Russ Parsons: The California Cook November 10, 2012 The California Cook: Curious about Mom's Epicurious recipe My mom has a recipe on Epicurious. At first I found that amusing. Epicurious, after all, is the holy grail of recipe websites, the collected works of some of the best food writers in the country. And, to put it most kindly, my mom was not a gifted cook. At least not by the definition we most usually apply today. September 29, 2012 The California Cook: Squinting into the future of cooking Here's how you make a really good roast chicken: Pat the skin dry and season it with salt and thyme leaves; quarter a lemon and stick it in the cavity; roast at 400 degrees until the drumstick swivels easily when you turn it. It takes about an hour, with active cooking taking 15 minutes at the most. September 1, 2012 The California Cook: Green chile enchantment At Ventura's Arroyo Verde Park on Sunday, if you squinted really, really hard, you could almost believe you were in the mountains of New Mexico - the steep, brush-covered hillsides, the pine trees and, most important, the smell of roasting green chiles hanging in the air. August 18, 2012 The California Cook: Zucchini is a versatile star of summer Tomatoes are summer's glamour crop, round, red and ripe. But though zucchini will never get as many magazine covers, real cooks know you can't beat it for versatility. If you've got a perfectly ripened backyard tomato, there are only a few things you should do with it (yes, admittedly, all of them are delicious). But if you've got a bag of zucchini, well, the sky is the limit. Here, when you include the three accompanying recipes, are a dozen quick ideas. August 4, 2012 Melons play more than sweet melodies My dad has never been much of a food guy. I still remember his go-to comfort dish when I was a kid was something he called "bread soup," which, if I recall correctly, consisted of torn-up white bread soaked in milk. I guess growing up in North Dakota will do that to you. The California Cook: Two cookies that go well with fruit Strolling the Santa Monica Saturday farmers market the other day, thinking about dinner. Five pounds of that thumb-thick jumbo asparagus from Zuckerman Farms? Of course! I already had carrots and favas from my garden. I'd ordered a leg of lamb. But what's for dessert? Almond torte maybe? Lemon curd tart? April 7, 2012 Cooking hard-boiled eggs, the right way Every year around this time millions of eggs are hard-boiled, artistically decorated and then thrown into the garbage. Frankly, that's probably just as well. Because most hard-boiled eggs are pretty terrible. The whites are rubbery, the yolks are pale and mealy and, even worse, surrounded by that sulfur-green ring of shame. February 2, 2012 The California Cook: Getting creative with citrus I'm writing this column having just spent an hour with our local fruit gleaner picking tangelos from my tree. We must have pulled at least 40 pounds. Earlier in the day, I'd picked an additional three dozen pieces of fruit for recipe testing. And the danged tree still looks like it hasn't been touched. The California Cook: Kale in a salad? Yes Kale is about as unlikely a food star as you can imagine. It's tough and fibrous. Bite a piece of raw kale and you'll practically end up with splinters between your teeth. Nevertheless, kale has become a green of the moment because, given a little special care, it actually can be made not only edible but delicious. February 23, 2012 California Cook: Pancakes made from ground oatmeal, wild rice When cooks travel, they inevitably bring back recipes as souvenirs. A trip to central Italy might mean a wonderfully simple braise of fennel in olive oil. Go to southwest France and come back with pork confit. Visit Tokyo and you find a twist on the savory custard chawan mushi. When I hit the road, I usually seem to come back with pancakes. January 12, 2012 The California Cook: Cookbooks that bring comfort At first glance, the story in the local paper seemed to have been written for me: "Decorating With Books." My house is swamped with cookbooks, they're stacked on just about every horizontal surface and, yes, some are even arranged on shelves. So I thought it might be a kind of a "When life gives you lemons" thing - maybe this was going to become a trendy new style in home décor? October 13, 2011 The California Cook: Chapter and verse on better cooking Here's the deal: You know a lot about food. You've seen all the shows; you've read all the books. On Chowhound you're a god. You love Vinny and Jon and Lindy and Grundy, and you always - always - get your reservation at LudoBites. But when it comes to cooking, well, there's a little problem. September 15, 2011 The California Cook: A bruschetta bar: bread, toppings, eat A dreary November day in Umbria. On the shores of Lake Trasimeno, the holiday boats are pulled up and covered. We're visiting the frantoio of one of my favorite olive oil producers, Alfredo Mancianti, as he grinds a mound of purple-black olives into paste beneath an old stone wheel. He pops a couple of slices of bread into a beat-up electric toaster oven, rubs them lightly with just a touch of garlic, then spoons over a little golden green oil that has floated up from the crushed olives. A sprinkle of salt and he's done. August 4, 2011 Grain salad? Simply grand - really Confession time here: For years I avoided cooking with whole grains. There was just such a tinge of sacrifice I associated with them. They seemed like food for penance, not pleasure. Eat them, they're good for you. The California Cook: Salmon make a welcome return When you reconnect with an old friend you haven't seen in a long time, it's only natural that you want to make the occasion kind of special. Maybe have them for dinner. In this case, literally. After a long three-year dry spell, California's salmon are back - well, at least a few of them are. So the big question now is: How to cook them? The California Cook: Mighty, mighty bread crumbs I've just discovered the magic of fresh bread crumbs. You might say it's about time, after 30 years of cooking. But I would remind you that I said the "magic" of fresh bread crumbs, not the "utility." The California Cook: Scrambled eggs: the sunny side of dinner I've always loved Robert Frost's line about home being the place where, "when you have to go there, they have to take you in." Perhaps I'm putting an overly optimistic reading on it, but the idea that even on our coldest, darkest nights, there is always a place with a warm light in the window is reassuring. That's kind of the way I feel about having eggs in the refrigerator. The California Cook: Seasonal vegetable stew is easy, delicious It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, and I'd just gotten home from the farmers market with, as usual, several bags of vegetables and no firm idea of what I was going to fix for dinner. So I did what I usually do in that situation - started leafing through cookbooks. December 23, 2010 The California Cook: Gougères, ready in a flash As a cook, I am prone to enthusiasms and sometimes, perhaps more often than occasionally, they can be a bit excessive. I readily admit that. But, please, trust me on this one: Frozen gougères are the best thing I've discovered this year. No, really. November 18, 2010 The California Cook: Our best turkey tweak yet For something that is the centerpiece of almost every Thanksgiving dinner, the turkey gets surprisingly little attention. At least from most normal people. They tend to stuff it, roast it and forget it. And then they complain about how boring turkey is for another year. September 30, 2010 The California Cook: Homemade ricotta -- it's easier, and better, than you think When it comes to most things around the house, I'm about the most unhandy guy you've ever seen. I can't hang a picture straight. But when it comes to cooking, I go a little do-it-yourself crazy. The last couple of weeks I've been making my own ricotta. Before you dismiss this as just another wacky fad, trust me - you've got to give it a try. September 9, 2010 The California Cook: Fuss-free frittatas Dinners at this time of year make me cranky - most of time when I get home from work the house is too hot to cook, and besides that, I usually have neither the patience nor the energy to fix much of anything. But tonight I'm not worried. I've got two frittatas waiting in the refrigerator. August 5, 2010 California Cook: Making jam in small batches (with big pleasure) And so now I'm reading that jam-making has become a favored pastime of the culinary adventurers. That's great - there are few things that make breakfast sweeter than spooning homemade preserves onto a piece of toast. But I can't help wondering how long this boom will last once we get into the really thick heat of summer. Standing and stirring a big pot of boiling fruit will take the starch out of even the most enthusiastic cook. The California Cook: An author's instructive fishing expedition It's taken a while, but you think you've finally gotten a grasp on the issues related to where most of your food comes from. You've successfully parsed the gray areas among local, seasonal, organic, sustainable, no-spray and conventional. You know your carbon footprint from your food miles, and you shop at a farmers market when you're not getting deliveries from your CSA. The California Cook: How to grill the perfect steak Ah, the first warm days of summer, when some mysterious force compels even the most hapless cooks to start a fire and burn some meat. Walking around my neighborhood last weekend, the smell of flaming beef fat was everywhere. The California Cook: Quick and delicious quesadillas In the beginning, there was grilled cheese, and it was good. How could it not be - creamy melted cheese, bread crisped in butter? And then, of course, came the panini, once a simple Italian snack bar staple, turned seemingly ubiquitous. Now it looks like it may be the quesadilla's turn. And, really, the only thing to be said is: It's about time. April 1, 2010 Asparagus is a rite of spring I'm wary of people who dig too deep for food metaphors, particularly when they involve religion, but if ever there were a case for a perfect pairing of produce and season, it would be asparagus and Easter. March 4, 2010 In SoCal restaurants, a new passion for the whole pig It's a different kind of cooking class Sasha Kanno and a half-dozen other students are taking this sunny Saturday morning in Long Beach. Standing around a portable worktable wheeled into a darkened nightclub, they are watching intently as Paul Buchanan, chef of Primal Alchemy catering company, goes to work. In front of him is a whole pig. It's the size of a large dog and, after being cleaned and shaved, almost startlingly naked-looking. When Buchanan reaches for the hacksaw, rather than recoil, the students crowd in closer. February 18, 2010 Easy polenta that doesn't skimp on flavor In Italy's Piedmont region, where polenta may be better loved than anywhere else on Earth, the cornmeal mush is a food of the fall. When the air turns crisp with the first frost and people await the arrival of snow, housewives labor over their cooking pots, stirring, stirring as coarse meal slurried in water gradually thickens and becomes sticky and delicious. To serve, it's poured out onto a wooden board in a rich golden puddle like a harvest moon. January 27, 2010 Rise of the modern romaine empire A lot of times when food writers praise an old-fashioned ingredient such as romaine lettuce, they do it with a nod and a wink and more than a hint of condescension, like fashion critics chortling when a Parisian couture house sends its models out dressed in gingham and lace -- "Oh, how very droll!" January 6, 2010 The facts about food and farming One of the more pleasing developments of the last decade has been the long-overdue beginning of a national conversation about food -- not just the arcane techniques used to prepare it and the luxurious restaurants in which it is served, but, much more important, how it is grown and produced. December 23, 2009 Vegetables, the overlooked pleasures of a Christmas feast The big bang captures too much of our attention at Christmas. As kids (and maybe even later), we immediately go for the biggest packages under the tree, ignoring the more apparently modest stockings by the fireplace. The adult equivalent of that comes at the table, where we'll plan for weeks the massive roast that will be the centerpiece of Christmas dinner, the spectacular desserts that will cap it, or the fabulous wines that will make everything flow, and then wake up that morning thinking, "Oh shoot, maybe we ought to have a vegetable too." December 2, 2009 Suggestions for the cook on your Christmas list One thing about having a hobby like cooking is that people tend to think they know just what to get you for Christmas. Of course, unless they're cooks themselves, they're almost always wrong. October 21, 2009 Stop and smell the ragu Sometimes, listening to the pundits and ponderers, I get the feeling that cooking is my duty. It's good for the environment; it's good for my health; it's good for society; it's good for my family; it's good for the small farmers and food producers who depend on my business. September 23, 2009 New Mexico's green chile, the real deal I just got back from a week in New Mexico, and that usually means, by rough calculation, having consumed approximately 21 meals based on chile, most of it green. That's not including snacks. This time the number was far lower. And for the first time I can remember, I didn't have to smuggle hardly any home in my luggage, either. September 9, 2009 30 days of ripe tomatoes Summer always comes late to Southern California, but that seemed to be particularly true this year, as the cloudy gray days of June gloom stretched well into August for many areas. There was a good side, to be sure, but what we gained by not having to turn on the air conditioner was offset by the sorry state of our tomatoes. August 26, 2009 Delicious, easy desserts from summer fruit The other Sunday I was standing in the middle of a swarm of shoppers at my local Long Beach farmers market, trying to decide between getting more of John Tenerelli's terrific Fantasia nectarines or yet another box of Garcia Family Farms' figs, so ripe they were almost falling apart. I was in one of those cook's reveries: Nectarines or figs? Or maybe another Galia melon from Weiser's? And what did I feel like doing with them? Sometimes I think half the fun of cooking is thinking about it beforehand. August 12, 2009 Julie, Julia and me: Now it can be told At a certain point in the wonderful new movie "Julie & Julia," there is a plot twist so shocking the audience gasps. Julia Child does something that seems so totally out of character that even on the way out, people were still shaking their heads. How could she? Well, that's one mystery I can solve. I was right there in the middle of it. 'Organic' debate goes on, naturally When I wrote a column recently about my questions about organic produce, I expected that I'd get a lot of mail. Especially after I started with the statement: "I don't believe in organics." Sheer elegance in a frozen soufflé Think about homemade ice cream, creamy and cold and full of fresh fruit flavor. Think about ice cream so light it seems to float off the spoon. Think about ice cream that comes to the table not in cute little scoops, but a good 5 inches deep, so tall it towers above the dish. Smart steak cuts for lean times In the old days, say about this time last year, it wasn't so hard to throw a bang-up backyard barbecue: You just picked up some nice, thick 28-day dry-aged prime New York strip steaks, lighted a fire, grilled to medium rare and then made an extended curtain call, trying to appear humble as your guests stomped and cheered. How to cook with farmers market produce Go to a farmers market and your mind begins to race. Fava beans? What can I do with them? What about the asparagus? And look at those artichokes! Strawberries, mmmm. There are so many terrific ingredients just begging for you to buy them at this time of year that it can seem impossible to decide what to cook. A short path to shortcake nirvana Many years ago, when I was younger and even more foolish than today, I took it upon myself to perfect the shortcake. I spent a week going through a dozen or so recipes from my favorite writers, cooking them, plotting the ingredients on a spreadsheet and then testing different combinations until I came up with the shortcake of my dreams. Schnitzel's delicious simplicity A friend and I were talking the other day about -- brace yourself -- what we were going to make for dinner. I said, "Nothing special, just some schnitzel." Her eyes got big and she said almost in a whisper: "I love schnitzel." We then spent five minutes reviewing our favorite schnitzel variations. April 1, 2009 For one Greek American family, the hunt for greens is deeply rooted These days, when Alexandra Panousis takes her girls out to cut weeds for dinner, she stays in the car, directing the action from the front seat of a new Jaguar. Not those, she tells her daughter, Elaine Panousis. You want the type with the yellow flowers. Get the ones with the thinnest stems and the finest leaves, she tells her granddaughter, Alexia Haidos. And when you clean them, bend the stems so they snap at the most tender part. March 4, 2009 A quick fix makes greens in spring soup sing "It seemed like a good idea at the time" may well be the sorriest phrase in the English language and, perhaps, the most common. I know I contributed at least a couple of dozen repetitions all by myself the other night. February 18, 2009 A splash of seasoning can be better than a shake When most cooks read "season to taste," they automatically reach for the salt shaker. That's not a bad start: A judicious sprinkling with salt will awaken many a dull dish. But if you stop there, many times you'll be missing a key ingredient. Because just as a little salt unlocks flavor, so can a few drops of acidity. February 4, 2009 The refrigerator personality test I figured it was probably time to clean out my refrigerator when, digging around for a jar of jam, I found a roll of film. A roll of film! Remember those? How long it had been there, I don't know. I not only have a digital camera, I'm on my second one. January 21, 2009 Slow cook onions, and the results are delicious The daughter met me at the back door: "What is this stuff?" she asked. It was Monday night, our regular date for her to come over and wash her clothes and then eat dinner and watch "Dexter" with me (nothing like laundry and a TiVo-ed serial killer for father-daughter bonding). August 15, 2007 Summertime, and the cooking is languid Walk into a really hopping tapas bar in Spain or a swanky little osteria in Italy on a summer evening, and right at the front door you're likely to be confronted with a long table full of bowls of vegetables. At first glance, you might think this is just one more sign that the end of the world is near: a salad bar in Europe? August 6, 2008 Conserving locally caught tuna, Italian style Improbable as it may have seemed a few years ago, canned tuna is one of the hottest ingredients around today. Good quality stuff, of course, not lunchbox fare. Imported from Spain or Italy, it can sell for as much as $50 a pound. And if it's ventresca, the richest meat from the belly of the tuna, prices can go even higher. August 1, 2007 Gone fishing? Get grilling Summer twilight, the day's bright hot colors fade into shades of gray as a cooling breeze blows in from the sea. There's fish fresh from the grill, the skin crisp and nearly blackened, the flesh moist and sweet and gently perfumed by smoke. A drizzle of very good olive oil, a splash of lemon, a sprinkling of sea salt and you're ready to eat. Simplicity's the secret for perfect grilling They seem to be everywhere I look these days. Every time I turn around, there's another one of those gleaming, stainless steel gas grills. At my hardware store, of course, but they're even in the center aisle of my grocery store. And as if some higher barbecue power were deliberately taunting me, I think for the last two weeks every other pickup truck I've been stuck behind in traffic has had one of those big boys strapped down in back. It seems like you can't really call yourself a cook anymore unless you've spent a couple of grand on a grill. April 9, 2008 The sweet side of rhubarb WE PUT IN A NEW front yard a couple of weeks ago, complete with drought-tolerant plantings, decomposed granite walkways and a "water feature" (apparently, nobody says "fountain" anymore). Of course, there's an edible component: four raised vegetable beds for growing tomatoes, squash, melons and greens, as well as two trees -- a Fuyu persimmon and a Panachée fig. February 27, 2008 Ready to get fresh? Time to flirt with spring soups A vivid emerald bisque with a texture so luscious you'd never guess it was made without a drop of cream. A chunky chowder rich with the earthy flavor of freshly dug potatoes and the pungent sweetness of green garlic. A fragrant shrimp broth enlivened by artichokes and tender gnocchi perfumed with fresh spring herbs. January 24, 2007 Comfort by the bowlful AND now we enter the soup season. In the face of such recent challenges as being buffeted by freezing temperatures, battling the flu or simply recovering from the lingering effects of holiday overeating, there is nothing quite so restorative as a bowl of soup. January 30, 2008 Oysters, beyond raw WE were wandering south along Tomales Bay a couple of months ago and stopped in for oysters at a little place called Marshall Store. I ordered up a dozen raw, and an icy Sierra Nevada. And then, just on a whim, I asked them to toss in another dozen oysters barbecued -- they're a local specialty and I thought I at least ought to try them.