Lunch, the mostly forgotten meal.

On some occasions it's a powerbar from the vending machine. On others it's an extravagant business meeting disguised as a meal. Many times it comes from a pre-packaged Styrofoam coffin or value menu, and more often than anyone would like to admit, it is simply left off the menu. I'm talking about Lunch. The other daily meal.

So what happened to Lunch? I would postulate that Lunch became a casualty of the busy lifestyle of today. Gone are the feel-good images of mom working in the morning at the kitchen counter and packing a lunchbox with a sandwich, occasionally a coveted fruit roll up, and the cafeteria floor trading blue-chip, the jello pudding pack.

Now that I'm not on the insane schedule of 26 hour days, 8 days a week at Pasadena City College, I decided that I will not continue to relegate Lunch to cheap chinese takeout or Burgerman's greasified, nap inducing 99 cent offerings. At the same time, lunch doesn't (and in my opinion, shouldn't) be a place of fine dining cuisine experimentation.

Rather, I decided to take just a few simple ingredients, and put them into a pack that will keep well without getting funky. I wanted something refreshing for both my palate and my midday meal. So today, here is my take on a (relatively) healthy sandwich for my new (also, relatively) active lifestyle.

Portobello mushrooms sauteed in olive oil and a little butter, with roasted yellow peppers, thinly sliced shallot, fresh escarole and cilantro, and a little smidge of mayonnaise, on a whole wheat pita. Rest assured, this one has some serious flavors going on. Meaty goodness from the mushrooms, subtle but unique sweetness from the roasted peppers, a little bite (but not too much) from the shallot make for a somewhat traditional vege-sandwich. But here's where I had some fun.

Instead of done-to-death iceberg or romaine, I went out on a leaf and chose baby escarole and fresh cilantro for my greens. It was a gamble, but the slightly bitter and peppery escarole in combination with the bright cilantro really turned up the volume on this sandwich. I'm not much of a fan of Mayo, but just a thin spread on the whole wheat Pita gave the whole wheat pita just enough moisture to not dry out my mouth, potentially robbing me of the full experience of my little lunch creation.

All this sound like a little too much work for lunch? Think again. 10 minutes to roast a pepper, and 5 minutes to saute a mushroom is the bulk of the work to make this. After eating it I really wanted to eat another one, not because I was left hungry from eating "healthy" food, but because it was really pretty darned good. And given the longing yet jealous looks in the eyes of my classmates who were dining on, well, college student food (insert fast food brand name here), I am hoping to repeat this lunchtime experimentation, and hopefully bring back some enthusiasm to the oft maligned, and sometimes unanswered question: "What's for Lunch?"

461 dishes to go!

Warning! Berry Smooth Terrine Ahead

Occasionally one encounters a technique or dish that truly widens the horizon of culinary exploration. For example, the first time you ever cook eggs IN your hash browns, or bring a steak to sizzling perfection on a rocket-hot charcoal grill. These beautiful cooking milestones are exciting because they show that be it by experimentation, careful planning, or even by fortuitous accident, a cook can always discover new and exciting directions to take in the pursuit of cuisine. Tonight was such a night for me. Tonight, I discovered the simple elegance of the Terrine.

Now, I had no idea of what a terrine was 2 days ago, until I went to the Getty museum with a good friend of mine and noticed among the cultural treasures there a serving dish called a "Terrine". It had lobsters carved onto it, and this piqued my interest. Leave it to a food fanatic to be enthralled with the silver antique serving dish instead of the Monet collection. But I digress.

A little research led me to discover that a Terrine was not just a serving vessel, but a type of dish itself that can be savory or sweet. With near infinite choices before me for my first dive into the terrine pool, and considering that it was 105 degrees in my apartment, I decided to go with a sweet summer treat of fresh berries. But a Terrine is more than just a giant bowl of fresh berries (as great as that is!).

For my Terrine, I wanted all the flavors of my farm-fresh-picked strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries to come through, but be tied together with something that would offset the potential sour factor that is inevitable when gorging oneself on fresh summer berry bounty. After serious thought, I decided to go with a Rose wine, simmered with superfino sugar and some lemon juice to ensure the alcohol would cook off a bit, and not be too overwhelming. What secret ingredient did I use to tie everything together, you ask? Gelatin. Plain, unflavored, 70 cents a box Knox gelatin. That's right dear readers, my fancy Terrine was basically fruit cup jello, taken to it's highest peaks.

I'll admit I was a little apprehensive when my assembled and 24 hour chilled Terrine came out of the loaf pan I chilled it in. A little whip cream and strawberry garnish made for a nice accoutrement, and I gingerly took a bite, worrying if using wine for a jelly base was a good idea. Wow. Just Wow. The sugar and lemon in the Rose wine made a distinctly bright jelly, and brought out the natural sweetness in the berries. The whipped cream (homemade from heavy whipping cream, no spray cans this time) brought a smooth and velvety texture that helped hold the beautifully balanced flavors on the palate for just a few more fleeting seconds. It was so invigorating to taste a berry dessert that tasted like berries and not chumba-womba-mega-blue-fructose-berry-blast pancreatic shocking cocktail mix from hell.

I will not comment further on the tasting of this terrine, as this entry is long on the page already. But I will say that for what amounts to little more than berries and the original Jello, this new-found Terrine experiment in both the savory and sweet forms calls for more kitchen exploration on my part. And for me, "There's always room" for that.

Back to the Kitchen!

The velvety lemon and butter white wine sauce clinging to my taste buds is the ultimate indication that my move to UCLA is now complete. Now with a hopefully decent schedule, I will once again be able to work in my favorite lab of all time, the Kitchen (and yes, that is with a capital "K").

For my first meal in the new place, I took the kitchen through some light paces with steamed and lightly sauteed asparagus, and chicken saltimbocca, one of my all time favorite dishes. I also chose this dish for it's relative simplicity. After all, getting back to cooking after subsisting on horrid mass-produced fast food cardboard could render some horrid results were I to push the envelope too much.

Chicken saltimbocca is the string quartet of the culinary world. Thin and crispy prosciutto, juicy and flavorful chicken breast, fresh sage, and a bright sauce can either be gastronomic nirvana, or an acrid,dry, burned mass of dissappointment. All it takes is a little timing, some attention to detail (not TOO much attention), and patience. Why patience? because this dish is so good I nearly drove myself crazy wanting to skip the last bit of cooking and just chomp the chicken and proscuitto down, then chug the sauce as a chaser. But I held things together pretty well (hiccup).

A little bit of seasoned flour, some chopping, mincing, steaming and sauteing, reduction and garnish and before you could say "Mama Mia" my plate was adorned with my prize. Food. REAL FOOD.

I would love to drone on about the magnificent dish I made this evening, but tooting my own horn is not a great hobby of mine. My glass of pinot grigio is beckoning to me, and all I will say about this chicken saltimbocca is that I bought TWO chicken breasts to cook. One for tonight, and one for tomorrow. Because flavor like this cannot be left to just one tasting.

Until out next meal together, from my matchbook apartment overlooking UCLA, I bid you all "Good Eating".