We all love to hate the Food Network. This is of course because it sucks; much like today’s new, improved GOP, it continues to find ever-cheesier ways to continue digging the mouth-breathing corporate shill-hole deeper and deeper. But I have some good news for you, o brilliant and discerning readers of this fine site: they’re picking up their game. (Food TV, that is. The GOP? Seriously?) Why on Earth would I say such an improbable thing? Well, I have some exciting news.
Year: 2011
A dear friend’s impending birthday gave me an excuse to spend an afternoon cooking, so after I ran a bunch of errands (including picking up 12 lbs. of pork belly for bacon) I got down to business in the kitchen. In the five hours between my return home and the arrival of the guests, I made a few dishes that turned out pretty well, and one that was damn good. And the wine, courtesy of John, was a beautifully curated study in Bordeaux-type wines vinified in places that (mostly) were not Bordeaux.
I realize that I promised something, you know, good this time, but circumstances conspired to keep that at bay for another little while. I have this totally awesome terrine I made, but now it looks like I have to save it for Saturday for a party. The terrine is a byproduct of the wonderful day of cooking we had here on Sunday, complete with Jen’s photography, but I can’t really spill the offal beans about that until it comes out. So, to tide you over, because the Internet is both a harsh mistress and an insatiable gobbler of novelty, I offer you some humble noodle soup.
Lately I’ve been baking bread in a loaf pan for variety and also pragmatic reasons. Kid’s lunches are more easily made with rectangular slices of bread, and when the kid himself suggests it, it’s always a good idea to listen. The semi-random fluctuations of flour types in the pantry have made for some interesting variations lately: a wheat/spelt/triticale mixture, and more recently a whole wheat/rye blend where the only white flour came from the starter. Both were very good eating; the spelt has a nice nutty flavor, and triticale is subtle, combining aspects of its parents wheat and rye. The whole wheat and rye loaf is a thing of fragrant beauty–it tastes amazing–though really more of the inner beauty variety. These rectangular loaves are practical, yes, but they lack the compellingly oblate topography of a boule.
It’s not often (if ever) that I post a repeat of a given meal within a few posts of another incarnation of the same dish. But I’m doing it here for a good reason: because I can’t be bothered to post something new family values! Read on, and I promise to show you how I went from zero to Zero Mostel in 30 minutes flat.
Lamb is wonderful meat, but it tends to be pricey, too, especially when it’s pastured (which is of course the only kind we eat). One solution is to buy in quanitity; I’ll be getting a half animal in the near future. Another option is to learn one’s way around the less expensive cuts. One of the most interesting of these is the neck, which makes wonderful stews and braises. Its appearance lends itself to osso buco-type treatments, and it can fill in handsomely for oxtail, too. What’s important is to give it the slow cooking that it needs to get tender.
Our cat died Thursday night. It wasn’t sudden; he was fast approaching 19 years old. He had renal failure, which means that for the last couple of months, pursuant to sudden weight loss, we’d been giving him special food and subcutaneous fluids and extra helpings of affection. I met him when he was three, and within a matter of weeks he would greet me by rushing over to this one small area rug in Christine’s apartment and flopping down supine for some serious tummy rubbing. He was a big cat, and in his heyday could easily jump five feet in the air in pursuit of a laser pointer’s red dot. He loved to fight with me, getting all huffy and dilated with indignant cattitude at the temerity of my hand when it bopped him on the nose. He liked to eat raisins. And he was a total whore for the tummy love.
I’ve been on a no-meat sort of run lately, trying to resist the cold-weather hankering for braises and such by digging deep into various traditions that know their way around some legumes. Tonight was burritos with quite good black-eyed peas, leftover brown rice, guacamole, and salsa I froze in September. Very satisfying, but not especially interesting or photogenic. Last night I made a version of something I first did a while back, with some unintentional differences as a result of poor planning. The result was still good to eat, I’m happy to report.
Seafood inspires me. Faced with some wild shrimp and semi-local (RI) clams, I thought about all the ways I could use them–together or separately–to good effect. I went around and around, and ultimately I settled on soup. Amazing, right? All the visions of multiple small plates (each cradling one elegant concoction) collapsed in the din of the ticking clock. I did have enough time to prepare the components individually, though, and it made a huge difference to the result.