Oxbow Market is a gourmet market/food hall just across the river from downtown Napa. For a foodie, it makes for pretty exciting shopping: charcuterie from the Fatted Calf, artisanal chocolates and olive oils, and the dairy delights of the Oxbow Cheese Merchant.

For those whose interest in food is mostly limited to eating it, the eateries are top-notch. Wes relived his Point Reyes experience with oysters and clam chowder from Hog Island, while I had been looking forward to the porchetta sandwich at Rotisario, whose rotisserie truck at the San Francisco Ferry Building farmers market always smells so amazing. Unfortunately, it turns out porchetta is a weekend-only special, and the day after Thanksgiving just doesn’t count as the weekend. Our friends had chicken salad sandwich with fries, while I went for the tri-tip — tender and flavorful, with a bright chimichurri sauce.

Oxbow Public Market
644 1st St.
Napa, CA 94559
(707) 226-6529

Thanksgiving in Napa with friends — what could be better? And it was great, even the gray and slightly chilly weather, which justified snuggling up indoors with great movies like “Rear Window.” But after a couple of days of cooking and gluttony, I had a food hangover that prevented me from even thinking about food, much less blogging about it.

So finally, here’s the postmortem on What We Ate on Thanksgiving Day:

Russ Parsons’ salted roast turkey: This turned out really, really well, with juicy but firm flesh — even though I forgot to turn down the heat after half an hour and blasted it at 425 degrees for an hour, even though I didn’t massage the salt into the turkey flesh for the 3 days it was curing. On the other hand, I was disappointed that using truffle salt didn’t put this over the edge; my refrigerator was perfumed with it, but very little of its flavor seemed to make its way into the meat.

Turkey gravy from scratch, New York Times: This was good gravy, but I don’t know that it was entirely worth the hassle. I violated the Thanksgiving turkey by hacking off its wings for the stock (we had a high bird meat to people ratio anyway), plus some chicken wings I had in the freezer. It’s definitely handy to have the stock/gravy ready in advance, but it’s not that hard to make gravy on the spot. I’d just as soon doctor some canned chicken broth by simmering the giblets in it, then go the drippings-and-flour route.

Cranberry orange ginger relish: My mom, who’s made this for years, tells me she got it from an Ocean Spray bag. I got my cranberries from Trader Joe’s and thus had to rely on the Internet, but no recipe is really needed, just the general idea and a Cuisinart. I like that you don’t even have to peel the oranges. I also embellished with a little candied ginger. However you make, it’s nice to have a fresh-tasting variation on the usual cranberry sauce — the more so since we decided that nobody really wants to eat salad on Thanksgiving.

Maple glazed brussels sprouts with chestnuts: I had remembered this recipe fondly, but it turned out soggy and one-dimensional, tasting merely of maple. I’m tempted to try this again, roasting the sprouts instead of parboiling them. Strangely (to me), a couple of diners at our table had never seen chestnuts before.

Candied yams: Even though I’m not usually a fan of too-sweet things (see above), when it comes to candied yams, or sweet potatoes (let’s skip the semantics, you know what I mean), I like the sweet potatoes to bind with their rich, caramelly sauce for a sweet-and-chewy experience. Surprisingly, Gourmet’s recipe, spiked with bourbon (or Scotch, according to the dictates of our liquor cabinet) turned out perfectly in this respect, while Saveur’s was too orangey and watery for my taste.

Turkey tetrazzini: The good news is that I realized you can make this classic turkey leftovers dish even more easily by subbing leftover gravy for the broth-and-roux combo. The bad news is that you have to like tetrazzini to even bother.

The pies: I made apple-cranberry and sweet potato-pumpkin pies from from Cook’s Illustrated, and both were up to CI’s usual high standard. The sweet potato pumpkin pie had absolutely the best texture of any pumpkin pie I’ve ever had — CI says this is because the wet filling (minus the custard) is cooked on the stovetop to steam off the water content, plus some mumbo jumbo about starting off in a hot oven, then lowering the temp. I would’ve preferred more pumpkin flavor, though.

As for the pie crusts, I experimented with an all-butter crust (for the apple-cranberry) and an all-lard crust (for the sweet potato-pumpkin). I was freaked out enough by the amount of butter in the butter crust — 20 tablespoons of high-fat Plugra for a double crust, to just 2 1/2 cups flour! — that I made a backup, but as it happened, all that butter made the dough as easy to roll out as Play-Doh. As for the lard crust, I have to fault myself for over-rendering the lard itself. It’s just that I was expecting the cracklings that remained to be more crackly. Upshot: It kind of tasted like bacon. But in an age when bacon pops up in gourment chocolate, doughnuts, and — whoa — even cupcakes, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

This recipe from L.A.’s Rustic Canyon restaurant caught my eye. Requested by an L.A. Times reader, it’s not part of the paper’s Thanksgiving coverage… and yet, how perfect? Few foods say Thanksgiving like cranberries, and corn is quintessentially American. Unlike the typical holiday desserts, this austere alternative is sweetened just enough to highlight the natural flavor of corn and offset the tartness of the cranberries. The “orange” component is just the zest, which perfumes the flesh of the cake.

I halved this recipe, because my kitchen is already overflowing with experimental desserts, and baked it in a loaf pan. Checking in at half the original baking time, I found the top golden brown but the inside still wet. By the time I got a dry toothpick, the top was thoroughly browned. It looked lovely, though. I usually disdain aesthetic flourishes like sprinkling the extra sugar on top, but it yielded an attractively shiny crust.

But the first couple slices from the cooled loaf were fairly dry. I was disappointed, but thought it could work as a tea cake if I just sliced it thinly. And it could always pair with ice cream. I wrapped up the loaf in tin foil, and went to bed.

Here’s the thing: After a night wrapped in foil, the cake turned out moist! It was as if the cranberries’ juices got redistributed during the night, like a roasted turkey that’s had a rest. Now, I love pumpkin pie and would never give it up for Thanksgiving, but this cake would make a great breakfast or afternoon snack the next day, or at any time during the holiday season.

Cranberry orange cornmeal cake
Serves about 18
Adapted from pastry chef Zoe Nathan of Rustic Canyon, via the Los Angeles Times

2 cups flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 eggs
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) butter
1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
2 1/4 teaspoons salt
Zest of 1 orange
2 cups ricotta cheese
2 1/2 cups cranberries, divided

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9-by-3-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and baking soda. In another medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, maple syrup, oil and vanilla. Set aside.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, cream together the butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar, salt and zest. Mix just until thoroughly combined; do not overmix.

4. With the mixer running on low speed, slowly incorporate the egg mixture into the butter just until combined — don’t overmix!

5. Keep the mixer on, add half the flour mixture to the batter and quickly mix for 5 seconds. Turn off the mixer and add the rest of the flour, the ricotta and half the cranberries. Turn the mixer back on low and mix in the remaining ingredients just until combined.

6. Pour the batter into the cake pan and smooth the top. Scatter the remaining cranberries over the top of the cake, and sprinkle with the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar.

7. Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Place a loose piece of foil over the top of the cake if it starts to darken. Cool the cake on a wire rack before removing it from the pan.

I went to bed last night not quite believing that not only had America elected a black man president, it had managed to wrap up the process in a single evening. Today, I was ready to celebrate. And where better than a Chicago pizza joint? I’m not sure what’s up with the bizarre punctuation of Pizz’a Chicago, but its deep dish pie is pretty damned good.
Pizz’a Chicago
4115 El Camino Real
Palo Alto
(650) 424-9400

This was my meal after voting early at the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters. After driving 20 minutes to wait an hour to be able to vote, I felt like I probably should have just waited for Nov. 4, but no matter. I was within lunching distance of Little Saigon.

My Chowhound colleague Thi had mentioned that he prefers the clean flavors of Pho Y, and I headed there accordingly. The broth was indeed clear like a mountain spring, but maybe a bit too pure for me. The first time I had pho, I was haunted afterward by the aroma of star anise, and I don’t think I’ve had a bowl since that had the same effect. I was able to add a bit of hoisin and sriracha without muddling the flavors, but I was disappointed by the herb plate, which featured only holy basil, sliced jalapeno, and sprouts. OK, a few cilantro sprigs were already floating on the soup, but if I don’t get a plateful of herbs whose names I can’t pronounce, I feel robbed.
Pho Y
1660 E. Capitol Expressway
San Jose
(408) 274-1769

My mouth has been watering for Asa Ramen ever since I first read about it in blogger rameniac’s Chowhound review. “superbly well-crafted”; “proprietary hakata-style noodle” — whoa. This really sounded like one to check out.

Tucked into a Gardena mini-mall, Asa is a small place that was full even when I got there at 9 on a Thursday night. The decor is sort of a Japanese modern-rustic look done on the cheap, but the feel is cozy. I sat at the bar, half shielded from the kitchen by matchstick blinds, and ordered the tonkotsu ramen kotteri style — extra rich.

Now, I fell in love with ramen years ago at Daikokuya, and I’ve gravitated to tonkotsu (pork bone) over shio (plain or “salt” flavored) or shoyu (soy) since then. But lately, I’ve been feeling that tonkotsu is just a bit too much for me.

And so Asa Ramen’s bowl, while quite tasty, left me longing for something lighter. The chashu was good, a little narrower than I’m used to — it looked more like short pieces of bacon. Maybe I would’ve been happier if I hadn’t gone with kotteri. That’s okay, though. Sometimes I’m happy to just knock something off my list. I think I’ve been to all the most talked-about ramen places in L.A., and I know my favorites: Santouka, for a lighter style of tonkotsu (I heard the broth is a blend with chicken and even dried scallops); and Gardena Ramen, for the only shoyu bowl I’ve been able to appreciate. The broth is well rounded, its ingredients so well melded that I don’t think I would have known, if not for rameniac’s review, that it’s a blend of chicken bones, pork knuckle and dried sardines.

Asa Ramen
18202 S. Western Ave.
Gardena
(310) 769-1010
6pm - 2am (closed sundays)

Santouka
inside Mitsuwa Marketplace
3760 Centinela Avenue
West Los Angeles
(310) 398-2113
open daily 11 am - 7:30 pm

Gardena Ramen
1840 West 182nd Street
Torrance
open daily
11:30am - 2:30pm, 5pm - 9pm
cash only

I don’t want to dwell on my awful afternoon tea at Clementine, which had required a reservation with credit card number. Let me just sum up: slightly stale sandwiches, underbaked scones, and I think even the clotted cream was a bit off. I was shocked, since this place is consistently so good — it’s my favorite place in L.A. for American-style baked goods, and the occasional inventive grilled cheese sandwich. But this was its second strike on afternoon tea with me, and I’m not even going to give it the chance for a third. Clementine, you’re out! The only saving grace: my sympathetic server, who comped the meal and offered me a substitute for the scones (which would have been delicious, I could tell, if they hadn’t been gummy inside).

I chose a slice of banana cream pie, and it was a dream: silky custard, slices of luscious ripe banana, and a buttery graham-cracker crust. I don’t have a strong preference between graham crust and regular pie crust for banana cream pie (Cook’s Illustrated does a regular crust rolled in graham crumbs for extra crunch), but this was excellent. In retrospect, a previous disappointment was probably because I took the pie and threw it in my trunk, where it remained all day before I got around to eating it.

A year or so ago, when the New York Times sent a new correspondent to Los Angeles, Jennifer Steinhauer, she sent back some wide-eyed reports on the strange (to her) popularity of banana cream pies, as well as L.A.’s complex parking rules. Clementine and the pastry-crust pie at Pie ‘n’ Burger were her faves, while she dissed the fan favorite Apple Pan. Well, I like the Apple Pan’s banana cream pie (though it’s gotten rather pricey at $6 a slice — at a place that serves soda in paper cones!) and I thought Pie ‘n’ Burger was good but it didn’t knock me out. Fortunately for me, the recipe she got was Clementine’s.

Banana-Cream Pie
Adapted from Clementine, via the New York Times
Makes one 9-inch pie, serves about 8

For the graham shell:
1 ¼ cup graham-cracker crumbs, about 10 or 11 whole crackers (Clementine’s chef-owner Annie Miller makes her own, but, er … life is short)
1 teaspoon sugar
4 tablespoons butter, meltedFor the pastry cream:
1 2/3 cups milk
¼ cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar
½ vanilla bean, seeds scraped out and reserved
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
1 ½ tablespoons butter

For assembly:
1 ½ cups heavy cream
¼ cup crème fraîche
3 ½ medium bananas, sliced into 3/8-inch-thick rounds.

1. For the graham shell: Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a bowl, combine the crumbs and sugar. Add the butter and mix, first with a fork, then with your fingers, until the crumbs are moistened. Pour the mixture into a 9-inch pie pan, using a flat-bottomed cup to press the crumbs evenly. The edges of the shell will be crumbly. Bake until lightly browned, 9 or 10 minutes. Cool completely.

2. Prepare the pastry cream: In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the milk, cup sugar and the vanilla bean and seeds and bring to a simmer. Over a small bowl, sift the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar with the cornstarch. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg and yolks.

3. When the milk comes to a simmer, discard the vanilla bean. Add the cornstarch mixture to the eggs and whisk until well combined.

While whisking the egg mixture, slowly pour in about 1/4 of the milk. Transfer this mixture into the saucepan, set over low heat and simmer, whisking constantly, until it reaches the consistency of thick pudding. (Be careful not to curdle the eggs.) Remove from the heat and stir in the butter until incorporated. Pour into a shallow bowl, place plastic wrap directly on the surface and chill.

4. To assemble: Using an electric mixer or a whisk, whip the heavy cream and crème fraîche into peaks. Transfer the pastry cream to a large bowl and whisk until smooth. Fold in 1/2 cup of the whipped cream. Line the bottom of the cooled pie shell with a layer of bananas. Fold the remaining bananas into the pastry cream, then spoon it evenly into the shell. Mound the remaining whipped cream on top, swirling it decoratively. Chill and serve within 24 hours.

Clementine
1751 Ensley Ave.
Century City
(310) 552-1080

The Korean restaurant On Dal 2 specializes in crab hot pot, a tempting option as the days start to grow cooler. Of course, L.A. was in the throes of an Indian summer heat wave, with temps in the 80s, while I was visiting, but in theory this would be great for fall.

Actually, its greatness by any measure remains theoretical. We got the spicy crab stew, ordered medium-spicy, and it came out in a giant shallow pot, the bodies of the crabs scooped out and the cooked meat mixed with rice and seasonings. The L.A. Times review had said it was like the inside of a crab dumpling, but it just wasn’t that flavorful. The crab meat from the legs was just cottony, and I thought the generic jjigae-style broth, heavy with red pepper, overwhelmed any flavor it might have. Maybe the Korean flavor palette is just incompatible with crab, I thought.

Meanwhile, back up north, Wes went to a Korean friend’s house, where she prepared crab in pretty much the same way, blending the meat with kimchi and rice. It was fantastic, he assured me.

Dungeness crab season is coming up — maybe the problem at On Dal 2 was just that they couldn’t get the good crab yet. I know I have read good reviews of the place — Chowhound blogger Abby swears she’s an addict. I think I’ll give this a try in my own kitchen. Now, where to get good kimchi?

On Dal 2
4566 W. Washington Blvd.
South Los Angeles
(323) 933-3228

Open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

After lunch at Jitlada, I hit Scoops, an eclectic ice-cream place around the corner where owner Tai Kim made no secret of where he stood on the presidential election. I enjoyed reading the suggestion board before settling on a cup of the bestselling brown bread ice cream, which sounds like an odd flavor (ok, not as odd as foie gras, which was once featured here) but actually is a really old-school (as in 19th century) Irish/British flavor. It’s basically vanilla ice cream laced with caramel and dotted with toasted bits of brown bread … or in this case, Grape-Nuts, for superior crunch.

Scoops
712 N. Heliotrope Dr.
East Hollywood
(323) 906-2649
Mon-Sat 12pm-10pm

Jitlada is the only restaurant in the Los Angeles area specializing in southern Thai food, which is said to be insanely spicy. (I read somewhere that Thai cuisine had been scientifically determined the world’s spiciest, so this is saying a lot.) After an excellent meal of unusual flavors there, however, I have to say that if one thing was missing, it was heat!

Maybe it was just the dishes we ordered (although the brother and sister who were waiting tables both commented that we’d ordered well): salmon in a tamarind-based soup, rice salad, and mango salad with crispy catfish. With the possible exception of the rice salad, I can’t imagine how they could have been spicy.

The catfish salad (the mango is just an afterthought) was amazing, with clumps of catfish that managed to be cloudlike and crispy. You didn’t really get individual pieces of fish, it was more like its essence had been distributed throughout the mixture. This dish could be translated into a fantastic bar snack.

The soup was a light, tangy tamarind broth with perfectly cooked pieces of salmon. I worried a little bit about them overcooking in the still-boiling soup, served in a container with flame underneath, but it didn’t happen.

Perhaps the most talked-about dish at Jitlada is the rice salad — the Los Angeles Times even devoted an article to it in the Sunday magazine. (Check out the notes from the test kitchen.) It was a beguiling mixture of tastes and textures, a true salad rather than a rice-bowl gut bomb, whose flavors were dominated by sweetness and a fishy funkiness that spoke of the ground shrimp and fish sauce. Still, I was perplexed by what seemed to be a photo of that salad, in an article beneath the glass cover on my table. It had a huge heap of sliced Thai chiles, whereas my salad hardly seemed spicy at all.

There’s still plenty for me to try at Jitlada — the southern menu alone comprises TKTK items. My fellow blogger Pat has tried many dishes, and I’d like to check out her recs of softshell crab curry, blue crab salad, and clam curry with betel leaves — not to mention frog legs with santol fruit curry, and pumpkin coconut custard for dessert.

Khao Yam [Thai Rice Salad]
Adapted from Jitlada restaurant, via the Los Angeles Times
Serves 4

Scant 2 cups steamed jasmine rice
2/3 cup seeded cucumber, sliced lengthwise into thirds, then crosswise into 1/8-inch slices
2/3 cup thinly sliced cabbage
1/2 cup very thinly sliced lemongrass
1/2 cup thinly sliced green beans
2/3 cup bean sprouts
2/3 cup julienned mango (slightly underripe)
1 cup julienned carrot
1/4 cup or more dried shrimp, coarsely ground in a food processor or spice mill
1/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut
1 teaspoon chili powder, or to taste
1 teaspoon fine chiffonade of kaffir lime leaves
Thinly sliced Thai chiles, optional
5 tablespoons or more khao yam sauce (below)
2 or more lime wedges

Toast the coconut in a small saute pan over medium heat until golden; set aside. Place the rice in a small, oiled bowl and invert onto a serving platter. Working clockwise, gently mound the cucumber, cabbage, lemon grass, green beans, sprouts, mango and carrot in small separate piles around the bowl. Gently unmold the rice. Sprinkle the ground shrimp on half of the mounded rice, then sprinkle the toasted coconut on the other half. Sprinkle the chili powder in a line down the center of the rice, separating the shrimp from the coconut. Sprinkle the lime leaf chiffonade over the mounded rice. Just before serving, squeeze the limes over all, add the sauce and toss well. Serve the Thai chiles on the side.

Khao Yam Sauce

1 1/4 cup (10-ounce bottle) budu (fermented anchovy sauce)
3 kaffir limes, halved
20 whole kaffir lime leaves
5 stalks lemongrass, trimmed, crushed to release the oils and roughly chopped
1/2 pound galangal (about 4 pieces, each 3 inches long and 1 inch thick), roughly chopped
2 1/2 cups or more palm sugar, divided
3/4 cup dried shrimp, ground in a food processor or spice mill
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, or to taste

Place the budu, 2.5 cups water, kaffir limes and leaves, lemon grass and galangal in a 2-quart, heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat so the mixture barely bubbles, and keep it at a bare simmer for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Add water as needed to keep the total amount of liquid constant. Stir in 1.5 cups of the palm sugar until dissolved, and continue to simmer gently for an additional hour, stirring frequently.

Strain the mixture into another heavy-bottomed saucepan, reserving some of the steeped lemon grass (the rest of the solids can be discarded). Whisk in the additional cup of palm sugar until dissolved, as well as the ground shrimp. Mince 2 teaspoons of the reserved lemon grass and add to the saucepan. Stirring constantly, bring the mixture to a steady simmer over medium heat. Cook until the sauce has thickened and taken on a rich caramel color, about 10 minutes, stirring constantly and making sure to stir the bottom of the pot to prevent the palm sugar from burning. Quickly pour the mixture into a glass or nonreactive container and cool to room temperature. Whisk in the fresh lime juice.

The sauce should have a thick, syrup-like consistency, with a balance of salty, sweet and tart flavors. Taste and adjust as necessary, adding budu for saltiness, palm sugar to sweeten and lime juice for tartness. If the dressing is too thick to stir easily, whisk in a little water to thin. The recipe makes about 3.5 cups dressing and will keep refrigerated up to 4 months in an airtight, nonreactive container.

*If fresh kaffir limes are not available, double the number of kaffir lime leaves.

Jitlada
5233 1/2 Sunset Blvd.
Hollywood/Thai Town
(323) 667-9809