Every now and again, a home run.

Over the past couple years there have been a few times a dish knocked my socks off. Here is list in no particular order:

Wolfgang Puck did at his Spago in Beverly Hills, he served a chicken soup with winter vegetables made from a recipe he credits to his Grandmother. This bowl of soup was as perfect as the music created by Salzburg's other Wolfgang, Herr Mozart. The broth was rich clear amber essence of chicken and herbs accompanied by perfectly cooked root vegetables. Amazing and humbling to see somebody reach perfection with transparent simplicity. It was simple but absolutely as perfect as the first act of the Marriage of Figaro or the Ave Verum Corpus.

At the Spago in Caesar’s Palace Wolfie did it again, this time with something his Grandmother never made but mine did. This was a soup of clams and spanish chorizo in a white wine and tomato stock. While his recipe may be based on Basque cooking, it was all but identical to my Grandfather’s favorite Portuguese soup. The briny chewy perfectly cooked clams contrasted with the rich paprika and garlic smoked hard chorizo, the white wine mixed with the clam juice and the olive oil sautéed sofrito of onions, garlic, mild peppers and tomato make a bold savory but direct dish of warmth and depth. A perfect rustic marriage of the land and the sea. And he served it in a large iron pot with a big basket of crusty bread.

Another home run was served at Marin Joe’s on the 101 near San Raphael. This was a large platter of sweetbreads sautéed with mushrooms with wine, onions, herbs and sweet peppers. Awesome. The gamy earthiness of the mushrooms was the counter point to the delicate almost ethereal taste of the sweetbreads while both were bound together by the sherry enriched sauce of herbs and vegetables. Served with big crusty real San Francisco Sour Dough bread this was a memorable nostalgic meal.

Tafelspitz -- Austrian boil beef. Photo from Wikapedia

At a restaurant called with a kitchen and front staff of Hungarians, Maxmilian’s in North Hollywood I had tafelspitz, Austrian style boiled beef for the first time in my life. It has a wonderful concentrated but light real beef flavor served with half a dozen accompaniment including, the best cucumber salad I’ve ever tasted, a zippy sour cream and horseradish sauce, and other small enhancements. I know that in Vienna all the great composers gathered for a lunch of Tafelspitz, a deep satifying meal very much like a deep nostagic but vibrant piano quartet by Brahms. Boiled beef sounds flat in English, but this is not at all dull or boring.

My daughter Mara dazzled me one morning with a magnificent “Dutch Baby” apple pancake that was as rich and velvety as an omelet and sweet and just a bit earthy with still slightly crisp apple slices. The big rich pancake overflowed the large iron skillet she baked itg in and rose with unexpected lightness. It knocked my socks off with its richness and at the same time it’s lightness. Amazing accomplishment.

Finally, I have to include the very simple old fashion sliced tongue in a white wine vinaigrette they served as an appetizer at Noriega’s basque restaurant in Bakersfield. Unexpected, very traditional to the point of being almost a historic relic, this was a wonderful dish that was great in itself and even more an example of real authentic traditional cooking that we should appreciate and seek out much more often. Tongue today is very much an old fashioned item, rarely seen outside those unyielding ethnic cafe like Noriega’s and the other Basque restaurants and in authentic Mexican places where lingua is served and authentic means they cook with Manteca (pork lard) and they got to show you no stinking badges. Not even all Jewish deli’s still serve tongue.

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