Ms. Glaze's Pommes d'Amour

Wild Mushroom & Kale Ravioli with Caraway Parmesan Cream Sauce

Wild mushrooms are still going strong and we have a secret forage place for chanterelles at Echo Valley Farm. I'm not allowed to say where exactly for obvious reasons. The bigger woodier ones are great to chop up for duxelles and use as ravioli filling. 

If chanterelles are scarce in your area, look for hedgehog mushrooms which start to replace them this time of year. They have a similar taste and look with little spikey gills under the cap, hence the name. These gills should be scraped off before cooking because they have a fuzzy mouth feel. 

Crispy Sweetbreads, Pomelo, Citrus Veal Jus

"Do your yoga friends know you eat brains and thymus glands and crazy stuff like that?" He asks popping a crispy morsel in his mouth after expertly swiping it through sauce...

"Um, no, how's the new dish?" I ask with arms folded and one eyebrow raised.

"Clean. Crispy. Sauce is tasty. Great starter with champagne – is there champagne?"

(Hmmm...maybe he's okay after all...)

What is a pomelo? It's like a grapefruit on steroids but sweeter without the bitter aftertaste. Be forewarned the pith is about an inch thick. Veal sweetbreads are the thymus gland.They have a mild flavor with a slightly spongy interior. Cooked correctly they should melt in your mouth. 

Persian Saffron Orange Cake

My dusty pastry skills were recently tested when a Persian friend asked if I would recreate his Grandmother's orange cake perfumed with cardamom and saffron. Then he gave me his Grandmother's relic bundt pan to make it in. Then my mother gave me her 1970's Persian cookbook. No way out!

Wild Mussels! How to Clean & Debeard

NOTE TO READER: I JUST FOUND OUT YOU CANNOT REMOVE MUSSELS WITH TOOLS! MUST DO WITH HANDS ONLY! GOOD LUCK!

Jeeps McGee, my trusty vehicle, starts up with a gutsy roar. The performance exhaust shakes me with thunderous throaty vibrations. My coffee cup perched precariously on the dash spills while disco competes for attention on a station I don't remember ever having set (was I really listening to this last night? Yikes!). My overnight duffle is happily absorbing the jus de chaussette I was very much looking forward to. Some happy New Year this is!

After an onslaught of holiday parties, I am throwing in the cocktail dress and pulling on the workboots. I sink a few bucks into Jeeps McGee's big belly and put San Francisco in the rear view mirror. Pescadero here I come...

Me and McGee are so in our element. We are noisily cruising down 280, bouncing up and over the curvy Skyline mountains down to Highway 1. I reach Half Moon Bay and my 33-inch flame tread tires screech left onto the Coastal Highway.

Ahhhh, the ocean....

Today is beautiful. The Winter sun crisp illuminating the Pacific on my right like a bright and blinding sequined serpent. The fields on my left bleak and mostly tilled under with random rotting pumpkins left unloved. Cypress trees, like tortured twisted shadows with desperate outstretched arms edge the endless blue. Weathered farms dot the coast.  

Artichoke soup, dungeness crab, and  olallieberry pie – here I come!