One of the advantages of cooking meat sous-vide is the ability to get a bunch of other things done without risking overcooking- especially since I like my meat on the rare side. So I took a NY strip steak of Piemonte beef, seasoned it very simply with salt, pepper, oregano, and garlic, sealed it, dropped it in the bath at 54˚ C and forgot about it until it was time to serve dinner. While it…
Year: 2008
Sometimes a simple jumping-off point can become pretty complicated. Especially if you’re hungry, and have a lot of interesting leftovers in the fridge. So what began as an idea for an easy chicken and veggie curry quickly spiraled out of control and ended up as four dishes. It really came down to my desire to let certain things retain more of their individual identities, and my love for having lots of plates of Indian food…
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…
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 I had to keep it simple; it’s getting into crazy time with the number of projects looming on the near horizon. Today was rainy, but warm- another sign that we’re into the next season- and the temptation is always to rush into the summer flavors even though they’re not actually here yet. So I tried to focus on what is here, and make it as good as possible. I find it frustrating, though, since…
It was a perfect day today: warm, gently breezy, cloudless. I of course had to spend the bulk of it hunched over this wretched appliance, but I did break out this afternoon to do some gardening and then hit the store for a couple of things. On the way back up out of the valley, there are some particularly nice views of the mountains North of town from a couple of places. Down here, all…
After a great dinner party Sunday nearby- where I didn’t have to make a damn thing- I got another break last night in the city as I dropped in on Kris and Ken following a very productive day. David joined us, and later Mary, and we had simple food and excellent wine: curried chicken with okra and mashed potatoes (Kris makes incredible curries) followed by chili and rice, then 5 cheeses, then possibly the best…
I let Milo choose dinners this weekend, since I’m tired, and tired of fancy cooking after the exertions of the past week or so. My Dad is English, and when I was growing up he was allowed to make breakfast on Sunday in the full-blown tradition of his people: bacon, eggs, sausage, tomatoes, potatoes, and bread, all fried in the bacon grease. When I was an impoverished grad student in Chicago I would often make…
The New Yorker came today, and in it is a profile of Grant Achatz, molecular gastronomy wunderkind and chef at Alinea in Chicago, and his work and dramatic struggle with tongue cancer. Christine and her Mom go to the city tomorrow, so I wanted to make something a little fancy to send them off. And there were some nice new ingredients that she bought; when somebody else does the shopping there can often be unexpected…
In an effort to make this evening’s meal easier on me, Christine and her Mom bought some fresh porcini ravioli at a local place. I was partly relieved, and partly sort of wished that I could have made them myself. Having said that, it’s a busy week for me and was grateful to put the extra time to good use. For a sauce, I took the rest of the crème fraîche and poured in about…