I have never peeled or deveined a shrimp before, ever. My family was always culinarily-challenged, and I’m not sure they knew (or cared) about cleaning shrimp. In retrospect, that is kind of frightening, but I’ll get to that in a second. As for me, I have always bought them already cleaned, and sometimes even frozen. Some busy gals still love to cook, and purchasing prepped shrimp was an easy option.

Since I make it a point to learn anything in the kitchen I can, I decided that today would be the day I would buy fresh, shelled shrimp and clean them up myself. I’d seen how it was done on TV: tear off the legs, peel off the shell, slice down the back of the shrimp, and pull the ick out of there—easy. But doing it myself was like taking a trip back to high school biology.

I remember high school biology like it was yesterday. One of my best friends and I were paired up to dissect a fetal pig, which we affectionately referred to as Bubba. The teacher showed us how to gently pull its intestines out in one piece, and it looked so clean and easy. But once we were inside of Bubba, it was a different story. Our friend’s innards were covered in a slimy substance, and getting those intestines out without tearing them or him apart felt so impossible. And so, so gross.

Taking the shells off the shrimp was no problem at all. But inside, the shrimp had all sorts of “veins”, some thin and nearly invisible, and some that were so startlingly thick I had to close my eyes and wash the goo out as quickly as possible. I couldn’t shake the thought of shrimp literally being scared shitless as they died. I am still shuddering.

Obviously, if I’m going to be any kind of chef at any point in my life, I will have to get used to this. So from now on, I’d like to peel and devein my own shrimp as often as possible. But it just goes to show that even the easiest looking things can be difficult hands-on. I learn that lesson with food very often (like the time I bloodied my hand while shucking a clam—but that’s another blog post).

Since I’m still new to this whole super-fresh shrimp thing, will someone please answer me this: if the shrimp taste better cooked with the shell on, when does the deveining happen? Or does it??

Name: Enssaro
Where: Grand Lake, Oakland
Type of Food: Ethiopian
Price: $5-15/entree
More Info: Yelp

E is for Ethiopian, so this week we headed to Enssaro on Grand Avenue. An unassuming storefront on the outside, but we were confused by the inside: the interior dimly lit and draped in gauze-like cloth, the bar dressed up like a straw hut. But the smell of meat and berbere filled the air, and we were ready to eat.

If you have never had Ethiopian food (I’d only been once before), make sure you wash your hands well, because those will be your utensils for the evening. Dishes are served with a generous amount of injera, a flat, spongy, crepe-like bread used to pick up your food, usually a thick stew of sorts. Overwhelmed by the menu? Try the meat or veggie combo to get a variety of flavors—our favorites were the ground beef and collard greens, and the lamb with berbere sauce. Skip dessert, but go for the honey wine, which tastes first like honey, then like a fortified wine with a malty beer aftertaste. It’ll knock your socks off.

Not ready to give Ethiopian cuisine a try yet? Learn more here!

Name: De Afghanan Kabob House
Where: Berkeley (University and San Pablo)
Type of Food: Afghan
Price: $5-15/entree
More Info: www.deafghanan.net

We had a few “D” options to choose from, but we decided to venture down the road less traveled: Afghan food. What IS Afghan food? If the meal we had was any indication, it is a cuisine that favors spice—but not necessarily heat—and likes to toe the line between sweet and savory.

De Afghanan is a cozy little place with a cheery owner who is glad to offer suggestions to new customers. Try the bolani kadoo, a sweet/savory flatbread reminiscent of a pumpkin quesadilla served with yogurt and chili sauces. We also had the mantu, dumplings stuffed with leeks and seasoned ground beef with an oregano meat sauce; the lamb kabob; plus, orange barley tea while we waited for our takeout. They all hit the spot on a rainy day, making our first experience with Afghan food a good one.

Name: Chai Thai Noodle
Where: East Oakland
Type of Food: Thai
Price: $5-15/entree
More Info

C is for cheap, so this week we took a trip to Chai Thai Noodle in East Oakland. A clean, no-nonsense family establishment, Chai Thai Noodle has an extensive menu of curries, noodle dishes, and various other entrees to choose from. I went straight for the Chan Pad Poo, a Pad Thai-like dish with dungeness crab and egg that was a hit with Yelpers, and ordered it “medium spicy” at the server’s recommendation. The noodles were chewy but not overdone, and the spice made the dish extremely flavorful while imparting the perfect amount of heat (Note: The heat does overpower the crab, so you may consider getting this dish mild). Among our other food selections were the barbecue pork neck (sliced into long strips and tasted not unlike bacon), the tofu tod (avoid), and the pad see ew (highly recommended). Don’t let the location deter you—Chai Thai Noodle is worth the trip for some good, cheap eats.

Name: Bay Wolf
Where: Piedmont Avenue, Oakland
Type of Food: New American
Tab (appetizer, entree, non-alcoholic drinks, tip): $84.84 for 2
Dinner Menu

Bay Wolf has a focused menu with a select few ingredients, so you can tell that what you’re going to get is probably going to be, at the very least, fresh. Our server recommended the lamb’s tongue salad with poached egg, capers, and a mustard vinaigrette. The tongue was braised, was incredibly tender, and had an unexpectedly subtle lamb flavor. My entree was a grilled duck with asparagus and green garlic flan (which was more like a pudding, but a tasty and inventive idea). The duck is quite possibly the best I’ve had in a long time, surpassed only by a pan-seared duck I had at Chambers Kitchen in Minneapolis last year. We also had a sausage-stuffed quail with lentils, and a goat cheese ravioli with beets and greens, which were both delicious but could have perhaps used a bit more acid for brightness. Again, we were left with no room for dessert, but some items that caught my eye were the rose-scented rice pudding and mini ice cream sandwiches with chocolate and caramel dipping sauce.

Bay Wolf is a pretty calm and quiet restaurant and has a large, semi-outdoor seating area with shutters that can be opened on mild, sunny days, and heat lamps that can be used on chillier nights. The service is formal, yet unpretentious, and seamless; we hardly noticed when our waters were refilled or our plates were taken away. All in all, highly recommended for a special night out.

Name: A Cote
Where: Rockridge, Oakland
Type of Food: French/Mediterranean
Tab (appetizer, entree, tip): $69.72 for 2
Dinner Menu

A Cote specializes in well-executed, simple, rustic French dishes. We started with the wood-roasted mussels with Pernod and an order of pommes frites with lemon aioli. The frites were perfectly crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and the tender mussels were served with crusty bread for sopping up the Pernod and cream sauce. At the recommendation of our server, we moved on to the grilled pork loin with rhubarb gastrique, and the grilled skirt steak with gigande beans. The pork was lean yet tender and incredibly flavorful, and the skirt steak practically fell apart on my fork. We did not indulge in dessert, but I’ll have to save room next time: lots of restaurants treat dessert as an obligation, but A Cote has put as much thought into their dessert menu as they have their dinner menu.

You’ll have to be a bit more of a social person to enjoy this restaurant. The space is cozy, and not particularly quiet. They also have a large, family-style table in the center of the dining room if you are not averse to sitting next to strangers.

I work in Sacramento during the week and rarely have time to go out and find good eats. So when I return to the Bay Area on weekends, I have a tendency to fall back on safe, reliably tasty food options that I miss when I’m away. In an effort to change this, and to introduce enthusiastic eaters to the bounty of delicious food that is the East Bay, I am going to devote the next 26 Thursday nights to eating at a new, never-before-tasted place. Restaurants, food stands, taco trucks, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, cheap, expensive… There are absolutely no limits here, except that the place needs to start with the letter of the alphabet designated for that week. I will then write a brief blurb on each eatery and post it here on Fridays.

Since I started last week with A and ate at B this week, I will have two posts for this week. Stay tuned…

this is a quick dish i threw together (just now!) with stuff i had around the kitchen. lemon juice and canned artichokes make this a light dish with a nice, citrusy zing! this will taste best with homemade chicken stock, but you can also find real, prepackaged and unsalted stock at most supermarkets. i used thigh fillets since i’m a dark meat gal, but you can do breast fillets if you’d like. and now, just a few quick ingredients:

chicken fillets, as much as you like.
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp salt (or more to taste)
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tbsp butter, divided
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup chicken stock
juice of one lemon
4-5 artichoke hearts. adjust to your tastes.
1/2 tsp dried oregano
linguine, again as much as you like.
1 tbsp fresh chopped parsley. flat-leaf only, no exceptions!
salt and pepper to taste

1. combine flour, salt, and pepper in a shallow dish. dredge chicken fillets in flour mixture.

2. heat olive oil and 1 tbsp butter in a pan until rocket hot and almost smoking. shake excess flour off chicken fillets and brown in pan, about 2 minutes per side.

3. when chicken has browned, remove from pan and set aside. add chicken stock, lemon juice, artichokes, and oregano. when simmering, return chicken to pan. continue simmering until chicken is thoroughly cooked about 5 minutes. taste often and add salt and pepper as needed.

4. meanwhile, bring a small pot of salted water to a rolling boil. add linguine and cook until al dente, about 9-10 minutes unless otherwise specified on package. place linguine on plate and top with chicken, leaving reduced chicken stock mixture in the pan. add remaining tablespoon of butter to the mixture and stir until butter is incorporated. pour mixture over chicken and pasta. top with chopped parsley,

the potluck has long been a thing of convenience, curbing the expense of feeding a large crowd and eliminating (or rather, redistributing) the hassle of food preparation. i have been to some awful potlucks at community gatherings, and especially at work where managers skimp on holiday parties after a bad year. you know what i’m talking about: dry rotisserie chickens from the big box wholesaler, the pre-packaged m&m cookies, that thick and gluey potato salad from the grocery store deli. nothing screams thoughtless, obligatory potluck dish more than that potato salad.

when you have a bunch of friends that know and love the kitchen, however, and you invite them all to a pot luck, good things are bound to happen. everyone has a staple dish, or core set of ingredients, that they always turn to when they are looking to knock some socks off. brought together in the same venue, the end result is a great exchange of flavors and ideas among food lovers. this is the potluck being redefined, thanks primarily to the recent growing interest in all things gastronomical. in no time, the word potluck will no longer strike fear in its attendants’ hearts, instead planting butterflies in their stomachs that can only be sated by that delicious bite of something! (ok, that was a little dramatic. but at the very least, we will look forward to them.)

at our housewarming party on sunday, all of our guests got to partake in a wide variety of tasty dishes, prompting many compliments and requests for recipes all around. some highlights are as follows:

• spanakopita (we even got to watch them being made in our kitchen!)
• cold soba peanut noodles with peas and peppers
• walt’s italian pasta salad with corkscrews and fresh tortellini
• char-grilled balsamic chicken thighs
• for dessert, a flourless chocolate cake (also baked in our kitchen)
• and some sticky rice pudding and flan, both compliments of my awesome aunt liza

when i tell people i buy parmigiano-reggiano, the real deal, at whole foods for around $25 a pound, a lot of them look at me like i’ve lost my mind.

the thing, though, is that you can’t put a price on quality. and real parmigiano-reggiano has a buttery, nutty, meaty taste that cannot be emulated by any other “parmesan” out there—they are not aged as long, are softer, and contain less salt and glutamate, all of the finer things that contribute to the cheese’s naturally complex flavor.

you might find ones that are close. trader joe’s has a a pre-grated parmesan cheese they sell that is imported from (i think?) argentina. at first taste, it has all the flavor features of parmigiano-reggiano, and it adds a pretty good finishing touch to pastas.  the other night, however, i tried making my near-foolproof recipe for fettuccine alfredo (recipe to follow) with it, and the dish fell flat. the cream sauce had an uncharacteristically thick, clumpy texture, and the clove of smashed garlic i normally add easily overwhelmed the parmesan. and when i reheated the fettuccine the next night—fettuccine alfredo never reheats well anyway, and i don’t make a common practice of it—the dish had lost any semblance of parmigiano-esque flavor. needless to say, i am never skimping on my parmigiano-reggiano again.

any aspiring cook, even a total noob, can yield immediate results as long as they use the right ingredients at the highest quality. now, i’m not saying you should be dropping tons of cash on ingredients all the time. but for those who scoff at shopping for groceries at whole foods or other organic markets, try it just once. i swear, whatever it is, will be the tastiest thing you’ve made yet.