A Sound of Music Reunion

sing. Yes, I know it’s a completely Hollywood version of the true story. And of course I recognize that it does have its saccharine moments (I’ve heard that Christopher Plummer actually detested making the film). And yes, the Austrians despise the fact that most Yanks think “Edelweiss” is an old Austrian folks song (it was written for the musical).

[web photo: source]

But what can I say; I love the movie. It’s one of those films that I will always stop to watch if I pass it channel-surfing. It never fails to make me happy. Or to make me cry. And like The Wizard of Oz, I can quote most of the lines from it. Here are a few of my favorites:

“Darling, haven’t you ever heard of a delightful little thing called boarding school?” (the baroness to Max)

“Are father and Uncle Max going to push the car all the way to Switzerland?” (Gretl to Maria)

“There isn’t going to be any baroness.” (the Captain to Maria)

So you can imagine how thrilled I was when I learned last month that Oprah was going to host a first-time-ever reunion of Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, and all seven of the kids who played the von Trapp children. I eagerly noted the date on my calendar, and notified various family and friends whom I knew shared my Sound of Music mania.

the cast at the time of filming
[web photo: source]

Today was the big day. So this morning I went on the Oprah website to see what time the show aired in Santa Cruz. There was an ad for the big event.

What? A Sound of Music reunion on October 28th? Wasn’t that yesterday? Oh, no! I’d missed it...

But wait. This is the internet age. Yes, someone had indeed posted the entire show on YouTube. Whew! Tragedy averted.

Well, I just finished watching it. How fun to see what grown-up Gretl looks like (pretty good); and to learn that Louisa went on to pose for Playboy soon after the film came out; and to hear Lisel (who was 21 at the time) talk about how Christopher Plummer—who came across on Oprah as a bit of a lush—taught her to drink. Anyone who’s a fan should definitely watch the reunion.

the cast today, on the Oprah show
[web photo: source]

Here are the links (in three 15-minute segments) for you: first, second, and third. (Robin says to tell y’all to watch them soon, as Oprah is likely to get them deleted post haste.)


A Three-Year-Old Conducts Beethoven

One more thing. I saw this on the web today, and it’s well worth checking out. Robin and I and a few of our friends have been known to pull out the ol’ baton and conduct to the stereo when a wee bit in our cups. Well, we’ve got nothin’ on Jonathan, this precocious three-year-old music lover. You can see him conduct the final movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony here.

I thought I’d get bored after a minute or two, but was compelled to watch the entire thing. Amazing how exuberant, but also truly in touch with the music, he is! You go Jonathan!

A Food Crush and Some Mustard

eat. Today I just want to point y’all to a couple of on-line pieces I read over the weekend that I thought were interesting.

The first is an interview (here) with cookbook author and New York Times columnist Mark Bittman, which appeared on the Culinate website. I got to know Bittman a couple of years ago through his weekly NYT column called “The Minimalist,” and have been a fan ever since.

Mark Bittman in Florida recently
(who is that behind him?)
photo credit: Culinate website

Bittman’s “Minimalist” columns each week are accompanied by a short (usually about 3 minutes) video, where you get to see him in action (click here; you can scroll through a list of the videos on the right of your screen).

As you’ll see if you watch any of his videos, Bittman takes a simplistic but fun approach to cooking: just seeing what’s in the pantry or looks good at the store or farmers market, and then sort of throwing things together based on a sense of what seems right.

I think he’s adorable; in fact, I’d go so far as to say that I’ve developed a bit of a crush on the guy.

I’ll give you a tidbit from the Culinate website interview (though I recommend you read the whole thing, and also check out his “Mininalist” columns). Bittman was asked:

When you think of cooking, what sensory element first comes to mind? Smell, texture, taste, looks, sound?

He answered:

It’s visual. Taste is the payoff. I want it to taste good, but it starts visually, looking at stuff and thinking how it’s going to work. That’s basically how I cook—I make sure I have a ton of stuff in the house. Sometimes I plan, but often I don’t. It’s like having a palette. You think how you’re going to put it all together. I don’t pay much attention to presentation. Real food is naturally beautiful. I think food looks good.

The other piece is an article (here) about home-made mustard by Hank Shaw, from the Atlantic food page. I’m a great fan of mustard, and like the idea of making it yourself. It’s now on my list of must-try-that-sometime things.

(photo credit: Atlantic website)

Here is a tidbit from the mustard article (my link added):

Ancient Rome was quite the hotbed of mustard-making, and it is Rome that gives us our name for mustard: It is a contraction of mustum ardens, or “hot must,” since the Romans often added crushed mustard seeds to unfermented crushed grapes....

The famous Grey Poupon mustard—Dijon has been a center of mustard-making for nearly a millennium now—is traditionally made with stone-ground brown mustard and verjus, the tart juice of unripe grapes.

I also thought this was interesting:

[T]he wild mustard all over California is black mustard. You can thank Father Junipero Serra for that one: He used mustard, which grows like a weed, to mark his travels in Alta California 250 years ago.

Oh yeah, and one more thing: GO GIANTS!!

Pat Burrell is a local boy—from Felton, just outside Santa Cruz
(photo credit: SF Giants website)

Roasted Tomatillo and Bell Pepper Salsa

eat. My friend Harriet brought some tomatillos from her garden into work last week, and set the big bag down next to the coffee station. As I poured myself a cup of joe to jump-start my legal research for the day, I eyed the bag. “Take some home,” Harriet called out from her desk behind me. “I’ve got a ton in my garden.” No further prodding necessary.

Harriet says one of the reason she loves growing them is
because of how they look like tiny Japanese lanterns
(photo: Harriet Parinello)

The tomatillo is a kissing cousin—maybe even a sister—of the tomato, and was supposedly first domesticated by the Aztecs. Unlike the tomato, however, it has a papery husk, and is eaten while still green. The tomatillo is probably best known by we gringos as the ingredient that gives chile verde its distinctive tart flavor. But it also makes a damn good salsa.

I’ll be honest with you: I’d never cooked tomatillos before this batch I got from Harriet, so I was eager to take some home and have a go. “How should I prepare them?” I asked. Harriet told me she just throws them whole (but without the husks) into a baking pan along with some whole jalapeños and garlic cloves, and tosses everything lightly with oil. She roasts them on high until they brown and start to blister, and then purées it all in a food processor.

Great. I love easy recipes like that.

I took my bag of tomatillos home, and the next day I poured them out onto the counter and examined them. Cute little suckers, aren’t they?


I peeled off the husks, noting that the fruit was sticky underneath. Better wash ’em. That done, I laid them on a dish towel to dry.


Okay, now for the other ingredients. I peeled a handful of garlic, and then remembered: Dang, I’d forgotten to buy jalapeños. Hmmm... Well, I had a bunch of bell peppers in my garden; I’d use them instead. Here are all the veg, tossed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, ready to roast:


After about 30 minutes (though I don’t rightly remember how long it was—this is a guess), at 400° F, they looked like this:


I transferred everything into my food processor,


and gave it a few pulses:


Next I deglazed the roasting pan with a little water, scraping up all that yummy caramelized and burnt matter on the bottom of the pan,


and added this to the purée in the food processor:


A few more whirls and it was done. All it needed was a little more salt to bring out the zing:


True, it’s not a traditional spicy salsa, but the roasted peppers add a delicious umami note to the tartness of the tomatillos. And all that garlic does give the salsa its own kind of heat. I’ve been eating it all week, on cottage cheese, in quesadillas, and even with some left-over barbequed spare ribs.

¡Mil de gracias, Harriet!

Beef Wellington

eat. To thank our friend Alan who got us half-price hotels during our recent trip to Britain and Dublin, Cathy and I decided to cook him a fancy English dinner. Knowing his fondness for “gourmet” food, we decided to impress him with a home-cooked beef Wellington—a fillet of beef covered with pâté and duxelle mushrooms, and then wrapped in pastry and baked.

the finished product
(with roasted potatoes and haricots verts)

The dish is named for the famous Duke, though no one is exactly sure why—perhaps simply because he had a fondness for it. Beef Wellington became all the rage in the States in the 1960s, and has the reputation of being difficult to make. (I’ve had it twice in restaurants, and both times the meat was overcooked.) We found, however, that if you simply follow the recipe carefully, it’s not hard to make—but it is somewhat time-consuming. We used the recipe from Gourmet magazine (with certain changes).

The night before the dinner, I made the duxelles, which is basically a mushroom spread. Take a pound of mushrooms, several shallots, and a tablespoon of fresh thyme (stems removed), chop them coarsely, and then mince them all together in a food processor (don’t over-mix or it will turn completely to mush!)


Dump it all into a large skillet, add several tablespoons of butter, and cook the mixture over a medium heat. The mushrooms will first expel their moisture, and then the liquid will cook away.


When most of the liquid is gone, add about a half cup of cooking sherry, and continue to cook the mixture until this has mostly cooked off.


Add more butter to taste,


and then finish the duxelles with about two tablespoons of truffle oil (or finely chopped truffles), and S&P to taste.


Chill the duxelles until needed for the beef.

The trick to having a properly cooked beef Wellington is to roast it in two stages. The second baking is mostly just for the pastry; the meat will only cook a little more. The morning of the dinner, Cathy did the pre-baking of the fillet of beef. She covered the top of the fillet with thin slices of lard, and tied them on with string.

photo: Cathy Kriege
(you can see the block of lard in the background)

Let the larded fillet sit on the counter until it is at room temperature, and then roast it in the middle of a preheated 400° F oven for 25-30 minutes (it should register 120° or a little under on a meat thermometer).


Let the fillet cool completely. Reserve the meat juices for the sauce, and discard (or use for something else) the fat in the baking pan. Make sure you remove the string!

The next step is coating the fillet with the pâté and duxelles. Take ½ pound of room-temperature pâté (we used duck liver, but you could use any kind you like) and blend it with a quarter pound of softened butter.


Spread this pâté mixture over the top and sides of the fillet,


and then spread the duxelles on top of the pâté.


Now it’s time to wrap it in the pastry. We used store-bought frozen (and thawed) puff pastry. Roll it out so it’s big enough to cover the meat, reserving a little of the pastry for garnishes.


Flip the fillet carefully on its back onto the center of the pastry dough,


and then wrap it as you would with wrapping paper, brushing the parts that meet with lightly-beaten egg white.




Turn the wrapped fillet onto a shallow, greased baking pan, and brush the top and sides with an egg wash of lightly-beaten yolk and a little water.


Cut out some garnishes from the reserved dough (cookie cutters would work for this),


and place them on the top of the fillet and brush the garnishes with more egg wash.


Put the fillet in the fridge to let it chill until time to cook—for at least an hour. While it’s chilling, make the sauce.

In a saucepan, mix the reserved meat juices (we had hardly any) and ½ cup of Madeira until it has reduced by a fourth. Dissolve two teaspoons of arrowroot in one tablespoon of water, and whisk this into the mixture in the saucepan, along with a ½ cup of beef broth, and either 2 tablespoons chopped truffles or 2 T truffle oil. Let this cook for five minutes at under a boil, whisking occasionally, until it thickens, and then season with S&P.

The sauce can sit until time for service, when it should be reheated. (This is the reason to use arrowroot rather than cornstarch, as sauces thickened with cornstarch don’t reheat well.)


About an hour before you want to eat the beef Wellington, put the chilled fillet in the middle of a preheated 400° F oven, and bake for 30-40 minutes, until the pastry dough is golden brown, and the internal temperature reads between 120° (rare) and 130° (medium rare)—note that it will continue to cook a little after you take it out of the oven. After about 30 minutes, ours registered only 100°, and the pastry was still pale:


After about 40 minutes, it was done. Let it stand for 15 minutes, and then slice it and set it on a serving platter:


As you can see from the photo at the top of this post, the beef was perfectly cooked—nice and rare! Drizzle the sauce on the pieces after they have been plated up.

Here is a list of the ingredients, for shopping purposes:

a 3 ½ pound fillet of beet, tied with thin sheets of lard
1 pound mushrooms
several shallots
fresh thyme
1 cup cooking sherry or Madeira
4 T truffle oil or chopped truffles
about ½ pound unsalted butter
1 large egg, separated
1 pound puff pastry
2 t arrowroot
½ cup beef broth

I’m Only Here for the Beer

eat. Without doubt, the thing I’m going to miss the most about the UK is the beer—in particular, the real ale. “Real ale”—also called “cask-conditioned ale”—is unfiltered, unpasturized beer or ale which contains live yeast, and which therefore continues to “condition” (i.e., undergo a secondary fermentation) in the cask.

a glass of real ale at a pub in Northumberland

As explained on the Cask Ale website I discovered researching this post,

[c]ask-conditioned beer...is brewed from only traditional ingredients and allowed to mature naturally.

[The secondary fermentation in the cask] creates a gentle, natural CO2 carbonation and allows malt and hop flavours to develop, resulting in a richer tasting drink with more character than standard keg (“brewery-conditioned”) beers.

Real ale is always served without any extraneous gas, usually by manually pulling it up from the cellar with a handpump (also known as a “beer engine”). This is the traditional way of brewing and serving beer; only a few decades ago did filtered, pasteurised, chilled beer served by gas become normal.

The only place in the world where cask-conditioned beer is still commonly available is Britain.

pulling pints in Llandwit Major, Wales

In 1976, when I arrived at Exeter University for a year-long study-abroad program, one of the first campus organizations I joined was the Real Ale Society (another was the Beer Mat Collectors Society).

the Ship Inn, one of the pubs I
frequented during my junior year in Exeter

In this club, I learned that real ale—which since time immemorial had been the only beer there was (besides lager, which doesn’t really count)—was in danger of being completely phased out by British pubs. Cor blimey!

an after-work pint of cask ale in the London suburbs

This was largely the result of efforts by the big breweries to make the switch to keg beer, which, because it is filtered and pasteurized, has a much longer shelf-life and is easier to handle than real ale:

Real ales have to be manually vented and tapped, and left to settle (or the customer gets a cloudy pint due to the presence of yeast and protein—though harmless if drunk like this). Also, real ale will start to taste of vinegar (known as “oxidizing”) if left in a part-full cask for too long.

[From Cask Ale website.]

at the Eagle and Child (where the Inklings
used to meet), Oxford

Luckily, groups like the Real Ale Society at Exeter University—a part of the larger Campaign for Real Ale—were successful, and cask-conditioned ales have made a comeback, and can now be found in most British pubs.

a sign inside the Eagle and Child
(we had the best meat pie—steak and ale—of our trip here)

I did notice during our trip, however, that pubs frequented by the wealthier or higher-educated were much more likely to carry real ale than those patronized by working class folks, who seem to have a taste for keg beers (especially, I was horrified to see, American lagers such as Coors and Budweiser). As if to prove this point, every pub I went to in Oxford had at least six different cask ales to choose from.

at the Trout, just north of Oxford

Robin is not a fan of beer. But—bless her heart—she agreed to have a glass (a half pint) while in Oxford, to try to do as the locals do. I ordered her some Theakston Old Peculiar, which they had on tap at the Lamb and Flag, as it’s a sweet beer, which I thought she might like.

Wrong. She did not like it. In fact, she told me, it gave her a bit of a gag response. I guess beer-drinking is a taste best acquired when young.

Robin with her first (and last) beer

Cathy, on the other hand, loves beer. So after she arrived and Robin returned to California, we hit at least one pub a day. And wherever we could, we tried the real ales.

In my book, there’s no comparison between a cask-conditioned beer and keg beer. Unlike fizzy keg beer, real ale has little carbonation, and the bubbles it does have are tiny and lend an almost creamy mouth-feel to the beer. And it has so much more flavor than the beer you get here in the States.

a glass of real ale next to a prize-winning leek
in a pub in Humshaugh, west of Newcastle

Now that I’m back home I’ve been starting to jones for some real ale. Yes, you can get Old Speckled Hen and Boddington Ale here, which come in cans with “beer widgets,” which do a pretty good job of mimicking the mouth-feel of cask-conditioned ale. But, I wondered, are there any bars that sell honest-to-god real real ale?

Turns out there are, and (duh!) there’s a website that lists them (click here). Alas, no place in Santa Cruz carries real ale, but there are lots in San Francisco. I’ll just have to check some of ’em out. Anyone want to join me?

friendly reminder in pub bathroom in Headington, Oxford

The Creamiest Cream Of Them All

eat. I make no secret of the fact that I am addicted to cream. The thicker, richer and creamier the better, be it a soup, cheese, sauce, or dessert. And in this department, I can think of nothing creamier than clotted cream.

you don’t even have to taste it to know how creamy it is

The name puts some people off. After all, we associate clots with things like.... well... you know.

But if you think about how ancient the word is—the OED dates the first known usage of “clot” to the year 1000, and also cites its appearance in a book printed by Caxton—perhaps it won’t seem so unpleasant. Just think of it as being in Old English: “clotte.”

And once you’ve tasted it, you’ll never worry about the name again.

The first time I had clotted cream was in 1976, when I spent my third year of college at Exeter University, a cathedral city on the south coast of England. It was at this tea shop that I had my first cream tea, a specialty of Devon and Cornwall:

isn’t it cute!
(that’s Cathy standing in front, in the red raincoat)

Cathy had come to stay with me for a week the year I was in Exeter, so we decided to revisit the city during our recent travels in the UK. This of course required a return to the tea shop—where I had taken her 34 years earlier—for another cream tea.


As you can see from the photo above, a cream tea consists of scones (usually two apiece), clotted cream, strawberry jam, and a pot of tea (which one drinks with milk—and sugar too, if one is British). One splits the scones in half, smothers them with a hefty dollop of clotted cream, and then tops them off with a few dabs of jam (can you tell that my pinkie is extended as I write this?):


The clotted cream at the Exeter tea shop was as it should be: thick and velvety, with a rich, creamy flavor. But the scones were not so good; they were hard and seemed overcooked. Nevertheless, we gobbled it all up.

For our next cream tea, we decided to do it ourselves, buying the ingredients at different shops, so as to assure their quality.

Cathy in front of an ad for the Marks and Spencer
store on Oxford Street, London

So we bought some scones from a bakery near St. Paul’s cathedral, and then made our way to a fabulous cheese shop across the street from the Borough Market, on the south-side of the Thames near the London Bridge.

Neal's Yard Dairy—a must-visit for all true cheese lovers
(yes, we bought some cheese there, too)

Here we found a tub of clotted cream made with cream from Jersey cows, which produce the richest milk of all the dairy breeds.

When we got back to our hotel room, we opened the window and set the clotted cream on the sill, to keep it cool during the night. The next morning, we took our scones and clotted cream with us down to breakfast, knowing the requisite strawberry jam would be on the table.


We opened up the tub of clotted cream, and both exclaimed at the hue—a deep yellow, the color of whipped butter:


I sliced my enormous scone in two, and slathered it with the cream:


Next I dabbed a little strawberry jam on top:


As Toad famously said in The Wind in the Willows, Oh my! Oh my! Oh my!

You can get clotted cream here in the States, but it’s pricey. So if you’d like to try making your own, here are a few links. This is a no-cook method from Alton Brown. This one cooks in the oven. And this is the traditional stove-top method. (I have not tried any of the recipes.)