So the epic fish saga continued; I originally intended to grind up the rest and make fish ball soup, because it’s still dead cold out and a tangy, spicy soup seemed like a good plan. Also, it would have afforded me the opportunity to write “fish balls” numerous times in the post. But as is so often the case, I changed my mind come prep time, after a pretty painless sojourn to the store for…
Category: Standards
Man, is it cold. After a freakishly balmy first half of the month, starting last night we were visited by a howling horror of an Arctic chill that sucks your will to live right out of the soles of your inadequate boots and makes you question the moral and philosophical foundations upon which your entire life has been laboriously, diligently, and attentively built. That’s right, Sarah Palin was in town. She and I had a…
Last night we actually went out- to a reading, and then dinner at the very good tapas place next door. There are some things that I would do differently, but I feel that way at most restaurants. OK, all restaurants. Having said that, we’re lucky to have an inexpensive place nearby that gets good meat and knows what to do with it. If you know what I mean. I had some lovely double-cut pork chops…
So for my actual birthday, much less fanfare. I did benefit though from both a little planning ahead and from the high-quality leftovers already lurking in the fridge. Mid-afternoon I came in from cleaning the studio and floured and seared some short ribs, then removed them and added a bag of our frozen magic mirepoix plus some garlic to caramelize in the fat. After that, the remnants of some weird sour BC cabernet that John…
I had an idea the other night for a great lamb chop dish, and we wanted to celebrate, so I rushed out yesterday to get some chops. But I was foiled by the lack thereof, so I settled for a piece of boneless leg. By the time I got to making dinner, it was too late to do anything fancy, so I rolled the meat in herbes de Provence, olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic…
On Monday, Christine expressed a hankering for pot pie, and we had the chicken wings that I used to make broth still in the fridge, so it seemed like a good idea. I made crust, and pulled the meat off the wings, and sautéed onion, garlic, radish, yellow beet, and sweet potato, dusted all with flour and added the rest of the tom kha gai from the day before. I let it simmer for a…
Milo has another cold, so I made chicken broth today. I set some aside for him with the soft broth carrots in it- the way he likes it best- and added coconut milk and some red curry paste to the rest to make a simple tom kha gai. I shredded some of our cabbage with a little garlic, ginger, and radish, and rolled the mixture into wonton wrappers and fried them in a little oil.…
We went to Vermont for one night, which wasn’t enough, but will have to do for the time being. Driving up we got to experience the steepening gradient from still-luminescent foliage in our area to the more austere landscape that latitude and altitude combine to bestow upon the Green Mountains at this time of year. The bases of most mountains still had some color, but it faded up to the browns, greys, and dark greens…
There was talk of burgers; good beef was procured. But just because I’m posting doesn’t mean I’m not working like a lunatic- having never before built a skinny octagonal pyramid 16 feet high that can be assembled on site in a field with no power tools, I’ve been frantically doing math (which I sucked at last time I had to do any, over 25 years ago; I was the only person in the history of…
We had some friends over for dinner who live close by but for some reason we don’t manage to see often enough- even though the kids all get along so well and we always have a great time together. I had an idea recently, spurred by the bacon, so I wrapped scallops in bacon, glued with activa, and vacuum-sealed them into tiny muffin tins to help them keep their shape. After about 8 hours I…