A day in The City

Pork shoulder at Trou Normand

San Francisco, December 29, 2014—

A FULL DAY in San Francisco today, touring Fisherman's Wharf and North Beach and, of course, checking up on comestibles.

Let's start with breakfast — we did, of course. We'd heard so many good things about one Mission District bakery, for so long, that we began there. A popular spot, no doubt about it; and the items in the case looked very nice. The croissants, while baked to a perfect color, were too big for our taste, and I thought a little too bready; and our caffe lattes were weak, and what coffee flavor there was seemed a little sour, a little bitter. Definitely not the best coffee in town. We bought a gougère and a couple of "rochers" — meringues — for later, and then stepped around the corner to try another place we'd heard about.

Here the croissants were just as I like them: very flaky, dark golden brown, a reasonable size — but a little cold at the center, as if they'd been held a while under refrigeration, then brought up to temperature. And my cappuccino was really not very good: very bitter; undrinkable. Oh well: as a friend pointed out, off to a bad start.

At midday we split the gougère and the meringues: the gougère was very nice indeed; the almond rocher tasty; the chocolate-nugget rocher unpleasant, I thought, as to both texture and flavor — simply not a good combination. We went on, though, to an old favorite of mine for lunch, where I had a perfectly acceptable mozzarella-and-basil panino with a glass of Pinot grigio, and we then finished with a cappuccino laced with that warming, comforting egg liqueur Vov. Graffeo coffee! Clean espresso machine! Barista who knows her stuff! Shoulda gone there for breakfast!

Dinner at a place new to me, down in the financial district. I'm not sure the menu makes a lot of sense: the restaurant has a Norman French name, the menu runs to northern Italy. We began with four items from the charcuterie-salumi menu (there were four of us at table): pork paté with fennel and thyme; lardo; "dry guanciale" made with garlic, clove, and red wine, and "rabbit salami" flavored with sweet peppers and white wine, along with a "brassica salad" with pickled cippolini and pecorino.

Alas, the lardo was rancid and inedible, and the guanciale tended in that direction. The paté was delicious, we thought; also the rabbit salami. The salad was very nice, though I'd have loved a few more of those delicious little cippolini.

Given the opportunity to make a scientific comparison, as I explained to the grandchildren, I could hardly pass up the braised pork shoulder for my main course. It was quite as delicious as it had been the previous night, at another restaurant, though instead of being vaguely Cajun it was now vaguely Italian, with just the slightest hint of a gremolata accompaniment.

Dessert: pies from Mission Bakery. Mine was a walnut pie, and I liked it very much; it followed beautifully the trou normand that introduced it — a small glass of Calvados, a little rough perhaps but that's in its nature, nice and apple-y, not too artificially sweet.

Mâcon blanc, Bonhomme, 2012 (a little thin but developing well); Nebbiolo, Monsecco, 2010 (very nice indeed)

•Tartine Bakery, 600 Guerrero Street, San Francisco; 415-487-2600
•Craftsman and Wolves, 746 Valencia Street, San Francisco; 415-913-7713
•Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store, 566 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco; 415-362-0536
•Trou Normand, 140 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco; 415-975-0876

Back to Boxing Room

San Francisco, December 28, 2014—

DINNER IN THE CITY again tonight, at the restaurant where a granddaughter is working as hostess. A Cajun sort of place, where we ate a couple of weeks ago quite successfully. It was quite nice again tonight.

It was easy enough to order: the nightly special on the blackboard promised everything: Crispy pork shoulder with celery root purée, applesauce, roasted carrots and Brussels sprouts, in a pork reduction, with frisée and pickled red onion salad. The pork was nicely braised with the skin still crackling-crisp; the reduction was deep and nicely balanced, the vegetables deeply roasted and full of flavor. With that, a side of fried potatoes, another of corn muffins (soft and succulent).

Afterward, I'm afraid, three desserts: apple cobbler with malt ice cream; bread pudding; beignets. Really a very nice dinner.

Dolcetto, Palmina Vineyards (Santa Barbara), 2011

•Boxing Room Restaurant, 399 Grove Street, San Francisco; 415-430-6590

Christmas, day three: goose

Eastside Road, December 27, 2014—

THAT'S COOK'S MENU, written down on the back of an envelope. But let me tell you about this Christmas goose. A week ago I went into town to have some tires installed. As I left the house I told Cook I'd stop off at the farmers market and pick up a goose, as we'd recently had an e-mail announcing the limited availability of same — nice fresh organic goose, raised locally.

Check the freezer, Cook said, and make sure we don't already have one. We don't, I said, I'm sure we don't. Check it anyway, Cook said.

And at that moment came a telephone call from the neighbor down the hill, whose big upright freezer we share. Guess what I found in your freezer, she said, a goose.

See, Cook said, I thought there'd be a goose in there, don't you buy another one.

We'll see, I said.

Don't you buy another one, she repeated, as I stepped out the door. I stopped at the neighbor's house down the hill, and she saw me through the kitchen window. I knew, just as I was hanging up, that I shouldn't have made that call, she said. Well, I said, you really messed things up; we'd have had two geese; now we have only the one.

To tell the truth one was enough, but I like to have spare parts, and plenty of rendered goose-fat, and a nice supply of goose stock, in order to make a cassoulet down the line a month or so. But there it was: one goose.

And that, curiously, with no wings — they'd been surgically removed at the breast, not the elbow, the armpit, or wingpit, or whatever you call it. This was apparently a wild goose someone had shot, and had found it easier to remove the wings than to pluck them. I don't know exactly where it came from.

In any case Cook roasted it today, and we had eight guests to Christmas Three. Canapés: liver mousse from the neighbor down the hill, and sliced fennel, and some very nice burrata. Then dinner: Roast goose, roast potatoes, roast Hubbard squash brought by another of the guests. The sauerkraut was tender and delicate, cooked in Pinot grigio. Wild rice with button mushrooms, and a green salad with shallot vinaigrette.

Cook makes the Nocino, but so do various culinary friends. It's made of green walnuts, gathered on St. John's Day in June, chopped, macerated in alcohol, and combined with a sugar syrup, then aged — I believe it's not ready until Christmas. It's splendid on vanilla ice cream.

Pinot grigio, Barefoot Bynum, nv; "Rubicon" (Cabernet sauvignon-Merlot blend), Niebaum-Coppola, 1995 (thanks, Mia and Ron); Cabernet sauvignon, Simi (Alexander Valley), 2000; and Kenwood, Sonoma county, 2002 (thanks, Kendall)

Boxing Day: Truffles

Eastside Road, December 26, 2014—

A SURPRISE GIFT on Christmas Eve called out to be put to use two days afterward: four small white truffles from… California! I don't know exactly where
in California; only that they were apparently found at the Farmers' Market in San Francisco's Ferry Building

Many years ago — at least twenty years ago, perhaps more — we had a white truffle from the state of Oregon. We were not at all impressed: to me it had no flavor at all, no aroma, nothing. I dismissed the idea of extra-Italic white truffles from then on, though I had had grey truffle from Algeria, I think, which had some remote resemblance to the real thing. (Come to think of it, that Oregon truffle may have been a grey one too.)

These four little guys were definitely white truffles, though their skins looked the slightest bit pinkish; I don't know why. They didn't have a lot of aroma, to my nose, but they were intriguing, so we decided on slicing them over pasts.

Here's the result: fettuccine cooked al dente, tossed in butter, with the truffles shaved over them, as you see, then mixed into the hot pasta to bring the slices to temperature. They were delicious. Subtler than those we had in October, in Monferrato, to be sure. But nutty, deep, flavorful. Almost makes me want to fight my way through the poison oak to see what might be underground up on the hill.

Green salad.

Sauvignon blanc

Christmas Day

Eastside Road, December 25, 2014—

ONLY THE TWO of us at table tonight — we had our big dinner yesterday, and the goose will be here later — so we were content tonight with duck legs en confit, store-bought in town but very tasty. Cook simply browned them slowly in the black iron skillet, and served them with sides of oven-roasted vegetables and steamed broccoli. Yes, that's a spoonful of cranberry jelly at nine o'clock: complements the crisp rich duck skin perfectly.

After the green salad, a very fine little Christmas pudding sent all the way from Melbourne, from — whom? Niece, or sister-in-law? We'll have to clear that up. It arrived done up in its cheesecloth; Cook steamed it and made some brandy-brown sugar-butter sauce for it, and we felt we were having a properly Pom pleasure…

"Guadagni" red from the three-liter jug, Preston of Dry Creek

Christmas Eve

Eastside Road, December 24, 2014—

CLEARLY ONE OF the Hundred Plates: Roast leg of lamb. And there is no simpler way to roast one, nor more festive, than this Gigot à la ficelle, leg of lamb on a string. Of course you have to prepare for it. I'm not sure how this gigot was prepped, but I suspect it was simply trussed and salted; I don't think I'd have done more than that. Oh: and a hole was drilled through the bone at its end, to run the ficelle through. Ordinary kitchen twine is all you need — the twine must be at least two-ply, as the roasting method depends on the string's natural tendency to twist.

And the string must be soaked: you don't want it getting hot and burning through, dropping the roast onto the hearth!

Drilling the bone. Note ullage in bottle!

Now it's simply a matter of tying one end of the string to the gigot, through the hole in the bone, and the other end to a nail in the mantel over the fireplace, letting the gigot hang a little above center, the fire well behind it. Obviously there'll be some experimenting to do to get the fire at the right degree of heat. And it's heat you want, not flames.

The gigot will probably begin to spin of its own accord soon after you've hung it. When it's spun as far as the string likes in one direction, darned if it doesn't stop, then begin turning back the other way. I don't know if it's true that faster spinning slows the roasting; it seems so to me, but this may be a delusion. In any case, it roasts on all sides. You may want to finish it on the grill.` \




You'll notice a pyrex baking dish below the roast, to catch the drippings; in the dish, blanched potatoes and onions, roasting in their turn before the fire.

All this was done by the neighbors down the hill. Eric is practised at this; he does most of the meat cooking in the family, outside in good weather, inside like this when it's cold or rainy — or, I imagine, he wants to socialize with the guests while cooking. Either way, the result is consistently delicious.

Grilling the sausages	On the plate	Serving the tarts

Afterward, the green salad, and cheeses, and then, back in the living room, the Christmas tarts: a fresh pineapple tart with almond pastry; a perfect nut tart. Egg nog with, as you may have noticed, Bourbon, brandy, and a float of dark rum…

Trebbiano, "'l Tresen", La Chimera (Chiomonte, Piemonte): crisp, spicy, floral, very interesting); Volnay-Santenots Maison Naudin Père et fils (Savigny-les-Beaune, 1962 (absolutely optimal, mature but luscious, deep and strong); Syrah, Unti (Dry Creek Valley), 2012 (nicely balanced, young, good presence and finish)

Tacos

Eastside Road, December 21 and 22, 2014—

AND HOME-MADE TACOS, at that, and delicious; good enough for two days running. Lindsey chopped up a chorizo and fried it in its own fat in the black iron skillet, and then assembled these tacos in the kitchen, as you see, I hope, in the photo at the right.

The tortillas are organic corn ones made fairly locally; we wouldn't have any other. (Well, I do like wheat tortillas as well.) On them, the chorizo, beans of course, chopped cilantro, chunks of avocado, grated Cheddar cheese, chopped onion, and a squeeze of lime juice.

Yes, we had a green salad afterward…

"Guadagni" red from the three-liter jug, Preston of Dry Creek