask, and then they answer their own question with another: “Do you milk them?”

No, but a few months ago, my goats inspired me to take a cheese-making class from Steve Rudicel, owner of Mariposa Creamery in Altadena, the only goat dairy in Los Angeles. Rudicel, a young, sturdy farmer type, started the class with a brief explanation.

“Milk needs to be small,” he said. “Milk needs to be local. Seek out quality dairy ingredients. It makes a big difference in the lives of the animals. The hardest-working part of the dairy farm is the animals. We’ve lost respect for the animals.”

Rudicel paused.

“Goats are some of the sweetest creatures I’ve ever met,” he went on. “I’m often moved by the milk we make.”

In front of about 75 people, Rudicel had to stop to compose himself.

“Why goats?” That’s the answer. These animals start out in your blood, but they quickly make their way to your heart.

Follow Rob (and his goats) on Twitter @foodaism.

STEVE RUDICEL’S CHEVRE CHEESE

Fresh goat cheese is one of the easiest foods you can make. It takes five minutes of active cooking time, over two days. And its taste is far superior to the standard logs of chevre cheese product available in gourmet stores.

All specialty items are available by mail-order at dairyconnection.com.

Tools:

Good liquid thermometer
Large spoon
Large, clean pot
Cheese maker’s muslin or molds

Ingredients:

1 gallon pasteurized goat milk (I use Summerhill Dairy, which is readily available at Trader Joe’s. It costs $3 quart, or $12 a gallon, which yields just over 1 pound of goat cheese.)
1/8 teaspoon MM100 or MM101 starter cultures
3 drops vegetable rennet
1/4 cup spring or distilled (not tap) water

Heat milk gently to 74 degrees F.

Add a scant 1/8 teaspoon starter culture and stir for two minutes.

Dissolve rennet in spring water. Add to milk and stir for 2 minutes.

Drape a towel over pot and leave at room temperature for 12 to 20 hours. The curds are ready when they appear solidified and liquid whey floats on top.

Ladle curds into cheese maker’s muslin, tie around a wooden spoon or dowel and suspend over a pot. Allow to drip at room temperature overnight. Or, you can ladle into cheese molds and allow to drain overnight.

Unwrap cheese, sprinkle with sea salt, drizzle with great olive oil, and it’s ready to eat. You can also stir in seasonings (salt, chives, etc.), then cover and refrigerate.

Makes slightly more than 1 pound of cheese, enough to fill about 6 chevre molds.

Find more photos like this on EveryJew.com

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April 25, 2012 | 11:14 am

Louisa

Posted by Rob Eshman

When I was in my mid-20s, I fought a long, messy and entirely internal struggle over whether to move to Israel.

Many young Jews living in the Diaspora — more than you think — face this choice. We spend some time there, either as part of an organized program, or, as I did, on our own. Then we have to choose. 

Israel, small as it is, exerts a strong pull. 

I was 25 in 1985. I had lived in Israel for a year; worked hard to learn Hebrew, find a job and an apartment; built the beginnings of a life. I had a girlfriend, Miki, and a group of Israeli friends — Jews, Arabs, South Africans, French, Australians, Angelenos — whose company inspired me. We worked or went to school, then spent the evenings visiting, drinking really bad Carmel Hock wine or powdered Turkish coffee, arguing, laughing, dreaming.

None of us had money, and the country itself was simple and poor compared to the States: no cell phones, two brands of beer, two TV channels.

Maybe it’s the same with all 25-year-olds. At that age, you enter a kind of second childhood, you sponge up whatever culture you happen to find yourself in. I have friends from Encino who spent those post-college years in London and returned with full-on English accents, never quite able to lose them.

In any case, Israel felt like my new home, and I wrestled with whether I could separate myself from my family and make a career there. 

Because I tend to relate to the world through food, my memories of those years are tied to foods I discovered for the first time there. One day, Miki and I befriended an elderly man named S.E. Yardeni, who lived in a simple home on a relatively large plot of land in Jerusalem. Yardeni was a pioneer who had come to settle the land. His agile mind invented the locks that still bear his name. He founded his company in 1947, a year before statehood, and by the time we met him, he was retired and devoting himself to his garden. He had the money to live anywhere in the world, in style, but he was rooted, like his fig, olive and pomegranate trees, to the land.

One hot summer day, he showed us how he made pomegranate wine. It was served cold and was mildly alcoholic, the color of rubies. To this day, I’ve never tasted anything quite so perfect. He made us a salad of the lettuce and tomatoes he grew, and he poured tea for us that was unlike any I’d ever tasted: sweet, lemony, minty.

“What is it?” I asked him to show me.

In his yard, he ran his hand over a bush with elegant, soft green spiked leaves. “Louisa,” he called it. As his rough hands stroked the leaves, that fragrance filled the warm air. How could I ever leave Israel?

In winter, we visited Yardeni again, and he made another tea, this time from sage leaves.

“The Arabs drink louisa in summer, sage in winter,” he explained. “It warms you up.” It did.

By spring, I was back in Los Angeles. I can’t say I ever really definitively decided whether to stay or to leave. Miki and I were breaking up, and I thought it would be a good thing to get a bit of distance between us for a bit, like 10,000 miles. Not that we were married, but in the separation, she got the country.

And me, I ended up like a helluva lot of other middle-aged men and women I know. We look back on the years we spent in Israel and can’t help wondering: What if? How close did we really come to taking a leap that, in the end, so few successfully take? Instead, we raise our kids speaking a bit of Hebrew, stay involved in the life and politics of the country from a distance, make a point to befriend Israelis here (and let’s face it, a lot more of them follow their hearts to us than vice versa).

It’s not a chapter that ever seems to close. And as the years tick by, as our kids grow up and move on, and a part of us — of me — can’t help but think: If the right opportunity were to arise … if the right job offer came through. But of course, a real leap doesn’t require a great opportunity; it starts with the courage to sacrifice for possibility, for a dream, for what if.

In my garden in Venice, I planted two pomegranate trees. The large one yielded more than 100 pounds of fruit last year. I never learned to make Yardeni’s wine, but I do make a pretty good vodka after I pick, seed and crush the fruit.

I looked for a year for louisa in the local nurseries, until I learned that it has a common English name, lemon verbena. I planted five plants in the back garden, one in the front.

Louisa goes dormant in the winter. Three months of the year, it looks dead. At the peak of spring, light lime-colored leaves sprout along the branches, and the plant begins a new cycle of spindly growth.

On a beautiful spring morning last week, I decided to drink my coffee by the garden. I sat and took in the peaceful morning, the beauty of where I live, the good fortune of my life. Unknowingly, I brushed my hand along the newly formed louisa leaves, and their fragrance released and enveloped me.

And I began to cry.

---

Lemon Verbena Sorbet

This is adapted from The Herbfarm Cookbook, by Jerry Traunfeld.

Nothing but vibrant and refreshing it’s lemon heaven.

Makes 1 quart, 8 servings

1 1/2 cups (gently packed) fresh lemon verbena leaves
1 cup superfine sugar
1/4 cup freshly squeezed Meyer or Eureka lemon juice
3 cups cold water

Grind the lemon verbena leaves and sugar together in a food processor until the mixture turns into a bright green paste, about 30 seconds; stop to scrape down the sides as necessary. Add the lemon juice and process for 15 seconds longer, then add the water. Strain the resulting liquid through a fine sieve to remove any bits of leaf. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions.

Lemon Verbena Tea

I serve this at the end of just about every meal beginning in early summer, when our verbena plants… leaf out.

12 fresh large lemon verbena leaves

1 T. sugar

4 cups boiling water

Steep leaves in boiling water.  Add sugar to taste.

Rob’s Pomegranate Cordial

Wash ripe pomegranates.  Submerge in a large bowl or tub of water.  Cut open and with your fingers pry out the seeds.  They will fall to the bottom of the bucket while the pith will rise to the top.

Scoop off and discard pith, drain all the water, then re-rinse seeds, drain well..

Using your hands, squeeze the seeds to extract the juice.  Strain through damp cheesecloth, squeezing well.

Make a simple syrup by boiling water and sugar 1:1.  Let cool.

Fill a clean bottle half way with juice. Add 1/8-1/4 syrup and the rest vodka.  Shake and taste.  Add more juice, syrup or vodka to balance flavor.  It should be sweet, tart and juicy with a slight alcohol kick.

Seal and refrigerate a few days to mellow the flavors.  Serve in cordial glasses, well chilled, or mix with Prosecco, champagne or white wine.

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April 10, 2012 | 2:26 pm

The Rest of Passover Cooking- Fourth Night

Posted by Rob Eshman

It’s coming up on Dinner #4 in the “What to Eat the Rest of Passover” series. Are we even at the hump yet?  There are still a few days of Passover left to go.  This is no time to fall back on hackey “cheese ‘n matzo pizza” recipes that pop up every time you Google “Passover cooking.”  Stick to great, fresh food—plenty of it around this time of year. So, for tonight:

Asparagus Milanese “Biffi” 
Avocado Salad “Garga”
Bubbie’s Passover Rolls

Tonight’s menu (minus the Passover rolls) comes from a trip we took to Italy in 2008.  Biffi is a classic Milanese restaurant in the Galleria Vittoria Emanuelle II in Milan.  Great for people- and Duomo-watching, it caters to tourists but mostky of the Italian variety.  Asparagus Milanese is, to break it down, asparagus with a fried egg and parmesan cheese. Works for breakfast, lunch, dinner, whenever. 

Garga is the Florence Italy version of de Struisvogel: family-run, instantly warm and welcoming.  Whereas de Struisvogel reflects a more sedate Dutch propriety, Garga can be wild, a place of spontaneous partying and joyful noise.  This is their classic salad, which uses exotic—for Italy—avocado.

[RECIPE]

Garga Salad
 
INGREDIENTS

6 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
8 cups baby arugula
1 pound tomatoes, diced
4 stalks canned hearts of palm, sliced into rounds
2 medium avocados, peeled, diced
1 2 oz. wedge Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

Whisk oil and lemon juice in small bowl to blend. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper.
Combine arugula, tomatoes, hearts of palm and avocados in large bowl. Add dressing and toss to blend.
Using vegetable peeler, shave Parmesan cheese into strips over salad. Sprinkle with pine nuts.
Serves 4.

Asparagus Milanese

4 extra large eggs
1 pound asparagus
salt and pepper
1/2 pound (approx.) Parmegiano-Reggiano
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven broiler.  Heat a skillet and add some olive oil.  Add asparagus, some salt and pepper, and cook over high heat until cooked through and still bright green, about 5 minutes.  Remove from pan and divide among four ovenproof plates or place in a shallow casserole.  In the same skillet, add some more olive oil and fry eggs until just set.  Place on top of the asparagus.  Grate parmesan on top, then place under broiler for JUST A FEW SECONDS until cheese is melted.

Serves 4.

with, of course, Bubbie’s Passover Popovers

Bubbie’s Passover Popovers

(adapted from Ruth Levy and Joan Nathan)

1/2 cup vegetable oil, plus more for baking sheet
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup matzo meal
(or half matzo meal, half matzo cake meal) 
1/2 tablespoon sugar (or, to taste)
4 eggs
 
Directions:

1 Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2 Brush a baking sheet with oil; set aside.
3 In a medium saucepan, bring oil, 1 cup water, and salt to a boil over medium-high heat.
4 Stir in matzah meal (or matzo meal/cake flour) until sticky, remove from heat and let cool completely.
5 Add sugar and eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
6 Fill a large bowl with water.
7 Dip your hands in the water and then form dough into a ball about the size of a tennis ball.
8 Place on prepared baking sheet.
9 Repeat process until all dough has been used.
10 Transfer to oven and bake until popovers are puffy, about 15 to 20 minutes.
11 Reduce heat to 350 degrees and continue baking until golden brown, about 40 minutes.
12 Serve immediately.

For what to expect tomorrow, click here.

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April 5, 2012 | 11:34 pm

The Rest of Passover Cooking [RECIPE]

Posted by Rob Eshman

The food challenge of Passover is not the seder.  It’s the seven days that come after.

After all, you know what to make on seder.  Torah and tradition are right there by your side, cooking: matzo, charoset, chicken or brisket, kugel if you’re Askenazi, something people actually like if you’re Sephardic.  It’s all preordained. God is your sous chef.

But then the holiday of Passover is over, and you’re facing seven days of elaborate, seemingly all-encompassing food restrictions.

Not only are the usual non-kosher food off limits, but so is all bread, pasta, beans, rice, and, of course, beer.  The idea is to avoid not just leavened bread, as it says in the Torah, but anything that can or will be used against you to harbor leavening.

Sephardic Jews are a bit more lenient. They get to eat beans, seeds and rice. Observant Ashkenazic Jews ar the most exacting—I’ve passed evenings arguing whether it’s okay to serve fresh green beans.
Where do I fall on the spectrum?  During Passover, I go full Ashkenzi.  I’m not sure why—the rest of the year I have a very expanded and convenient idea of what kosher means to me. (OUTSIDE our home, I hasten to add.  Inside I am under rabbinical supervision).

But during Passover it feels right to forego the weightiness of flour and starches and legumes.  It’s liberating.  The rabbis who developed these arcane rules perfectly understood that spirituality begins with what we eat.  By spending a week free of the heavier stuff, I really do feel lighter, more free. The Exodus continues, just in my stomach.

But… it ain’t easy.  Thinking of menus that don’t involve bread, pasta, beans rice, but excite you, satisfy you—that takes some doing .  As I said, anyone and their grandmother can give you a matzo ball recipe, but what about dinner on Day 5?

Here’s how I solved the problem this year: by looking at iPhoto.  We traveled to some great places this year, and I’m one of those people who takes photos of food and menus, and keeps notes.  I went back through my photos and found favorite dishes that happen to be Passover friendly.  They are mostly from restaurants in Amsterdam, Barcelona, London and Milan, with a few local places, including my home, thrown in. Many involve fish, and there’s a lot of vegetables.  The flavors are strong.  The ingredients are fresh.  My pet peeve are those prepared Passover foods, like brownie mix and cereals, that completely subvert the spirit of the holiday, if not the law. These recipes are springy: herbs, fresh vegetables, fresh fish.

Check back here each day next week. I’ll post at least one main dish recipe each day during the intermediate days of Passover, along with a bit about where I ate it. 

It’s a long holiday, but I promise, you won’t go hungry.

I’ll start with the last recipe, for Chef Micah Wexler’s Roasted Beet Salad with Grilled Haloumi Cheese.  Micah is the chef/co-owner of Mezze on La Cienega Blvd., and many of his Levant-inspired dishes are Passover friendly.  This one uses garbanzo beans in the original—boiled and fried, if I remember correctly.  But you can leave them out.  If you’re Ashkenazic.

Here’s what’s on my non-seder Passover menu the rest of the week:

Cod Gratinée with an Artichoke Mousse “Café de l’Academia” in Barcelona

Lemon and Olive Oil-Roasted Artichoke “da Toni” Venice

Sole with celery puree and roasted cherry tomatoes “Arcana” Barcelona

Sweet Potato and Soft Goat Cheese Gratin with Spring Herb Salad “Struisvogel” Amsterdam

Seared Trout with Berber Spice and Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette (okay, this one is mine)

Asparagus Milanese “Biffi” Milan

Padron Peppers “Santa Catalina” Barcelona

Cauliflower, Courgette, Mint and Ticklemore “Great Queen Street” London

Potato Cake, Bell Onion, Romesco and Fried Egg “Great Queen Street” London

Grilled Fillet of Sea Bass with sauce antiboise “Struisvogel” Struisvogel

Roasted Beet Salad with Grilled Halloumi Cheese, “Mezze” Beverly Hills

RECIPE

Roasted Beet Salad with Grilled Halloumi Cheese

3 baby red beets
3 baby gold beets
3 baby striped beets
1 block halloumi cheese
1/2 cup greek yogurt
1 tbsp dried mint
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup sherry vinegar
1 tsp sea salt

Trim the beets of their leaves and stems. Place each type of beet in a separate foil packet with 1 tbsp EVOO, 1 tsp sherry vinegar, and some salt. Place the three packets on a roasting pan and roast at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until tender.

Remove beets from oven and allow to cool. Using a dish towel, rub the beets to remove the skin and discard the skin. (Please use a towel you don’t care about - the beet juice WILL stain it.) Cut the beets in halves and marinate in a quarter cup of EVOO and 2 tbsp sherry vinegar.

Cut the halloumi into cubes and fry in a pan with oil until golden. Mix the yogurt with the lemon juice, dried mint, salt, and a quarter cup of EVOO.

To dress, place the marinated beets in a bowl, and garnish with the yogurt dressing and fried halloumi.

 

 

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March 21, 2012 | 3:09 pm

Passover at Street [RECIPE]

Posted by Rob Eshman

STREET restaurant is offering a second night seder menu for April 7 that looks… delicious.  Not exactly sure what seder and street food have in common, except, well, the Israelites probably just had time to grab a bite before they made their hasty exodus. 

So in that spirit, chefs/owners Susan Feniger and Sasha Alger are offering a traditional and a vegetarian menu, served family style, at $55 per person.  Menu and my commentary below.  There will be a seder plate on each table.  It is NOT BYOR (Bring Your Own Rabbi).  Chef Alger’s very own rabbi (check back for the name)  will lead a STREET-friendly seder. 

No it’s not kosher. 

Doors open at 5 pm, the food service starts at 6 pm. Which answers the ancient Jewish question: When do we eat?

Here’s the menu:

• Fava Bean Besara, with Rosso Brunno tomatoes and minted onion [This is an Egyptian fava been puree… my recipe below]


• Smoked Fish and Potato Bimueolos, spicy pepper sauce and pickled cauliflower [Bimuelos are fritters, like churros.  But these are savory.]


• Matzo Ball Soup


• Warm Halloumi Salad, grapefruit, tangerine, and grilled Treviso with fresh thyme vinaigrette [This sounds great.  Mezze restaurant uses fried halloumi in its salad too. And they sell it as “grilling cheese” at Whole Foods.  Food trend for 2012?]


• Morroccan Lamb or Morrocan Vegetable Tagine, with Matzo Crepes or Jeweled Rice


• Eggplant Hummus


• Spiced Apple Cake, with honey and date crumble

WHEN: Saturday, April 7th  
             
RESERVATIONS: 323.203.0500

[RECIPE] Fava Bean Bessara

Ingredients:
2 cups fava beans, soaked overnight
1 onion
4 garlic cloves
1 c. packed parsley leaves
1 c. packed fresh cilantro
1 c. fresh fresh dill
1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
Salt and pepper, to taste

Roast cumin seeds in a hot dry skillet until fragrant, then crush. (or use good quality cumin powder).

Put all the above ingredients into a saucepan. Cover with water and bring to boil.  Boil gently until beans are soft, about 40 minutes, careful to add more water if dry.

Let cool slightly, then puree in food processor or good blender until creamy.

You can top with caramelized onions, and serve warm or chilled with pita.

Serves 6

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March 15, 2012 | 5:44 pm

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Posted by Rob Eshman

[NOTE: THE RESTAURANT REVIEWED BELOW IS NOT KOSHER. If this offends you, please don’t keep reading.  However, two points: The vast majority of Jews don’t eat at exclusively kosher restaurants, even if they follow some kosher precepts.  Second, if you are strictly kosher, reading about how non-kosher restaurants prepare and serve food may inspire you, and lead to better food and service in kosher restaurants.  Which couldn’t hurt…. ]

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing is a pop up restaurant in the space formerly occupied by Capri.

After you read this review, just get in the car and go eat there.  If you wait much longer, you’ll likely wait forever.

For as long as we’ve lived near Abbot Kinney Blvd.—15 years—Capri was the place we went when no place else would have us.  It was dependably empty. Valentines Day, Mothers Day—it was our oops-we-forgot-to-plan-ahead restaurant.

Aside from the fact that the food wasn’t that good, or original, or fussed-over, it was always good enough.  They made a decent pumpkin ravioli with sage butter.  They could grill a piece of fish and toss some lemon and capers on it.  It was walking distance from our house.  They had wine.  And best of all, it was quiet.

As Abbot Kinney filled up with the city’s hippest new restaurants, where you had to hack into Open Table just to get a 10 pm reservation in three months (Gjelina), and then, once seated, you had to scream over the sound of 4000 people all gushing at once over their hand-squeezed cocktail (Tasting Kitchen), at Capri what you gave up in terms of food, you gained in solitude.  The place was never exactly packed.  We’ve eaten there practically alone some nights.

Even so, it never had that happy-to-see-you atmosphere.  And for me, a restaurant has to feel welcoming.  Fancy or fast food, it has to feel at least a bit like home. Capri, with its stark white walls and stiff mesh metal chairs, was tantalizing close to home, but nothing like it. 

Then this new pop up restaurant moves in and: bam.

Last night we arrived at 6.  By 7 you couldn’t get in the door.  By 8 people were standing on the sidewalk waiting for a table.  For good reason.

The chef/owners, who are renting space from Capri’s owners, are from Joe’s and Axe, and cook a gastro-bistro take on Southern food.  But they aren’t orthodox about it. There’s pickled shrimp with fried green tomatoes—four large crisp shrimp spiraled around perfectly fried, ungreasy slices of tomato.  But there is also raclette with potatoes and cornichons. The chef broils the potato slices in the melted cheese, so it’s a very good goo.

Housemade pickles are big here.  You can order that day’s selection as an appetizer (6 bucks, do it) and they come with the potted smoked trout with avocado toast, and the raclette. 

The South rises again in the quail with corn cake, which features a crisp and juicy little bird atop a pudding that has sponged up the juices.  The vegetarian standouts are a polenta cake with mushrooms and parmesan, and a kale salad (who doesn’t have a kale salad these days?), in which the kale is chiffonaded and tossed with dates and sheep milk cheese.

For dessert we had the apple pie with artisan cheddar, a hybrid crumbly, tart, cakey pie , all good.

The servers are excited by the food, and they care, as does the chef with the tattoos up to his neck and the dagger-like knife in his belt.  It all costs about the same as Capri, around 25-40 bucks per person with wine or one of their curated beers, but you get to eat food cooked by owners who really, really care. 

Yes it’s crowded and popular and it’s only going to get busier.  But it feels like home. 

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March 13, 2012 | 12:50 pm

Gefilte Fish Season

Posted by Rob Eshman

How do you know it’s Spring?  The gefilte fish are running.  The news is full of stories, references and recipes to the iconic Passover food.

This morning on the Howard Stern Show, supermodel Elle MacPherson weighed in by recounting how she hand-fed her first boyfriend gefilte fish, he threw up, and she’s a had a thing for “Jewish boys” ever since.  (Her first husband Gilles Bensimon is one of them and her last husband Arpad Busson may well be, but who can untwist his uber-complicated Hungarian bloodlines and, really, who cares?). 

In today’s Haaretz.com, there’s a report on a new food cart in Brooklyn called, Gefilteria, which offers gourmet, homemade takes on classic Ashkenazic food like kvass and of course gefilte fish.

As to what inspired them to choose these specific hard-core Ashkenazi staples, Liz said: “The pushcart was one of our earliest inspirations. We loved the image of Jewish street food and the community interactions that surround it. That said, we also feel connected to foods with a purpose- foods that are served at the holidays, foods that are labor intensive and symbolic. The Gefilteria is a combination of both of those sources of inspiration -  and it isn’t so different than the deli revival that is going on now.”

“We want people to feel empowered to reclaim their holiday table and to serve things that they can be proud of,” she said.

The three plan to sell their boutique gefilte fish loaves around New York City for Passover, together with two horseradish relishes, beets and carrots. They will also sell DIY kits for making gefilte fish in your own kitchen “urging all of us to bring back the home preparation of these critical foods.” Later in the spring they plan to sell their foods in festivals around NYC.

The Gefilteria’s gefilte fish loaves are made with whitefish, pike and salmon. And, in keeping with current food ideals of their prospect clientele and their own, all fish are sustainably sourced.

I’ve made gefilte fish a couple times using Joan Nathan’s classic gefilte fish recipe, but I’ve long ago moved on to more crowd-friendly Passover fish dishes, like ceviche and crudo.  If Elle MacPherson had spoon fed her boyfriend my ceviche, I promise he wouldn’t have done a Rick Santorum on her.

Elle: here’s my Ceviche-Stuffed “Gefilte” Lettuce recipe.  Enjoy.

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February 16, 2012 | 5:01 pm

Eating San Miguel de Allende [SLIDESHOW]

Posted by Rob Eshman

In my editor’s column I wrote about attending Shabbat services at the small congregation in San Miguel de Allende during a recent trip there.

But man doesn’t live by shul alone.  He lives by shul occasionally, and food obsessively.  Or that’s just me.

When we travel Naomi tends to look up minyans, I look up restaurants and markets. 

We stayed at a house with friends who had rented it complete with a cook.  She insisted on providing kosher meat for Naomi, the only one of us who keeps kosher.  That decision entailed many calls to contacts in San Miguel, then more e-mails and calls to a contact in Mexico City, from where the meat would come.  These sparked an ongoing debate via email and more phone calls between the eight of us over whether it was easier to just buy the meat at Trader Joes and carry it down.  That prompted calls to various Mexican friends as well as the Mexican customs agency, and the checking of web sites to determine if frozen meat could be carried into the country—ambiguous answers. That led to more debate over whether to rely on uncertain kosher meat from an unknown source in Mexico City, or risk carrying certain kosher meat all the way from LA.  That led me, in the middle of Trader Joes, to get out my iPhone and start translating the prices from peso to dollars,  from kilos to pounds, and comparing the costs, then finally, our friend made a decision. She bought the meat through a friend in Mexico City.  It was transported to a store in San Miguel, and we picked it up on arrival.

“It was easier to bring eight live people to the middle of Mexico than one piece of dead cow,” said my friend.

But kosher isn’t about easy—part of the point of it is, it’s hard.

Our cook made the chicken enchilada style, that is, robed in a roasted chili sauce.  We cooked the meat on the outdoor, rooftop grill, and served it with salsa and rajas. That salsa recipe will rate a future post of its own.

As for where we ate outside the home, I can recommend:

Cafe Rama

Owned by British Columbian Chef Jason Malloff, Cafe Rama is a San Miguel highlight.  Borscht in Mexico?  Yes.  It is one of the best borschts ever, a traditional Malloff family recipe that uses a little butter and cream.  If your bubbie had cooked for the Romanoff’s, she would have made this version, too.

Some rotisserie chicken place on some street.

The non-kosher among us decided this might be the best chicken of our lives.  Split, spread-eagled and rotisseried in front of an inferno of mesquite.  Marinated with pineapple and, I think, achiote.  One whole chicken was five dollars.  The seven of us fell on it like wolves.  Look at the slide show, and in another post I’ll find more info.

Da Andrea

A Neopolitan Chef, Andrea Lamberti, in the outskirts of San Miguel, serving homemade food in a vaulted cavern that used to be a horse stables.  Ravioli with huitlacoche, a mushroomy corn fungus, and snapper (huachinago) with marsh asparagus, or samphire, were the standouts.

Cafe Buenos Dias

Jason at Cafe Rama said this was the town’s best coffee, and, aside from the cafe at his place, it was.

In short, go to san Miguel de Allende.  As for getting kosher meat there…. you figure it out.

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