Cindy Pawlcyn - Big small plates

Some of the recipes in this book include raw eggs, meat, or fish. When these foods are consumed raw, there is always the risk that bacteria, which is killed by proper cooking, may be present. For this reason, when serving these foods raw, always buy certified salmonella-free eggs and the freshest meat and fish available from a reliable grocer, storing them in the refrigerator until they are served. Because of the health risks associated with the consumption of bacteria that can be present in raw eggs, meat, and fish, these foods should not be consumed by infants, small children, pregnant women, the elderly, or any persons who may be immunocompromised.

Copyright 2006 by Cindy Pawlcyn
Photography 2006 by Laurie Smith and 2005 Heidi Swanson

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pawlcyn, Cindy.
Big small plates / Cindy Pawlcyn with Pablo Jacinto and Erasto Jacinto.
p. cm.
Includes index.
1. Appetizers. 2. Cookery, International. I. Jacinto, Pablo. II. Jacinto, Erasto. III. Title.
TX740.P37 2006
641.812 dc22 2006040446

eISBN: 978-1-60774-450-4

Jacket design by Toni Tajima
Food styling by Erica McNeish
Photographs on pages by Heidi Swanson. All other photographs by Laurie Smith.

v3.2

To Mary Elizabeth Pawlcyn, my little big sister.

My most heartfelt thanks to Erasto and Pablo for being such wonderful business partners, cooks, chefs, critical taste buds, now published authors, and big time good humor guys. I would also like to thank Maria and Adriana Jacintobeing a chefs wife is a much more difficult job than being a chef! Sara and Filiberto Jacinto, Im forever grateful you let your two wonderful sons come to California.

To my dear friend Dianne Fraser, who pulled me from a muddle back into a functioning person, always going beyond the extra mile for me, a very big thank you! Without Sherry Fourniers drive this book would never have gotten started, let alone finished. Thank you, thank you!! Many thanks as well to Michael Wolf, and to Anne Baker who kept us laughing and full of everything sweet and nice.

A million thanks to the management teams at Cindys Backstreet KitchenJennifer Ingellis, Jamie Skelly, Philip Walsh, Federico Ambrosio Reyesand at Mustards GrillMichael Ingellis, John Lombardo, Tim Scully, Alejandro Quiroz Ledesma, Javier Soriano Duranfor helping out so we could do this book.

Thank you to all the recipe testers: Maxine Bloom, Sid Bloom, Kelly Cash, Kate Curnes, Kathy Dennett, Sherry Fournier, David Graham, LouAnne Hackett, Nancy Johnson, Marilyn Marchi, Gail Monahan, Aimee Newberry, Sylvia Guenza Pestoni, Valerie Presten, Ann Putnam, Shanti Singh, Sally Tantau, Garth Waters, Kris Waters, Michael Wolf, and Lynn Zachreson.

Thanks to Lois and Verna Meyes for telling me once I was too small to be a chef! Thanks to Sean Knight for being there when I couldnt be. Thanks Mom for watching over the photo shoot, and to Mary and John for all those great small plates.

Thanks to Lorena Jones for once again thinking I could write a cookbookyou are so patient. Many thanks to Nancy Austin, Carrie Rodrigues, Clancy Drake, and Toni Tajima for making it look good and read well, and to Jackie Wan for every battle she fought and won. To the dashing duo of Laurie Smith and Erica McNeish, thank you for making our food so beautiful! Martha Navarrette, without your making all the hard work easy, we never would have made it. To those of you I didnt include in the first edition, mea culpa! You were in my heart the whole time. Cindy

This book is dedicated to my mother and my father, Sara and Filiberto Jacinto and my wife Maria Jacinto. And to all my brothers and sisters.

A special thank-you to Cindy Pawlcyn for her belief and trust in me. And thank you to my whole team at Mustards Grill, for all of their hard work. Erasto

I dedicate this book to my mother, Sara Jacinto, and my grandmother Benita Gutierrez, because they have cooked all of their lives and they were the first to teach me the difference in the food when you use the very best ingredients. They have had a profound influence on my career as a chef and I am grateful to them. I also dedicate this book to my father, who worked very hard to raise his family.

Others have supported my career and inspired me, namely, my two daughters, Jacqueline and Vivian, and my wife, Adriana. Adriana keeps Jacqueline and Vivian on track while I am working long hours. I know its not easy being a chefs wife.

Many many thanks to chef Cindy Pawlcyn for giving me the opportunity, enthusiasm, and criticism to help me grow in this career.

Finally, I would like to give thanks to my team of talented cooks at Cindys Backstreet Kitchen. Pablo

I sold out of my big restaurant company in 2000. It really wasnt very big compared to McDonalds but it was large enough, as it included Fog City Diner in San Francisco, Buckeye Roadhouse in Marin, and Mustards Grill in Napa Valley. Id had it with the three- and four-hour commutes from Napa Valley to San Francisco and Marin. Then one day I got caught up in a thirty-six-car pileup on Highway 101, and had a really close call when a car flipped up in the air, sailed over me, and landed on the car behind me. That was it! A clear sign for me to make some changes!

I sold my interests in the Bay Area restaurants to my partners, Bill Upson and Bill Higgins, and took over as the sole owner of Mustards Grill. Mustards was close to home, and I had been managing it since it opened in 1983 anyway. It was a perfect solution.

It was lucky for me that the Jacinto brothers, Erasto and Pablo, stuck with me through this changeover. I first met these two young men in 1984 when they came into Mustards looking for work; fortunately I had the good sense to hire them both. Over the years they have taken on more and more responsibilities, to the point where they can run things on their own. Erasto has never left Mustards, and he is now chef-partner of that restaurant. Pablo did leave Mustards after a while, but he came back to work for me when I was doing the Buckeye Roadhouse. Then, when I gave up Buckeye, Pablo stayed with me and helped me develop a new restaurant in St. Helena. He became chef-partner there.

This restaurant, the Miramonte, was the first one Id ever done without my former partners, the two Bills. It featured Mexican and Central and South American food. Unfortunately, to put it bluntly, it wasnt a big hit. People in the wine country want wine-friendly food, and although the food was great and actually did go well with wine, people were intimidated by it.