It’s gonna be a long, fat winter if I’m already searching out new recipes in the first week of August. Step away from the skillet, lard-ass, drop the spatula, and keep your hands where I can see ’em.
Yesterday I test-drove a Kung Pao chicken recipe from NPR and it turned out pretty damn’ good for a first attempt, though stir-frying on a glass-top electric stove is far from ideal. Plus it gave me a chance to go shopping for stuff I don’t ordinarily have on hand, like Sichuan chiles, Sichuan peppercorns, rice wine, Chinkiang vinegar and what have you.
You might think a guy would have a tough time finding anything other than wafers and wine in Bibleburg. But we have a bunch of military types here, many of them wed to Asians, and thus there is no shortage of Asian grocery stores — among them the excellent Asian Pacific Market, housed in what once was the old Ampex headquarters off Highway 24. The chiles and peppercorns I got downtown at Savory Spice Shop, which is a place I’d like to run through someday with a wheelbarrow and someone else’s credit card.
Like many stir-fries, Kung Pao chicken is a simple dish, and I appreciate simplicity. It’s not always fun to spend hours in the kitchen for 15 minutes of eating. So here’s another easy one, from Martha Rose Shulman at The New York Times — a spinach omelet with Parmesan that she calls “the perfect one-dish meal.”
Mad Blog Media 
We have some Asian (and a few Mexican) markets here in Sioux City but oh how I wish for a Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods or something similar! TJ’s five hours away in Minneapolis, MN while WholePaycheck’s 100 miles south in Omaha, NE. We bring plenty of interesting ingredients back from Italy each year. The omelet looks tasty, reminds me of the typical Italian frittata in some ways — but for Italians those are ways to use up lots of leftover bits of stuff, cheese, vegetables, pancetta, etc. Few would actually go to the store and buy stuff just to make something like this. I’m going to attempt to make the Tuscan bread salad, “panzanella” tomorrow — if it turns out to be any good the recipe will be in the next issue of La Gazzetta dello CycleItalia. We’ve enjoyed it on warm days in Italy and it’s certainly warm enough here in Iowa now — and the fresh tomato supply is excellent at the farmer’s market
Savory Spice totally rocks. They have 5-6 shops now, are franchising, and are available online.
At first I thought, sure, nice, will make nice Winter Solstice gifts, but has to be too expense for daily use. But even though their spices are ground fresh on site, 3 times out of 4 they’re cheaper than the McCormick’s or even store brands at the grocery store. Reuse your bottles and save a little more. Nothing better than something that tastes better and is cheaper.
Larry- TJ’s is the devil incarnate! That place is evilus maximus!! I can never go in there and not come out without a lot more than I planned on getting. And ‘no’ a list does not help. That is the problem!! They have so much that looks soooo very tasty!! It is a good thing that there are only a few in the SacTown area (10 years ago there were none) and that the closest one is usually packed with no room to park.
Steve- Franchising? Ooooo…. I hope that they follow TJ’s lead and come out here as this sounds like an awesome shop! We used to have a place that sold salsa locally and online but they went belly-up years ago. Best darn salsa I have ever had! And sadly since I am no longer in the bike business, I can’t score any of the nice New Mexican chile salsa that the fine folks at BTI sold; second best salsa I have ever had. Highly recommended.
Patrick- You need to ride more, son! It’s August. There will be enough time for you to work on your recipe book in December through March. Get out a ride, amigo. The days are getting shorter!
I think TJ’s are all company-owned. Every one I’ve been in has been pretty well organized with friendly staff who act like they get paid a living wage. The first place I visit once we dump our luggage at the in-laws in Santa Barbara for our visits is Trader Joe’s. My mom in-law even gives me gift cards for the place even though the nearest one to us in Sioux City is five hours away! A great store for folks who like to eat well but don’t want to go broke doing it –like it’s so easy to do at Whole Foods. SB has one of those now too but 95% of my holiday food/fun money goes to TJ’s. The in-laws suspend whatever whacky diet they’re on when we get there and the wife turns their kitchen Italian for the duration. I shop, she cooks. The only problem is I think we wear out our welcome a week or so before we’re ready to leave!!!
A few years ago TJs opened up a store just about two blocks away from Whole Paycheck on St. Francis Drive (US 84/285) in Santa Fe, about 45 minutes from here. That was a paradigm-shift in local food shopping and while I think WF edges out TJ’s in food quality and substantially in breadth of offerings, its not enough to keep us from stopping at Joe’s first and Whole Paycheck if we have to. So I do think TJ put a definite dent in Whole Food’s profit statement. There are also several farmer’s markets both in Santa Fe and BombTown this time of year. One could get fat here if not for the excellent bicycling and hiking.
My only criticism of the otherwise excellent shopping and customer service at TJ’s is they seem to script things on a national scale. Stuff suddenly disappears and we are told that their national management decided to nix it, even if it is popular in a local store. So WF does get some of our business, but a lot less than when we moved here.
The Smith’s up here in BombTown is often the pits (pun intended) and we shop there when we are too lazy or uninterested in getting off The Hill. The produce is the worst of all the nearby commercial offerings and their coffee selection sucks. In their defense, they now have a much better selection of liver solvents and salsas then they used to and seem to be trying hard to improve their offerings, but since they service the least common denominator of American eating, anyone who is not a typical American is often S-O-L, and that includes me and my better half.
Jeepers Patrick, maybe you should quit this two wheel thing and start writing a food column.
Spend the $25. and get an electric wok. they are wonderful for Asian food and quickly cooking any that is cut small. Puts a stove to shame.
In some ways I think TJ’s program is fun as you never know for sure what you’ll find (or not find) as their program is based on getting good deals from their suppliers. We used to get canned Greek olives there but their source either dried up or the price went up to the point they were no longer a good deal — so unlike Whole Paycheck where you can get high-quality stuff pretty much all the time if you’re wiiling to pony up the dough, TJ’s is more of a crap-shoot. Sometimes ya just gotta do without — as we’re doing right now with prosciutto crudo. Our friends at La Quercia, right here in Iowa, have plenty but it’s on the other side of the state from us – meaning overnight shipping because of the summer heat. The cost of the overnight shipping equals the $50 I’m happy to pay for the ham…so we’ll wait until things cool off enough to ship it 2-day at a much lower cost. Same for our friends at Bubalis Bubalis, the gen-u-wine water buffalo mozzarella made out in SoCal….it’s just too hot to get that shipped out here this time of year. I’m ready for fall even though it’s very brief here where we mostly have just two seasons, blazing heat and freezing cold.
BTW – my panzanella was a hit last evening, even getting thumbs-up from folks who’ve enjoyed the dish in Tuscany! The recipe will likely make it into our next La Gazzetta dello CycleItalia newsletter.
No Trader Joes in Bibleburg, alas. I think Colorado’s blue laws (no booze sales in grocery stores) keep them out. Our closest comparable may be Natural Grocers/Vitamin Cottage, which supports cycling and also seems to operate on a good-deals arrangement with suppliers.
You never know what you’ll find (or not find) at Vitamin Cottage. For weeks this summer they had no pork or beef, citing ongoing negotiations with a supplier. Sometimes you can’t find the simplest items there (like bamboo shoots or jalapeños). But when they’ve got their deals going they kick WF’s ass on price point every time.
The biggest downside to shopping at Vitamin Cottage and/or WF here is that each and every location of both outfits is situated in some nightmare spot that is a pisser to get to in a car, much less on a bike or Vespa. I’d like to do my shopping with one of those black helicopters Dan Maes thinks we cyclists have.
TJ’s in Minneapolis has the hooch section separated from the rest of the store so on “dry” Sundays it’s simply closed up. As a company owned scheme they’re very careful where they put these which is why we’ll NEVER have on here in Sioux City! They ARE quite often located in what you call nightmare spots but when I’m near one it’s always in something which burns hydrocarbons rather than carbohydrates.
Do they still have that 3.2 law in Minnesota?
Back in the eighties when I was doing field work in and around St. Cloud, MN for my dissertation, I used to buy 3.2 beer in the supermarkets along with my food, as anything stronger was sold in some variation of a liquor store. That was fine with me at the time, since I could sip 3.2 beer all evening while pouring over topographic maps and logging samples, never getting cross-eyed drunk. Cold Spring Brewing Company from just west of St. Cloud was the local liver solvent that kept my field campaigns well lubricated.
Beats me, we live in Iowa and other than Italian suds now and then, don’t drink much beer. What I REALLY miss here when we come back from Italy and it’s still hot is the fizzy white wine almost EVERYPLACE in Italy has on tap, like soda-pop. On a hot day we order a few bottles of fizzy mineral water and a liter of cold “vino bianco frizzante” for lunch. Clients new-to-us look at me like I’ve got two heads but by the end of the week we’re quite often ordering TWO liters! It’s low-alcohol stuff you can enjoy with your meal and feel no effects when you climb back on the bike. A few places we go know me well enough they don’t even ask…they just say “welcome back”, sit us down and come back with the wine and water right away. In Emilia-Romagna we often get Lambrusco which has an awful reputation here in the US but goes quite well with some prosciutto and melon on a warm day over there.
Khal: We still have 3.2 beer and wine in the grocery stores here in Mn. You can’t buy cars or booze here on Sunday, but anything else goes. I’m glad about the cars, though, I would hate to have to work Sundays. A quick jaunt across the bridge to Wisc. nets the liquor, and at better prices. Larry: I can remember when Lambrusco was the choice for partying at our local ski area. I think it was Riunite brand. Could be why the bad rep, especially since they recommended it on the rocks in their ads.
Boz, Riunite it was…truly wretched stuff and like Larry says, that crap had a great deal to do with Lambrusco dying a slow – well, maybe not so slow, death in the US. While not my first choice in vino for an every day drink, I love it when it’s hot out, like it is in Toscana right now, even at night, slightly chilled, just a touch of the frizzante – perfetto…