MEAL OF KEELS AND WHEELS
This weekend a lot of Houstonians will head south – approximately as far as Seabrook. There they’ll be greeted by a charity event called Keels and Wheels, the perfect getaway for people who are fascinated by wooden boats and antique cars. And by wooden boats, well, we don’t mean those little skiffs some of grew up paddling. More like the yachts enjoyed by the rich and famous. We get the scoop on the scene and the cause from the founder of Keels and Wheels.
HARNESSING A GEYSER
Winemaker Mike Schroeter joins us from Geyser Peak to taste some of his best new releases. The winery is one of the older ones in California, having been founded in 1880. Besides, any winery that made it to us through the great mistake called Prohibition deserves my expression of “Well done!” The company on Chianti Road in Geyserville – talk about mixing wine metaphors – has a terrific story to tell. As usual, we prefer to listen to stories while sipping something nice.
NEW DAGGER IN TOWN
Susan Wittig Albert lives in the Texas Hill Country, tending her garden and, like a lot of people we know, cooking recipes that make use of whatever’s interesting and seasonal. So does the heroine of her series of highly readable novels, a woman named China Bayles. Sadly, for China if happily not for Susan, murders keep getting in the way. The non-fictitious half of this duo sits down to chat about her new mystery, Spanish Dagger.
SPRINGTIME ASPARGUS SOUP
WITH GRILLED DIVER SEA SCALLOPS
1 ½ pounds fresh spring asparagus
2 quarts chicken broth
1 quart heavy cream
10 fresh sage leaves
½ tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
1 tablespoon diced shallots
4 cloves fresh garlic
Salt and black pepper to taste
6 diver scallops
Cut the tender tips from the asparagus spears, Bring the remaining spears to a boil in the chicken broth and cream, adding all remaining ingredients except scallops. When asparagus is tender, remove from the heat and let cool enough to handle. Pour the soup into a food processor and puree until smooth. Strain through a sieve. Return the soup to heat. Grill the scallops, or sear them in a very hot skillet. Saute the asparagus tips in a little butter or olive oil. To serve, ladle the hot soup into a bowl. Set a scallop at the center of each bowl and top with asparagus tips for garnish. Serves 6.
SEVEN ENCHILADAS MAKE ONE WEEK
It’s here, it’s hip, it’s happening… it’s National Enchilada Week. And to celebrate the traditions of our favorite Tex-Mex dish, we sit down for an enchilada tasting with Sylvia Caceres-Copeland, who turns out a few of these things each day at Sylvia’s Enchilada Kitchen in west Houston. What might be even cooler, Sylvia teaches enchilada cooking classes at her restaurant and elsewhere. Maybe she can even teach us how to make them, though many brave men and women have fallen in that difficult endeavor.
RAISING OUR GLASS TO VODKA
Everybody knows there’s only one vodka made in Sweden – Absolutely! Well, thanks to a Swedish-American father-daughter team with a vision of something different and arguably better… not anymore. We enjoy a good, long, smooth and militantly UN-flavored vodka tasting with the duo behind Stockholm Krystal, who reached an agreement with the Swedish government almost as soon as it opened up the vodka business to more than one operator. The proof – yes, that would be a pun! – is not in the pudding but in the glass.
A SHOW THAT’S ‘GONE TO TEXAS’
According to its creator, some folks in New York consider the musical “Gone to Texas” the “American Les Miserables.” That said, we did travel to San Antonio to the see this show about the heroes of the Alamo, which is enjoying its final performances this weekend. What we found was a show with much to recommend it – some nifty, rather operatic music and some even niftier characterizations of figures in Texas history who seldom step down from their stone pedestals. We talk to all involved about how and why this show might be “Les Tex.”
This Week’s Delicious Mischief Recipe…
JERK-MARINATED ROAST LEG OF LAMB
1 leg of lamb, deboned and butterflied
5 cups Jamaican jerk paste, preferably Walkerswood
1 cup peanut oil
Cooked Jasmine Rice
Cover lamb with 3 cups of the marinade, then spread the meat open on a tray lined with plastic wrap. Place another tray lined with plastic on top, and set a weight on that to press the meat down. Let marinate overnight in the refrigerator. When ready to cook, remove the lamb from the marinade, roll up and tie with string. Heat the oil in a large pan, then brown the meat until golden on all sides, about 10 minutes. Then remove the meat from the pan, brush with the remaining jerk marinade and roast on a tray in a preheated 300-degree oven, about 1 hour. Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes before removing string. Carve meat and serve with jasmine rice. Serves 12-14.
STEAKS BY BOB
Proprietor Ed Toles joins us from Bob’s Steak & Chop House, which opened recently on Post Oak in the location long inhabited by the legendary tony’s. We’ll learn about the steakhouse’s donation of a piece of that legacy - black granite tiles engraved with the long-familiar tony’s logo – as well as about this steakhouse that’s been a big hit in San Francisco, Dallas and Plano since 1993.
MATT’S BACK, FOR REAL
After escaping from last week’s radio show (where he was listed as a guest in error), Chef Matt Maroni will join us to talk about The Lodge at Bayou Bend. For one thing, Matt has had something good cooking in this kitchen as long as we’ve known him – and that means back to when the place was Rainbow Lodge. For another thing, the owners of the new restaurant have big plans for not only expanding the dining space but for creating one of Houston’s loveliest weddings venues. The thought of Matt preparing the food is enough to make anybody want to get married.
PHILIP LEHL AND ‘WIFE’
For most of us, it’s scary enough to imagine portraying any one character onstage. But during Stage’s current rendition of the Pulitzer-winning play “I Am My Own Wife,” actor Philip Lehl plays no fewer than 42. What’s more, he plays them all while wearing a dress, since they’re seen through the eyes of a transvestite in Berlin who survived both Nazis and Soviets. Philip is clearly one of Houston’s best actors, as anyone’s who caught his shows at the Alley will attest. But we can’t wait to hear about this latest challenge. And since it’s only radio, Philip is welcome to wear pants.
This Week’s Delicious Mischief Recipe…
GRILLED BANANAS WITH COFFEE-RUM SAUCE
Sauce:
1 cup sugar
1 ½ cups hot brewed coffee
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons cold brewed coffee
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons dark rum
3 large firm bananas
1 tablespoon melted butter, warm
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Whipped cream
Prepare the sauce by caramlizing the sugar in a small saucepan and then pouring in the hot coffee, stirring constantly. In a bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in the cold coffee, then stir into the sugar-coffee mixture. Bring to a boil to thicken, then remove from heat and incorporate the butter and rum. Keep the sauce warm. Peel and slice the bananas in half lengthwise. Combine the melted butter with the cinnamon and brush on all sides of the bananas. Grill for 2 minutes, then turn and grill 2 minutes more, until there are grill marks. Cut each banana half into 3 pieces and serve 2 on a dessert plate. Spoon sauce over the top and around the sides. Top with whipped cream. Serves 4.
Ecclesiastes, the Greek word meant to capture the Hebrew Koheleth, was and is mad about the seasons. No, not mad as in angry, and certainly not mad as in nuts. Mad as in passionately embracing. If you don’t know that book of the Bible, then you surely know the folk rendition by Pete Seeger or the rock variation by The Byrds - Turn, Turn, Turn. Still, Ecclesiastes and Koheleth combined have nothing on Chef Philippe Schmidt of Bistro Moderne.
With the same passionate embrace, and the same sense of poetry that helped Hemingway find his title “The Sun Also Rises” among its verses, Schmidt wraps his arms around each change of season. Spring means new and different ingredients, especially if you keep your eyes open for weird, wonderful stuff the way he does. And spring means a change in our eating patterns, with the slow (and for us, reluctant) letting go of stews and braised meats that nourished us through the winter. It isn’t like we suddenly want nothing but salad – least of all in any restaurant that uses the word “bistro” in its name. But we do want things a little fresher and lighter, not to mention brighter than the browns that tend to dominate the best winter plates. The fact that Schmidt can twist and turn with the seasons as freely as he does is, perhaps, where the Moderne in the name matters most.
Many Houston diners already have sampled Bistro Moderne, a place that opened in the Hotel Derek a few years back and managed to stick where eatery after eatery had failed. Credit for a restaurant’s success must always be spread around, but surely the lion’s share must go to Schmidt, who parlayed his good looks and charm with the city’s elite to a position where they trust him to cook what he sees fit. In general, and in keeping with the chic Derek setting, Schmidt has hit many home runs rethinking the mom-and-pop cuisine that’s the true essence of bistro. Best of all, he has done so without ever forgetting what the word means – a danger in a dining scene ever-ready to accept China Bistro, Tex-Mex Bistro and other nonsense like that. Schmidt’s cooking is French in the finest sense of the word, born of fresh ingredients and slow-mastered technique, though drawing also on the German heritage of his name to make foods even richer and heartier when it suits him.
A recent tasting of Bistro Moderne’s menu for spring turned up many items in all categories we hope to enjoy again and again. Some were among the 8-10 items Schmidt added for the warmer weather, while others were classics so popular he dares not take them off. That is part of the price a chef pays for success, having to be ready to serve the most popular dishes rain, sleet or snow. Or spring and summer. A deft hand clearly guides preparation of new and old in the glassed-in kitchen that visitors ogle as though the cooks were lions at the zoo.
If you’re serious about eating lighter for spring, check out the new salad Schmidt has crafted around simple arugula, studding it with twirls of paper-thin fennel and a fresh selection of Iranian figs filled with goat cheese. The whole things gets a drizzle of sweet-tart balsamic reduction and a sprinkling of delicate matchsticks of toasted bread. If you’re a tad less serious about spring, then you really need to get one of the finest foie gras appetizers anywhere: a trio of foie gras terrine with lush late-harvest Muscat de Beaume de Venise, sautéed foie gras in a sauce that combines balsamic vinegar with chocolate made in Schmidt’s hometown of St. Etienne, and foie gras ravioli beneath a saffron foam. The caramelized onion with cassis provides the perfect kick for a decadent way to start (or heck, finish) any meal. Perhaps the menu’s must-have appetizer is still the so-called crab bomb, constructed like the chocolate dessert of that name but building the form with avocado and stuffing that with crabmeat beneath a lime and cilantro vinaigrette.
We think the most exciting spring entrée showcases escolar, the fish from Ecuador. While considered oily (its name was changed from “oilfish” when it hit the American market), escolar is mild-tasting and delightfully flaky. The fish is grilled and set atop zucchini puree, playing the role of mashed potatoes this evening, and itself topped with zucchini tempura. The sauce is envisioned around a cranberry-like fruit from Iran called the barberie, which brings a perfect balance of sweetness and acidity. Other great rejiggered-for-spring entrees include the lemon sole in a soft blanket of Gruyere and capers, sided with shiitake and snap beans, and the incredible hanger steak. This comes with mashed potatoes where the mashed potatoes should be, plus an intense red wine sauce inspired by Bordeaux. The steak comes with the marrow bone, for those who learned to use that little spoon eating osso bucco.
In France, a lot of diners would eat a meal like this and opt for a fresh pear. In Houston, we say “Not so fast.” Knowing this great truth about us, Schmidt and his pastry chef have concocted several complex and even over-the-top desserts to end the evening right. Our two favorites are the vanilla fondant, a mysterious but incredible sauce that flows out of light pastry when we attack it like those molten chocolate cakes used to do – a snow white version of a dark pleasure indeed! – and the mandatory chocolate fantasy, crafted as a “tart.” Don’t think “fruit tart” here: it’s more like a tart shell overflowing with the best dark chocolate pudding anybody’s Mom ever dreamed of making. It’s got hazelnuts in the chocolate for crunch, plus some hazelnut ice cream on the side. If you ever thought Nutella in a jar was terrific (and it is!), you probably won’t think that after this full-bore dessert at Bistro Moderne.
TEX-MEX GOES HEALTHY
Everybody in Texas pretty much considers Tex-Mex his or her own native cuisine – thus the Tex with the Mex. But we understand, intuitively, that all that gravy and cheese, plus rumors of lard here and there, can’t be very good for us. We check in with out own “fitness chef” Marcela Perez about what’s right and what’s wro- well, not-so-right about Tex-Mex food. And we’ll talk about cutting the fat and salt without cutting the flavors we all love.
THE LATEST FROM THE LODGE
Executive Chef Matt Maroni joins us from The Lodge at Bayou Bend, hopefully bringing tasting portions of some of the dishes his restaurant is now doing best. Matt was one of the last chefs at Rainbow Lodge before it moved from these lovely digs right on Buffalo Bayou. Thankfully, the new restaurant’s ownership (which owned the real estate all along) tracked down Matt and said: Come cook. And cook he does.
FOOD FROM A NIFTY ‘DIVE’
In an embarrassment of riches, we also will visit in studio with Chef Jonathan Jones of Max’s Wine Dive – who, by the way, is also welcome to bring us food. Why settle for one lunch when two do so nicely? We’ve loved Jonathan’s cooking in the past, and we’ve heard great things about the things he’s doing at Max’s with the lush, indulgent, probably fattening comfort foods we all love. So maybe we’ll learn each dish from Jonathan – and then ask Marcela to make it healthy!
WHAT THE HECK IS NUN CAKE?
We had a small role in a new cookbook making the rounds. Something like four years ago, we asked our readers to share memories of their most memorable school lunches growing up. One of the most enthusiastic respondents was Danielle Schaaf, who spun quite a tale of the noontime meals at her Catholic school. That memory attracted many other memories to Danielle, and now she has turned them all into a cookbook.
This Week’s Delicious Mischief Recipe…
INDIAN PICKLED VEGETABLES
Pickling Liquid
2 quarts white vinegar
1½ cups coarse-ground mustard
2½ cups ground turmeric
2 cups chopped ginger
1 cup whole peppercorns
2 bunches cilantro, roughly chopped
10 fresh cayenne or jalapeño peppers, split
5 cups vegetable oil
Vegetables
1 pound haricots verts (green beans), trimmed
5 large carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks
1 head cauliflower, cut into florets
1 bunch broccoli, cut into florets
To prepare the pickling liquid, combine the first seven ingredients in a large bowl or container; cover and refrigerate for 1 week for flavors to develop. When ready to use, strain through a cheesecloth and incorporate the oil. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the vegetables and blanch for 30 seconds. Cool quickly by placing vegetables in an ice-water bath; drain. Place vegetables on baking sheets; dry in the sun for 2 hours or place in a 180° oven for 30 minutes. Using a clean spoon, transfer the vegetables to two sterilized mason jars. Pour pickling liquid over the top, making sure vegetables are covered. Seal jars and refrigerate for 3 weeks before serving. Can be stored for up to 6 months. Serves 8-10.
