Galley Girl – She's in Your Kitchen

Chef Celeb cook books are useful as step stools, for pressing flowers, or, for the ones with especially compelling photos, cocktail table status symbols. For cooking? Meh.  Just because so and so can wield a behemoth immersion blender with the proportions and decibel output of a  jackhammer doesn’t mean it’ll work in my humble galley. Then there’s the issue of practicality. Storing not to mention brandishing a butane torch the size of an airport runway fire extinguisher seems downright risky.

No special equipment required.

There is also the issue of patronage. I don’t frequent many of the legions of chef celeb-driven restaurants, and in many cases, neither do the chefs themselves. Hence, there’s no feeling of loyalty, of confidence borne from knowing the chef is there overseeing the mundane with the  kind of quotidian regularity that breeds staff rapport, community and, in the right hands, near flawless food.

Zov Karamardian could be off gallivanting on Bravo’s reality show, Top Chef Masters, but she turned them down. She can actually be found in her eponymous restaurant day in and day out.  Better still, she cooks in it, and I really like what she cooks. Hence, I thought I might like to use her new cook book, Simply Zov for more than a doorstop.

I picked up three copies of the book while eating dinner at Zov’s last month. It had just come out, and our server had them all inscribed and autographed by Zov while we had a beautifully executed  prix fixe and sipped Vouvray Chenin Blanc. It’s a lovely volume, with a full page picture for every recipe. It’s budget minded with no outlandish special equipment required, and very user friendly.

How so? I found out at 5:00 a.m. yesterday. Neglecting to prep my bake sale items the night before, I decided to whip something up at the last minute in The Test Galley, which  is about as organized as your local soup kitchen. I chose Apricot Shortbread Bars substituting strawberry preserves.   A simple dough grating technique (after freezing it) resulted in bars that had all the shortbread richness, but with a flaky, light, buttery crumb, softer where the dough met the sweet tang of the preserves. The bars sold out in minutes. The bedlam they created at the bake sale table is better left out of this piece. Let’s just say it wasn’t  what you would expect of church ladies.

Zov’s Bistro, Cafe and Bakery 17440 E. Seventeenth Street Tustin, CA 92780 (714) 838 8855. http://zovs.com

Nobody I know wakes up and says, ” I’m going to try to get the most tasteless produce available today, something that doesn’t look like it came out of the ground. While I’m at it, I’ll make sure it’s out of season here, and get it from two continents over.”

 But one day it happens: you scan the fridge and the vegetables du jour consist of hermetically sealed pre-cut pineapple rings from Brazil, a jar of cocktail onions and a plastic bag of carrot nubs emasculated with a lathe. How? The allure of one-stop shopping is irresistible at times.

Why shouldn’t the smug taskmaster within us be seduced by the ability to gather  pallets of toilet paper,  an XL bag of onions, a daughter’s Hannah Montana glasses prescription, soccer snacks,  a signed copy of The 19th Wife and new tires all from the same place?

 Still, why get bell peppers from the Netherlands whey they grow them in Irvine? I found Orange County Certified Farmer’s Markets almost 20 years ago.  Here are the top eleven reasons why I can’t stay away:

1. Flavor: once you’ve had a Tehachapi-grown Pink Lady with it’s dense crispness and tangy sweet flesh, you can never go back to the mealy, cold-storage supermarket Red Delicious.

2. Variety: Juicy purple carrots, buttery-fleshed blue potatoes and sweet yellow raspberries make your plate pop with Klee-like whimsy.

3. Diversity: Check out those short-window seasonal artisanal goods and exotics that aren’t marketable to stores due to small production. Sugar cane, oyster mushrooms, baby squash and blood oranges for starters.

4. Non-size standardization means you can find diminutive Fuji apples just the right size for lunch boxes and an artichoke the size of a medicine ball.

5. Localicious: I get a little jealous when my salad fixin’s have racked up more air miles in a few days than I have in the last year. Most goods at these markets don’t come from further than central California, and many are grown in OC.

6.Zinnamon Doodles:   Bread Gallery in San Clemente makes a super moist applesauce-based roll packed with cinnamon the size of a beret.

7. Cabernet Brownies from Black Market Bakery. Tender, dark chocolate brownies with an outspoken smoky jamminess that comes from wine flour.

8. Convenience With ten markets a week, you’ll find one close to you. The Irvine Market on Saturday morning is the biggest with over 100 vendors. Markets also feature bakeries, honey, olive oil,  cheeses, and fair trade non-agricultural items like clothing and bath products.

9. No pesticide. Most vendors who aren’t yet certified organic are moving towards that rigorous, time consuming and expensive process by not spraying. Supporting these small guys insures they’ll eventually get there.

10. Community It’s tough to have a relationship with a Styrofoam tray. At  certified farmer’s markets, you learn about your food by talking with the people who had a hand in making it. I have met beekeepers, cheese makers, farmers and bakers who take great pride in bringing their exceptional quality goods to market.

 11.Fun! Shopping outside in the sun with the guitar guy playing Memo from Turner  beats Muzak and Kardashi-tainment headlines any day.

The Orange County Farm Bureau can be reached at (714) 573-0374. Go to hppt://orange.cfbf.com for the their list of certified farmer’s markets.

In the banh mi diaspora of Little Saigon, opinions on where to find the best baguette are as authoritative and polarized as HuffPost and the Heritage Foundation’s combative takes on global warming. And it’s not just the bread. At a local salon, I’ve seen trash talking sessions about sandwich fillings get as hot as a Conair Infiniti dryer.

 A teeming social hub well-respected in the cult of the Vietnamese sandwich, Tip Top’s is crammed with loyal congregants gossiping and reading Nguoi Viet. Bread comes out of the massive ovens hourly creating a market so competitive that attempting to sell a cooled baguette in this neighborhood is as dismal a prospect as trying to trade mom’s Weight Watchers protein bar for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos at the grade school lunch tables. 

A Tip Top baguette has a scored and slightly bubbled outer crust that shatters on contact like a pane of sugar on crème brûlée leaving shards of flakiness in its wake. The core, still warm from the oven, soaks up the juicy, fat marbled savory pork  tangled with cool, sweet pickled daikon, shaggy carrot slivers, fresh cilantro sprigs and jalapeño spheres. The experience is at once crispy, spicy, warm and crunchy. And at $3.45, the price is as sweet as the cafe sua da.

A shrill bell channeling an elementary school’s fire alarm sounds before your order number is read. Forget the uninspired American-style sandwiches and leave the Patisserie to Pierre’s Boulangerie down the street, but hustle to the take-out counter: that baguette won’t be warm forever. Tip Top’s Sandwiches 14094 Brookhurst St. Garden Grove. 714.530.9239. Lunch for two, $8.00,  food only.

I’ve come to the grim realization that my personal assistant, whom I haven’t seen in months, may never be coming back. And now they’re saying I might have never even had one. Eerie. Got to sort that one out. In the meantime, I’m a sucker for establishments that eradicate several nagging errands at once, especially if I can make a lunch date out of it!

A MARKET 'oreos'.

Has the assistant you never had disappeared? A lot of this going around. Pastry chef Shelly Register will hook you up at the one-year-old former filling station-turned-sandwich shop, gourmet food purveyor, newstand and coffee-house known as A Market.

Where else in OC can you get a dozen red velvet cupcakes, holiday hostess gifts, boutique wines (a bottle of luscious Bitch Grenache for that special someone?) and pick up hand crafted dinners with easy parking?

While you’re there, stay for lunch. Register’s sandwiches are gorgeous and fastidiously proportioned. No wayward gobs of mayo here. My personal fave: lightly toasted artisanal corn marble rye with slices of juicy bird, micro-planed avocado, a whisper of arugula and a thinly spread layer of honey mustard and pear marmalade served with dainty house-made coriander, clove and red pepper flake-laced pickles.

Register’s giant ‘oreos’ that were so popular at The Camp’s Village Bakery are back along with lily pad sized chewy, sugar-flecked ginger-molasses cookies. A Market 3400 West Coast Hwy., NB 949.650.6515. www.arestaurantnb.com . Lunch for two, $23.00, food only.

A small faux-painted sign on the wall above an antique buffet in Zov Karamardian’s Bakery reads: Zov’s Queendom. It goes largely unnoticed by the throngs panting on the bakery cases, politely purchasing and then mauling pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies with velvety chocolate cream cheese frosting and ogling the key lime tartlets with meringue peaks toasted the impossible golden brown of a perfect campfire marshmallow. One thing is clear to Zov’s royal subjects: she’s in the details. If you get the sense it wouldn’t be the same without her physically there, you’re right.  

Chef chat.

That’s why when the Bravo reality show Top Chef Masters asked Zov to be a contestant on the show this year,  she demurred.The show offers the winner $100,000.00 cash for their favorite charity. Still, to earn it, chefs have to be sequestered from family and friends, contend with sleep deprivation and such insane elimination competitions  as creating an amuse bouche from items out of a vending machine. What’s next, dumpster diving for power garnishes?  

Chef struck!

In a moment of serendipity, Top Chef Season One veteran Dave Martin ate at Zov’s recently and hit it off with Karamardian. Last Sunday,  Martin led a cooking class at the bistro. I like to cook, but all that tedious standing around and manual labor can make me cranky and hungry. Especially when the only consolation is a meager sample of my own cooking. In this class, I watched a demo while the steps were fully explained and questions were answered, ate a full-sized meal and went home with the recipes-hooray!  

He's not your bitch.

Teddybearish and disarming, Martin fumbled with the gas burners and introduced his mom during the demo. A pleasant surprise considering his signature line on the show was, “I’m not your bitch, Bitch!”  

Black truffle mac and cheese has become as ubiquitous in OC as chef-celebs with meat-cutting diagram tats and flesh plugs. Still, when done well, who can resist? Bill Bracken serves an elegant version at Palm Terrace and there’s a decent homespun-if-too-creamy take at  Old Town Orange’s Haven Gastropub. Brandy and sherry fortification lended a fondue-like quality to Martin’s version for a result both comforting and upscale. Substituting the usual pasty roux with a liaison to thicken the sauce garnered a lighter result. Though based in NYC, he’s welcome in our kitchen anytime.  

Mac daddy.

 Zov’s Bistro, Café and Bakery 17440 East Seventeenth St. Tustin, CA 92780 714.838.8855. www.zovs.com Dinner for two, $80.00, food only.  

www.chefdavemartin.com