Yeah, but can she cook?

Three things crossed in my head yesterday that all point to the same problem, one that isn’t obvious at first but is troubling.   The first  is the conclusion of Brit cook and TV star, Jamie Oliver that the essential reason for the lousy food school children get in most American and British schools is that the schools don’t have enough people in the kitchen to really cook anything.  As  budget pressures mount, the schools  cut kitchen staff to the minimum.  The result is they only have enough people to open cans and bake or microwave frozen entrees and side dishes.  The do not have the kitchen staff to actually cook a school meal.  Oliver pointed out this often isn’t actually cheaper than cooking meals from scratch. The processed and prepared food they feed the students tended to be very high in salt, sugar and industrial sweeteners and fats.  Even when they served fruit and vegetables, they were usually frozen (not necessarily a bad thing, especially in winter) or preprocessed.

The second stray item was in this weekend’s Washington Post, where Kathleen Parker wrote about the sharp increase in obesity, especially among children.   As a throw away line, pointing out her own shortcomings she wrote, “And though I tried to provide family dinners most nights when the kids were small, I told my son when he left for college: ‘“You’re gonna miss my takeout.”’  

The telling point here is that even for a  traditional family,  everyone sitting  round the kitchen table for the evening meal is not common today.  Time pressures with two working parents and children with after school sports and other activities make  a family dinner  around the table  an exception not the norm.  While I’m sure Kathleen Parker is a good cook, take out is often for dinner at her house  for lack of time to purchase, prepare, and cook a traditional  dinner many nights.

While lack of time to cook  undermines the family dinner  for Kathleen Parker’s family,  another  even more troubling  problem  is  that many people who have the time to cook family meals,  don’t actually know how to do it.  Last week on the way home from the San Fernando Valley I stopped at the Ralph’s Market on Ventura Blvd. in Studio City, an up scale LA suburb.  I needed  the usual mid week shopping stuff:  milk, bread and salad greens.  I didn’t even need a cart and got in line with my black basket behind a thirty something women with a cart full of everything.

She was slim well dressed  and intelligent looking, apparently a stay at home mom.  From the large load of groceries it was clear she had a couple kids and a husband.  As she loaded the belt on the check stand, I noticed that she was careful to avoid most “junk” food, even the  breakfast cereal was not sugary.  Much of what she bought was “organic.”  She obviously sent lunch with her kids from the amount of precut apples and carrots in little single serving sealed bags and little cups of fruit.  She bought chewy dark multigrain bread, organic peanut butter, sliced Muenster cheese and a  big cans of tuna.   The rest of the cart was frozen itemd:  entrees, side dishes and vegetables in this or that sauce.

Then it hit  me as the clerk rang up close to two hundred dollars of groceries.  This obviously intelligent, affluent and serious lady didn’t know how to cook.  Except for a bag of oranges,  she had not  bought any of raw or basic ingredients. No onions or potatoes, no rmeat, no fresh raw fruit or vegetables, no spices, canned tomatoes, raw dried grains or beans, nothing fresh except two dozen organic free range eggs.  (I’m sure she could scramble or hard boil eggs but that is a long way from actually being a  cook.)  Even the main courses were preprocessed and prepared outside her kitchen.

This woman’s shopping cart  demonstrates the same essential problem Jamie found in school kitchens,   no knowledge or skill in cooking beyond a few very simple things.  Like the schools, this lady knew how to micro wave  meals but not how to cook them herself.  She paid almost three time the cost of making a pot roast from scratch for a prepared one along with the potato and vegetable side dish.   I  bring this up because at spice firms like Laury’s offer  pot roast seasoning and easy to follow instruction.  McCormick’s even has what amounts to a “Pot Roast for Dummies” kit with seasonings a roasting bad and simple instructions.  All the lady had to do was buy a fresh chuck roast and a kit, put the meat in the roasting bag with the seasonings, a little wine and she could have made a pot roast.  She could have bought three pounds of potatoes and  two pound of carrots or broccoli and made the two side dishes.  She also bought bagged prepared salads that included the dressing.  Why not buy a head or two of lettuce, a bottle of wine vinegar and one of olive oil and make her own salad at less than half the cost of the prepared one?

In my neighborhood there are many immigrant families from a  dozen counties near and far.  These people buy basic raw or simple ingredients and go home and cook them.   Why?  Because their mothers and grandmothers taught them how to cook.  No big deal you would think, but I’m afraid it is a big deal.  It is not just an affluent woman from Studio City but it includes many if not most young men and women. They don’t know even simple cooking.  In high school my brother Michael and often made dinner when my recently widowed mother was at work.  She and our grandmother taught us enough to make simple family dinners.  We didn't need Rachel Ray,  although I have to say that she is very good at showing ordinary people how to prepare and cook good dinners.

This is  ignorance of how to cook even simple meals is problem for all Americans.  It is not the fault of McDonalds or Kentucky Fried Chicken, or any other  food company.  It is our fault. These firms are filling in the gaps individual families make for reasons of necessity or connivence.  It doesn’t have to be this way and it shouldn’t be this way.  As fewer and fewer of our children are raised without a traditional family,  ignorance about cooking is just one of negative consequences.

“We got a problem in River City, right here in River City” as goes the pitch from “The Music Man.”

Bourdain is correct in his judgement of Red's Java House.

Reading on Yelp for San Francisco I noticed many of the comments about Red's Java House  are either unfair or uniformed, if not both.  The hamburgers here are made and served in the old local style, on a sliced slab of sourdough bread.  As a native of SF I should remind younger readers that before the rise of national burger chains each region had its style.  Red's is true to the local style of Burgers that developed in the Bay Area long before there were national chains and locals felt any need to conform to some outsiders standards.

In the San Francisco Bay Area most places popular when I was in College in the the early 1960’s served large hamburgers on slabs of a sourdough  loaf or on a sour dough roll.  They were not “dressed” to use the New Orleans term with a lot of toppings and garnishes but often served with only the meat in the sourdough and any condiments left to the buyer to add or they were served with maybe fresh or grilled onions, perhaps a hint of mayo and even more rarely with a few dill pickle slices.  

For those who can remember, all the various “Joe’s” restaurants which go back to the early years of the the twentith century made burgers this way as did many other restaurants like the beloved Larry Blake's on Telegraph in Berkeley which served their big burger with a side of very very garlicky Caesar Salad not fries.  The burgers in the bay area were made like Italian style sandwiches and only cheap hamburger stands and some diners and cafeterias used the common small hamburger bun in one form or another.

Even family owned pizza joints and small local chains like Round Table Pizza made their burgers this way, on French rolls just like their other sandwiches.  The choice was a hamburger with or without cheese or  a sausage split and grilled with your choice of a Polish kilbasa, a Louisiana Hot link or Linguiça served in the same dressed french roll.

In LA hamburgers were served fully dressed with thousand island dressing, onions, tomato slices, whole lettuce leaves and pickles or relish and a dab of mustard and catsup. In LA this system of “dressed” hamburgers applied even if they were  covered in a generous glob of chili or if sliced avocado or a thick guacamole was added.  Midwestern and East Coast folks still disparage these California "salad in bun" Southern California hamburgers, but that is and was the authentic local style and it remains so.

The burger at Red’s Java House is very authentic old time Frisco, not something odd nor a national standard burger or one of the hyped “gourmet” super burgers that are popular and go for something between ten and twenty bucks.  Anthony Bourdain was correct in his judgment, favoring as he often does a strong authentic local tradition while at the same time also recognizing innovations that build on it.  That he dings some of the more extravagant or mystical contemporary trends is OK with me.  Perhaps he realized that may of the new local and organic savants are in fact going back to what  my grandmothers and other women who learned to cook before WW I knew and did.

My comment is this, before you stick you nose up at something old and authentic, get your facts straight and learn the local traditions and customs.  San Francisco and the Bay Area had good cooks and a special authentic style long before  the mystical organic folks arrived and rediscovered good and local ingredients.  In many ways it was the old authentic local traditions that allowed this movement to grow up and flourish.  However, as Bourdain makes clear it is only one of many schools of cooking and one that exists on the higher levels of restaurants and cooks.

Sad news.

On a new post on Yelp,  one of the previous reviewers has posted that the Portuguese
Grill in Rancho Cucamonga closed last week.  It is a very sad thing and my best wishes go to the family that ran the small restaurant.  As I wrote, it was like in a Portuguese American home with so many of the wonderful dishes I remember from my growing up in large extended family with many fine cooks.

Perhaps some one could buy it and bring it back.  The unique barbecue/grilling system they installed is something that could be used for many styles of cooking.

The Portuguese Grill

The national flag of Portugal

The common wisdom has it, quoting the great southern novelist Thomas Wolfe, “You can't go home again.” While it is true, every once in a while you find yourself in an unexpected and nostalgic place where a wisp of a long forgotten aroma brings back memories, old deep memories. That happened to me not long ago and an improbable place, a small shopping center next to an Albertson and a Shell Station in Rancho Cucamonga, about fifty years and four hundred miles south of the memories it evoked. The place was a small family owned and run restaurant. As often can happen especially with ethnic food, these little places prepare and bring us fair and accurately served food from the family’s oldest traditions.

The regional flag of the Açores

The restaurant I writing about is the Portuguese Grill. For me it was stepping back fifty years to the kitchens of my Grandmother and her sisters and sisters-in-laws. This is not the sort of cooking you would find in a hip or contemporary restaurant, it is cooking you would find in a traditional Portuguese home, something that was all around and familiar when I was young, but only makes a reappearance occasionally at large family gatherings that only happen once or twice a year.

Whole dried cod orBacalhau or Lutefisk

This welcoming small brightly tiled little restaurant and take out is decorated with big color pictures of contemporary Portugal and has on the wall both the Green and Red Portuguese national flag and the blue and white regional flag of the Açores islands -- the ancestral homeland of most Portuguese Americans. They have an oak and hard wood fire grill and make a full range of very good and authentic home style dishes. Right off the bat, the starters are familiar and welcoming: Croquettes of potato, herbs and salt cod. Bacalhau is the word for salt cod, what Norwegians call Lutefisk. You can sometimes see and smell it, or at least you used to see it, in ethnic markets, three foot long whole salty white stiff bacalau piled up like firewood. It is traditional in Italy, France, Iberia and the Americas including the English speaking West Indies. It is the ancient staple of Portugal, where it is often called “our old friend.”

Additionally they have fresh small and medium size sardines and mackerel. They are served deep fried and eaten whole. The large sardines and the mackerel are grilled on the oak coals and dressed lightly with olive oil and vinegar with slices of onion and a few herbs. They make linguiça sandwiches which are knock outs: the linguiça is grilled and served in a homemade roll with sautéed peppers and onions. The linguiça is made in Tracy by people from the Açores. It is a sausage of relatively large chunks of pork first marinated then spiced and stuffed in natural casings and finally smoked. It is a cousin of Basque Chorizo, Cajun Andouille and Mexican or Filipino Lorganitza. It is not the stuff sold in super markets, where standard pork sausages are manufactured by adding the approximate ethnic herb & spice mix to a common pork base and then called kilbasa, bratwurst, Italian sausage, chorizo or Louisiana Hot's even though they are really all but identical.

The main menu features fish, chicken, pork, beef and linguiça grilled on the oak coals. The live fire grill is an unusual barbecue system, it has rotating double grills which mean that the meat and fish are barbecued while moving constantly as if they were on a spit. This allows an even cooking and permits the kitchen to barbecue even small delicate fish that would be quickly incinerated on a normal grill. The beef is marinated in red wine vinegar herbs and spices and grilled. The skirt steak was rare, tender as prime cut and came with a big pile of crisp home make fries. It scored 11 on a 10 point scale. Amazing. The grilled chicken was tangy, crisp on the outside and moist inside. The pork ribs were perfect and not coated with some gooey sweet sauce.

They also make an dressy Lisbon style steak topped with a sauce of the pan juices deglased and enriched with cream and brandy and a sunny side up egg -- something very like the dressed up steaks of Argentina and Chile. As you expect there are a number of main dishes based on salt cod that are loved by the Portuguese and worth a try if you are not connected to Lusitanian cooking. Finally they offer a rare specialty, Polvo Estufado, a flavorful and unusual octopus stew which is worth the trip to Cucamonga if you know it. It is a very rarely found Portuguese favorite. If you are frightened off, I should refer you to Anthony Bourdain who is a fan of this dish ever since he first tasted it as a teenager in little Portuguese places on Cape Cod.

They offer a short but balanced list of Portuguese reds and white and rose wines. All are priced very fairly priced and combine seamlessly with their food. The reds are very fruity and rich in the unique local tradition. Finally, the family that owns and run this wonderful little place make bread, bread as you would only find at home. The loaves are about ten inches round and six inches tall with a dark semi crisp crust. Cut in slices the bread is yeasty, chewy and so authentic it almost brought tears to my eyes. After a meal here you can almost hear the words and melody of “In a Portuguese House.”

Portuguese Grill 11368 Kenyon Way # G

Rancho Cucamonga, CA, 91701

Phone : 909-945-9444

 http://www.portuguesegrillrestaurant.com/

It is just off the Foothill Freeway west of the junction with I-15. The web site has easy to follow maps.

A long 'Wich list.

Here is an incomplete list of other important ‘Wiches:

























1. The Ruben. This is the pride of New York and rich beyond any sane red line for both salt and cholesterol overdose.



2. The Peanut Butter and Jelly. The kids favorite but adults can have “cosmic” organic one favored by Jerry Brown in his first term or the one with bananas that Evlis loved.



























3. The New Orleans Po’Boy. The most famous is the oyster Po’Boy, but they make all sorts of variations and combination.

4. The muffaletta is the other unique Big Easy specialty of Italian cold cuts and olive salad on special round Sicilian loaves. Unlike most sandwiches this one tastes best if you allow it sit undisturbed for at least four hours up or even over night so the pungent olive salad murges all flavors with the cure meats and the crusty bread.

























5. The Sloppy Joe was invented in Key West saloon of the same name. It is a favorite with kids and was a staple of school cafeterias in my youth. It is still beloved in the Midwest. This is another blue collar item usually sniffed at by the Foodies and Restaurant Critics because it is messy and simple.


6. The New England Lobster Roll. This simple lobster salad on one of the funny u-shaped Boston hot dog buns. It is a local icon

7. A Chicago Dog. This is the apotheosis of the hot dog. On a fat oval sesame seed bun it is a quarter pound Kosher dog accompanied by a pickle spear, neon green sweet pickle relish, chopped onions and a couple unique local pickled “Sport Peppers” that are about as long as your little finger, Chicago mustard, tomato slices and maybe a little sauerkraut too. A final shake of celery salt is considered the authentic Chicago touch.























8. El Cubano. This Havana & Miami specialty is a pressed ‘wich of ham, cheese and sliced garlicky roast pork. A great ‘wich. The night time variation on sweet egg bread is called the Medianoche. Cuban places also make a ‘wich stuffed with Ropa Vieja, a cuban variation on beef pot roast.
























9. A Philly Cheese Steak. Legendary.


10. A Chicago “Italian Beef” ‘wich. Bigger and a lot messier and spicier than a Philipe’s French Dip in LA. Chicago sandwiches tend toward extravagant excess making the Windy City the Vegas of the sandwich world.
























11. A St. Paul ‘wich. A midwestern specialty it is essentially a fried egg ‘wich on plain white bread and for some reason a specialty at Chinese and other asian style places. Some say it is Egg Foo Yung ‘wich, others seem to think it is a Chinese Take out’s version of an Egg McMuffin.


12. The grilled cheese. It also had an upscale relative, the grilled ham & cheese. In my opinion you must spread some mustard on the underside of the top to give it a bite.


13. Carolina pulled pork. Smoked tender pork on white bread with a vinegar based BBQ sauce.


14. A Texas brisket ‘wich. The pride of Texas is the tender juicy slow roasted and smoked beef brisket. On white bread with or without a BBQ sauce.


15. The Santa Maria Tri tip ‘wich. Cooked on a live fire of oak wood, this is medium rare beef on a french roll usually with a medium salsa over the meat. Don’t slice it too thick.


This list is almost endless and I am sure any reader could easily add half a dozen other unique sandwiches without any effort at all. For example, Canadians could add a Montreal Smoked Meat sandwich that is made with a varity of meats ranging from beef all the way to Moose.

All photo's are from Wikepedia and in the public domain.

The 'wich list, No. 1

In no particular order are a list of sandwiches, some on the eccentric side, that I would like to have again.

1. The Summer ‘Wich.

Take about eight inches of a sourdough batard and slice it in half lengthwise. Slice one large or two medium homegrown tomatoes, cut a couple slices from a sweet flat or torpedo shaped red onion and take a couple leaves of butter lettuce. Now spread mayonnaise on the bottom slice of bread and put the tomato, onion and lettuce on it and put a shake of salt and a grind of black pepper on it then cap with the other half of the bread, squeeze it together but not too hard then cut it in half. You can make this an old county style sandwich by drizzling good olive oil and red wine vinegar in stead of the mayo. Serve with mild pickled banana peppers and home made lemonade.

2. The Blue Collar Diner ‘Wich.

Rarely seen in California, this long time blue collar favorite is still made and enjoyed in the Midwest. Cut two or three quarter inch thick slices of high quality baloney depending on the diameter of the roll. A high quality baloney, a German style (white) baloney, a Kosher baloney or best of all Lebanon Baloney from the Pennsylvania Dutch country all work, although each has it’s own savory salty flavor. Now fry the baloney slices until they are brown but stop before they get crisp. Take a couple slices of rye bread and lay on a heavy spread of a brown Chicago style mustard like Gulden’s. That is the only condiment. Pile the grilled slices on the bread and put the top slice of bread on it and slice in half. That’s it. This is simplicity itself and a robust sandwich fit for breakfast, lunch or dinner, especially in the winter.

3. The Chicken ‘Wich.

This is what you do with the left over roast chicken from the night before. Take the carcass of the bird and cut enough slices large and small to make a sandwich, include any skin left on the bird. Now take two slices of a chewy whole wheat or multigrain bread and spread a light layer of mayonnaise on each. Pile on the chicken, cover with a couple leaves of lettuce, watercress or any other green you have on hand, put the top slice of bread over it and cut into half.

4. The Cold Turkey ‘Wich.

This is essentially the same as the Chicken ‘Wich above except you take slices of both white and dark turkey meat. However on the top piece of bread you spread on a layer of whole cranberry sauce and a thin layer of turkey dressing. Serve this anytime, although you must served it during the three day non stop orgy of TV football games that follow Thanksgiving day.

5. A Golden Gate ‘Wich.

This is the Bay Area traditional variation on the Hamburger. First you chop an onion into small pieces then you mix them into the raw hamburger meat before shaping the burgers. The preferred shape is not the round patty, but an oblong potato shape. Grill the meat over high heat so the outside is crusted while the interior is medium to medium rare. Take a six to eight inch slice of sourdough batard and cut it in half lengthwise. Scoop out about half the inside of the top piece to allow the oblong burger to nest into the bread. This is best when a layer of chili sauce is spread over the meat although some people prefer ketchup and a few use a steak sauce like A-1. If you want cheese, I’d recommend some provolone or swiss. A pickle spear on the side can be added if you prefer but this is a spartan item and should not be “dressed” up like an ordinary hamburger.

Deviled Eggs & Egg Salad: boring but a blank canvas for something bold or bright.

One of the basic American nibbles is the deviled egg. Generally it is a pretty bland item on the table of cold appetizers. So is it’s chopped up form, egg salad. You can shrug and ignore it, or you can put your imagination to work and make something out of it.

Basic Deviled Eggs: Boil six eggs, shell them, slice them in half and pop the yokes into a small bowl. Add to the yokes: a quarter cup of mayonnaise, a teaspoon of mustard, a grind or two of white pepper and a pinch of turmeric to hype the yellow color Mash and combine all the ingredients into a paste, put into a pastry bag or into a plastic storage bag, nip the corner of the bag and use it as an ad hoc pastry bag and squeeze the yoke mixture into the cavity left in the half eggs where the yoke used to be.


Photo from Wikipedia

While the above is good, it is also ordinary, even if you have used fresh free range organic eggs with a rich country taste instead of the bland hatchery laid eggs. Using the basic recipe you can take the eggs in a more interesting directions. Here are some ways to pep them up and give them some zip.

Cajun Eggs: Add fresh chopped chives and as much Tobasco Sauce as you want and substitute Creole or another whole grain mustard for the ordinary French’s Salad Mustard.

Green Herb Eggs: Chop up a couple shallots, two tablespoons of fresh parsley, a couple teaspoons of chopped chives and a a tea spoon of capers.

Sicilian Eggs: Add a tablespoon of capers, a table spoon of fresh basil, a teaspoon of lemon zest and a small dab of anchovy paste, mix and dust the stuffed with fine chopped parsley.

New York Eggs: Add a couple pieces of smoked salmon, a quarter teaspoon of chopped fresh dill, one chopped shallot, one teaspoon chopped chives and a quarter teaspoon of prepared horseradish.

Tarragon Eggs: Add a pinch of chopped tarragon, two table spoons of chopped French Cornichons, a quarter teaspoon of lemon zest.

Polish Eggs: Use sour cream instead of mayonnaise, add half a teaspoon of chopped dill, a quarter teaspoon of horseradish, a teaspoon of chopped parsley and a scant teaspoon of Russian style honey mustard.

French Eggs: Add a teaspoon of Dijon Mustard, two teaspoons of chervil if available parsley if not, white pepper and two teaspoons of chopped cornishons.

Yorkshire Eggs: Add a table spoon of Cross & Blackwell’s Chow Chow chopping up the pickle to small nubs, two teaspoons of fresh parsley. Unless you make your own private mustard pickles their is no substitute for Chow Chow.

The list can go on and on with your imagination and ingenuity the only limits.

- xxx -