Another breakfast post- of sorts, anyway- since I went to a nearby Farmer’s Market on Sunday and loaded up on some interesting things. There was a joint selling various bird-related products, so I got some of their pheasant sausage and a variety of eggs: pheasant, wild turkey, and chicken. The floor is the nicest part of our kitchen. The sausage, honestly, wasn’t that great. Somewhat oddly spiced- sort of Indian, sort of Italian- and too…
cookblog Posts
So that smoked/grilled/raw chicken broth (plus a couple of lamb chop bones from a restaurant meal) became the basis for a minestrone that may be in the top three of all time. The other ingredients were all fine, but the broth was just so damn intense and deep. And before you gasp in horror at my hoarding of bones from restaurants, remember that I paid for these damn lamb chops and therefore have the right…
Before we move on to the spoils of that miraculous broth, here’s what followed the chicken- it sprang Athena-like from my forehead the minute our neighbor brought us a big slab of river trout just before dinner time. It reminded me that I had no plan at all, and that it was in fact time to make dinner. So I did. True story. First, there was broccoli in the fridge- we’re not quite at the…
Having the grill out on the screened porch means that even when it’s bucketing down rain in a torrential fashion we can still enjoy those flavors which evoke sunny, carefree afternoons with the frolicking and the skipping and the frisbees and such. Though I have recently been informed that the grill is no longer welcome on said porch and needs to be trundled out to sit next to my studio until winter. Clearly my wife…
John and I arranged a wine tasting for my next article, and we used the occasion to have a dinner party. I’m not going to write about the wines we tasted, partly because it was for the article and partly because after we did the tasting- during which we dutifully spat- we drank our way through a positively stunning lineup of juice (of which we did not spit out even a little bit.) John made…
Is there anything in this world that makes a better breakfast on a chilly spring morning than fingerling potatoes sautéed with home-cured guanciale, wilted fresh-picked garlic mustard, ramp pesto-crepinette gravy reheated with lamb pho to thin it back to liquid, and a couple of fresh local eggs on top, baked until set, and garnished with parsley from the garden?
I have never been much of a fan of the greeting-card industry’s manufactured holidays, though I have always understood that other people feel differently and thus tried to act accordingly. But Mothers’ day sucks. All of you who have living Mothers should feel free to celebrate, or not, as you choose. But for those of us who do not, it’s a great big thumb in the eye and I hate it. Even though my wife,…
What a difference a couple of weeks make. Having fully pivoted into high spring, we have shifted away from storage crops and braises towards just-picked salads and herb-heavy sauces or garnishes. Everything is so perfect and new that a little goes a long way, allowing for the much subtler warm-weather eating that those of us with seasons have been pining for so ferociously for so long. For example, here’s something from a while back, and…
I do so love having a pressure cooker. Apart from all the exotic things it can do (peppercorn purée, caramelized condensed milk) it also makes it easy to enjoy perfect beans with little more than 30 minutes of lead time- even if, say, those beans went unsoaked all day because I had other things to do and I can’t do everything, can I? But what I did manage to remember were the chicken bones in…
Another blast from the past, this is bison hanger steak (that’s hangER; we’re not writing about airplane food, people) sous-vided for an hour or so at 52˚ C and then seared in smoked duck fat and served with the following goodness: 1. Green mash of overwintered pan di zucchero and curly endive plus ume plum with lemon juice, olive oil, and garlic. 2. Our amazing Purple Passion® asparagus- these three were the very first spears,…