Author Archives: Renate Valencia

Paul & Gino’s wedding

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paul and gino on their wedding day in 2008

Today is Paul & Gino’s wedding day.  We BARTed to the station closest to Martinez, where the Contra Costa County courthouse is, for the event.  Pouring rain.  Never was to Martinez before, nor to most of the places BART traveled through to get there, like Lafayette and Walnut Creek.  Paul picked us up from the station and carted us around for the day, keeping us from having to drive on unfamiliar freeways in the rain.  Nice of him, considering he was one of the grooms.  The ceremony was lovely – very personal and not at all perfunctory, which one might think would be the case.  We drove next – in terrific rain – to The San Franciscan Restaurant (1525 Main Street, Walnut Creek) for the wedding brunch.  They gave us a large, airy space in the back, where the group could really spread out and have a blast.  The service was excellent, and the food was fair to good, depending.  The fried calamari appetizer, served with tartar and cocktail sauces, was solid, and the crab dip  better than average, with chunks of crab rather than it being a pulverized mass.  I was the only one who had the tuna poki, a type of tuna tartare, and was glad of it.  It was slightly sweet and salty — really good and a generous portion.  My “Coit Tower Monte Cristo” was big and flavorful, but it arrived cold and limp, which was a shame since this sandwich garners its strength from melted cheese and a crispy exterior.  Matt ordered the “Fisherman’s Wharf Crab Sandwich,” which was the exact same crab dip on toast with melted cheese, which seemed a little lame to me at $15.  Steven went with the “Clams and Linguine in Bordelaise,” which was not very good because the clams were overcooked.  Again, a shame to ruin a dish by making an amateur’s mistake with the key ingredient.  This is a restaurant with a lovely space and great service.  The menu is extensive and varied – even the lunch menu, which is what we ordered from – and focuses on classic, simple preparations that rely on excellent ingredients and solid techniques.  The latter fell short at our meal, which is something that, if taken care of, would make all the difference.  That and losing that crab sandwich.  At the end of the meal the spouses danced and a cake was served.  What a joyful day!  It was so nice to see Paul and Gino take their vows.

Halloween 2008

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ross, anthony and chris in elaborate halloween costumes

It’s me birthday today.  Oh, yes, it’s also Halloween.  We had a little evening party planned, for which I procured a bunch of snacks from Trader Joe’s and decorated the house with candles, flameless and otherwise.  Things went south at about 4:00 p.m., when I heard from Paul.  His condo had flooded courtesy of some faulty plumbing in the vicinity of the kitchen sink, which sent Matthew and our wet vac with Paul to Antioch for a night of cleaning with Paul’s partner and fiancé, Gino.  Paul and Gino are scheduled to be married tomorrow, you see, which made this particular day a really, really bad one for a flood.  This also meant that guests associated with Matthew would not be coming this evening, so we were left with only the three of us and a lot of ripe Cambozola (rich hybrid, more or less, of Camembert and Gorgonzola) and Blue Castello (triple cream blue).  As luck would have it, three of Matt’s friends, Anthony, Chris and Ross — dressed to the teeth for the holiday — came by and saved us from complete lameness.  Matthew rolled in all wet after midnight and slunk upstairs to bed.

Fancy butter

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Speciality butter made from milk used for the production of parmigiano reggiano

The subject today is specialty butter.  If you go into a gourmet or specialty food shop and check out the butter section you’ll notice smaller, colored packages of pricey fancy butters, usually European or European-style, containing more butterfat and less water than standard American butter, lending them a richer taste.  Many are pasture-based and traditionally churned.  These butters generally have no preservatives or coloring, allowing natural factors to control the color, such as where and when the cows have been grazing.  You’ll see butter made from the milk of particular cows, or cows grazing in specific regions.  Some of this specialty butter is also cultured, meaning made from cream that has been allowed to ferment.  Now and again I’ll select one of these dear butters to eat on baguettes plain, only because they are so damned good and we’re worth it.  Today I brought home a cultured Italian produced by Delitia from the milk collected during the production of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.  It has a deep and nutty flavor with a little acidity and all the denseness associated with more butterfat and less water.  My advice is to choose a good day-to-day Euro-style that won’t totally blow your budget, like Challenge or Strauss, and then work your way through the top-shelf butters when you are looking for something really special.  Count on never being able to going back to cheap butter once you’ve had something better.

Fog in the East Bay

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fog in el cerrito CA in november 2008

It was a foggy evening.  Fog is no stranger to the East Bay, but I can’t remember when I’ve seen such thick fog meandering around from bay to hills.  When Steve walked Berry, they had a good time with it because Berry enjoys anything that involves colder weather. 

fog in el cerrito california november 2008

Check out the photos I took outside the house.  Although you lose something in the translation with a photograph, they at least give you an idea of how fog looks in these parts.  When you’re in it, it’s a little like pea soup, and sometimes it moves past you in moist clouds. 

fog in el cerrito california in november 2008

 This was, however, a perfect evening for congee, aka jook, so it was handy that I decarcassed my freezer in the morning to make way for Thanksgiving leftovers.  I have a congee recipe here, so I will only remind you again to freeze all your poultry bones — raw and cooked — and when you have enough saved up you can make this delicious, warming rice porridge.  I wish I had a photo of Berry in the fog; he looks like such a criminal when it wafts around him.

bowl of congee or jook

Usinger’s Wurst

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Our Usinger’s Wurst order arrived today, so we had German pork products for dinner.  This is a place we always wanted to order from for Christmas, but thought better to first do a trial run to make sure things are up to cut.  Fred Usinger, Inc.  is located in Milwaukee – a pretty good meat city – though I have to say I was a bit disappointed.  As many of you know, I always make my base order from Karl Ehmer, and then add a few things from another butcher.  Ehmer’s offers free shipping, which saves you money even though the products are pricier.  Note that I paid an amount for shipping and handling equal to what I shelled out for actual products from Usinger’s, which is standard everywhere but Ehmer’s.  The reason I keep sniffing at the door of other companies is to find the perfect Leberwurst.  Karl Ehmer’s is good, but, like many brands, is too heavy on the cure and/or smoke for me.  After awhile I find this sickening.  I want to taste the liver, I want it to be moist, and I don’t want to taste TCM.  I also like it chunky, or grob.  Next, I am looking for the Grobe Mettwurst of my childhood – an almost spreadable, tangy, coarse, cured pork sausage product that might be lightly smoked, if at all.  Something like this may be had in the form of Grobe Teewurst, which is really a spread, from places like Schaller & Weber and Ehmer’s, but it’s not really the same thing.  Some meat packers even call Teewurst Mettwurst, which is an outrage.  Speaking of outrage, Karl Ehmer sells Canadian Bacon as Nuss Schinken! Madness.  Back to the illusive Mettwurst.  You have to know your stuff to find this, and you will only be able to come close, since it cannot be legally sold in the US in its original form, according to some of my German butcher friends.  In many cases, sausage close to Mettwurst is sold in the US as summer sausage, but there are so many varieties of the latter that trial and error is not a good way to go.  Call the meat packer and ask for one of the butchers from Germany and he’ll be able to steer you.  For example, the Schaller & Weber people told me that the closest they come to my fantasy is cervelat, which is pretty damned good.  Anyway, we ordered a small quality of each of six liverwursts, a smoked Mettwurst, and a few other things from Usinger’s.  Everything arrived well packed and frozen solid.  I was a little concerned about the frozen part.  Allow me to give you a rundown and review:

Tongue and blood:  Good.  Plenty of tongue.  The downside is the heavy smoke flavor.  They made a mistake and sliced it when we ordered a chunk.  Some in our party were not amused by this, since slicing destroys the texture.
Braunschweiger liverwurst:  Unremarkable.  Springy, perhaps from being frozen or not having enough fat.  It tore.  Not bad on the cure/smoke end of things, but not much flavor.
Milwaukee-style liverwurst:  Ditto.  Could not really tell the difference from the non-Milwaukee version.
Hessische liverwurst:  The only liverwurst  that was truly distinctive.  Pretty good, and heavily smoked, but it worked here.  More creamy than dry.
Old-fashioned liverwurst:  Not really chunky, though they said it would be.  Same review as the Braunschweigers.
Ring liverwurst:  My mother’s favorite, and a bit more flavorful and creamy.
Bavarian leberkaese:  This is a loaf made of pork puree that’s baked and then sliced thickly.  Good, but dense.  If you want it lighter get it from Ehmer’s or another butcher.
Topfsuelze:  No idea, as they sent head cheese by mistake, which is much sharper (more vinegar) and comes in a tube, as opposed to a square.  I was seriously pissed off about this.  When I called they said they’d send the right one out to me or provide a credit.  Nice people, but my nose was out of joint because this is my favorite thing in the whole world, and I didn’t get any.  Not all chopped pork jowl-area scrap meat in aspic is the same, after all.  The head cheese was tasty,  though, as it had plenty of tongue and other good bits, so it wasn’t a total loss.  Steven really liked it, partly because it cut through the heaviness of some of the other items.
Mettwurst, coarse, smoked:  Almost like kielbasa, so it did not work for me.  It’s hard to find the real deal because of the FDA regulations involving the sale of cured meat.
Beef, Farmer & Thueringer summer:  All fine.  The beef has some tang to it.  Texture is firm.  These are like salamis.

Bottom line is that Usinger’s products are good, but tailored to the American palate, in my opinion.  The liverwursts come across as less rich in taste and texture — more like top supermarket versions.  They are also less unique as individuals, whereas there is no question with Ehmer’s, Schaller & Weber, Koenemann’s and Stiglemeier that you know which one you are dealing from first bite, if not sight.  I like that the smoke and cure flavors are less pronounced in all cases but the Hessische – which is by nature heavily smoked – but not enough to pay for that kind of shipping, given other issues.  Berry liked all of it – even the head cheese, which he grabbed after I dropped a piece on the floor and it bounced away from me.  Even I have to admit this is kind of scary.