Guerilla Marketing: Chive flowers and the Pacific East Mall

All I want for Christmas is some pork shank, pork butt, pork heart, hock, loin with skin on, bung, belly, ear, blood, brain, spare rib, snout, liver, kidney, marrow guts, pork tongue, tocino, something called pork melt?, and fish sauce on the side. (for stocking stuffers)

Fortunately you can get this for me all in one place... It's called The Pacific East Mall, and it's in Richmond. (Not the Richmond District, you snots, the actual city.) It's an ENTIRE MALL filled with Asian stores and restaurants, including milk tea joints, Banh Mi sandwiches and pho, pottery barns, dim sum, toys, candy, books, even a florist. 

I'm sorry if this is getting obnoxious, but I'm having trouble containing my enthusiasm. I LOVE THIS PLACE!!! It even has a Korean karaoke bar like Jaguar in Oakland, but apparently they serve drinks here. The mall is anchored by 99 Ranch Market, a gigantic grocery emporium that I later found was a chain with locations across the Bay and beyond. No matter: This place was bomb. I barely bought anything, but I spent hours wandering around taking photos, snacking on pork buns and Chinese olive candies, periodically using the bathroom, and reaching for my phone to check various social networks and websites/blogs I subscribe to and enjoy browsing. 

My most tangible goal was to find an obscure grocery product to write about for my new feature project, Guerilla Marketing. In the future, I'll explore the Bay's (mostly mom-and-pop) ethnic markets and seek out obscure ingredients. I started small with some eye-catching chive flowers this time, but hope to really eat some crazy shit. 

Anyway, I hope these pictures make you a tenth as excited as I am. Hit me up if you want to explore together! 

AROUND THE MALL: 

Candy Box is crammed with kitschy sweets and anthropomorphic backpacks 

Pockymania

product in the herbal store World Ginseng Herb Company

strange dolls in the dehydrated fruit store TW Bestway

Santy

ChinaVille, an upscale pottery shop, imports their intricate pieces from Jingdezhen, China, "the porcelain capital of the world."

cool sign in the bakery

urchins!

99 RANCH MARKET:

Fuzzy melons in the city of produce: looks like a squash, feels like a peach, tastes like a gourd. 

Sad

You can buy the fish this way...

Or this way...

This is the RAMEN aisle. This is all ramen. 

Of course I bought some. My favorite was this seafood Ottogi Ramyon with nori broth and super plump noods. Almost to the udon level-they were that fat. I threw in some springy shimeji shrooms I also purchased at The Ranch. 

Okay, here's where it gets sexy. These chive flowers caught my eye because they looked too ornamental to eat. Snappier and more durable than regular chives, they can stand on their own in a stir fry, or act as a secondary flavoring ingredient. (The flavor is somewhere between garlic and green onion.) I didn't realize it at the time, but in addition to being used throughout Asia, they also pop up in European/Cal-Med/bistro food around here. (Let's do it!) Here are some quick links showing how the flowers are used in different cultures...

Flowering chives in Thai food: with recipe for stir fry with shrimp and oyster mushrooms

courtesy of Thai Food and Travel Blog

Malaysian/Chinese mom's recipe for stir fried garlic chive flowers with frozen tofu

From Little Corner of Mine

Example of chive blossom fusion food, made in the Philippines

From PetitChef

But beware: they stink! After a couple days in the fridge, it became harder and harder to justify using them. So far, I've managed to plop them in ramen noodle stir fry, ravioli dinner- and when I discovered there was no garlic in the house- a Spanish aioli. I've still got more, for better or worse...

Everything but the kitchen sink - because it's filled with dishes and disgusting rotting food - ramen. I made this in a hurry, so it wasn't unbelievable. It's got egg, ham, shimeji mushrooms, nori and chive blossoms for some crispy zing

More successful: I boiled some ravioli from work (works best with more savory flavors like porcini mushroom, beef or gorgonzola cheese) and made a butter sauce with the Parmesan and the chives. Just heat butter on low and add ingredients as desired. The fatty butter and rich cheese tamper the zingy chive, giving you a simple sauce with sophisticated flavors. Top with arugula, and you've got yourself a fantasy! 

Egg porn Vol. 273

Scrambled eggs with blood sausage I picked up at the Bacalhau Grill and Trade Rite Market in San Jose's Portuguese neighborhood. So heavy, I'm not sure I'd cook it for breakfast again. But great for afternoon tapas, I suppose. The sausage was mushy, chewy INTENSE!

The back of a Chinese cookbook I found at the East
 Bay Depot For Creative Reuse. The stuff of dreams...

I'm sorry, I'm obsessed with eggs. My preferred protein- they score eleven out of ten on the cost/deliciousness dynamic. So easy to prepare, so rewarding. So gourmet. So succulent, sexxxy. For pure visual recreation, I thought I'd post some egg pics of late. Some are my recipes, and some are from restaurants. Whatever floats your boat. 

SIDE DIATRIBE: I'm all for poached eggs at gourmet restaurants/cafes, but seriously, it's just fashion people! The best bite of egg ever has to be the yolk of a sunny-side up. When it comes to the base, unadulterated pleasure of luscious yolk dripping all over your face and body, nothing else compares. I'd like to see more chefs channeling the fried egg. Go for it people!

I love making pizza from flatbreads. Just take whatever's in the fridge and throw it on there. This guy has tomato sauce, caramelized red onions, fried sage, black olives and my beautiful baby chicken embryo. Just plop it on there and bake for a few minutes. INSANE.

Day after Thanksgiving breakfast: fried egg on green bean casserole with bakkin'

The best breakfast in the whole world: microwaved jasmine rice packet from Oakland's Koreana Plaza,  miso butter (you cook miso paste with butter on low for a minute), seaweed and poached egg. They start off separate, but become a miso/rice/egg mush by the end. Yolky rice is happy rice.

I spotted these Chinese tea eggs at the Imperial Tea Court's booth at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market. They're basically hard-boiled in tea! Seriously the best idea of all time. 

Pleasantly surprised by the huevos rancheros at Bette's Oceanview Diner, Fourth Street Berkeley. Egg was perfect texture: soft and supple. With baked chz and some decent tomatoey salsa. Fresh and fancy. Thank you. 

Petaloomin'

Taking a day off from slinging wheels of Epoisses, I set off to Petaluma last Tuesday to visit cowtopia: a 470-acre organic dairy farm in the breezy beautiful Chileno Valley. My cheesemonger friend and I were attending the inaugural BACA (Bay Area Cheesemonger's Association) meeting. 

The 130-cow operation, run by fourth-generation dairy farmer and most accommodating man in the world John Taverna, supplies milk to Cowgirl Creamery as well as the startup gelato makers Cremeux ex Machina (two people making gourmet gelato out of a shed on the property) among others. 

Rather than writing up a big old long thing, I thought I'd just post some pictures from the afternoon. Let's not kid ourselves: you're just here for the cow photos anyway. 

ON THE WAY:

Petaluma Pie Company, a cute pie place downtown, serves miniature sweet and savory pies, plus cold-brewed coffee.  

Spinach feta hand pie

THERE:

Although the majority of John's cows are Jersey, there are a couple of black Holstein's running around. This is what happens when the neighbor's bull hops over the fence to have some fun. 

cow porn

A baby cow born at 10 p.m. the night before. John's dairy cows actually spend the majority of their lives pregnant, averaging about 9 babies in a lifetime. 

The milking parlor, where the cows gather twice a day. John is a firm believer in simple, low-stress operations. When the cow is more comfortable, it gives higher quality milk. 

The cows determine their own schedule, walking through the gate when they're ready to be milked. 

When they're done, they walk out here and eat some hay. 

In front: the Chimney Rock cheese from Cowgirl Creamery. Just one of the seasonal Cowgirl cheeses made from his milk.  

Three domestic camemberts from Andre Artisan Cheese, also made with milk from Taverna Dairy. Erna Andre, a former biologist, makes the cheese at Swallow Valley Farm in Valley Ford and then ages them at different levels to attain varying textures. My favorite was the youngest, gooiest one.  

After lunch, John dished up scoops of pumpkin and Oreo ice creams he makes from the unpasteurized milk. Ice cream-making is one of his hobbies.  

I scream! 

Looks like cement, but this is actually a shot of  hypnotizing black sesame gelato from Cremeux ex Machina. The couple Alex Saneski and Jenny Ko moved over from New York to start their own company, getting closer to where the produce comes from. Right now they're experimenting and perfecting their menu on a single gelato machine. But they have big plans for the future...

No Meat Week: "The End of Days"

In about 45 minutes, Housten and I will make a meat toast. I'll hold up my package of Gallo Italian dry salami, he'll thrust up a Slim Jim, and we'll probably say something along the lines of this....

"We have just gone seven days without implicitly contributing to the scarification and slaughter of animals by consuming their flesh. Seven days is a long-ass time: Enough for God to create the world, Joan of Arc to fly around some crazy ass shit, and Housten to download the entire series of Alien Nation. God is good, beer is great, and people are crazy."  

pig blood

And then, after a short moment of silence, we'll eat.

It's probably not going to taste good. Not because the week of lentils has made me averse to the idea of consuming flesh, but because we bought this shit from 7 fucking 11....Gelatinous cubes of pig's blood probably taste better.

But seriously, I'm really surprised at how easy it all was. After the initial shock of the first two days, I really got used to the rhythm of vegetarianism. It took a little longer to order comfortably at restaurants (I've never had a dietary restriction before!), but eventually it became second-nature.

Especially at home. I'll admit I didn't make 90 percent of the foods I'd talked up, but for the most part, my meals were delicious and satisfying.

Last night, for example, I directed a magnum opus of French country cooking.

sangria (okay, not really French)

leeks vinaigrette with egg noodles

Confit of radishes in the pan

I admit, I've made this before when a vegetarian friend came to dinner. But the meal created such a stir that it's been inserted into the collective memory of Andi's kitchen prowess. First, you start off with a bunch of leeks (Get them as large as you can because the end product is sturdier and more substantial) and perform all of the proper trimming and washing. Here's a nice video showing you how to do it.

Then, you basically seer them in butter and oil, pour in some white wine and cook for a bit, add broth (I substituted vegetable), and bake in the oven for twenty minutes. Check out the full recipe from Bon Appetit here. Oh, and once you've mastered the vinaigrette dressing to put on top, you'll never want to go back to jarred dressing again. Add a bit of honey if you like it sweet. Goes great on salads.

You've also got to try this radish confit as a side. The sweet citrus flavors of the sliced root vegetable give the buttery leek a little pep. Since you're cooking them down for awhile, the color of the radishes becomes more concentrated, giving them a beautiful bright pink glow. Boil some egg noodles too- You're going to need something a little bland to balance all these flavors!

I also tried some fake chicken strips this week. Under the suggestion of the brilliant and beautiful Jamie Ross, I picked up some Gardein "seven grain crispy tenders I'm meat-free." (Is that the whole title?) and watched them bubble in the oven for a bit. I swear I'll try yours too Cheena, but I couldn't find them at Safeway yesterday.

I was actually pretty surprised! They were the best non-meat meat I've ever had. I was a little suspicious when I saw pieces of oats used in the breading, but for the most part, these guys were indistinguishable from the McDonald's stuff. It was probably easier for Gardein to get it right though, because real chicken nuggets aren't meat either.

I hope I haven't disappointed anyone by deciding to go back to eating meat. I don't think it was ever my intention to become vegetarian permanently, despite what I may have intimated. As a food writer who never takes no for an answer, I wanted to experience the feeling of restraint for a change. I wanted to feel how the other - more responsible - half lives. I wanted to understand where you're coming from.

I don't think my efforts have gone to waste. Over the past week, I've realized how painless and even exhilarating it is to eat vegetarian. Before, I think I treated meat like it was toast or something. I was gluttonous and irresponsible, popping meat into my mouth without the special regard it deserves. In the future, I hope I can live up to higher standards: eating responsibly and with appreciation for the sacrifices (animals and humans) make.

Frequently asked vegetarian questions:

1. Do you feel healthier?
 Not really. I ate a lot of cheese. 

2. Did you save money?
I don't think so. Leeks are surprisingly expensive! I did go to a sushi restaurant tonight and eat a cheap bowl of udon soup. But honestly, I probably would have done that anyway. I LOVE UDON!

3. Do you feel EMPOWERED?
A little bit. The understanding and support of others - especially H. Dog - helped me realize that people care about me and my stinky self-inflicted obstacle courses. It's nice to take something on and succeed at it too. Other than that, I still don't know shit about chakras or whatever.

4. Would you do ever it again?
But of course!

No Meat Week: Experiment?

Alright, so I've decided to lighten up a bit about the Morningstar products. After five days of flesh rejection, I think I've adequately demonstrated that I can stick to vegetables and cheese and go without fake meat. Cool! On Sunday at midnight I can start eating all the salami I want again, knowing that for the week of April 16-22, 2012 I was kind of a badass. Ting ting: everyone hold up your bacon lard rosemary shrimp skin martinis and give three cheers to Andi!

But I'd be missing a great opportunity...Now that I know what it's like to crave meat and not be able to have it, I can more objectively judge some of America's finest mock foods!

So I really want to try some fake chicken nuggets, but which ones? There's no way I can do that soyrizo shit, and I don't know about that mock duck either. And whatever I eat, I need to eat it in the next couple of days, otherwise the experiment won't work. So this is the challenge to you, my faithful My Dinner With Andi readers: If you suggest a fake meat product that surprises and satisfies, I'll buy you a packet on the house. (Or I'll just give you five bucks.)

Gonna make leeks vinaigrette tonight! Pretty stoked...