personally persimmons

When you get something right, you just know. This season I couldn't get enough persimmons. Didn't matter whether it was fuju or hachiya. Fuju are the round ones shaped like a tiny orange pumpkin. You buy these while they are firm to the touch. As you can see I even used them in a Persimmon Upside-Down Cake. Peel them, slice them and use them in salads too. I love the sweet crunch. Hachiya couldn't be more opposite. They're more elongated with kind of a point at the bottom. If you eat them when they are still firm and crunchy, you'll die! Well not really but it won't be the best sensation. You buy these when they're really ripe and feel like jelly. Then they are sweet and best used in a persimmon pudding. But I feel awful telling you this because both the hachiya and the fuju are almost out of season. Before they are going, going, gone, you HAVE to make this salad. Easy as pie and totally delicious.

Green Bean, Persimmon and Hazelnut Salad

1 pound green beans
1 Fuju persimmon, peeled and thinly sliced
½ cup hazelnuts, toasted and peeled
1 ½ tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 to 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the green beans and cook until tender yet crisp, 4 to 7 minutes. Drain and run under cold water. Add the persimmons and hazelnuts.

In another small bowl, whisk together the vinegar and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour the vinaigrette over the green beans and persimmons and toss together carefully.

Serves 4 to 6

persimmon this

I love my job.... What's not to love? I can go out to dinner every night and justify it, it's my job! I can drink wine every night and justify it, it my job!
Did I mention that my new favorite place to eat is Ad Hoc in downtown Yountville. It's kind of like eating at Chez Panisse Downstairs (which is where I am eating tonight... I am so excited!) You don't really have choices and the food is so fresh, flavorful and simple. Totally my kind of dinner. Probably the only difference between Chez and Ad is that Ad Hoc dinner is pretty much served family style. You have to like that kind of thing.
I ate there Friday night. One word... Delicious! The first course was a soup of creamy chickpeas and black cabbage. This is the same cabbage grown in Tuscany and used to make ribollita. They call it cavolo nero.
The meatiest short ribs followed. They were served with the creamiest puree of roasted butternut squash and potatoes. On the top were crispy shallot rings without a trace of oil. And then dessert was not-too-sweet upside-down Fuju persimmon cakes topped with homemade vanilla ice cream.
It made me think about the delicious recipe I have for upside-down cake and I thought, why not persimmons.

PERSIMMON UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE

16 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 pound fresh Fuju persimmons, peeled, halved and pitted
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar
3 eggs
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup whole milk
Pinch of cream of tartar
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar

Butter a 9-inch cake pan. Place the pan over medium heat and melt 4 tablespoons of the butter and brown sugar in the bottom of the pan. Overlap the persimmon slices on top of the melted butter and brown sugar.

Preheat the oven to 350°f . For the cake, sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Cream the remaining 12 tablespoons butter and granulated white sugar together in a bowl until light. Separate the eggs and add the yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add 1 teaspoon of the vanilla and mix well. Add the milk and the dry ingredients alternately to the batter, folding well after each addition. Beat the egg whites to form soft peaks. Add the cream of tartar and continue to beat until stiff peaks form. Fold the whites into the cake batter. Spread the batter over the persimmons and bake until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, 60 to 75 minutes.

Cool the cake for 10 to 15 minutes and run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen it. Turn the cake over onto a serving platter and let it sit another 5 minutes. Remove the pan.

To serve, whip the heavy cream until soft peaks are formed. Sift the confectioners’ sugar on top of the cream, add the remaining 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, and fold together. Serve with the cake.

Serves 8 to 10

breadsticks

So I decided to cook dinner the other night and invite a few friends. Inspired as always by my trips to the Mediterranean (did I tell you I love my job?) I decided to make some breadsticks. Most Americans think of breadsticks as tasteless pencil-thin sticks of toast wrapped in waxy envelopes served at red-and-white-checkered-tablecloth-straw-bottle-drippy-candle-cheesy-Italian-restaurants. You kind of chomp on these starvingly while you wait for the antipasto platter, taken pretty much from a can. Nope, not my breadsticks! When homemade breadsticks are flavored with Parmigiano, a good dose of coarsely cracked black peppercorns and cayenne, and served hot from the oven, trust me - it’s a whole different experience! I served them in a tall glass pitcher with a flood of olio nuovo, the new olive oil of the season, on the bottom. I used McEvoy extra virgin olive oil made right up the road in Marin County. The oil leaves a hint of pepper on the back of the throat, which matched perfectly with the breadsticks, but also that distinctive bitter finish just like in Tuscany. That was just the beginning of the meal but I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Did I tell you I was cooking for Michael Bauer? When he asked me what he could bring, I said was anything but a pad and pencil!


Parmigiano and Black Peppercorn Breadsticks

2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3 1/2 cups (14 oz/400g) unbleached bread flour
1 1/2 cups (12 fl oz/350ml) lukewarm water, about 110°f (43°c)
2 teaspoons salt
2 1/2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup (4 oz/120g) finely grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
1/2 cup (2 oz/60g) semolina

In a bowl, stir together the yeast, 1/2 cup of the flour, and 1/2 cup warm water. Let stand until the mixture bubbles and rises slightly, 30 minutes. Add the remaining 3 cups flour, 1 cup warm water, the salt, pepper, cayenne, and olive oil, and stir together to form a ball. Knead on a lightly floured surface, kneading in the Parmigiano gradually, until smooth and elastic, 7 to 10 minutes. Alternately this can be made in an electric mixer on slow speed using the dough hook, kneading for 5 minutes.

Using your hands, shape the dough into an 15- x 5-inch rectangle. Brush with oil, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place, about 75°f, until doubled in volume, 1 to 1 1/4 hours.

Sprinkle both sides of the dough with the semolina. Cut the dough into 10 equal 1/2-inch strips in the long direction. Cut the dough crosswise into 5 sections. This will make 50 pieces. Pick up each piece of dough and roll and stretch to fit the width of a baking sheet, about 8 to 10 inches long.
Place in a single layer, 1/2 inch apart, on an oiled baking sheet. Bake in the middle shelf of the oven until light golden, 8 to 12 minutes. Remove the breadsticks from the baking sheet and cool on a cooling rack.

Makes 50 breadsticks

i have an excuse!

It has been far too long... I promise not to be so remiss again. I have too many excuses. I was one of the chefs for the James Beard Media Awards in NY, I did some events at Aspen Food and Wine, I was teaching for a few weeks in Provence and Tuscany, I shot 26 new TV shows "Joanne Weir's Cooking Class," I tested 60 recipes for my newest book, I did a dinner for the Napa Valley Wine Auction, I went to Mexico to research my newest book, I had a weeklong cooking class in my kitchen where I also shoot my TV show, I celebrated my birthday and just YESTERDAY, I managed to make my book deadline! That's why they call it a deadline! This is true reason for celebration. Bring out the tequila! Not just any tequila, I'd like a Riedel tequila glass topped up with some 7 Leguas D'Antano.

Yes folks, I just finished a book devoted to tequila. It all started years ago when I fell in love... With tequila that is! I started a group called Agave Girls, for women who appreciate tequila. Ay caramba... it took off! Ten Speed Press asked me to write a book about tequila and the rest is history. About 30 food recipes and 40 cocktails from the best bartenders in the country who specialize in tequila. This meant lots of tequila research! It will be released on Cinco de Mayo '09.

Did I tell you that I love my job!? I even made a trip to Guadalajara and checked out the Highlands and Lowlands of Jalisco where 100% blue agave reigns supreme. I visited 7 Leguas and had lunch at with Fernando and Isabel, the owners at their gorgeous hacienda, spent a morning chatting it up with Carlos, owner of El Tesoro and traipsed through the mud at Partida agave fields. And of course, I tasted a lot of great tequila!

colors of rajasthan

I loved the chaos of Delhi and the beauty of the Taj Mahal but really I think I loved
Rajasthan the most. In the northwest corner of India, smack dab in the middle of the desert, the people compensate for the monochromatic browns of the desert by wearing brilliant colors. The
people are so friendly and nice, they keep saying that my smile is the sign of luck and fortune. I feel it here. We visited a Kumbhalgarh Fort whose walls are the second longest continuous wall in the world after the Great Wall of China. We hiked to the top. We're the only Caucasians and I'm photographing all the Indian women in their colorful saris. One young girl, maybe 18 years old, was particularly beautiful. I asked her if I could take a picture of her. She shook her head yes. Thank God for digital cameras because the payback for shooting a photo is to show them the photo of themselves. I said to her, "You are so beautiful!" and she came back to me with "You are handsome!" We exchanged those same exact words a few more times until I realized those are the only words she knows. More than I know in Indian.

what the freak is an amla?

Riding along on the bus between Delhi and Agra, the traffic is crazy. Our bus dodges cows, horse-drawn buggies, women in colorful sarees carrying brass urns of water on their head, stray dogs, camel carts piled with hay. You take your life in your hands on the roads of India. This says nothing of the noise. Horns tooting non-stop, back and forth like they are speaking to each other. And what's with the men pissing on the side of the road? I don't get it. No bathrooms? We spotted an outdoor market. Those of us crazy enough about food screamed to stop the bus! In minutes, clad with cameras, we were in the middle of the madness. Imagine the scene, burlap blankets scattered on the ground piled high with guava and amla, the Indian gooseberries. Vendors crouched on their haunches prepared to sell. The smell of guava permeated the air. Almost too sweet to keep smelling. Only men, not a single women. All eyes, every single one, were on us. No longer was selling fruit the spectacle. I took out my camera on the sly. I didn't want to act like a National Geographic photographer but honestly they would have killed for the shots.. As soon as I opened the viewfinder, I had hoards of men and boys around me like a magnet . And what I didn't understand is that they don't want to steal my camera, they wanted to see themselves in the screen. Thank God for digital cameras. I'm shooting furiously and as soon as I'd take the shot I's show them the image of themself. It's was a frenzy. I had masses around me. I moved through the market and they'd move with me. We started to leave and the swarm, like bees, left with us. The further away from the market we got, the smaller the swarm until finally I had one final stragler, a 8-year old boy who was next to me as I got ready to get on the bus. Just then he said to me, "Pen?'". Then I remembered the guide books and how the kids love pens. I search my purse and found one. In the process I find a Hersey's Chocolate Kiss. I hand him the pen and the Kiss. He shoved the pen in his pocket. He looks at the chocolate kiss wrapped in foil. He makes a gesture like popping the whole thing in his mouth. I can't help but think about aluminum foil against my teeth and I cringe. NO, NO, take the foil off first! I show him how. Cautiously he puts it in his mouth. I wait. One second, then two. He looks almost scared. Finally a smile comes over his face as the chocolate melts in his mouth. His first experience eating chocolate!

loving taj

How do I know that I want a book of postcards if I haven't seen the site yet? We got off the bus and headed towards a place I'd always dreamed about. Postcard salesmen were everywhere. I dodged them going in and out of their maze. I know their tricks now. I don't even glance in their direction. And finally we were inside the gates. Ahhh yes,-- quiet, peace, tranquility. We headed towards the arch that will divide my life between the moment before I first saw the Taj Mahal and the moment after. I waited in the darkness of the arch for a moment, eyes closed, trying to collect my thoughts. Somehow I knew this would forever change me. I took a step towards light and a deep breath. I opened my eyes and before me was something my dreams are made of. The most elegant female form of architecture I had ever laid eyes on, the TAJ. I had seen photos and travel clips so many times before in my life but nothing could touch the reality of her magnificence. Tears welled in my eyes. Yes, pinch me, I'm in India and this white marble homage of love is before me. Emperor Shah Jahan had it built as a mausoleum for his beloved wife who died giving birth to their 14th child. This is true testament that yes, Allah, there is true love! (And now my dear Jehuda, I have found it!)