About Mandolins or Mandolines

About Mandolins/mandolines...they can't even decide how to spell this darn device!

This is Sandi U writing....If you’ve been reading my posts, a few weeks ago I wrote about buying a mandoline to prepare a Spanish dish that uses 1/16” whole round slices of apples. Only possible on a mandoline and a WIDE one since the slices are large, round Granny Smith apples.

OK, I bite the bullet and spend $70 on a OXO metal mandoline thinking that if I’m going to buy one, I’ll buy one that was recommended by the "Fine Cooking" Magazine. This blog is also a plug for Sur la Table stores because they have a great return policy!! Anyway, I buy this gigantic thing that I have NO room to store it in, and give it a try for our Cookbook Club Holiday Buffet dish…it does NOT slice 1/16” thin AND the blade is NOT razor sharp.

My cousin Mary gave me a $15 Benriner Japanese mandoline a few years ago. It’s a cheap, plastic mandoline that has a box to catch the slices in and has several different blades for slicing, grating, etc. I love this little device! It’s fast, sharp and gets the job done. My only complaint is that it is very narrow so slicing whole apples won’t work…hence the need to buy a “real” mandoline. . . Hah!

So I return the $70 mandoline and exchange it for the V-shaped, plastic, $40 OXO mandoline….again, highly recommended by the staff at Sur la Table. The good news is that I am going down in price. But this mandoline, while easier to use than the straight-edged more expensive mandoline, does not slice at 1/16” setting. It HAS a 1/16” setting on the dial but when I tried to use it I could not get nice round slices. They came out in partial, irregular slices.

So, a couple of weeks later, after the holidays, I return the $40 mandolin and exchange it for a $20, plastic, “Sleekslice” mandoline. It is wide enough, to be sure but does not have two legs. It has three. The third leg can be maneuvered into a “handle” so you can hold the mandolin over a bowl. It has different settings for thickness AND the blade is finely serrated, like the cutting blade on my Cusinart. The thing collapses down to 1-1/2” thickness so storage is not a problem either.

Can this be the solution?

And, so cheap???

And, never even mentioned by “Fine Cooking” magazine?

Stay tuned, I’m giving it a try tonight! I was tempted to buy the ceramic bladed Kyocera device but it wasn’t wide enough...sigh.

If this doesn’t work, I’m giving up and cutting the apples in half before slicing them on my trusty Benriner! I sure hope I get to use this thing more often than just for this one salad! Grumble, grumble, grumble….

My next gripe is about knife sharpeners. . .

Breakaway Cookvook (yes, cookvook)!

I was reading David Lebovitz today and he mentioned that Eric Gower, of Breakaway Cook fame, has embraced the concept of a cookvook - or video book. Eric's vook is available as an online version and as an iPhone app. David says:

The advantage to these video cookbooks is that one don't need to buy anything else; you can use your computer or iPhone, and the price is within reach. You can also take them with you to the market or when traveling.

Eric's vook contains recipes, videos and ways to connect to his community through social media. You can check it out here!

I'm not sure how I feel about this - I like the idea that my cookbooks (and those handed down to me) tell stories. One can tell the favorite recipes by the smudged pages and comments written in the margins...how would you do that with a vook?

Actually, I often find myself printing out the recipes I download from the web to have near the stove - where they get dripped on (but better the printouts than my computer!) and then go into my bulging recipe folder where they continue my story. But I don't want to be accused of being a luddite, so you can check it out for yourselves and add your thoughts in the comments!

Happy cook-vooking....

sandi w

PS The comments in response to David's article are also really interesting...

Happy New Year!

"Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu!"(Happy New Year in Japanese)

The Japanese celebrate January 1 every year with traditional rites and food. Of all the annual holidays in Japan, the New Year is often spoken of as the "most Japanese" of celebrations. The traditional New Year's celebration is sprinkled with symbolism, particularly evident in typical New Year's food (Osechi-ryori). It’s translation to America takes on a more international slant as each generation brings new foods to the table. Originally, the women of each household prepared foods for days and put the spread out for the men to travel from house to house to toast each other with sake and eat certain foods to insure good health, prosperity, happiness, and good luck. Today, families choose one house in which to gather and the food items are” pot lucked” to spread the work out among all the families. It is a day to bid farewell to the problems & concerns of the past year & prepare for a new beginning. Misunderstandings & grudges are forgiven and houses & bodies are scrubbed of last year’s dirt. New Year's day itself is a day of joy & no work is to be done. Also, a modernization of the ritual, at least in our household, includes watching the Rose Bowl parade and game. Bill & I actually got to go the parade and game the year Stanford went to the Rose Bowl and I abandoned my cousin, Mary, to hold the NY festivities for the family.

I share a few photos of the dishes here for you, with sparse descriptions since I didn’t prepare most of them. And, not being the conscientious photographer that Willie is, I forgot to take photos of foods that arrived later in the day. You’ll notice however, that there are not only Japanese dishes represented but also Chinese, American, Hawaiian, Filipino and pan-Asian. It is important to have fowl, meat, soy beans, fresh fruit and seafood on the table. We had a lot of desserts that came from different cultures as well.

Fried Won Tons with Sweet & Sour Sauce is an appetizer type dish that my sister-in-law, Maxine makes for every family occasion. She fills the won ton skins with a ground pork and spices mix and fries them in hot oil. She serves them with canned Contadina Sweet and Sour sauce. It is a family favorite and we count on her to bring these yummy, tasty treats.


I made the Edamame Salad, a recipe from Eric Gower’s Breakaway Kitchen Cookbook. It is made with edamame beans, julienned pink pickled ginger, vinegar from the pickled ginger, chopped roasted almonds and pieces of chives. Janis made it for one of our Cookbook Club dinners and it was so good that I thought I’d make it for New Years.

My Auntie Dorothy makes various Sushi filled with different pickled vegetables & Inside-Out California Rolls. It makes such a pretty presentation with all the different colors of the purple pickles, bright pink pickles, green cucumber pickles. I have no idea what the original vegetables were for the pickles but they were all a great contrast to the sweet sushi rice.

Makisushi is homestyle sushi that you rarely see at any sushi restaurant. It has a seaweed, “nori”, wrapped around various things in the middle ranging from cooked egg, seaweed, pickled ginger, pickled gourd (kanpyō), burdock (gobo). The trick with sushi is to roll it so all the ingredients end up in the middle of the rice and nori. Believe me, it takes practice!
Inari Sushi is made from aburage (deep fried tofu) bags that are filled with seasoned rice. Chopped pickled vegetables are sometimes added to the seasoned rice but we’ve found that everyone just likes the plain ones the best. These were made by my mother and Sachiko, Mary's mother-in-law.

My mother, Fumi, who is 90 years old, sliced Tuna & Albacore Sashimi that my brother Roger caught off the coast of California and in Baja California last month and froze just for this occasion. According to my mom, the sashimi must be trimmed so she gets these nice rectangular shaped slices and she cuts each slice with ONE long stroke. No sawing motion. The knife must be an extremely sharp sashimi knife. It’s a special knife with a very long, 10" narrow blade used for only one purpose.

She also made a Tsunomono Salad, my New Years favorite, made out of seaweed (wakame), cucumbers, nagaimo, a type yam that is very crunchy, with a rice vinegar dressing. Nagaimo is a very strange vegetable because it exudes a slimy goop when sliced so you have to rinse it before adding slices to the salad. It tastes like jicima. I forgot to take a photo of it though...sorry.

The Chinese Roast Duck was purchased from Marina Foods on De Anze Blvd. Their ducks are less salty than other places (like Ranch 99). It’s important to have fowl on the table so we always serve duck and chicken.






Glenn always BBQ’s Chicken Teriyaki to perfection. He must get a lot of practice because his chicken always turns out tender and juicy. Mine is always a hit and miss thing because I rarely make Chicken Teriyaki anymore. These were boned and sliced.

Tempura Patties were made my Auntie Dorothy. They were delicious but I couldn’t tell you what was in them. They are like the fish cakes you have to buy at the Japanese grocery stores but better!


Someone brought Lumpia, a Filipino dish that most people are familiar with but if you have never eaten homemade lumpia, you are missing a very delicious treat. It's a wrapper that is filled with pork or chicken and several grated vegetables and soy based seasonings and then fried. Usually served with a dipping sauce. I don't know who brought it...it just showed up on the table. That's a problem with pot lucks...as well as a surprise treat...food just keep showing up so you have to keep going back to the table in case you missed a dish that was brought in since you last visited it...what a great excuse to graze all day long!



Salmon Rice is a dish that Mary and I created after tasting it at the Gochi restaurant in Sunnyvale. We steam rice and just after the rice is cooked, we add the chopped salmon, salmon roe and Furimaki, a flaked seaweed seasoning. This year we tried Ebi Furimake (shrimp flavored) and it was perfect! The hot rice cooks the salmon and heats up the roe without cooking it. It’s become a family favorite!



The Char Sui (Chinese BBQ Pork) was marinated from a jar according to Mary and BBQ'd by Glenn. It was made out of boneless country style pork rib and was 10 times better than any Char Sui I would buy from any Chinese deli! It was tender, moist and marinated just enough so it wasn't overly sweet.


Mary made a Tofu Spinach Saladthat had grated carrots in it. It's one of her favorite salads and we decided that our table needed some more "green" food. This dish and the Edamame Salad weren’t big sellers though…too healthy, I guess, for our family!




It is important to serve seafood on this day so along with the Sashimi, I purchased Seafood Chow Fun from our favorite Chinese Restaurant, Pan Tao, near the corner of Homestead and Wolf Road. Chow fun, I discovered, while absolutely fabulous at the restaurant is not a dish that is good sitting on a buffet table and hour later. The chow fun noodle dries up and the fish, squid, shrimp and scallops get cold. Oh well, a good idea gone bad...


Sachiko makes Oden (a Japanese soup with prepared fish cakes) every year. I love this soup. It’s different than the Ozone Soup which is the first thing we’re supposed to eat on New Years Day. Ozone soup is made with a fish base called “Dashi” and has cut up taro root, shitake mushrooms, prepared fish cakes, sliced daikon, and seaweed. It is served over a rice cake (mochi) and is very hardy breakfast! Oden, on the other hand is made with several varieties of fish cakes, tempura, seaweed, hard boiled eggs, daikon, konnyaku in a dashi based broth. It is sweeter than Ozone and doesn’t have a rice cake at the bottom nor any vegetables.

My brother Roger makes the Potato Salad every year. It is a simple potato salad with dill pickles instead of sweet pickle relish that I use in my salad. It is much healthier for diabetics with this substitution! We all look forward to his Potato Salad…he’s getting famous for this dish! The Marinated Lotus Root is a dish that was brought by someone but I don’t know who. Lotus root is a crunchy, slightly starchy root that takes on flavors of whatever it’s marinated in. I made some Pickled Daikon flavored with Matcha, sugared ginger, salt, and rice vinegar. It was a dish that was on Eric Gower’s blog that intrigued me. I like to make it with green daikon because of the pretty color but I couldn’t find any this time of the year.

My cousin Christy made a Hawaiian Poke Salad. It’s a salad of chunks of raw tuna mixed with soy, seaweed, sesame seed oil, and sesame seeds. It was delicious and everyone gobbled it up! I didn't get a photo of this dish either but let me assure you, it was yummy!

I make the Mochi Cake (rice flour custard cake) every year. It is made with rice flour, whole milk, sugar, butter, vanilla extract and baking powder. It is sooo good but I only make it once a year because it’s a heart attack on a plate. I cut it into small squares and put it in paper cupcake holders to reduce the intake.



Christy makes Finger Jello every year and the kids really like this one. It’s jello with cocktail fruit inside…I don’t know how she makes it pink…maybe with maraschino cherry juice and milk? It’s a light dessert that is also refreshing.






My other cousin Lori made this gourmet Pumpkin Cheesecake. If you love pumpkin, this cheesecake is to die for! We sliced it thinly, because it’s so rich!






Jackie prepared Banana Pudding with Meringue topping. It’s like a banana cream pie without the crust. Jackie and Alvin are adopted family for us and she always brings a different fabulous dessert each year. This one was no exception. Another rich dessert that no one avoided. It was gone by the end of the day!



Besides her Fried Won Tons, Maxine is also famous for her Butterscotch Cookies. They are my Christmas gift from her every year and I freeze them so I can enjoy them all year long…only taking one at a time to make them last 12 months.




My cousin Randy makes a Bundt Cake with Rum, Brandy and Bourbon. It’s a cake that his father-in-law, my Uncle Tak, made every year before he passed away. Randy thinks that it’s missing something but we all think it tastes great. It’s boozy but not unpleasantly so...in fact, I really like the mixture of the 3 liquors! It adds complexity to the bundt cake.

I also made Walnut Baklava that I forgot to take a photo of…I’m still working on this recipe. How much butter to spread on each layer of filo and the thickness of the syrup that’s poured over the baked baklava is something that takes practice. I am also tinkering around with how much honey to put in the syrup…I don’t think I like the honey taste to be that prominent and I’m thinking of caramelizing the syrup next time.

You can see why I had to learn how to cook with a family like mine. I remember my mom trying various gourmet dishes and as a child we all went "eewww!" but she made Cherries Flambeau one time, roasted a Goose for Christmas, etc. All of my aunts are also great cooks and I have many of their recipes...lucky me! But you can see that I have a heritage that I MUST live up to!

After watching the Rose Bowl Game, we visited some more and everyone waddled home. Every year, I swear I won't eat so much because I am sure I gain at least 2-5 pounds on this one day, but it's the first New Years resolution that gets broken...again!

OLIO RESTAURANT IN CAMPBELL

I want to share a restaurant that Bill & I found. Olio Restaurant , 384 E. Campbell Avenue, Campbell, CA.

We were in the area around dinner time and decided to get a bite to eat. We walked down E. Campbell Ave. and first looked at the menu at Cypress Bistro & Café and although it looked okay, we noticed that there was only one occupied table in the whole restaurant…not a good sign. We walked across the street to check out the menu at Olio and walked in! It was not totally packed but only had 3-4 unoccupied tables so it looked like a better bet.

We ordered Mussels, Chorizo and Potatoes to split for our first course. It was a larger portion than we expected and I could have made a meal of that one dish. It was perfectly prepared, the mussels were sweet and tender and the chorizo spices were softened with a touch of cream in the broth and made hearty with the addition of the chorizo flavored potatoes. Although it’s advertised as a “Mediterranean” restaurant, it is really a Spanish restaurant….I asked! They had paella on the menu, but we weren’t that hungry so I ordered a small Beet Salad that was delish’ and Fried Calamari dish that wasn’t so good. Fried calamari is very difficult to prepare. Getting the calamari so it’s tender with a crispy crust and not tough, greasy or soggy is a remarkable skill. While the crust was crispy, the calamari was tough. Too bad :(

Bill had a very well prepared Caesar Salad that comes with anchovies (we usually have to ask for it so it was great to find a salad that actually comes with the anchovies). It rivals the Caesar salad at Osteria Restaurant in Palo Alto…and that’s saying something because we LOVE their Caesar! The Mushroom Soup that he ordered was so-so. That’s because Bill compares all mushroom soups to the one that David Kinch used to make all the time at Sent Sovi in Saratoga and he can't get anymore. Boo hoo! Because we liked the mussel dish so well, we think it’s worth a return visit and we’ll only order the Spanish dishes on the menu! The server was very helpful and provided very helpful information on portions and what to order.

Where are YOU eating these days in the South Bay/Peninsula area? Please educate those of us who don’t go out very often. I find that we tend to go to our favorites rather than take a chance on a place we’ve never tried before. Websites like Yelp and Chowhound often give conflicting reviews AND, I don’t know what the reviewer's culinary preferences are, how sophisticated they are about different cuisines, etc. But I know YOU, so please chime in with your local favorites!

Just click on "post a comment" below and start writing and reviewing!

4th ANNUAL HOLIDAY BUFFET Saturday, Dec. 5, 2009

Wow! I cannot believe our Crowing Coq Cookbook Club has been in existence for 4 years! It started out as just a great idea for me to explore cookbooks with friends and colleagues who love to cook and are willing to be adventurous and learn new skills, techniques and cuisines.

Our annual buffets keep getting better and better as we hone our culinary skills. I must say, I am willing to prepare dishes that have a long list of ingredients now and have several “parts” to them. I’m NOT saying I do it successfully but I now have the confidence to give them a try. Most of the time, I’m pretty successful, but even the mistakes teach me something and I find that I CAN prepare anything.

We served the appetizers first and then the desserts. I must admit, I had my favorites but everything was DE-lish’! I’m going to describe the dishes by cookbooks. The assignment was to prepare an appetizer or dessert from any of the cookbooks that we used this year.

Bay Wolf Restaurant Cookbook by Michael Wild was a popular choice for our buffet. Lisa prepared the Mushroom Tarts(p. 182) that were a big hit with everyone, me included! She said, however, that the pastry was difficult and for any other group, she would have used Trader Joes ready-made pastry! I personally think it was worth the effort because the pastry was tender and flakey. . .perfect! Tina made Crab Cakes (p. 26) that had a lot of crab in them. She learned that she could ask her fish monger to clean the crabs FOR her which sped up the prep process for her by 50%. The first time she tried the recipe she cleaned the crab herself to save money since the cracked crab meat is over $20 a pound! She said that her husband, Bob, called her first attempt “crab crumbs” because they fell apart. THIS time, she pre-prepared the cakes and refrigerated them overnight. Aha! That helped to solidify the cakes. And then, she only turned the crab cakes ONCE in the frying pan and we all got to enjoy her fabulous crab "cakes". . .and as you can see in the photo, they are cakes! Sharon also used this cookbook to prepare Black Olive Tapenade Croutons (p.24) that were simple but complex at the same time. She stated that they were easy to prepare and she’d make them again. Good, because we’d eat them again!

Willie prepared the Coquilles Saint-Jacques á la Provencale from Richard Olney’s Provence the Beautiful Cookbook. Most of the time Coquilles Saint-Jacques is a very rich, creamy dish. This dish, while rich because of the butter, is not creamy. It ended up being a very light version of the scallop dish that everyone raved about. I liked the fact that it wasn’t a heavy creamy dish and prefer this version. A small note about the scallop shells in which this dish is traditionally served: They are hard to find! Willie tried Williams-Sonoma, Pier One Imports, Cost Plus, and the Pantry where he finally found a few. I went online to see where else they are sold and found a website but they are not cheap! The conchking.com had some and another site was out of stock. There were several sites that sell porcelain shells so maybe that’s the answer to the quest. Janis prepared a dish from Olney’s book: Tapenade Stuffed Eggs (p. 34), a great interpretation of the traditional “stuffed eggs.” NO mayo!! The yolks are mixed with black olives, parsley, spices, and a teeny bit of softened cream cheese to bind it all together. Much better than the mayo loaded stuffed eggs our mothers prepared for pot lucks! Each egg is topped with one small leaf of cilantro and a half a cherry tomato that really made it spectacular.

Mary used one of Deborah Madison’s books, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and made a Leek and Goat Cheese Tart (p. 498). Another great dish for me to prepare for an appetizer in the future. Mary said that she tried it the first time with a savory pie crust and her family liked it. But since this recipe calls for a yeast dough crust, she made one for the buffet….and didn’t like it. The dough was difficult to work with. If you’ve ever made pizza dough from scratch you know how hard it is to roll one of these suckers out…they keep shrinking the minute you lift your rolling pin! It’s enough to make me send out for Round Table! And, she said it was very hard to slice into wedges once the tart was baked. Maybe she needed a pizza wheel! The savory pate brisée was much easier to slice and eat and she thinks it tastes better. As hard as it was to prepare, everyone liked the tart, just as is!

I used the Made In Spain cookbook by José Andrés to prepare the Valdéon Blue Cheese with Apples and Olive Oil salad. I tried this recipe when we were cooking from this cookbook a few months ago and loved the contrasting flavors and textures of the crisp Granny Smith apples, creamy pieces of blue cheese and crunch of the Marcona almonds, touched by the bite of chopped chives. It was the perfect foil for the other rich dishes, giving us fresh light flavors. I used Valdéon cheese although the recipe calls for Calabres blue cheese. I couldn’t find Calabres and decided that at least the Valdéon is a Spanish blue cheese. I also used Spanish olive oil, mainly to see if I could taste the difference between Spanish and Italian or Californian. Unless I taste them side by side, I’m not sure I can tell the difference or if it's worth the money. The dressing is very, very simple: Spanish EVO, apple cider vinegar and S&P. Easy peasy! The only thing about this recipe is that you MUST have a mandolin to slice the apples thin enough. Sigh…another gadget that I have to find storage space for.

Bill pulled Roederer Estate, nv Sparkling Wine Brut, Anderson Valley, L’Ermitage, 1999 Sparkling Wine Brut, Roederer Estate Anderson Valley and a still wine, Ferrari-Carano, 2007 Chardonnay Reserve, Carneros Napa Valley to go with the appetizers. Everyone must have liked them because we had empty bottles by the end of the dinner! The 12 year old Roederer Estate lost some of it’s bubbles but still retained it’s yeasty champagne flavors. The 1999 was, of course, more youthful and better balanced. It was good to compare the years and to see how champagnes age. The Ferrari-Carano Chard was, as expected, oaky and buttery, and went well with all of the appetizers.

We took a break between the appetizers and desserts to have our annual white elephant kitchen item gift exchange. People were not so polite this year and there was a lot of stealing going on but without going into detail, our “crowing coq” timer has a new home with Janis. It’s starting to croak so we are all hoping that Janis’s husband Bill will be able to utilize his engineering expertise and get the coq crowing again! We’ve been searching the web to replace it but it is nowhere to be found. If you know of a timer that looks like this and “cockadoodle doo’s” when it sounds off, let me know! We can’t have a mascot that can’t crow!

The desserts were all from the Bay Wolf Restaurant Cookbook. They were decadent (why else call them dessert?) and rich and oooooh soooo goooood! Annie made the Chocolate Mousse Filled Almond Cake with Créme Anglaise (p. 15). The cake was both light and moist while the chocolate mousse was rich. We were talking about this dish and thought that the crème anglaise was too much and simple whipped cream/Chantilly would have sufficed. Sandi made the Cherry-Cheese Tart (p. 97). She hated the yellow color that the egg yolks gave the tart. She thought about not bringing the dessert because of the icky yellow but decided to bring it to demonstrate that not all dishes turn out how we envision them. She used Morello jarred cherries for the dish…I was wondering where she found cherries this time of year…! Regardless of the yellow, the tart was very yummy! The tart cherries were a nice contrast to the rich, yellow pudding-like custard. It just goes to show what happens when you cook from a recipe that has no photo!! And, last but not least, Marianne prepared Pots de Créme, Meyer Lemon (p. 75) in individual small ramekins with Chantilly cream on the side. If you love Meyer Lemons, this is a wonderful way to use them! This dish also got rave reviews and even though we were getting full, everyone practically licked the ramekins to get every last bite!

Bill found three wines that he thought would go well with the chocolate or creamy desserts: Chateau De Fesles, 1995 Chenin Blanc, Les Deux Allees Bonnezeaux, France that was on the dry side and went well with the Cherry Cheese tart. The Maury, 1928 Solera Grenache, Vin Deux Naturel, Maury, France was a unique wine in that it is a solera of wines from 1928. It went well with the Chocolate Mousse. And the last wine of the evening: Royal Tokaji, 2005 Aszu 5 Puttonyes, Tokaji, Hungary was my favorite and went really well with the Pots de Créme as well as the Cherry-cheese Tart. The Maury was the hit of the evening having a tawny port like quality to it and not many people get to drink a 1928 wine!

We wish a Happy Holiday to those of you who read this blog and hope you'll enjoy our culinary adventures for 2010!

Stay tuned to see which cookbooks were chosen for 2010!!