Food
Saturday, May 19, 2018
Yaass, Kouign-amann
Posted By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill on Sat, May 19, 2018 at 12:47 PM
A few years ago, the kouign-amann (pronounced "queen ahmahn") stumped the contestants on The Great British Baking Show, causing a dramatic series of light frowns and polite head scratching. The origami-folded bun with the buttery flakiness of a croissant and anchored by a caramelized sugar bottom that calls to mind the crunch of crème brûlée was a deep cut from Brittany circa the mid-1800s. Its hardcore French pastry fanbase has since expanded with a global revival. And now the little Breton bun has arrived in Humboldt.
The Beck's Bakery crew has been experimenting, says owner Rhonda Wiedenbeck, and finally hit on a recipe that works with local grains. The end product is a crown of layered dough that's tender and moist at its center with a crisp, buttery exterior ($4). So much butter. And the bottom is dark and glassy brown — just a little sticky. So far it's only available at the Arcata Farmers Market stall since they don't keep on a shelf the way the bakery's crusty loaves do. Bon chance, mes amis.
The Beck's Bakery crew has been experimenting, says owner Rhonda Wiedenbeck, and finally hit on a recipe that works with local grains. The end product is a crown of layered dough that's tender and moist at its center with a crisp, buttery exterior ($4). So much butter. And the bottom is dark and glassy brown — just a little sticky. So far it's only available at the Arcata Farmers Market stall since they don't keep on a shelf the way the bakery's crusty loaves do. Bon chance, mes amis.
Saturday, May 12, 2018
Jerk Chicken on the Plaza
Posted By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill on Sat, May 12, 2018 at 9:17 AM
There are those who hit the Arcata Farmers Market as the first pop-up tents are snapping into place, stuffing their canvas bags with the week's produce and heading home to, I don't know, cook ahead for the week or whatever it is efficient people do. The rest of us arrive late and linger, circling the vendors at McKinley's feet for an early lunch. If your nose picks up jerk chicken, stop.
The Jerk Kitchen table, draped in a Jamaican flag, might be obscured by a line of people waiting and watching owners Joanne Kerr and Dell Bryan bring a cleaver down on smoky leg quarters and dish up stewed oxtail. Bryan, who hails from Jamaica, makes his own wet jerk sauce and marinated the chicken all day before barbecuing it low and slow over a wood fire. The end product is juicy and seasoned throughout, with a fragrant, earthy char full of allspice, garlic and pepper. An order of chicken comes with soft, sweet fried plantains and festival — hand rolled cornbread fritters that are doughy and firm inside with a crusty fried exterior ($10).
The market is Jerk Kitchen's only steady location aside from the occasional appearance at The Jam for special events, so jump on it. Listen, you just bought a bushel of some green vegetable the leaves of which are tarp-thick and will need a soak and a picking over and a long boil before you can think about eating them — my God, it's like you just took on an entire new job. Take a lunch break.
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Glamping at Campground
Posted By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill on Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 5:01 PM
Going for woodland chic in Humboldt risks redundancy but the vibe at Campground (865 Ninth St., Arcata), the landlocked cousin of Salt, is a bit more Swedish cabin hotel, with its deconstructed forest of birch stalks separating the bar from the tables and the homey blue and white tile flooring. Blackout curtains obscure the Bret Harte Alley view from booths with caged lightbulbs suspended from ropes in rustic imitation of something your grandpa hooked up in the basement. The redwood tattoo on the forearm of the young man prepping vegetables just over the back counter is probably just a coincidence but it's on brand.
A glass fridge stocked with aged beef in the corner is promising, as is the fire in the back of the open kitchen, crackling and spitting embers up through the grill, a stack of firewood on deck below. Billed as an "Argentine-inspired steakhouse," the fire is the star of the show. What to order from the all à la carte menu?
Slim wedges of beef tallow potatoes ($7) arrive sprinkled with parsley and chive in a little cast iron pan. A true rival to French fries, they are perfectly salted, soft inside and rich with the promised beef fat, which also yields a just-crisp exterior. There’s a reason McDonalds worked so hard to replicate the flavor of beef fat for its fries — oil is no substitute.
The 10-ounce New York strip steak ($27) gleams with garlic and truffle compound butter, though the taste is squarely about the tender meat and the wood fire char that makes a wonder of its marbling and rind of fat. On a recent night, the grilled seasonal vegetables with roasted garlic vinaigrette included bright, glossy asparagus and zucchini with a perfect bite and a hit of woodsmoke ($6).
Are you going to eat someplace named Campground and not order the s'more pie? You are not. The hefty graham cracker crust and velvety ganache filling are topped with a dollop of marshmallow cream that's been torched to sleep-away camp toastiness. And you didn't even have to pack a sleeping bag.
Monday, March 19, 2018
Bread and Sugar: Pan Dulce from El Pueblo
Posted By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill on Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 7:00 AM
When fire shut down El Pueblo Market on Broadway in Eureka, it left a sweet roll-sized hole in our hearts and stomachs. While we wait for the market and its wall of baked goods to reopen — soon, we hear, though there's no firm date — we're feeding our pan dulce cravings at its Redwood Acres kitchen, tucked in the right side of the main building (3750 Harris St., Eureka).
Knocking and entering the side door with the pastel El Pueblo sign taped to it feels like visiting a sort of carb speakeasy. You might have to call out for someone to come out from the back, be it owner Engelberto Tejeda or another baker, but that gives you time to browse the rolling racks that nearly fill the tiny storage space.
Friday, March 2, 2018
A Mess of Ribs
Posted By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill on Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 1:48 PM
If fighting over politics isn't intense enough for you, may I suggest ribs? Even within the guidelines of competition judging, our personal and regional aesthetics make the whole business like drawing from a deck of wild cards. Still, the pros will generally tell you that for competition ribs, the meat should cling lightly to the bone, tender but not slipping off by itself.
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Sub Conscious
Posted By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill on Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 4:59 PM
Graduations, birthdays, christenings, communions and shotgun weddings — any event worth filling the yard with folding chairs in my hometown back east meant a 6-foot-sub. Laid out on a long table would be a seemingly endless loaf of Italian bread stuffed with layers of salami, ham, pepperoni, provolone and peppers doused in oil and red wine vinegar, with shredded iceberg lettuce cascading from the sides.
You'd carefully take a geode-layered slice, supporting your paper plate with one hand underneath, and make your way to a folding chair, trying to keep your heels from sinking in the lawn. The trick was to sit at the very edge of the lawn so you could get two bites in before somebody talked to you.
Is this a thing you can get here? Almost. From the tiny bar-adjacent storefront that is Deo's Sandwich Shop (428 Grotto St.) — a location that's been turning out sandwiches for some 45 years under a handful of owners — comes a monster of a classic Italian sub, roughly the size of your head ($10). But open your mind to relatively new owner Joe Sandoval's variation: salami, pastrami, provolone, sliced tomato, pepperoncini, fistfuls of shredded lettuce, seedy mustard, mayo and balsamic vinegar (because we're fancier on this coast). The warm, spicy, smoky pastrami works with the traditional Italian flavors and the bread is more substantial and crusty than those backyard wedges. To say seating is limited is an understatement; get your sandwich to go so you can be alone with it, get those bites in before anybody talks to you.
Saturday, February 3, 2018
Morning, Porkchop
Posted By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill on Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 3:44 PM
So if we're willing to blur the line between breakfast and lunch, we may as well luge down the slippery slope to dinner. We're really only an order of steak and eggs away. Abandon labels and be free.
Well, at least until Cafe Waterfront (102 F St., Eureka) stops serving breakfast around 11 a.m. We got a tip chicken fried pork chop was on the specials board ($13.95) and followed it up, though to be honest it could have been chicken fried hammers and we'd still have tried it once.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
It's All Gravy
Posted By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill on Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 11:22 AM
In the interest of transparency, I would like to confess that I have been closed minded about biscuits and gravy. Haunted by a decades-ago plate at a truck stop near the border of Texas and Arkansas with payphones in the dining booths, it was hard to accept any variation on the standard dusty-topped, fluffy biscuit all but drowned in peppery, white pork sausage gravy. Only recently have I opened my heart and its attending arteries to anything else.
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Is Brunch Dead?
Posted By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill on Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 10:56 AM
A few weeks ago, iconic pop star and holder of Champagne flutes Mariah Carey declared brunch over. On some level, she may be right. We may be done waiting in line (Mimi would never) to pay through the nose for swanky, Instagram-ready cloud eggs and a pass to day drink. But old-fashioned brunch — the big breakfast that forgives your rolling out of bed just shy of noon and gives you a pass to day drink and possibly return to said bed — will never be over.
Saturday, December 9, 2017
Pie/Cake Truce
Posted By Jennifer Fumiko Cahill on Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 10:00 AM
Let us not fall into the tribal factions and false dichotomy of pie vs. cake. Really, given the fact that Boston cream pie is really cake and cheesecake — with its graham cracker crust — is more of a pie, are we not already living in a post pie-vs.-cake society? (Drag me in the comments if you want. I said what I said.)
