showtime!

I definitely didn’t grow up watching basketball. I always forget that Kansas City even had a team, and I was shocked to find that the barely-memorable Kansas City Kings (now safe in Sacto) played in my hometown from 1972-1985: why, I could have spent my first seven years watching them suck! Instead I watched the Royals (sorry, the awesome Royals) and in the winter, I dunno, I must have done my homework and slurped up plate after plate of Hamburger Helper™ (thanks mom, thanks dad).

But Alli is a Lakers fan, and I get it. Beyond even just being from the Los Angeles area, if I had been seven watching Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, I’d probably be a basketball fan too. And even being a basketball fan isn’t necessary for enjoying a Lakers/Celtics NBA final—just liking sports at all will do it. Anyway, to celebrate the Lakers/Celtics final and try to achieve total triumph in gender role reversals, I cooked dinner while Alli watched the game on the couch.

On the walk to the market yesterday I decided that I wanted to do a yellow & green themed meal for the game. Green, I knew, would be pretty easy, but yellow? In early June? No problem. It really just came down to a decision between yellow crookneck squash and these early-season yellow heirloom tomatoes. When I ventured inside to check out the fish market and saw fresh, beautiful, yellowtail in the case, supper took shape.

So here you have it, Showtime Yellowtail “Fauxencal” with Lamb’s Quarters

Yellowtail is definitely not a fish I know anything about past the sushi bar. And the Interweb was not much help: it couldn’t even really tell me which sort of fish I had! But I could tell by the texture, and the color, even, that the fillet I had (I asked for a center cut) was going to be full of flavor, meaty, close in some respects to ahi tuna, and thus probably (hopefully) amenable to a take on Provencal preparation, with capers and tomatoes, olive oil and salt. The result was terrific. The acidity of the tomato sauce played against the meatiness of the fish, and the braised greens provided a spiciness which, paired with the sweetness of the tomato, was sublime. Oh, and absurdly simple.

for the greens. any greens would work. I actually used a combination of fava leaf and lamb’s quarters. I washed the greens well, let them drain for a few minutes over a bowl, and then chopped them into one inch or so strips. I heated a tablespoon or so of olive oil over medium-high heat until hot, added the greens, and tossed to coat in the oil. Season these with salt, and red pepper flakes (at your discretion, my taste is for lots), lower the heat and cover until they’re cooked—again at your discretion, I let them cook for about ten minutes and they were tender, and delicious).

for the sauce. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Slice a thin “X” in the bottom of the tomato and plunge into the water for 20-30 seconds. Let cool, and slip off the skin. Dice the tomato, making sure to save all seeds and pith and goodness. Then heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil over medium-low heat and add tomatoes, a healthy pinch or two of salt and pepper, and let cook. I cooked mine for about fifteen minutes, until the tomatoes were cooked through and the sauce had thickened into a semi-paste. Only when I turned off the head did I add a pinch of drained capers.

for the fish. I really was going to broil this guy, but decided to cook it in a pan instead, and the results were wonderful. There may be better instructions for cooking thick, belly pieces of yellowtail out there—let me know!—I had to improvise. I cut a 7 oz. fillet in half, and massaged the pieces all over with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and let it sit with oil and salt and pepper in the refrigerator for about an hour. When it was time to cook the fish, I heated up half a tablespoon of olive oil in a nonstick pan over medium-high/high heat until it was very hot. I added the fish skin side down, listened to it sizzle, and watched it cook for five minutes. The skin side was very brown and crispy. I turned it in the pan and let it cook on the flesh side for 90 seconds or so, no more. I also let the fillets rest for a few minutes before plating.

The Lakers won in thrilling fashion, making my supper second fiddle for Tuesday thrills, but it was a successful preparation! And yellowtail beyond the sushi bar, who knew? (Probably everyone. But now I know too.)

So are any of you planning on participating in the Slow Food Nation events in late August?

I've been browsing the site this afternoon and, I mean, okay, look, it's all great. The day trips to the creameries of Marin sound totally awesome, "mysterious Bolinas," sure, etc. I guess the source of my confusion is about who these events are for. Will there be a big influx of foodie tourists from around the country coming to the Bay Area to eat slow? Is it mostly a chance for locals to see what's been in their own backyards all the time, just for $130-160? I'm completely with the politics of it, and undoubtedly will trek to the Civic Center on my Friday lunch break to see the (free) spectacle, but how will it be much different than, say, any Saturday at the Ferry Building?

I'm not asking any of this rhetorically, but seriously, I wonder?

If the idea is that San Francisco is a good inaugural place for such a festival, which will then move on to less like-minded regions, I get it. After all, it's a fitting time for me to be thinking about the Slow Food thing--I just got back from visiting Kansas City, Missouri. It's not that I eat so terribly when I visit there, there is a city cuisine that is terribly satisfying, artery-ruining, and greed-inducing. But the concepts which guide my everyday consumer choices as a Bay Area person interested in food and eating primarily, and the politics of food and eating secondarily, the trope of the "local," etc., are totally absent from food culture in a major Midwestern metropolis like KC. There are individual chefs and restaurants, from what I hear, interested in changing things. But the metropolitan area as a whole? Forget it. Which is why I think Kansas City would be a terrific place for Slow Food '09.