Since the family is away for a few days, and this last week has been a trying one, I’ve been getting a lot of work done and not cleaning up after myself- just like I used to do every single day before I had a family. To celebrate, and also to treat myself to some hedonism as the wretched poison ivy abates under the onslaught of steroids, I constructed a burger that may well be…
Year: 2009
If you live in my area, you know that our seafood options are limited to say the least. In response to this, our good buddy Gerard has stepped up and become a to-order fishmonger with weekly drop-offs on both sides of the river. Send him an email and start ordering the same quality fish that restaurants get. I am positively vibrating with excitement at being able to order all kinds of über-fresh goodies both common…
More torrential rain, and then more still- it’s beyond the bad joke stage, and into full-blown misery here in parts of the Northeast. Micro sent me this link to an article in the Globe about the CSA where he works every week for his share of the bounty; they lost their entire tomato crop to the early blight (same fungus that caused the potato famine). Chris just pulled up all their Roma tomatoes and burned…
Remember the bacon? I finally got around to smoking it, only a couple of days later than I intended to. The two cures had made noticeable differences to the meat; the traditional cure (I use the word loosely here, since it had coffee and tons of garlic in it) had firmed it up and darkened it noticeably, while the miso cure had left the meat firm but still supple and only slightly colored. I put…
The August Chronogram is out, and within it another article– this time on our outstanding regional cheeses.
Would you rather drink white wine that exhibits characteristics of a) apples or b) milk? Good God. Update: This comes on the heels of drinking a 2003 Treana Marsanne/Viognier blend (66%/34%) on the recommendation of someone in a local wine store I like. I loves me a Rhône white, so I asked her how “California” it was. She said “Oh, not at all- lots of minerals.” And it was on sale, for around $20, so…
On Saturday we piled in the car- along with Oren, who took the bus up from the city- and headed to the Berkshires for Richard’s 60th birthday party. It was every bit the party we all knew it would be, and we all brought something since it was a surprise; Susan could not have made anything ahead of time without giving it away. This is a real shame, considering that they have the most unbelievable…
So that pork belly from the market? Well it came in roughly 1lb. hunks (skin on, bless them) so I figured I’d try a couple of different cures in the interest of advancing human knowledge in the cutting edge field of Bacon Science™. One got a pretty traditional cure, but with coffee and chili powder, and the other got a goodly slather with a paste made from yellow miso, yuzu miso, mashed ume plum, yuzu…
Every Wednesday we have the Farmers’ Market in town, and it’s one of the best things to happen here in a while (this is the second year). There’s music, and a flea market in the adjacent field, and prepared food as well as the usual produce, cheese, bread, meat, and wine. There are cooking classes for kids, and the weather has actually been pretty good on most of the recent days. It’s always fun to…
We went to Vermont for one night so I could meet with the contractor who’s helping keep part of the house from falling off, and invited Chris along as well so the kids could play together. He brought some ready-to-bake bread; they’ve been using the same sourdough starter we use, though with a different blend of flours. The trip up really gave it a chance to rise, so by the time we arrived it was…