Do you like food? Do you dream of a place where everyone else likes food too? Have you heard of California?
Perhaps you never noticed it, off to the left. Perhaps you–too sober for stargazing or sunshine–ignored it. Seriously, California is serious about food.
Book a flight to San Francisco. Refuse vile airplane snack. Direct your cab to Chez Panisse in Berkeley. So what if it’s postlunch and predinner? You need to wedge in as many meals as possible. Order the seafood cakes and the chanterelle toast and the halibut with wispy green beans and fat yellow potatoes. Wonder how the plain potato can taste of earth, wind, fire without anything so obvious as, say, sauce. Offer your under-aged traveling companion the wide plate of pluot sherbet with gingersnaps. Twice.
Look up old friends. Let them lead you, gleefully, perhaps gloatingly, through their Oakland neighborhood, stocked with espresso bar and tapas bar and bar bar. Wander from bracingly minty drink to pickled sardine, garlic sausage, roasted pepper and sumptuous crme caramel.
Sleep, happy as a fat potato. In the morning, aim for the Berkeley munitions-shop-turned-chocolate factory. Order layer cake. For breakfast. Buy an enormous dark chocolate acorn filled with dark chocolate squirrels. Squirrel it away.
Walk, slack-jawed, the halls of the San Francisco Ferry Building, where the adorable meringue-topped cake flirts with stacks of creamy cheeses. Rush your sack of treasures back to the tiny, perfect garden of your home-away-from-home. Crack open the pungent cheese and chewy bread and brilliant apricot preserves and preserve, for one afternoon, perfection.
Even if you are suffused with satisfaction, press on. Steal out late for pork-stuffed dumpling and tender eggplant and ripe fig. It’s not easy, cramming California into a single weekend.
Attend a long, sunny celebration, which culminates in handmade bread and home-smoked salmon. Wonder why so few of your hometown habituZs smoke their own.
Drop in on friends. Sit outside. Stare as they pluck tender lettuce leaf and redgold tomato and toss together a sublime salad. Served, along with artichoke pizza, under the stars. Compose your expression into something resembling interest, if not tight-lipped envy, as they describe repeating this scene, all winter. Attempt nostalgia for the wind-bitten walk to Treasure Island.
Get up early. Take a cab to the airport. Don’t even glance at the Peet’s Coffee kiosk. Why stay alert for the long flight home?
CALIFORNIA RAVIOLI
Serves eight
For filling:
1 medium butternut squash (about 2 pounds)
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon olive oil
1/4 cup water
2 medium shallots, finely chopped
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon finely chopped fresh sage
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon each ground white pepper, ground nutmeg, ground sage
48 square wonton wrappers
For pesto:
2 cloves garlic
2 cups spinach (or a mix of arugula and parsley)
1 cup basil leaves
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/3 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for garnish
1. Roast: Cut the squash in half lengthwise and rub 1/2 teaspoon oil over each cut side. Slip 1 clove garlic in among the seeds of each half. Settle the squash halves, cut side down, in a roasting pan, add the water and bake at 350 degrees until tender, 1 hour. When cool, scrape flesh and garlic into the food processor; discard seeds. Whirl smooth. Scrape into a medium mixing bowl.
2. Soften: In a small skillet over medium heat, cook shallots in the remaining 1 tablespoon oil until soft, 3-5 minutes. Mix shallots into the squash puree along with the remaining filling ingredients. Chill until ready to fill ravioli.
3. Fill: Heap 1 rounded teaspoon of filling in the center of a wonton wrapper. Brush edges with water, fold into a triangle or rectangle, pressing edges firmly. Repeat. Set finished ravioli on a floured baking sheet; cover with a damp kitchen towel.
4. Whirl: To make pesto, chop garlic in food processor. Add greens; chop. With the machine running, add the oil in a fine stream. Add black pepper and cheese. Taste for seasoning.
5. Boil: Simmer water in a large, deep skillet. Cook half the ravioli until hot and floating to the top, 3 minutes. With a slotted spoon, remove to a large serving bowl or individual shallow soup plates. Cook remaining ravioli.
6. Serve: Spoon on just enogh pesto to coat ravioli, mixing very gently. Drizzle with a little extra pesto and sprinkle with Parmesan. Serve immediately.
–Adapted from “The New California Cook” by Diane Rossen Worthington
———-
LeahREskin@aol.com
