StalkingThere is around rhubarb a miasma of nostalgia. From the soggy cold shade each spring unfurled the enormous poisonous leaves in Grandma’s patch, each held aloft by a fruity pinkish stalk which she, resolute soul, pulled, chopped, boiled and baked into that preferred vehicle of nature’s bounty, the pie. Still queen of festivals across the prairies, rhubarb is turned into soups, sauces, condiments and conserves. Enlightenment botanists scratched their heads over a use for rhubarb, a Russian émigré and distant relative of the pricier-than-opium purgative powdered root of the Chinese pharmacopoeia, before hitting on tarts (wantons!). Cheap sugar from the West Indies made the Covent Garden market-stall novelty hugely popular, and pioneers of English and German stock trundled it over the American plains. Now hip-to-be-square pastry chefs insist it’s their favorite.
Nelly Capra associates rhubarb with “longing.” A chef in Genoa (ornellacucina.com), she caught the aroma of rhubarb pie baking in a friend’s kitchen on a visit to England, and knew she had loved it before, although it was “completely unknown in Italy” except as a very bitter liqueur. She was remembering the apple/rhubarb sauces of her early childhood in Belgium, where, her father told her, “there was nothing but rhubarb.” She carried the pink stalks back from every northern country and “made everything with rhubarb” until her friends grew tired of it. Linda Forristal (westonaprice.org) confesses to making an annual pilgrimage to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania from her home in Maryland to ‘forage’ for rhubarb: “I drive around the back roads looking for abandoned or under-appreciated patches of rhubarb that are going to waste.” Like a friendly ghost, but with a knife. “I inevitably find that the owners are more than happy to part with some without compensation,” she adds breezily. Cathy, another Marylander, who writes a blog called My Little Kitchen (blogspot.com) and has a long list of favorite needlework sites, seems more conflicted. As a child “it seemed unfair…that rhubarb even counted as a dessert.” Remembering its texture and sourness, she nonetheless tries out a recipe for rhubarb conserve, perhaps pining for a lost, laborious intimacy with the natural world, one where backyards nurture and a leaf, rather than the soil itself, is toxic. Clear-eyed Suzanne Schoen, Sage’s perennial pastry consultant, has no illusions. “It’s tart, like cranberries. If you overcook it, it turns mushy. If you undercook it, it’s fibrous.” Eschewing the too-common rhubarb crisp, she and Valerie have baked a rhubarb coffee cake for Sunday Brunch at Eastbluff and made Strawberry Rhubarb Crepes for dessert, with creamy mascarpone filling, a tart rhubarb sauce, and fresh house-made strawberry ice cream. Eastbluff bartender Deana sweet-talked some rhubarb syrup from the kitchen to make a brilliant Rhubarb Mojito. Kathy at the Coast chopped her stalks into a fresh strawberry rhubarb turnover served with crème fraiche ice cream and a sweet cream made with spring lavender flowers, show-off. Rhubarb Coffee Cake,
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MomentousIf you saw the behemoth in the LA Times Food Section April 19 (“Halibut’s Big Moment”), you know the Alaskan halibut is in, in from the very depths of the Pacific, and weighing up to 700 pounds. Their size belies the extreme delicacy of the filet--mild, moist, lean and pure white--served at Sage with a panko crust that turns light golden brown like a fresh biscuit. The dense crust of Japanese breadcrumbs is seared around the filet, holding moisture in while it gently bakes. Since the fish isn’t oily or fatty, it works well with the light, Asian-inflected preparation that has long been an Eastbluffian favorite, with saimen noodles, Asian vegetables (bean sprouts, Gai Lan, You Choy, Baby Bok Choy Sum, Napa Cabbage), and a light soy and fresh-wasabe (yet not spicy!) broth. Recently paired with a spring vegetable risotto with fava beans, English peas and fresh, tender artichoke hearts, the pacific halibut never interfered with the sweet nuances of Chef Rich’s farmers’ market vegetables. Carefully allocated fishing quotas keep the catch coming in through early summer.Alaskan Halibut, nightly (depending on availability), both locations.
Jerry Rutiz’s roadside strawberry stand attracts all the locals around his rural-residential corner of Arroyo Grande. That’s because he sells a variety called ‘Galante’ that a friend of his bred just for sweetness. It’s a garden variety without a long shelf life. It won’t last a week to ten days in a shipping container like commercial varieties, so it sells well in Europe, where markets are closer to the growers. It also yields less fruit, but since it was developed from older, more resistant varieties, it can be grown pesticide free—unlike commercial types, whose less disease-resistant roots only do well in fumigated soil. Chef |
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Eastbluff Shopping Center
2531 Eastbluff Newport Beach, CA 92660 949.718.9650 |
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Crystal Cove Promenade 7862 East Coast Highway Newport Beach, CA 92657 949.715.7243 |
Rich waited and waited to put strawberries on the menu until the sweetest, locally grown ones became available, and he buys them from Jerry at the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market. When you taste Sage’s strawberry ice cream or strawberry rhubarb turnovers you’ll thank them both for taking a stand.
