The March issue of Chronogram is out, and in it is my profile of a couple of interesting winemakers. You can read it here.
cookblog Posts
Homemade sourdough, this time with 30% whole wheat, where the dough sat in the fridge for 6 days getting good and sour. And, building upon this tangy, crackling foundation, some carciofi alla romana and local, organic navy beans pressure-cooked with guanciale, mirepoix, herbs, and smoked duck broth, and finished with truffle and olive oils. I’ve been loving the shellfish lately, especially given their highly sustainable status, and big bowls of this (here steamed with sake,…
So the wife comes home from the store the other day armed with a tub of fat scallops and a pack of good bacon, and suggests that it would be a good idea if I wrapped the former in the latter. I did, fastening them with rosemary (perfect, because a bunch of branches on the plant just died to due the unhappy combination of underwatering and proximity to the radiator.) I put them on circles…
I have not been feeling it in the kitchen- and by extension, here- at all lately; it’s pretty much the norm when I have momentum in the studio (and I have a lot right now.) So on Saturday I ground gears pretty badly trying to get from studio mind to kitchen mind in time to make dinner for Liz and Duncan. It all came together, which was kind of a surprise given the haphazard approach…
As if on cue, we got three inches of snow last night. But it doesn’t matter; it’s 40 degrees now, and melting away at a good clip. This time of year the sun moves five sun-widths higher in the sky every week. I didn’t even mind shoveling this morning. There wasn’t much in the house yesterday, but I did spy a pot of chicken broth (from the carcass of dinner a couple nights ago) mixed…
Winter’s back is broken. There’s no doubt about it. A week ago it was almost 60˚, and bare ground now roughly balances the areas still covered in snow. Liquid water is a not-uncommon sight outside during the day. The birds are beginning to go apeshit every morning. And the smell of soil and plants is emerging to mingle with the warming air. I don’t suggest that we aren’t due for several more beat-downs, but there’s…
First, the bad news: Milo has spontaneously started saying “Yum-O!” despite having had zero exposure to the Rachael Ray (we have no TV.) I always thought that he would be older- perhaps wrapping our car around a tree- before I would be forced to disown him. But I think we all saw it coming; not even the fact that he looks unbelievably adorable rocking my Grandfather’s vintage and yet totally of-the-minute skinny ties is going…
I was away all weekend, so this here was dinner from last Thursday. The night after all the lovely sashimi we had Phase II of the post-Mitsuwa feast. I had bought a small tray of domestic Wagyu-style beef, sliced super-thin for shabu-shabu, and that was the jumping-off point for the meal. We had dashi left in the fridge, flavored with the black radishes I had pressure-cooked in it, and to that I added all the…
I just realized that this blog is three years old as of a couple of days ago. In honor of this momentous millstone milestone, why don’t you all take six or seven hours to go back and reread the entire thing? I’m pretty sure there will be lots of enlightening little details that you missed the first time, and you’ll be glad you did. Some of you may wish to write post-graduate theses on it,…
The other day I was clicking around, procrastinating, when I found this post about root vegetable latkes. Being as I was in possession of same, I rushed downstairs and got to work. A big beet, a turnip, and 3 carrots (I think) all went quickly through the grating wheel of the food processor, and got tossed around with an egg, a little flour, curry powder, salt, and parsley. There was a lot of the shredded…