Yesterday would have been my Mom’s 63rd birthday, and coming as it does on the heels of Mother’s day, it makes this time of the year hard to deal with. But I’ve got her Grandson to distract me, and watching him help me dig in the garden is as fitting a tribute as I can imagine. Our lilacs are out in full force, and the wet breeze yesterday was intensely perfumed with memory-inducing smells of…
Category: Crazy make-em-ups
We came back from Boston pretty tired and glad to be home. I planted the potatoes that had arrived on Friday and thinned a salad of galia endive. There was some ground lamb in the fridge, and some big sweet potatoes that needed eating, so I stood in the kitchen for a while staring at everything like a dummy and eventually figured out what I wanted to make. Sometimes it’s hard, but eventually the wheels…
Today was a whirlwind of appointments, errands, and a meeting, but the sun finally came out after two solid days of much-needed rain. Among my stop was a local market, which has an adequate (if limited) fish counter. I got haddock, because it was fresh, and a little different from our normal choices. I’ve been chafing against our limited seafood choices up here, so yesterday I talked to our friend who teaches fish at the…
This is my first entry in the Royal Foodie Joust contest, and underwent a bunch of last-minute changes due to weather and whim. The required ingredients were some form of seafood, citrus (lemon or lime) and coconut. Initially I wanted to make ceviche with scallops and coconut ice cream, but figured ceviche was too obvious. Plus it’s still cold here, so cold food didn’t seem right. I did want to make the ice cream, though,…
So the experiment worked; I pushed the pea soup through a tamis and added a bit of activa, then piped it onto wax paper and let it sit in the fridge overnight (it’s uneven because I don’t have a pastry bag; I just cut the corner off a ziplock.) Then I cut the snakes into gnocchi and gave them a quick boil just before serving. We had invited friends over, and then two more at…
The numbers: 8 adults, 11 courses, 7 bottles, 6 hours. The pictures: Duck and pear: Melons are long since out of season, so these are local organic red bartlett pears. This duck took about three months to cure, but was SOOOO worth the wait. Leek & Gruyère tart: A dribble of truffle oil and grating of Indonesian long pepper on top put this one into orbit. Celery root-leek-potato soup: Local milk, veggies from the garden,…
Our neighbors Susan and Stewart came for dinner, and I was working all day so I had to improvise. The smoked chicken carcass became a lovely broth, strained and reduced, while the salmon that Christine bought got a double treatment as both tartare and sashimi. Haricots and shiitakes, blanched and caramelized respectively, plus shaved chioggia beets and the remaining smoked chicken meat all went into a terrine that was glued together by the reduced broth.…
I’ve been thinking about this dish for months- ever since I noticed that the cooked Lebanese couscous is the same size as petits pois sometime last winter while making soup. So I took the chicken broth and reduced it until I had just enough to fill 4 ramekins already filled with cooked couscous and peas, hoping that it would gel strongly enough to hold it all together once I unmolded it. While they were cooling…
Tonight, a revised version of what I had planned for last night before the trout showed up: venison loin- the last of what Kenny gave us in the fall- some leftovers, and some other locally grown treats. To begin, and for Milo’s dinner, a pizza with pesto, sliced morels, and mozzarella. The morels have the most intensely umami mushroominess and they blended heroically with the sweet cheese and tart pesto. The second course, about an…