An elegant little appetizer

I like to use a big sharp knife!

Today's blog is about presentation. If you know a few rules you can make plates that would make a 3 star restaurant proud.

First here is how to cut cucumbers so thin you can see through them, without losing any fingers!

Notice how the knife rests against my fingers. 

Using a big sharp knife means all you have to do is guide the knife. The weight of the knife and the sharp blade do the cutting for you. Since you don't have to press you have more control.



If you are more comfortable with a smaller knife use it. In any case try to make the cut in one sweep of the knife to get a clean cut. Going back and forth creates an uneven surface.

One rule to remember in knife work is that no sharp part of the knife, the tip or the blade, should ever be pointed at a part of your body! If you keep that in mind you will never get cut.

Here we have a very simple geometric pattern.  It will showcase whatever we put in the middle.

This is a zester, which removes the zest or outer layer of a citrus fruit. The side you see has sharp ridges and the other side is smooth.

I like this kind of zester because it makes strips and I can cut them into the size and shape I want.

Here I have cut up a single Kalamata olive and put some long shreds of orange peel on top. You see how you hardly notice the cucumber or the plate now? They frame the olive.

Major faux pas here, enough to get you detention in cooking school. When your food extends beyond the rim it looks sloppy and casual.

 Here is the finished dish. You can add whatever goodies you have, from a little chunk of left over steak or pork or chicken to a fine cheese or an oyster. All I have here is a tiny chunk of orange, an almond roasted in walnut oil, a small piece of mozzarella and a piece of Italian sausage. The olive and orange mixture has a touch of olive oil and the specks you see are black pepper. Good eating, nice looking and it probably cost a quarter for all the food.

No cooking this weekend so here is some food bling

http://www.balletsj.org/I was running from place to place and ate out twice yesterday. I had a nice bowl of minestrone and a small plate of mediocre pasta at Il Fornio near the ballet, then dinner with my squeeze at Vung Tao where we always have great food. We had a bowl of pork and shrimp won ton soup and a whole crispy pompano. So crisp! Fantastic.

So since I don't have my own food photos for yesterday or today (teaching, then Swan Lake then over the hill for Santa Cruz Symphony) so here are two pictures of my food from before:

A tray of my home cured, hot almond wood smoked bacon!

Pork ribs rubbed with spices, hot smoked for an our then baked. Nom nom nom nom!

A man's salad for lunch

On old French saying is 'Any idiot can make a roast. It takes a genius to make leftovers taste good.' I think the secret is to have good leftovers!

Today we have a plain, undressed salad, leftover pork tenderloin and a whole wheat tortilla toasted over a flame.

Since the salad is not dressed a) it has to have good ingredients and b) the pork has to be well seasoned. The pork is dressed with a little olive oil, a sprinkling of lemon juice and some vinegar from Trappey's Pickled Tobasco Peppers.

It's a great lunch with lots of crunch, low in calories and fat and with a snack I'll have later should keep me going until the end of the ballet tonight, somewhere around 11 pm.

Lord knows what I am going to eat tomorrow. I have a gig at Stanford in the morning then I have to run to play the ballet. Hmm, House of Falafel is right on the way...

Lunches past

Vegetable soup with home-smoked ham.

Note the whole clove of garlic, which will disintegrate into the soup as it cooks. 

Brown jasmine rice, cucumbers, home smoked ham and cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden. The dressing is sour cream, blue cheese, dijon mustard, lemon juice and horseradish. Sounds intense but it delivers a muted really complex flavor that really brings out the good in food.

One of my favorite ways to eat! A bowl of pasta with an ear of fresh corn and a sheaf of romaine.

Another great way to eat: fresh tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers from the garden.

 Not a great picture but a great meal. Sauteed dandelions and potatoes and onions.

Slabs of home cured hot smoked bacon

Tortellini (store bought, sigh), tomatoes and herbs from the garden, sauted chard and a roasted beet.

A smoked chicken leg with purlsane

If there is a better lunch than this I don't know what it is. Fresh tomatoes, peppers, herbs and plums just picked from the garden. A chunk of good bread and a glass of cider...

PIZZA!

A throw together lunch: leftover fried turkey tenderloins, apples dressed with walnut oil, an avocado and some of that sour cream concoction I mentioned above.

I didn't intend to publish this foto when I took it. Notice the chomped on apple core!

Today's lunch

Today's menu: Cucumber, walnut and blueberry salad, roast pork tenderloin and sauteed vegetables.

I have to teach today then play in the ballet so I made the tenderloin for lunch. The salad is dressed with walnut oil and lemon juice and shows off my knife skills, cutting the cucumber so thinly you see through it.  The tenderloin was rubbed with my spice mixture of paprika, smoked paprika, garlic, ground chipotle, celery seeds and ground cumin.

And to drink a nice big glass of filtered water with a dash of Meyer lemon juice.

salade parisienne

Today's lunch picture: my version of Salad salade parisienne. I remember my first trip to Paris and spending so much time eating this salad, sitting at a table on the sidewalk having a glass of wine and watching the world go by.

In my version we have the boiled potatoes and the smoked herring and lettuce and I have added corn and red peppers. My dressing for this was a light California olive oil and Meyer lemon juice from my tree.