CSA Week 1 - the rest

Before picking up my Week 2 CSA share (no delivery last week over Thanksgiving break), I thought I should wrap up what happened to the rest of the Week 1 share. Sorry to say, not much of interest.

For the corn, my kids decided what to do with it. This is something called "Daddy's Special Pasta" and I have been cooking it for them for years now. It is not exactly Heston Blumenthal material. Rather, it follows what I call the "What Could Be Bad?" principle: if you only use ingredients that taste good on their own, it's pretty likely what you end up with is going to taste good. (This is also why I struggle so much with baking. Baking is the exact opposite of the "What Could Be Bad?" principle. You start with any number of things that don't taste particularly good on their own, yet they come out - if you do it right, of course - delicious).

Depending on how fresh and sweet the corn is, I will either boil it in a big pot of salted water first or just scrape it raw off the cob. This CSA corn, unfortunately, was pretty tough and starchy, and even about 5-10 minutes of boiling didn't soften it up much (I was having recriminations that I'd blown the opportunity for wonderful fresh sweet corn by holding it a few days, letting the sugars convert to starch, but was relieved to see I wasn't the only one to find the corn tough.) Then scrape the kernels off the cobs (I used one per person), and keep that water for the pasta.

I cut bacon (1-2 strips per person) into about 2-inch long pieces (I find it easier to use scissors than a knife for this) and get it about halfway crisp in a sauté pan with a bit of butter on medium heat. Then the bacon comes out of the pan and onto a paper towel to dry. Pour off most of the fat, and put the corn in with the bacon fat to sauté. Now is the time to put your pasta into the boiling water to cook (just about any relatively sturdy shape works here). Meanwhile, if the corn starts to dry out too much, spoon a little pasta water over it. When the pasta is about a minute or two from done, add some cream to the sauté pan and cook to reduce and thicken it some (if we don't have cream in the house, which is often, I have been known to fake it without dismal results by using 2% milk, which we always have, with some TempTee cream cheese to thicken it - seems sort of déclassé, I know).

When the pasta is cooked, drain it and dump it into the sauté pan, throw the bacon in, toss, and give everyone a minute or two to get to know each other. Done. Serve with grated cheese of your choice - parmigiano, pecorino, dry jack are all good. (This all took longer to describe than it takes to make, and probably wasn't worth the effort - the describing, not the making, that is.)

As for the rest of it? The Momofuku book was again the source of inspiration for the bok choy, which I sautéed quickly in an imitation of stir-frying, and paired with a miso butter from the book (basically just white miso and softened butter mixed together in equal ratio; in the book, it's paired with grilled asparagus with an egg on top). This was my first "fail" out of the Momofuku book, as I found the miso flavor overpowering (and I like miso). Not awful, just not very balanced. I'm thinking it perhaps could have been cut with some dashi to mellow it out some, or paired with something with more assertive flavors of its own. Indeed, I saved the rest of it, thinking it will be good as a compound butter to put over a nice grilled steak.

The green beans met an uninteresting fate, and the avocado was even worse. It turned brown and soft before I'd even thought to touch it, which leads to an uncomfortable confession: I just don't really like Florida avocados. They're watery, their flavor is insipid, they lack the buttery richness of a Hass avocado. I know, I should have at least tried it. It looks like the Week 2 CSA Share will have a different cultivar, a Monroe avocado - and this time, I promise to try it. But perhaps someone can tell me why we can't grow Hass avocados here?

On to Week 2.

The Food Trucks Are Coming!

Just in time for Art Basel, Miami is finally hopping onto the trend du jour, as not one, but two, food trucks are hitting the streets.

First: gastroPOD, a mobile gourmet kitchen from Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog. The one that will be roaming Wynwood this week is actually not the official gastroPOD - a vintage Airstream trailer getting outfitted with a bleeding edge kitchen with all the latest bells and whistles - but rather a backup, the "Shiny Twinkie". But it's still all nice and shiny, and it'll still be putting out good vittles - if you're lucky, some of the banh mi style trotter tacos we sampled at the P.I.G. Fest. You can follow the gastroPOD on twitter at @gastroPODmiami.

Next: Latin Burger and Taco, from Food Network celeb Ingrid Hoffman. You could get the recipe here, but you couldn't have someone serve it to you from a truck - until now. She promises "It'll be like nothing you've ever seen." Which might actually be true, if you've never left Miami. You can find Latin Burger on twitter at @LatinBurger.

Already on the road: Feverish Ice Cream, traveling around in a Scion xb laden with frozen confections, and this week offering strawberry basil popsicles (for Art Basel, naturally). Feverish is also on twitter at @FeverishMiami.

I've heard there's at least one more mobile food vendor heading Miami's way soon. Keep your eyes peeled.

Lemon Twist - North Beach

[sorry, this restaurant has closed]

Lemon Twist is an example of restaurant reincarnation. Years ago, there was a restaurant in this little spot on Normandy Circle, towards the northern end of Miami Beach, called Lemon Twist (which, alas, was not that good). Then the space went dark for a while. Then it was a very lightly trafficked sports bar. Now it's Lemon Twist all over again. This time around, it's under the tutelage of Alain Suissa, whose resume also includes Grass Restaurant and Lounge in the Design District. Maybe this Twist will stick around a while longer.

It's a genuinely charming venue, with a pressed tin ceiling over the bar, a long velvet sofa serving as a banquette, roses and candles on the tables, and dark lace, linen-covered sconces, and French posters on the walls. It looks and feels exactly like what it aims to be, which is a classy neighborhood bistro. The menu likewise hews pretty closely to the line of straight-ahead French bistro fare. A short list of appetizers includes onion soup gratinee, endive salad with roquefort,escargot in garlic butter, a charcuterie plate. Entrées include poached salmon, sea bass provencale, moules frites, chicken cocotte, duck a l'orange, a few steaks, a rack of lamb. The menu listing is supplemented with about a half dozen blackboard specials, but there are few surprises here (though a "Weight Watchers" section of the menu, complete with "points," seems strangely incongruous; what self-respecting Lyonnaise chef would deign to do a  "Weight Watchers" menu?)

Not that there's anything wrong with sticking with the classics. Classics are that for a reason and I've previously mentioned how I find a traditional French bistro lineup to be genuinely satisfying and reassuring. This can be both good and bad for a restaurant. On the good side, if you do the classics competently, you can create food that people already know and love; it requires no learning curve. But on the other hand, to stand out is difficult. It is not easy to make a truly outstanding onion soup, particularly when almost every diner has had the chance to try several versions already.

Our meal at Lemon Twist was a bit slow getting started. When we were there on a Sunday night, it appeared there was only one person working the entire restaurant, and though they weren't terribly busy (only about 3-4 other tables being served while we were there), he was struggling a bit to keep up. We waited at least 15 minutes for water to be served and orders to be taken, and about another 15 minutes before any bread hit the table (without butter? is the chef really from Lyon?), but things generally picked up from there.

We started with the escargot de bourgogne, as well as a couple items from the blackboard - a frisée lardon salad, and the soupe du jour, a cream of asparagus and leek. The snails were doused in the customary bath of butter and garlic, and though the presentation was perhaps not as impressive as at Au Pied de Cochon, where they are served stuffed back into their shells, the buttery juices were just as good sopped up with some warm bread (though the bread likewise would not compare favorably to the crusty baguettes served at APDC). The frisee lardon hit all the right spots, the bacon still chewy with just a hint of crispness, the spriggy lettuce dressed with a classic vinaigrette bolstered with bacon fat, the poached egg warm and still oozy. The soup was satisfying if a bit one-dimensional.