I live my life in search of a good Panang beef curry. Actually, I am in pursuit of a magnificent Mussamun Curry, but Panang is a close second. After a disappointing trial with a prepared Mussamun curry paste (too cardamom-y, not enough peanuts), and one too many mediocre Thai meals eaten out, I’ve decided to make the paste myself.

With an assemblage of ingredients typically Thai: galanga, lemon grass, chilies, shrimp paste, to name a few, and help from the mortar and pestle to grind the spices, and a Cuisanart (because I’m a weakling) to bring the ingredients into a potent, spicy paste, in less than an hour I have homemade curry paste.

So what is this obsession all about? There is a little Thai restaurant, near where I grew up, that has the most delicious Mussamun Beef Curry. It’s a little hole in the wall, that has been there forever, with a forgettable name, and an even more forgettable decor. However, what this place lacks in ambiance, it more than makes up for in down-home, authentic Thai cuisine. But since my parents have moved from the Peninsula, and San Mateo is no longer my sister’s stomping ground, I really have no reason to frequent Nippa-Pon– except for that damn Mussamun Curry. Sometimes the craving gets too great, and I convince Brian to take me for my fix. We hop in the car, brave the traffic on the bridge, and in about one hour’s time, we arrive with our bellies gurgling.

Now there are plenty of good Thai restaurants in the East Bay, but none that I have found with even a passable Mussamun. And so I have resigned myself to Mussamun’s sister Panang. But sometimes I so crave that Mussamun Curry, with its deep brown, coconut infused sauce, and gentle heat hitting me in the back of the throat, I salivate at the thought. Now I know that a craving for good Mussamun is something to be endured until I can no longer wait, and I must make my way to the peninsula. But until then, I have my Panang curry to satiate my inner Thai desires.

The paste is very potent and concentrated, so you only need about 6 tablespoons per batch of Panang Curry. Simply store the reserved in the fridge until next time you have a hankering.

Panang Curry Paste
from Comfort Food

8-10 large dried chilies
6 shallots, chopped
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon white pepper
2 lemongrass stalks, white part only, sliced and bruised
1 tablespoon chopped galangal
6 cilantro sprigs
2 teaspoons shrimp paste
2 tablespoons roasted peanuts

Soak chilies in boiling water for 15 minutes to reconstitute. Remove the seeds and chop. Place in food processor with rest of the ingredients, and process until smooth. Add a little water if paste is too thick, and is not coming together.

What to do with a perfect bag of Key Limes? Make a Key Lime-Strawberry Refresher. I was at the market this week and noticed individually packaged, mesh sacks of ping pong ball sized key limes. Being a sucker for both mesh sacks, and any diminutive type produce, I quickly scooped up the sack and went home.

Now I’m not wild for citrus pies; lemon meringue, or key lime for that matter, never have done much for me. But a limeade, with some beautiful strawberries thrown in for good measure I could do. So I got to work, slicing and juicing some 40-odd limes, and let me tell you dear reader, it was a pain in the arse. Not a giant pain, like being stuck in traffic on a hot summer’s day with the air-conditioner on the fritz; but a moderate, waiting-15 minutes-for-a-perpetually-late-friend one. Key limes are tiny. They also have a more tender skin, and are more acidic than the run of the mill Persian lime. This makes them the ideal foil for the tender sweetness of the strawberries, and just tart enough to make the perfect refresher. But still…

So why make this? Why not just buy a limeade like most people? Well, that is a verifiable option, but then you would miss out the wonderful sweet-tart flavor, and the cooling refreshment of the homemade stuff. Once the lime juice is obtained, the refresher comes together quite easily, and the most difficult part is waiting for the sugar syrup to cool, and consumption to begin.

Key Lime-Strawberry Refresher

1 cup key lime juice, or Persian lime
1 pint strawberries, roughly chopped
1 vanilla bean, split (optional)
1 cup sugar
6 cups water

In order to get one cup of liquid, juice the key limes, set aside. In a large saucepan add strawberries, water, sugar, and vanilla bean (I find this imparts a wonderfully subtle flavor), and slowly bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. The strawberries should begin to fall apart and muddle with the liquid. Once a boil has been reached, extract vanilla bean, and blend. Be careful, blenders don’t always like hot liquids, I speak from experience. Add the strawberry juice to the key lime juice, stir, and place in refrigerator to chill. Serve chilled, over ice, with a sprig of mint. Delightful!

Each year it seems that I become obsessed with some ingredient or food type. One summer I fancied jam, last spring I was gaga for fava beans; I painstakingly double shucked, then prepared them any which way I could think of, sauteed, mashed into a paste for crostini, and the simple favorite, slurped up with some sort of slippery pasta. This year’s latest fascination seems to be corn. (I didn’t say that the ingredient had to be new and exotic mind you.) Steamed, grilled, kernels cut off the cob and served raw in a salad, or my new favorite, creamed, what can’t you do with a delightful ear of corn?

Creamed corn was a mainstay of my childhood. Served warm, with cracked black pepper, I loved the milky, glutinous consistency of this down-home side dish. But like many other foods: PB&J; noodle kugel; or my mom’s flank steak, marinated in teriyaki sauce and charred to a crisp; creamed corn, for whatever reason, just seemed to fall out of favor. Maybe it’s just that now a days I prefer my foods to be fresh, not clumsily poured from a can and into a saucepan.

Do to my latest fascination, I have been glancing around in my cookbooks, to see what other people do with corn, and found a lovely recipe for homemade creamed corn, minus the roux and white sauce, in Jamie’s Dinners. Light yet creamy, it was not my creamed corn of yore, but rather a new, polenta-like creamed corn. Taking advantage of the sweet niblets of flavor that abound at the grocer’s, I bought a few ears and got to work.

The other fabulous characteristic of this recipe is its use of one of my favorite kitchen tools– the handblender. There is something so gratifying about turning a solid to a liquid, right before your very eyes. In just a few moments, with just the push of a button, the handblender turn what looks to be an average saute of corn and shallots, into a gorgeous amalgamation of all things summer. Roughly blended, delightfully sweet, this recipe for creamed corn will definitely become a mainstay in my repertoire this season.

The original recipe call for 14 ounces of frozen corn, but when it’s summer, and delicious, fresh corn abounds, I use that.

Creamed Corn
from Jamie’s Dinners

Serves 4

4 ears of corn, kernels cut and scraped from the cob
2 shallots, sliced
small glass of water
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
freshly ground nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

In a medium saucepan, saute shallot in 1 tablespoon of melted butter. When shallots begin to color, add the corn kernels, salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste. Briefly saute the corn to heat through. Add the glass of water, just enough to steam the corn. Cover, and let steam until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the milk and additional tablespoon of butter, and process with a hand blender, or a food processor until smooth, yet still chunky. Creamed corn should resemble polenta in thickness. Taste for seasoning, then serve.

When I was young we went out for Chinese food almost every Friday night. Amongst the assortment of Americanized Chinese food we consumed, I always ordered the Pu-Pu Platter for an appetizer. A tantalizing assortment of greasy goodies were set before us: a few fried wontons, an eggroll cut into four pieces, some slices of bbq pork, and the piece de resistance– shish kebabs of marinated beef, skewered on bamboo sticks, and laid upon its very own sterno of bright flames. And I loved it.

So I guess you could say my love affair with appetizers started early on, and it has only grown. My most beloved cookbooks are ones with chapters devoted to the cocktail hour. There is something deeply satisfying about a little bite of food, complex in its composition yet minute in its size. Homemade potato chips, topped with gravlax, sour cream and caviar; perfectly formed melon balls adorned with salty slices of prosciutto; a beautiful crudite platter, baby carrots crisply peeled with their greens still intact, and neat, little radish orbs with just a sprinkling of kosher salt– I adore them all. But yet do I have anyone to prepare such delectable treats for? The answer is sadly– not really.

When I go to a party now a days it’s not the swanky croquette sort, it’s the chip and dip, or the requisite cheese platter kind. Does anyone truly throw those glitzy, cocktail fetes anymore? Or for that matter, did anyone ever really throw those kinds of parties? I have thrown the occasional party where cocktails and proper nourishment is available. But it is simply not enough to quell my inner pu-pu yearnings. I could propose a dinner made entirely of appetizers. I could invite some friends and let the grazing begin. But I would fear that ominous question, “Appetizers were wonderful, now where is the rest of the meal?”

I suppose there is a solution to all of this appetizer envy, assuming there are people who have “proper” cocktail parties, scrumptious tapas included. I just need to find a new group of friends. I will take out an ad in the local paper, or on craigslist, and it will read: Do you love appetizers, long for a saucy martini, straight-up? MF, ISO people with similar adoration of the cocktail hour to enjoy plates and plates of appetizers (enough to make a meal of really). If this sounds delicious to you, call… Pu-pu’s always appreciated.

My grandmother was a wonderful cook. I know that mostly everyone says this, but I mean it. She was a true, family-style cook. Nothing fancy, just belly-warming, carbohydrate-laden goodies came tumbling from her kitchen virtually any meal of the day. My mother says she often stretched one chicken to feed eight people: my grandpa, six children, and herself. It is from this matriarch, that I learned to peel my very first beet, the slippery orb popping from the dingy, tan skin; that I tasted my very first homemade, sweet-tart, strawberry-rhubarb pie; and learned to love a childhood treat of bologna and american cheese, cut primly into matchsticks. (Come on, I was three and my grandma was originally from South Dakota.) It was when she passed away, that I received what have quickly become invaluable kitchen tools, among her KitchenAid Mixer, a variety of metal baking dishes, and other kitchen odds and ends; I received the grandaddy of all kitchen goods, The Cast-Iron Skillet.

A two-handed lifter, these vessels of down-home cooking are ideal for frittatas, sautes, scrambles, upside-down desserts. Just about anything you fry up on the stove, you can fry up in a cast-iron skillet. My skillets are at least 50 years old (the older the better), and cared for gently and lovingly. Following strict rules from my mother, the skillets are seasoned after each use with a thin layer of cooking oil, keeping the pans shiny, and ensuring their nonstick surface. If all turns out right, and it usually does in these blackened babies, I don’t even have to use soap when washing them out. Just rinse them off, clean with a sponge, and they’re good as new. Some of you might be exclaiming, “What, no soap, but how does it get truly clean?” To you I say, “I am just doing as my grandma would have wanted; if corrosive disease didn’t get her, it surely will not get me.”

When I got married, my uncle gave me a sturdy, cast-iron, dutch oven. It too was from my grandmother. While she made a variety of dishes from this pot, she always made her special Best Ever Donuts in this pot as well. Sprinkled with powdered sugar, and gobbled up while still piping hot, bits of grease gleaming off of the surface and mingling with the sugary topping to create a glaze of sorts, these donuts were truly a thing of beauty. Some might say, “A cast-iron pot, what a strange dowry.” That is the best sort of dowry. Each time I use those pots, dragging them out of the cupboard, practically giving myself carpal tunnel syndrome from the sheer weight of them, I think of my grandma. While she might have scoffed at my pea frittata with fresh mint and Manchego cheese, I am sure she would be thrilled that I was putting her skillets to good use.

We all know that the best part of a rootbeer float is that sweet, milky, goodness, that amalgamation of soda and ice cream, the liquid that forms from making the float. This nectar of the gods can be gulped down by chiseling away at the ice cream, tediously mixing by hand, waiting for a chemical reaction to occur with the soda, and sipping gently. Then waiting, and stirring…and waiting, and stirring…and waiting, and stirring some more. Or you don’t have to waste time with the entire process, you can break out the blender and have a FloatShake.

This occurred to me weeks ago, just in time for summer, the beads of perspiration forming at my lips, and my sweet tooth hankering. I longed for something cool and refreshing, but a shake was too thick and filling, while a float was too laborious, but it was then that I had a culinary epiphany. I flipped the top off a bottle of rootbeer, scooped a heaping spoonful of french vanilla ice cream into the blender, and wwwhhhrrr…moments later the Rootbeer FloatShake was born.

Now I can’t stop thinking of what other FloatShakes to make: chocolate ice cream and seltzer water; cream soda and vanilla ice cream; or an Orange Julius of sorts, with french vanilla ice cream, flecks of real vanilla beans and orange pop. I don’t even like the saccharine sweet flavor of orange pop, in fact, I can’t even tell you the last time the dyed-orange flavor graced my lips. But an Orange Pop FloatShake? Sure, I can do that.

Pancetta, it’s the bourgie’s bacon! I mean, who doesn’t love a little bit of pork product in their food? But pancetta, for all of its meaty saltiness, its crunchy crispness, and its artery-clogging goodness, can be a little too much on its own. It’s wonderful as a starter for soups, or crisply fried into lardons and sprinkled on a salad, and then there is my new favorite– crumbled on top of a heaping stack of pancakes.

This combination has the salty-sweet taste I so often find myself pining for. The bland neutrality of the pancake, the salty grease from the pancetta, and the tender sweetness from the pure maple syrup, is the ideal combination. I love bacon, but for this flavor combination I’m looking for the unsmoked taste that can only come from pancetta. Fried crisp, it is almost peppery in its composition. Crackling between my teeth as I consume the perfect bite, an ideal edge of a pancake, topped with a small pancetta tear, and the sweet maple flavor dripping off the fork.

For this week’s consumption I made a batch of corn pancakes. Utilizing the fresh corn that is creeping its way into markets (and thus into my tummy), the kernels bursting with a gentle sweetness, they are the perfect combination of texture and taste. The gentle give of the corn kernel between my teeth, in conjunction with the chewy flours (I used corn and all-purpose), creates a delicate to-and-fro between devouring hungrily, and savoring each bite.

But don’t get too hung up on having corn pancakes, as wonderful as they might be. Just try the pancetta, sliced thinly and fried crisply, on just about anything. Although it may make your meal slightly greasier, I guarantee it will also make it infinitely more pleasurable.

I love them all. Call it a pie, a tart, or a galette, I am an equal opportunity, pie eatin’ fool. I will even choke down an ordinarily-too-plain apple pie if the occasion presents itself. But when it’s spring/summertime and the lovely perfumed berries and sweet stone fruit abound, how can you not make a luscious dessert?

I have a friend in her early 20′s and even though she was raised in California, she had never eaten rhubarb (gasp), never tasted that puckery crimson stalk, never had the perfect contrast of strawberries with this fleeting vegetable of sorts. So I decided to make her my favorite go-to for summertime sweets– a galette. Her desire for pie came in perfect conjunction with this month’s Sugar High Friday. Infinitely easy, and delightfully scrumptious, galettes can be made when you simply can’t be bothered with rolling out two sets of dough, carefully fitting them in pie pans, and trimming bits of dough to make the perfect crusts. In a relatively brief amount of time you have a beautiful rustic tart, the edges rolled over containing all of the sumptuous juices.

Now this galette is neither too sweet or too bitter. Sweetened adequately with sugar, the filling is haphazardly laid upon little mounds of fresh ricotta cheese (I used a sheeps’ milk variety), acting as a creamy base for the melange of fruity topping. As the galette bakes in the oven, juices from the strawberry-rhubarb topping seep onto the cheese creating a wonderfully sweet, tinged pink concoction. I love using mellow cheeses in my desserts, and with the pastry of the dough, the strawberry-rhubarb filling, and the mellifluous ricotta, this galette is reminiscent of a really good danish. (Actually it is not at all like any mediocre danish that I have consumed, only the stellar danishes of my dreams.)

This recipe is for making one portion of dough, but it doubles or triples really well; and can be frozen for up to one month.

Pastry Dough

A versatile sour cream dough, this pastry can be used to make savory galettes if you omit the sugar.

1 cup flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
3 tablespoons sour cream
ice water (if needed)

In a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt, and pulse until mixed. Add the butter, one piece at a time, and pulse until mixture resembles coarse sand. Chill the work bowl for 15 minutes.

Replace the work bowl and add the sour cream, pulsing until dough just comes together. Depending on the weather and humidity, you may need to add ice water, a tablespoon at a time, until dough comes together. Gather the dough, press gently to create a circle, and wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Strawberry-Rhubarb and Ricotta Galette

Try to get a high quality, fresh ricotta cheese for this recipe. I used a nutty, sheeps’ milk variety. It will probably be necessary to let the ricotta drain overnight. Simply place the ricotta in a fine mesh colander, place in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate.

2 cups rhubarb, sliced in 1/4 inch pieces
2 cups strawberries, sliced haphazardly
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup ricotta cheese, drained
1 teaspoon vanilla
40-50 scrapes whole nutmeg, or a generous pinch of ground
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon butter

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Slice up the rhubarb, and toss with 1/4 cup of sugar. Slice strawberries and then add them to the rhubarb with the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, and toss well to cover. In a separate small bowl, mix the vanilla, ricotta, and nutmeg, until well incorporated.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the chilled pastry dough to a 14-inch round. Transfer dough to a baking sheet, and sprinkle the flour on top of dough, leaving a two-inch border for the crust. Add the ricotta cheese, spreading fairly evenly, with small mounds throughout the dough’s surface. Take handfuls of the strawberry-rhubarb mixture, leaving the remaining juices, and place them evenly over the ricotta, leaving a two-inch border for the crust. Some juice will have exuded from the strawberry-rhubarb mixture, this juice will not be used, otherwise the tart will become soggy, not crisp.

Fold over the remaining edge of the dough, to form a crust, pressing gently to insure the galette crust stays closed. Dot the surface of the galette with the remaining tablespoon of butter, and bake for approximately 40 minutes. Cover galette with foil halfway through baking process if it appears to browning too quickly. Remove from oven, and let cool at least 10 minutes, before slicing. Galette should be toasty brown, with a crisp crust. Dust the edges of galette with powdered sugar if desired.

I am not a coffee snob, at least I never thought that I was. Awhile back we had some friends over for dinner, dessert rolled around, coffee was served from the French press, and conversation naturally turned to that rich, caffeinated beverage. I found that I had quite a few opinions. Peet’s was too “grow hair on your chest” strong; coffee is meant to be enjoyed, not endured. Starbucks was corporate, watered down dreck. I loved a mellow serving of Illy Caffe, smooth and rich; and then there were countless neighborhood cafes, each serving up there own special blend, about which I had much to say.

Now with so many opinions about coffee, smooth versus burnt, decaf versus caffeinated, black versus light, how can I say that I am not a coffee snob? I love diner coffee, its reliability, not too strong but definitely not a weakling. But perhaps what I love the most about this type of coffee is the cups, the weight grounding the beverage, the solid proportions of the ceramic causing you to gently heave the cup upwards towards your lips. And I am not a coffee snob, because I do not really care what type of coffee you drink (if any). Just wake me up in the morning with a delightful cup of Blue Bottle Coffee, and I am more than pleased.

I am spoiled. I get my coffee delivered to me every Tuesday, by the lovely folks at the Blue Bottle Coffee Co. (If you live in parts of the East, or San Francisco Bay Area, you too can have this feature.) I was first introduced to Blue Bottle Coffee a few years ago at the Berkeley Farmer’s Market, and they were tiny. At the time they only sold their beans at the farmer’s market, and through home delivery. Over the next few years, the business has steadily grown, certain restaurants and cafes use their coffee, there is now a kiosk located in Hayes Valley, and Blue Bottle Coffee is sold in conjunction with Frog Hollow Farms sweet treats at the Ferry Building. But through all of this growth, they have maintained a superb product, selling a small variety of beans and blends geared toward different brewing methods.

Granted, I do not know a ton about different beans, their origins, notes of blueberry, or leather are all lost on me. I just know what I like. No matter how you prepare a batch of Blue Bottle Coffee, be it drip, French press, or percolator, the coffee is delightful– smooth, rich, deep, with never a hint of throat-clenching bitterness. And who doesn’t love having something delivered to them each week? It ‘s like a little gift, waiting for me at my front door ensuring a caffeine boost for the week to come.

Some of you may know this pleasant vegetable side dish, as a melange of greyish vegetables, a lima bean chucked in for good measure, tumbling out of a can. But what I am talking about is the bourgie succotash, sweet corn, some lively red bell pepper, and buttery fava beans, all sauteed together, dancing quickly in the pan, so each vegetable maintains its own flavor. A true summertime side dish, with a little bit of everything: you’ve got your protein from the favas, veggies from the peppers, and starch from the corn. I love it when everything works out just so.

Originally succotash was just a dish of stewed corn and some type of legume (usually lima beans), sometimes including a smoked meat product (often times bear) eaten by the Native Americans. The dish derives its name not from Tweety Bird, but from msickquatash, the Narraganset word meaning boiled kernels of corn. Today, succotash is mainly eaten along the East Coast of this country, and throughout the South, and contains many different ingredients, but always corn.

The bourgie succotash is none too wild, a simple, down-home dish (as down-home as one can get in Berkeley, CA). The main difference in my recipe is the inclusion of fava beans, those lovely, fresh legumes that are only available in spring and summer times. I know, they are time consuming, slippery little buggers, requiring a double shuck, but I think they are well worth the effort. When that almost chartreuse bean, pops out of its hard, beige exterior, giving a smooth, crisp flavor to a dish, it all seems almost worthwhile. But for those of you who simply won’t be bothered, or cannot get fava beans in your neck of the woods, lima beans or butter beans are a good substitute.

Corn is by far the star of this dish. Kernels sliced straight from the cob, then flash sauteed in order to maintain their delicate sweetness, make this side dish the perfect answer to the perennial question, “What’s for dinner?” Sometimes it is the most simple of dishes that are utterly pleasing. With the bounty of fresh vegetables available right now, why not mix them all up to make one perfect accoutrement. After all “5 a day for proper nutrition,” so two vegetables are always better then one.

Succotash

Serves 4

1 medium pepper, cut into 1/4 inch dice
3 ears of corn, kernels cut from cob
1 cup fava beans, shucked and ready to eat (lima beans are a good substitution)
2 tablespoons butter
Tabasco sauce to taste
salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet, over high heat, melt one tablespoon of butter. Once butter has melted, add the bell pepper, and saute until peppers are soft. Add the fava beans and continue to saute, until heated through. Once the beans are heated through, add the additional tablespoon of butter, and the corn kernels. Continue sauteeing until corn is al dente, about 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, and Tabasco, to add a bit of heat to the dish.