Kitchen Basics: Dicing Pineapple

Pineapples can seem daunting to prepare because of their odd shape, but with a couple of tricks, they become child's play. Following is a photo essay on prepping pineapples. The end result here is diced pineapple, which I ultimately used for salsa, but using these techniques, you can cut your pineapple into whatever size pieces you desire.

Lay the Pineapple Flat on the Board

Remove Both the Top and Bottom

Standing on End, Remove the Sides in Strips
Cut Deep Enough to Remove the "Eyes"

Once Peeled, Slice in Half Lengthwise, Then Again Into Quarters

Remove the Core on the Bias

Four Quarters Ready to Slice

Bottom to Top: Quarter, Strips, Halved Strips, Dice

Soupe de Poisson

Soupe de poisson, bouillabaise, and cioppino are names for a class of tomato-based fish soups. In English, I call them generically fish stew, though they are clear broth-based soups rather than thicker stews. I love these soups, in part because I have great memories of eating them on the Mediterranean coast in the south of France. In fact, I love them so much that I put this dish on my opening night menu at my restaurant.

In recent months, I have turned Ann on to this soup and she is so taken with it that she has requested it once a week. That's a little too frequent for me, but soupe de poisson has been a regular staple at our dinner table since the weather turned cold.

This is not a soup for fine fish; this soup is a means to use the lesser types of fish and shellfish. Locally, we get rockfish or Pacific cod. For shellfish, this soup works well with either shrimp or mussels.

Soupe de Poisson with Pacific Cod: Fish Stew

I don't have a fixed recipe in that each batch varies with what I have on hand, as it does in houses all over the Western world. What you need are aromatics (leek, onion, garlic, celery, green pepper, red pepper, fennel), tomatoes, some good stock (fish or chicken), saffron, some herbs (basil, parsley), and a bit of spice (red pepper flakes).

Another Version with Shrimp

Soupe de Poisson

The following recipe is more idea than recipe in that each time I make this delicious fish stew, it differs. I have given quantities below which at our house feed the two of us quite well with a bit leftover for the next day. Though the recipe is highly flexible, I would say that its charm derives from saffron and if you don't have saffron, you don't have this soup.

I have bastardized this soup: in France, you typically will not find peppers in your fish soup. I love them and this is my soup, so in they go. Your clue that the soup in France might contain peppers is that it will be named after another place: à la brésilienne or à l'espagnole, for example.

1 yellow onion, diced
1 leek, diced
4-6 cloves garlic, minced
1 poblano pepper, diced
1 red frying pepper, diced
2 stalks of celery, diced
1 sprig of lovage
1 large pinch saffron
1 restrained pinch of red pepper flakes
1 to 2 teaspoons of dried basil
1 28-ounce can of diced tomatoes in juice
1-1/2 quarts/liters of fish (or chicken) stock
1 pound inexpensive white fish, cut in bite-sized pieces 

The basic approach is to prep all the vegetables and cut the fish into bite-sized pieces. Then cook the mirepoix in olive oil along with a heavy pinch of saffron, a slight pinch of red pepper flakes, and a teaspoon or more of dried basil. When the onions and/or leeks are translucent, add the tomatoes and stock and cook for 20 minutes or so to give the flavors time to come together.

When you're ready to serve, season the broth and bring to a boil. Add the fish and turn off the heat. Serve as soon as the fish is cooked through.

This is the recipe that I would make assuming that I had all ingredients on hand. I often do not have red frying peppers on hand, except in August and September. I would never make this soup with green bell peppers: I do not like their flavor the first time or the second time. I always have poblanos in my refrigerator. Leeks I love in this soup, but they are scarce during the summer months.

While celery is a must, I don't expect you to make this dish using lovage, but I am addicted to its haunting celery-esque flavor. Lovage (livèche for mes amis français) is uncommon everywhere and alas, I will have no more until spring.

More common in the south of France is some form of licorice flavor. If I had a fennel bulb, I would add it. If I had some pastis on my bar, I would add a shot to the soup. Alas, we ran out of pastis in making fabulous cocktails called Le Rendezvous from barman extraordinaire Alain in Grand Case, St. Martin.

I prefer dried basil in this soup to fresh, though in the summer, I will toss a sprig or two of fresh basil in with the lovage in addition to the dried basil. Sometimes, I add a bit of fresh Italian parsley to the soup at the end when I add the fish.

The stock is critical. The collagen in the stock from the bones you used in making it give it a great mouthfeel and body that will make your soup stand out. I have recently had a lot of freshly made chicken stock on hand and I have used that with great result. As our diet transitions away from meat and more towards seafood, I will end up buying some fish bones at the market with which to make my stock.

As for fish, the best soups have a mixture of so-called trash fish which is all well and good when you are at a restaurant with access to a lot of fish and are feeding a lot of people. At home, however, one species of fish will suffice.

Black Bean Burgers with Poached Egg and Chipotle-Cumin Yogurt Dressing

I love black bean burgers and more importantly, so does Ann. She asks me to make them often and they have been a regular part of our diet for a very long time. This time, I wanted to do something that felt a little bit rich and bad, so I topped two black bean burgers with a poached egg and some chipotle-cumin yogurt dressing. Super delicious!

Black Bean Burgers with
Poached Egg and Chipotle-Cumin Yogurt Dressing

Each time I make black bean burgers, the technique is more or less the same, while the ingredients vary slightly based on what I have on hand.

Soffrito Mise en Place

Chopped Soffrito Vegetables Less Garlic

My soffrito for black bean burgers always contains onions (in this case, red, yellow, green, and garlic), peppers (in this case, two poblanos, a serrano, and a red frying pepper), and a bunch of cilantro. I was just cleaning out the refrigerator and this is what I had on hand.

Drained and Rinsed Black Beans

The procedure is simple. Start the soffrito cooking in a large pan and add some ground cumin and ground chile. Once the onions are translucent, add the beans and a little water. Bring to a simmer and adjust the seasoning by adding more spice, salt, and cumin to taste. Mash a few beans to let their starch start thickening the mixture. Let cook 20 minutes or so for all the seasonings to meld and for the beans to get thick.

The bean mixture needs to be really stiff to hold together in patties. Add panko or masa little by little until the mixture is stiff and then refrigerate overnight to get really cold and stiff.

Freshly Pattied Burgers

When the beans are cold and stiff, mold four-ounce balls of beans into burgers. I would not try to go bigger than four ounces: it will prove difficult to keep larger patties intact as they heat during frying. I serve two four-ounce patties per person rather than one large patty.

Frying the Patties

Although not necessary, the texture of the burgers will be much better if you get a good crust on them. Plus, the crust helps hold the burgers together. For these reasons, I dip the flat surfaces of the burgers in either panko or a thin layer of Wondra before they hit the frying pan. For more on Wondra, I did a small bit on the restaurant blog back in 2009.

Don't These Look Delicious?

While black bean burgers are really tasty and fun vegetarian fare, you can really take them to the next level with a poached egg and a little yogurt dressing. 

Wine Bar

We have a wall in our living room that has been screaming out for a built-in wine bar. In fact, we have been dreaming about installing one since before we put a contract on the house. After three years of talking about it, we are at a point financially and design-wise to get started. When I say design-wise, I mean that we have kicked about a lot of ideas over the years and finally have selected a design that is going to work well for our space and for us. Many ideas died because they were too complex or dominated the room. It feels good to finally have direction. The idea is the hard part; the execution is straightforward.

Our New Wine Bar

Wednesday October 21, 2020

We're finally ready to get going and we have agreed on a basic design of a countertop above a base cabinet containing two wine refrigerators and some bulk wine racking, using old produce crates and found objects attached to the walls for shelving for glassware and so forth. Armed with basic dimensions, I start sketching and by Friday, I have a basic elevation in mind. Meanwhile, I am keeping myself busy by building a rustic table/bookshelf for the kitchen.

Ann starts looking for vintage soda and produce crates on Etsy and the web. This sparks an idea that I want to incorporate produce crates into the base cabinet.

Saturday October 24, 2020

After measuring our space and collecting dimensions for our potential refrigerators and racks, I make a scale drawing of the bar elevation and all the décor items to make sure that Ann and I are on the same page and to have a plan for how to proceed. Each of the décor items is a little scale cut-out that we can move about to see how it best fits. After pushing things about in several configurations, we ended up with the following. It is a good compromise; not every idea we have can be incorporated.

Bar Elevation with Moveable Décor

Ann orders the apricot and soda crates from California. I order some incidentals for building shelves and wine glass storage.

Sunday October 25, 2020

With furniture, I always like to do a build-buy analysis. In Virginia, I had a killer woodshop with everything necessary to build whatever I wanted. Here in Oregon, I don't really have a shop and am limited to what I can do with hand tools in the garage, a bit limited, but still, a lot. I could hack out wine shelving in my garage, but it would never be up to my standards for want of the appropriate woodworking machinery.

Accordingly, for the wine shelving, I go the buy route rather than the build route and order an 84-bottle maple double-deep wine rack from Pennsylvania. I will still have to finish and assemble it, but that's actually a benefit in that I will be able to match the stain on the wine rack and on the base cabinet that I will build in the garage.

The shop says they will deliver the racking in 4-6 weeks. It's good to have a backlog of work! In this day of instant-Amazon everything, handmade to order items seem anachronistic. I won't be able to build the base cabinet until the wine racking arrives and I can finish it and assemble it. The size of this rack will drive both critical dimensions: the height and the width of the base cabinet. And so I will wait.

I also order two wine refrigerators from a restaurant supply house. They will arrive in a week or so.

In an unsurprising move, Ann decides we should repaint the wall on which the bar will be installed. I don't disagree.

Monday October 26, 2020

We go to Lowe's to see about butcherblock countertops. I would like the countertop to be in our space for several weeks so that it can acclimatize to our humidity, so I want to get my order in. I am not expecting to find butcher block countertops in stock, but they are. On the way home with our new countertop in the back of the truck, we stop at the paint store and pick up paint for the wall and stain and finish for the countertop and base cabinets.

For the wall, Ann decides on a color called Angel Food Cake, a warm yellowish ochre. It will serve as a great backdrop to everything while warming the room considerably. I get a dark stain for the base cabinet and wine racking: I want them to disappear and let the refrigerators and wine stand out. I also get what I thought was a barely-colored maple stain for the countertop (it proves to be otherwise) and a clear coat for everything.

Tuesday October 27, 2020

I get ready to paint, removing switchcovers etc. and gathering all my materials. I take the following "before" shot to compare ultimately with the "after" shot to come.

This is the Corner Where the Bar Will Go

Wednesday October 28, 2020

I apply the first coat of paint. I hope that one coat will do it, but that is a pipe dream. I am too nit-picky to let one coat suffice. Even if nobody else notices the imperfections in a one-coat job, I will and certainly Annie Eagle-Eye will too. After I am all cleaned up, she decides that she wants the underside of the opening into the dining room painted as well. Mañana.

Amazon notifies us that one of our packages will not be delivered. Looks like a FedEx oops. I've seen a lot of crushed boxes in my days of shipping wine to customers around the country. I reorder the undeliverable wine glass holders and shelf brackets.

We find out that our apricot and soda crates should arrive on Sunday. It amazes me that since the onset of COVID that we have non-stop deliveries in our neighborhood seven days a week until late into the evening. Every upheaval has its winners and its losers and Amazon, FedEx, UPS, and the USPS are all winners in the days of COVID.

After First Coat of Paint

Thursday October 29, 2020

The final coat goes on quickly and easily. All that's left is to replace the switch and outlet covers and that happens in the late afternoon. Ann is tickled with the paint job, which looks less yellow and more ochre than in the photo above. It gives her more ideas about how she wants the rest of the interior painted. I remind her that I am too busy being retired for her to add all these things to my honey-do list.

We find out that in quick succession that our crates will be delivered on Sunday, then Wednesday. I guess they're on a mule train from SoCal.

Saturday October 31, 2020

Frustration galore! FedEx delivers the two wine refrigerators to our front porch today and I open both to find that each is damaged and neither is functioning. One will not power up and the other will, but its controls do not work. I am slightly unhinged for the rest of the day.

Sunday November 1, 2020

Firstish thing, I chat with someone at Customer Support from the restaurant supply house. It wasn't too painful and the long and short of it is that two new refrigerators are coming my way. Still to be determined is the fate of the two non-functional units that I already have.

Ann is clearly thinking about the bar today when she asks, "Will that long mirror I have upstairs work on the bar?" On inspection, it is too large. Then she pulls out two small 14"x14" mirror panes in leather frames which are the perfect size to put behind the liquor bottles.

I am making a single riser for the liquor bottles made out of two single-bottle wooden wine gift boxes. I do a mock-up of what the liquor bottles will look like perched on the wine boxes and backed by the mirrors. It looks great.

Liquor Riser Mock-Up

We kick it around and decide to turn the wine boxes on their sides so that the opening faces forward rather than down. We play with putting a bottle inside, but it is for naught: you cannot see the bottle for the liquor bottles in front. I get the idea to put lights into the boxes to back light the liquor bottles and try it out with a flashlight. The idea is a keeper. Now to find some lights and install them in the wine boxes.

The waylaid shelving parts that had to be reordered from Amazon arrive today. Ann and I discuss building a shelf by reusing wood from an old dresser. Ann unearths two Rogue Brewery "Dead Guy" bottle stoppers that she wants to incorporate. I know just how to use them.

On-line, I find some LED strip lights that can be cut to length and should be perfect for lighting the wine boxes.

Monday November 2, 2020

The restaurant supply house wants the two non-functional wine coolers back—no surprise there. It will be such a joy to repack them and get them to FedEx. Sarcasm intended. 

Tuesday November 3, 2020

It's Election Day across the country, except here in Oregon where we always vote by mail: we voted some weeks ago. I have a wonderful time packing up the two wine coolers. Did you catch the sarcasm? Tracking information shows that our new coolers will be here on Friday. I hope to get the FedEx delivery guy to haul the two return boxes back to the depot on his truck.

In the afternoon, our crates arrive, a day ahead of what the shipper had last told us. Our delivery includes six apricot boxes from Zoria Farms in California (defunct dried fruit processor successfully sued by the EEOC for discrimination issues), two zinc parts boxes, and one wooden RC Cola flat. Subsequently, Ann will steal the RC Cola flat for another of her projects and give me a somewhat rickety Coca-Cola flat to use in its stead.

Our Crate Haul

Three of the apricot crates are going on the wall for shelving and the remaining three are becoming part of the base cabinet for the bar. The other smaller boxes are also going on the wall.

Wednesday November 4, 2020

I have been collecting a list of sundries and fasteners that I need from Lowe's. The actual trip to get these things was waiting for the apricot crates to arrive so that I could take some measurements. Armed with my list, I head for Lowe's and pick up all sorts of small items that I will need to finish the job. While I have a good store of fasteners in the garage, I still don't have all that I need for this job.

Ann and I go through the apricot crates and decide which will go where. I see that I have a good bit of repair work and cleaning to do.

The deep frame for the shadow box for my copper Bourbon crate stencil arrives in the late afternoon and I disassemble it and mark exactly where I want to fasten the stencil to the backer board. Actually doing the work is a job for tomorrow. Tonight, it's time for a great bottle of Pinot Noir.

Thursday November 5, 2020

In the morning, I get right on framing my Bourbon crate stencil, an item that I bought at an antique show at the DC Armory at the far end of Capitol Hill back in the 1990 time frame. The results look pretty good. I had been noodling on a way to make the stencil legible for years. Mounting it on a bright white backer board seems to be just the ticket. The stencil is destined to go in the center of the wall above the bar.

Pebble-Ford Bourbon Crate Stencil

I love that this stencil has been modified. If you expand the photo, you can see that the copper stencil has been patched: the 3.0 before "0 Gallons" is a patch. I don't know if they changed the size of the crate or the size of the bottles or merely repaired a mistake or fixed a broken part of the stencil.

In any event, 3 gallons is an old case size for liquor bottles, which in my lifetime were bottled in fifths, (1/5 of a gallon; 4/5 of a quart) and then after 1980 in 750 ml. Current 12-bottle cases are 9 liters (2.38 gallons); old cases of fifths were 9.1 liters (2.4 gallons).  A 3-gallon case would have been a dozen full 32-ounce quarts. Another interesting thing: old labels from this distillery read Pebble-Ford while the stencil reads Pebbleford.

We get an email in the morning that our wine rack has been shipped, weeks earlier than we had expected. I guess we'll see it in about a week. I am not really surprised as the fabrication is not at all complicated. I feel certain that the real hold up would have been the finishing shop. But since I am finishing the racks myself, that saves the shop a lot of time that they would have built into the schedule.

And in a great surprise in mid-afternoon, UPS shows up with the wine rack parts. I open the boxes to check on the shipment and am pleased at the quality of the work. Now to finish them, weeks ahead of schedule. No doubt there will be pressure to get the bar wrapped up before Thanksgiving, not that we are having any guests on account of COVID.

After looking at the rack parts, I spend a good while outside working on stiffening up the apricot crates, pulling useless nails and replacing them with good ring-shank nails that should not move around. The crates are a lot stiffer as a result. It's a miserable chilly rainy day to be outside working. I dare not start finishing the wine racks with all this humidity.

Friday November 6, 2020

I unpack all the wine rack components and move them to the garage in preparation for staining and clear coating them. I am not working on them today because I do not want to be out behind the house when FedEx arrives. We are expecting delivery of the two new refrigerators today. We move the ones that will be returned to the front porch. I hope the delivery comes before my 4pm conference call, but that proves not to happen.

Late afternoon, I do a quick sketch of the base cabinet and get my lumber list together. I figure out a way to eliminate 1x4 stock from the cabinet: one less thing to buy. I will change my mind again.

Our FedEx driver shows up at moments after six. Our refrigerators are the last thing on his truck. The kid is a beast from Mali: he moves the 100-pound refrigerators solo and effortlessly. He is many inches shorter than me.

Saturday November 7, 2020

Well before coffee and still in bed, I order the LED lights for the liquor bottle riser. Isn't wireless technology a wonderful thing? They'll be here next weekend.

First item on the agenda today, I open the wine refrigerator cartons. Yet again, both units are damaged. I go back and forth with Customer Support at the restaurant supply house; they want to give me some cash to keep the damaged units, but their first offer is insulting. I counter. No resolution today, except that I will never order large equipment from them again.

I put a finish coat on the wine rack components. It takes nearly 4 hours and I'm standing in the chilly air out on our breezeway nearly to dusk. It showers on and off, not the best weather for applying a finish, and there is a cold bite to the air. My feet are cold from standing on bare concrete for hours.

Once inside, I push one of the refrigerators against the bar wall to see how it fits in relation to the depth of the counter top and I have a sudden moment of clarity. The electrical outlet for the refrigerators is directly behind one of the units, meaning that the plugs are going to force the already quite deep units further out from the wall. I will replace the standard plugs on the refrigerator cords with flat plugs. There's always something unexpected in every project.

Sunday November 8, 2020

After the de rigueur coffee, I assemble the wine racking in the middle of our kitchen floor. It goes together simply and logically, a great thing because there are no instructions in the package. I move it to the bar wall to see how it will fit in relation to the refrigerator units and Ann and I mull over how high the counter top needs to be to make reasonable use of the top shelf of the wine rack.

If the counter goes directly across the top of the wine rack posts, we will be able to just slide a standard Bordeaux bottle onto the top shelf with a couple millimeters to spare. A large California Cab bottle will not fit, so I decide to raise the counter 3/4s of an inch above the rack posts. Large Burgundy and Champagne bottles still will not fit, but we have lots of room for those elsewhere. The top shelf seems destined for our large supply of vintage Port 375s.

Test Fitting the Wine Rack

Pushing the refrigerator against the wall yesterday and discovering the electrical outlet issue got my mind working. During the night, I am sure that I re-engineered the base cabinet in my sleep. When I wake, I have a brand new plan for the base cabinet that will change my lumber order drastically.

I get a laughable offer from the restaurant supply house for me to keep the two damaged units. My response is direct, polite, and outlines exactly what I want in the way of remedy, very significantly more than they offered. I've done the math and I know what it will cost them in terms of shipping expense on top of what they have already spent and how much they are likely to be able to sell damaged units for, if even they can find a buyer. They can refuse my counteroffer, but it will be less painful to agree to my terms.

I spend a half an hour sketching the new base cabinet plan in detail so that I can revamp my lumber order.

Monday November 9, 2020

Mid-morning, I get a reply back from the restaurant supply house agreeing to my terms. It is a relief on my end in that I can get moving with construction of the base cabinet. I'm sure it is also a relief for them. I am becoming resigned to installing cosmetically damaged units.

After coffee, I head to Lowe's with my lumber order on my phone and spend 45 minutes hand selecting the fir and poplar lumber for the base cabinet. 

It is a gloomy, humid, and cold day. In fact, it looks and feels like snow is coming. Ann and I stain all the lumber that will be visible on the base cabinet. It has been my experience in doing finish carpentry that it is better to stain the lumber before assembly. Our fingers are terribly cold: it is just 37 degrees.

In preparation for starting to build the base cabinet, I lay out the locations on the wall and mark all of the studs. Our house is new construction, so the studs are just where they should be. No hunting around and no random stud locations. I have stories to tell about restoring an 1890s Victorian house.

Tuesday November 10, 2020

I did not sleep much last night, constantly running cut lists and working through niggling details about how to best build the base cabinet for the wine bar. Although I am tired, most of the details are worked out and I am ready to proceed. I spend a good while getting everything set up: chop saw, extension rollers, compressor, nail guns, hoses, and so forth. I forget to charge my drill batteries and the first one dies 20 minutes in. The second one, probably faulty, has totally discharged since I last charged it, maybe a month ago.

Ann and I move furniture and the carpet out of the way and I start to cut and assemble, at least until my drill dies. I cut more pieces and grab a tiny bite of lunch while the drill is recharging. Five hours later, the base cabinet is assembled, trimmed, leveled, and screwed to the studs.

Base Cabinet Finished and Trimmed

Ann is excited now that she can finally see what is happening. I work well from 2D drawings; it is more difficult for her to go from 2D to 3D. She asks to move a refrigerator and the wine rack into place so she can get a better sense of things. She seems pleased.

Before calling it an evening, I glue up one of the apricot boxes, one side of which is delaminating. Tomorrow I will tackle the three apricot boxes that will become the shelf unit on the end of the bar. This will be a matter of cutting one of the boxes down so that the stack of three boxes fits underneath the counter top. Cutting, routing, sanding, and finishing the countertop is the major task left. I hope to get to that on Thursday.

Wednesday November 11, 2020

First thing today is a haircut. After that, I take apart the most beat apricot crate and I rebuild it so that it is 5 and 7/8 inches high. Then I stack the three apricot crates to form shelves at the left end of the bar and attach them to the bar framing.

There is plenty of time left in the day, so I want to test fit the countertop and mark where to cut it to length. Ann helps me move the beast into place. It is heavy: two feet by eight feet by an inch and a half thick, a substantial piece of wood.

Test Fitting the Countertop

We schlep the countertop outside and balance it between my work table and a portable extension roller. I set up a guide for the circular saw and with Ann helping hold the offcut, I trim the end. Next up, I give it a light sanding. The cardboard protective corners were taped onto the surface and have left some adhesive. I was going to rout the edge, but Ann asks me to keep it as is. I do a slight bevel of the edges with the sander.

After I wipe the sawdust off with a tack cloth, I give counter top a quick coat of "maple" stain and wipe it down with a rag to even out the coat. It is more orange than we had wanted; I feel mislead by the manufacturer's photo. Dumb me. I should have tested it on the bottom. Oh well, Ann and I are picking nits and in the grand scheme, we will be the only ones to notice.

Back inside, I set the one-inch brads that I used on the cabinet face frame and find that they are insufficiently long to hold the frame on, so I go back with the big nail gun and some two-inch finishing nails. A bit of putty in the nail holes and I am done for the day. There's a lot of clean up to be done and we're due for a week of rain starting tonight. It takes 45 minutes to get everything under cover.

I start applying polyurethane finish coats tomorrow; the weather forecast is less than ideal.

Thursday November 12, 2020

Midmorning, it's not raining yet and I apply the first coat of polyurethane. I was thinking it might take four clear coats, but now I'm thinking perhaps two will do. Everything is at a standstill waiting on the counter top to be done.

My Makeshift Workshop: First Coat of Poly Applied

Because the garage is a bit of a mess storing my tools and gardening gear, I am working partly in the covered breezeway and partly in the garage. One of these winter days I will get started on building a workshop inside the garage, but until then, I work outside to keep the sawdust outside. It is certainly suboptimal for doing finish work, but it is what I have.

The LED lights for the liquor riser arrive in the late afternoon. I will get on installing them in the morning: now it's time for a bottle of 2017 Stephen Goff Pinot Noir Weber Vineyard. Stephen is the winemaker at Colene Clemens on Ribbon Ridge; this is his personal project from the old-vine Pommard fruit at Weber Vineyard in Dundee Hills. Delicious, but Pommard is more in Ann's wheelhouse than mine. My favorite clones tend to Wädenswil, Coury, and Dijon 777.

Late in the day, FedEx arrives with one of the wine refrigerators that was supposed to be returned to the warehouse. Oops. At least we caught the driver before he hauled the box up onto the porch. I offer to help him reload it into this truck. As much as I can see that he wants a hand, he gives the industry standard our-insurance-carrier-won't-allow-it demurral.

The forecasted rain finally arrives just after dark. It is a true Pineapple Express, a river of balmy air originating out in the Pacific near Hawaii and laden with rain. These storms always come at us from a few degrees west of due south and they lash us with wind and rain. Unfortunately in this case, our breezeway is oriented west-east, the direction of our prevailing winds. Usually it stays dry under the breezeway, but the whipping south winds soak everything. Ann and I hurriedly shove the table top into the garage where I wipe it down. It is still tacky.

Friday November 13, 2020

Given the lashing rain all night, I am not sure if the first coat of poly will be sufficiently dry to apply a second. Fortunately, it is and I sand the counter top to ensure the second coat sticks well and then spend twenty minutes applying and brushing out a second coat. This coat looks much better than the first. I am not sure if a third coat will be required.

Liquor Riser with Lights Installed

Next up, I put together the liquor riser from the two wooden wine boxes and install the LED lights inside them. These self-adhesive LED strip lights are so cool! We set the riser up with a few liquor bottles so Ann can imagine the end result; we are both pleased with the outcome. This is nearly the final project until after we can install the counter top and that depends on how many finish coats are required. I smell a finish line of this weekend.

I think I am done for the day, but after resting a while, I decide to take on attaching the first of the apricot crates to the wall for shelving. It will be much simpler to install the shelving before I put the counter top on because I can get much closer to the wall. And I will be that much closer to being done with this nearly month-long project. It will be great to have our living room back from being an impromptu storage facility for wine refrigerators and tools.

The Three Apricot Crates Attached to the Wall

I have a couple of wine glass racks that I want to attach to the bottom crate before fastening it to the wall. It will be nearly impossible to attach them after the crate is on the wall. I measure to make sure that there is enough space to slide the glasses out of the rack without being blocked by the adjacent liquor bottles. The racks go on without issue and I move to installing the crate.

Attaching the first box to the wall proves to be a bear. Both my shoulders are a mess and I can barely lift my arms above my shoulders on some days, let alone support weight, not a great state of affairs for affixing shelving to walls. The pain makes me extremely grouchy and Ann bears the brunt of my mood. Sorry babe.

Once the lowest box is attached to the wall, it and a couple of spacer blocks support the second box which goes on much easier, thanks in part to lessons learned from installing the lowest box. Now to rest my arms for the final push, be it tomorrow or Sunday.

Saturday November 14, 2020

First thing, I check the countertop out in the garage. Good news: the second poly coat is sufficient and it has dried enough overnight to work with. Today will be the final push to complete the bar. Step 1: bring the bar top in and sit it on the base cabinet so that we can discuss where to locate the items over the left end of the bar.

Ann and I bicker a bit about where things should go, but finally decide on middle ground somewhere between where we both thought the shelves should go. After this, I have a shelf to build out of an old dresser of drawers and I need Ann's input on the shelf width, shelf depth, and placement of the iron pipe supports for the shelf. That shelf is the first thing I install followed by the Coca-Cola crate above it.

The afternoon moves along as I locate and install items on the wall. Ann helps me hold boxes while I drill the holes in the wall. The zinc parts crate in the center of the wall is the last major item to go on. After this, we put the bar top on and I attach it to the base cabinet.

Top on, I can now install the refrigerators and the wine rack. I put the door handles on the refrigerators and with the help of a hammer and a block of 2x4, I beat out the dents in the bashed in kickplate of one of them. Ann tilts the unit back so I can get up under it and hammer away. The results are not perfect, but they're good.

All the under counter items installed, I position the liquor riser on top of the bar and then install the mirrors behind them. Then, I move on to hanging the various framed items on the wall, child's play compared hanging crates for shelving. Meanwhile, Ann is relocating wine glasses, liquor bottles, and so forth to the new bar. I attach Ann's big wine opener to the end of the bar. 

Bar Complete, Wine Still to be Loaded

Mission accomplished! We open a bottle of wine in celebration.

Sunday November 15, 2020

We'll likely remember today as the day that Carter goes to MEPS in Maryland in preparation for traveling to Ft. Jackson in Columbia SC tomorrow to embark on basic training in the Army. Besides this, today is memorable for being the day that we consolidated all our wine from its various locations to the storage areas under the new bar.

All Done!

It feels good to be done as we load all our wine into the refrigerators and the racks. We're both happy with the results and happier still to get our living room back.

Chum Salmon with Roasted Hakurei Turnips and Gai Lan

As an East Coaster, I'm always surprised at the dearth of fish species that we have in our markets out here in the Pacific Northwest. Granted, a lot of what we harvest goes to Asia, but still, compared to what I am used to, we have very little variety out here.

Very little variety except for one fish family: the Salmonidae, the salmons. We have the very famous species that everyone knows: King/Chinook, Coho, and Sockeye. Also famous, but rare, is my favorite, the ocean-going rainbow trout that we call Steelhead Trout. Finally, we also have Pink Salmon, which in general ends up canned, and Chum, our most numerous salmon, but which is not held in very high regard, being associated with the salmon that the sled dogs eat.

Because of the stigma, Chum Salmon doesn't command the price of King, Coho, or Sockeye. But when caught out in the ocean in its silver phase, it's a delicious fish, milder and less fatty than the other salmon species, and a great buy for people looking for wild-caught salmon at an affordable price.

I scored a pretty piece of chum and some fresh hakurei and gai lan at the farmers market recently and decided to plate them all together for a delicious fall dinner.

Chum Salmon with Roasted Hakurei Turnips and Gai Lan

Everything on this plate is done simply. The salmon is seared in a black steel pan. The gai lan is blanched and then finished in garlic olive oil. The turnips are roasted at high heat until their cut surfaces brown. Everything in this dish is of pristine quality, so I didn't need to do anything cheffy to help it out, no sauces, no tricks, no pizazz. One of the great secrets of fine cooking is to start with the best ingredients. I used to tell my line cooks, "My job is to source the finest ingredients and yours is not to fuck them up."

Blooming Gai Lan and Hakurei Turnips

Gai lan is also called Chinese broccoli and is in the same family as our familiar broccoli. This bunch of perfect gai lan is in bloom. A bit of bloom like this is just fine. What you don't want is any kind of broccoli in full flower. Broccoli flowers, like all Brassica flowers, are edible and make fine garnishes for dishes and salads. I especially like radish and arugula flowers for garnishes.

Roasted Hakurei Turnips

Hakurei turnips are mainly sweet with just a tiny hint of radish bite. Although you can use them like any turnip, I prefer them for raw applications and roasted like this, in which case, they become very mild and melt in your mouth.

Browning Slivered Garlic in Olive Oil

When doing garlic oil as a garnish for vegetables, I like to sliver the garlic and serve bits of the browned garlic as an additional garnish. You can see in the very first photo that I have put some of the garlic on top of the gai lan. After blanching the gai lan, I reheat it in the garlic oil just before plating. In this way, you can blanch the broccoli hours before service, if you shock it in an ice bath to stop it cooking and from turning olive drab. I cooked my broccoli an hour before dinner so that I could concentrate on cooking the fish to perfection.

Seared Chum Salmon

I cook salmon skin-side down until the skin becomes very crisp and delicious. The skin is always the best part. Chum salmon, because it is very low fat when compared to red or silver salmon, wants strict attention in the pan. It is not a fish that can really tolerate extra cooking, so take it off the heat a little sooner than you might other salmon. In the lead photo in this post, you can see that mine went on the plate still showing a bit of pink in the center of the portion. By the time we got to the table to eat, it was perfect. Fish timing is not something I can teach in a blog post; it's just something you figure out by doing it over and over. You can't teach experience, alas.

Roasted Chickpea and Broccoli Salad with Yogurt Dressing

We're starting to eat more and more vegetarian meals and I got to thinking about a salad of roasted chickpeas and broccoli with some sort of yogurt dressing. 

Roasted Chickpea and Broccoli Salad with Yogurt Dressing

The salad turned out pretty well, but without a good bit of dressing, I found the roasted chickpeas a bit dry. If I had dried them and coated them in olive oil, they would have crisped a lot sooner, but we are watching the fat intake as we near 30 pounds of collective weight loss.

Drained Chickpeas Tossed with Salt and Pimentón

I drained the chickpeas and used the remaining moisture to help the salt and pimentón adhere. If you're not watching the calories, pat the chickpeas dry and toss them in olive oil before adding the seasonings: the quality is definitely better.

Roasted Chickpeas

Broccoli on a Sheet Tray Coated with Pan Spray

Broccoli Roasted for 20 Minutes in a 425F Oven

Finishing the Broccoli by Steaming

Once the chickpeas and broccoli are roasted, toss them with as much or as little of the yogurt dressing as you would like. Season to taste. If the broccoli is nicely brown but still a bit crunchy for my liking, I like to put it in a bowl covered in film so that it can steam just a bit more and even out the cooking. File that away under school-of-hard-knocks lessons that they don't teach in culinary school.

Cumin-Chipotle Yogurt Dressing

This is a really easy, very low-fat dressing that is super tasty and versatile. I don't ordinarily like low-fat yogurt: it tastes and feels funny and fake to me. But as the base for a flavorful lower-calorie dressing, it works fine.

1 cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon freshly ground cumin
1 tablespoon chipotle adobo
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 pinch dehydrated garlic

Mix everything well. If you need to, thin with additional water and adjust seasonings to your preference. The cumin flavor will expand as the dressing sits in the refrigerator, so go just a little lighter than you think you want, if you are not going to use the dressing immediately.

Ugly is Beautiful

One of our favorite flavor combinations is white beans, onions, and artichokes. Ann asked me if I could make a soup of white beans, caramelized onions, and artichoke hearts. It turned out to be delicious, but it's not something that I could have ever served at the restaurant. This dish is definitely an ugly duckling.

White Bean, Caramelized Onion, and Artichoke Purée

As the old saw goes, "people eat first with their eyes." This soup, while really delicious, is not much in the looks department to the point of looking somewhat unappetizing.

Cooked Peruano/Mayocoba Beans

Two Kilos/Four Pounds of Onions to be Caramelized

All Those Onions Cook Down to This

After caramelizing the onions, I added two liters of white beans (500 grams dry before cooking), a kilo of artichoke hearts, the zest of a lemon, a bit of salt, and four liters of water. This simmered for twenty minutes before I knocked it down with the immersion blender and seasoned it to taste.

Delicious flavors, but ungainly looks. It's OK. This is home cooking.