Playing With Fire

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Chef Mourad Lahlou preparing a tangia to cook in the ashes.

It was a brisk morning in St. Helena, but troughs of burning, glowing coals provided warmth as we gathered together, our appetites already primed for the charred, long-simmered delights yet to come.

We were there to watch three Mediterranean culinary stars demonstrate the ancient art of cooking over fire: Mourad Lahlou, the Marrakech-born chef-owner of Aziza in San Francisco; esteemed cookbook author Paula Wolfert; and Haouari Abderrazak, chef-owner of Haouari Restaurant on the island of Djerba, Tunisia.

It was all part of the recent “Worlds of Flavor International Conference” at the Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone Campus. This year’s theme was: “A Mediterranean Flavor Odyssey.”

Shrimp and fish skewers

Shrimp and fish brochettes sizzled on a grill, as Abderrazak mixed up a boldly flavored red sauce of tomatoes, olive oil, lemon juice, and harissa (a blend of chiles, cumin, coriander, and caraway) to accompany them.

Lahlou planned to make lamb tangia — chunks of lamb shoulder simmered for 12 hours with saffron, garlic, preserved lemons, and ras el hanout (a Moroccan spice blend that can contain about 50 ingredients, such as ginger, anise, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, turmeric, and dried flowers).

Saucy Moroccan lamb tangia

It is made in a tanjia, a clay vessel that is sealed with wax paper, then buried in hot coals or wood ash to cook.

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Chef Nate Appleman On His Superb Pizza Dough Recipe

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Last weekend, I had the opportunity to talk to Nate Appleman, executive chef-owner of A16 in San Francisco, about his wondrous three-day pizza dough recipe. You might remember my original post, touting it.

I cornered him after he did a cooking demo at the “Worlds of Flavor International Conference” at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone campus in St. Helena.

I told him how much I LOVED his pizza dough recipe because it was so easy to make, and it resulted in such a soft, elastic dough. It’s featured in his new cookbook, “A16 Food +Wine” (Ten Speed Press), which was co-written by the restaurant’s wine director, Shelley Lindgren.

I mentioned, though, that I was more than a little skeptical at the start that the dough would actually rise, given it only had a quarter teaspoon of yeast in it to 4 cups of flour.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one.

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Take Five with “Iron Chef America” Star, Cat Cora, on Life After the Bay Area

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Why can't we all look this glam when we cook? (Photo courtesy of Cat Cora)

A decade ago, Bay Areans might remember Chef Cat Cora as manning the stoves at Postino Restaurant in Lafayette, and writing a regular cooking column for the Contra Costa Times’ food section.

How times have changed.

The 41-year-old Culinary Institute of America grad has gone big-time. You’ll now find her beaming from TV sets across the nation as the only female “Iron Chef America” star on the Food Network.

Her second cookbook just came out this year: “Cooking From the Hip” (Houghton Mifflin), which bears the same name as her former newspaper column.

Cora is set to open a new restaurant in Costa Mesa in December. And she and her partner, Jen, who have been together a decade, are expecting their third child in April 2009.

I caught up with the petite culinary star with the charming Southern twang at the recent “Worlds of Flavor International Conference” at the Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone Campus in St. Helena.

Q: Does it feel like a lifetime ago that you were at Postino and writing for your local newspaper?

A: It does feel like another lifetime ago. It feels like I’ve had three lives between then and now. But it was a fun time for me doing the column.

Q: Why did you decide to settle in the Santa Barbara area?

A: I get to live by the beach, mountains and vineyards. Plus the public schools there are probably better than most private ones around the country.

Q: You’re opening a barbecue joint, CCQ (Cat Cora’s Que) at the South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa next month? Why barbecue?

A: It was a fluke. I’m on the Macy’s Culinary Council. And I had one conversation with them, and they said, “We want you to do a fast-casual concept.” I thought of barbecue immediately. I’m from the South, and this will be global barbecue. Everyone around the world barbecues. I grew up around it. I wanted to expand on the flavors I love. We’ll use all natural meats and organic products.

Q: Will there be more CCQs around the country?

A: Yes, we own the concept, and we are working on opening others. I’m also working on a new signature restaurant concept. It’ll be fine-dining, and opening in larger cities in 2009.

In 2010, I also hope to roll out my first products — bakeware, cutlery, and pots and pans. We’re going green as much as possible with the product lines. We hope to do things that are innovative, and not just the same ol’ pot or pan.

Q: Why did you want to do “Iron Chef America”?

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Bouchon Bakery Donuts — For Early-Risers Only

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I’d known about these elusive donuts for awhile. I just never managed to get to Bouchon Bakery in Yountville early enough to snag any.

Until last Sunday.

You see, in addition to the usual variety of baguettes, nutter butter cookie sandwiches, and flaky-beyond-belief croissants, the bakery makes a limited quantity of donuts only on Saturday and Sunday mornings. It amounts to a mere couple dozen of each type of donut offered each day.

They are made in the fryer at next-door Bouchon Bistro before it opens for lunch. Once the doors to the bistro open, the fryer is tied up with orders of irresistible frites instead.

When I arrived at the bakery about 9:40 a.m. last Sunday, there were already about half a dozen people in line, and another half dozen sitting at outside tables, sipping coffee and noshing on brioche and macaroons.

As I inched my way through the doorway, I spotted them — three different types of donuts on the wooden back shelf where all the bread was. There were only about nine donuts left. My heart sank, thinking the people in front of me might buy them all.

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A Tiny Gift that Keeps on Giving

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My Dad's can't-be-beat, foil-wrapped chicken.

My late-Dad taught me that good things _ and good tasting things _ come in small packages.

As a kid, whenever I was too sick to go to school, I always felt a secret twinge of giddiness. Well, not only because I got to stay home that day, but because when my Dad came home from work, there would be a surprise. OK, maybe if I knew about it ahead of time, it wasn’t really a surprise. But to a child, it still qualified as one.

You see, my Dad kept a stash of new toys hidden away at the top of a hallway closet. Whenever I got a bad cough, or a fever that would give me creepy nightmares, he’d sneak off to that closet, and pull out a toy to surprise me with. A little doll. A wooden puzzle. A coloring book. A Snoopy figurine. He hoped that whatever he chose would make my pained eyes brighten. He always succeeded, too.

On lazy weekends, my Dad would sometimes make me shirred eggs as a treat. Oh sure, he’d fry eggs in a pan or make scrambled eggs routinely. But there was something extra special about having your own egg baked in its own little dish, topped with some Parmesan cheese, paprika, and a dab of butter. It somehow seemed more precious.

Edible presents

That’s how I felt about his foil-wrapped chicken, too. As a kid, I would help him fold the triangular packages of chicken marinated in a sweet-salty blend of hoisin sauce, soy sauce, Ketchup, and ginger. Unlike the version at Chinese dim sum restaurants, my Dad’s wasn’t fried; it was baked in the oven instead.

Of course, it would be easier to just cook the chicken in a pan without wrapping tiny portions of it in foil packages. But it wouldn’t be nearly as fun, not when the shiny packages emerge from the oven puffed up like Jiffy-Pop popcorn.

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