Third Bendiversary

February has historically been a feast month for us. It all started a long time ago as a way for Ann and me to celebrate an anti-Valentine's Day of sorts. It has since evolved.

Andreas, Kasia, Dyce, Ann, Michelle, Rob, Mike, Meredith
Sorry Andreas, You Rocked Back out of the Frame

Being in the restaurant business, I was always on the brutal business end of Valentine's Day. It was a time when we prepped for days and days to handle the jam-packed restaurant for a night, or two if we were lucky. And it was not optional: there was no other traffic at the restaurant in February and we depended on the instant cashflow of the big night or nights to tide us through the fallow time of a cashflow negative winter season. Did this conjure images of Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub for you?

Moreover, Ann was stranded at home on Valentine's Day, the prototypical chef-widow, watching TV while all her friends and neighbors were out celebrating. I would come home late and exhausted, in a mood for nothing but a shower, a beer, and a pillow.

We had other friends in a similar situation and we had many friends who were winemakers. Because of our tremendously busy schedules, times for us to get together and celebrate life were few and far between. Fortunately, February is a slow month in both the restaurant and winery worlds. And so Ann put together what she termed an anti-Valentine's dinner. Over the years, it became customary for me to make a big cassoulet, a humble but ever so comforting dish of beans.

I cannot speak for many restaurateurs and chefs, but most that I know do not want fancy food when they celebrate. They have enough fancy restaurant food on a daily basis to be sick of it. What they want is excellent comfort food.

Cassoulet became our go-to not only because it is excellent comfort food, but also as a counterreaction to the prescriptive Valentine's menus that we served. Valentine's Day in the business is a night that people who do not go out often to fine dining restaurants descend upon fine dining restaurants.

These people scrimped and saved their money (and thank you to them for helping us get through the lean months) for this once-a-year night out. These folks wanted a very strict and limited selection of items that they perceive as valuable for their cash outlay. In other words, the menu must contain lobster, steak, and chocolate and must not be too avant-garde. We were permitted no risks in the menu.

This kind of menu was a strict departure from our normal multi-course menu, but it was necessary to ensure that the restaurant were packed to generate the cash that we needed to operate. This kind of menu, however, was no fun for us to cook. As chefs, we found it boring and a mere ticking of the boxes to attract clientele.

And so cassoulet became the antidote to both fine dining and a strictly prescriptive menu. It was exactly the kind of dish that I both wanted to cook and to eat on a cold February night.

Cassoulet After the Seventh Punch-down

What began as an anti-Valentine's celebration has taken on additional meaning over the years. My birthday is near Valentine's. It is a given that chefs are working on their birthdays serving food to other people celebrating their own birthdays. Chefs rarely have a chance to celebrate and so this dinner became a way for me to celebrate my own birthday, especially after retiring from the business. And, we moved to Bend just before Valentine's Day and it has been such a wonderful place to live that we added a celebration of our so-called Bendiversary to our feast night.

It was a foregone conclusion that I would make another cassoulet this year and so I did. It is an easy dish to make, but it requires a lot of time to achieve the layering of flavors that makes a great cassoulet. I put the cassoulet together over three lazy days. To go with it, I made a roasted garlic and chive goat cheese spread for an appetizer and an arugula salad with fennel and apples. Ann made a flourless chocolate cake that we served with 1977 Warre's Port.

Roasted Garlic, Chives, and Goat Cheese

Kasia, who manages the cheese department at our local store, brought two great cheeses, one a blue and one a washed rind. Along with it was some amazing honey that she and Mike brought back from Piemonte. Mike also brought two bottles of wine that he made, a Tempranillo and a Malbec, both from Walla Walla grapes. Rob and Dyce brought Savigny-lès-Beane. I was busy kibbitzing and forget to get photos.

Ann Made a Flourless Chocolate Cake

1977 Warre's Port that I Bought on Release
It is Finally Calming Down after Nearly 50 Years

Cabbage Rolls

Ann has mentioned a few times this winter that she wanted me to make stuffed cabbage rolls, something that I thought I had put behind me several decades ago. In the 1960s, they were something of a staple, a least in my mother's kitchen where she made them in the Central European style stuffed with ground beef and rice and sauced with tomato sauce. I tolerated them, but I did not love them. Hence, I have never ventured to make them, until just now at Ann's request.

Stuffed cabbage rolls are a staple of many cuisines, primarily in Central and Eastern Europe, but there are versions in China, the Levant, and North Africa. Each version has a different filling and a different sauce. For my part, I used my usual meatball mix (ground turkey with herbs and oats to lighten the forcemeat), and I sauced them in a quick marinara. I am not fond of the sweet tomato sauces from Central Europe.

Cabbage Rolls Ready for Sauce

The Finished Cabbage Rolls

After we ate them, we concluded that we did not love the results and the filling is better made into meatballs. With apologies to our Polish friends and family, I doubt that I will ever stuff cabbage again. Ann's itch has been scratched and I never had the itch.

DRT: Riley Ranch to Tumalo State Park

I've walked a ton on the Deschutes River Trail near the house this winter, perhaps four to five times a week. Ann wanted to join me for a walk on a day that I wanted to change things up so I suggested going out to Riley Ranch and walking along the river there, mostly as a change of scenery for myself.

As the DJ on the radio reminded us, it was the final day of Junuary, with abnormally warm temperatures expected to push into the low 50s before a series of early February snowstorms, more typical weather for this season. Despite the forecast for warmer temperatures, it was brutally chilly at the outset of our walk. The warm temperatures would arrive with a front that was aggressively blowing through. The wind from the parking lot and across the sagebrush flats above the canyon was fierce and bitingly cold, to the point that we walked as fast as possible to descend into the river canyon.

Down in the canyon, even though it was largely shaded, the respite from the wind was a welcome change from up above. Ann and I walked along the river up into Tumalo State Park before reversing course and heading back to the truck. The day became nicer and nicer with each stride forward.

Middle and North Sister

The Deschutes in the Canyon Below

Mount Jefferson

Fringed Skirt of Icicles on a Boulder

An Ice Sheet in the River

Patterns in the Ice

Red Osier Dogwood Thicket, River Behind

Ice Covered Tree

Photographing the Canyon Walls

Lone Ponderosa Atop Canyon Walls

Broken Ponderosa; Future Osprey Nest Site?

Ice in Tumalo Creek at Confluence with the Deschutes

Another Ponderosa Seemingly Growing in Solid Rock

Still Life: Charred Ponderosa Stump and Wolf Lichen

Ice, Icicles, and Snow

Cinnamon Stick: Old Ponderosa Trunk Gleaming in Sun

Natural Spotlight on Glorious Red Osier Dogwood

Ponderosa Bark

Western Juniper Bark

Charred Ponderosa Stump

Twisted Ancient Western Juniper

The Boys are Back in Town

With apologies to Thin Lizzy, the boys are finally back in town, having moved back from Boulder after a short stay there. We were devastated when they decided to move while we were away in Italy in the fall and we are ecstatic that they missed Bend so much that they have decided to return.

Naturally, to celebrate their return, we had them to dinner. For this dinner, Ann wanted me to do pasta with ragù bolognese and she wanted to make garlic bread, especially because Rob loves garlic bread.

The Three Musketeers

Kitchen Elf Extraordinaire!

Spying a bin of small tomatoes on the counter where I leave them to ripen sparked an idea for a simple appetizer, mini-Capreses on skewers. Nothing could be simpler than skewering tomatoes, basil leaves, and bocconcini and drizzling them with a bit of pesto thinned with olive oil.

Caprese Skewers

We waffled on making a traditional lasagne (I should have, damn it!) but I let Ann convince me that I should just used boxed pasta rather than rolling out a sfoglia and cutting it into big sheets for lasagne. We ended up with par-cooked mezzo rigatoni (from Giuseppe Cocco) mixed with ragù and a bit of ricotta, topped with mozzarella and baked until golden brown. It was good, but not great and certainly not in the same league as lasagne.

Baked Mezzo Rigatoni and Ragù Bolognese

Ann wanted to make garlic bread as a surprise for Rob, whose predilection for this delicious carb we noticed in Santa Fe. She concocts a mixture of butter, mayonnaise, granulated garlic, fresh garlic, and a bit of Italian parsley and slathers obscene amounts on a split loaf of excellent bread. After it browns under the broiler, it is absolutely irresistible and makes the house smell amazing. I can gain weight just by looking at photos of it.

Ann's Crazy Good Garlic Bread

After kibbitzing for an hour or so and catching up with the boys and their move back to town, we relocated to the dining room and finished up the evening with a couple bottles of delicious Langhe Nebbiolo.

Slow Cooker Bolognese

I love traditional ragù bolognese. In my culinary lexicon, that means a shredded meat sauce made from cubes of meat, stock, a little soffritto, a splash of wine, and a bit of cream or milk. In my world, this sauce is not made from ground meat, but certainly plenty of bolognese would argue about that. It is cooked long enough until the meat is sufficiently tender to shred when stirred with a spoon; there is no such thing as a quick ragù bolognese. Many traditional versions use pancetta and beef. I use only pork shoulder, primarily because I like pork better than beef.

I've made it in the oven, on the stove top, and in the slow cooker, especially when I want to leave it unattended while I am away from the house. The batch illustrated below, I threw in the slow cooker for about 9 hours. It is two-day process. The first day, I make the stock and then on the second day, I make the meat sauce using that stock.

The sauce is only as good as the stock you make it with, so if you want great sauce, you must first make great stock. I first roast stock bones, pork neck bones in this case, with chunks of onions, carrots, and celery. Once that comes out of the oven, I remove all the solids to the stock pot and put the roasting pan over a moderate flame.

To the pan, I add a large spoonful of the best tomato paste in the world, estratto di pomodoro, which has a deep, rich, umami flavor. Stirring constantly so that the paste will not burn, I further caramelize it for another minute or two. Then I stop the caramelization and potential burning by adding a glass of water. Once the water goes in, I scrape all the browned bits off the bottom of the pan.

After all the bits are off the roasting pan and into the liquid, I turn off the heat and pour the liquid into the stock pot. Into the stock pot go all my vegetable trimmings (leek leaves, celery leaves and ends, carrot tops, onion peels, parsley stems, etc.). Onion peels may surprise you, but they have been used forever as a yellow or brown dye and that color will serve your stock well.

Next, I add a couple of pig's feet (trotters) to the stock pot. Some people add a packet of gelatin to the stock pot to give the resulting stock a satiny mouthfeel, but I prefer to do it the old fashioned way using pig's feet. After filling the stock pot with water, it will simmer for several hours. I strain, cool, and refrigerate the stock overnight to solidify any fat on top which I remove the following day.

I pick the meat off the neck bones and use it for something (tacos!). In this case, since I am making meat sauce, I add it to the sauce.

Vegetables and Pork Necks Ready to Roast

Roasted Vegetables and Pork Necks, Ready to Deglaze

Vegetables and Scraps for the Stock

Stock Just Starting to Cook

Strained Stock

On the second day, I start the bolognese by browning my pork shoulder cubes. I brown them only on one side. While browning them develops flavor, browning also dries the meat out. As a compromise between flavor and succulence, I brown just one side.

Browning Pork Shoulder Cubes in Batches

After Browning the Meat, the Goodness Called the Fond Remains

Once the meat has been browned, caramelized meat juices called the fond in classic French cuisine remain on the bottom of the pan. Just like I did for the stock, I want all this tasty flavor in my meat sauce. As you can see, I am adding layer upon layer of flavor to the finished product.

To start removing the bits from the pan, I leave it on the flame and add my soffritto (mirepoix in French), a small dice of carrots, celery, and onions. The water in the vegetables will help loosen the fond from the pan as I stir. Once the vegetables have started to cook (the onions have gone translucent), I ensure that the remaining bits come off the bottom of the pan by adding a glass of white wine. I only ever use white wine for my ragù. 

Soffritto for Ragù

Now it's time to put the meat sauce on to cook. I put the browned neck cubes, the picked neck meat, the soffrito, the defatted stock, and a cup of heavy cream to the slow cooker. I put it on high and let it cook until it reaches the consistency of the sauce in the final picture, skimming the surface fat every now and again. I season the sauce with salt at the end. It's never good practice to salt a sauce that is going to be highly reduced (thus concentrating the salt) before the end.

The process will take several hours at a minimum and more if you are using a slow cooker. This batch took about nine hours in the slow cooker. It would have taken far less on the stovetop, but I had things to do away from home that did not leave me time to keep a mindful eye on the sauce on the stove, stirring it every now and again to keep the bottom from scorching. As a home cook, cooking should fit your life style; your life style should not be cooking. That's the province of a restaurant.

Sauce Before Cooking

Finished Ragù Bolognese

There's nothing hard about this sauce. It merely takes a lot of time (the vast majority of which is unattended), but that time is necessary to achieve the caramelized and umami-rich flavor that you expect from a quality meat sauce.

Finally, I note that there are no seasonings other than salt. The bolognese do not add herbs to their sauce in general, nor do they add garlic. Some do add a touch of nutmeg (noce moscata), but that remnant of highly spiced medieval cooking has never been my jam. You do you.