Urban Solace's Biscuits Live On

Last week San Diego lost two of its favorite restaurants. I say this with remorse because if all of us who loved both Urban Solace and Solace and the Moonlight Lounge had eaten there more frequently we wouldn't be mourning them. And chef/owner Matt Gordon would still be working way too hard feeding us.

It's all our fault.

Years ago I used to say that if you discover a great restaurant in New York or L.A., you keep it to yourself so you can continue to get in. But in San Diego you have to tell everyone you know and even strangers so it'll stay in business. Sadly, that still appears to be true.

It's all our fault.

I met up with friends for Urban Solace's final service and it was, ironically, packed. And it seemed that everyone was eating Matt's Cheese and Chive biscuits. For years we've all loved the biscuits. They were perfection. Flaky, just thick enough and with a texture that didn't stick in your throat like Bisquick biscuits, but glided down--lubricated with Matt's sweet and creamy Orange Honey Butter.

So, here's the good news if you missed the meal or are missing Urban Solace. I have the recipes for both. In fact, I also have the Basil Cream Biscuit recipe from Matt's late Sea & Smoke restaurant in Del Mar.

You may already have them yourself. You see, I wrote about Matt and his biscuits, along with his tips for making them, back in 2015 for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Want a laugh? Even Matt's wife Young Mi was thrilled to know they exist because Matt's restaurant version that was posted in the kitchen is scaled for like 100. These recipes call for a much more reasonable 15.

So, if you're in mourning for Urban Solace and Solace and the Moonlight Lounge, here's my contribution to the shiva.

And, fair warning: Don't neglect your favorite restaurants! Support them so you can continue to enjoy them.

Matt, thank you for so many years of so many delicious, creative meals! I can't wait to see what you do next!

The Rise of the Biscuit





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Dorie Greenspan's Lemon Goop

When it comes to condiments I have to admit, I think I'm a hoarder. Some of it has to do quite simply with my food writing. If I'm at a farmers market or ethnic market and see something I want to try and then write about, it goes home with me into my fridge or pantry. If I discover some marvelous sauce from a chef, I want to make it for my kitchen. One of my favorites is preserved lemon, which, yes, I've written about.

So, when I got Dorie Greenspan's new cookbook, Everyday Dorie: The Way I Cook (HMH/Rux Martin Books, $35), which I'm writing a story about for the San Diego Union-Tribune, and I saw that she had a recipe at the back of the book she calls Lemon "Goop" I had to check it out. It's like preserved lemons, but it's a jammy-like condiment. And it's made with both salt and sugar. And in making it you also get lemon syrup. So it's also a two-fer.

Lemon goop and syrup ares easy to make. You're going to peel the zest from 6 large lemons, then cut off the top and bottom of each lemon and cut off the rest of the rind and pith so all that's left is the fruit.

From there you'll section the lemons. Then you'll combine sugar, salt, and water in a pot and bring the mixture to the boil. Add the zest and the lemon sections, bring back to the boil, then lower the heat so that it just simmers. Leave it for about an hour. Once it's cooked down and nice and syrupy, remove it from the heat, and strain the syrup from the lemon solids. Puree the solids in a food processor or blender, using some of the syrup to create the texture you want. That's it.

Lemon goop is just the acidic/sweet note you want to hit to balance the richness of a fatty fish. Or a pork chop. Or roasted chicken. The syrup can play all sorts of roles. Dorie adds it to vinaigrettes, as she mentions below. How about mixing it with garlic and ginger and a little neutral oil to brush onto shrimp for roasting? Or add to a seafood salad?

The great thing is that you have plenty of time to consider how to use the lemon goop and syrup because it lasts in your refrigerator for ages--like forever--until you use it up. Just keep it tightly covered.

Oh, and one more thing. Dorie Greenspan will be visiting San Diego on November 11. She’ll be appearing first at The Chino Farm in Rancho Santa Fe from 10:30 to 12:30 as part of the Good Earth/Great Chefs series to sign books purchased at the event. The event occurs rain or shine and is free to the public. In the evening, I’ll be interviewing her at the Lawrence Family JCC, starting at 5 p.m. General admission tickets are $18 and can be purchased online at www.lfjcc.org.

Lemon "Goop" and Syrup
from Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan
(printable recipe)

Makes about ⅔ cup goop and ¾ cup syrup

I had something like this years and years ago at a restaurant near Le Dôme in Paris. It was served with tuna; perhaps tuna cooked in olive oil, I don’t remember. What I do remember is that I loved it, went home, tried to re-create it and came up short. The second time I had it was at a Paris bistro called Les Enfants Rouges, where the chef, Daï Shinozuka, served a dab of it with fish. Daï gave me a recipe — and this is based on it — but his started with preserved lemons. The recipe I finally came up with uses ordinary lemons and finishes up as a glossy jam that tastes a little like preserved lemons but is sweeter and more complex.

You’ll have more syrup than you need to make the jam — aka “goop” — but the syrup is as good as the jam. I’ve added it to vinaigrettes (page 307), roasted beets, sautéed green beans, tuna salad, chicken salad and more. It’s a terrific “tool” to have in the fridge.

I serve the goop with fish and shellfish, pork and chicken. To start you on the road to playing around with this, try it on Twice-Flavored Scallops (page 193).

6 large lemons
2 cups (480 ml) water
1½ cups (300 grams) sugar
2 teaspoons fine sea salt

WORKING AHEAD Refrigerate the goop and syrup separately until needed. In a tightly covered container, the syrup will keep forever, and the goop’s lifespan is only slightly shorter.

1. Using a vegetable peeler or small paring knife, remove the zest from 3 of the lemons, taking care not to include any of the white pith; set aside.
2. One by one, cut a slice from the top and bottom of each lemon, cutting deeply enough to reveal the fruit. Stand the lemon upright on a cutting board and, cutting from top to bottom, slice away the rind and pith, again cutting until the fruit is revealed. Slice between the membranes of each lemon to release the segments.
3. Bring the water, sugar and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Drop in the segments and reserved zest and bring back to a boil, then lower the heat so that the syrup simmers gently. Cook for about 1 hour, at which point the syrup will have thickened and the lemons will have pretty much fallen apart. It might look as though the lemons have dissolved, but there’ll still be fruit in the pan. Remove from the heat.
4. The fruit needs to be pureed, a job you can do with a blender (regular or immersion) or a food processor; if you have a mini-blender or mini-processor, use it.
5. Strain the syrup into a bowl and put the fruit in the blender or processor. (Save the syrup in the bowl!) Add a spoonful of the syrup to the lemons and whir until you have a smooth, glistening puree. Add more syrup as needed to keep the fruit moving and to get the consistency you want. I like the goop when it’s thick enough to form a ribbon when dropped from a spoon. Thicker is better than thinner, because you can always adjust the consistency with more of the reserved syrup.

LEMON “GOOP” AND SYRUP is excerpted from Everyday Dorie © 2018 by Dorie Greenspan. Photography © 2018 by Ellen Silverman. Reproduced by permission of Rux Martin Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.




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Homemade Blueberry Pie

Given the unending heat and humidity, it may not feel like it in San Diego, but the end of summer is closing in on us. There's always one day around this time that--for me, at least--marks the end as the quality of the light changes. I think of it as "football season sunlight." It's the hazy light I associate with going with my family to my dad's favorite outing: USC football games. The day I experienced that light for the first time this year was last Wednesday and I mentioned it to my mom, who was over cooking with me in anticipation of a story I'm writing for the San Diego Union-Tribune's food section on Rosh Hashanah dishes. Outside my kitchen window, looking out on my patio, it seemed there was a filter over the sun instead of harsh glare. I always miss the idea of summer--it's supposedly lazy days and the vacations I never take--but, to be honest, I love autumn. What I do miss--really miss, in fact--is summer produce. The watermelon and peaches and big juicy tomatoes, and berries.

This evening I'm going to a potluck dinner party and was asked to bring dessert. I decided to bake a pie and thought, well, if summer is coming to an end, how about a blueberry pie as a send off? Fresh blueberries are still in abundance and I bought several pints. This, too, ties back to my dad. He adored blueberries. I think he would have loved this pie--even if he probably would set aside the crust, something he never much liked and that totally mystified me. I love a great pie crust.

Anyone who reads San Diego Foodstuff or who knows me knows how much I love baking pies--and, unlike my dad, how curious I am about different kinds of crusts. So I thought I'd change up my usual crust just a little. I scouted around online and recalled that vodka can make a crust flakier. I had some vodka in the freezer so I added that to the crust, along with a little sugar, salt, and fresh lemon juice, as well, of course, ice water.

For the filling, I combined the fresh blueberries with the usual: lemon zest and lemon juice, along with cornstarch to thicken it. But instead of granulated sugar I opted for brown sugar to lend a deeper flavor. And instead of cinnamon, I added a wonderful pie standby of mine: Divine Desserts fennel pollen blend.

The rest went along the usual way. I made the top and bottom doughs, formed them into discs, wrapped them in plastic and refrigerated them for a couple of hours. When you make the dough be sure you don't overwork it. You want striations of butter throughout to help make a flakier crust.

Before you start rolling the dough for the pie plate (and try to use a deep dish pie plate), make the filling. Just combine all those filling ingredients. The mixture can sit a bit and macerate while you roll out the dough.

Roll out one at a time, leaving the other to continue to chill in the fridge. Make a circle larger than the pie plate, then using your rolling pin, lift and set it into the pie plate. You'll want to trim the overhang to about 3/4 inch over. Save the excess dough and set it aside. Fill the pie with the blueberry mixture, then roll out the other dough disc, place it over the filling, and trim that overhang. Then you'll pinch and crimp the edges.

Brush the top crust with the egg wash, then cut slits into the crust to let steam out while the pie bakes.

That's it! Now it goes into the oven to bake. You'll start out at high heat for about 20 minutes, then reduce the temperature while it bakes another half an hour or so. Check at the 30-minute mark to make sure the pie isn't burning. If it's getting a little too brown but not ready to remove, cover it with a piece of foil.

Once you remove it from the oven, place it on a rack to cool before serving.

Oh, and that leftover dough? Form it into a small disc and wrap it up for the freezer. You can use it to make a small tart later just for yourself--perhaps with apples for fall.

Blueberry Pie
1 deep dish pie
(printable recipe)

Ingredients

Dough
4 cups AP flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3 sticks (1 ½ cups) cold European-style butter cut into 1-inch chunky pieces
¼ cup chilled vodka
¼ cup ice water
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Filling
6 cups fresh blueberries, rinsed with stems removed
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
¼ cup cornstarch
½ cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon Divine Desserts fennel pollen blend

Egg Wash
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk

Directions

1. In a large bowl stir together flour, sugar, and salt. Toss in butter and using your fingertips, lightly coat with the flour mixture. Then quickly rub butter into flour mixture to get pea-size pieces.
2. Mix together in a small bowl the vodka, ice water, and lemon juice. Then drizzle over flour and butter mixture and mix together with a fork until it starts to get a little shaggy looking. Then use your hands and knead briefs just until the dough comes together. If it’s still dry, add a little more ice water.
3. Gently form the dough into two ¾-inch discs and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for at least two hours or preferably overnight. You can also put them in the freezer.
4. When you’re ready to make the pie, preheat the oven to 425°. Make the filling by combining the blueberries, lemon zest, lemon juice, cornstarch, brown sugar, and fennel pollen blend in a large bowl. Stir gently but thoroughly to make sure all the blueberries are coated. Set aside.
5. Pull one of the dough discs from the refrigerator. Flour your surface and roll out the disc into a circle large enough to drape over your pie plate. Place the dough into the pie plate and trim the edges to 3/4-inch over the pan. Refrigerate while you roll out the second dough disc.
6. Pull the pie plate out of the refrigerator and fill with the blueberry mixture. Place the second crust over the blueberry filling and trim.
7. Gently press the crust edges together and tuck the dough under the edge of the bottom dough. Crimp the edges by gently pushing the index finger of one hand into the edge of the dough and your thumb and index finger of your other hand, going around the edge of the pie.
8. Quickly make the egg wash by whisking the egg and milk together. Brush the top crust with the wash. Then score the top crust several times to let steam release.
9. Place the pie on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and place on the middle rack of the oven. Bake for 20 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 350˚ and bake another 30 to 40 minutes until the crust is a golden brown and the juices are bubbling.
10. Remove to a wire rack and let cool before serving.

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Join My Fermentation Journey

If you know me you know that for years I've been making pickles, mostly dill pickles. I never really thought of it as "fermenting." But I recently researched and wrote a story on fermenting vegetables for the San Diego Union-Tribune which will appear on August 15. It was then that I realized that fermenting was exactly what I was doing.

Thanks to my friend Curt Wittenberg, who has been my guru through this, I decided to branch out and pickle other vegetables using a salt brine. (Pickling with vinegar is just pickling.) And that's what I started this afternoon with a simple quart of vibrant purple cauliflower, a pretty red and yellow stripped bell pepper, huge jalapeños, and lots of garlic cloves. I kind of had the makings of a giardiniera so I thought I'd use the seasonings for that: black peppercorns, dried oregano, celery seeds, and red pepper flakes. No olive oil, though.

And, by the way, this is the perfect post-farmers market shopping project. Do it with your kids or grandkids. Hey, it's a science project!

I had forgotten that several years ago I had contributed to a Go Fund Me for a little company called FARMcurious that was creating a fermenting set, with lids, stoppers, and airlocks. The set locks out air--and mold and yeast--and provides an escape for carbon dioxide. As a funder, I got one and put it in my garage--and it just became part of the landscape of the shelves. But no more. I pulled it out and was almost ready. But in interviewing Curt I realized I needed two other tools I didn't even know existed (I had jars): glass fermentation weights, to make sure the vegetables stay covered by the brine, and a vegetable tamper, which you use to cram as much produce into your jar. I ordered those from Cultures for Health, and they appeared yesterday--yes, on a Sunday!

Now I was ready.

The process is simple. Chop up the vegetables to the size you like. Make a salt brine. Make sure everything you touch--from the jar to the fermenting set to the tamper to the weights--is perfectly clean. Then start filling the jar. Add your spices first, then the vegetables. You can layer them by vegetable type or mix them up. I layered these. Tamp them down. Then add the brine. Top with the weight (and carefully pull out any little random pieces of vegetables or spices. Screw on the lid of the fermenting set. Set it out on your kitchen counter, away from direct sun, and let science do its work.

That's it. If you don't have a fermenting set, no worries. I never used one before and have been making pickles for seeming centuries. Instead use a clean lid and "burp" the jar, meaning slightly loosen it and then tighten it again once a day for the first few days. This lets that carbon dioxide escape.

Here's a quick note from Curt about the proportions for the brine and vegetables. In short, it's kind of improvisational. It depends on the size of the vegetable pieces and their density. So, he suggests having an extra bottle or bottles in different sizes in case there's overage. You can always rummage around your fridge and add more vegetables if you didn't prepare enough for another quart jar. And save any excess brine to add in case some bubbles out of the bottle or to add after you remove your pickle pebble and want to start sampling.

After a few days or up to 12 days (I'm going for five days, at Curt's advice, given the hot weather), unscrew the fermenting set and replace it with a regular screw-on lid and refrigerate. Then eat! Add these to a sandwich or a cheese or charcuterie platter--or just snack on them.

So, here we are on Day 1. I'm hoping: A) No mold develops and B) It tastes terrific. I already know that those vibrant colors of today will fade but with luck/science, the colors will be replaced by big flavor.

Stay tuned...

Fermented Giardiniera
Adapted from Curt Wittenberg's Lacto-Fermented Mixed Vegetable recipe
Yield: 1 quart
(printable recipe)

Ingredients
1 tablespoon coarse sea salt or kosher salt
Approximately 1 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon celery seeds
6 black peppercorns
4 or more peeled garlic cloves
1 cup cauliflower, chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 red pepper, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 large jalapeños, thickly sliced

Instructions
To prepare brine, warm 3/4 cups of water, add salt, and stir to dissolve. Add 3/4 cups cold water to bring brine to room temperature.

In a quart jar add the oregano, red pepper flakes, celery seeds, peppercorns, and the garlic cloves. Fill jar with vegetables, leaving about 1 ½ inches of headspace. Pour brine over all, just covering the vegetables and leaving the headspace.

Cover jar with lid and airlock, if using, or tight lid. Ferment at room temperature for 3 to 12 days. If using a tight lid, be sure to burp the jar by slightly loosening the lid and then tightening it again daily for the first few days of fermentation.

Once the vegetables have developed the desired acidity, move them to cold storage.

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Roasted Marinated Peppers

Somehow I got myself on a cooking and baking tear this past weekend. It all started with buttermilk. You see, my mom and I have these family friends who weren't feeling great so we decided to make them some meals last weekend. One was a simple turkey chili. My mom then said, "We should make cornbread to go with it. Buttermilk cornbread." And that was fine. But you have to buy a pint and all you need is like half a cup. So now I have this pint of buttermilk I'm trying to use up.

I started scouring recipes for something and found cakes and pies. So I decided to try my hand at a buttermilk pound cake. I came up with something pretty cool (that's for next week). Then I brined chicken in the buttermilk, along with garlic and some spices.

And with that I was in a cooking frenzy. I have a story coming out this week in the San Diego Union-Tribune's food section on my friend Chef Sara Polczynski showing readers how to use three different types of Mexican kitchen tools so I made one of the recipes using a comal--her Smoked Tomatillo Salsa.

And, finally, I pulled out some extra peppers I had from buying for the turkey chili and made my favorite roasted, marinated peppers. I have to have these peppers in my fridge. Not only do I love them on a slice of sourdough baguette, garlicky oil dripping off the bread, but also as a pizza topping or to add to a tomato sauce. By the time I use up the peppers, they've insinuated themselves into the olive oil I used to marinate them. And then I have this reddish spicy (from marash pepper flakes) oil redolent of anchovies to enjoy on a crostini or bruschetta, to sauté vegetables (try it with asparagus), or toss with pasta.

Now it doesn't seem possible that I actually haven't written about these before since they're such a recurring part of my personal eating habits. But I couldn't find them. After 10 years I guess I'm allowed a repeat, so if you have seen these my apologies. But oh, these are great, especially as we head into the warmer months.

I don't use any real recipe. This is sort of free form. So, here's what I do.

Wash three or four bell peppers--red, green, yellow, orange--it doesn't matter. If you have an electric stove, turn on the broiler. Dry and place on a large piece of foil, then place in the broiler. Use tongs to turn them as the skin blisters. If you have a gas stove, you can simply dry roast them over a burner.

When they are totally blackened, place in a brown paper bag and fold down the top. Place on the kitchen counter and let steam for about 15 or 20 minutes. While they're steaming get out a head of garlic and separate four or five cloves (or however many you want). Peel and slice the garlic cloves. You'll also want to have sea salt, dried herbs, red pepper flakes or marash pepper flakes (or whatever you like), and a jar of anchovies (if they are salt packed, rinse off the salt).

Peel the skin from the peppers, remove the core, and brush away the seeds. Dry them (this part gets juicy) and slice into 1" wide pieces.

Now you can start layering. In a flat container with a lid (I use one that's about 5" by 7"), place the bottom layer of peppers, sprinkle some sliced garlic over the peppers, sprinkle with salt, pepper flakes, herbs, and anchovies. Repeat until you run out of pepper slices. Sprinkle with the rest of the herbs, red pepper flakes, and salt. Now get out some great olive oil and pour over the layers until they are totally covered. Let sit about an hour on the counter, then refrigerate.

Now a couple of tips:

1. When you roast and steam the peppers, really let them steam and cool down so you can handle them and not be tempted to run them under cool water when you peel away the skin. Do that and you basically rinse away the flavor.

2. Feel free to change up the flavors. Sometimes I include dried herbs like thyme or oregano. I love to include this herb rub. If you make and use it, you won't need any extra salt. Use more or less garlic. I love garlic, so I put in plenty. Don't like anchovies? Don't use them. You could also add some vinegar, but keep it mild--like a white wine vinegar--so it doesn't overpower the peppers.



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Father's Day Treat: Peach Slices with Cointreau

I had to think long and hard about what to do for my dad this Father's Day. What would make the day special for him at this stage in his life? As you may know, he has Alzheimer's Disease and is declining. That makes this year's celebration of him especially poignant. My mom and I will probably take him out for brunch, but buying him a gift is not really appropriate these days. Fortunately, he still loves food. Up until the last couple of years he loved to cook and he still loves to eat. When we were kids, he and my mom loved taking my brother, sister, and me to restaurants that back in the 60s and 70s were unusual at the time--tempura bars, Cuban eateries, Russian fine dining. They wanted to expose us to whatever got us out of our burger or mac and cheese comfort zone.

Even today we go out for Chinese and sushi, burgers and fish and chips. His favorite place to eat these days is Supannee House of Thai in Shelter Island for sweet and sour mixed seafood over brown rice.

I love making food gifts for him and in the past few years I've taken to making him pickles. But it's too early in the season to make him his favorite bread and butter pickles or dill pickles. If not pickles, then what?

Fortunately, I just wrote an article about a new book on canning for the San Diego Union-Tribune, which will appear in the paper's food section next week. The book, Naturally Sweet Food in Jars by Marisa McClellan, revolves around her successful efforts to use alternative sweeteners instead of  refined sugar when making everything from jams and jellies to sauces and pickled vegetables. McClellan, who is the author of two other cookbooks and the blog, Food in Jars, selected naturally occurring sweeteners that still facilitate canning and even add flavors--honey, maple syrup and sugar, coconut sugar, fruit juices, agave, and dried fruits.

I'd already made a couple of the recipes--loquat jam with agave and marinated multicolored peppers with honey-- and was looking forward to making more of them. So, I poked around the book and had an "aha" moment. My dad has always loved canned peaches. Here was a recipe for peach slices with bourbon, using maple syrup as the sweetener.

There was just one obstacle. My dad has never liked spirits. So, I did a little hunting around my pantry and had my second "aha" moment: Cointreau! Orange and peach flavors can be a lovely marriage. And it would also complement the maple syrup in McClellan's recipe.

Perfect. That was the only alteration I made to the recipe.

I bought six pounds of fragrant yellow peaches and spent an early Sunday afternoon making the peach slices. It's a little labor intensive since you have to halve, pit, and skin the peaches. As McClellan says in her recipe's headnote, you really want to use freestone peaches for this. I did not. So it was challenging. Ultimately I used a paring knife to cut around the pit on one side to separate the halves and then to cut it out from the half it clung to. It wasn't pretty but it got the job done.

Everything else went very well, including blanching the fruit to loosen the skin from the flesh. From there, you make a syrup that you slice the peaches into, cook briefly, and then place in the jars together before processing. The result is divine. The peaches bring their own sweetness, the maple syrup adds more but it's very subtle, as is the underlying flavor from the cointreau. The peach slices are tender and I know my dad will enjoy eating them with a little whipped cream. But you should also consider using them to top ice cream or sorbet this summer, or perhaps some pound cake or angel food cake. Save a couple of jars in your pantry and when you're feeling a little wistful for stone fruit next February, you can satisfy that yearning.

To all the dads out there, enjoy your day! I hope your family makes a big fuss over you!

Peach Slices with Bourbon
From Naturally Sweet Food in Jars by Marisa McClellan
(printable recipe)

The trick to canning peaches is to look for the freestone varieties. They typically arrive in markets towards the middle point of peach season and they will make your workload far lighter. You can’t tell by looking what kind you have, so ask your grower or the produce person at your local market. Tell them you want them for canning, they’ll understand.

Makes 4 (pint/500 ml) jars

6 pounds/2.75 kg yellow peaches

6 tablespoons bottled lemon juice, divided

3 cups/470 ml filtered water

3/4 cup/235 g maple syrup

1/2 cup/118 ml bourbon

Prepare a boiling water bath canner and 4 regular mouth pint/500 ml jars according to the process on page 12.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. While it heats, cut all your peaches in half and remove the pits. Fill a large bowl 2/3 the way up with cold water and add 2 tablespoons lemon juice. The cold water stops the cooking and the lemon helps prevent the fruit from browning.

Working in batches, proceed to blanch all your peach halves for 60 seconds. Make sure to give the water a chance to come back up to boiling between batches. If the water isn’t hot enough, you will have a hard time removing the skin during peeling.

Once all the peaches have been blanched and they are cooling down, make the syrup. Combine the remaining lemon juice, filtered water and maple syrup in a saucepan large enough to eventually hold all the peaches. Place over medium heat and bring to a gentle simmer.

While the syrup heats, slide the peels off the peaches and cut them into wedges. Drop the cut wedges into the heating syrup as you work. Once all the peaches are in the syrup, raise the heat to high and bring the pot to a boil.

Using a slotted spoon, funnel the peaches into the prepared jars and top with the syrup, leaving 11/2 inches/3.8 cm headspace. Add 2 tablespoons of bourbon to each jar. Tap the jars gently on the countertop to settle the peaches and use a wooden chopstick to remove any air bubbles. If necessary, add additional syrup to each jar, so that each has a finished headspace of 1/2 inch/12 mm.

Wipe the rims, apply the lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath for 25 minutes (see page 12).

Note: Most the time I’ll tell you that you can use whatever jar you want, but for these peaches, I actually do recommend opting for regular mouth jars. Their shoulders will help keep the peach slices submerged in the syrup and that will ensure they keep their quality longer.

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Lumpia Made Sweet: A Taste of Turon

Next week, I'll have a story in the San Diego Union-Tribune on Filipino food. It's a rich and complex cuisine much overlooked for some reason and I hope to help urge San Diegans to turn that around. I want to give you a bit of a preview of it here, mostly because I want you to meet someone special who helped me with an addictive dish that will be featured in the story.

The person is Rosario Cruz. She's the grandmother of the very talented Evan Cruz, Arterra's executive chef and my recent and ongoing guide through Filipino cuisine. Evan, who was born in the Philippines, invited me to visit his family's little market, JNC Pinoy Food Mart, in Chula Vista recently and made sure his grandmother was there to demonstrate how to make his favorite childhood snack, turon.

Evan Cruz, grandmother Rosario Cruz, and aunt Nora Cruz, who owns the market with her husband Felix

Now the market, which is literally across the street from Southwestern College, is really less a market than a family-style cafe. Yes, you'll find a freezer packed with lumpia wrappers, frozen casava root, and beef empanadas; shelves filled with packages of noodles, bottles of vinegar and fish sauce, condiments; and some produce--but really, you want to go there for the prepared food.

Evan's Aunt Nora plied me with a spread of wonderful distinctly Filipino dishes that are made in house, introducing me to their version of pancit and lumpia, kare-kare and beef steak, crispy pork belly served with liver sauce, and taro cooked in coconut milk. There was atsara, a pickled papaya and vegetable condiment eaten like salsa with fried fish. And skewers of very tender and juicy grilled chicken.

Clockwise from upper left: Kare-kare, beef steak and onion in soy sauce, turon, longaniza (Filipino sausage), and grilled chicken skewer

Clockwise from upper left: fried pork joint, sweet rice, taro cooked in coconut milk, pancit and lumpia

Then there was turon. Okay, so what is turon? Think of it as a sweet lumpia, or spring roll. It's the kind of snack, known as merienda, you'd find in front of elementary schools that has kids flocking around the vendor.

Turon is a very simple dish--just slices of plantain or pear banana, a slice or two of jackfruit (usually the canned version), and a generous helping of sugar rolled in a lumpia wrapper that's held in place with a slurry of water and cornstarch, then fried in canola oil and tossed in caramel. The result is an irresistible sweet and crispy pastry.

At the market, the family has a large dedicated wok for making turon. At home, you can use a wok or a frying pan. I won't post the recipe here because it will be included in my UT story, but I wanted to share a video I took of Mrs. Cruz making the dish so you can see how simple it is.

From there, you can put the turon in the freezer for a day so that the sugar stabilizes when it's fried. Evan showed me how to fry them off at his kitchen at Arterra.

Fill a frying pan with canola oil and add the turon.

Let them brown on both sides and remove the rolls. Drain off most of the oil and add a couple of tablespoons of sugar to make a dry caramel. Swirl the sugar around.

Once you have the caramel bubbling, add back the turon rolls and roll them in the caramel.

Then remove them to a baking sheet lined with silpat to keep them from sticking. Let them cool a little so you don't burn your tongue.

Then enjoy!

JNC Pinoy Food Mart is located at 943 Otay Lakes Road in Chula Vista. 


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Hey Guys, So How is Everything? Dealing with a Bad Restaurant Meal

I am just back from one of the worst meals, in fact, worst restaurant experiences I've had in years. It's a new place called Country Kabob #2 in Pt. Loma. My parents had read Caroline Dipping's review of it in the San Diego Union-Tribune on Thursday and wanted to try it. I read it as well, and it sounded pretty good so we went there for a Father's Day lunch.

Briefly, the avgolemono soup was so sour my mom's mouth literally puckered after she took a sip. Her chicken kabob was so undercooked -- raw, really -- she had to send it back. I ordered the spanikopita after reading Caroline's take on it. Her one criticism was that the phyllo topping needed to be "a tad more flaky." I thought I'd see if the chef had paid attention. The phyllo was soggy. I sent it back and the server returned it upside down. It was a mess. The topping -- now the bottom -- was still soggy and the filling was dreadful -- the nutmeg overwhelmed everything and the texture was gummy and chewy. I even had to spit out an olive from the accompanying Greek salad because it was too bitter to eat. And, they have a thing about limes -- on the salad, in the iced tea and the water glasses. Fortunately, it being Father's Day, my dad was happy with his lamb kebab plate.

OK. Things happen and not everyplace you dine is going to live up to expectations. But I didn't expect the server to tell the chef I didn't like the meal and that the chef -- it turns out, chef/owner -- would come flying out to confront me. (By the way, he didn't know me or that I am a food writer; I was simply a paying customer.)

He asked why I didn't like his spanikopita and when I started to explain about the phyllo and the nutmeg, he yelled at me that he had been a chef for 26 years and that no one had ever complained about his cooking and what did I know. I told him I didn't want to argue, but he kept at it; my mom's word for him is "aggressive." What was wrong with the chicken kabob? What was wrong with the soup? Then said he wanted to make us something to take home for dinner. Obviously, his pride was hurt and he wanted to show us how good his food is. He wasn't going to let us leave without something so my folks settled on two Greek salads. The server brought out the two salads to go and the owner came out again, and pulled the top salad out of the plastic bag. He wanted us to admire how beautiful it was. And, yes, he charged us for the meals. (My mom just called to say that it turns out instead of providing them with the dressing on the side to be tossed together later, he mixed the salads with the dressing, which leaked on the way home; by dinner the salads will be limp and soggy.)

Okay, enough of that place. We've all had bad experiences. My question to you is do you take it on the chin (and in the wallet) or do you speak up? What do you do when you are served lousy food? How do you answer your server when she says, "Hey guys, so how is everything?" (We won't even go into the fact that I'm not a guy and this bugs me no end...) Do you ask for another dish? Do you just say everything's fine? If you do complain (politely, I hope), how do you want the staff to deal with it? Should an undercooked dish be returned to the kitchen for more cooking and brought back to you? Do you want to order something different? Will a free glass of wine or a free dessert do it for you? A free meal? A gift certificate to dine there again? What are your expectations? And what have been your experiences when you've complained?

If someone is going to charge you for a meal, you should get your money's worth. This is true in good economic times and times like today, when for many of us, dining out is a splurge and we feel it in the bank account. So, when you have an unsatisfactory experience, I'd like to know how you handle it. Think of this as an opportunity to enlighten restaurant owners and assist fellow diners when they go out to eat. And, even vent a little!

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