So our water heater decided not to die, but to continue producing hot water per normal while quietly leaking for an unknown length of time so that we wouldn’t notice anything until the heat stopped working, by which time all the water had done some unknown amount of damage to the subfloor and the downstairs heat crapped out entirely. I only discovered it because the plumber didn’t fix the heat, so I went down into…
Month: December 2008
Another two-meal post here, since on weekends I like to spend a little time making lunch. Yesterday it was minestrone, and hoo boy if it wasn’t a good one. The key, as always, was the ingredients, and a little deliberate care in the making. To begin, a broth made from the chicken bones; they had a bit of tomato sauce on them, which added a nice component. I tossed in a carrot and a quarter…
Weekend lunches are usually a treat, because I get to apply myself to them a little more than during the week. Trying as always to be efficient with leftovers, I got all bistro-y for lunch yesterday. Since we had fish and potatoes, I puréed them with a little milk, and egg, and some garlic and baked it all into a nice panko-crusted brandade. While it was in the oven I trudged out and picked a…
Continuing in my quest to use all the fish in an interesting and efficient way, I began by making a simple sashimi of the wild salmon and dressing it with a little ponzu. Just beautiful, and so delicious; making your own ponzu is the quickest way to appreciate perfect fish like this. Next up, I took the rest of the pie crust from pot pie night and rolled and stamped it into 4″ circles. These…
Another hook-up from the free fish gods provided us with an amazing variety of things to play with. I had wild Alaskan salmon sashimi with ponzu and minced jalapeño for lunch. For dinner, I actually meant to make the rest of the salmon into tartare, but I’ll do it tomorow instead. I forgot because I had haddock, pollock, and cod to deal with. I began by slicing blue, red, and sweet potatoes into thin rounds…
The guys are back in the studio this week, recording the third of their Radiolarian records, and Billy asked if I could come shoot some more video this afternoon. I could. And like before, I brought some snacks. Chris also brought one of the legs of duck confit I gave him yesterday for his belated birthday (it’s his all-time favorite) along with a kumquat-cranberry-cabernet chutney and the rest of the apricot-chanterelle sauce from Thanksgiving. From…
So yesterday was busy, and exciting. I’ll get into the new developments later on. And today was a continuation of the busy, if a little less exciting. By midafternoon, when I had a minute to breathe, it occurred to me that whipping up some pizza dough would provide us with a good substrate for whatever was in the fridge come dinner time. And I knew there was some good mozzarella in there, which kind of…
It probably goes without saying that I was pretty tired of cooking, so after ordering pizza for Friday night it was a great treat to join a whole bunch of friends at Swami Bruce’s place for a giant meal prepared by Lillian, an editor at Gourmet. She threw down some serious fried chicken with a million delicious sides (among which, roasted cauliflower, braised cabbage, chip-addictive romaine salad) and we made it all disappear. What a…