Category Archives: Tips

Coffee Can Spice Potpourri

Outdated spices in a coffee can used as potpourri — punch holes in the lid to use

I put it off as long as I possibly could, but today I bit the bullet and cleaned out my spice cabinet.

The only other job I hate more is updating the earthquake kit – which no one else in the house ever seems to think about. Every three years or so I unpack the clothes to see what needs to be replaced. After about six years elastic starts to give way, and it would be bad enough to deal with an earthquake let alone walk around in underwear with elastic that’s shot. Then I replace the food, which leaves me with outdated beef jerky and cans of tuna, chicken, coffee, dog food, milk – you name it. Some people have those little “all in one” packets that include everything you need, supposedly, but we want to be able to eat real food and cover ourselves with actual blankets. Then there’s the first aid kit, meds, flashlight batteries, toilet tissue, paper towels, toothpaste and the million other things you’d rather not do without for a week. An earthquake kit needs to be packed well, too, so the bugs and moisture don’t get at it. It’s a real drag to deal with. When I lived on Talbot Avenue in Albany, there was a block association. Each house was responsible for a certain item, and there were even scheduled earthquake drills. Here on Clayton Avenue in El Cerrito, most of the neighbors either don’t talk to you or are downright unfriendly. I don’t really care, though. Being from New York City, I’m used to living anonymously. That said, the unfriendly residents on my block had better make damn sure they have good earthquake kits.

This day it was all about cleaning out old spices and making a list of what I need to purchase. I have lots of spices in various forms. Some I buy at Smart & Final, since you can’t beat the prices, and quite a few are in little bags, having been purchased in bulk at Berkeley Bowl or Whole Foods. Some whole spices, like cumin seed, last a long time. Others, not so much. You really have to sniff your stock regularly. I also went through baking, decorating and cheese-making supplies, like meringue powder, nonpariels and citric acid.

Rather than throwing away aromatics, like cloves and allspice, I dump them into a coffee can. This go-round I also had marjoram, dried mint, thyme, rosemary, black peppercorns, cinnamon and cumin- all of which went into the can, including those that were ground. I then put a few holes or notches in the plastic lid and pop the can in a place that might benefit from a spicy scent – like the sneaker closet.

If you have only whole spices to discard, stuff them in an old, clean, cotton tube sock. Tie it closed at the top and hang it in your closet.

It feels good to recycle things, and I’m always looking for ideas, so please email me yours!

On being green

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I sometimes have to take good-natured ribbing from friends back home in NY about the culture in California, the SF Bay Area, and Berkeley and environs – in that order.

The stereotype of the “California yahoo” seems to increase in magnitude with that progression, reaching its apex smack-dab in Berkeley.

I’m asked regularly if I’ve replaced my roof with cow dung and am growing organic crops up there.

I’m told that we Californians talk out of both sides of our mouths, namely driving everywhere and then dumping on others for not buying organic.

Well, I may concede a bit about the driving. When I lived in NYC I did not have a car. Public transport is very good there, and having a car is of negative value in most areas. I tell them I tried living here without a car for 5 years, but it was impossible given how spread out things are and how difficult it was to shop for food. Supermarkets are not on every corner.

I further justify myself by pointing out that I bought a Honda Civic new in 1999, it has less than 50,000 miles on it, and continues to serve the needs of 4 people.

I suppose the bottom line is that I do what I can, and try to do more all the time. I make choices based on information I may not have been cognizant of 10 years ago. Now, the more I know, the more I want to learn. Where food is concerned, I read labels and seek out information before I buy. If that makes me a yahoo, then so be it.

I’m happy to say that many of us here in California and elsewhere are making incremental changes.

Some things are harder than others. For example, until organic, grass-fed beef takes over a larger part of the market share and prices drop, I cannot afford to purchase it exclusively. We don’t eat very much red meat, perhaps once a week, so I try to buy it 50% of the time. Chicken – pretty much the same program; every other chicken I bring home is organic. With pork, I buy Niman Ranch as often as possible. Issues here are complicated, particularly with beef. People in the US are accustomed to the flavor of grain fed beef – mostly in the form of feed lot beef – but are not knowledgeable about its production. Many say they don’t care, but I bet they would if they saw things first-hand.

I made a full transition to organic eggs. They taste much better and I feel good about not increasing demand for the crueler product. I’m happy to say that a non-organic egg has not entered chez Renate for 5 years. Even Costco now carries organic eggs in 18-egg packs.

I try to buy local, organic produce, whenever possible, and shop for fruits and veggies almost exclusively at farmer’s markets and stores that are careful about what they offer, like Berkeley Bowl. This is a no-brainer. If you don’t want synthetics in your fruit salad, then buy organic, or from local farms that use natural pesticides and fertilizers, even if they’re not certified as organic. Ask!

There are some “green” things I started doing that actually save me money and make life easier.

I buy in bulk and store in air-tight, food-grade, NSF approved, plastic containers. You have no idea how much easier it is to work in the kitchen when you don’t have to futz with bags of flour and sugar. Costco, Smart & Final and 99 Ranch serve me well. I was even able to buy a two-pound package of Red Star active dry yeast at S&F for $5.49. Hello! Those little 3-packs can go for $2.50! Not only will you save money, but there will be less packaging for the environment to have to contend with. Here’s a photo of a portion of my pantry. Popcorn, brown sugar, raw sugar, bread flour, AP flour, whole wheat four, brown Jasmine rice, iced tea bags, yeast – all there.

Food stored in plastic containers - bought in bulk

We also use hot and cold travel cups that look disposable. The hot cups are porcelain with silicone tops and sleeves, and the cold cups are non-BPA plastic with a screw-on lids and plastic straws. We take home-brewed coffee and iced tea out the door and save a small fortune without generating plastic trash from take-out iced lattes. Sure, we buy coffee out sometimes, but as a treat. The Eco-First cold drink cup is from Copco, and costs about $7.99. The Eco Cup for hot beverages is from Decor Craft Inc., and sells for about $10.

enviro cups 5-10

You might also want to start using some of the phosphate-free, enviro-friendly products for your dishwasher (and clothes washer, for that matter). Not only are many of these fully biodegradable and biorenewable, they’ll help prevent suds-lock. My Costco now even carries Ecover dish tablets, a product I love.

box of ecover dishwasher tabs

I also stay away from disposable wipes, and use one of the “green” spray cleaners and a cloth that resists bacteria, which I wash along with the rest of my laundry. You can pick up a container of Costco’s version of a friendly cleaner, if you want the most bang for your buck. It comes with a spray bottle and you can dilute it. Just shy of 1 and 1/2 gallons, it’ll last forever. If you’re a purist, and want little more than pure soap suspended in water, look for products at a place like Berkeley Bowl. Sometimes you do want something like this, as I do for my stall shower, which my dog visits daily to lick water off the tile.

costco multipurpose enviro-friendly cleaner

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that we should all think about this stuff and do what we can. Start with a few easy things and go from there.

Not destroying the environment, not running through every natural resource we have, and keeping harmful things away from and out of our bodies are always good, no matter what you think about global warming.

Library Book Sales for Cookbooks!

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stack of books bought at albany library book sale in may 2010

Stack of cookbooks bought at the Albany (CA) library book sale in May 2010

When Friends of the Albany Library holds used book sales, I’m there with my bags, egg sandwich and coffee in the parking lot in my car at the Albany Community Center (1249 Marin Avenue) 30 minutes before the doors open on the first day of the sale.

There is no better place to vamp up your cookbook collection than library book sales, and Albany’s are top-notch, especially the one or two big sales they have each year, though the smaller ones are good, too. There are no restrictions, meaning you can buy as many books as you want, and they are not “picked over,” meaning professional book buyers have not had first dibs on the stock. This is important information, and I suggest you check out a site like this one before you travel. I guess everyone has to make a living, but you’ll see these professional buyers arrive at sales first thing with huge containers, which I find, well, kind of obnoxious, but maybe I shouldn’t. I certainly wouldn’t turn my nose up at a valuable find, but this is pure serendipity for me, because I buy for myself and to give gifts to my friends. My good karma has paid off, because I found first editions, early printings, of both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, several copies of Victoria Wise’s American Charcuterie, based on recipes from the Berkeley store she owned and operated for 12 years – Pig-by-the-Tail – the first real charcuterie market in the US. Victoria Wise was Chez Panisse’s first chef, to boot, so a pretty good pedigree there and her out-of-print book is wonderful.

At the Albany sale, as with many others, stock is replenished throughout the day, but I find it’s best to come on Saturday for a weekend event, because there is often serious competition for cookbooks. The Food Network, celebrity chefs, and all the other hoopla have elevated the status of cooking from respectable trade to cult, so you won’t be the only one looking.

I bought 10 books for a total of $8 this Saturday. I go to the $1 room first, and then the 50 cent room, where I often find fun, kitschy works, like manufacturer’s cookbooks, or crazy stuff from the 60’s and 70’s that feed my obsession with molded salads and terrines and other scary things. This week I got a couple of Betty Crocker 1964 spiral bound planners and a C&H book, where everything calls for C&H sugar. Don’t turn your nose up at this kind of book, because they often have good information in addition to being fun to look at and read, given how dated they are. The C&H book has a nice little chart of the stages of cooked sugar, for example.

betty crocker parties for children

Here’s the C&H book, from which I learned right off the bat that C&H stands for California & Hawaiian. I didn’t know that. I grew up with Domino sugar.

C&H dessert cookbook

I also picked up Escoffier’s Cook Book of Desserts, Sweets, and Ices, from 1941, which is an extract of a larger work published in English. Every cook should have a book by Escoffier to keep them humble. His recipes are arcane, written in paragraph form, and esoteric. Often you won’t have any idea what to do, and you’ll think, “What does THAT mean?” Outrageous reading.

With general cookbooks, I gravitate toward antiques, but will pick something up if it grabs my eye. I could have done without 1974’s The Great Cooks Cookbook, but it involves a couple of chefs whose recipes I love, and it was only $1. Besides, look at the young and handsome Jacques Pepin!

While a book sale is great for oddball things, it can save you a fortune on books in print costing an arm and leg elsewhere. You have to have patience, but eventually you’ll come across some things you’ve been wanting to buy. These books go first, though, so this is why I suggest you start early in the day and hang around a bit for stock replenishment.

I live in El Cerrito, and there’s an annual sale in September at EC library (6510 Stockton Avenue), but in a room so small I can’t deal with it very well. Long and thin, and access only from one end. No room to pass. They also have stuff outside. That said, when I went it was rainy, so maybe they move more outside when the weather’s good.

Berkeley, Richmond, Kensington, Oakland and other East Bay cities also have used book sales. A good way to start is by looking at library websites.

Happy hunting!

The wonders of duck fat

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duck fat potatoes 2010

Being of German extraction, I think you should always have a bag of potatoes in the house.

Whatever else you may or may not have on hand, with potatoes and oil you can make a meal: roast potatoes.

If you have eggs, you can add a couple on top – over easy. Throw in toast and you’re living large.

With a container of rendered duck fat, however, you can produce the most fabulous roast potatoes of your life.

Now you know why I serve duck for Easter. Not only are roast ducks delicious, but I wind up with a couple of cups of fat that I can use over the next 6 months.

While I don’t use a traditional rendering method, it works just fine for me, so I thought I’d pass it along.

It’s easy. Go to 99 Ranch Market or your supermarket and buy a duck. You’ll probably get a Pekin, which is the most common meat duck in the US. When I was growing up they were called “Long Island” ducks. Apparently a number of them were exported from China in 1873, with several winding up in New York’s Suffolk County. This part of Long Island then became a major duck farming area.

You might see Musovy ducks – stronger tasting and leaner – or the Pekin-Muscovy hybrid, Moulard. Since you’re not making confit (in which case the Moulard would be your pick), and you want lots of fat, I’d go with the Pekin.

Rub with salt and roast on a rack at 350 deg. F until the internal temperature reads 165. A broiling pan works well for this – the kind you get when you buy a range. Some cookbooks tell you not to rub ducks with salt prior to roasting, but this is crazy to me. I want crispy skin and don’t care if there is salt in the rendered fat. If you have convection, use it. This is not a good time to use wine or apples or any of that other stuff because you don’t want to flavor the fat. When you move the duck from the rack to a serving dish or board, don’t allow all the juices run out of the opening into the roasting pan.

OK, so now you have a duck for four that you can serve with braised red cabbage and whatever else you want.

You should have a nice amount of fat with some drippings in your roasting pan. Try to leave drippings in the pan, to the extent possible, in the next step. When just comfortable to handle, carefully pour fat through a fine-meshed sieve into a large glass measuring cup, or something like it, and leave on your counter until the fat has risen to the top of any drippings. At that point you can just pour (or almost pour – the melting point of duck fat is 76.5 F) the fat into a food-safe plastic container, being sure not to pour any of the drippings out. This is very important because they will reduce the shelf-life of the fat considerably! Wrap the container in plastic and store in the back of your fridge.

Drippings scraped from the pan and those remaining in your measuring cup can be stored in a small container for use in the next few days. I don’t bother separating out that last little bit of fat, and simply make a big batch of roast potatoes with this mix of fat and gelee, or use the latter in a pan sauce. I try hard not to waste anything on an animal.

rendered duck fat 2010

If you want to make roast potatoes, just substitute all, or half, of your canola or olive oil with duck fat.

Duck fat tastes so good you’d think it was terrible for you. On the contrary, it’s high in monounsaturates and has good things going for it in the way olive oil does.

Before I jot down my roast potatoes recipe, I want to give a nod to Pear Street Bistro in Pinole. A couple of years ago I had an appetizer there that involved crispy roast potatoes covered with melted Gruyere and a side of short rib gravy. Since that time I’ve stretched many a meal out of leftover braising sauce, melted cheese and roast potatoes!

Crispy Roasted Duck Fat Potatoes

4 extra-large Russet potatoes, washed/scrubbed, dried and cut into large pieces (1-1/2″- 2″)
1/4 cup rendered duck fat, give or take, dep. upon potato size
Kosher salt
Freshly-ground pepper

1). Place potatoes on a large sheet pan*
2). Add the duck fat and salt to your liking
3). With your hands, rub fat, salt and potatoes together so potatoes are coated
4). Bake at 400 deg. F (convection, if you have it, but keep an eye on things to prevent burning) for about 40 minutes, or until you see some serious browning action
5). Take out and turn potatoes. Use a spatula with a sharp edge and scrape/pry under potatoes so you don’t leave crusts on the pan. Some will stick, some won’t. If they are too dry, you can add a little olive oil, making sure there is oil where taters make contact with the pan
6). Continue to roast until very brown on all sides. I tend to overcook them a bit so they’re very crisp on the outside and buttery soft inside
7). Remove from pan carefully with said spatula and sprinkle with a little ground pepper

*You should have at least one really big sheet pan! For most of us this will be 15″ X 21″ – AKA 3/4 sheet pan, based on commercial sizes.

Lime gelatin with Fleur de Sel

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