in praise of sardines

$43,000 and climbing!

Every time I look at the donation page, my jaw drops. The total keeps on soaring, more than double last year's. We passed the $40,000 mark this morning and we reached $43,000 this afternoon! As cold and drizzly as it was today in San Francisco, it warms my heart to see that so many people throughout the world have been willing to contribute what they can to help feed those who don't have enough to eat.

Maybe this is a bit premature, as there are still just over 24 hours remaining to make a donation, but I cannot wait to say what I have to say (besides, tomorrow is my birthday and I'll be too busy opening gifts and celebrating at a favorite restaurant with my sweetie).

Folks, your generosity has completely Blown. My. Mind. Food bloggers, restaurateurs, book publishers, culinary artisans, writers, artists, and others donated over 150 gifts. I don't know about you, but each and every gift is so alluring that I deliberated until today upon which prizes to choose. I know, I know. Odds are I won't win a thing. Nevertheless, I gave more than I had planned because you all made your gifts so enticing I couldn't help myself. Besides, the important thing is that every dollar we give goes towards helping those who need it the most. If we win something, it's just icing on the proverbial cake.

Props have to go out to the organizer and founder of A Menu for Hope, Pim of Chez Pim. She's been laying the groundwork for this year's fund raiser since this time last year, when a bunch of us spent hours at her house sorting through prizes by hand in between slurps of her Thai noodles. She was determined to avoid that scenario this year. She corralled our food(-and-wine)-obsessed friend Derrick Schneider to donate his puzzle-solving, tech savvy talents to the cause and he came up with a "wicked application" (although it means we'll miss Pim's noodles). Back in August at the local Food Bloggers Picnic, while we all lazily soaked our feet in the pool, Pim casually suggested a few key changes to this year's Menu for Hope: the choice of the World Food Programme as the recipient, the wider promotion of the fund raiser, and the creation of regional hosts. I could go on and on, but what it comes down to is this. If you feel all warm and fuzzy inside because you helped raise money to alleviate hunger, you need to thank Pim. Without her hard work and vision, we wouldn't have raised a penny, let alone more than $40,000.

I also bow down in reverence to all of the regional hosts. Each of them has contributed hours upon hours - again, without pay - in an effort to promote the prizes of their regions. Let's all stand up and give a standing ovation and a 21 bottle Champagne salute to Sam (Becks & Posh), Kalyn (Kalyn's Kitchen), Adam (The Amateur Gourmet), David (David Lebovitz), Jasmine (Confessions of a Cardamom Addict), Helen (Grab Your Fork), and Alder (Vinography). Cheers to all of you!

On a personal note, I want to thank all of you who have chosen to part with your hard earned boojay with the hopes of winning my prize (UW35). Our local hostess with the mostest, Sam, with the help of her mum in the UK, figured out the odds of winning each of the prizes in our region. I was humbled when I saw the immense popularity of my offer to cook for the winner! Believe me, given the longer than expected time line and higher than expected costs of my restaurant project, I'm happy to receive any semblance of support. So I thank you for showing me, or my prize at least, so much love. Whoever wins my prize will get a meal that I'm confident they will long remember.

The best news is that we still have more than 24 hours to go. That's right. You have until 6pm Pacific Standard Time tomorrow, December 22nd, to make a donation and buy a raffle ticket. Like I said before, the prizes (see the full list of over 150 gifts here) are unbelievable. Buy a ticket as a Christmas gift to yourself (or a last minute gift to someone you love).

And, if you'd like to have me be your personal chef for a day, there's still approximately a 1 in 50 chance that you will win (much greater if you buy more tickets). Those odds are about a million times better than any lottery ticket you have ever bought.

Food|and Drink|Menu for Hope III

What I will cook for you

As you know, we're trying to raise money to feed people who don't have enough to eat. In 5 days, we've already surpassed our total for last year! We've raised over $18,000!! Woo hoo! You people are the greatest!

We still have a week to go, so this is no time to rest on our laurels. Wouldn't it be great if we could double last year's earnings? Think of all the people we could feed.

To encourage you to part with more of your hard earned cash, I want to whet your appetite with some food porn. If you bid on my prize and win, these photos will give you a visual taste of some of the dishes you may be served.

It's said a picture is worth a thousand words. The slideshow below, then, gives you a 24,000 word description of the kinds of foods you can expect me to cook for you and your friends when you win my prize (UW35) for the Menu for Hope. These are also some of the dishes you may one day eat at my restaurant, Olallie!

(Click on any of the pictures in the slideshow for a complete description of the depicted dish. Also, let me know if you have any problems seeing the slideshow, as this is the first time I've used it. If you have trouble - it doesn't work in my RSS reader, for example - click here to be taken to the version on my FlickR page).

As you can see from the photos, the way I cook isn't real "restauranty." Nothing is stacked and there are no drizzles or foams or spheres. I like to think of it as excellent home cooking. I sometimes describe my cooking style as urban farmhouse. By that I mean I use the best seasonal products from local farmers, ranchers, and fisherfolk to create boldly flavored, rustic dishes.

The flavors and aromas of Spain, Morocco, southern France, Italy, and occasionally my wife's India find their way into my dishes. Because I have deep respect for the unique spirit of each of those cultures, I strive to create dishes that retain an authentic sense of place, what the French call terroir. Rest assured you won't find mango chutney on your paella or some equally ill-conceived fusion of flavors.

I'm no creative genius. I cook from my heart more than my mind. I'm a Quixote of the kitchen. I'm happiest when I'm grinding spices in my mortar with a pestle or tending the fire in a wood-burning oven. The most important thing to me is that my food is, in the words of Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini, good, clean, and just. My cooking is steeped in love.

My personal kitchen motto comes from a dyslexic English bacon curer named Maynard Davies. In his 2004 autobiography (available only in the UK), he described his customers from a bygone era this way: "the people who really looked after themselves, and invested in themselves, never bothered about the price: all they wanted was good food to eat." He summed this up as "good food for good people." That's pretty much what you can expect to get when you win my prize (UW35) or dine at Olallie.

Don't waste another moment, good people. Go straight away and make your donation! And, with a little luck, you'll win some good food. Either mine (specify UW35 in the "personal message" section of the donation form) or one of the more than 150 other fantastic prizes listed here.

Food|and Drink|Menu for Hope III

Menu for Hope - Prize Update

I've decided to offer another variation of my prize (UW35) for the Menu for Hope fundraiser.

If you're a fan of food blogs, chances are strong that you're also an excellent cook. You can undoubtedly throw a dinner party for four with one hand tied behind your back. So, being a flexible kind of guy, I thought I'd add another alternative.

I couldn't settle on what to call it, but here are some choices:

A Pintxos Party.
An Amuse Bouche Bash.
Mignardise Madness.

Here's the drill. I'll cook up a bunch of tasty little nibbles and snacks (think canapés, gougères, crudo, tapas, and other bite-sized bits of love) for your next cocktail party for up to 10 people. Your only role is to smile, mingle with your guests, and and have a good time mixing and sipping martinis (remember, you're providing the drinks).

If you just can't stand the idea of throwing a party and not cooking at least a few dishes, that's great. If you'd like to provide something, you can invite even more friends! I'll work out the details with you when you win.

N (the cute one in our *new* photo in the upper righthand corner - bye bye Mr. Fish Head) and I will be your kitchen elves for the day. With this Cocktail Party option, you don't even need to have much of a kitchen, as we can do much of the work ahead of time (although a fridge and a small stove would be helpful).

To review, the other choices when you win are that I will cook a four-course restaurant-style dinner for four at your house (before the end of next April) or I will give you a $200 gift certificate to use at my upcoming restaurant, Olallie (I'm still developing the menu for Olallie, but $200 ought to buy you at least enough to feed four adults, probably more). When you choose my prize on the donation page, there's no need to specify which option you want. You can tell me when you win.

Trust me, folks, my accountant is hoppin' mad that I'm already giving away meals when I haven't even opened the restaurant. And once I open my restaurant, it's going to be next to impossible to get me to cater a private dinner party. So this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It's also a chance to be the first kid on the block to taste what I'll be serving at my restaurant. I'm making this offer because I believe the World Food Programme is an incredibly worthy cause for us foodies to be supporting.

So, go to the donation page now. Choose my prize, UW35, or one of the other many generous prizes. And remember, it's all for a good cause.

Food|and Drink|Menu for Hope III

Menu for Hope III - Help People in Need, Win Prizes

We food and wine bloggers are admittedly a quirky and obsessive lot. In locations throughout the world, we use our laptops and digicams to celebrate the joys of our local culinary treasures, from Iberian ham to Indian chai, Knoll Farm figs to Vietnamese pho, Pierre Hermé macarons to New Orleans turducken. We swap recipes, share restaurant tips, recommend kitchen gadgets, and generally lavish the internet with our food porn.

Despite (or perhaps because of) our tendency towards excess, we can be generous folks. Led by Pim of Chez Pim, we have made it an annual tradition to offer prizes to our readers in exchange for a donation to a worthy cause. We call our annual raffle and fund raising drive A Menu for Hope. Last year we raised over $17,000 to aid the victims of the earthquake in Kashmir.

This year, we're turning our attention to the 852 million people who do not have enough to eat. Those of us who write obsessively about food (and all of you who read our blogs) have a chance to contribute to those less fortunate than ourselves in a meaningful way that will have lasting impact. Our recipient for this year is the United Nations World Food Programme. The mission of the WFP is to meet emergency needs, particularly to feed the hungry poor, displaced peoples, and victims of natural disasters.

Briefly, here's how the raffle works (more detailed instructions below). For every $10 donation you get a raffle ticket for a chance to win a fabulous prize of your choice. The more tickets you buy, the greater your chance of winning your favored prize. The worldwide list of prizes is listed here and the list of West Coast bloggers contributing prizes is listed here.

For a chance to win my prize, specify UW35 on the donation page. I'm offering

a choice of

An Intimate Dinner Party for 4 in Your Bay Area Home

or

A Cocktail Party for 10
(check for here details)

or

$200 Gift Certificate to Olallie, my upcoming restaurant in San Francisco

As you longtime readers already know, I am working on opening a restaurant - to be called Olallie - at 1320 Castro Street (at 24th Street) in San Francisco's Noe Valley neighborhood. Here's your chance to get a sneak peak of Olallie's menu. I will cater a dinner for you in your home in the San Francisco Bay Area. With my wife N's help, I'll cook 4 courses for you and 3 friends in your home kitchen. You provide the drinks, the dishes, and the setting and we will do the rest, including clean up! We're pretty flexible and will be happy to work with the winner to help craft a party to his or her desire, including accommodating most dietary needs, from vegetarian to meatitarian. And, despite the picture, we promise to not burn your house or apartment down! There's one hitch. If you want the dinner party, the prize must be redeemed by April 30, 2007.

Thereafter, once my restaurant opens, the prize will be converted to a gift certificate to Olallie for $200 with no expiration date. The party is only open to residents of the Bay Area, but anyone planning to visit San Francisco after the restaurant opens (currently projected for summer 2007, but no guarantees on the date) is eligible to receive the gift certificate.

Check back over the next 11 days for tantalizing pictures of some of the kinds of dishes you can expect to be served at your private dinner party and at Olallie. You have until December 22 to buy your raffle tickets.

Click "continue reading" to find out how to buy your raffle tickets.

On diamonds and olive oil

My question was met with silence, so I repeated myself in broken Spanish.

“Do you know where the diamonds dwell?”

My question, which made perfect sense to me, caused the man's eyebrows to rise in perplexed bemusement. I’d seen that look often in my travels through Spain. It’s a facial expression familiar to anyone who has ever ventured outside her home country and made an attempt to speak with the locals using the local language. You know the look. The one that perfectly conveys that the person you’re speaking to thinks you have the IQ of a parrot.

My wife, who speaks Spanish much better than I, came to my aid. “Los Diamantes. It’s a tapas bar.”

After the man regained control of his giggles, he encouraged us to keep walking further down the street, Calle Navas, to number 28.

The sun shone hot as a pizza oven on that day a few summers ago. We were in Granada, a city in Andalucía famous as the home of the Alhambra, the fourteenth century Moorish palace. The city is not renowned, however, for its food. After two days tolerating mediocre chow, we decided to venture outside the romantic yet touristy Albaicín area in search of a decent lunch. On a tip from a friend, we headed to the nearby business district. The streets were nearly empty and all the shops were closed.

When we finally arrived at Los Diamantes, we were stunned. It seemed that every single worker on lunch break had descended upon this tiny bar the size of a shot glass. Customers spilled out of the bar onto the streets. In appearance, the bar is unremarkable, similar to any working class tapas bar anywhere in Spain. On warm summer days, the owners take advantage of the bar’s corner location by opening up both the front and side of the building to the street so that it effectively has just two walls. Along one wall is a long bar, which is standing room only. As far as I can recall, there were not even tables or chairs on that day. Along the shorter wall in the back is the diminutive kitchen.

My first attempt to penetrate the rugby scrum of a crowd proved useless. I generally don’t fare well in crowded bars. Much to my mother’s consternation, I take after my calm and quiet New England grandparents more than my mother, who was raised in New York City. I just don’t have it in me to elbow my way to the front of the line to place a drink order. Cocktails don’t provide adequate incentive for me.

Tapas bars, however, are another story. If there’s fried fish as a reward, I’ll happily toss elbows with a roomful of Arnold Schwarzeneggers (as a liberal San Franciscan, that’s an especially terrifying vision). Fortunately, I didn’t have to, because N noticed there was a gap in the crowd at the far end of the bar by the kitchen.

There was virtually nothing separating the bar from its kitchen. Just a wide open window. From the perspective of a local, the spot next to the heat of the kitchen was the least desirable place to stand. As a hungry traveler hoping to learn about Spanish cuisine, that was exactly where I wanted to be.

As is typical in Andalucía, the kitchen at Los Diamantes is dominated by the fryer. Andalusian cooks are masters in the art of frying. A friend who spent a year as an exchange student in Sevilla told me that he knew lunch or dinner was approaching whenever he heard the sound of oil beginning to bubble in his host family’s kitchen.

With the fryer about 12 inches from me, I could see that the frying cauldron was filled with olive oil. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise, as the landscape on our train trip between Sevilla and Granada seemed to be populated by nothing but olive trees. However, cookbooks and food authorities had always warned me to avoid frying in olive oil, because its smoking point is relatively low, between 375 and 410 degrees Fahrenheit (190-205 degrees Celsius). The food that emerged from the fryer at Los Diamantes (and many other tapas bars throughout Andalucía and Madrid) reminded me, once again, not to trust those who anoint themselves as authorities.

The two fried dishes we had at Los Diamantes were amongst the best fried food I have ever eaten anywhere. Everything was perfectly greaseless and nicely crispy, despite the relatively pale blonde color of the final product. If N hadn’t stopped me, I could have eaten 10 platefuls of the berenjenas fritas, lightly battered paper-thin slices of eggplant. The coating reminded me of tempura batter. Each bite shattered like the top of a crème brûlée. We followed that with the surtido de pescados fritos, a plate of anchovies, hake, and tiny squid that had been dusted in flour before their quick dip in the olive oil jacuzzi. Bliss.

The other two dishes we ate, chopitos a la plancha (baby cuttlefish cooked on a griddle) and the house ensalada, also dwell high on my culinary pantheon. The salad, a version of which will be found on the menu of my future restaurant, Olallie, simply consisted of little gem lettuces cut into quarters and dressed with fantastic local extra virgin olive oil, white wine vinegar, fried slivers of garlic, and lots of salt. So much more refreshing than the ubiquitous mesclun salad!

In the end, at least from a gastronomic point of view, I guess I did discover where the diamonds dwell.

[Recipe after the jump]