I'm off to Jamaica early tomorrow morning for my brother's four-day bachelor party with a few friends.  I won't have any Internet access while I'm away, so I won't be posting again until next week, but I want to leave you with a re-cap of my cooking adventure last weekend.

Sunday afternoon, through the grace of my SF crew, I stumbled into my dream afternoon—a stroll through a well-stocked farmers market in the noon hour with friends old and new . . . including my new friend Chef MP (self-described food hacker and former sous-chef at one of San Francisco's finest restaurants, which, out of respect for Chef MP's privacy, shall remain nameless), followed by an afternoon drinking bloody marys and great wine while preparing an extraordinary four course meal under the guidance of Chef MP in his incredibly-stocked kitchen.  (Two of the coolest pieces of equipment in Chef MP's kitchen are the Vita-Mix 5000, a professional-quality blender with speed ranging from 11 m.p.h. to 240 m.p.h., and the Reveo MariVac Food Tumbler vacuum chamber, which pulls apart the cells of whatever you put in it to enable brining and marinating in minutes instead of hours.)



When strolling around SF's Heart of the City Farmers' Market at UN Plaza, we couldn't resist the baby eggplant, or the brussel sprouts, or a bunch of other things we saw.  The variety and abundance at the market was a welcomed change from the DC markets . . . which have offered pretty slim pickin's for the past couple of months.  Spring is springing in SF and it showed at the market (as did the buds on the tree outside Chef MP's back door).  We all chipped in to buy ingredients, as Chef MP was putting together a menu in his head . . . encouraging input from us all.



We then headed to Chef MP's home in Bernal Heights where we spent the remainder of the afternoon cooking under the Chef's guidance and encouragement.  As those of you who have done food photography know, indoor lighting often requires slow shutter speeds and, consequently, a tripod, to get great shots.  I didn't bring my tripod and I didn't get very many great photos of the prepared dishes.  On top of the equipment issues, I was happily absorbed in the cooking experience . . . with photo-taking a distant second priority.  I had never before had the opportunity to cook with a professional chef.  People pay a lot of money for cooking instruction—I had the opportunity to absorb as much instruction as I could, free of charge, over the course of a four-hour cooking adventure.  I intended to make the most of it . . . pulling out my camera only occasionally, when there was a lull in the cooking action.



The menu for the afternoon (described in its simplest terms, leaving out many, many ingredients) was as follows:

Course .5: Awesome, chunky bloody marys made from Knudsens tomato and spicy veggie juices, grated daikon radish, dilli beans and a whole bunch of other stuff.  (My weekend hostess with the mostess was responsible for this delicious creation.)

Course 1: Cauliflower puree soup with rosewater-braised Swiss chard (pictured above).

Course 2: Raw fennel and apple salad with truffle oil, with sides (on the same plate) of roasted baby eggplant, roasted beets and steamed daikon radish.

Course 3: Seared bacon-wrapped scallops (which had been marinated in the Reveo MariVac Food Tumbler vacuum) in a blood orange beurre blanc on a bed of potato mash with a side of brussel sprouts that had been sautéed in sage butter with bacon, then flambéed in vodka (pictured below), before being roasted in the oven.

Course 4: Chef MP dubbed our dessert "Silly White Boy Ambrosia" (pictured below), which was freshly-whipped cream with Fuji and Granny Smith apples and pink orange (or was it grapefruit?), topped with yuzu jam, cacao nibs and thyme.



Perhaps the most valuable lesson I learned was to be relaxed in the kitchen.  Now, I consider myself to be on the "advanced" end, skill-wise, in the category of untrained home cook.  I'm pretty comfortable and adventurous in the kitchen by comparison to most people I know.  But there are light-years, skill-wise, between me and professional chefs like Chef MP.  Whereas I often fall back on cookbooks—even for pretty basic recipes—and have truly mastered very few techniques/skills in the kitchen, Chef MP put together a very complicated four-course menu off the top of his head without a single reference to a book . . . and then proceeded to instruct a motley crew of amateurs to make it happen.  And Chef MP delegated tasks in the most encouraging, relaxed, kind manner possible—never stressing out at all.

So what are some of the specific things I learned?  These things are basic, but you won't find them in any recipe.  Salting food, for example . . . whereas I've always worried about over-salting food and, consequently, have likely served countless under-seasoned dishes, Chef MP knows (and now I know) the proper salting technique—salt right up to the line of "too much" and, if you cross the line, add something acidic to cut the salt back to "perfect."  With the blood orange beurre blanc we made, for example, it was amazing to taste the complexity of the dish develop as we salted it . . . and we salted it well beyond the level I would have on my own out of fear of going too far . . . then, when we went a bit too far, we added some more blood orange juice (citrus is acidic) and brought the sauce back to "perfect."  We did the same thing with the soup.  Tricks like this, I believe, are some of the things that separate cooks like me from Chefs like MP.  And, again, no recipe is going to include this information about salting.  Another tip—reduce the likelihood that your beurre blanc is going to separate by adding a bit of cream to stabilize it.  And another very practical tip—to avoid having a blender jam or spew hot liquid when pureeing a soup or blending anything, for that matter, begin on a slow speed and gradually increase the blender speed as the vortex energy builds.

I couldn't list all of the practical tips I picked up on Sunday if I tried.  The level of information in the room was almost too much to handle.  I only wish I lived in SF so I could hang out with and cook with and learn from Chef MP every week.  I'm already looking forward to my next trip to the Bay Area . . . though I don't yet know when that will be.  Big thanks to Chef MP and my whole SF crew for making last weekend so enjoyable!

Now I'm off to Jamaica . . . .