I’ve taken a dangerous plunge– dedicating a cupboard to stocking some of my favorite not-available-at-corner-stores (though mostly available at City Beer Store or Healthy Spirits) beers, for special (or at least moderately-special) occasions: Sours: Cascade Kriek, Strubbe Flemish Red, Monk’s Cafe Flemish Sour, Russian River Supplication & Consecration, Upright Billy The Mountain Belgians: Rochefort 8 & 10, Westvleteren 10 & 12, Orval, Liefmans Goudenband Belgian-Style US: Allagash Black & Tripel & Tripel Reserve, Russian River Damnation ...

New restaurant in the Dogpatch. Tender, tasty roast Mary’s chicken (though I prefer the skin more crispy), grilled cactus salad, clove soda, and little donut holes on the house (with chipotle powder, honey, pumpkin seeds).

I had a box of turkish delight and some turkish tea from Istanbul, so that seemed like a good theme for a dinner party… while trying to shoehorn in whatever vegetables I got in the CSA. A range of vegetarian mezzes: Kalamata olives (greek, I know) Watermelon radish pickles (three days in rice vinegar, a little sugar, meyer lemon, and mustard seed – it turned the brine red). This isn’t at all Turkish, I just had so many pounds of radish to deal with… and I’d planned to put some powdered sumac on it to have it fill the raw-onions-with-sumac appetizer role in many turkish meals, but forgot. Turkish black tea (5 minutes in a french press, served in the specific fluted glasses and saucers they use in Turkey, which I’d impulsively picked up in the airport). Anchovies, from a can Homemade whole wheat lavash bread, based on an arbitrarily chosen internet recipe but quite successful (1 packet yeast proofed in 1/2 cup lukewarm water, then 3/4 cup more water added, and this added to 2 cups white-whole-wheat flour w/ 1 tsp salt, mixed into sticky dough, kneaded (more flour needed), coated heavily in olive oil and set to rise in a warm place for an hour, punched down, rolled thin, some sesame seeds sifted on top, then cooked on a medium-heat griddle for a few minutes on each side). There was a surprisingly big difference between the perfect fresh-off-the-stove lavash and even the 30-minutes-off-the-stove texture and taste (it became chewy and tough). Roasted parsnips (30-40 minutes at 425F in olive oil, salt, black pepper, turning once) mixed with lots of fresh mint Cacik (pronounced something like jay-juhk): Greek yogurt diluted with perhaps 25% water to thin it out, cucumber, fresh mint, coarse salt, olive oil An attempt at Kısır (pronounced kih-sish), a Turkish salad in the same vein as tabouleh: 2 Tbsp tomato paste and a Nora chili mixed into 2 1/2 cups of hot water, poured over 2 cups dry bulgur to soak for 15+ minutes, then olive oil, a Tbsp pomegranate syrup (strong), lime juice, and a whole bunch of minced fresh parsley added, and served over sliced cucumbers and tomatoes. Plus lots of black pepper. While some people said this was their favorite, I thought it was missing something, and maybe the bulgur should have been further cooked and chilled? Hmm. “Harem’s Delight” brand Turkish Delight, pomegranate flavored. And of course, a few fine beers: Upright Flora Rustica (with spring yarrow and calendula – floral, interesting, and pretty good this time, not gone-bad like the last bottle), Allagash Hugh Malone Belgian IPA (slightly fruity, huge head, an interesting hop taste that I couldn’t place, nice [edit: more info from the Allagash web site]), and a saved bottle of Almanac summer blackberry ale from a friend (a bit more acidic and less blackberry-distinctive than it was originally, unfortunately). ...

I can’t be the only one who rearranges the pre-checkout conveyor from least-crushable to most-crushable:

I just had my first Montreal bagel (someone I know paid to have cases of them shipped overnight, from Montréal): I did appreciate the slightly smoky taste from the wood burning oven, and the variation in surface browning, but they were also a bit sweeter and lighter (less chewy) than I like, so I still prefer the New York style. I may have to try making an unholy hybrid at some point– a New York style bagel cooked over a wood fire… not quite what the gas-grill-BBQ bagels were. ...

This pulled pork sandwich (marinated in coconut milk, with some jalapeno plantain pickles) by Hil’s Cooking was excellent: The internet tells me she’s going to have a mobile sandwich Airstream in Oakland.

Another (busy-at-work, forgot-to-invite-anyone-over) Tuesday CSA, another attempt to cheat time with the pressure cooker. I’d give this one a B+. Similar to the last lentil soup: I sauteed some home-cured-by-a-friend and deliciously fatty/salty lambcetta, shallots, celery, carrots, and onions. Then I sweated a pound of lentils with it over medium heat for 5 minutes. Plus a few dried Nora peppers, chipotles, cayenne, a pinch of smoked paprika, 8 cups of water, and the lid came on, for 10 minutes at pressure. I opened it, added salt and black pepper to taste, and simmered it another 5 minutes. A whole Meyer lemon squeezed into the bowl for the last-minute acid. Pretty good. Could have used more meat or a meaty stock. ...

(warning: pig carcass photos below) I just found photos from a pig roast & camping trip in Stanislaus National Forest organized by some friends last summer. It was everyone’s first time roasting a large whole pig, but the pork ended up delicious, moist, and not too greasy. Success! I wasn’t involved in the planning, and don’t really have a detailed “recipe”, but here’s the general approach: 1. Rub the whole pig with salt (there wasn’t really space or room to store a big tube of liquid brine) ...

Last weekend I went up to Russian River Brewing Co with a group of friends (by bike, in fact, a 130-mile round trip from San Francisco, but that’s a story for another day or blog…) for their two-week window of Pliny the Younger on tap. After three hours waiting in line to get in (which passed surprisingly quickly due to good company and a boom box with some James Brown), I had a glass of this triple IPA in hand: ...

Amazingly delicious Japanese curry in the Tenderloin for $8.50 (Kare-Ken). I got the Katsu curry plate, spicy:

A low-key Feb 14th– catching up at home after a few whirlwind weeks, and making a quick and tasty hash starting from a homemade “lambcetta” (like pancetta, but lamb, air-cured with salt) given to me by a friend who’s been going all-out on the butchering and meat-preserving front recently. It was delicious sliced thin on its own, and I don’t think it would kill me. But to make it last, I just used a bit of it, minced up and fried with minced shallots, and then coarser-cut onions, fennel (yes, I’m an addict), and carrots. ...

If you don’t want to see pictures of hog butchering, stop reading now. Yesterday I went to a combination beer release party ( Almanac Beer’s Winter Wit, with kara kara oranges, blood oranges, and ginger from local farms– they pointed out that while Wit is typically a summer beer, winter is citrus season in our neck of the woods… I liked it quite a bit, as well as the High Water Brewing No Boundaries IPA), pork dinner (shoulder with some sort of spicy gravy was my favorite, followed by the fatty pork-and-beer sausage and chicharrones), and hog butchering demonstration by Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats. ...

Gelik Atakoy (near the airport, outside the city, though there are two other locations) was another local recommendation in Istanbul, and was probably my favorite meal of the trip (followed by the informal adana kebab in the Grand Bazaar). To start, a sort of rice pilaf with lots of cracked black pepper (excellent – I don’t know if it was fresher or different black pepper, or if there were other spices as well), a salad, some pulped eggplant (in white), and more adventurously (the brownish-pink lump): çig köfte, a sort of meatball of raw ground beef, bulgur, and red pepper. I liked it quite a bit. [ side note: looking up its name later turned up an NIH paper about the antimicrobial effects of chopped garlic in raw meat ] ...

(wrapping up a few food photos from a recent trip to Turkey): On the recommendation of a local, we went to Yüksel Balık, a good fish restaurant right by the ocean, a bit outside the city center. They bring you into a side room where recently-caught fish are laid out on a cold marble slab. You pick one or more, tell them how you want it cooked (they typically fry it), and get charged based on the weight. ...

A friend made some dry-cured (hopefully botulism-free) salami from scratch, from a wild boar a friend of his shot. Rich, spicy, excellent. I’ll ask him for details. I brought the beer. The Allagash Black (belgian crossed with a stout) and the Speakeasy Butchertown Black (hoppy and dark) were the favorites. The Upright Flora Rustica I’d liked so much in PDX was no good at all– sour and muddled. Oh, and rosewater-flavored Turkish Delight, back from Istanbul. ...