Monthly Archives: April 2009

04.21.09
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Dinner Goat

Winter Walk, Waldo County (Maine) Independent, 1992

Winter Walk, Waldo County (Maine) Independent, 1992

With five-hour goat on my mind, I bought a 3 1/4 pound Goat Leg at the Saturday Farmers Market from Marin Sun Farms [$26]. I’d been looking since the Five-Hour Goat story appeared in the New York Times the first of April.

Monday, I took the fine looking goat leg out of the refrigerator at 12:30 and, still wrapped, checked to see if it would fit in one of my Dutch ovens; wouldn’t. The leg had a four-inch Frenched bone protruding out of the meat. What to do? I could take it to Whole Food and have the butcher there whack off the bone. That would be uncool. Better idea… go to Cole Hardware and buy a small hacksaw.

The Palestinian convenience store is a few doors down from Cole; intimidated by the 26 cloves of garlic, I walked over and bought two heads, just in case. Six bucks for the hacksaw, two bucks for the garlic, $26 for the leg; enough for two or three meals, pretty good.

58w_leg_w_saw

I sawed off the bone and the leg fit nicely in my blue oval Le Creuset pot. Continue reading →

04.09.09
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Food in Wine Country

Healdsburg is a bit of a trip from San Francisco, but we needed
to go to Simi Winery to pick up our Wine Club shipment. You know how the wine clubs work… you join, they ship two or three bottles of wine to you each quarter and in exchange, a you get a big discount – 25 to 30% – on any wine purchased. At Simi, I had signed up for pick-up only; that saves on shipping and makes a good excuse to go to the wine country from time to time.

Of course, by the time we got to Healdsburg, we were ready for lunch. Barndiva is a restaurant that Carol and I had visited a number of times and always enjoyed. We sat outside in the garden and delighted, still, in the spring day as we ordered Tempura Beer Battered Shrimp to start.

Barndiva garden

Barndiva garden

After bringing wine, the waiter returned with a plate of unexpected goodies: “We’re out of shrimp, so the chef whipped up a little something in its stead – Tempura Beer Battered Cod with a celeriac remoulade for dipping, and Tempura Beer Battered goat cheese with honey for dipping.”

Oh my… I’m glad they were out of shrimp. The cod was light and moist in a tender batter, the remoulade lending a nice tangy complement. The cheese ball dipped in honey exploded in my mouth with warm creamy sweet and salty goodness. Yum. Continue reading →