Fair Weather Vegan

Now There's A Rhetorical Question

On the cover of a recent issue of  Men's Health magazine, one may find the headline "Can You Be A Man and Not Eat Meat?" Leaving aside how idiotic it is to buy into any trope about what it means to be a 'real' man (or woman), the next line is "Jonathan Safran Foer investigates."  No need to read the 'investigation,' then, is there?  Or indeed use the word 'investigates' at all.   Foer is best known for being the author of Everything Is Illuminated, but his secondary claim to fame is being an extremely doctrinaire vegetarian.  It's like sending Michael Moore out to do a piece on whether corporations are evil. 

Twist on Tradition- Cheese Latkes

If for some reason you are tired of the fried potato variety, check out this amazingly delicious alternative from a friend's family recipe.  It definitely won our latke cook-off.  Serve with a dusting of powdered sugar. 

Grandmom's Cheese Latkes

 2 cups cottage cheese

4 eggs-seperated

1 cup flour

4 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup sour cream

 

Beat egg whites until stiff and put aside

Beat egg yolks, salt and sugar together

Stir in cottage cheese and flour to egg yolk mixture

Add sour cream

Fold in egg whites

Fry in peanut oil  (we used canola yesterday).

These latkas are difficult to flip, so best to use a large metal spatula if possible.

In 'n Out Expands Into Utah

First it was Northern California, now this?  Pretty soon the menu will expand and they'll become Jack-in-the-Box.  I have to say, I ate my first actual In 'n Out burger during my anything goes hiatus last summer (which is over and I will write about soon), but I was not blown away.  Their grilled cheese, however, remains the best thing a vegetarian can get at a fast food restaurant. 

Gnocchi Recipe, Tweaked

So I tried it again, using half-and-half plus some feta cheese and remembering to drain the spinach more thoroughly, and the whole experience was better.  Crumbled cheese like chevre was not recommended in the original recipe because it doesn't melt very well, but in the end small pieces of cheese that blend with the flavors more, in my mind, are preferable to a cheese that is creamy but doesn't taste very good (looking at you, Trader Joe's goat brie).  Still, this number didn't blow me away even with the changes.

Gnocchi With Pumpkin, Spinach, and Goat Cheese

Mistakes were made.  I'm willing to admit that 90% of them were mine.  Still I think this recipe, from Broke Ass Gourmet, has some problems.  At base, it looks amazing and didn't taste that good.  It was supposed to be "creamy and decadent," but I think then it would require half milk and half cream in the sauce.  Goat cheese brie is somewhat overwhelming here, and I wonder why, if we're melting the cheese anyway, chevre is so vigorously excluded. The pumpkin flavor was quite muted, so perhaps at least a cup instead of 3/4 cup.  I don't understand what the onions are doing there a'tall because I can't imagine they work, but maybe to soften the cheese's sharpness and probably I should add them next time.  Do remember to drain the spinach, so as not to water the sauce down, and blanch for exactly the amount of time noted so as not to create bitter spinach.  Indeed my biggest complaint was bitterness, which is why I presume this less than satisfying meal was mostly my responsibility.  It seems like such a good idea that I encourage you to fiddle around with it, fix my errors, and make it live up to its promise. 

FWV Shorts: Kitchenette, Lulu Taqueria

Depending on your perspective, the abundance of secret hipster hangouts is part of San Francisco's charm or yet another sign of its exclusionary cooler-than-thouitude.  Having taken a route through one of the city's few working class black neighborhoods to reach Kitchenette, the lunch counter housed in a Dogpatch loading dock, I was acutely aware of the spectacle of BMWs pulling up to disgorge well-dressed white inhabitants set to grab expensive sandwiches at this spot one generally learns about through one's social network.  The only black customer I saw wore a shirt and tie and drove an Audi, and I wondered if he'd ever visited the neighborhood just a few blocks away.  The fact that this "spontaneous organic cover nourishment" is located itself in a seriously transitional district is probably the only reason most patrons ever visit the Dogpatch.  They come for the city's obsession: food.  Vegetarian dining can be deathly dull, but Kitchenette's Friday fare was one of the most imaginative sandwiches I've had in a while, an intriguing mix of "slow-cooked cauliflower, broccoli, and pecorino cheese" provided the savory contrast with sharp hits of olive and sweet bits of pepper, all presented on a crusty baguette.  Non-veggies could be treated to Marin pastrami.  Desserts are small but refreshingly cheap and might include an organic brownie which tasted like it was made with Vahlrona chocolate.  Kitchenette serves a limited daily menu weekdays from 11:30 until it runs out of food or 1:30, whichever comes first. 

Kitchenette's industrial 'bench in the parking lot' ambiance couldn't have been more in contrast with another common Bay Area destination, the upscale outdoor mall, although both are surrounded by fancy cars.  Thursday saw me tackling one of my favorite local specialties, the Mission-style burrito.  Sadly I was not in the Mission at the time, and all foreign burritos must be viewed with a certain amount of suspicion, especially if they're being served in a place like Town and Country center in Palo Alto.  Lulu's Taqueria, which also operates a successful Menlo Park branch, maintains a small storefront there.  Trying to find something to fill my stomach and warm my hands before what promised to be a brisk evening of soccer, I took a gamble on that all-time great, the chile relleno burrito.  I really wanted a chimichanga but normally those only have chicken in them, and what better way to test the place than to choose a burrito I know well?   Lulu's does your initial prep in the back kitchen, then adds toppings at the counter, which means I didn't get to see the relleno being produced, heated or sauced.  They also broke the rules of wrapping, with a flimsy inner coat of paper and a poorly constructed layer of foil, both of which came apart almost immediately, as if they expected patrons to eat their burritos with a fork (for shame!).  That said, my first cranky impression that I'd paid ten plus dollars for a terrible burrito was unfounded.  I'd paid ten plus dollars for an inferior burrito to my local version, with much less robust and flavorful beans and rice, too much cilantro, and an undercooked chile, as well as no sour cream to speak of, but since my local version is the city's best the bar is high.  It was a perfectly adequate quick dinner, but since only South Bay denizens would refer to Lulu's as reasonably priced, it didn't give great value for the money.  I'm not writing the taqueria off yet until I try the chimichangas, which do in fact come in a cheese version, but thus far for quick, cheap meals it's not the best local bet. 

Bay Area Pizza Update

FL: Where's this pizza from?

Start-Up Dude: Ramona's.  It's New York style.

FL: It's really good, and I like it.  But no, it's not.

Start-Up Dude: You know, you're right.  

I must have passed Ramona's a hundred times because it's right off California avenue, but I never went in.  While not New York pizza (it's too thick and the cheese consistency isn't the same glorious greasy mess), Ramona's makes a pretty decent slice.  I especially enjoyed the mushroom-pineapple combo, a pleasant mix of savory and periodic bites of sweet.  Other party-goers raved about the Greek, which included feta and spinach.  It was a bit sharp for my taste and I wasn't sure the ingredients hung together that well, but that may just be the opinion of a topping wimp.  

Back up in the city, one wonders why those who least deserve to have a stellar pizza place always get one.  Patxi's has just opened a new location in the Marina/Cow Hollow district, neighborhood voted most likely to be cheered as it floats away during the Big One.  The first SF location is in the expensive part of Hayes Valley.  Pizza to the people, we say!  I will admit that the area is gorgeous at night right now, courtesy of the twinkly lights, but it comes with such baggage and such a high bill that it's someplace many San Franciscans don't even think of making a destination. 

Authentic Belgian Pastry at Civic Center

The Wednesday farmer's market sports quite a few ready-made food stands, and right across the sidewalk from the lard-free tamales is a new one, advertising "Belgian sugar waffles."  These might be galettes at long last in this country, and it would be a crime against my ancestors not to try one, right?  Though normally diffident, when I walked up and saw that the guy inside definitely looked Belgian, we had the following conversation:

Him: One with powdered sugar?
Me: Where are you from?
Him: Belgium [This woman is an idiot! Can't she read the sign?]
Me: Where in Belgium?
Him: Bruxelles
Me: Because I have a large family in the [redacted Walloon city] area
Him: I know [redacted Walloon city].  It's near the border with France.
Him: [in French] Do you speak French?
Me: [in English] Not well.
He turns around to pick up the galette. 
Me: My grandmother makes these.  This is a test.
Him: Don't worry.

And indeed, she shouldn't worry.  It's a bit of an unfair competition, as my grandmother's galette recipe is unmatched and I suspect the ingredients are quite expensive, at least based on the amount of butter than seems to be involved, but on the other hand, this was definitely a galette and not that soft nonsense that gets passed off as a Belgian waffle in this country.  It was dense, chewy, and substantial, and powdered sugar got all over creation.  There was also a pot of jam on display and given that the galette was somewhat dry and lacked the buttery finish, it would probably be the better with a spread.  It cost $3.50 but was fairly filling.  The napkin he handed out had, what else, a web address on it so I looked it up, and what we have here is actually a franchisee of a large Belgian galette-dough company allegedly utilizing a recipe from another city in which a number of my relatives live.  They use the term 'gaufre' and I also know that 'galette' is used for a number of other types of Francophone pastry, so perhaps there is a difference between what my family makes and this, but they look awfully similar. There will certainly be more research to follow.  Also more trips to the farmers' market to try out the tamale stand. 

Snack News For Veggies And Jews

Little Debbie is putting out a creme-filled cupcake, designed to compete with the curlicued Hostess version.  Now, we know that it will stand in quality relation the way a Swiss Cake Roll does to a Ho-Ho, ie, slightly drier and less decadent. But I believe, pending a check, that Little Debbie doesn't use trace amounts of beef fat in its creme filling.  So it's 'suitable for vegetarians' as the British would say. 

Mac and Cheese: Lower Fat Option

My mother would like to point out that she's been altering that recipe for years, using only one egg and 1 and 1/2 cups milk, which can be skim.  She also insists that the lasagna pan doesn't actually work, despite our using it for years before we found we were doing it wrong.  Anyhow, she made the mac for dinner last night and it was fabulous.