New California Cuisine At Home

 California cuisine has had a reputation ever since Alice Waters created it fifty five years ago.It was made a certain way with certain ingredients.It was supposed to  - in a way-represent nouvelle American .Yetit coild be considered elitist..A new cuisine is emerging from the state and it's more representative of the people there.

Regular contributor and chef  Genevieve Ko wrote about this in yesterday's New York Times Wednesday Food section. California cuisine started, again by the famed Alice Waters for her restaurant Chez Panisse in 1971. She championed using fresh  local produce, preparing it with a French sensibility.For five decades and more chefs up and down the state did the same, drawling largely from European recipes. Mostly the influence came from Italy.Yet a lot for people from all over moved to California in the half century following Cehz Panisse's opening. They brought their native food flavors .Meanwhile native Californians looked over their recipes and reinvented them. There was fusion, two cuisines fsed together to form one. diaspora - the immigrants recipes and third culture - that reflects a chef's history.I'ts less defined now. It's less Mediterranean and there are fewer mash ups It's freer and more curated as chefs take inspiration from around the globe, instead of one place.

The recipes Ms.KO give reflect this. The ingredients can be picked up at any farmer's market anywhere in the country. There is pluot tomato salad with suya pistachio crunch. Suya is a coating West Africans use to coat skewers of various meats like pork ,beef and chicken.The salad itself is an interesting mix of tomatoes and the apricot - plum hybrid.Rhe dressing is a rich pistachio cream made with shelled, insulated nuts blended with whole cream Greek yogurt and lemon juice and topped with pistachios spiced with cayenne,and ginger along with onion and garlic powders. Its a combo of California produce mixed with African and European flavors.There also is summer melon spoon salad.There's me long cucumbers and avocados with a simple dressing of lemon and olive oil, flavored with fresh basil and dill leaves. Since it;s corn season all over America ,there  is a charred corn and cheddar salad to celebrate that. Fresh corn is charred on an outdoor grill until it's charred brown in spots. An aoilis sauce is the dressing. This is classic aioli made with homemade mayo, with fresh egg yolks missed with Dijon mustard and lime juice use a neutral oil like grape seed to emulsify this. The cheese can be a sharp cheddar but crumbled queso Fresca, feta or Cotija can be used. Ground Aleppo peppers are also used for heat.

A new California cuisine can be made anywhere in the US.I;ts just a trip to the farmer's market to get the ingredients. Its then adding fresh flavor and taste to  dishes that fit in easily anywhere