Our Better Angels Meet Anew

The sky was full of activity four days before the party. It went from light rain to clear sunshine back and forth many times all afternoon. The day ended with one of the best sunsets we have seen in Lanikai.

The invitations had been delivered and we watched the sky and the weather reports. Would there be rain or sunshine?

Then a couple of days before the party the wind picked up and the rain started. The storm moved in from the south and the rain was blown horizontal.

Late in the night a forty foot tall eucalyptus tree behind our house was knocked over by the wind. The saturated ground could not hold the roots against for the power of the wind. The crash of the tree was just one of the many sounds that made it a restless night.

After hours of clean up we again wondered would there be rain or sunshine for the party whose invitations announced - "Our Better Angels Meet Anew". We just went ahead with the preparations.

Our menu was a secret but there was definitely a theme. We would have:

• Olives
• Bread, Baked Brie
• Asparagus
• Mustard
• Andouille and Almonds

The weather eased up enough to let the party go ahead as planned. The only adjustment was that we decided use the cast iron grill inside instead of the Weber.

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You know what the president-elect would say by now, "Enough with the drama, let's get on with the recipes."

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Grilled Asparagus with a Meyer Lemon Cream Sauce

We used local grown asparagus from Twin Bridge Farms in Waialua. Toss the cleaned and trimmed asparagus in a bowl with virgin olive oil and salt. Spread out on a hot grill. Rotate to the other side once char marks are evident. When the asparagus starts to get limp, remove them from the heat and place in a bowl and promptly chill in the refrigerator to stop the cooking.

The sauce is made from sour cream, Meyer lemon juice and zest, honey and a bit of ground dried coriander. Just before serving use a spoon to drip the sauce across the asparagus. Since this is finger food leave the thick end without any sauce.



Andouille Sausage on French Bread

This dish starts with Cajun Style Andouille sausage from Bruce Aidells. Slice the sausage into 1/4" thick pieces on a diagonal. One package should yield about forty slices. Cook the slices on a hot grill for about one minute each side.

The bread comes from La Brea Bakery which is baked daily at Foodland in Kailua. We used their French Baguette since it is a bit softer than the sour dough. Slice the baguette 1/4" thick slices.

The back story on La Brea Bakery bread. Kathleen and I had a chance to visit Campanile Restaurant and La Brea Bakery before it opened in 1989. The pastry chef Nancy Silverton developed a baking process that nearly replicates bread from their original location in Los Angeles.

On with the recipe. Place one warm slice of andouille on each slice of bread and top with a 1/4 teaspoon of Old Style Maille mustard.

Almond & Meyer Lemon Biscotti

This holiday season is the debut of our new bakery treat, the almond & Meyer lemon biscotti. Those in the know will be able to pick up a bag or two at the Lanikai Craft Fair on December 6th. The sale opens at 9:00 a.m. so get there early.

We used a recipe from The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. The recipe calls for almonds and anise and gives the option of using more lemon zest in lieu of the anise.

It made sense to accent the Meyer lemons from our garden. In the end after running a test batch we doubled the amount of lemon zest.

There is more to this recipe selection. While at UC Berkeley with Kathleen, I arranged for Kip Mesirow to teach an upper division class in the Department of Architecture in the College of Environmental Design. Kip taught traditional Japanese wood joinery. I later started doing some woodworking for Kip. One of his projects at that time was the Chez Panisse restaurant that was co-founded by Alice Waters.

I made the wood countertop below the book in this photograph using the Stanley 45 wood plane that I purchased when I was working with Kip in 1975. I used the plane to cut the groove for the oak splines that join the native Hawaiian ohia wood boards.



The list of ingredients for the biscotti is quite simple. Almonds, lemon zest, eggs, sugar, flour and baking powder. I learned a new trick from this recipe. Use room temperature eggs. This will cut in half the amount of time and arm fatigue necessary to whisk the eggs enough to create a "ribbon".

We used the Blue Diamond almonds instead of roasting raw almonds. The unsalted Oven Roasted almonds that come in these double sealed jars have a better crunch than almonds from a metal can.



To chop nuts I like to use a mezzaluna knife and chopping block. This way fewer nuts get lost in the process.



This is what the lemon zest looks like after using a Microplane. It is easy to get just the zest off without getting into the white portion of the lemon skin or into the red portion of your own skin!



After baking for about 25 minutes the cooled loaves are cut into 1/2 inch slices and baked again. Based on our test batch we decided to reduce the time for the second bake to only 5 minutes a side.



The biscotti are allowed to cool on a wire rack before packaging. They should stay fresh for about 3 to 4 weeks in a sealed container. We would not know as they do not last that long.






















We like to use labels for our products. It helps people know what to expect. Some bake sale items are sold with the comment "It looks good but I am not sure what it is". We use Avery labels created with the free DesignPro 5.4 software also from Avery. They were printed on our Cannon iP4500 inkjet printer.






















I put the labels on each Ziploc snack size bag before I inserted two biscotti. These will be a deal for the price they are sold at the Lanikai Association Craft Fair.



Finally we recycled a plastic container from the cheesecake we had for Thanksgiving to package the biscotti for sale at the fair. To dress things up a bit we used ti leaves from our garden to line the container. We hope those who are at the right place at the right time will enjoy our new holiday treat.

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The Lanikai Tea Room is never open to the public but it is full of creative energy.