Barbara Tropp and China Moon, part two--the cookbook

Is there a cookbook you find both inspirational and frustrating?

The China Moon Cookbook was the first cookbook I ever bought for myself at full price. I still have it, stained, dogeared, torn—and even though I haven’t cooked from it in years, it has always been at the center of my collection.

It is, objectively, a cookbook filled with recipes that are not easily accessible. Most, but not all, cookbooks based on restaurants try to make a restaurant’s food accessible to the regular kitchen. At the most extreme, this results in cookbooks where the illustrations reveal dishes with ingredients and garnishes not even mentioned in the given recipe. Corners are cut in the name of the common reader, or cook. Home kitchens do not have the same resources as restaurant kitchens.

China Moon demands a commitment. The entire first section of the cookbook is made up of recipes you need to make before you can even attempt most of the dishes in the rest of the cookbook. At the least you need: Chili-orange oil, pickled ginger, roasted szechuan pepper salt, and ma-la oil (or five flavor oil). For a more complete kitchen, the book suggested all of the above, and chili oil, chili-lemon oil, and Serrano-lemongrass vinegar. And I’m not even touching on her precise instructions for making stocks and double infusions.

When you did make the recipes, everything had to be precisely cut and measured. The recipe for pickled didn’t just call for rice vinegar. Instead, it required rice vinegar, cider vinegar, and distilled white vinegar. However, while distinct from the usual rice vinegar, the differences were small, and became even smaller when the ginger was integrated into other recipes. The book made similar absurd demands on the reader; to make a recipe, you had to recreate the experience of cooking it in the restaurant’s kitchen.

Yet I remember not thinking any of this when reading it first. Barbara Tropp, and the people at Workman who helped her fashion the cookbook, were reassuring throughout. Everything was explained; it all made sense and it seemed while you were reading it that it could not be otherwise.

And I fell for it. I made most of the oils, the salt, the ginger, even the double infused stocks. I probably made a couple dozen recipes from that cookbook, if you include the pantry recipes.

In particular, I loved the pickle recipes, for orange carrot coins, for ma-la cucumber fans, for ginger radishes, ginger pickled red cabbage slaw, and spicy cabbage pickle—all were great. There were other recipes—the hot and sour short ribs, the bunny stew, the chili-orange noodles, and most importantly, her Chinese style gravlax.

Her recipe for gravlax, with ginger and cilantro instead of the usual dill, and served with ginger slaw, became one of my standby recipes for years. I still make gravlax, but with more traditional seasonings—and the addition of a little single malt whiskey to the salmon before coating in salt and sugar.

What makes her cookbook so great is exactly what is frustrating about it. It is the China Moon Cookbook, and it gives the best approximations on how the food of her restaurant can be made at home, down to the right brands of soy to use.

And for me, it forced me to thinking about cooking differently, more seriously. One couldn’t just jump in and cook a Barbara Tropp recipe. Instead, you had to construct it from the bottom up; using the right stock, the right oils, the right vinegar, the right salt, even. You had to plan in advance: making buns, for example, was a multi day process. A mise en place was absolutely necessary, you couldn’t just cut as you went. There was a meticulousness to her approach; one that might have been overwhelming without her accompanying voice.

Reading her book, making her dishes led me to be a better cook in general, to make my own dishes with more precision.

Again, it is strange to realize a person’s passing so long after the event. You are acknowledging a lack you didn’t know you felt.

But it is a lack I’ve felt since I finished her cookbook. There are other cookbooks I love, ones that are even perhaps more in tune with the kind of food I love, but her voice is one I’ve never encountered since. It was intensely personal and professional, academic and approachable. You could hear her erudition behind her voice, but it never overwhelmed or became pedantic. That we only have her two books is our loss.

Barbara Tropp and China Moon, part one

What now closed restaurant from your past would you want to revisit?

I recently found out that Barbara Tropp, owner of the China Moon Café, and author of the cookbook of the same name, passed away eight years ago, in November of 2001. I was reading another cookbook, and it referred to her as the “late Barbara Tropp.” It shook me up. I never knew her, but she was important in my life.

As a senior in High School, living in the far east bay area, I used to read the restaurant reviews every week in the San Francisco Chronicle. You can basically insert your usual cliché here—it was a window into a more exciting world is the one that works for me. But the review of China Moon was the first review that led to me acting on my fantasies. I went there, and for the next year or two, it was my date restaurant. It made me feel urbane, not fancy and fake. A narrow restaurant off of Union Square, it had a split level kitchen, and you could see the cooks assembling dishes on the top floor. The other quirky thing I remember is that they had a mineral water list. For someone below the drinking age, this allowed me to feel sophisticated. I’d pick Levissima—a water from the north of Italy, not because of its quality, but because I knew it and it seemed an exotic choice that would reflect well on my tastes. I wasn’t your ordinary customer, satisfied with Perrier or Pelligrino or even Romerquelle.

One of the sad things looking back is the knowledge that I have forgotten certain things. I never really kept a diary; it never seemed important. But now, I would love to be able to look back and see what exactly I had ordered and who I had gone with. I remember a few things: the spicy beef stew almost too spicy, the orange flavored noodles, the salmon cooked in parchment with cilantro pesto (one of the cleanest tasting dishes I’ve ever had), and the key lime-rum tart with chocolate sauce (or was it ice cream?). The service was also, to my teenaged mind, perfect—friendly, not ingratiating--it made me feel urban, not suburban.

Years later, it was rereviewed in the Chronicle. I had now finished college, and was living back home. The review was less than positive, saying that the place had gone downhill, the food greasy, geared to tourists. A few years later, it closed down. At the time, the review came as almost a relief—I hadn’t been there in a couple years, and knowing that it had gone downhill made me feel better about not going. I wish I had gone—I wish I could go—back, walk through the door, to one of the booths, order a bottle of Levissima, a plate of appetizers, and that salmon.

The chinois and a recipe for Corn Bisque

This is something I wrote a while back. I wanted to post it before the absolute end of corn season, as the corn soup recipe attached is my one of my favorite dishes. I haven't made it this year and, sadly, I fear I won't have the chance.

What are your favorite obscure kitchen items?

To the home cook, few implements seem as foreign and as emblematic of the professional kitchen as the chinois. From its awkward shape and its utilitarian look, it is out of place in most batteries de cuisine. One look at it conjures up visions of overheated kitchens, men and women wearing toques and plaid pants, voices shouting orders, and the general chaos of the dinner rush. The exact role of the chinois, well, it strains, doesn’t it?

The reason that the chinois, or more properly the chinois tamis, intimidates is its association with haute cuisine and its worst excesses. Even the name, chinois, derived from someone’s belief that it was shaped like a Chinese hat to someone, is slightly offensive. Its fine double mesh was designed to strain stocks, to clean impurities out of sauces. To many, this means that it doesn’t alter flavor, just appearances.

To say that this is so is to do an injustice to the chinois and to the palate. Straining does make a difference in flavor. The next time you make beef stew at home, try running the liquid through the chinois. It is this simple: remove the meat from the pot, set it aside. Strain the rest of the ingredients through the chinois, pressing down on them if necessary, and boil down until thick. Add the meat back to the liquid. You will be amazed at the difference.

For me, though, the true magic of the chinois is in what it does to and for soups. Put simply, it allows starches to pass through while retaining other, more fibrous material. One of my favorite soups is a corn bisque, made at the peak of corn season. Because the chinois allows the starches through, but not the fibrous skin of the corn, the soup is smooth and thick without requiring the addition of any cream at all. The resulting soup is silky smooth—the essence of corn flavor with a hint of corn’s heft.

Corn Bisque. Serves 6

10 ears of corn

9 cups broth, chicken or vegetable.

1 onion, chopped

2 carrots, peeled and chopped.

Salt, white pepper

Dash Tabasco

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon chopped chives

¼ pound bacon, chopped into ¼ inch strips

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1. Heat the broth to a simmer.

2. Shuck and remove all of the kernels from each ear of corn. After removing the kernels, use the back of the knife to get as much of the juice as possible. Set all the kernels and juice aside.

3. Place the ears in the broth and let simmer for thirty minutes.

4. In a 4-5 quart heavy saucepan or soup pot, sauté the onion and carrot until the onion is soft, about five minutes.

5. Add the corn kernels and cook over low heat, stirring constantly. After most of the liquid has evaporated, add the broth to the corn, reserving one cup.

6. Cook for thirty minutes, until corn is very tender. In batches, send the soup through a blender.

7. Using a wooden spoon, or a long pestle, strain and push the blended mixture into another pot using your chinois. There will be a significant amount of solid material. Set it aside, and repeat this until all of your soup is transferred.

8. Place the set-aside solids back in the blender. Set the blender on highest setting and blend for one minute. Add ½ cup of the reserved stock. Blend for another 30 seconds. Strain this through the chinois.

9. Repeat process with remaining solids and liquids. After you’ve pressed all of the moisture out of the solids and are left with a small amount of fibrous material, discard what remains.

10. Heat and season to taste with Tabasco, salt, and pepper.

11. Garnish with chives and bacon (optional).

Introduction and Welcome

I grew up in Northern California, in lesser wine growing land and greater cowboy territory. I got to see my town turn from a farming community to an outer suburb. I also got to see the culinary revolution from a point right behind the front. I remember friends of my parents talking about Chez Panisse—I even think they went with my neighbors in the early eighties. While we always grew fresh produce, I saw the supermarkets get more variety, the rise of farmer markets (I remember one early one where the mushroom lady—a favorite vendor of mine—told me that although she only sold the legal, culinary species, she was also a fan of the other kinds of mushrooms), and perhaps most emblematically, the availability of quality bread. In high school, the only good bread was from one of three or so sourdough bakeries in San Francisco—I believe Parisien was the best brand, but I could be misremembering.

Then, everything changed. Slowly, but surely, we went from a two-winery town to a town filled with boutique wineries. The town restaurants went from Pizza and Chinese to Thai and Italian (and back to Pizza, interestingly).

And I went away to college.

I returned, determined to be a writer. Which meant I waited tables. I worked lunches at the new Belgian Bistro in town—I’m sure I’ll talk about it later—and lived at home. This led to barbecues that became more baroque as time went by, trying to lure college friends to the suburbs. And then a good friend finished college and found himself in the same position. We were kind of an echo chamber for each other, pushing ourselves to more and more extensive and elaborate culinary feats—the most impressive of which, in retrospect, was catering a vegetarian party in San Francisco for about 30 people at a cost of about 100 dollars. And that included flourless chocolate cake.

When I got into graduate school in New York, I left California. My parents left a few years later. And although I’ve been back a few times, I no longer am a Californian.

I became a New Yorker. I spent years studying and working in New York, working for three of those years as a barista at the first NYC Starbucks. Over more years than I care to remember, I got a degree in British Literature and a job outside of New York.

Still, throughout, there was the love of food and cooking. I’d try to sample the local cuisine when at conferences, and would throw dinner parties as often as possible. Restaurants were limited by budget, but even with a limited budget, one can eat well in New York.

Now, I’ve moved to Pennsylvania, where I have a job at a University as an Assistant Professor of English Romantic Literature, but I miss the connection to food that I felt in New York, and in California. Here, in farmland, ironically, I feel a bit cut off...for many reasons.

The reason I’m writing this goes back to that friend from my hometown. He’s now a food expert—he makes food products—and lives, with his family, in California, within driving distance of our hometown. He’s interested in taste, in how we think about it, and he will be the other major contributor to this blog.

For me, I have to caution that although I will try to limit it to food, my contributions might occasionally stray into other territory. I’ve been diagnosed with cancer, and that has changed many things for me. I also do have some strong opinions about the contemporary education scene. And, even though I argue for editing and restraint in both cooking and writing, I feel a little crosspollination is not a bad thing.

I’ll let my friend speak for his contributions, but the best way to understand mine is to look at Raphael’s The School of Athens. At the center of his painting is Plato pointing upwards, to the abstract principle, and Aristotle downwards, to the concrete. I want to do both things with my contributions. I don’t want to just talk about tasty meals I’ve had; I want to talk about what makes them tasty. I want to see if some general principles can’t be teased out of individual experiences, but I don’t want those experiences to get lost in generalities. I want to include recipes and the theory behind the recipes.

Finally, a warning: unlike my friend, I am not a professional. My experience in the food world is limited to waiting tables and working at Starbucks. And, while I often enjoy pontificating about what I would do if I ran a restaurant, I realize that I am the culinary equivalent of a caller on sports radio: an amateur, speaking not from a position of knowledge, but from one of passion.

And a quick P.S.: This whole blog thing is designed to be interactive, a conversation about food. I think of my entries as conversation starters.