Author Archives: Renate Valencia

New Grocery Outlet in Pinole

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Items purchased from grocery outlet in pinole PA laid out on a table

A Grocery Outlet just opened in Pinole – 1460 Fitzgerald Drive.  I usually go to the one in Berkeley, since it’s only a couple miles from where I live, but I thought I’d check out the Pinole branch to see if they had anything special.  For example, the Berkeley location (2001 4th Street) has Vital Vittles bread, since VV is close to them, at 2810 San Pablo Avenue.  Note that there seems to be a problem with the Vital Vittles website right now.  Looks like they did not renew their domain on time.  Yikes!

Anyone who pooh-poohs this West Coast chain is out of their mind.

You never know what’ll show up at Grocery Outlet.  They carry stock from all over the country, including store brands from chains located in other regions, as well as imports.  Today I found Mallomar knock-offs from Acme (not only a brand popular with the Road Runner, but also a supermarket chain) for $1.99.  A Mallomar is a seasonally-produced marshmallow cookie with chocolate and graham cracker — very popular in New York City.  Unfortunately, real Nabisco Mallomars have been downsized to death, so I have no problem buying other brands.  A Mallomar back in 1970 was a thing of beauty, though.

I picked up two boxes of Bahlsen Waffle Rolls for 99 cents apiece.  I grew up with Bahlsen products.  The German half of my family lives in the same part of the country as the factory.  I love their stuff, but their website is annoying in all its amped-up glory.  When all you want to do is see some cookies, you’re told in German that you need Flash, and asked about taking a survey.  Just click “Nein.”

My husband will be happy to see Celetano stuffed shells in the freezer.  I don’t usually buy this kind of thing, but Celentano is a brand beloved by my husband’s family, and it conjures up the comfort of childhood for him, so what the heck.  He hasn’t had this since we left New York in 1995.  I don’t have the heart to tell him that Celentano was purchased by Rosina Food Products in a bankruptcy auction in 2000, though.  Most of the products we loved as kids have turned to crap over the years via death by a thousands cuts anyway, so you just have to enjoy the moment with this kind of thing and not worry about it too much.

They had Reebok’s at the Pinole store for $19.99.  We got Matt a pair of green lace-ups.

There were several Nexxux products, including Therappe shampoo and conditioner ($6.99 for 20 ounces).  This conditioner alone is worth the price of admission.

If you have the patience to weed through some oddball stuff and pay attention to detail, you cannot go wrong.  What may appear to be off-brands of things like Canadian bacon and salami in odd packaging may be irregular slices of brand name products – and sometimes the brands are high-end.  They often have pound packages of prosciutto like this for $3.99 in Berkeley.

I go when I want large jars of red cabbage or sauerkraut from Germany, which they sell for $1.99.  Once I found some 6-foot long Barilla pasta.

I’ve never purchased fresh meat or poultry, but I’ve gotten produce.  They cover every supermarket category – and then some.

If you haven’t been, go in and walk around.  You’ll find incredible bargains of name-brand merchandise, though some of the brands may be Canadian, particularly in the beauty care section.  This is fine with me, though, since lots of those products are not tested on animals and I’m always willing to try something new.

Grocery Outlet is a third generation family-owned business headquartered in Berkeley, by the way, so this may calm any residual concerns you have about visiting.

Seared Figs Stuffed with Chevre & Prosciutto

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Figs stuffed with chevre, pine nuts and prosciutto

Of all the recipes I’ve developed, this is the one my family and friends request most often.

Each year we patiently wait for Mission figs to show up in the markets, which happens round about mid-June.  They’re as sweet as honey, with pink flesh and thin, black-purple skin.

These large, teardrop-shaped beauties are great to eat straight from the market, but you can create some wonderful dishes with them, too.  They work very well with cheese or pork – and this recipe has both.

This year I didn’t see them until last week – just in time for our 4th of July party.  If I didn’t serve these figs at that celebration there would have been hell to pay.

Each year the stuffed figs are proclaimed “the best ever,” which has more to do with absence making hearts grow fonder, but I’m happy to get the positive feedback, because, as everyone knows, cooks live to please others.  After we cook and present the goodies we make some effort to dig in, but we’re really watching everyone else eat to see what they think.

My family is very generous with praise, but I can tell when something is a major hit versus just very good.  I can see it in their faces and hear it in the noises they make.  When my son reaches over the table for a serving spoon with a certain flair, or my husband stretches out his vowels when discussing the merits of a particular side dish, I know.

The real prize is the person who never has much to say.  My stepfather was like that.  I could give that man a beef wellington and he’d be stone-faced.  However, when he did say something – and even then it was minimal – it meant something.  When he told me my crab cakes were “terrific” – in a tone he’d use only when talking about his car or the Yankees – I set that recipe in stone!  I’d like to think he’d feel the same about these figs.

Now, if Cali Mission figs were available in February, I’d make this dish for Valentine’s Day.  It’s so sensuous.  The fruit is sweet and earthy, the goat cheese ever-so-slightly funky, and the Prosciutto di Parma silky, salty perfection.

I hope you’ll give this a try now that figs are in the markets!

Figs Stuffed with Chevre, Pine Nuts & Prosciutto
Makes a whole lot, but why not?

2 pounds Mission figs, gently rinsed and dried.  Not too ripe, please!
Olive oil
1 teaspoon each ground thyme, ground marjoram, ground sage and sea salt – mixed together
1/2 cup plain chevre (fresh goat cheese)
1/3 cup pine nuts
6 – 8 ounces thinly sliced Prosciutto di Parma
A little sea salt
Pepper grinder
Would be helpful if you have:
Large, non-stick saute pan (or the most stick-resistant pan you have)
Melon baller (or teaspoon)
Pastry bag and rosette tip (or teaspoon)

1).  Place chevre in a small bowl and leave on kitchen counter along with your prosciutto, whose slices will be easier to separate if not ice cold.
2).  Toast pine nuts in saute pan set over medium heat for 3 – 5 minutes, keeping them moving, until they are slightly golden.  Set nuts aside.
3).  Cut figs in half lengthwise with a sharp knife.  Don’t cut off the stems – try to cut through them so you have half the stem with each half-fig.  They look better this way.
4).  Wipe saute pan with a little olive oil on a paper towel and sprinkle with some of the spice/salt mix.
5).  Place pan over medium-high heat and add figs, cut side down, when pan is good and hot.  Add no more than 10 halves, and remove the first when the last hits the pan.  Work fast.  You more or less want the figs to “kiss” the pan – you don’t want to cook them!
6).  Remove pan from flame, wipe with more olive oil, add spice mix, and do another batch of figs – repeating the whole deal until all are seared.
7).  Using the smaller end of a melon baller, or a teaspoon, scoop out a little flesh from the cut side of each fig half, being sure not to cut through the skin.  You need to create a small indentation, so don’t be too aggressive.  Place the scooped-out fig flesh into the bowl with the chevre as you work.
8).  Mix chevre and fig pulp, adding a crank or two of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, until you have a well-combined filling.
9).  With a spoon or pastry bag and tip, add a little filling to the center of each half-fig.  The pastry bag set-up allows you to make it look better, but it’s just fine with a spoon, too.  Arrange the figs on a nice serving platter as you work.
10).  When you have all your figs filled, scatter half of the toasted pine nuts on top.
11).  Take prosciutto and cut your first slice into three ribbons – the long way, with a sharp knife.  Roll each third into a little rose, and place one in the center (filling) of each stuffed fig.  If you do it correctly, the prosciutto roses will stand up and add some vertical interest while allowing all of the ingredients to shine, visually.
12).  Serve right away, if possible, because they are very good just slightly warm.

Figs searing in pan with spices

Sheet pan 'seared figs

Figs with first phase of filling

Abstract 4th of July Glazed 7up Cake

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Abstract glaze for a 4th of July cake

My mother is going to see family in New York City and Germany this summer.  She’ll be gone for two months and is leaving on Tuesday, so I made a couple of special things as a sort of a bon voyage last night.  This is a reason to celebrate for all of us, if you catch my drift.

The meal turned out to be a total bomb.  It was hot in the kitchen, I was rushing and trying to do too much, and my leg was bothering me.  I have osteoarthritis in my right leg, which set in, they think, because of a minor injury I had years and years ago.  Standing for long periods wreaks havoc with that leg, even with a gel mat.  I was one miserable camper even before the oyster soup overcooked and broke.  Then I undercooked the brie in puff pastry, so it was gummy.  Amateur mistakes that were my own fault.  I stewed in my own juices as my family ate the oysters I fished out of the soup with the top layer of the baked brie, telling me all the while how good everything was.  You have to love kind people.

I sought to redeem that meal via the 7up cake I made for Matthew to take to a party today, which I gave an abstract glaze in red, white and blue.

Here’s how you can do it, too.

1).  First, make a pound cake in a bundt pan of some kind and let it cool completely.  Make this 7up cake, which is a huge favorite in my home, but ignore the glaze in the recipe.  It’s buttery and dense with a lemony zing, and uses 7up as a leavening agent.  When it’s cool, set out a sheet pan, line it with foil, place a small bowl on top, and then place the cake on the bowl, right side up, so it’s elevated.  Use a bowl whose diameter is smaller than that of the cake.  Check out the photos below.

2).  Assemble blue and red food coloring (you can buy concentrated natural food colorings on the web or in baking or specialty stores), confectioners sugar, lemon juice, one medium-sized bowl and two smaller bowls.  Use bowls that won’t be ruined by the food coloring.  You’ll also need three spoons.

3).  Place three cups of confectioners sugar in the larger of the three bowls.  Add a very small amount of lemon juice — no more than three tablespoons.  Mix in to check consistency.  Add more lemon juice in tiny increments, so you wind up with a very thick glaze that runs slowly.  You will need only a small amount of lemon juice!!!  Transfer 1/3 of the glaze to each of the smaller bowls.

4).  Add a few drops of blue food coloring to one of the smaller bowls of glaze and mix it in thoroughly.  Add more, if needed, until you get the color you want.  Repeat for red.

5).  Using a spoon and holding it above the cake, apply white glaze (the one you added no color to that’s remaining in the larger bowl), allowing it to cover the top well and run down the sides and middle. Check out the photo below for an idea of how things should look.  Allow cake to sit a few minutes.

6).  Apply red next, using quite a bit of glaze with each spoonful.  Drizzle on using a looping motion.  You want plenty of red, but allow lots of the white to show.  Make sure the red glaze runs down the sides and middle.  Allow cake to sit a few minutes.

7).  With blue, swirl all over cake in small ribbons.  You want this layer thin with lots of lines so it creates an abstract design.

8).  Let cake sit for a couple of hours.  Do not touch it!  Do not cover it!

9).  Tent foil over cake gently and let it sit all night so that the glaze hardens completely.  Do not touch cake with foil!  Do not move cake!  Leave the whole contraption as-is and cover it with foil!

Coffee Can Spice Potpourri

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Outdated spices in a coffee can used as potpourri — punch holes in the lid to use

I put it off as long as I possibly could, but today I bit the bullet and cleaned out my spice cabinet.

The only other job I hate more is updating the earthquake kit – which no one else in the house ever seems to think about.  Every three years or so I unpack the clothes to see what needs to be replaced.  After about six years elastic starts to give way, and it would be bad enough to deal with an earthquake let alone walk around in underwear with elastic that’s shot.  Then I replace the food, which leaves me with outdated beef jerky and cans of tuna, chicken, coffee, dog food, milk – you name it.  Some people have those little “all in one” packets that include everything you need, supposedly, but we want to be able to eat real food and cover ourselves with actual blankets.  Then there’s the first aid kit, meds, flashlight batteries, toilet tissue, paper towels, toothpaste and the million other things you’d rather not do without for a week.  An earthquake kit needs to be packed well, too, so the bugs and moisture don’t get at it.  It’s a real drag to deal with.  When I lived on Talbot Avenue in Albany, there was a block association.  Each house was responsible for a certain item, and there were even scheduled earthquake drills.  Here on Clayton Avenue in El Cerrito, most of the neighbors either don’t talk to you or are downright unfriendly.  I don’t really care, though.  Being from New York City, I’m used to living anonymously.  That said, the unfriendly residents on my block had better make damn sure they have good earthquake kits.

This day it was all about cleaning out old spices and making a list of what I need to purchase.  I have lots of spices in various forms.  Some I buy at Smart & Final, since you can’t beat the prices, and quite a few are in little bags, having been purchased in bulk at Berkeley Bowl or Whole Foods.  Some whole spices, like cumin seed, last a long time.  Others, not so much.  You really have to sniff your stock regularly.  I also went through baking, decorating and cheese-making supplies, like meringue powder, nonpariels and citric acid.

Rather than throwing away aromatics, like cloves and allspice, I dump them into a coffee can.  This go-round I also had marjoram, dried mint, thyme, rosemary, black peppercorns, cinnamon and cumin- all of which went into the can, including those that were ground.  I then put a few holes or notches in the plastic lid and pop the can in  a place that might benefit from a spicy scent – like the sneaker closet.

If you have only whole spices to discard, stuff them in an old, clean, cotton tube sock.  Tie it closed at the top and hang it in your closet.

It feels good to recycle things, and I’m always looking for ideas, so please email me yours!

Make gravlax at home – it’s easy!

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Plate of sliced gravlax

Although I enjoy cooking in all its forms, I do have my niche – as all cooks do.

What made me love garde manger, which means, loosely, “guard of the pantry,” and involves the cold kitchen, I’ll never really know, but my Northern European roots are probably to blame.  I was fed smoked and cured proteins pretty much from birth, and knew a high-quality aspic well before Kindergarten.

When you find yourself daydreaming about the cross-hatching and radish roses on the chopped liver at the appetizing counter at Waldbaum’s during 4th grade geography, you know you have issues.  When you’re planning Christmas Eve hors d’oeuvres and it involves a trip to Fortunoff for a fondue set when you haven’t yet reached your full height, well, I think you have to face facts.

If you’re not in the cooking trade, you may not know what “the cold kitchen” is.  It’s cures, molds, terrines, pates, galantines, confits, sausages, smoked meat and fish products, salads, decorative flourishes, ice and food sculptures and cold soups and sauces.  The part that inolves all the work with pork falls under charcuterie.

While chef de garde manger is now often referred to as an entry-level cooking position – it involves the salad station and small plate prep, requiring limited experience – a true garde manger is a highly-skilled chef in a specialty with gravitas.  This profession dates back to pre-revolutionary France and is considered seriously old-school.  In high-end kitchens, this is the position responsible for numerous classical dishes and presentations.

Garde manger has evolved over the years to accommodate changing tastes, eating patterns and lifestyles.  I think most cooking school graduates will make one chaud froid for every 10,000 sides of smoked salmon they produce during their careers – unless they’re banquet chefs!

While certain things that fall under this genre are best learned in a formal cooking class,  there are some that are quite easy to make at home – but most people don’t know that.

Today I want to pass along to you my simplified recipe for gravlax, aka gravad lax, which is dill-scented cured salmon served with a mustard sauce.  Often an appetizer, it’s great as a full summer meal served with crispbread, like Wasa, and a big salad.

Gravlax is akin to lox, which is cold-smoked, in its silky smoothness and rich mouthfeel.  It looks like lox and is sliced thinly in the same manner.  Gravlax is not exposed to any heat, however, rather just cured in a salt and sugar mix.

It’s expensive and not that easy to find.  If you want to have it out, go to Ikea.  Buy a whole package of their crispbread before you go into the cafeteria, then get several gravlax plates.  You can feed 3 or 4 people gravlax this way for under $20.  This is a serious bargain.  I tell you to get the package of crispbread in advance so you don’t have to pay the per-piece price for extra in the cafeteria – which, at something like 35 cents per piece, is the only insanely-priced item in the whole store!

No need to have it out, though.  You can make it at home a couple of days before you need it.

If you want to use my traditional gravlax method, look here, but I needed to find a way to minimize the amount of refrigerator real estate I used to prep this, having been downsized from a double-wide unit recently.  Long story involving a lemon of an LG that my appliance store, Galvin, took back after two years.  It looked nice, had a bottom freezer and French doors, but the ice maker was wreaking havoc.  In exchange, I got a GE with a side freezer.  The ice maker on this one is a problem, too.  Don’t even get me started with ice makers.  I never had one.  Never wanted one.  Was convinced to get one.  Had nothing but problems since then.  Ice is all over my freezer – again.  I get ice and frost on the floor when I pull out the ice bin.  Why?  It does not stop making ice.  Ever.

Back to the fish.

A few key pieces of information:

1).  Buy fatty salmon.  Your gravlax will not work with salmon that is lean.  You have been warned.  If you can’t get wild, fatty, king/chinook salmon, buy a sustainably farmed version – of some kind of fatty salmon.  Keta salmon, which is all over the Bay Area as I write this, is too lean.  Steelhead salmons – which are actually sea-faring rainbow trout, believe it or not (or, I should say, rainbow trout are salmon that never leave home) – have a medium fat content and are OK.

2).  Buy a boneless side of salmon with the skin.  Or a piece of a boneless side with the skin.  Ask your fishmonger if the pin bones have been removed.  If not, ask that they be removed.  If you need to remove them, look here.

3).  Buy good fish from a market like Monterey Fish – or Berkeley Bowl’s fish counter.  The fish will be fresh, and these people care about sustainability.  Do not buy crappy salmon from a supermarket in a package with all kinds of goo.  You know exactly what I mean.

4).  Work clean.  You should always do this, but take extra care when you cure or preserve something.

Honestly, gravlax alone  justifies my two years of culinary school given how often I make it.

Gravlax with Mustard-Dill Sauce

1 side of salmon with high (or at least medium) fat content with no pin bones (see above)
1 lemon (a fresh lemon!!!)
1 ounce plain vodka, gin or aquavit
1/2 cup Kosher salt
1/2 cup raw sugar
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
1 large bunch of dill, washed and absolutely dry.  It must be dry!!  Reserve a small piece of dill for sauce.
Aluminum foil
Paper towels
2 pastry brushes

1).  Make cure mix.  Whisk together salt, sugar and pepper.  Set aside.
2).  On counter, lay out a double thickness of foil that is about 6 inches longer than your side of salmon.
3).  Fold about 6 paper towels in half and create a bed that is about the size of the salmon.
4).  Lay side of salmon, skin side down, on the paper towel bed.
5).  Squeeze the lemon over the flesh, and then brush it onto the entire surface.
6).  Brush the booze onto the entire surface with the other brush.
7).  Sprinkle the cure mix over the fish, making sure you cover the entire flesh, applying it more thickly to thicker parts.  Don’t touch or rub it in.  Use all the mix.
8).  Cut a couple of inches of stem off the dill and arrange the rest on top of the cure mix without disturbing it.
9).  Fold ends of foil over, then sides.  Cover the top with another large piece of foil.  You want to wind up with a rectangular foil-covered package.  Keep fish perfectly flat at all times and do not bend fish!!!
10).  Lay fish packet flat in back of fridge on a few paper towels or another piece of foil – just in case there is a little seepage.  Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn’t.
11).  Allow to cure for two days.  Three days is OK if you have a very thick fillet.
12).  Remove from fridge, open packet and move fillet to a cutting board that has a couple of paper towels on it.  Discard dill.  If cure does not come off easily, it’s OK to quickly rinse fish under cold water and then gently pat dry, bottom and top.
13.  Using a clean cutting board and a sharp, thin knife, cut long, thin slices, holding knife almost parallel to the fish.  See photo.  This takes some practice, but you’ll get the hang of it.  I use a serrated knife – even though a serrated knife is generally not the tool for this job, but it works very well because it’s so thin and holds a razor-sharp edge.  A slicer, if you have one, may be your best bet.  A good boning knife, too.  Depends upon you and the knife.
14.  Arrange slices in lovely circular pattern and serve with a cup of cold mustard-dill sauce in the center.

Mustard-Dill Sauce
Whisk 1/2 cup Dijon mustard, 1/2 cup good honey, a little chopped dill (remember that you were supposed to save a little?), and a couple dashes of sea salt and ground white pepper.  Allow to sit in fridge for a couple of hours so flavors meld.  Note that there’s no dill in the sauce in the photo because someone threw out my reserved dill.

Piece of salmon ready to be made into gravlax

gravlax with cure sprinkled on

gravlax with cure and dill ready for fridge

Gravlax foil packet ready to go into fridge

slicing gravlax