Culinary Adventures with Camilla

This month Jane from  Always Ravenous  hosted the Wine Pairing Weekend bloggers for a fun look at California food and wine pairings. She's called the theme: Tasting California: Cookbook Tour paired with California Wines. Initially she wanted us to work with  What’s Gaby Cooking: Eat What You Want: 125 Recipes for Real Life  by Gaby Dalkin, but the book isn't released until next month; in any case, you can read Jane's invitation post to the #WinePW bloggers:  here .  My official #WinePW event post went live late last week - Savory Dutch Baby, Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut Rosé, and a Few Other California Favorites - but I decided to do some bonus California pours throughout the rest of the month. And I had a 2016 Robert Hall Syrah on the rack. So, last weekend, I decided to make some oven-braised beef barbacoa. I'll get to that in a bit. In the Glass The 2016 Robert Hall Syrah is from the Paso Robles appellation. Given its proximity to me, I a...

While I'm working on a story, the subject invades every aspect of my life - from the jewelry I'm wearing to the books I'm reading. So, beer has been on my mind. I got my hands on The Craft Beer Cookbook by Jacquelyn Dodd and started making a grocery list. I started with her Porter-Braised Pulled Pork Sandwiches with IPA Jalapeno Slaw. Her recipe called for 6 cloves of garlic; my attitude - if 6 is good, 10 is better! And she used pork shoulder; I had pork loin roast. Ingredients 2-3 pound pork loin roast 10 cloves of garlic, peeled 2 T sea salt 2 T organic coconut sugar 1 t freshly ground black pepper 1 t smoked paprika 2 t ground coffee 1/2 t chili powder 2 T olive oil 1 bottle porter beer 1 C organic chicken broth Procedure Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Using a sharp knife, pierce the roast, making ten 2" holes evenly spaced throughout the meat. Push a peeled clove of garlic into each hole until the garlic is no longer visible. ...

This is a Moldovan recipe for a traditional salad of cooked beets mixed with nuts, garlic and mayonnaise. I'm sure the beets used are usually magenta; I had golden beets in my CSA box, so I used those. This was not a hit. Here's how the conversation went with Riley... R: I don't like coleslaw. C: It's not coleslaw. R: I don't like sauerkraut. C: It's not sauerkraut. R: I just don't like it! C: Well, eat three big bites anyway. Ingredients 2 cups beets, cooked and shredded 1 teaspoon crushed garlic 2 Tablespoons ground almonds 2 Tablespoons mayonnaise 1 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice freshly ground sea salt, to taste Procedure Combine the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and set aside to infuse for at least 1 hour before serving as a side dish.