Fall is flexing its muscles as I write this on the morning of the first freeze of the season. My cold fingers struggle stiffly with the keys even though I am swaddled in sweatpants, thick socks, shearling slippers and an old faux pashmina over a sweater. Remember when President Carter urged us all to lower our thermostats and put on a sweater to conserve energy? (Who am I kidding? I was barely out of diapers in 1977!) Well, the old man was right. We should all lower our thermostats a little…and turn on the oven.
If you read this column regularly, you may have noticed that during the summer I tend to focus on cocktails, salsa and ice cream, anything cold and wet that might, at least temporarily, temper that summer feeling of somehow having been inserted into a giant food dehydrator. I also tend to eat at restaurants a lot more in the summer because my giant 1948 Maytag Dutch Oven's internal thermostat self-regulates about as well as the blast furnace/deep freeze
vacillations of a menopausal woman. Between June and October I won't even risk setting that big
white monster on "low" to keep my pancakes warm; I'm afraid it might melt the paint off the walls. But this weekend I plan to fire up the old Maytag and make (or incinerate) some pâté. I've got a freezer full of pork butt and a Le Creuset pâté terrine that's ready to be greased.
I've got pâté on the brain this week because I've just discovered the marvelous meatloaf sandwich at Blueberry (behind Albertson's at St. Francis and Zia Road). Actually, I had tried to order Blueberry's meatloaf dinner to go, but it turns out you have to call ahead for the dinners to go, so I settled for the next best thing. The cold meatloaf sandwich comes with a big heap of sweet, caramelized onions, crunchy romaine lettuce and herbed mayonnaise on substantial slices of country bread. When I got it home I peeled the bread off, toasted it on the griddle and reassembled the sandwich. Fantastic! It was just like Mom used to make! Except that my mom detests meatloaf and has never once made it for me. But it was like I imagine she would have made it if she hadn't been such a snob about the whole thing, OK?
In her defense, my mom was probably permanently damaged by the ubiquitous, bland, ketchup-topped meatloaves of the 1950s. But while she loudly disdains meatloaf, she just as loudly praises the humble loaf's more fashionable French cousin, pâté. And certainly pâté is a much broader and more sophisticated category of comestible. Meatloaf is rarely much more than ground beef patted into a loaf pan, but there are innumerable versions of pâté. The chunky, country-style version that's most similar to meatloaf can be made with any combination of ground pork, veal, liver or ham. Also-and this is why I love the French-they like to grind those meats together with a nice big chunk of back fat. And before slipping it into the terrine (read: fancy loaf pan), they'll wrap it in a lacy netting of caul fat (don't ask). Fat equals flavor, folks, and a real pâté has plenty of "flavor."
But back to Blueberry's version of meatloaf. It's a pretty traditional American version, made with perhaps more bell peppers, carrots, celery and onions than usual. Most important, it's made with Niman Ranch beef. A dish that is 87 percent beef tastes a hell of a lot better when that beef is top quality. I ate half of the sandwich for dinner and the other half for lunch the next day. The great thing about meatloaf is that it ages quite well. The bread crisped up well in my little skillet and the whole thing was perhaps even better after sitting in the fridge overnight.
The meatloaf experience made me fall in love with Blueberry, which is a cute little breakfast and lunch joint created for people like me: slightly snobby, ingredient-obsessed, hearty eaters who appreciate triple-smoked bacon, real maple syrup, McCann's Irish oatmeal and mashed butternut squash. I say slightly snobby because of the Niman Ranch meat, the organic produce and the fancy hot chocolate selection, but really, Blueberry isn't too snobby at all. There's nothing unpronounceable or even slightly weird on this menu: smoked salmon pan scramble ($8.95), Belgian waffles with blueberry ice cream ($9.50), peanut butter (organic!) and jelly sandwiches ($4.50), fried chicken salad ($8.95). The blueberry theme extends to blueberry lemonade, which I found tart and refreshing, blueberry milkshakes, blueberry iced tea, blueberry muffins and a few other things that are sort of superfluous.
I must try again for the dinner to go. Right now they're offering a roasted chicken breast ($11.95), barbecued beef ($12.95) and cedar plank-grilled salmon ($14.95) as well as the meatloaf dinner ($13.95). You choose mashed potatoes, couscous and collards or mashed butternut squash for sides. Incidentally, the side of squash that came with my sandwich was quite substantial. If the lunch portions are any gauge, I suspect you could split these dinners between two if you weren't starving to death. Or you could always order some triple-smoked bacon on the side-you know, just for "flavor."
Blueberry
3005 St. Francis Drive (at Zia Road)
(888) 292-BLUE (2583)
Open 8 am-3 pm every day
Tell me where to eat! I need your input. Send all of your tips, gripes and raves to
.
