Pear Versatility

Pears come in many sizes and varieties and fall is peak season for them. Bartletts are probably the most common ones encountered in the grocery store and they are wonderful.  However, if you can find ripe Comice pears you will experience something completely different and even more wonderful.  I first came across these in Europe and after many years have now found them at peak season in our grocery stores.  They are fleeting, though, so if you find them, buy them.  The Comice pears I found yesterday at the store were labeled "French Butter" pears (the sticker still said "comice") - they are somewhat squatter, sometimes smaller, and have less of a neck than other types.  At peak ripeness they will have a greener skin than a Bartlett, but they will also have a yellow hue, give ever so slightly when touched, and smell like a pear.  They have a beautiful perfume that accompanies a very juicy, soft fruit - all of which are more pronounced than with any other variety I have eaten.  The best things to do with these pears are to eat them alone or with a piquant goat cheese that complements their perfume and juiciness.

If you have Bartletts on hand, here is a delicious dessert or breakfast dish to make, taken from an old Food & Wine article (circa 1996).

Maple Pear Pancake

Ingredients

• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 3 Tablespoons butter
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (or 1/4 whole wheat, 3/4 all-purpose)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 Bartlett pears, peeled and sliced
• 1/2 cup maple syrup (use real maple syrup)
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

Preparation

Heat oven to 350 ° F.

Mix the milk and egg together, and then whisk in 2 Tablespoons melted butter.  Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together and whisk into the milk mixture.  Let stand for 10 minutes. Letting it stand is important to the final texture of the pancake as it allows the flour to fully incorporate with the liquid.

In a non-reactive oven-proof skillet, cook the pears, 1 Tablespoon of the butter, and 1/4 cup of syrup over high heat until caramelized.  Remove from heat and add 2 teaspoons lemon juice and the remaining 1/4 cup syrup.

Whisk the batter once or twice and pour it over pears.  Bake for 15 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.  Invert pancake onto a platter and serve with additional maple syrup.

Serves 4.

San Francisco Oct 2011

I just spent a week in San Francisco and had so many amazing meals accompanied by great friends that I felt the need to share with you all.  I can honestly say that it was a good thing San Francisco is such a walkable city and that our flat was over a mile away from the conference I was attending. With only one morning of hard rain I was at least able to walk off a few calories.

I can't think of anything better than spending time enjoying good food with good friends.  Ame, a Michelin one-star restaurant, at the St. Regis hotel was our first stop.  I had a squash soup with padron peppers - the in-season local area peppers. They're wrinkly, green and about the size of my thumb. The soup was smooth as silk, subtly flavored with the slightly hot piquant padron pepper every couple of bites.  The other dishes were fabulous, but my favorite was the soup. I just have to try and recreate this dish since I won't be going back to San Francisco soon, and I can't imagine not having something akin to it again while squash are readily accessible at our farmer's markets.

The Ferry Building farmer's market was our second stop, and what a stop it was. Between the fresh vegetables, fruits, meats, shops and restaurants I had found paradise. While I still hold the Pike Place Market in Seattle dear to my heart, the Ferry Building was slightly heavier on the ratio of farmers and food stalls to permanent shops.  It's also smaller in size and easier to navigate.  Not to say the place was small - we spent about three hours browsing - we loved the "Praise the Lard" t-shirts and the spits of roasting meats with fingerling potatoes roasting below the spits catching all the good drippings.  A little rosemary sea salt sprinkled on top and those potatoes were to die for.  The roast pork sandwich with arugula was delightful as well.

Dosa on Fillmore was our third stop.  Again, the food was outstanding, but the cocktails were even more amazing. I'm not usually one to order off the "speciality" drink menu because they are often too cloyingly sweet or just plain weird, but at Dosa they turned out drinks that were unique, perfectly balanced, and full of flavors that were bright and complex. The key to my Pink City was green cardamom infused gin and raspberry nectar - perhaps a play on a Cosmo, but beyond the color and glass shape the comparison stopped there.  The Plymouth Gin infused with green cardamom pods was inspired. The bartender showed us the glass bottle they use when infusing and while it started out clear - it has a green tinge that they say no matter how much they wash it, it's still green.  Their inventiveness made me want to come home and start infusing gins and vodkas with all kinds of spices!

Boulevard Restaurant near the Ferry Building was fourth. With a James Beard award-winning chef, it also showed off the local padron peppers in several dishes. What was my favorite, though, was a starter Pear and Arugula salad with goat cheese, figs, and pistachios.  Each element of the dish brought out the best flavors in the rest.  My main course of lamb prime-rib was nothing to sneeze at either, but the starter was perfect in every way.

I was truly lucky to be invited along to Chez Panisse for a friend's birthday dinner. Alice Waters was one of the first chefs I followed. What she believed in was the then future, but now current, farm to table movement. I consider her the grandmother of it all. I hope she doesn't find that offensive. The four-course dinner that night consisted of a fresh bean salad with chanterelles and bacon; french fish soup; grilled grass-fed ribeye with potatoes and yellow wax beans; buckwheat crepes with quince, figs and anise ice cream. Our waitress selected a Navarro Vineyards (Anderson Valley) Pinot Noir to accompany our meal, and it was a very good selection. The restaurant ambiance and wait staff were outstanding.  The craftsman-style dining room sits just off the kitchen. I had one of the best seats in the house without being in the kitchen.  I could watch them cooking and plating food all the while staring at the big basket of beautiful breads off to the right. The wait staff were unobtrusive, there when we needed them and not there when we didn't. They also offered up a moment of hilarity - as they cleared the beef dish - we were assured that the cow had had a happy life. The waiter's comment cracked me up - only in Berkeley would they feel the need to let us know that the cow had been happy. I loved it!

Tony's Pizza Napoletana in North Beach was our last evening's meal in San Francisco. Their claim to fame is winning the World Pizza Championship 9 times. Their menu was intimidating - ten different styles/temperatures/ovens.  Would one choose from the five different options in the Sicilian Style (550 degree gas oven) or one of the Coal-Fired (1000 degree) pizzas?  Luckily we had a table with six of us, so we selected six different pizzas.  My favorite was the Barcelona - mozzarella, smoked paprika chorizo, tomato sauce, jamon, manchego, nora peppers, and scrambled farm eggs.

We also hit two breakfast places and a pastry shop worth mentioning - Kate's Kitchen and Brenda's French Soul Food were both delicious places for a big breakfast.  Kate's, in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood, had an amazing selection of pancakes and other mouth-watering breakfast dishes - including a corned-beef hash that reportedly is awesome and, which unfortunately, I didn't have room for after filling up at Dosa the night before. Brenda's, near City Hall, is a New Orlean's style place - with perfectly cooked beignets stuffed with either savory (crawfish) or sweet (apple, chocolate) or just served plain.  The pastry shop was Le Boulange Bakery.  Yes, it's a small local chain, but I had one of the best almond croissants since my summer vacation in Provence. My mouth is watering just thinking of it. I got a chocolate hazelnut one for the road, and 10 hours later it was still delicious.

That's a chronicle of eating our way through San Francisco. Although, I neglected to tell you about Suppenkuche, Absinthe or the Top of the Mark - all notables as well. I would go back to every single place we visited, but it would be hard not to try the dozens of other places I've read about.  Sigh, guess I'll have to go back often.