Quick Bites at Il Cane Rosso

I took myself on a date yesterday afternoon. I wore my bright new red coat, which is great for confidence, and headed out on the town. And by on the town, I mean that I had some errands to run. And by errands, I mean shopping.

Fortunately it was a very nice afternoon in the bay, and I ended up walking from my little corner of Noe Valley past Dolores Park, and down to Church and Market with no real target in mind. I hopped on the J-Church and headed into the Embarcadero to wander through the Ferry Building. The Ferry Building is the ideal spot for wandering, because if you get bored you can walk outside and sit watching the cars shuttle by on the bay bridge, or you can just eat samples all afternoon.

I spent some time in Sur La Table, testing out some Shun and Global knives, and a tiny part of me wishing I could be a chef and get sponsored by one of these companies and receive a nice shiny set of my own, all for free. Alas, that’s probably not a good enough reason to become a chef…

I was also happy to see Mariposa Baking Company has set up shop in the Ferry Building – tasty gluten free treats that won’t make you miss the gluten laden stuff.

This time I passed up the sweet stuff, and opted to finally sit down and try a bite at Il Cane Rosso, the joint venture of Daniel Patterson (the chef and owner of Coi) and Lauren Kiino (who headed the kitchen at Delfina). Il Cane Rosso is what I like to call slow fast food – where you order your local, organic, and seasonal food, and sit down to eat it in a casual setting with no real table service. I actually love eating this way – I’m particularly fussy about the quality of my food, but have no desire to eat every day in a formal setting. Perhaps why I love Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc so much.

After reading John Birdsall’s review in SF Weekly, Sandy of Foodhoe’s Foraging’s write up, and seeing Haas of No Salad As A Meal’s write up and beautiful photos I knew I had to stop by immediately even if just for a quick bite.

One of my favorite things about this little restaurant is the way it looks. Namely, I’d love to have a kitchen in my own home that looks like this – gray concrete floors (yes, I’m a concrete lover), wooden paneling of real wood, shiny silver appliances, open shelves, and those red metal accent beams and sweeping high ceilings… A girl can dream. But I also quite enjoy the seasonal accents like the squash and corn here. I try to do this regularly in my own kitchen before eating said accents.

I love this big squash! Can’t you see it roasted with a big cheesy strata inside it?

And also, I need to give a nod to their selection of drinks. I’m not really a soda drinker, but their selection even had me debating – Fentimans botanically brewed sodas are mighty tasty.

Finally I opted for the soup of the day, the “Long & Bailey Pork and Lentil Soup” ($6). I know, all I ate was one soup, and I’m passing judgment? Shame on me! But let me tell you, this soup was pretty near perfect. It had the right balance of stuff to flavorful broth that was perfectly seasoned. The lentils were tender but still had a nice bite and weren’t falling apart. The long and bailey pork was cubed in bite size pieces that were melt in your mouth and so darn savory. The difference between this stuff and the conventional is like two completely different animals. It was the perfect afternoon treat.

And yet I managed to only get one measly picture of the soup, fogging my lens to boot. Bad food blogger! I’ll be back soon for a more thorough tasting. Although lunch is generally the perfect time to go, their three course tasting dinner is $25 dollars, and if anything like lunch, is pretty much a steal.

Just as I was getting up to go they were closing their doors for a brief break between lunch and dinner. I contemplating staying for round two, but I had places to go and things to do. I’ll be back, sooner, rather than later.

Il Cane Rosso, open daily for lunch and dinner, breakfasts on Saturdays and Sundays
One Ferry Building #41
San Francisco
Phone: 415.391.7599
www.canerossosf.com

December 29th Farm Box

Here are the contents of this week’s farm box from Farm Fresh to You: leeks, nantes carrots, collard greens, red leaf lettuce, a red cabbage, a butternut squash, kiwifruit, and a bag of fresh walnuts. The walnuts are particularly exciting because fresh walnuts are eons better than the old, dried out stuff you get in the tins. [Yes, eons is the wrong measurement here, but I like the word, and am going to attribute using it to the mental melting that occurred last night while watching Megashark vs. Giant Octopus.]

My first step this week was to take everything out of the box and put it on the table – not specifically for a little photo shoot, but to clean and prep everything for the refrigerator. A few years at Stearns Farm and I got it down to a system: I now have Ziplocks of two sizes to keep things fresh. I rinse and dry salads, I trim off tops and excess before putting them in the refrigerator. Ok, but the photo shoot helps – specifically so that by the end of the week I don’t forget that I have something in the recess of my fridge and let it go to waste.

And then the excess tops (only leek and carrot tops this week) go in a pot with a bunch of water to make some homemade vegetable stock. Nothing to waste!

Except it’s not a perfect system. I was freezing and had the heat on yesterday and therefore couldn’t hear the gentle ho hum of the boiling pot, and consequently forgot about it until I had only a few cups of concentrated stock left.

So? Leek soup for lunch! I snipped in some fresh parsley and a good squeeze of lemon and it was ready to go.

Things I plan on making this week with my vegetables:

1. Roasted Butternut Squash

2. More Kiwifruit Sorbet (notes about this soon)

3. Red cabbage and onions with Chicken Schnitzel

4. Indian Spiced Collards with Yogurt

I’m still not sure about the walnuts… I was tempted to make a walnut liquor but they are so tasty I don’t know if I want to give up the pleasure of eating them all now.

Better Ideas?

As Seen at Omnivore

Before I forget, I wanted to put up a few photos that I took at Omnivore Books over the past few weeks. Working in this little bookstore is so enjoyable on a day to day basis, but what really makes it exciting are all the great events that we have. We have such a great little community!

One of the best perks are the foods that our customers bring in for events to share with everyone. This braided spice bread called “Saffranbrod” was made by Robert, in honor of St. Lucia Day on December 13th. It was a dense yellow bread, filled with spices that let off incredible aromas. We topped it with lingonberry jam. And it was still warm. I ate three slices. The recipe was from our guest speaker Greg Patent’s cookbook ‘A Baker’s Odyssey‘ in honor of his arrival. The stars had aligned!

Greg Patent, who writes GREAT books about baking, including among others ‘A Baker’s Odyssey‘ and ‘Baking in America’ (which won a James Beard) couldn’t have been more enjoyable. He comes from a diverse food background: he was born in Shanghai, with one grandmother from Iraq cooking Middle Eastern foods, and the other grandmother from Russia. When he was 11 his parents moved back to the U.S., and along the way to these cookbooks he ended up getting a Ph.D in Zoology. What is it with scientists and food? There are so many crossovers!!! (Barbara Ghazarian, author of Simply Quince is a micro-biologist… and Harold McGee…)

Here’s a picture of Greg with Celia, our fearless leader at Omnivore, and Paula, lifting up the bottle of Muscat that was sent to us to enjoy. It was a Les Petits Grains Muscat de Saint Jean de Minervois, a beautiful sweet wine that I sincerely wish I had a case full of!!!  (I’m thinking of all the possibilities… most of which involve me drinking it straight… but maybe a sabayon? Ice cream? Ooo….)

But wait! There was more! Seriously…. I could subsist completely on the food I eat at work…. One of our other customers Jessica has started a seriously tasty little pie business here in San Francisco called The Golden Crust, and brought us some wonderful lemon meringue to sample. So good!

I think I’m going to make this a regular feature.

Omnivore Books

3885 Cesar Chavez Street
San Francisco, CA 94131-2013
(415) 282-4712

Come visit us!

Sauteed Cabbage with Onion and Prosciutto

Sauteed Cabbage with Onion and Prosciutto

I recently subscribed to a new CSA (community supported agriculture) here in San Francisco. Every other week, I’ll be getting a box from Farm Fresh to You delivered right to my doorstep. I’ve been going each week to farmers market for the past year, but it’s a little chilly lately and I’ve been slacking. This way I’ll definitely have some fresh organic fruits and veg, even when I don’t feel like going to market. And it’ll make me eat more dark leafy greens. Kale chips, here I come.

It’s not as wondrous as my previous membership to Stearns Farm at the outer edges of Framingham, Massachusetts – but it’s still pretty exciting. [I could wax poetic about Stearns for hours – it’s exactly what a CSA should be – required farm hours, picking about half of your own weekly vegetables, shared meals, harvests, a real connection to a farm and a community, but alas, I’m a little far for that nowadays.]

This weeks box:

Dec 15th box

Sauteed Cabbage with Onion and Prosciutto
serves 1 as a meal, or a few as a side dish

In a heavy bottomed pot, heat a Tablespoon  of Olive Oil on medium heat, and saute 4 slices (about 2 ounces) prosciutto that you have chopped until crisp, just a few minutes. Take the prosciutto out and set aside. Then, add a roughly chopped onion to the pot, and cook until slightly tender – about five minutes. Go ahead and deglaze the pan with a few tablespoons of sherry to help lift up any brown bits and add some flavor. Add in one chopped head of cabbage, preferably Savoy, but whatever you have is fine. Stir around until things are coated, add a cup of low sodium chicken stock or water, turn the heat to medium low, cover, and let braise for 20-30 minutes until everything is tender and soft. Season with lots of pepper and a tiny bit of salt. Serve hot, topped with the crispy prosciutto.


Snapshots from Cattlemens

Boar

Last week I went to a holiday party shindig at Cattlemans’ Steakhouse, a fairly run of the mill steakhouse chain that while I wouldn’t necessarily head to on my own, was perfectly content to eat at when the food was free. We had various crudites, shrimp with dipping sauce, and split a new york strip steak. I topped my baked potato with the ranch style beans and left with a happy tummy. And yet I didn’t actually manage to take any photos of the food – but I did snap a photo of the wall decorations (above) to give you an idea of the ambiance. I also shot one of the ice cream dishes that were full of butter. (Large water glasses left in for scale.) There were a couple of these on each table. Now that’s a lotta butter!!!

Butter