Donnie’s Blog

I made another pizza on the ol’ Weber grill on the weekend. I think I am finally getting this process down pat. (It was really touchy when we didn’t have any cornmeal in the house; pizzas simply will not slide off the peel if you don’t have a good layer of cornmeal laid down.) Anyway, in the past I would use too much charcoal, and the bottom of the pizza would finish cooking before the toppings had all cooked. This time I finally used slightly too little, and I didn’t get that nice crisp crust that I was looking for. So, next time it’s a 3/4 full chimney-starter for perfect pizza.

I realized today that I hate the whole concept of wraps. Wraps are for people who can’t decide if they want a sandwich or a burrito. Make up your mind. (And choose the sandwich.)

Today I made my first sourdough starter ever. It’s not much to look at - just a blob of flour and water that will hopefully start growing yeast and then fermenting. I call it Lil’ Blobby - it just looks like it needs a name. Plus, if I name it, it’s more likely that I’ll actually be responsible about feeding it and checking up on it, according to the schedule in the cookbook.

Of course, like any good pet, Lil’ Blobby will make a good meal in a few days. Lil’ Blobby’s just a giver.

Tonight some tuna showed up unexpectedly. My mom has a way of getting ideas that something or other would be cool to pick up at the store, and then it’s up to me to turn it into dinner. It’s our own home-version of Iron Chef, I guess. Today’s surprise ingredient was a package of three tuna steaks from Costco. ALLEZ CUISINE!

So, I marinated them in soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, garlic, sugar, and a little sesame oil. Then I seared them in a cast-iron grill pan. YUM. I took the marinade and reduced it on the stove to use as a sauce. (Added some more sugar to cut through the salt.) The flavor was great.

The best way to enjoy tuna steak is to cook it rare. Only problem is, this fish was packaged four days ago. Not so thrilling a thought now, huh? But what could I do? I made mine rare anyway. I mean, come on, it’s tuna.

So now I count down the two- to eight-hour incubation period for food-poisoning. We’ll see if I dodged a bullet or not…

I wish the waitresses at Coco’s wouldn’t keep refilling my coffee cup all the time. I mean, I know they think they’re doing me a favor, but what they don’t realize is that I just painstakingly achieved the perfect balance of coffee, cream, and sugar, and what I really want to do is to enjoy that perfection all the way to the bottom of the cup. Not get a surprise 1/3-cup warm-up, struggle vainly to regain what I was just enjoying, and then resignedly (and grouchily) drink what ends up being a pale shadow of the perfection I had just fifteen seconds before the coffee caravan steamrolled over my morning.

Yeah, so I get worked up about these kind of things. It wouldn’t be a problem if I always drank my coffee black, but I like to mix it up. Er, so to speak.

OK back to work.

Last night I wanted a treat after finishing my lectures for the week, so I went ahead and made myself a nice pizza. I wanted to try something interesting and new, so this time I just spread out some olive oil on the dough, and then laid down some thinly sliced tomatos, garlic, onions, and some capers! (Yep, no tomato-sauce.) Then I sprinkled just a little bit of mozarella cheese on it; just enough to bind everything together. I also (lightly) salted and (heavily) peppered the ingredients to give them a little extra flavor.

Now, a nifty pizza like that needs to be cooked right, so I put my pizza-stone in the oven and cooked the pizza on that. This made the crust just excellent.

That thing was good. Unfortunately, it was so good that I ate the entire thing in one sitting.

Last night I tried to make an Asian-style peanut dipping sauce, for some well-cooked poultry that needed a little extra help. It really didn’t turn out like I had hoped it would. The main ingredients were peanut butter, soy sauce, and brown sugar, with a few other things added for flavor. I think it really needed a bit of coconut milk or coconut cream in there. I will have to get some smaller cans of coconut milk at the store next time. I should be able to make a bunch and then freeze it, so it shouldn’t be a problem to make a bunch at once.

I saved the stuff that I made last night, but the more I think about it, the less appetizing it seems! So hopefully I’ll eat it, rather than putting it down the sink. But hey, sometimes that happens when you experiment with food…

Last night I had some salmon that needed disposing of, so I went ahead and cooked it up nice and good.

Of course, salmon can use a good sauce, especially when you’re not sure where that fine line between “just right” and “completely overcooked” is. So I came up with a simple shallot cream-sauce. I wrote up the notes in my Cooking Notes page, if you are interested!

It tasted very good. Plus, this sauce would be great with chicken breasts too, which are even harder than fish to get “just right!”

Yesterday was Career Day at Caltech. This usually involves a bunch of companies trying to convince students how cool it would be to work there, primarily by giving away free swag. Students, for their part, are typically laden with big dreams and hastily-drafted resumes, but are of course also happy to just walk away with free trinkets. “And fun is had by all.”

I dropped by Career Day yesterday to see someone that I used to work with, and we took a quick trip to the local Tommy’s Burger. This was quite an exciting experience, since Tommy’s is an institution for Caltech students, and we were getting back to our roots. Plus, it was a good chance to try out the new location on Hill Street, which is dangerously close to my daily commute. (For now I have resisted gratuitous chili consumption, at least from Tommy’s.)

I didn’t eat food from Tommy’s for a long time, because it violates the Possum Rule: “If food comes from a vat large enough to conceal a whole possum, don’t eat it.” I have since stopped following this guideline, trusting the food-safety inspectors to do a good job, but maybe I should have yesterday, because I got hit by the biggest chili-coma ever. I had a chili cheeseburger and chili cheese fries, and afterward I just had to lay down on the floor and let my body recover from the ruthless chili onslaught. Hours later I was still struggling, so I had a cup of coffee!

To make up for this … decision … I didn’t eat dinner, and I went for an extra long run today. Man, that stuff is good, but it does take a toll. Especially if you are out of practice and your tolerance is low. Maybe I’ll drop by there again in a few months. I’ll just have to make sure I have nothing scheduled for the next 10 hours.

A week or so ago, we got some of these Niman Ranch Fearless Franks, which are all-beef, uncured hot-dogs. Niman Ranch takes good care to keep their animals healthy, and to use good farming and ranching practices. And, their hot-dogs are very tasty and low-fat, which is also a refreshing change. (Once I looked at the nutrition information for the Hebrew National hot-dogs, and it said, “Total calories: 360. Calories from fat: 300.” No kidding!)

The only problem is that these Fearless Franks are really slimy, like they were packed in snot! I don’t know if they’re all that way, or if it is something odd here. The hot dogs don’t smell bad or anything, and once I wash that slime off them, they cook up real great.

But it sure gives you pause the first time you handle one of these slimy little beasties.