Lettuce Lessons

With the all-too-frequent packaged lettuces scares lately, I’ve made some changes.

In my book I advised vigilant shopping when buying packaged lettuce such as, make sure the expiration date is at least five days from purchase, and to not wait that long and use it within 1-3 days of purchase.

Sometimes you can simply see the lettuce turning dark in a bag that says it has several days of use left. Use your eyes. They don’t lie.

Now I only buy unpackaged lettuce, even if there are no dates stamped on the leaves—with one exception, arugula. I don’t know where to find fresh arugula when my farmer’s market doesn’t sell it. I like to mix arugula in with other kinds of greens and for a favorite side dish, a watermelon-arugula-toasted pine nuts-feta cheese crumbles-herb salad. I can’t remember the last time I bought iceberg—too many other interesting flavors and colors. Iceberg is the white bread of lettuces.

The lettuces we buy are washed, spun, and laid out on paper towels to dry. After an hour I use more paper towels to soak up any obvious moisture, layer them between more paper towels, roll up, bag and finally store in the refrigerator. Still, we use or toss the lettuce within five days. Costco is going to name a store after me for my multiple uses of their Kirkland paper towel brand.

Lately I have added Caesar Salad to the menu options, and made-from-scratch dressing. Instead of croutons I make my killer onions rings, quarter them and mix as the final step. None of that canned French’s French Fried Onions for me*. Romaine never tasted so good.

PJ is not a big fan of spinach. We are still on speaking terms. But she is fine with a recipe for a spinach and pine nut pesto that we use to coat skinless chicken breasts. We bake them first.

So, if you ever let us entertain you, be assured we are looking out for you when we serve a salad.

*You won’t be thrown into the C.I.A (Culinary Institute of America) jail if you cheat and use the canned version.

Anniversary Menu

Several years ago PJ and I began a tradition of celebrating our anniversary on our patio, menu compliments of her domestic engineer guy.

This year another couple joined us. Here are the highlights.

Special Cocktail: Mai Tais. This recipe is the closest I have found to the Hawaiian ones we have enjoyed hundreds of times over 15+ Hawaiian trips, including the ones at the infamous Mai Tai Bar on the beach at the Royal Hawaiian in Honolulu.

Appetizers: Toasted Baguette Toppers. There are hundreds of toppings for olive oil slathered toasted baguette slices. Last night I served three: prosciutto, fresh pesto with shaved parmesan, and fresh pesto with diced pancetta and roma tomatoes. The last one was the big hit.

Salad Course: Watermelon Salad with Feta and Toasted Pine Nuts on a bed of arugula. Feta and Watermelon? The feta is a bit neutralized by the watermelon. Great summer salad. Three herbs, dill, basil and mint, are tossed in as well, and finished off with my Basil Dressing.

Main Course: Beef Tenderloin with Morels and Tarragon-Marsala Sauce. As much as I love a traditional béarnaise with beef tenderloin, this is my favorite filet sauce. It’s the morels—though I had to take out a loan.

Side Dish: Roasted Vegetables: haricot verts, red peppers, shallots, and carrots, topped with toasted pecans, lemon zest and Italian parsley. Roasting is my favorite method of preparing vegetables.

Dessert: Blueberry Cream Pie. The crust is mostly crushed and rolled Pecan Sandies.

Wines: Rosenblum Petite Syrah, and a highly rated (Robert Parker) but very young Conn Valley Vineyards cabernet sauvignon. I decanted it and let it breathe for two hours. Very nice. The $15 petite syrah more than held its own. Rosenblum, known for their zinfandels, has brought out some fine syrahs lately.

Even though I paid good money for the Conn Valley cabernet, the filets and the morels, I still estimate that we spent $200 less than if we had celebrated at a fine dining establishment someplace in Newport Beach or Laguna Beach, as had been our tradition. The view from our hillside backyard was just as expansive; the weather was perfect; the candles romantic; the music to our liking, and we didn’t have to drive.

However, there are those dishes. I didn’t have the heart to ask our guests to do them. Besides, they bought anniversary gifts. We left the dishes until this morning. No wine glasses were broken.

Barbecuing for Dummies

A phrase rarely heard in Southern California: "If you don't like the weather, stick around. It will soon change." The weekend prior to Memorial Day Weekend peaked in the high 90s. Memorial Day Weekend dropped to the high 50s. So much for our fantasy family backyard cookouts.

Undaunted, I cranked up the barbecue anyway, sticking my head inside the cover now and then to warm up. IMPORTANT safety tip: Never use the barbecue lid as an umbrella during a lightning storm.

This was weekend #2 bonding with my new "The Performer" Weber barbecue. On Thursday I purchased some trout at a nearby Farmer's Market. On Friday I barbecued it. My kingdom for a market that debones and filets trout. By the time I was finished deboning, the filets had the thickness of computer paper. We ate light that night.

Saturday night I anteed up some chips, the hickory kind, smoked sirloins, and then sauced them with a red wine sauce. I oven-roasted asparagus and topped with a dill hollandaise sauce. A California Syrah provided more sauce. The family food critics panned a new onion ring recipe. They were good, but I have learned to prepare to perfection an Emeril fried onion ring recipe. Sometimes it is best to not mess with success.

I also reprieved the artichoke recipe from the previous weekend, with weaker results. It was that old guy bugaboo - following directions. In the middle of steaming the choke, the barbecue needed lighting. I turned on the gas canister and pushed the button. No flame. Pushed again. No flame. The canister was kaput. How could that be? I had only used it twice. Barbecuing for Dummies would suggest reading the directions. I found my copy under a miscellaneous pile of papers. IMPORTANT suggestion: Once the coals are lit, turn off the propane. How profound.

I dashed to Ace Hardware, bought two canisters, and returned to an over-steamed choke. I still barbecued it, gingerly, sacrificing several leaves to the coals. This time we dunked it in a dill mayonnaise sauce.

Weber sells around 55 attachments/gismos for their Performer. I bought three. One is used to prepare whole chickens, working much like the trendy beer can method. On Sunday, I coated the bird with a rosemary-dill-garlic-sour cream mixture and let them get friendly in the refrigerator for several hours. Though I wrote earlier about preferring lump coal, if you need to sustain heat for an hour or longer, brickets are better - unless you prefer living on the edge and risking burn marks from removing the grate to replenish the lump. Burn salve is one of the essential stock kitchen items for guys.

So I flamed up first with lump, and then added brickets. White wine provided the moisture base for the bird once on the grill. I served it with corn-on-the-cob and Tomato-Watermelon salad with feta and toasted almonds. The suggested lettuce is Arugula. A blend of basil, mint and dill are also tossed in. This is an explosion of flavors.

I'm giving my Performer the day off on Memorial Day. I ran out of coals. You might wonder why I didn't buy more charcoal when I made the Ace dash. I have no good explanation, though multi-tasking is not a strength. Besides, I need a few days for the singed hair to grow back, and the burn balm to work.