Scallops – Our Wild Savory Kitchen

Frutti di Mare (Fruits of the Sea)

We are lucky to live along the ocean, on the Monterey Bay, and our wild savory kitchen is often filled with the abundance of seafood harvested just a few miles away. We gather mussels from the tide pools and rocks, fish I catch from the Bay, and Dungeness crabs and squid from boats just offshore. So the Frutti di Mare dishes are always changing, we use whatever is available and fresh. This dish is seafood heaven, with mussels, crabs, lobsters, wild caught bay scallops, squid, baby octopus, and our favorite shrimp, Argentinian Red shrimp from the icy waters off Argentina. Served with reduced wine and clam broth, garden fresh tomatoes and tons of garlic, the fruits of the sea are a huge part of the good life.

Paella

Paella is the signature meal of Spain, a national pride, and yet almost no one fully agrees on how exactly it should be made. It is a controversial meal for many reasons… starting with the simple fact that it is a huge shallow pan loaded down with complex and expensive ingredients which completely vary from home to home, town to town, restaurant to restaurant, and from region to region in Spain. Paella in Madrid is very different from that in Seville. But at the same time, like Bouillabaisse from France, Paella is a classic meal so identified with the soul of the country that it naturally comes laden with emotion, memory, tradition, pride, and a sensory longing for the authenticity of the time and place of one’s upbringing.

Szechuan Black Bean Sauce with Shrimp or Crab

Black bean sauce with seafood is very deep in our memory, a passionately held love affair from all the fabulous meals we enjoyed in the Chinatowns of Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. They were seafood dishes filled with authenticity and gravitas, and packed with Umami. This little feast brings those extraordinary dishes into your own wild savory kitchen.

Seafood in Saffron Broth with Coconut Cream, Sausage and Vermicelli

For a long time, we have been passionate lovers of the fusion cuisine that spreads out from the South of India, across the Malaysian Islands, and is greatly influenced by nearby Thailand and Vietnam. Combining the coconut cream, saffron and warm aromatic spices of Southern India, the lemongrass, Kaffir lime leaves, tomatoes and vermicelli of Malaysia and Thailand, to the pork sausage and umami fish sauce of Vietnam, this amazing feast is one to cherish for your own wild savory kitchen.