Ms. Glaze's Pommes d'Amour

Chicken Pumpkin Mole!

And you thought pumpkin pack was like so 3 months ago! But, if you had 70 pounds of sugar pie pumpkins still left in dry storage (like we do at Echo Valley Farm) you'd be gettin' pretty darn creative right about now too... 

Some of the ingredients might illicit skeptical reactions although I've yet to find one single traditional mole recipe. There are numerous variations on the theme. A woman I chatted with in the supermarket told me I could not use tamarind paste in mole – but I think she might have a change of heart upon tasting this combo. She did give great chili advice and some neat tips for making tamarind paste from pods – even though this ingredient didn't meet mole approval.

(Love chatting with people about food while shopping – I always learn something new!)

Jes' Don't Act Like Dinner!

It's been a breathtaking week at Echo valley farm. The nights specifically with a moon so big and bright you'd think it was Alaska in the summertime. I look out on the nighttime fields to find the vegetable rows glowing and the fruit trees iridescent reflecting the soft moonlight clear as day.

Before I recount this story let me give some background: this is an adventure post (although I'll weave in food somehow), this area is on mountain lion alert (didn't get the memo until recently), we don't have cell phones (they don't work out here), and we were only going to be gone a little while ...

It has really been a storybook week with temperatures in the high 60's during the day and moonbeams ablazing at night. My boyfriend comes to celebrate Valentine's day and I have made promises of wood-oven cooked local salmon, fresh baked bread, nettle pesto pizza, local beer made from Echo Valley Farm hops, fire in the hearth, hot tubbing, and long trail runs. Fun!

We like to run together. We like to run about 10 to 12 miles at least. Anything less just feels like a warm-up. We spend the morn testing my new pumpkin butter-rosemary bread while sipping strong hot coffee and staring out onto the farm from the porch of my cabin. It's a misty magical foggy morning. The sun has disappeared. But it's still warm and pleasant. 

The new adorable mini cow (Bambi) is moo-ing to us, the goats are bleating, the chickens are clucking, and one dozen baby ducklings arrive in the mail. The farm is just too cute for words. 

We stuff ourselves and around 3:30 P.M. decide that we should work off our gluttony with a run. I've found a few short trail loops around here that I supplement with a little roadside action. But I have it on good word there's a nice wide trail just a half mile away I have yet to try out. 

Loma Mar is a special part of the Bay Area. It's half way between Santa Cruz and San Francisco, fifteen minutes inland from the Pacific ocean and Pescadero (which is the closest town). It's at the base of the Santa Cruz mountain range which is basically one enormous wild preserve with a few mountain towns scattered throughout.

Loma Mar is slightly off the grid surrounded with magnificent old growth redwood forests (some of the last remaining) and some State Parks that are mostly empty. And Loma Martians like it like that. I've seen the "Don't Tread On Me" flag flying proud around these parts. Don't get me wrong, people are super friendly around here and I absolutely think this is heaven on earth, but at the same time it's pretty common to not know all your neighbors – jes' like anywhere I s'pose.

Nettles! Nettle Pesto Pizza with Delicata Squash & Bacon

Farmer Kate stumbles down a ravine backward that borders the Pescadero creek. She trips, she falls, she screams. Farmer Jeff and I come running over thinking Kate has broken her back. But no, she has just landed in a whole patch of nettles which are stinging her with every little move.

"The bad part is..." she says while lying still looking up at us looking down at her. "I've just fallen into nettles and they are stinging me and I don't want to move until some one reaches down and helps me up..."

"The good part is..." she begins as we carefully lift her up avoiding the angry nettle patch. "The good part is – it's nearly Spring!" And this does call for celebration because soon the whole farm will be bursting in flowers and buzzing with bees and just looking magical again.

It's not that the kale, cabbage, and broccolini haven't been inspiring this Winter, it's just that nettle shoots are always a sign of the changing seasons. 

Truffled Blue Hubbard Squash Soup

Blue Hubbard squash has orange colored sweet flesh. It will feed a family of eight or more, can be tossed around by children without fear of damage, may double as an excersize ball, and few people have heard of it which makes a nice change from the ever-so-common butternut squash soup.

The only downside is – I'm sorry to say – I don't even know where you can buy one of these things (and they are 'things') because our market here in Pescadero is closed until May and I have not seen them in local stores. I should warn that blue Hubbards are heavy and can reach up to 20 pounds. 

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!

Citizen Cake Clam Chowder

It seems that I am the last to find out that both Orson and Citizen Cake will be closing their doors in SF. As the Chef de Cuisine who opened the last reincarnation of Citizen Cake I find this disheartening. All that work! My team was talented, the recipes developed iconic, and it was a lot of fun. We put our hearts into it.

This goes to show how hard the restaurant business is. I am sure that Elizabeth Falkner will reinvent herself soon either as the next American Iron Chef or in another venue. She is a creative powerhouse. For more info visit the Sf Chronicle post.

Kale and Fuyu Persimmon Salad, Blue Cheese Beignets

The secret ingredient in this kale & fuyu persimmon salad is hidden in the vinaigrette: the bizarre and fascinating citron known as Buddha's Hand. 

The fleshless fruit imparts a lovely fragrant sweet lemon essence minus the furniture polish aftertaste. Use the zest in just the same way you would a lemon. It can be candied, blended up in vinaigrette (pith included- it's sweet!), or displayed as a fragrant center piece on the dining room table. It also makes a sexy twist in a glass of champagne. 

Take the ingredients of this salad and use them simply or, if you feel like spending an hour on a dish that will be eaten in less than thirty seconds, you can follow my lead!?! I've sugared the walnuts with maple syrup, fried Cambozola blue cheese in beignet beer batter, and served the persimmon roasted in honey and sliced raw. Either way the flavor profiles hit all the right notes: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter plus the varying textures make for an exciting first course.