A weekend of grilling in the parks

The Pacific coast weather is predictably insane. For two days this weekend my friends and I tried to go to the beach, and ended up grilling in the park instead. The weather forecast was great. Since one of the guys is a pilot, just before as we were getting ready to laeve, he would look up the real-time weather on the pilot's website. Both days, just as we were getting ready to leave, the fog was coming in over the beaches. So we had to go to some inland park instead - did we have a choice? Inland, the weather was glorious.

On Saturday, it was Edgewood Park in San Carlos. Since I was very tired after promoting my Personal Chef service all morning at a Mimosa-heavy networking event , M. had to take care of all the food. Her special is tuna poke, made with a poke mix that she gets in a secret Japanese store. There is pink seaweed, salt, and spices in the mix. I don't like it when she makes it according to the recipe, one package per pound of tuna; it comes out too salty and spicy. This time she seasoned 1.5 lb tuna with that one package - and it was perfect!

M. also brought wakame salad, to go with the poke, and shitake mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, and a huge bag of baby bok choy that we rubbed with olive oil and grilled.

There had to be adventures, of course: First, we forgot salt, and the guys had to run back to the supermarket while we were placing the unsalted vegetables on the grill. Second, in the background of the mushroom picture you can see Martin the dog. He is illegal. Dogs are not allowed in the park. But it's a very small print on the very bottom of the park website, so we didn't realize it until a ranger kicked Martin (and his seriously pissed-off owner) out of the park.


On Sunday, I had recovered from doing business and was ready to go to the ocean. The pilot guy checked the pilot's info, and the fog was coming in all over the cost. We had to go grill in Coyote Point park in San Mateo. Martin was not coming.

This time R. and I were getting the groceries, and the other guys were bringing the charcoal, plates, forks and napkins. We stopped at Belmont farmers market 10 minutes before close, and got wonderful heirloom tomatoes, small delicate Japanese eggplants, mixed squashes and spring onions. We also got a two-pound seabass steak, a large slice of cooked octopus, enoki mushrooms, ripe mangos, and Thai basil in Marina market.

Then we got a picnic table, and sat and waited. And waited. Watched the sailboats and kite surfers on the bay, and colorful international parties around us in the picnic area. And waited. I borrowed a plate from the Russian party to our left and started preparing the vegetables.

Finally, our people came. They brought salt, fancy glasses, new grilling tools, and Mai Tai mix, but forgot plates, so they had to drive back to a supermarket. Just as they came back, I found out that we are out of paper towels. So we had to borrow some paper napkins from a Mexican party to our right.

The octopus looks like a scary sea monster, but it makes a tasty grilled snack, has strong aroma of the sea, and is smoky and chewy.

The sea bass we seasoned with salt (forgot the pepper, sure), brushed with olive oil, and grilled for about 7 minutes each side; served with a salsa made of mangoes, spring onions, red bell peppers, and Thai basil.

Enoki mushrooms grill beautifully if you keep the root attached while cooking. The root keeps them from separating and falling through the grill. Cut the root off before serving.

Grilled eggplant and squashes didn't last long enough to get photographed.

Marinated baby octopus, and more flowers

There is a conspiracy: they are trying to make me a vegetarian. Marinated octopus and eggs are vegetarian, right? With all these heirloom tomatoes, tender salad greens, local avocados coming from the market, and fava beans and eadible flowers going crazy in my garden after the rains, every time I make myself something to eat it's a salad.

"Baby" octopi come frozen from the Chinese grocery store. They are not really babies, they are just small octopi, correct? If they are, I'm in trouble - R. doesn't eat any baby animals. Not even veal. It took me a while to convince him that Cornish hens and quails are grown up birds.

Anyway, I defrost the "babies", cook them in a large pot at a slow simmer until tender, about an hour, then marinate them with rosemary, thyme, oregano, salt and pepper in 1 part sherry vinegar and 2 parts olive oil.

Serve over a salad of baby romaine (he's fine with baby plants), avocado, heirloom tomatoes, and fava beans. Garnish with a soft-boiled egg and nasturtium petals.
The marinade doubles as a dressing.

Vegetarian delight.

Seafood paella in the park

My birthday is one of the prettiest days in October, so for the birthday party I usually do a picnic in some interesting place. In the past we've done a wine party in Buena Vista winery in Sonoma, a seafood grill on Angel Island (that wasn't the year when the island burned, sadly, on my birthday), opening the oyster season on Tomales Bay Oyster Farm. This year I was making paella on a grill in China Camp park.
Cooking paella outdoors for ten people can be labor-intensive, because of all the ingredients, the challenge of maintaining the heat in our afternoon wind, and all these good friends walking around impatiently - is it ready yet?

But it's pretty, tasty, serves the crowd (if you have a right pan, and I do, thanks DK who gave me this professional 15-inch paella pan years back), and cooking paella over an outdoor fire is the traditional way. I do cut corners by using canned tomatoes, even in the middle of the tomato season, and by buying the seafood frozen; it thaws on the way to the park, but doesn't require ice to keep it cold.
Some days are windier then others, so I bring my portable gas stove as an insurance. If it's very windy and difficult to maintain the heat on the grill, I'll fire the stove, screen it from the wind with the picnic basket, and cook on the gas heat. This time the wind was moderate by SF standards (15 knots or so, nothing to worry about), so I just started the sofrito on the stove while R. was getting the grill ready, then moved the pan over to the grill.

Most recipes fo paella say that the rice should be ready in 20 minutes. When cooking outdoors, it usually takes much longer. This time, with the pan being somewhat bigger then the grill surface, so I had to rotate it, the wind chill and all, the entire process took close to two hours. Then, when it was almost ready, R. decided that there is not enough heat to finish it - or that he hadn't have enough fun with the charcoal and the lighter fluid, and it's his last chance - anyway, he added more charcoal and made a huge roaring fire right under the pan. I thought it would burn and ruin the dish, but instead it created that wonderful golden crust on the bottom!



While the paella was getting done, the guests were entertained by Portugese green wine, marinated baby octopi, fire roasted peppers, very smelly cheeses that K. picked up in Whole Foods on the way there, and Martin, K's teenage hound, who attempted to eat everything in sight, tear to pieces everything that he didn't eat, and lick everyone to death. No, we didn't eat Martin, but we surely discussed the possibility.

For the seafood stock, every time I buy shrimps in the shells with the heads on, I put the shells and the heads in a pan with water to cover, add salt, pepper, a couple of thyme sprigs and a bay leaf, and simmer for 30 minutes, strain and freeze. Or, if you have a whole fish, do the same with the bones.

Seafood Paella for ten

1/2 cup olive oil
1 extra-large yellow onion, chopped
1 can whole peeled tomatoes
1 cup green peas
1 green bell pepper, cored and chopped
1 lb whole small squid, cleaned
1 lb baby octopus, cleaned and cooked for 30 minutes in salt water, drained
1 lb salmon fillet, cut into bite-size pieces
1 lb cod fillet, cut into bite-seze pieces
10 sea scallops
1/2 kg (a little over a pound, 1/2 bag) Valencia or Bomba rice
1 Tbsp Spanish smoked paprika
1 pinch saffron
1 tsp sea salt

1 whole head of garlic, unpeeled, the top 1/4 cut off
2 cups unexpensive white wine
6 cups seafood stock (or clam juice)
20 medium shrimps, peeled, deveined, tails on
20 cooked green mussels on half-shell

2 red or yellow bell peppers,fire roasted, cut into narrow strips, to serve
2 lemons, cut into wedges, to serve

Make the sofrito: Heat the oil in a 15-inch paella pan over hot coals. Add onions and cook, stirring frequently, untill transparent and just beginning to turn color. Add the tomatoes with the juice, break up with the spatula. Cook until almost all the liquid evaporates.

Add the green pepper, the peas, octopus, scallops, salmon, and cod; stir. Add the rice, season with paprica and salt, sprinkle on the saffron, breaking the threads between your fingers.

Add the rice and stir for about two minutes to cover the rice with oil. With a spatula, even out the surface of the rice. Push the head of garlic in the center. Pour in the wine and about 4 cups of the stock. From this moment, don't stir! The goal is to cook the rice while keeping the grains separate, and stirring would loosen the starch on the surface of the grains, making them into a risotto. You can turn the pan, add liquid as needed, carefully taste the rice for donness, - but don't disturb the rice!

Different types of rice will take different amounts of liquid, so see if the rice goes dry after a few minutes, and if it does, carefully add more stock, or water. After about 20 minutes, start tasting the rice. When it's almost done, place the shrimps and mussels on top, pressing them into the rice. Allow the steam to cook the shrimps and warm the mussels. You may have to turn the shrimps over if there is not enough steam to cook them through; or just cover the pan with aluminum foil for the last 5 minutes of cooking.

Now, we want to create this delicious crust of caramelized rice on the bottom of our paella. If you nare cooking on a stove, turn up the heat for a couple of minutes. If it's on a charcoal grill, the heat would be down to meduim by now, so add more charcoal, light it up, and build a serious fire under your pan.

Take of the grill, serve in the pan, decorated with roasted bell peppers and lemon wedges.

R's birthday is the second prettiest day of October, but this time it was cold and overcast, so I just got out for long enough to grill our pork tenderloin and vegetables, and then we ate inside by the fire:

Greek Marinated Octopus

One of the most beautiful and intelligent marine animals, marinated Greek-style.

In the Greek Ionian Islands I used to wake up to the loud sound of beating - the locals wake up at the sunrise, when one can catch a large octopus in the surf with one's bare hands, then they beat the catch on the concrete quay to make it release the ink.
The octopus is then boiled for two hours, with vinegar added halfway through cooking, cut up and marinated in olive oil, vinegar and Greek herbs - oregano, rosemary, thyme and parsley.

I never woke up early enough to catch my own octopus, but I had it already cooked in a seaside tavern and loved it. So now I am reproducing the recipe with frozen baby octopus that I catch in a Chinese grocery store.

The babies come already cleaned and free of the ink, as a block, with 10-20 little octopi frozen together. They take about 15 minutes in cold water to defrost and separate. Then I boil them - since they are small, the cooking time is reduced to 40 minutes, - add red vine vinegar for the last 10 minutes, cut the tentacles from the "head" and slice the "head" into rings, and marinate them with olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and chopped fresh herbs from the garden for at least an hour. They can keep in the refrigerator for at least a week.

Serve them cold, with country style bread and chilled Italian white wine.