Merry Mania!

I've been in full on manic-hermit-mode the past two days and have been cooking up a storm.  I've also been incredibly productive in the rest of my house.  It's taking time for me to make a dent, and I'm currently in the "chaos before the calm" stage, but I'm hoping it will be settled by the time I go back to work on Monday.

I'm desperately trying to decrease the clutter in my home, (and life?) by cleaning out.  If I haven't used it or read it or worn it recently, then it's finding a new home, either with another person or in the trash bin.  This goes for food as well.  I'm determined to make room in my pantry/cabinets/shelves.  I hoard non-perishable food as if the Armageddon is imminent.  Especially pumpkin, and I'm honestly not sure why.  If the second coming does happen to occur sometime soon, you'll know where to find the pumpkin pie...

Today I made some turkey, pumpkin and kale soup.  It turned out wonderfully and it gave me an excuse to use up the ground turkey in my freezer.  I browned the turkey, added seasoned salt, paprika, coriander, a bit of sage, a sprinkle of cayenne and turmeric, and a touch of herbs de provence.  I added a couple quarts of chicken stock, a couple cans of organic pumpkin and then a can of evaporated milk (because I also have a ton of that).  I've never cooked kale before.  It was pretty interesting to work with.  Really crunchy and pretty difficult to wash, but it looked amazing going into the orange soup, and, come to find out, tasted great too.  The soup was very tasty.  I was pleasantly surprised, because it was a complete coin toss.

I followed that up with some fudge, to help use up the fat free sweetened condensed milk I had lying around.  I made three types of fudge; the first was just classic chocolate with pecans, the second had hazelnuts, coriander and cardamom, and the third had, (please suspend judgement), tamari, toasted black sesame seeds and candied ginger.  Mmmmmm.  I can't tell which was my favorite.

While I was sorting paperwork, I decided to put a couple cans of full-fat sweetened condensed milk on the stove in a pot of water and let them boil for about 3 hours, keeping the cans covered with water the whole time.  Thankfully Brandy stayed long enough to get sent home with some dulce de leche, along with a variety of ingredients for Thai food that have been neglected in my cabinets.  I have to thank my friend Laura Simcik for the fabulous  dulce de leche trick!  Great on toast, cookies, ice cream, a spoon... and so simple to make.  Unfortunately I was a bit impatient when opening the first can and I ended up with a geyser of hot caramel shooting across the kitchen.  Totally worth it...

Tomorrow I'll make my mother's recipe for crabmeat triangles as well as two batches of pumpkin bread and two batches of pumpkin pie filling, all of which is destined for my freezer.  Needless to say, my poor freezers required some rearranging.  This is good inspiration for me to either eat the stuff that's been hanging out in there for a while, or throw it out.  I'm currently thawing turkey chili and a batch of cabbage and proscuitto soup.  Those should hold me over for the next couple days.

I also made a huge batch of cucumber and tomato salad with balsamic in the hopes of getting a few more days out those items.  It's what's left from the Costco batch of salad-makings from the lasagna night.

I have another batch of fresh kale in my fridge, as well as broccoli and zucchini.  Apparently I'm craving green veggies.  Not sure how I'll prepare those over the next few days, but I'll have to take a break from all the pumpkin chaos to make something healthy.

I almost wish that I had more people around to eat all this food, however that would mean putting on respectable clothes and partaking in human interaction, neither of which I'm particularly up for at the moment, (Kat and Brandy being the exception since that's pretty much like hanging out with myself anyway) .  When I'm ready to re-enter normal society, I'll have a fridge and freezer stock full of fun goodies for friends.

Lasagna and the Sandra Lee Aftermath...

Two Posts in One!!!

Post One:  The Lasagna

I've been threatening for a few weeks now to make meat sauce, followed by lasagna from scratch.  The meat sauce I've done many times and, as usual, I planned on making a large batch and then freezing most of it.  The lasagna I haven't made from scratch before, but I've made each of the components and figured it couldn't be too much of a culinary stretch.

Unfortunately, I decided to do my meat-sauce-shopping at Costco.  This meant I walked out with 6 large (LARGE) cans of tomatoes and a case of tomato paste, 10lbs of ground beef and 6lbs of pork chops.  I bought my 10 large Italian sausages at Mr. Prime Beef and went home to dig out the 20qt sauce pot from the garage.  Thankfully I found tons of beautiful fresh basil at New Sagaya (a downright holiday miracle during an Alaskan winter), and I still had a wedge of romano left in my fridge, since Costco was, yet again, out of romano.

My recipe only called for 8lbs of ground meat, so I portioned off two pounds and used the rest to make my meatballs.  I rolled all 8lbs of the meatballs, with the parsley, garlic, bread, romano, salt, pepper, etc... only to realize at the last minute that I'd left out the eggs.  With 30 minutes left until I was being picked up for a snowboarding weekend, I managed to squish them all together again, incorporate the eggs, roll them into meatballs again, and then, miraculously, get them all browned and into the sauce before I ran out the door.  

Needless to say, I ended up with plenty of sauce for a tray or two of lasagna.

On Sunday night, following the snowboarding trip, I had a few friends over to help eat the lasagna.  Little did they know that they'd be making it for me as well.  Alisa and Michael were absolute champs about rolling the pasta dough through the machine.  Matt did a fantastic job with spreading out the cheese mixture.  Joe was in charge of tending to and prepping the meatsauce.  Maggie offered quite a bit of moral support.  I hovered.  A lot.  In a very Type-A-ish kind of way...

While the lasagna was cooking, folks stood around the counter, tore off pieces of bread and dipped them in a big bowl of sauce that had been set out.  It felt like being back home.  

The lasagna seemed to be a hit, and I had twice as much as I needed, so we froze one tray of it.  I put the rest of the sauce in containers and now I have a relatively full freezer...

You'll have to excuse the iPhone photo.  I was too lazy to break out a real camera.

Part Two:  The Sandra Lee Aftermath

As for the extra beef, one pound of it was used to create some make-shift tacos on Friday night, and the other pound was still in my fridge on Monday, along with a random assortment of other leftovers which Joe kindly placed in my fridge prior to boarding his flight back east.  These included a small container of some sort of macaroni and cheese.

Understanding that I didn't want to waste food but unsure of how to make use of what was in the fridge, I decided to take some inspiration from the awe-inspiring Sandra Lee and just throw everything in a pot and call it, "beautiful" and "amazing."  It was honestly very liberating, especially since I knew that no one would have to eat it except for me.

I browned the beef and seasoned it with a random cross-ethnic assortment of spices in true "fusion" fashion.  I think there was some Ancho chili and cayenne, some curry powder, some turmeric, maybe some celery seed, a couple bay leaves and a touch of garam masala?  I don't really know.  I just had one of those, "I never use any of my 16,000 different spices!" panic moments, so I started tearing the plastic seals off a bunch and dumping them in.

After the meat was browned, I went searching through my cabinets and found two small cans of diced tomatoes and a can of kidney beans.  Those went in.  I found a can of chickpeas.  Also went in.  I looked in the freezer and found half a bag of frozen diced onions, sauteed and in.  Few leftover cloves of garlic: met the same fate. Chopped up some of the leftover parsley from the meatballs, that went in, and then I added a quart of organic chicken stock.  To my ground beef.  Yeah...

Lastly, I looked at the two tupperware containers in my fridge, one of which had some extra meatballs that didn't make it into the sauce, and the other had the mac and cheese from Joe.  After a moment of hesitation and guilt, I dumped them both into the pot.

What I ended up with with actually quite tasty.  In a "Thank goodness I'm the only one that will be eating this" type of way.  It's almost like an Indian-inspired pasta e fagioli.  

Here's an iPhone photo from the scene of the crime:

And that is what I will be eating over the holidays!  Quite a change from last year's menu but certainly more efficient...

I will leave you with an article that makes me both horrified and grateful (that I've never been subjected to such an abomination), since we're on a Sandra Lee kick:  Sandra vs. Mrs. Cuomo

And this follow-up:  Why, Sandra?  Why?!?

Words Cannot Describe the Carnage.

I've been hearing a lot lately about a certain "celebrity" (not even going to use the word "chef" here because I just cannot bring myself to do it) and her Kwanzaa cake.  I read an article about it on Huffington Post which has since been removed (alright Cuomo, stop throwing your weight around!  I found it here anyway because you can't censor those Europeans) and I saw an interview with Anthony Bourdain in which he challenged me to watch the YouTube video...

So I did.

And it was terrifying.

Anthony advised that my head would explode or my eyeballs would burst into flames.  The physical reactions were actually much less severe, but I honestly had alternating bouts of chills and gagging, followed by the arrival of tears to my eyes and finally, thankfully, the relief of some hysterical laughing.

But really, the chills were the dominant reaction.

Let me just say that the description, ON THE FOOD NETWORK PAGE says, "Semi-Homemade makes a most amazingly beautiful cake for Kwanza [sic]."

What?!?

It's hard for me to type with all the shaking going on right now.

I can't tell which part of my consciousness is most offended; the humanist, the foodie or the written-language-enthusiast.  There is nothing "most amazingly beautiful" about this cake.  Northern lights, amazingly beautiful.  The Caucasus mountains, amazingly beautiful.  Sistine Chapel, also amazingly beautiful.  This cake is, well... it's this:

Please, watch the video though.  But be warned, it is not for the faint of heart.  If you need to distract yourself from the carnage, perhaps you could just try to count the number of times she uses ridiculous descriptors like "amazing" or "nice" or "incredible" or "wonderful" or "delicious" or... "amazing."

And did anyone ever teach this woman how to stir items in a mixing bowl or use a teaspoon measure?!  I had to look away.

And the "acorns"...  Oy vey.  It's a train wreck.  I'm just hoping the images do not haunt me in my dreams tonight...

International Appeal

Apparently Blogspot tracks various statistics for its blogs, mainly traffic statistics.  You can see which posts are receiving hits, how many hits you're getting in a given time frame, which sites the traffic is being directed from, what country the hits are coming from and what browsers people are using.

I started to notice that, although the vast majority of traffic to my blog comes from within the USA, I definitely have folks checking in from a few other countries as well.  Below is a screen shot of one of my stats pages.  

I've also received hits from Latvia, Netherlands and Norway.

In all honesty, I'm not sure how people are finding this page if not through my Facebook posts or from a link directly provided by me.  I've tried to search Google for this blog with no luck.  I'm especially surprised that anyone from outside the US would manage to find it.

So here's my offer, courtesy of my friend Alyssa:  if you're viewing this page from any country other than the US, please either post a comment or drop me an email and I will cook a meal from your country and document the results in a blog post.

For anyone viewing this page from within the US, you can also feel free to leave a comment or send me an email with suggestions for culinary feats I should attempt to tackle.  If nothing else, it may lead to an amusing commentary with photographic evidence.

I'm currently planning to attempt Japanese this Friday.  I chose Japanese for a few reasons:

1)  It's mildly exotic without being too "scary" for the less adventurous diners

2)  It will be easily scalable in the event that my invite list unexpectedly grows

3)  It will provide a sake-drinking venue to hopefully clear out the many bottles of high quality sake I have sitting in my fridge, their flavor slowly deteriorating.

The proposed menu:

Appetizers

 - Shrimp and veggie tempura

 - Homemade potstickers

 - Miso soup

Main Course

 - Chicken teriyaki with sesame-soy glazed baby bok choy

Dessert

 - Choice of either green tea or red bean ice cream

I'm looking forward to finally using my deep fryer for the tempura, even though the idea of large amounts of hot oil scare me only slightly less than molten sugar.  As for the potstickers, they should be relatively easy if I use pre-made wonton wrappers.  Clearly, I am not planning on this approach, but will likely have them available in case the "potsticker dough experiment" yields disastrous results.  It's likely that I won't entirely know whether the dough was a success until after I've cooked them, so the whole ordeal is a bit risky.  I'm planning on making the miso soup from scratch as well, which will entail making my kombu dashi first as I can't bring myself to use a packet.  The rest of the meal should be pretty straightforward.  I'll braise the chicken in a homemade teriyaki sauce and steam the bok choy before searing it in some sesame oil and basting it in glaze.  I'm going to have to wing it for the ice creams.  I'll probably just use a simple base ice cream recipe and add in the macha for the green tea and red bean paste for the red bean.

Should be fun...

And Finally... We Have A Demi-Glace!

I have successfully completed the demi-glace right-of-passage.  To be honest, I'm not entirely sure of the quality of my demi-glace since I have yet to sample a demi-glace on its own, but I have a feeling that this is pretty close to the real thing.  I now see just how much easier this would have been with just a touch of cornstarch, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  So I reduced.  All the way down.  It took me two stages.  After the first session of reducing, I ended up with probably 4 cups of liquid which, after refrigeration, was nearly solid.  I heated that back up again and reduced it down to 2 cups, an effort which seemed to take quite a bit longer.

Needless to say, after all the roasting of bones, prepping of mire poix, bundling of bouquet garni, endless skimming and simmering and skimming and skimming, reducing and reducing, I ended up with my beautifully dark, velvety rich demi-glace.

The finished product was added to ice cube trays and will be frozen for later use in soups, sauces, etc...

And on that note I'm going to bed...

Demi-Glace: The Journey Continues...

Yesterday's festivities began with roasting the veal bones.  

I'm glad I picked up two roasting pans as I ended up having exactly the right amount of floor space for the ten pounds of bones.  The bones I'd received from the butcher were a mixture of marrow bones and knuckles.  I used a bit of salt and pepper on them, but just a tad since I'm fairly nervous about how concentrated that salt will be once I reduce it down.  When I made those glazed ducks for Thanksgiving, I decided to use the carcasses to make a stock, but it ended up being so horribly salty that despite my many efforts to recover, I ended up just ditching the whole thing.  I've heard that you can't fix stupid.  Well, you can't fix salt either.  The irony is that diluting an overly salted stock is counter-productive since the whole point is to reduce it back down again.

But I digress...

With the veal bones roasting away in the 500 degree oven, I moved on to prepping my veggies and bouquet garni.  

As I mentioned in the previous post, I opted for carrots, leeks and shallots.  When I think mire poix, I picture a finely chopped mixture of three savory vegetables.  I knew that trying to navigate around "finely chopped" veggies while skimming the stock would be nothing short of a nightmare, so I went for the "big hunk of plant matter" approach.  In hindsight, I might even take it a step farther if I ever decide to do this again.  Shallots and leeks have a way of separating their many little layers and multiplying their own surface area exponentially.  This is fine for a soup, but for a stock, it made the process a bit tedious.  I also ended up with some fairly charred pieces of leek/shallot/unrecognizable-pieces-of-carbon once they'd been through the 45 minutes of roasting.

As usual, the shallots had me crying.  A lot.  Like a hormonal adolescent post-break-up girl.  Whenever I cut onions or shallots I end up with tears streaming down my face, blinding me to the process below, involving a very finely tuned sharp knife.  My eyes will usually just shut, on their own, without my permission and without any response to my attempted interventions.  I've tried everything, all the wives tales, and I'm sorry but they just flat out don't work.  The closest I've come to relief is my snowboarding goggles.  I'm sure it's a sight for my neighbors.  I have a theory that my body has a chemical sensitivity to raw onions.  I know you're scoffing.  People chastise me for tediously picking out every little last bit of finely diced raw onion from my food, but this just shows me that they clearly don't have the same reaction in their mouths that I do when I eat onion.  I literally want to remove my tongue.  I'll taste that terrible taste all day too.  There's nothing crueler to me that getting a dish that I've been really looking forward to, only to find HIDDEN raw onion in it, (especially common with salads and sandwiches and slaws).  Even picking it out doesn't really remove the flavor, but it does manage to make my fingers smell like onion for a day.  And yet again, I digress... (but that's why you're reading this anyway, isn't it?).

So, onto the bouquet garni... (who doesn't love saying that word?).


I went with a pretty simplistic little bundle.  Parsley, bay leaf and peppercorns.  I added a few springs of thyme after this photo was taken.  I'd read a few suggestions about using the outer layer of the leek to wrap up parsley stems, thyme and bay leaves, (something about being resourceful?!) but I was pretty sure I wanted to include peppercorns and just couldn't picture the origami feats I'd have to accomplish with those leeks to keeps those little peppercorns encased.  Plus, I'm going to be honest, at this point in the process, I'm just not that concerned about using up that outer leek layer or reducing my cheese cloth usage.  I bought a 20qt pot and two roasting pans.  Frugality went out the window very early in this undertaking.  

I was happy to find an excuse to use some more bay leaves.  It takes me far too long to make it through a purchase of bay leaves.  I wish I'd think to use them more often.  They always add a nice layer of flavor to soups, stocks, gravies.  Maybe that will be one of my New Year's resolutions:  use more bay leaf.  I think it's an appropriate goal.  That, and perhaps vacuum more often.

 Last night, a few friends and I were watching the movie Babies, which I'd highly recommend.  At one point, they took this adorable little Mongolian baby and wrapped it up super tight and then tied it up around the shoulders and legs.  All I could think was, "it's like a little bouquet garni of cuteness!" at which point I realized how grossly girly I was being and shushed myself.  Looking back at the photo though, there is definitely a resemblance...

The roasting veal bones filled my house with a really amazing smell.  

Unfortunately, though, that smell made it all the way up to my bedroom and saturated the house.  As a side note: I woke up this morning smelling roasted veal fat and thinking, "I want to eat a small cow."  This is generally not a great way to start your Sunday morning, a) because veal really is pretty inhumane and I shouldn't develop a craving for it, and b) because who the hell is going to be there, roasted veal in hand, ready to serve you on a Sunday morning?  I settled for a self-prepared soy latte.  It wasn't quite the same.

I added the veggies to the pan and roasted for an additional 45 minutes.   

The roasted veggies and veal bones then went into the pot while I deglazed the pans and added the liquid to the pot.

I added the 8 quarts of cold water to the pot, brought it to a simmer and reduced the heat.  As the liquid reduces, I'm adding more water to keep the bones covered, and I'm skimming.  Lots and lots of skimming.  I started off with an oil-continuous layer on the top of the stock, which made it hard to tell what was actually oil and what was water.  I was fooling myself.  It was all oil.  I'm now to a point where I can keep up with the fat as it rises to the surface.  I'll be doing this for another 8 hours, while also preparing dinner for a friend that is coming over tonight.  

I did say that I was excited about this, right?

I'm sure the final product will be worth it.  I have a feeling that I'll end up doing the five hours of reduction tomorrow after work, so the final product photos will finish out the trilogy...

It's That Time of Year Again...

I live my life in sinusoidal waves, distinct peaks and valleys of energy, inspiration, motivation...

Lately I've been taking a bit of a back-seat approach and just riding it out, going with the flow, feeling a bit guilty about my lack of contribution to the world at large, but knowing fully well that when the time was ready, I'd be back at it again.

Things at work have been pretty busy. Most people would consider this a good reason to basically let the rest of their life settle down. I, however, end up being pushed up the accelerating side of my energy curve. The result? I, of course, decide to make a demi-glacé. The weather is getting colder and it smells like autumn outside.  It's the perfect time of year to use roasting pans and stock pots.

I've been thinking about taking on the challenge of the infamous demi-glacé ever since reading Anthony Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential (wonderful, hilarious read for any foodie out there).  I approach these types of culinary adventures in the same ritualistic way people approach an event like the prom, planning, list-making, preparation.  I woke up today at 7am, excited to go out and buy a 20 quart stock pot (in this analogy, the equivalent of a prom dress).  I treated myself to two new roasting pans and a new fine-mesh strainer as well, (the shoes and the jewelry?).  I bought some bubble-wrap to use as a diffuser for my new fancy-dancy flash on my camera and I bought some big sheets of white paper to reflect flash off of.  By the time I left the store with my new toys in hand, I was nearly giddy with excitement.  I haven't cooked, really cooked, in a very long time.  I haven't photographed the efforts in ages.  Pretty poor form for a self-proclaimed food-blogger.  

I moved on to New Sagaya and bought the ingredients for the mire poix and the bouquet garni.  Arriving  home, I took the ten pounds of veal bones out of the fridge to let them finish thawing and started to pre-heat the oven.  I should note that, after researching the various methods of making a demi-glacé, I've decided to opt with the more modern approach.  Rather than making a brown stock, splitting it in half, making an espagnole sauce and then recombining to reduce by half, I'm instead creating the stock and reducing it in one step.  Rather than use a brown roux, I'm going with the purist approach of using only reduction as the thickening method.  I'm skipping the celery in the mire poix and using leeks.  I've substituted shallots for the onions.  The carrots remain unaltered.  The bouquet garni will be parsley, bay leaf and peppercorns, and I'm not using madiera or any other wine.  My thought is that I'll keep the flavors as straightforward as possible since the result should be a base ingredient for a wide range of uses.  Adding layers of flavor now would only limit my options later.  We'll see how it goes.

I'm going to take a moment here to plug Mr. Prime Beef.  What an awesome little gem of a butcher.  Not only did they have frozen veal bones for sale, but they're already cut into two inch pieces.  I had had images of trying to saw the bones myself in my garage with what was sure to be disastrous results.  Not only to they carry relatively impossible-to-find items like veal bones and elk meat, but they also have amazingly high quality, fresh meats and their homemade Italian sausage (which can be bought in bulk), is pretty damn fantastic; this coming from an irritatingly picky Italian.

So now the oven is preheating, the veal bones are in the final stages of thawing, and I'm sitting here blogging in an attempt to relieve some of the giddiness.

Next steps: clean this mess of a kitchen, unwrap my new camera flash and take a few practice photos, prepare my mire poix and bouquet garni, and then get those little bones in the oven to get this process rolling.  

One small advantage of making a sauce which requires 24 hours of attention:  you end up with a really clean kitchen.  Needless to say, I have the mop out and the stainless-steel wipes are poised and ready for action.

I can't wait!

Photos and fiascos to follow...

Random Ramblings

I've had a few people mention lately that I haven't been posting, mostly due to the fact that I haven't been cooking very much.  I haven't even been keeping up with my Food & Wine or Wine Spectator subscriptions.  They've just been piling up.  None of this is good.  My life is certainly fuller when I have food, friends and writing in it.  I have a feeling that the coming of winter will have me back to my usual cooking and entertaining ways.

In the meantime, I couldn't sleep tonight, so I thought I'd post a random smattering of food-related thoughts.  They shall be numbered, in true engineering fashion...

1)  I discovered tonight that Dante loves popcorn.  "Loves" is probably an inappropriate description.  He's obsessed with it.  Most people have a default craving for sweets.  I, on the other hand, invariably crave salty, crunchy snacks.  Apparently my cat has similar cravings.  Tonight, while scouring my bare pantry (bare, as in, full of stuff I didn't feel like eating), I found some packets of "lite" microwave popcorn that had expired in August.  Clearly popcorn has a decent safety factor for the expiration date, considering it's simply dried corn and salt.  Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure such a combination would last nearly indefinitely, but I probably won't try to test that theory.  At any rate, I doctored up the horribly bland popcorn with some fake butter and seasoned salt and headed back to my bedroom to read up on 3 months of Food & Wine.  Dante immediately turned into Stealth Kitty, came sneaking up to the bowl and quickly swiped a few kernels.  He scarfed them down before I could grab them from him.  I'm guessing popcorn is not a cat-safe food, but he did everything in his little four-pawed power to get more popcorn.  I had to go dump the rest so he'd leave me alone.  I grabbed this photo while he was still celebrating his little victory.  It's pretty low quality, even for an iPhone shot, but it will do for tonight...

2)  I had a brunch date today.  It was relatively awkward and unenjoyable.  The highlight was when this poor fellow asked me what saffron could be used for.  I'm pretty enthusiastic about saffron, as can be seen by previous posts.  I leapt at the opportunity to fill the void in the conversation with a rambling monologue about this precious spice.  I'd like to say that he was impressed, but I think he probably just felt a bit overwhelmed.  When I told him I usually make paella when I need to use up a lot of saffron, he said, "ah, I've heard of that before..."  *Sigh*  This might need to be a weed-out question for future dates.  "Do you know what paella is and can you spell/pronounce it?  How about tomatillos?"  I then suggested Risotto Milanese and got a blank stare, at which point I diverted the majority of my attention to the Cowboys/Texans game on the nearby TV.  I realize how elitist this sounds, but I just don't see how I could connect with someone that doesn't have at least a curiosity about food.  I mentioned to him that I was going to try to make saffron ice cream at some point soon and he replied, "Ah, that sounds interesting..."  Ironically, when I opened my September issue of Food & Wine tonight, there was an entire article on spices, centered around a spice trader called the Saffron King.  One of the recipes was for a coconut cake with saffron cream.  Now I know what I'll be using for the base of the saffron ice cream.  I almost considered emailing this poor date guy with some of the saffron recipes in the issue, but decided that would send unnecessary mixed messages.

3)  I bought a grill a few weeks ago.  It's a dual gas/charcoal grill.  I'm pretty excited about all the possibilities, especially since it opens up the opportunity to cook all this fish I have in my freezer.  I never want to bake fish because that generally makes it unsuitable for human consumption.  Pan-frying it makes the house smell like a cat food can.  Grilling it is pretty much my only acceptable method.  I blame my previous lack of grill as the main reason for my continuing accumulation of frozen fish.  I baptized it with a Labor Day cookout, feeding about 25 people.  It was a great time.  When I bought it, people commented about it being the end of the summer and that I wouldn't get much use out of it.  I'm not entirely sure why the winter would keep me from using the grill, I don't think the charcoal or gas really cares what temperature it is, but I guess we'll see how motivated I am come the single digit temperatures.

And that shall conclude my insomnia-inspired ramblings.

More to follow in the near future...

Pairing It Up

So I'm always looking for a good excuse to experiment with pairing food and wine.  Usually we get to choose the wine based on the food.  Sometimes I like to change it up a bit though and pair the food to the wine.  It's like designing a room based off of an accent piece.  I think that sometimes it helps to have something to anchor all the creativity.

For this Ladies' Night, I decided on a few varietals and worked from there.

I wanted to start off with a Pinot Gris, (instead of a typical Sauvignon Blanc, my least favorite type of wine).  I decided to pair it with little bite-sized hors d'oeuvres of strawberry, avocado, goat cheese and toasted pecans, all skewered together with a little toothpick.

I was a bit nervous about it as I'd gotten a few strange looks when I'd described the idea to folks, but I think it came out beautifully.  I have to admit that I came up with the idea and owe the entirety of the execution to Alisa, Maria and Liz.  The fruitiness of the Acrobat Pinot Gris went really well with the little bit sized treats.  The avocado and goat cheese balanced the mild citrus character of the wine really nicely.  This was probably my favorite pairing of the night.

After the light start, I decided to move one step heavier to a Viognier.  I served it with shrimp and mango skewers, basted with a saffron, cilantro and agave syrup mixture.  The peach tones of the Viognier went well with the summery skewers and it was smooth enough to support the freshness of the dish.

After the two whites, we decided to break into the reds.  I had a bottle of Sobon Zinfandel that I paired with chicken skewers marinated in an ancho, cocoa and raspberry paste.  The flavors worked really well together, but I definitely let them cook a bit too long.  If I were to do it again, I'd probably marinate them overnight and then cook them briefly on high heat.  A grill would be ideal, but alas, I've decided to adhere to my home-owners' association rules and not put one on my porch.  Perhaps my grill pan would do the job nicely though...

Lastly, I served little mushrooms stuffed with rendered bacon and cambozola.  This was served with a La Posta Malbec.  It was definitely a bit rich.  I think that in retrospect, it would have been better paired with a Merlot, and with something to cut the richness a bit.  Maybe portobellos with a small smear of cambozola and a small sprinkle of bacon.  I didn't manage to snap any photos of the mushrooms.

Ironically, I had made a salad with field greens, nasturtium, romano cheese, sunflower seeds and blueberries, to be served with a Pinot Noir, but I don't think we ever managed to get around to eating the salad.  I'm pretty sure we drank the Pinot Noir though...

Needless to say, it was a successful little Ladies' Night.  We wrapped it up with some Pecan Pie and ice cream that Liz brought along, and then headed out on the town to enjoy some of the late-night sunshine.

Next time I might need to work on minimizing my pours until the end of the night...

Ravioli Revelry

If I remember correctly, the topic of ravioli came up during our traumatic Romano's experience.  Something about, "we could do this better, and without the attitude..."  

This, by the way, is the curse of the foodie.  We scoff far too easily and often at meals served to us in restaurants because of our overly optimistic outlook on food preparation.  "Really?  They're going to charge me how much for this?  Have they never learned how to make _insert outrageously complicated dish_?"  This usually leads to some sort of burst of inspiration, followed by a moderately humbling experience in the kitchen, and subsequently, by an inflation of ego because we did, in fact, pull it off somehow, after a great deal of time and effort and a good dose of foul language.

I digress.  Somewhat.

We did successfully make better ravioli than Romano's.  I'm stating this as fact because no one reading this was there to argue otherwise.  Plus, our ravioli had love and attention and Romano's probably just had some hair in it.

First and foremost, we started out with wine.  House rules:  all Italian food prep (well, let's be real, any food prep) must be preceded by the consumption of red wine.  We accomplished this task with little difficulty.

I made the dough in the food processor because I wasn't up for the little egg-volcano adventure that I usually take on when making pasta.  I do consider this to be a mild form of cheating, but frankly, I'm ready to lower my own standards after cleaning up enough raw egg from my counters and floors.  Maybe one of these days I'll take the time to master the ancient art of pasta-sans-processor.  Or not.

The gals helped with the rolling of the pasta dough while I made the filling.  I chopped up some rehydrated porcini and sauteed it with some garlic and olive oil.  I mixed that with some fresh herbs, ricotta, pecorino romano, and some truffle oil.  Super tasty.  I'm going to keep that mixture in mind for the future.  I could see it being good on some crusty Italian bread, thrown under the broiler for a bit, or as a filling for stuffed bell peppers/portobellos/whatever.

On the dough side of things, Amanda and Maria rolled all the sheets to the exact thickness.  Well, except for one.  Apparently if you let the sheet dry a little bit and then you try to put it through a thinner gauge on the roller, it gets a little funky.  The ladies did a great job of fixing things up.  I'll admit, I'm not entirely sure how.  By the time we'd filled most of the ravioli, it was getting late, and the wine had been flowing.  I think the last few ravioli resembled small boiled calzones more than "ravioli" per se, but they sure tasted good...

I served the adorable little ravioli with a chanterelle marinara sauce that I had made previously and had in the freezer.  I topped it all with grated cheese and some crispy fried sage.  The result was a nice light pasta dish that was hearty enough to leave us all very satisfied.  I was a bit worried about the porcini/truffle/chanterelle combination.  That's a lot of mushroom going on.  Thankfully the individual flavors were distinctive enough that they maintained their identities.

If I make the ravioli again, I'll probably try to make the dough the day before and let the sheets rest before stuffing with filling.  I'm wondering if this would change the consistency at all.

I might also try to experiment with adding different things to the dough, like spinach, turmeric or even cocoa powder.  I think it'd be fun to change up the colors a bit and play with the sauce/pasta/filling combinations.

The evening was certainly an enjoyable one with lots of pasta shenanigans, girl talk, good wine and perhaps even a glass or two of Franzia thrown in for character.

Vindication

This is not really a blog post.  It's an unabashed dissemination of my salt agenda propaganda:

For Supertasters, A Desire For Salt Is Genetic

I loved this article.  It's sciency and nerdy and foodie all at once.

I Scream.

Considering my last post was so negative, I thought I should try to maintain decent food karma with a more positive entry this time...

A few weeks (months?) ago I bought my ice cream maker and it has given me endless frozen creamy joyousness.  The initial experiment with tahini ice cream came out wonderfully, as previously noted, and the continuing results have been just as pleasant.

My sophomore ice cream creation was a batch of Earl Grey with a touch of vanilla bean.  It was, in my not-so-humble opinion, quite fabulous.  It had a nutty flavor reminiscent of coffee ice cream, but lighter, and with that refreshing hint of bergamot.  I simply simmered the tea bags in the sugar-milk mixture for the base custard.  It was very straightforward and very, very yummy.

After that experiment, I made a batch of strawberry jalapeño ice cream at the request of one of my friends.  I sliced up some fresh strawberries and a couple jalapeños and cooked them down with a bit of my vanilla bean simple syrup until they were reduced to a fairly thick consistency.  I made the sweet cream base and added the syrupy mixture approximately halfway through the freezing process.  The results were wonderful.  There was no spicy heat left from the jalapeño, but the distinctive flavor was definitely there and it played off the sticky sweet strawberry quite nicely.  I've had a few people wrinkle their nose at the thought of the combination, but I'm not sure why.  It was somewhat akin to one of my favorite pre-party snacks:  crackers with cream cheese and red pepper jelly.  Both combinations pair the "capsicum" flavor in a sweet syrupy mixture with a heavy, creamy base.  I will, without a doubt, be making that flavor again, although next time, I'll probably up the jalapeño a bit and maybe get a bit more bite from it.

My latest ice cream adventure was a nice traditional pistachio.  This was the most labor-intensive of the flavors, but certainly worthwhile.  First, a word of warning to anyone attempting such an endeavor:  ignore the fact that all recipes call for roasted, UNsalted pistachios.  Apparently, these do not exist.  At least in Alaska.  And if they do, apparently you need to relinquish a kidney as currency.  After much searching and hair-pulling and angsting, I decided to just use the roasted and salted pistachios that you can get in bulk from almost every natural food store in Anchorage.  They worked just fine.  In fact, the touch of additional salt probably helped.  (Anyone that knows me knows that I am addicted to salt and I'm past my stage of denial).  My friend Tony, (the strawberry-jalapeño requester) helped me with the shelling of the pistachios and then I went about trying to remove that papery outer layer so I didn't end up with gritty little flakes in the custard.  The interesting part about this ice cream is that you grind up most of the pistachios into a paste and cook that paste into the custard, simmering then straining it out before freezing it.  The paste manages to impart the pistachio flavor, and then, once the ice cream is mostly frozen, freshly chopped pistachios are added for that cruncy texture.  The resulting color was a bit dreary looking; greenish, but barely, so I cheated and added one drop of green food coloring.  The resulting hue was a perfect cheerful but subtle green and I had a beautifully traditional pistachio ice cream at the end.

Side Note: I was able to use the leftover pistachio/custard paste as a filling for puff pastry.  I added a little dollop of mascarpone cheese for some savoriness and created little turnovers.  If I do it again, I'll probably go the extra step and make a real pastry cheese for it, similar to what you'd find in a cheese danish.

So far I've been really pleased with all of the fruits of my ice cream labors.  There are still a few more combinations I'd like to try out:

Peanut, apricot and sweet red chili (Thai influence, perhaps?)
Black cherry with black pepper
Blueberry and pine nut
Vanilla and basil

Oh!  Speaking of basil... I have a little planter full of fresh herbs hanging on my front porch.  So far, they've survived a full two weeks.  They actually seem to be flourishing (except for the purple basil which I maintain was doomed from the start).  I also have a hanging basket full of nasturtiums which are also surviving, despite a rocky start.  I can't wait to throw together a nice summer salad with herbs and flowers.  Yum.  The Nikon D60 will have fun with that colorful little endeavor.

This week I'll be having a few folks over for a pre-race pasta party.  I'm aiming for quantity with a secondary goal of quality, but it should be relatively easy.  I have quite a bit of meat sauce and pesto that I had previously frozen, and I'm planning to make a marinara with wild mushrooms for an additional meat-free option, as well as a white sauce with parsley, clams and garlic.  There should be about 12 people in all, so I'm hoping to have enough variety for everyone to be happy.  I'll be pairing the dishes with a nice vintage of SmartWater so that we're all properly hydrated for Saturday's race.  Should be fun times!

Infuriating Instances of Incompetency and Severely Saddening Service

Aaaaaaannnnnnnd: I'm back!  It's been a while.  I appreciate all the prodding from people asking why I haven't been posting.  It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to know people actually check for updates...

Unfortunately, this post will not be dedicated to any kitchen fiascos, nor creative culinary adventures.  Instead, it's a "venting post" into which I plan to pour some of my frustration with living in Alaska.

Before delving into the particulars, I should preface this vent with the fact that I have had the opportunity to dine in a multitude of countries and experience a fairly wide variety of cultures and cuisines.  I've had good service, impeccably pristine and artful service.  And I've had bad service.  Really really bad service.  Best service I've had was probably at Al Mahara, at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, the only 7 star hotel in the world.  That was good service.  Mark's in Houston, also spectacular service.  I've also had bad service.  Really, really bad service.  Surprisingly, I had consistently bad service in Israel, possibly because I was one of those obnoxious American tourists.  France is known for their snarky service and the Parisian wait staff do an excellent job of maintaining that reputation.  Just about everywhere in the Former Soviet has pretty terrible service.  There's that general attitude of "you're going to get what we give you, and you're not going to dare complain."  Anything goes.  I thought I'd leave that behind upon repatriating to the US.  Alas, such was not the case.  I could write a book about the cultural and economic similarities between Alaska and the Former Soviet, but tonight I'll focus on the restaurant service.  The really really bad restaurant service.  I attribute it to the lack of competition here.  There seems to be this secretive conspiratorial collusion amongst the restaurants in this town to maintain an astonishingly, painfully low level of service.  They also seem to be very good at maintaining the ridiculously high prices that only "good" restaurants elsewhere would be able to charge.  I feel like many Alaskans don't even realize just how criminal this combination is, and if they do, they're powerless to escape it without boarding a flight for Seattle.

For you "outsiders" reading this, I know what you're thinking.  "You could get good service if you're just willing to pay for it.  There must be at least a few outrageously expensive, elite restaurants that you could get some good service at."  Well, there are a few outrageously expensive, elite restaurants here, but even those with generally decent service are fairly inconsistent.  The bar here is just so low...

This rant was brought on by my dinner experience last night.  A group of 7 of us decided to get a little dolled up and go out for a nice Saturday evening dinner.  We ate at an Anchorage restaurant called Romano's.  I'd heard mixed reviews.  It's supposed to be one of the nicer Italian restaurants in town, so I had been planning on trying it out for some time now.

There were so many issues with the service that it would be too emotionally draining for me to relive/recount them all right here.  I will say that we'd have to continuously ask for refills of water, we waited ages to have our orders taken, both for appetizers and for the main course, and we had the good fortune of being able to all sit around and listen to the waitress chit chat for a good 15 minutes with the table next to us while we were trying to get her attention.  When we finally managed to pry her away from her engaging conversation, much to her annoyance, we asked to order the stuffed mushrooms, inquiring, of course, how many mushrooms came in an order.  Six.  Six mushrooms per order.  Well, we clearly had 7 of us eating dinner, one of which had gotten up to wash his hands prior to eating.  We asked if we could get 7 mushrooms.  Much confusion and consternation ensued.  We offered to pay for the 7th mushroom.  Continuation of consternation.  "Well, you only have six people sitting here right now." "Yes, but there are seven of us, the other guy is coming back."  "Well he's not here right now."  "Ok... Can we get 7 mushrooms?" "He's late, he doesn't deserve a mushroom."  "Ummm... We like to encourage hand-washing.  Can we get 7 mushrooms?  We are willing to pay for it..."  "I'll ask."

Whew!  We did, in fact, get 7 mushrooms.  One of which was the size of a nickel.  They were moderately tasty.  About a half hour later, we were able to order our main courses.

When the main dishes finally came out, I had the added good fortune of finding a nice curly black hair nestled in the cream sauce of my fusilli.  Yum!  I tried to discretely let the waitress know, but she seemed extremely confused by the whole situation.  By the time she finally clued in to the reason for my outreached-cream-sauce-covered-hair-displaying finger, the entire table had figured it out.  So she took the plate, and grumbled, "I'll go get you another one."  We all sat there for a bit, no one eating, everyone trying to be polite.  I finally convinced folks that I'd be more comfortable if they just started eating.  They gracefully put together a collection plate of food for me which held me over until my plate re-arrived, sans-hair this time.  When my plate finally arrived, everyone had pretty much finished their food.

Thankfully, throughout all of this, I was able to self-medicate with a really nice Beringer cab.  I'm guessing it was a 2007.  The rest of the gang managed to keep things light-hearted and the humor rarely managed to crawl out of the gutter.

The bills come out, again, after much confusion and consternation on the part of the waitress, and this is what my date and I received:

This check was for two of us.  Please note the $1.50 "MUSH" and the $22.95 filet, (which was my dish).  I'm shocked that they didn't charge us for the hair.  I asked the waitress about it all and she said, "well, they made me."  Ok.  So I talked to the manager about it, explained that this really was pretty lacking in class to charge full price for a meal that had hair in it, and, on top of that, charge us for the single additional nickel-sized mushroom when there was a table of 7 people all drinking wine and eating food.  She said, "Oh, you sent it back?  That should have been removed from the bill, let me check on that."  I smugly returned to the table, feeling satisfied in the resolution.  The manager returned and said, "I didn't realize they brought you a new plate.  The charge remains..."

Seriously?  Wait, so let me get this straight:  you brought me food with hair in it, which means someone back there wasn't wearing a hair net (or worse...) and thus violating food code, and then, you make me wait 20 minutes while the rest of my party eats their food or worse, allows it to get cold, and then you charge us for an additional mushroom on top of it all?!?  Usually a restaurant that wants you to come back, or at least not bad-mouth them will comp your dish if not the whole meal.  They'll usually offer you free dessert or a gift certificate or SOMETHING.  Nope.  We got charged.  It was such an incredibly uncomfortable situation that I'm pretty much determined to shout my disgust from every digital roof-top available.  Like this one.

I will admit, I should know better than to expect anything different.

And on that note:  I'm going to go plan out my cooking for the next month, since I doubt I'll be eating out very much...

Wining and Dining, (with a touch of "whining" perhaps?)

Well my life lately has been full of wine.  Wine tastings.  Wine dinners.  Wine sauces.

The Chemistry of Wine event was a bit disappointing.  There was a component tasting table which we probably should have visited, but didn't.  It was tucked away back in a corner.  The catered food consisted of stuffed raw veggies (little tomatoes and celery) which ran out before we made it over to the food table.  That was also disappointing.  I had been under the impression that the food would be paired for the wines.  One of the vendors had a table of food to "cleanse your palate."  Ironically, it had garlicky hummus and artichoke dip with pieces of bread.  There was also an assortment of dark chocolate.  Not exactly what I'd choose to create a blank slate for tasting the next wine, (especially with the artichoke which is notoriously impossible to pair with wine).  After the tasting, we headed to Crush where we did a bit of supplementing in both the food and wine departments.

I had much better luck on Wednesday when I attended a Kenwood Winemaker's dinner at Kinley's.

We started out with a nice 2009 Pinot Gris to begin the evening.  It was fairly straightforward, but enjoyable, which says a lot since I'm generally not a huge fan of white wines.  It was followed by the first course, a white asparags salad with chevre, chopped egg, sauteed bread crumbs and lemon vinaigrette.  This was paired with a 2008 Sauvignon Blanc.  I wasn't a fan.  The wine was pretty lemony and the whole thing was a bit too intense for me.  The sulfur from the egg added to the abrasiveness of the dish and the texture combination of cold white asparagus and chopped egg was less than appealing.  Needless to say, I don't like Sauv Blanc and I don't like lemon, so I'm probably fairly biased here.  I will say that the goat cheese was very tasty.  I would have paired that wine with something to balance the acidity, maybe something buttery, like seared scallops.  The second course was fantastic.  It was a spicy black bean and shredded pork Napolean topped with a sugar snap pea and cabbage slaw, drizzled with chili syrup, paired with a 2007 Zinfandel.  The Zin was loaded with raspberries and it played well off the savory spiciness of the dish.  I'll have to remember that combination next time I make a pork and black bean chili.  The third course was a petite filet mignon on a caramelized apple demi glace, parsnip and potato puree and a slice of warmed Cambozola.  This was paired with a 2006 Merlot.  The combination was wonderful.  I loved the parsnip and potato puree.  The demi glace was pretty sweet, it reminded me of a caramel apple.  The cheese was pretty overpowering.  All of the flavors ended up balancing each other out.  I really enjoyed this dish and the pairing.  The fourth course was a grilled rack of lamb on a roasted shallot and mushroom risotto with bordelaise sauce and friend artichoke hearts.  It was paired with a 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon.  Unfortunately, this course was pretty disappointing.  The lamb was overpowered with pepper.  The artichoke heart (singular) was cold and no longer crispy.  The risotto also had a lot of black pepper in it, and the rice was undercooked.  The tanins in the Cab ended up amplifying the pepper and I found it all to be overwhelming.  Thankfully the last course was very pleasant.  They served mango white Stilton with freshly sliced papaya, topped with a ginger reduction.  I loved it!  The course was paired with a 2008 Gewurztraminer.  Normally I'm not very enthusiastic when it comes to Gewertz or Reisling, but I think they can be nice when paired properly.  This was paired properly.  The wine was sweet enough to hold it's own against the fruit, but not so sweet as to be candy-like.  The creaminess of the Stilton tied it all together nicely.  The table next to us apparently hated it though, exclaiming in horror that the gelato tasted "weird."  Shocked, I leaned over and told them it was a Stilton, (just like the menu said), and they just looked at me in silence.  It was an uncomfortable situation all around.  I'm still coping with the fact that people that were willing to pay $85 for a wine maker's dinner couldn't tell the difference between STILTON and GELATO.  *Sigh*

The Pastabilities Are Endless!

Most Alaskans have a talent for spending lots of money on the activities they love.  Walking into an REI brings on the overwhelming aroma of burning money.  It just incinerates right there in the pocket it's hiding in.  A girl can never have too many pairs of moisture-wicking-you-name-it or too many water-resistant-layers-of-this-or-that.  Or yoga mats.  The same holds true for kitchen appliances.  If you name it, there's a good chance I have it.  If, however, you'd named "pasta machine" or "ice cream maker" you'd have proved me wrong... a week ago.  I recently welcomed these two appliances into the D'Eramo collection and they have not let me down.

This past weekend, I decided to break out the new additions.  The plan was to make some fresh pasta with my white whole wheat flour, and some tahini ice cream.  That's pretty much as far as I had gotten in the planning process before jumping right in.  My friend Tony helped me kneed the dough and roll it out.  We attempted two methods.  For half the dough, I used a food processor with a dough blade to combine the flour, eggs, oil and salt.  The other half I combined the old-fashioned way, creating a little egg volcano in the pile of flour.  This latter method proved to be significantly more difficult.  I broke the barrier of flour and ended up with a nice little lava flow of raw egg, headed straight for the edge of the cutting board.  I found myself asking Tony questions like, "This does not look right, does it?" "How much flour do you think they mean when they say 'not all of it'?" "Hmmmm, is it supposed to do that?"  Poor Tony just shrugged, and then Googled a YouTube video for me to watch, which ended up being somewhat helpful.  I will say that the traditional method could be more appropriate for moderating how much flour is added to the dough.  With the processor, it's pretty much an all-or-nothing.  At least the egg-volcano method provides more freedom to gradually increase the flour.  In the end, I don't think the two sets of dough really behaved differently.  Letting the dough rest after it's been kneaded seems to be pretty important.  It definitely relaxed quite a bit.  We struggled with the first batch and it started to tighten up on us from overworking it.  Giving it 30 minutes to re-relax made all the difference in the world.

Rolling the dough out was tons of fun.  It was just like playing with Playdough.  I think that I could eventually do it by myself, but it was certainly helpful to have two people to help guide the dough through and catch it on the other end.  We went down to the thinnest layer for the first sheet and decided it was too thin for fettuccine, so we kept the subsequent layers at a level 2.  After rolling and cutting both batches of dough, we hung the pasta on racks and let it dry while we moved on to the ice cream festivities.  

The ice cream turned out to be a bit tricky.  It basically requires a cooked egg custard as the base.  I let myself get distracted while making the first batch and it boiled, creating a tapioca-looking goo.  I tossed it and tried again.  The second time around the custard came out well, and immediately after taking it off the burner I added the tahini to it and beat it in.  The mixture had to cool completely before being added to the ice cream maker.  An ice cream maker, by the way, is an incredibly simply thing, (unless you get the super-uber-fancy kind).  Basically, you pour this custard into a pre-frozen container and that container does the "freezing" of the ice cream.  The machine itself just insulates the process and turns a mixing apparatus to break up the ice crystals as they form.  It's surprisingly noisy.  All this being said, the ice cream that came out of that little machine was pretty fantastic.

While all this ice cream business was churning in the background, I started thinking about what to put on this potentially fantastic pasta.  I hadn't thought as far as sauce.  After rummaging around a bit, I decided that some hand-crushed canned tomatoes would work.  I rinsed them off to get the seeds and goo off, crushed them by hand, strained them, and tossed them in a deep pan with a little olive oil.  I found some of the leftover cooked Italian sausage I had from earlier in the week and I added that in.  I made a little well in the center of the mixture and sauteed some crushed garlic.  I bloomed some saffron in warm water and added that in, as well as a splash of white wine.  I let that all simmer for a while, reducing the liquid, and then I added the remaining 1/4 cup of the mascarpone cheese I had from Easter brunch.  I served that over the pasta and topped it all with some Romano cheese, served with a bottle of Alta Vista 2007 Atemporal Blend.  The result was pretty much heavenly and the wine paired perfectly.  I'm going to hold on to that little "recipe" in my head, but I doubt I'd ever be able to replicate the magic.  The pasta was extremely easy to cook and very tasty.  I think that if I make it again with the white whole wheat flour, I'll set the machine to the thinnest setting.  I thought the pasta was a bit dense. Everyone else seemed to prefer the thicker pasta, but as the chef, my preference rules.  

Everyone loved the main course and the dessert was a hit as well.  The ice cream was a bit nutty and very creamy and rich.  It was a bit reminiscent of halva, which is a favorite sesame-based treat of mine.  I'm looking forward to all the fun of combinations.  Chile pepper, gorgonzola and blueberry?  Black pepper and cherry?  Rooibus tea and vanilla?  Avocado?  Mmmmmm.  The possibilities are endless!  

Oh, and the shameless title of this post?  I'm going to blame that one on a co-worker of mine who had a bit of elevator-induced inspiration on our way out today.  Thanks Sam!

This weekend I'm attending The Chemistry of Wine which is a wine tasting benefit for the museum.  It's supposed to be about the science behind wine tasting, complete with wine and food.  Right up my geeky wine alley.  More to come on that...

Easter Expanded

Easter.  Even though this holiday is generally supposed to be about a really important dude emerging from 3 days of death in his tomb, we generally associate it with adorable fluffy things like little chicks or bunnies or lambs.  Mmmmmm.  Lamb.  The former vegetarian in me cringes to think of eating cute 4-legged things, but the current carnivore in me usually succeeds in shushing that former self and getting on with picking out a nice wine pairing.

(Jen: if you're reading this, I apologize.  For the purposes of this post, let's pretend it was a fluffy little texturized-soy-protein lamb that we ate…)

Apparently I wasn't the only person in this town to make such a logic leap from "fluffy Easter animals" to "yummy rack of lamb."  I called New Sagaya approximately 30 minutes after they sold their last fresh rack of lamb on Saturday.  Mr. Prime Beef had frozen packages of 4.  My heart was set on rack of lamb, so I went for it.  I planned to thaw one and vacuum pack the rest, keeping them frozen for another time.  Unfortunately, my zealousness had me leaving my engineering logic in the dust.  It is impossible to pry frozen racks of lamb apart while leaving them even moderately intact.  Trying to thaw them a bit to "loosen" them up is a silly idea because they tend to follow the laws of physics and heat transfer, thawing from the outside in, thus never reaching the fully fused internal sections.  So I thawed it all out and had enough servings of lamb for 8 people when I was only feeding 2.  Needless to say, it turned out to be a very lamb-centric week.

I rubbed the meat with salt, pepper, olive oil and herbs de provence, then seared the lamb rack on both sides in a cast iron pan and put it in the oven.  It was incredibly, quick, easy and straightforward.  For the vegetable, I chopped some lovely rainbow chard, blanched and shocked it, then briefly warmed it in a pan with some olive oil and garlic.  I topped it with some shaved Romano cheese.  I roasted some mini Peruvian potatoes as the starch.  Just olive oil, salt, pepper, and coriander, with a pinch of rosmary and thyme.  As a dipping sauce for the lamb, I used a recipe I found with combined crème fraiche, mascarpone cheese, honey, mint and cumin.  For my purposes I switched out the cumin for coriander.  I think that cumin is generally a lime-light starring-role type of spice.  It doesn't play a supporting role very well.  There's nothing subtle about that spice.  Coriander, however, complimented nicely.  It's a more delicate, fruity spice and it tied the sauce in nicely to the potatoes and the somewhat floral character of the Romano cheese.

The meal was very rich and satisfying.  It was all very easy to throw together.  There was minimal preparation and, aside from the cast iron pan, clean-up was a snap.  That was a good thing, because I ended up recreating the meal for five friends and myself after work the next day, at which time I paired it with a Tempranillo blend from Washington called Hellcat.  When that ran out, I opened a BoomBoom Syrah, which is generally a safe bet.  There were a few other bottles mixed in there, but I didn't keep my wine tags or write down the names.

I had sworn off of lamb for a period of time after returning from Baku.  In Azerbaijan, we ate a lot of adult "lamb" (i.e. mutton) which has a very strong flavor and is generally pretty tough and dry.  I needed a bit of time to recover from that.  The lamb that we had on Easter was very mild, tender and juicy.  I'll certainly be making it again.  I'd like to get a few racks of lamb (separately packaged) to keep in the freezer for last minute dinner parties.  It's always easy to find a leafy green and a starch to add alongside.

In general, it was a fun food-filled and relaxing weekend and a great way to start out the week.