The Panama Project Video blog: Part 3

The Panama Project Video blog: The Prequel

The trip that started it all................................................

The Panama Project Video blog: New Year's in Bocas

The Panama Project: Bocas Del Toro Part 2

Infusing vodka with BACON!

Everyone knows bacon makes everything taste better so why not vodka, right?  Have it shaken and served straight up with blue cheese stuffed olives or cocktail onions.  Use it in a bloody mary for delicious, smoky bacon-ness. Have it on the rocks with a dash of maple syrup stirred in. Crumble cooked bacon really fine in a food processor and use it to rim the cocktail. Sooooo many options.....

Just cook up some strips and let it sit in the vodka for a few days.  Strain any fat and floaty things.

Check out The Panama Project: Bocas Del Toro Part 1

The most delicious breakfast (or anytime) sandwich! Especially if you're hungover.

Boozing the night before?  Want something awesome to put in your mouth? Make this and impress the person that ended up in your bed ;)

Take a breakfast sausage, mine were thick so I cut it in half.  I used a spicy chorizo sausage.  Cook it. Fry an egg so it's over easy.  Hopefully you have some good bread in your house and not that wonder bread crap.  That. is. not. impressive.  Drizzle with olive oil and toast in a skillet or in the oven.  Chop some kale (or spinach) and wilt in a pan for about 3 minutes with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. NOW............


Assemble the sandwich.  Bread. sausage. egg. (hell, you could even do egg then sausage) kale. Bread.
Eat.  This tastes even better with a bloody mary or bloody beer to go along with it.  And...I almost don't feel guilty eating it because, hey, kale is good for you ;)

                                                                   Hangover be gone!

What I've been making for dinner every night...

......because corn is so amazing right now, I can't stop making it.  I'm catering with it, I'm eating it on the cob at bbqs with old bay seasoning, I'm taking it off the cob......I'm making this....take the corn off the cob with a knif and cook it in a pan with some chicken stock. After about 8 minutes add a spoonful of creme fraiche (or sour cream) and some chopped chives.  Add a dash of cayenne for some heat.

 Get a pan really, really hot with some canola oil and a bit o butter.  season the halibut and place in the hot pan.  You want a sear on the fish.  After about 4 minutes, flip the fish.  After another couple minutes, the fish should be done.  If it's a thick cut, put the fillets in the oven for a couple minutes.

 To garnish with garlic chips, soak garlic clove in milk for 30 minutes. This takes out some of the bitterness of the garlic.  Using a mandoline, (one of my fav kitchen tools) slice the garlic on the thinnest setting. Fry in oil until crisp and sprinkle over the fish.

ORRRRRR  make a miso glaze with miso paste, brown sugar and soy sauce.  Brush on salmon fillets and cook skin side down until skin is crspy. Transfer to over until fish is opaque. 

Top with fresh grated horseradish and green onions. 

Reading List

I've been doing a ton of reading lately.  With the weather being the warmth I crave, everyday I find myself on my patio with a book.  I went on to Amazon to find a book my best friend, Judith told me about. We had eaten at a restaurant called Prune in the east village sometime last year. Apparently, the author had written a book Anthony Bourdain called the best memoir written by a chef ever or something equivalent. I can never just buy one book and Amazon has those "customers who bought this book also bought" which just leads me to more books I need......



I ended up with the book I set out to buy Blood Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton.

This is probably the most well written book by a chef ever. The author went to school for creative writing and it's obvious in the way she tells her stories.  Her childhood seems magical, her relationship with her mother heartbreaking, her travels around the globe on hardly any money made me want to grab my backpack and catch the first flight to Europe.  Her knowledge is astounding and I found myself wanting to be friends with her.  I will eat again at Prune and maybe I'll get to tell her how even on vacation in beautiful St Lucia, I couldn't put her book down.  

Another book I bought was HEAT.  A writer for the New York Times, Bill Buford,  who fancies himself a good cook wants to really learn how to cook.....Soooo what better way than to work in Mario Batali's kitchen at Babbo for 6 months at no pay?!  He then decides in order to really learn how to cook like Mario, he must also learn from those who taught Mr Batali.  He embarks on a trip to Italy where we meet a butcher who quotes Dante and various other Italian characters that seem so, well,  Italian that I have to go there to see for myself.  ( I have actually started to plan this trip. No idea when it will actually happen but the wheels are a turnin' so to speak. ) Bill's dedication to learning astounds me, especially since he, at this stage in his life, does not want to work in a restaurant.  Read it.  I promise you will start planning your trip to Italy too.  

And if you don't.........

then you will after you read this book, Living in a Foreign Language

A Los Angeles based couple who work in the Entertainment world fall in love with an old stone house in Italy.  They buy it on a whim, not speaking the language, not knowing how to navigate their lives in a foreign country......reading about their struggles/accomplishments make me want to do the same thing.  Such a fun, easy read. 

Wanna read about one of the most creative chefs in the world attempt to open his own place?  Want to read about the most devastating thing that could possibly happen to a young, talented chef?  Check out  Life on the Line by Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas and read the devasting story of what happens when a chef learns he has tongue cancer. Heartbreaking and inspiring, this book is amazing and is Grant's story. 

ALWAYS a good read is anything by the man himself, Anthony Bourdain.  Check out his latest Medium Raw. The man can write. He's poetic, he's punk rock and he knows food.  I want him to be older, gentleman friend in a non sexual yet slightly flirtatious way ;)

There ya go. This list should keep ya busy for the rest of the summer.  My next read, due to a recommendation from my friend, David......

Steamed Shrimp Maryland style

Sooooo, I was home in MD last month. The craving for old bay seasoning is lingering and I can't just spoon it out of the can can I?  Can I?  I prob would.....anyway, I needed something to douse in old bay.  I put it on corn, fries, popcorn but had none of these in the house....oh look, shrimp.

I rigged up a steamer with two pots and a grill pan for vegetables (the ones with holes) .  I boiled water and placed the grill pan on top. Then I covered that with another upside down pot.  I tossed the shrimp in Old Bay and steamed until they turned pink.  Yay! Craving fed!

Catering a dinner party for CAA

Wes and I recently catered a dinner party for 32 peeps in Venice. Agent/Producer Roeg Sutherland was the host of many of Hollywood's main players including Reese Witherspoon.  His house is insane btw, it's kind of my dream house.

Here are some pics.....

Pedro helping out by grilling peaches

Wes in the kitchen

yum

seasoning the meat

prepping the corn

Pan roasted halibut with lemon and herbs

meat: the aftermath

roasted cauliflower

us

I want my hair to do this....

At the ballet.

The best thing I ever ate.....

While in Thailand in 2007 with Jude and Natalie, we visited the town of Chang Mai in the north.  We got off the plane and checked out the city right away. Naturally, we were starving and we had read that  Chang Mai was famous for their Khao Soi noodles. Ok. Noodles. Great. We stopped at one of the first restaurants we saw, with plastic tables and chairs, and condiments, such as spicy sauce and cilantro on the table.  The place didn't look like much but most of the restaurants in Thailand don't..... and let me tell you, I have eaten some of the best food of my life in these "restaurants" most Americans would be scared to step foot in.  Anyway, everyone was eating noodles.  In fact, that's all they served.  Soooooo we ordered the noodles.  The big steaming bowls arrived and were accompanied by strange sides...pickled cabbage, shallots, lime. The bowl was topped with crispy noodles. We dug in. We slurped. We were silent. We looked at each other. I don't remember which one of us was the first to be like, "Holy shit, this is the best thing ever" but one of us did and the other of us agreed.  Back to the noodles.  The broth was some sort of curry with so many flavors, some heat and coconut milk.  There were thin rice noodles, chicken and  of course, it was topped with crispy noodles and the shallots, pickled cabbage and lime.  So many flavors. So many textures. So effing ridiculously good. Perfect.
We ate this dish a buncha times our 3 days in Chang Mai and vowed to learn how to make it.

When we got home, Natalie and I to the west coast and Jude to the east, we were all on a quest to find Khao Soi somewhere close by. Natalie bought me a Thai cookbook and I tried my hand at the dish.  Not bad, but not what I ate in Thailand.  Nat and I also scoured la and found nothing. Even in Thai town they looked at us like they didn't know what we were talking about or they just didn't serve them.  It was a Northern specialty after all and I'm still on a mission to find a Thai restaurant in la that specializes in northern dishes.  I did recently, at Lukshon, encounter what they call Northern Thai Noodles.  Very good and similar, but NOT Khao Soi sadly.   Jude had more luck in NYC. She found two restaurants that served the dish and both were really good.  Ok.....so this was all 4 years ago.....I'm still waiting to have that holy shit moment with the dish again.  I was in NYC a few weeks ago and  being on a budget, thai food seemed like the perfect choice.  I asked her to take me to one of the places with Khao Soi.  We went.  We read the menu.  We looked at each other. Where was it?  Not there. Was it a secret dish? Hmmmmmmm....we asked the waiter and he said they took it off the menu. WHAAAAAA?  Instead they served things like fried appetizer samplers (which we had so don't think I'm hatin')   Maybe they only wanted to serve "American friendly " thai food?  Sates and such.....
We ate our platter of fried, pounded our Singhas and walked a block to the next place. Determined to get what we came for.  Please dear god still have it on the menu. Please. We walked in and the place was packed, waiters running around and the smell of delicious thai food smacked us in the face. There was a thai woman cooking in the heat of the smoky kitchen and speaking to the other cooks in thai. We glanced at the menu and found what we were looking for.
THERE IT WAS. HALLELUJAH!  KHAO SOI NOODLES!!!!
We ordered a bowl to share, as our fried thai food sat in our stomachs not leaving much room.

It came.  We looked at it.  Holy Shit it looked like the real deal.  The pickled cabbage, the limes wedge, the crispy noodles.....We ate it and were fucking giddy.  It tasted like Thailand.  It tasted like our trip.  It brought back memories, smells, that first little restaurant in Chang Mai.  The broth was insane. It was so good.  Go on a quest of your own and find it. Or hop on a plane to Thailand.

UPDATE:  I have found a Northern Thai place in LA and plan on going this weekend.  It's called Spicy BBQ on Santa Monica and Normandie. I'm going to have this:

Fish & Chips

Sometimes I just need fried food and fish & chips fits the craving perfectly.  Douse it all in vinegar and make sure you have a cold beer to drink.....it feels like I'm in England again.  It's easy to make your own chips, or, fries ......especially if you have a mandoline.  It cuts the potato evenly and quickly. Soak the fries in water to get the starch out. This makes them crispier.  Then you want to fry them not once but twice. The first time for a few minutes...let them sit and cool.  Then fry again.  

raw

after the first fry

For the fish, you need a firm-fleshed whitefish. Cod works best and is traditionally used.  Mix together flour, beer and seasoning such as salt, pepper and garlic powder. Then fry that fish!  Wrap it in a newspaper and look British. Just don't try to do the accent. Chances are you will sound like a dickhead.

Tomatoes from our tomato plant!