It's The Smile That Gives It Away. Plus Flatbreads!

I've had good days and bad days in the surf (and for sure more bad than good). But one thing that often stays the same is the smile on my face. Because any time I can get in the water I consider a good time. I've had sessions when my performance seriously sucked, but recently when this happened this lady I've come to know who surfs and teaches swimming commented on how I was smiling as I headed to my car.  I fessed up and told her how bad I'd done, but she just laughed it off. Yesterday was a super mellow day. My kind of day. And I did pretty good so I must have been smiling extra big because not one but two people made comments as I came out of the water. I guess maybe the lesson here is it's good to find a way to smile when things are bad as well as when things are good. Because it's infectious -- people notice.

Another thing that makes me smile? Well, if I've spent a bit of time on a recipe, it's always good to find a way to repurpose leftovers. Maybe it's because I value frugality, but when I can make something new out of something old it makes me happy. For instance I recently received the wonderful gift of Chef Tal Ronnen's cookbook, "Crossroads," which features recipes from his most excellent vegan restaurant of the same name here in LA. There are many recipes I want to try in this book, but the first one I went for was flatbreads with tapenade and roasted cauliflower. These came out delicious, but I had enough flatbread dough left for another meal. I wasn't going to need them for a few days, but according to the recipe they're good to freeze, so I popped the extra in the freezer.
A few days later, defrosted, they became the post-surf (non vegan this time) lunch you see here:

That's smoked salmon, creme fraiche, freshly squeezed lemon juice and capers on top of the flatbreads fresh out of the oven.  Totally simple, but super delicious. Here's how to make these very versatile flatbreads:

Flatbreads
(adapted from Tal Ronnen's Crossroads cookbook)

1/2 tsp. active dry yeast
1 cup, plus 2 tbsps. lukewarm water
1 teaspoon sugar
2 3/4 cups bread flour, or more, plus additional for dusting
2 tsps. extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the bowl and more for brushing on dough
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. fresh ground black pepper

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine yeast, water and sugar. Stir gently to dissolve yeast and sugar. Let the mixture stand until it looks foamy, about 10 minutes (if it doesn't, toss it and start again...it means your yeast is no good).
2. At low speed slowly add the flour in three batches. When the dough starts to come together, increase speed to medium and add the oil, salt and pepper (side note: I had to keep adding small amounts of flour at this point...the dough was just way too wet, but it may have something to with humidity so you'll have to judge).  Knead the dough in the mixer, stopping the machine periodically to scrape the dough off the hook, until the dough has come together and is no longer sticky, about 10 minutes.
3. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead the dough for a few minutes more, until it's smooth and elastic.
4. Form the dough into a ball and place in an oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about an hour. Meanwhile, if you have a pizza stone (and you should!) place it in the oven and preheat oven to 450 degrees.
5. Divide dough into four equal portions and roll each into a ball. If you're only using two, wrap the remaining two in several layers of plastic (you can oil it if you want; I didn't). You can keep it in the refrigerator up to five days, and the freezer up to a month. I froze two, and took them out of the freezer the day before needed. A couple of hours before baking, place the dough balls on a floured board to come to room temperature.

When you're ready to bake the flatbreads, here's a couple of tricks I've learned for getting pizza, or  flatbreads like these, into the oven without making a big mess.

1. If you have a pizza peel line it with a piece of parchment paper. Dust the parchment paper with cornmeal.
2. On a well floured board press and stretch one piece of dough until you have an oval, approximately 8 inches long and 6 inches wide. Transfer dough to parchment. Do the same with a second ball of dough. You should have enough room to do two flatbreads at a time.
3. With a fork prick the surface of the flatbreads all over. Lightly brush flatbreads with olive oil. Season with salt and fresh ground pepper.
4. Carefully slide the parchment paper with the flatbreads onto your pizza stone. Bake for ten to fifteen minutes, until lightly browned all over (after about 6-8 minutes, if you like, you can remove the parchment from underneath the flatbreads but you can also just leave it).
5. Let flatbreads cool slightly. Then top however you like.  For the ones above, just spread on some Creme Fraiche, then top with thinly sliced smoked salmon. Spoon on some capers, squeeze on some fresh lemon juice and you're good to go.

Here's that vegan version, as mentioned.

If you're looking for a great vegan restaurant experience in LA, definitely hit up Crossroads on Melrose.  For more about it, here's the link:

www.crossroadskitchen.com

If you're looking for a great book to read, or give as a gift, here's a link to Inkshares, where you can search and pre-order my novel "Women Like Us".

www.inkshares.com

William Finnegan's "Barbarian Days" - Best Book About Surfing Ever? Plus Burgerlords!

It has taken me a while to get to William Finnegan's "Barbarian Days," which is all about Finnegan's life as a surfer, beginning with his early days in Hawaii and California.  I haven't read that many books on surfing, but I have to say I am totally enthralled by this book, and if you have any interest at all in surfing -- or what goes on inside the mind of a surfer -- go and get a copy right away because it's so, so good.  Even though I am such a bad surfer still, and I've only been at it a relatively short time, I relate to so much in this book (which, by the way, is also a great portrait of California and Hawaii in the 1960's and 1970's, which I always find fascinating and so cool). Also, I've learned important things from this book -- for instance I'm constantly referring to myself as Kook, which is surfer slang for a dorky surfer. However, what I did not know is that Kook comes from "...kuk, a Hawaiian word for excrement"! This is good information to have, and it paints a colorful picture, doesn't it? I guess what Finnegan really nails for me is a sort of obsession, which I guess applies to surf enthusiasts of all stripes. He began surfing as a kid, and while I don't have that (I have the sort of equivalent of that on skis, though), what I do have is surfing on the brain -- I think about it all the time. When I'm not in the water, I'm wondering when I can get back in. In many ways I've been rearranging my life around a surf schedule, and so Finnegan's obsession totally rings true. How many times a day can you look at Surfline cams? Many.

Another takeaway from "Barbarian Days" is the surfer's connection to nature. This is in some ways obvious -- you're in the ocean so can't get much closer than that -- but also in less tangible ways. You begin to understand -- or try to understand -- things like swell direction and swell size, and what it means when storms are churning away down in Baja because they're going to have a bearing on where you might surf and when.  But also it's just about appreciating things. Like the other day was a pretty good day for me in Santa Monica. Waves were on the small side, and there was the mid-tide I always like, but once again there were dolphins passing lazily by, and pelicans soaring overhead, and the water was nice and clear. It felt so good to just be out there. I was thinking about what to eat after the time in the water and, maybe because it was just such a pretty perfect Southern California day I wanted to do something nice for the planet, which means eating something vegetarian or even vegan. So it was a good day to hit up a new spot I'd read about downtown, in Chinatown, Burgerlords. This is a the vegan cheeseburger I ordered--

I'm generally not a huge fan of veggie or vegan burgers -- if you're gonna have a burger, go to In-n-Out for goodness sakes -- but pictures I'd seen of these made it look really delicious, and I have to say it was. Did it taste like meat? Not really, but it was hearty and filling, and I felt really good about eating it. I forgot to ask if the cheese was vegan. I suspect it was regular cheese, but if you're a total vegan get it without. The fries were prefect too, crispy and salty and hot. It's an interesting spot for lunch too, in the middle of this old-school Chinatown mall. I noticed a bunch of elderly Chinese men milling about, studying all the hipsters and such who were eating at Burgerlords. It was as if they were seeing the future and they weren't quite sure what to make of it.

I'll definitely go back to Burgerlords to try the real burgers but this vegan version definitely hit the spot.

So go!  And get William Finnegan's "Barbarian Days".  It's from Penguin Press.

And by the way, if you're looking for a good novel, please visit www.inkshares.com and search for "Women Like Us".  You can pre-order a book, and I will thank you heartily!

www.burgerlords.com