Cooking at Dara's House

It's torture.
I'm sitting on a hard wood stool in a small kitchen watching someone who clearly loves to cook and is having a ball. Imagine watching a really good pinball player. You know when they get that ball moving lightning quick all over the place racking up thousands of points and the bells and lights are going nuts? That's how Dara Merin moves around her tiny kitchen while while she teaches her classes.
Torture is maybe too strong a word. Anticipation maybe? At 6:30, five of us cram into her gorgeously organized kitchen and find a stool. We hold our packets emblazoned in beautiful font, "The Sage Table, cooking and classes for culinary wisdom." Tonight is "Mexican Mole, Posole & More". (Aha , stews! Perfect! see last entry...)
For two hours we watche her slice, grate, mandoline, mix, run into the closet and work her industrial blender, simmer, and all the while her rapid fire monologue continues. We don't do much except wait and wonder at her knowledge.
"How much cilantro did I say to add?" she asks us to check her recipes for her often. "Jordan would you grab me that onion?" I reach to the basket right above my head and pass it to her. "Isn't this easy? Didn't I tell you this is easy?" she says as she flips 180 degrees and opens her bursting fridge to grab a Ball jar of lime juice she squeezed earlier.
This aint Kitchen on Fire. This is Dara's world. She is the fastest talking most organic and health-minded chef I've ever seen and though she seems to forget and misplace as many things as she remembers to include in her cooking, her food is incredible.
But when will we get to eat it?
This is my third class at Dara's, and it really teaches you patience. This is a woman, after all, who can go on a master cleanser diet of nothing but lemon juice and cayenne for ten days. This is a woman who can cook an incredibly authentic Indian feast for 250 people in the woods outside Mendocino. This is a true iron chef, no flashy bullshit or port wine reductions, just straight up really f**ing good food.
For two hours all she fed us was a crunchy and delicious Algerian cucumber with salt. But what salt! "This is that Maldon salt from France which I finally splurged and bought and I'll just sprinkle a little on here... it's really good, you don't want to cook with it, for soup I'll use this jar of wet sea salt, see here? Wanna taste that? It's too wet to ground up, so to ground up and just sprinkle I might use- see that big jar of pink Himalayan salt? See, okay, I'm soooo excited because I got that a year ago from a guy at the Rainbow festival and I use that to-"...
Bring up salt, or fermentation, or Kombucha, or anything edible, and Dara gets like my nine year old daughter on her way to sleepover, "Sooooo EXCITED!!"
I've been sneaking little cherry tomatoes. It's 8:30 now and the enchiladas with incredibly rich brick-red mole just went in the oven. My stool neighbor catches me. "hey, those are for the guac."
"Ooops, sorry" I slink back to my stool and pretend to be very interested in the hundreds of hand labelled jars of grains and spices two inches from where I'm sitting." Actually I am fascinated by her extensive larder and do stare at it a lot.
"Okay, we're just about to eat, let's do the Margaritas, ooh, I'm so excited, we're having a party!"

And finally. We sit down. This is the best part of class at Dara's house. We do the most importnat thing. We sit down. We ladle ourselves steaming bowls of Posole. It has a wonderful grainy texture from the blending of the pumkin seeds, tomatillos, and chilis. The heat of it is just enough to make the mouth hum. The balooned-up white corn kernals, the hominy, are wonderful and creamy.
The chunky guacamole on the sliced up and baked organic Primavera tortilla slices ("From the tuesday market on Derby, I just can't have you over for a class and buy chips in a bag, it's just not my style") -fantastic.
"Ole" I say as we toast with the margaritas. They are smooth and syrupy. Sweetened with actual Agave Syrup. Glasses rimmed with the Maldon salt. Dara is a fanatic.
Suddenly I have forgotten the two hours of waiting and watching. Her food is the essence of soulful. We start to talk loudly, smiling and laughing. I go get the enchiladas that have been warming in the oven. They are made with organic corn tortillas, and a mixture of zucchini, onion, carrot, all bonded together with goat cheese. They are so rich and earthy, the mole is not that bland chocolate sauce you might get in a burrito- it is an incredible mix of Ancho Chiles, cumin, cinnamon, garlic and just a few hunks of Sharffenberger bitter chocolate. (She let us taste it at one point, two people said it tasted Indian, we all voted for more chocolate, she complied. It's perfect now. )
I eat one huge one.
Then another.
I realize that this wouldn't be so delicious if we had been handed Margartias upon entering the house and if we'd been stuffing our face with chips and salsa for two hours. In fact I'd probably be drunk, full, and half asleep if we had. We are all very awake now.
This is what Dara's house is all about to me. Being awake to tastes, to food, to the other people you are eating it with.
If Kitchen on Fire is the boot camp of technique and improvisation, about skills and methods and becoming confident with your hands and your taste buds, then The Sage Table is a reminder of what those techniques are for: Meals of beauty, made from ingredients with integrity, shared with other human beings.
And I can't f** ing believe it was vegetarian!


(I hate to encourage others to take her classes because you might get my spot at the table, but in the spirit of sharing good things, thesagetable.com... reserve your spot early...)