Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Now they do it

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I opened the LA Times today (figuratively) and what do I see? WHAT DO I SEE? An article about the joys of bakeries in LA:

COULD L.A. be turning into a real bakery town? It seems to be shaping up that way, judging from all the dough on the rise.

On West 3rd Street, Parisian master baker Eric Kayser recently opened the understatedly appealing Breadbar, with a second branch in the works in Century City. At the Brentwood Country Mart, New York restaurateur Maury Rubin is getting ready to introduce the city to a bakery café that’s unlike anything it’s seen before. In West Hollywood, pastry chef Michelle Myers has expanded her offerings, making bread for sandwiches to supplement her line of sweets at Boule.

Elsewhere, Belgian company Le Pain Quotidien, which has multiplied six times over since 2001 in Southern California, is expanding into Manhattan Beach and Pasadena in the coming months. The Japan-based cream puff specialist Beard Papa’s has opened in Hollywood. Santa Monica chef Hans Röckenwagner plans to turn his thriving bread and pastry business into a bakery café in Venice. And on an unlikely stretch of Pico Boulevard, two sisters with no formal training have plunged right in, opening La Maison du Pain and importing a trained Frenchman along the way as they slowly get off the ground.

For a city of such great size and culinary enthusiasm, Los Angeles doesn’t have many world-class bakeries. To be sure, those we do have are hot spots: Clementine in Century City, EuroPane in Pasadena, Jin Patisserie in Venice and Sweet Lady Jane in West Hollywood among them. But such places are few and far between.

The new arrivals — particularly Kayser’s Breadbar and Rubin’s City Bakery — could signal that L.A.’s bakery culture is finally starting to grow up.

Not just pastry bakeries! Bread bakeries! I weep. Now that I’m finally developing a taste for the finer wheat products in life, they pull this on me, when I can’t enjoy any of it.

One thing that’s driven me nuts around Silicon Valley is that there’s no good bread bakery. (There is an outlet of Le Boulanger within walking distance of my house. My opinion stands.) We go to Campbell’s Farmer’s Market on Sundays to visit the Boulangerie Bay Bread stand — but that’s a bakery from San Francisco (one that used to be two blocks from my mother’s house, in fact). Excellent, excellent bread. But it’s fifty or so miles away. And my Sunday baguette doesn’t really hold out until Thursday, know what I’m saying?

Today, in fact, we went to the Farmer’s Market, followed by breakfast at Stacks’ in Campbell. Sophia practically dragged us to the Farmer’s Market, because she wanted her panini bread from the Bay Bread stand. Five years old and an appreciation for fine bread. (When I was her age undoubtedly all I’d eat was Wonder, a fact that makes me shudder to this day.) When I bought the panini, both Sophia and Simon went nuts, grabbing the bag and reaching in. I grabbed a panini to give them as the lady behind the table said, “Would you like me to cut that in half?” “There’s no time!” I said, ripping the roll in half to give each kid a piece.

(I asked Darin if he’d seen what happened. He nodded solemnly and said, “I’ve seen piranhas at work.”)

One day I had an excellent sandwich at Fleur de Cocoa and asked them where they got their bread. Sogo bakery in Cupertino, they said. Which turned out to be a little Japanese bakery in a strip mall. I had trouble believing they actually made pain de mie. It’s also too far to drive to pick up some bread. I suppose I could ask Darin to stop by on his way to work, but once he gets into his car he’s Mr. Safari Manager and pretty much forgets everything else.

The baguettes from the market are underwhelming. Grace is okay, as is the-other-brand-that-escapes-me-right-now. I used to get La Brea bread at Whole Foods, but the whole parboiled/slightly underdone aspect palled on me after a while.

Maybe everyone in this area is low-carbing it or something, or you need so much money to rent a store around here it wouldn’t be worth a baker’s time to make fresh bread. But I totally think there’s an underserved community around here!

The Vinography dinner at Manresa

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My running bud Rob is currently doing a liquid diet and has lost 45 pounds (give or take) over the past couple of months. He’s winding it up for the end of September, but he’s not quite done with it yet.

He IM’d me about a week ago.

Rob: Do me a favor?
Diane: Mais oui.
Rob: Go to this for me.
Diane: Throw caution to the wind.
Rob: I’d get sick eating so much rich food right away.
You go and tell me everything.
Diane: Well. Okay. If I have to.

“This” was the Vinography dinner at Manresa. Manresa, for the non-foodies amongst us, is one of the top restaurants in the world and it’s not too far from us.

When the maitre d’ escorted me to the back patio, I saw a whole bunch of people dressed in fabulous black. I really, really have to invest in a little black dress at some point. A tall well-dressed man came over to me and introduced himself as “Alder.” I am distinctly uncomfortable joining groups of people I don’t know, and Alder immediately put me at ease as we chatted and drank Cava (a sparkling wine from Spain, much like Prosecco and as tasty). The man is the perfect host. In fact, if I ever have a large party at my house, I’m going to ask Alder if he’ll come down and host it.

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The dinner was fabulous.

Alder told us he worked with Manresa Chef David Kinch to pair the perfect dish with each of the wines Alder had selected. Apparently, Chef Kinch knows what he’s doing, ’cause these dishes were good.

We started with the Auberge egg, which is a soft poached egg in its shell with herbs, butter, sherry vinegar, and maple syrup. I’ve had it both times I’ve eaten at Manresa before, but you can’t have too many Arpege eggs. You wouldn’t think a combination of egg, sherry vinegar, and maple syrup would be good, but honey, if you knew the proper recipe, you would be making this puppy at home all the time.

And then we got started with the dinner:

  • Steelhead roe, smoked and freshly cured, in a light gelee of jasmine tea and myrtle leaves, with 2003 CrauforD Sauvignon Blanc

    This was my least favorite dish, because the combination of “fishy” and “smoked” is not my thing. I was the only one at the table who left any on the plate, so it was, in fact, just me. I did try two bites, because I promised myself that I would try everything during the dinner. (For that price, I’d better.)

    The wine was excellent. Very fruity without being sweet. I haven’t drunk a lot of white wines recently, but this would definitely be one I’d be on the lookout for.

  • Gulf shrimp and clams on the plancha, with 2000 Miura Chardonnay.

    Yes, Gulf of Mexico shrimp, flown in that morning. Certainly my first thought was, Who in the hell were the idiot fishermen who went out there with Rita bearing down? Well, I was glad they did, because that really was some of the best damn shrimp I’ve ever had: large and nicely grilled, and the clams had a small pork gelee on top of them were excellent.

    The wine: definitely the best Chardonnay I’ve ever had. Alder mentioned the ABC (Anything But Chardonnay) crowd and everyone laughed. My first thought when I tasted the wine was, “This is what wine ice cream would taste like.” When Alder talked about the wine, he mentioned that it was very much like a “creamy pastry,” and I thought: Whoo hoo! I’m in the general vicinity of the appropriate wine metaphor! Excellent wine.

  • Milk-fed capon breast, poached then roasted, with risotto “biodynamic,” cippolini onions, and foie gras cream, with 2001 Campion “Firebreak” Pinot Noir

    Oh good lord, this was some fine eatin’. The capon was as soft as veal, the risotto firm and creamy, and the foie gras cream not too hard on the foie gras (not my favorite taste).

    The wine: this tasted very light, not with the heavy, dark tannic taste I associate with a red wine.

  • Roast marcassin with spices, pine mushrooms, and roasted escarole, with 2003 Casa Nuestra “Tinto St. Helena” Red Field Blend

    Who knew roast young boar was so tasty? It was rubbed with a mix of 12 or 16 spices (can’t remember) and rare and soft. The mushrooms: yum. The only down element for me was the roasted escarole, because it was very bitter. Darin said it was perfect, which means I’m not going to be searching out a lot of escarole in my future.

    The Tinto was my least favorite wine, because it was so dark and heavy and tannic. It was still a great wine, though, and more than that it was a great pairing with the red meat of the boar, though.

  • Braised black mission figs in exotic honey and mascarpone sorbet, with 1996 Stony Hill Semillion de Soleil dessert wine

    The dessert was very tasty, even though I didn’t eat all of it. The mascarpone sorbet? Man, if Haagen Dazs started making that flavor… The exotic honey was a honey brought back from Costa Rica by one of the Manresa kitchen workers, and it was infused with orchids and other tropical blossoms. The figs were perfectly cooked, which I found out because Darin told me (he ate my helping).

    Generally I like sweeter dessert wines than Alder does, but the Semillion was wonderful. Every time I sipped or sniffed the Semillion de Soleil, I kept thinking of musical chords — three, or maybe more, flavors seemed to be playing at the same time.

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    One thing I noticed about all the wines was that they had a bouquet. Generally when I sniff a glass of wine I get, well, a wine-y type smell. You know, a hint of alcohol. But these wines had bouquets of fragrances, whether fruity or dark or sweet and complex.

    The best thing about this dinner was that there were people who knew a lot about wine and those who, like me, know what they like, even if they don’t always know what it is. Okay, maybe I was the only one there who doesn’t know a Cabernet from a Zinfandel without checking the label. But they let me stay anyhow.

    The other great thing was that few people there knew one another, but they all felt very comfortable with chatting easily. I felt incredibly at ease the whole time.

    I would totally do this dinner again!

    And here are Alder’s thoughts about the meal.

    • I am now officially a cook

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    Using some of 21st Century America’s worst cooking equipment (the standard appliances installed in a Residence Inn include a stove where the controls are behind the burners — whoever thought that up needs to be slapped), I managed to cook not only a decent but indeed fairly tasty dinner of seared pork chops, sauteed asparagus, and spaetzle with parmesan cheese.

    The kids even ate it. Sophia turned me and said, “Mom, you make great dinners.” And let me tell, that made my entire week.