Today the blog is dedicated to things I've eaten in my life that I can't find anymore. Why? I'm hungry? Not so much physically hungry, but spiritually hungry. Proust wrote about madelines, I'm writing about Gems.
Gems: These were small, egg-shaped pastries that my Grandma Belle got for me on Murray Avenue in Pittsburgh. Squirrel Hill, the Jewish neighborhood spread out about 5 blocks in each direction from this artery. Murray Avenue is the high street and it was full of kosher shops, bakeries, Mineos Pizza and a place on the corner that over the years has been Rhoda's and Kazinski's where one could get an amazing corned beef sandwich.
How to describe a Gem. It's sort of one of those things, if I could describe it, I could find it! The cake texture is a cross between a brownie and devils food cake. Rich and chocolately but you can get it in other flavors too. The frosting, either luscious chocolate fondant or a white fondant. There's a snap on the top layer of icing, then creamy, then your teeth bump into the slightly rigid and moist cake.
They come in a pink pastry box tied in twine. They nestle in the box in fluted, white, paper circles, curving up slightly to hug the pastry. It (I was never allowed more than one at a time) is served to me on one of Grandma's china plates with a small, silver fork.
I must digress here. How is it that working class people from Pittsburgh come to have such nice things? Years of work and a connection at Kaufmann's (recently purchased by Macy's.) My grandma sold shoes at Kaufmann's until she died in 1969. My aunties all worked there too. I have a really neat collection of china dessert plates and coffee cups, all different patterns, one of my aunties got from buying the samples when they stopped stocking them. So pretty. Let's just say part store discount, part larceny.
Getting back to Gems. You can't find a reference to them at all on the interwebs. It's really annoying. If my mother didn't confirm it for me, I'd thought that I'd dreamed them.
Poncho's Red Chili Burro, enchilada style with extra sauce and extra lettuce: Every Friday night for a decade this was my order at our local Mexican restaurant in South Phoenix, AZ. The place is still there on Central Avenue, between Baseline and Southern. It started as a small take-away stand, and then took over the house; they added the Cantina in the late seventies. The dining rooms are the size of rooms in a house (because they are.) Seven tables in one room, four in another and the back room features 5 tables, one of which butts up to a mural of President Clinton enjoying a plate of nachos. It sort of looks like he's eating with you. This commemorates an actual visit by the president, when he got a hankering for some good Mexican food and his driver took him to the best place in town.
The folks who work there are like family. Ann, our waitress, who retired a couple of years ago. Nelly, a friend of my sister's from grade school, worked her way up to waitress. We chit chat and catch up with them while we nibble fresh chips and salsa or a cheese crisp. I should include the cheese crisp here, since it is only found in Arizona, and I think one of the Biggest Loser people talked about them. It's a quesadilla, but flat, not folded, and crunchy. A very skinny cheese pizza.
My order is always the same. When I visit Phoenix I try to figure out how to get a bunch of orders to carry back. It starts with the chili. All meat, no beans. It could be beef or pork or a mixture of the two. The sauce is red and spicy, but tasty, not hot. The tortilla is big, so when it's all rolled up it folds back upon itself creating thick layers of soft, chewy, deliciousness. It is topped with enchilada sauce, a chili based red-sauce that is mellowed by stock. When done the way I like it, there is longhorn cheese baked on top of the sauce, not crispy, but creating strings of chewiness. The sauce pools on the big plate and shredded lettuce is piled up in a bank on one side of the plate. I mix the sauce and cheese into the lettuce. I must be a pervert but I think this is a wonderful side dish. Sometimes there are a couple of diced tomatoes in there. That's just fine with me.
The burro (not burrito) is a texture thing as much as a taste thing. Chewy, meaty, saucy and a bit of crunch from the lettuce. It all comes together brilliantly. It tastes delicious too.
You can get a decent approximation. The problem is if a place makes red chili, they don't have big enough tortillas to make a good sided burro. Besides, it never quite tastes the same. Usually if they make the chili, they serve it with little tortillas on the side. The enchilada sauce and lettuce is never quite right either. The sauce is too thin, the lettuce is too thick, there's always something off.
I make good enchilada sauce, and I know how to cut the lettuce, but the chili escapes me. I'd love a recipe, and maybe I'll write to them and they'll give it to me. But it will never be the same as going to the restaurant, having them know exactly what I want when I sit down, right down to leaving the pitcher of iced tea so that I can refill my own glass.
Frango: It's actually Frango Do Brasilia. There used to be a Brazilian pizza place on Fillmore St in San Francisco called DiPaula's. They delivered to my job. Since I worked swing shift we'd order from them all the time. One day I was tired of eating pizza (again) and asked them what else they made. Frango. Apparently the list of ingredients include heroin because I was hooked.
Frango, is made with bell peppers, beer, onions and some other things. It's served with yellow rice and sautéed spinach. It's tasty and nutritious.
For years I'd go into Brazilian restaurants looking for this dish. I tried New York, I tried Miami, when I was a teacher I told the Brazilian kids that I'd give them extra credit if they could bring me a recipe.
I was doing some internet research putting in ingredients, the words Frango or DiPaula's and one day I got a hit. DiPaula's became a restaurant called Mozzarella di Buffalata and they moved to a new address. I emailed them and they mailed me back the recipe. I've made it twice. The ingredients seem right. What I thought was saffron, turns out to be turmeric. Apparently Guinness isn't the dark beer they had in mind. Allowing for this, something is missing. James doesn't want me to make it any more because it's just not as good as some other things he likes. I want to keep trying until I get it right. I feel like there's a major component missing. They say to use heavy cream; I think I need to use coconut milk. It reminds me of that episode of the Dick Van Dyke show where Laura gives Millie a recipe for guacamole, but she leaves out the peanut butter. There's something distinctive missing.
Feng Yen Hot Braised Chicken Wings: Feng Yen was a Chinese restaurant in Albany, CA. It was owned by Koreans and kim chee was always on the table. After warming up to hot and sour soup, I branched out on the menu and tried the rice plate, lunch special, Hot Braised Chicken Wings. How to describe this? There are wood ear mushrooms, bamboo shoots, green onion, and white onion strips. The chicken wings have a goodly portion of breast meat on them, so they are big. They French the bone, so all the meat is at the top end, no flappers.
The wings appear to be fried to a crunch on the outside, no batter, just crispy skin. Then the veggies are mixed with garlic and a brown sauce, with some of the red pepper skins in it. It's served with a mound of steamed rice and voila! A wonderful lunch and dinner, that's how big the portion was.
I was successful in tracking this down a long time ago here in Atlanta at the Golden Buddha on Clairmont. One time I got horrible intestinal distress from it there, but who knows what that really was. We went to a different Golden Buddha on Roswell Rd, but the Hot Braised Chicken wings were really Go Buli Chicken (see below.) I was disappointed.
Go Buli Chicken: Go Buli was the other Chinese restaurant. It was in El Cerrito, near the BART station. They served white meat chicken pieces, fried in a batter with a sweet, sticky, garlicky, spicy sauce over wheat noodles. The good news is that I can get this nearly everywhere. Only it's served with rice, not noodles. At one restaurant I can get it with bones, which is harder to eat, but tastier I think. At H-Mart, they serve the chicken with corn chips and rice. Weird, but very good.
Jack in the Box Chicken Supreme: Not the one they have now, the original. A round chicken patty fried crispy, whole-wheat bun, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of jack cheese, garlic mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato slices. I worked at Jack in the Box when the sandwich was introduced and BOY did I like it. My favorite time of day to eat this was in the morning on my way to school. I could drive through and get one fresh and hot at about 7:30am on my way to ASU. Why they tinkered with it I don't know. I thought it was great. The spurt of oil as you bite into the hot chicken, the cool veggies and mayo. What a great sandwich.
Okay, surprisingly, I'm not hungry. Why are some things ephemeral like the dishes mentioned above? Is it possible that nothing will measure up to my memory of how good they were? I've been back to Poncho's and the burro is exactly as I remember it. The recipe I got for Frango do Brasilia has not yet been a success. I suppose that for every dish that got away, a new dish comes into my life.
Tacos at Taqueria Del Sol. Vietnamese duck dumplings at Com. Pho, anywhere. Bi Bim Bap and King Dumplings at the H-Mart.
I suppose I'm lucky. It's better to have loved and lost than never to have had Frango do Brasilia.
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