Norwitz Notions

I was inspired by a trip to Han Il Kwan, a Korean restaurant in San Francisco. They had a huge spread of fermented dishes, including glorious crisp and sour turnip pickles. My attempt was simple and only partially successful.

I can tell you straight out that I used the wrong kind of turnip. What I had was ordinary purple top, but the ones at the restaurant were a different variety (the waitstaff didn’t know which). I also didn’t get the seasonings right.

The recipe for this or any other fermented vegetable is very easy. Wash and cut your vegetable(s). I used turnips and some dried chile peppers I removed the seeds from and broke up with my hands. Put in a bowl with some salt (I used kosher, to taste). Knead it all a bit so the juices release, or just let it sit.

Next, pack the veggies tightly into a clean glass jar or other container. Pour the juice into the jar. Put a weight into the jar to keep the veggies submerged (I used a clean soy sauce jar with water in it). Cover the whole thing with a towel and check it the next day. If there isn’t enough liquid, add some salt water.

Kim Chee, Red Onions, and Turnips
The pan of soapy water is to keep out ants

Then let it sit for a week, two, three, or as long as you like. If there is mold, just wipe/spoon it away and clean the weight too. When you are ready to decant, work carefully so that you keep any mold on top where it is easy to get rid of it. This batch had plenty on top but I spooned it out then poured the top bit of liquid in the sink. Don’t be afraid of mold; there is so much good bacteria in the mix that the mold isn’t going to hurt you, it just can add an off taste.

Now you’re ready to eat. This picture is of the kim chee I made (on left) and the turnip pickles (on right). I tried the turnip pickles after a week of fermenting and they had very little flavor and were quite boring. I finally decanted them after 6 weeks. The flavor is good (though not at all spicy) but the texture is too soft. They’re still quite edible but nothing like the restaurant pickles. Now I have an excuse to make more.

I like Ann Gittleman. She is the former Pritikin nutritionist who realized that ultra-low fat was not a healthy way to eat and took on her boss in the book Beyond Pritikin. Some of her ideas and viewpoints make a lot of sense and she is willing to forge her own path without getting bogged down by convention. Unfortunately, she tends to repeat many of the same notes, and they contradict each other.

Your Body Knows Best is really distillations of several approaches, stuck together as if they complemented each other instead of clashing. It’s a hard trick to pull off. Gabriel Cousens manages it (barely), but Gittleman misses the mark.

Her premise is a good one: that we each need to find the diet that fits our body the best, instead of trying to force ourselves into the diet of the year. But the way she goes about it is pat. This approach to food is great, she says, so let’s incorporate it. And this one too. With little quizzes and other ways of determining which blood type you are and if you are a fast burner or a slow burner and what your ancestors ate. Put it all together and ta da! you’ve got chaos.

She is still coming off of lowfat mania and she introduces the idea of moderating one’s carb intake as a radical concept. I realize the book was published in 1996, but Atkins was pretty well known even then. Unfortunately, the fat phobia she was taught is still well ingrained, as she says things like avoid tofu because it’s too fatty (a cup of tofu, plenty for dinner, has just 10 grams of fat, mostly polyunsaturated essential fatty acids).

Her idea of ancestral diets doesn’t make sense either. I like the idea…your genetics probably adapted to the diet your ancestors ate over the last few hundred thousand years. Only she suggests going back just a few generations. My ancestry is the same as hers: Eastern European Jewish, but a diet of goose fat and potatoes is not exactly what I would thrive on. Wouldn’t it make more sense to go back to, say, Northern/Mediterranean Africa?

Gittleman also has an agenda. It is: eat meat. Why? because when she was young she became a vegetarian for spiritual reasons and went on an extreme vegan raw diet that made her sick. So her conclusion is that everyone needs meat (she does concede that a few might not) and cooked foods and that spiritual reasons don’t count. Contrast this with Cousens in Conscious Eating who thinks that everyone can (and should) be a vegan and eat all or mostly all raw foods. I don’t buy either approach 100% but Cousens made a much stronger case. All Gittleman has for her argument is it didn’t work for her. Though, had she consulted Cousens, he would have put her on a much different type of raw vegan cuisine than she had been eating and maybe she would have done well (or at least better).

Some of the underlying ideas Gittleman discusses are sound but condensing it all to are you O, A, B, or AB, where did your grandparents live, and are you a fast or slow burner is so simplistic that it ends up not meaning much. She’s right that no diet fits all, but pigeonholing people into a handful of categories doesn’t work either.

Most of our Thanksgiving dinners are in the community room of Ecology House, an 11-unit government (HUD) complex for people disabled with chemical sensitivity. Every year, with the help of the Environmental Health Network, the residents there host a (supplemented) potluck dinner for the entire chemical sensitivity community. It’s great fun. I share the disability but live 20 minutes north. We understand the value of organics: organic food is our medicine!

A few of the guests sharing their meal.

There was an organic turkey, stuffing, a variety of side dishes, desserts, and more.

Main food tables.

Michael carving the turkey.

Dessert Table.

I brought five offerings, all homemade (from scratch), organic, and vegan: 1) Cranberry sauce (made with lemon instead of orange due to my daughter’s allergy); 2) pumpkin pie with a pecan crust (I cooked and pureed pumpkins from the farm across the street from me); 3) cashew cream; 4) edamame salad with roasted red cabbage; and 5) two vases of flowers and greenery from my (certified organic) property.

My food offerings plus one of my flower arrangements (the one on the right). Note how they’re on a special table to avoid cross-contamination with potential allergens. All foods at Ecology House or Environmental Health Network events are labelled with ingredients.

Organic isn’t just about the food either. Ecology House was built with lower-toxin materials and uses no pesticides, herbicides, carpets, or VOC-containing products. All residents and guests are required to use fragrance-free nontoxic personal care products (we buy organic when possible). Most of us can’t afford all organic clothing, but it’s all my daughter wore for her first 6 months, with a large percentage of organic fiber afterwards.

How wonderful it was to celebrate the holiday not just with good friends and good food, but in a place with clean unpolluted air.

Ending on a cute note. Miriam having fun (age 2 1/2).

One of my favorite recipes but one I can’t have any more (I can cheat with the dairy, but not the eggs).

Recipe adapted from Joy of Cooking by Michael Norwitz
For the regular versions (with sugar) see cheesecake and pumpkin cheesecake

Ingredients:

2 well-beaten eggs
3/4 lb to 1 lb firm cream cheese (softened to room temperature)
3/4 to 1 teaspoon stevia or to taste (plain white powder)
1/2 teaspoons flavoring of your choice (lemon juice or a flavored extract) or to taste or 1/4 teaspoon cardamon and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups thick cultured sour cream
2 tablespoons almond powder or flour
2 tablespoons butter
optional: 2 cups berries of choice (halved or sliced)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Crust:

Melt butter and use to coat tin.
Dust with almond powder or flour.

Filling:

Mix together the eggs, cream cheese, 3/4 to 1 teaspoon stevia, and 1 teaspoon flavoring.
Pour the cream cheese mixture into the crust, and bake for 20 minutes
Mix together sour cream, 1/4 teaspoon stevia, and 1/2 teaspoon flavoring.
Remove pie tin from oven; layer will have risen.
Let cool (until the cream cheese layer has compacted) and increase oven temp to 425 degrees. If you are adding berries, cover the bottom layer evenly.
Pour sour cream mixture over the cake.
Bake for 5 minutes. Let it cool to room temp, and refrigerate for about 6 hours.

Alternate crusts:

2 cups nuts of choice (almonds, walnuts, etc): Run nuts through a food processor until they have a fine texture. Melt butter and mix well with the nuts. Press into the pie tin. This has a good flavor but distracts from the cheesecake somewhat.

Or: dust with two tablespoons vanilla soy powder instead of almond. This is good for those with nut allergies, although it does tend to clump slightly into thin flakes.

This picture is a bit of a cheat since it is a slightly different recipe (New York style) with some sugar, baked in a spring form pan. This was the bottom layer (of 3) of our wedding cake from 2005. Blackberry compote topping.

An earlier version of this recipe was posted to my lowcarb website June, 1, 1999.
Other listings: Gourmet Sleuth article on Stevia & recipes listing

This cake came from a mix:

Sylvan Border Farm
Gluten-Free Products
Lemon Cake Mix
1 lb, 10.7 oz (762.6 g)
Mendocino Gluten-Free Products, Inc.
P.O. Box 277, Willits, CA 95490
(800) 297-5399; Fax: (707) 459-1834
http://www.sylvanborderfarm.com/

INGREDIENTS: Sugar, Potato Starch, White Rice Flour, Brown Rice Flour*, Aluminum-free Baking Powder, Amaranth Flour, Quinoa Flour*, Xanthan Gum, Lemon Juice Powder, White Cornmeal*, Garbanzo Bean Flour*, Soy Flour*, Salt. *Organically Grown

The mix cost me a mere 99 cents, because it was being discontinued from the store where I got it. I finally used it the other day.

We made it for Miriam, as a cake to bring to other children’s birthday parties. It’s really hard on her to watch everyone else eat cake (and pizza and other special treats) and not be able to have any herself. So we bring her lunch and a sweet treat. We used this cake at her cousin’s birthday party and I froze the rest in single servings for future parties.

The recipe couldn’t be simpler: 1 bag mix, 3/4 cup orange juice (we used jarred lemon juice), 3/4 cup oil (we used sunflower), and 4 eggs (we used 4 tablespoons flaxseed meal nuked in 1 1/3 cups of water). Then you beat the heck out of it for two minutes. They recommend a big mixer with a dough hook but we don’t have one, so I used a stick blender with a whisk attachment, which worked well.

The mix includes a recipe for a lemon glaze but I made a cherry one instead, boiling sugar, cherry juice, dark cherries (chopped), and a pinch of salt. As recommended, we poured it hot over the hot finished cake (with some holes poked in it) and let it cool. The cake soaked up the sauce.

The cake is extremely dense. I don’t know if my not using eggs was a factor, or that we didn’t beat it with the recommended equipment. Or maybe it’s supposed to be that dense. It was good though, despite the fact that it was so carby (the mix prepared as suggested has 15 servings and each has a whopping 42 grams of carbs , with virtually no fiber) it made my teeth hurt. Miriam doesn’t eat much of it at a time, but she was satisfied with it. I think it would make a good base for an ice cream cake.

A friend of mine asked me yesterday to please put up my vegan alfredo recipe next on my blog, so I did. I am slowly consolidating all my recipe sites, adding in recipes I published on mailing lists but never put on a website, and creating new ones.

Are there any requests? For specific recipes? For recipe categories or ingredients?  More pictures?
Any non-recipe requests?

All my web recipes are on one of these sites:

Vegetarian Lowcarb Recipes
Cyndi’s Recipes
Cyndi’s Journal

Please comment below and let me know!

A rich alfredo sauce you’ll swear has eggs or dairy…but it doesn’t…

Sauce Ingredients:

1 lb tofu (silken (I like Nasoya) is best but even firm is okay–it must be completely bland tasting)
1 cup raw cashews (unsalted–I store them in the freezer and use them without defrosting)
1/2-2/3 cup lemon juice (fresh or in bottle)
Fresh basil leaves (optional–use any amount from 2 leaves to 1 cup, depending on the taste and color you are looking for)
1-3 garlic cloves (to taste–don’t use powder)
Salt to taste (I find it needs at least a little)
Water (use as much as you need to get the right consistency; if you use firm tofu, you will need more water)

Blend all ingredients (you need a good blender or food processor) until very smooth. The sauce should be ever so slightly more watery than you want the finished product to be. This is a matter of taste, but try for the consistency of dairy alfredo sauce. Put the sauce into a pot. Heat on low heat until warm enough to serve. Do not cook.

Serve over noodles of your choice–A good lowcarb choice is Nutrition Kitchen’s organic soy angelhair pasta. For non-lowcarbers (who eat gluten), a good choice is fresh fettucini pasta (warning: supermarket versions contain eggs) but regular spaghetti, among others, works well too. I usually serve it with sauteed veggies as below. You can also eat it just with the veggies, or use it cold as a spread.

Veggie ingredients:

Slices of veggies of your choice–I recommend carrots, broccoli, radishes, string beans, spinach, etc (not all at once, vary color and texture). I do not recommend tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, onions (well, maybe), ginger, but you can do whatever you want.
Olive oil (or canola or anything bland)
Pine nuts (optional but very good)
A little white wine cooked in can be good if you’re in the mood for the flavor it gives Saute veggies in oil until tender. Add pine nuts. Serve with pasta and sauce.

See? Easy. The hardest part is cleaning the blender. Made with veggies, this recipe should serve 2 hungry people with some leftovers. If you add salad, bread, dessert, etc, you might be able to feed four average eaters. The whole thing (cooking 3 things at the same time) should take about 30-45 minutes to make (if you’re an experienced cook–add 15-30 minutes if you’re not).

An earlier version of this recipe was posted to rec.food.veg February 11, 1991
and posted to my lowcarb website February 28, 1999

Other listings: OmPlace Altwire recipe of the week (11/4/2003)

Wow, great time, Cyndi. Umm…wait a minute…aren’t those two cities only 35 miles apart?

That’s right, an hour drive turned into a 13 hour trip. Despite the nasty weather, Miriam and I drove to San Francisco yesterday around noon. The rain was pounding and visibility was pretty awful, so we drove slowly. Plus a piece of Park Presidio (a major road in SF) was shut and the detour added a few minutes. Still, we felt lucky to make it in just an hour and a half.

As I got ready to go home in the evening, I promised my hosts I would call 511 (local traffic advisory, also at 511.org) before leaving, but of course I forgot. Shortly after crossing the Golden Gate, I heard on the radio that highway 101 (which I was on) was closed at the Novato Narrows (inbetween where I was and my house). I pulled off at an exit and called 511 to verify. Yep. Highway closed, travellers advised to avoid the area and take alternate routes.

Only there are no alternate routes. To the east you can take highway 37 to Lakeville highway (about 40 min detour with normal traffic) but Lakeville is a fast, dangerous (1 lane in each direction, no divider), rural road in the best of conditions, and it was still pouring rain with little visibility. And it turns out that 37 was flooded near 101 too (the news reports say they were able to divert traffic this way, but it took 2 hours!). To the west you can go through Novato and take Novato Blvd to the Petaluma Pt Reyes road to the D Street Extension into Petaluma (also about 40 mins extra) but it is dark, rural, and I had no way of knowing if it was even open.

Because the 101 closure happened at the north end of Novato, the next town up was Petaluma, about 12 miles away, with the next exit maybe 5 miles up. In a prolonged emergency, they could have routed northbound traffic (the only one affected by the flooding, though southbound flooded and closed elsewhere) into the southbound lanes. And maybe they did, but the radio and 511 didn’t say and the flashing sign they set up before the closure just said it was closed. (The news says the entire freeway had to be closed and no lanes were usable.)

So Miriam and I drove to a friend’s empty house in Novato (after getting gas and picking up the keys in San Rafael) and spent the night. Miriam managed to sleep through all of this. She was out maybe 5 mins after leaving our friend’s house in SF and didn’t wake up until I brought her inside. And what an angel. Not only was she polite and sweet (though needy) during my hours of helping a friend pack, but she woke right up in Novato and helped me traipse around the house looking for sheets.

We woke up this morning and the rain had stopped and the highway was open (though highway 37 and some others are still closed). At the place where the closure was reported, I could see why…the huge (multiple acres) lake to the east there must have overflowed its banks. Only there isn’t a lake there, just pasture. Most of the year anyway.

We got home at 9:30am, about 13 hours after leaving San Francisco. Thank God for cell phones and generous friends. It could have been a lot worse.

News:

Press Democrat, Jan 26, 2008: Deluge closes 101 at county line

“As the water rose, freeway traffic was able to get by in single lanes, but by 8 p.m. the CHP was forced to close the highway entirely. Traffic was reported to be backed up for miles at times in both directions. Eventually, Highway 101 was closed between Petaluma and Atherton in Marin. Vehicles were stalled in water and had to be towed out”

Press Democrat, Jan 26, 2008: More showers on the way

“The Friday evening commute on Highway 101 turned to disastrous gridlock when the San Antonio Creek overflowed south of Petaluma. The highway, which was closed at 8 p.m., finally was opened to traffic at 5 a.m. this morning.”

Marin Independent Journal, Jan 25, 2008: Marin reels as slow storm keeps ‘pumping rain’

Drivers in both directions were diverted to Highway 37 and Sonoma County side roads, said Officer Tom Stewart of the California Highway Patrol. A drive time of more than 2 hours was reported between Novato and Petaluma.”

This recipe couldn’t be easier.

Take one head of green cabbage and one head of red cabbage. Cut in half, remove the core, and slice into long strips.

Toss in a baking pan with olive oil and salt.

Bake at 350*F until very soft with intense flavor. Stir every 15 mins or so to release water and keep it from burning.

Remove from oven and add balsamic vinegar, stir. For the 2 head recipe, maybe add 2-3 tablespoons.

Serve.

That’s it. This is a great way to eat more vegetables without feeling like you’re eating a ton of food. 1 head of cabbage can easily serve one person if the rest of the dinner is light. But this 2 head dish can be divided into about 4 servings if desired.

I like to serve this with baked salmon or other fish or as a side dish to tofu, nut loaf, or just about anything.

Here’s another very simple recipe that I make all the time.

Salmon lends itself well to baking (aka roasting in this case) since it is thick, has plenty of fat, and has firm flesh. There are some differences in the varieties of salmon but the main thing to keep in mind is fat content. Just adjust the recipe a bit to add more fat to leaner salmon and more spice and other flavor to fattier salmon.

You can use frozen salmon if it’s not too thick, but the texture will be better if it is defrosted first (just toss in the fridge overnight). Fresh is best if available.

My basic recipe is to put olive oil, an acid (vinegar or wine), a flavoring agent (soy sauce or mustard), and seasoning (salt–unless there is a lot of salt in your other ingredients, pepper, and herbs) in a pan. Lay the fish skin side up in the pan and let it marinade for a few minutes. Longer in the fridge is fine, but do it for at least 5-10 mins. Then flip the fish so the skin side is down (if there is no skin, or it’s a steak, just do this with either side first) and bake. I do it at 350*F for 20-30 mins (time varies a lot so don’t go based on a timer). It’s done when the inside flakes and has lost its mushiness.

If you use mustard, slather it on top of the fish before baking. With fresh herbs, you can lay the fish in the liquid on top of the herb spears before baking. The flavor infuses and makes a big difference, especially with a blander cut of fish.

I like to serve this with roasted vegetables, roasted cabbage, a lettuce salad, or a raw veggie salad. It’s good laid on top of the salad in strips too. If you have leftovers, they (minus any skin) make a good fish salad the next day when cold (I mix in minced celery, mustard, mayo, salt and pepper).

The version in the picture below was made with olive oil, soy sauce (wheat-free tamari), and white wine. Mustard is on top and the fish is lying on spears of oregano and rosemary.

This is so easy it’s not really a recipe. But it’s one of my mainstays and I refer to it so often that I might as well put it on “paper.”

My basic recipe is as follows:

Cut up a bunch of vegetables, mostly root veggies that do not release a lot of water, toss in the pan with olive oil, salt, and fresh rosemary, then roast until done.

I bake at 350*F if I am cooking something else at the same time that needs that temp, or if I’m busy doing other things. It is faster to bake at 450*F, but you have to pay more attention. With the lower temp, stir every 15-30 mins, more often towards the end. With the higher temp, do not go longer than 15 mins without stirring.

Use a large pan where the veggies can be in a single layer, preferably with some space around them (to avoid mushiness). It takes about an hour, so this is something best done when you have another job for the oven.

The picture below is a roast with carrots, rutabaga, golden beet, and parsnips. I often use purple top turnips and don’t usually do parsnips, but I had some on hand. The carrots are great for giving it some color. You don’t want a monochrome when serving a main dish that is also mostly one color. Fennel and leeks work well.

Red beets have too much water and should be baked on their own, but the golden work well in the mixture. Cauliflower is a good addition but will add a lot of water. Roast things like cabbage or mushrooms separately. Sweet potatoes and winter squash have flavors that don’t tend to mesh well with the vegetables above, but that is of course a matter of personal taste.

For a lower carb roast, avoid things like parsnip and stick to less starchy vegetables like turnip, rutabaga, fennel, and leeks. Carrots and beets have slightly more carbs but are still fairly low.

Some people plan out their meals, setting aside ingredients and making lists for those they don’t have. Others wing it based on what looks good in the market or what’s at home. Although I sometimes plan, especially when I’m having guests, I’m more apt to wing it. Last night was a perfect example.

I knew I was going to make roasted vegetables but wasn’t sure what else. Michael was off to Costco and I told him to get any fresh wild fish that looked good. He got sole. There was some wild ahi , but we try not to eat tuna very often due to mercury, and there was exactly one package of anything else that was left (farmed fish doesn’t count; we won’t eat it unless it’s from a place we trust), so he got it.

My heart sank when I saw the package. I love Dover sole and we eat it regularly, but it comes in small thin pieces which require a lot of work to cook with. But this wasn’t Dover, it was Petrale sole, which is thicker and bigger.

I chopped up the veggies for the side dish and there were some aging crimimi mushrooms I wanted to use. Since they release a lot of water, I didn’t really want them in with the veggies, so I decided to use them with the fish. I sliced them and put them in the pan with a bit of olive oil and salt. Then I slid them in the oven which was already on for the veggies.

Petrale sole is still pretty thin compared to most fish, and Costco has big packages, so I knew I wasn’t going to get it all in a single layer in one pan. I decided to double up, with some veggies inbetween, and then semi-poach it all in the oven.

I’m glad I precooked the mushrooms. They were very flavorful and it gave me some liquid to work with on the bottom. In the hot pan, I mixed them with some fresh oregano and rosemary from my garden (I wanted sage but my sage plant wasn’t producing enough) and pushed them all to one corner. I put a few across part of the pan, lay a piece of fish on top, then put sun-dried tomatoes (in olive oil and herbs) on the fish along with some more mushrooms, another piece of fish, and more tomatoes and mushrooms. Then I repeated it for the rest of the pan (I had 7 pieces total so I used the 3 smallest on the bottom layer and topped with 2 bigger ones).

I baked it in a 350*F oven (if you’re making vegetables on the side, put in when they are nearly done) for about 20-30 minutes. The liquid from the vegetables and the fish itself created a wonderful sauce that led to the fish being poached or steamed as much as baked.

Delicious.

This review was written February 15, 2006 as a letter to local restaurant reviewer Jeff Cox who promoted this place in the Press Democrat on January 22, 2006.  Note that we went there before discovering our food allergies, so the review doesn’t speak to that.

CHEAP EATS
Authentic means good
Here’s what I look for in a Thai restaurant: reasonable (read: cheap) prices, good-sized portions, organic ingredients whenever possible, friendly folks, and an authentic way with Thai specialties like Pad Thai. That’s what you’ll find at Thai Hut Valley, 8492 Highway 116 South, #M,Cotati; (707) 665-0186.

Dear Mr. Cox,

Last night my husband and I, along with our 11 month old daughter, went to Thai Hut Valley based on your mini-review. We were disappointed. The food was mixed though and I wonder if you just got lucky and hit the few good dishes.

You claim the place is cheap, with big servings, organic ingredients, friendly service, and authentic tastes. Well, it was inexpensive, though the plates were about average or even small. If there were organic ingredients used, I couldn’t tell. The service was friendly but incompetent. And the flavors were Americanized.

One thing I loved about Thai Hut is that when we asked if we could get the coconut soup without chicken, the waiter replied, “would you like to see our vegetarian menu?” Music to our ears! We ordered vegetarian and seafood dishes, including coconut soup with tofu.

The soup base was delicious. A mix of Thai flavors that went very well together. But the tofu was bland and the vegetables were the usual “Asian” mix. What’s an “Asian” mix? it’s that ubiquitous blend of boring Middle America vegetables cooked to minimize flavor. White onion, green cabbage, carrot, zucchini, and white button mushrooms. These excuses for vegetables were not only in the soup but another dish we ordered, in a slightly different combination. The soup was salvaged by a meaty slice of ginger root (which my daughter spent a good 10 minutes chewing on), Thai basil, and what appeared to be a kaffir lime leaf. My daughter adored this soup and my husband and I enjoyed it as well, once we’d passed the vegetables along to our daughter.

We had freshly poured water and menus at our table when we sat down, but nothing else. We had to ask for a highchair. When the soup came, the waiter asked if we’d like rice with it. “No,” I replied, “just bowls.” He looked down at the table, registered some shock, and left to bring us bowls and spoons. A couple minutes later, he brought plates. We had to remind him to bring us napkins. When the plated dishes came, we had to ask for silverware. We also had to ask for a plate and napkin for our daughter.

The first of two plated dishes we ordered came soon after starting our soup. The other came about 15 minutes later, after we’d finished the first dish. The first dish was a seafood combination with sauteed eggplant. The shellfish (mussels, scallops, and shrimp) were cooked the right amount of time, the eggplant was perfectly creamy (my husband called it mushy and tasteless but I thought it was just right), and the sauce was wonderful.

My biggest problem with that dish was that it was advertised as hot. We asked the waiter to bring it medium and, when he heard how blistering my husband liked his food, volunteered to bring some spicy sauce on the side. Well, the dish had no heat whatsoever. It tasted fine but it wasn’t what we were promised. No extra sauce appeared. My daughter enjoyed the sauce as she isn’t yet appreciative of heat.

The last dish was a disaster. Mixed vegetables with tofu and a peanut sauce. The vegetables were all the “Asian” mix I describe above and they were bland as could be. The tofu had no flavor at all (tofu is supposed to be mild but, when it’s cooked properly, it should convey the seasoning, not just add to the mush factor).

And the sauce…probably the worst peanut sauce I’ve ever had. It tasted like cheap crunchy peanut butter with a lot of sugar. There was no heat, no seasoning, no subtlety of flavors. Just sweetness and a cloying chemical flavor. Shortly after my first bite, I got a tell-tale headache that let me know I’d ingested a preservative (potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate, or something like that). While I suspect the peanut sauce, it could have been anything. So much for homemade.

If we had gone there and had nothing but coconut soup and seafood combination, I’d probably consider the place a nice little find, worth going to again if we were already in Cotati. But given the full experience, it was less than noteworthy.

Good Thai restaurants are so hard to find. We haven’t had any luck in Sonoma County, though I admit only trying a couple. Our favorite in the Bay Area is Phuping Thai in Richmond (next to 99 Ranch–they also have one in San Francisco) [note: the place has new owners and the food has suffered]. Unfortunately, Thai Hut Valley was far from the mark.

So easy and so good. These cultured onions are great on burgers, wraps, or anyplace you might think of adding onions.Thinly slice (I use a mandolin) peeled red onions into rings. They should be quite thin, so they don’t hold their shape well.

Add salt to taste. Let sit and/or knead a bit with one hand.

Pack onions tightly into a clean glass jar. Pour in any leftover onion juice. Label the jar with the product and the date.

Take a clean glass jar with a diameter smaller than the opening of the onion jar. Fill the smaller jar with water and put on a lid. Place it inside the onion jar to keep the onions submerged under the liquid. (The pan of water, and a touch of soap, is to keep out ants.)

Cover the whole thing with a dish towel (to keep out flies) and check it the next day. If the water level has not come up high enough to completely cover the onions, add a bit of salt water, or juice leftover from previous ferments.

Check the onions daily to make sure they are not exposed to air. Bubbles in the jar are a good thing; it means that fermentation is happening. If you get a bit of mold on the top, scrape it off and continue.

I’ve made them twice now. The first time I used kosher salt and let it sit for a week. They were perfect: crisp and delicious and slightly sour. The second time I used celtic sea salt and added a little bit of the juice from the first batch. I also let it sit for a week. The juice helped the fermentation process start up faster, so this batch is more fermented than the first. I think I like the first one better, but they’re both very good.

4 medium sized onions packs a quart jar. I didn’t measure the salt but I’d guess about a tablespoon total, maybe more.

You can cook the onions but, if you eat them raw, you get all the benefits of the cultures. Just like with youghurt.

I am slowly starting to make my way through the big bag full of product samples and information I got at last year’s Expo West. If I’m lucky, I’ll do most of it before I go again this year.

Stem Ginger Cookies
Sunstart Bakery
“Cookies made from ingredients naturally free from gluten and wheat”
“Sunstart Bakery is a dedicated wheat-free facility located in the beautiful glens of Antrim in Northern Ireland. Sunstart Bakery is accredited with the higher British retail council award and is the recipient of the British Bakery award for innovation. Sunstart Bakery USA was established in 2004 and our USA facility is centrally located near Chicago.”
$4.20 per 7 oz (10 cookie) box or $3.00 each if you buy a case of 12.

They have several flavors:

Chocolate Chip
Coconut
Raspberry
Stem Ginger
Chocolate & Orange

I’ve only tasted the ginger.

Ingredients: Flour base (brown rice flakes, millet flakes, soya flour, corn starch, xanthan gum), desiccated coconut, naturally evaporated cane sugar, stem ginger, molasses, monounsaturated safflower oil, rice syrup, sea salt.

For all of the cookies, they state they are free of wheat, gluten, eggs, nuts, potato, vege (don’t know what that is), and transfats. For the following, they list them as things the cookies are not free of: dairy, corn, soy.

But the ingredients do not mention dairy at all. The box does say “contains milk & soya.” I am not sensitive enough to dairy to be able to tell if there are trace amounts there. They are definitely and totally gluten-free from what I can tell, not just their ingredients but Codex compliance and a dedicated facility.

Okay, here’s the fun part, the nice people at the booth last year gave me a whole box to take home. We made them last. They are some of the best boxed cookies I’ve ever had. They are flaky and melt in your mouth with intense flavor. They are big and substantial enough that one is a dessert. Miriam loves them too and considered a cookie to be adequate compensation for not getting cake at a friend’s birthday party.

Although they are hardly lowcarb (though not terrible at 10 grams usable carbs (12-2 fiber) per 20 gram cookie), I’m seriously considering ordering a case.