Culinary therapy, pt. 2

This past Sunday, I invited one of my business partners over for a grilling session. It is the first time I've really had anyone over since the meltdown in June, and it's appropriate that it was him.

First off, his girlfriend has recently returned to Boston for job reasons, and they are splitting their time between the cities. Not exactly fun, but sometimes you do what you have to. Regardless, I know a thing or two about feeling at loose ends and not necessarily wanting to eat — one of our most important social activities — alone. Since the kid was spending an extra night with her mom, I was feeling a bit at loose ends too. The thing is I didn't want to go out or order in — or eat another frozen pizza or other pre-prepared meal. No. I wanted to reacquaint myself with the kitchen. And, second, we have some bizarre Boston connections.

The day before I had picked up spicy lamb sausage from Tuckahoe Farms at the South of the James Market, as well as some beautiful heirloom tomatoes and peaches. Kevin added corn, greek feta and a few good beers. Except for the salad, we threw everything on a perfectly searing grill. The corn was prepped with olive oil and coarse ground sea salt and black pepper. The peaches were prepped with balsamic and some fleur de sel.

I need to get better about taking pictures, like some of my fellow bloggers, however, because every part of the meal came off perfectly. Throw a good conversation into the bargain, and you have the beginning of a return to civility and sanity.

Culinary therapy

The past few days and weeks, I've been trying to reconnect with the kid. Long-time readers may wonder why I say "reconnect," but the truth is that the effects of the PTSD as well as other life experiences lately have made me realize that I've been disconnected from life in general for a while now. In particular, I've been lost to some of my closest relationships.

One of those relationships, I now realize, was with the kid. To wit, I spent some time the other day trying to remember when something happened this spring. And then I realized it was last spring. Then I caught a picture of her earlier from her birthday two years ago. In it, she was showing off the new earrings I'd had made for her. In my mind, the gift had happened last year. Time has vanished in scary ways.

That said, I've been waking up lately and beginning to reconnect with her and others in my life. As part of this waking up, I took the kid and her best friend since they were three to Water Country USA yesterday. The past two years, we've had adult company on the trip — the first year another friend's mother and last year L. This year, I decided to go solo. Not only am I trying to reconnect with her and other people, but I'm trying to reconnect with myself. It was a brilliant trip — and as always full of horrible food. Afterward, though, we grabbed sushi at our favorite Richmond sushi place. It isn't the best, but it is good enough. And then the kid was treated to dessert at Secco with much of the restaurant singing "Happy Birthday" to her. It was a brilliant moment, thanks to some good friends.

The real therapy began in the morning, however. I finally started cooking again. And by that I mean something other than prepping the simplest pasta dishes. Nope. The girls had a sleepover, and in the morning, we capped things off with homemade buckwheat waffles from my grandmother's 1929 waffle maker. Then, this evening, I had crab from the farmer's market, corn, and beautiful heirloom tomatoes to use. And despite the impending storm outside, I was determined to do crab cakes and corn on the grill.

I winged it on the crab cakes. I took in pieces I'd used from Joy and from Alice Waters, and made my own take on the cakes. Mayo, grain mustard, smoked paprika, lemon, parsley, sauteed carmen peppers and garlic in butter (sauteed in one of my new pans), and panko. A touch of salt. Just enough flavor to round out the crab and let it shine at the same time. Follow this by slow-cooking on foil over a wood-fired grill, add grilled corn and a simple tomato salad. Brilliant summer meal, right?

And it was, except for one thing. I changed the recipe with a tired kid in the house. Half a crab cake in, and she said they didn't taste good. At least she ate the half. Next time, I don't change the recipe if she has tired eyes.

Fun Salad Moment

Despite some rather temperate weather in Richmond, I've been sticking with flavors and textures that are comforting and winter-like — even salads. A recent addition to the repertoire has been a beet salad with toasted almonds and goat cheese. On their own, all the ingredients are terrific, but put together they sing like a chorus in the groove.


The real star of the show is the almonds, though. I start with a hot, dry pan and add the almonds mixed with some coarse salt, a touch of cumin, and chili. I let them toast for a few minutes over a medium flame and then add a touch of olive oil to coat them. The flame should go down, and the almonds toast until brown. The flavors will meld and provide the perfect complement to the beets, greens, goat cheese and a drizzle of balsamic.


In the end, it will be one of the simplest and best salads you've ever had, almost a meal-like compliment to roast chicken or salumi and cheeses.

Ribs, ribs, ribs...

Last night, I made my first go at doing ribs in the oven. I've been a strict wood-fired guy in the past. Soaked chips, cider drip pan, and all. Last summer, I made my peace with a gas grill. Last night, I made my peace with doing ribs in the convection oven.

The ribs in question were the pork ribs Trader Joe's sells. They aren't ideal since they're not from one of my local producers or butchers, but I tend to trust TJ's products. It was a little under three pounds — perfect for the kid and me and some leftovers. When it came time to prepare them, I mixed up a quick dry rub with flaked sea salt, smoked paprika, sweet paprika, cumin, parsley, cracked pepper, and sugar. I was satisfied with the rub, though I might try brown sugar next time to add a little extra caramelization.

I heated the oven to 300 degrees, applied the rub, and wrapped the ribs in foil. After twenty minutes, I raised the heat to 350, and then to 375 after another half hour. To keep them from drying out, I mixed up a quick mop sauce of cider vinegar, garlic mustard and bourbon. I mopped this on every fifteen minutes after the first half hour. After an hour, I opened the foil to let the skin begin to form on the ribs. Since I was working entirely on improvisation, I waited until it seemed like the ribs had also begun to develop a nice crust. At that point, I mopped on barbecue sauce for the last fifteen minutes.

The result? Stellar. The ribs were tender, and the combination of mop sauce, smoked paprika, and barbecue sauce gave them a good flavor. It wasn't quite as good as a few hours over a wood fire, but sometimes a craving requires improvisation.

Losing my mojo

I haven't really lost my mojo, but I have struggled with cooking in recent months. For a while, I blamed this on the stove at the house we bought in late May. It was newer, better, and more powerful than anything I'd used before. Easy blame, right? Same with the grill. The chimney brought my cherished hardwood charcoal to a hotter fire sooner. But the truth is I'm just off my game.

When I pay attention as I did this evening, things come out brilliantly. A little late perhaps, but still good. Tonight's menu was simply chicken thighs and legs pan roasted with rice and steamed veggies. Seasoning on the chicken was simple — coarse-ground salt and pepper, parsley, and a touch of spanish paprika, squeeze of lemon. I used the cast-iron skillet and put a little butter in until it browned, added the chicken and sauteed until there was a nice brown crust on the skin. I turned it over and cooked the underside for a few minutes before transferring the skillet to a 375F oven.

Thirty minutes (and a Troeg's Scratch #34 Saison de Meuze) later, I had rice and steamed veggies ready to go, and the chicken had cooked to a beautiful, perfect, brown crackling skin. It was perfect, until the kid got halfway through and said she didn't really like the chicken very much. I was ready to start my rant of "you used to like this more than anything else" until I glanced over and realized the circles had crept in under her eyes.

In my effort to get my cooking mojo back (a success), I failed in my effort to feed the kid before tired set in. The thing is the creeping exhaustion is hard to predict. Some nights she can hold out until 8:30. Not last night.

I've spent a lot of time lately trying to find balance between everything I'm trying to do and being a dad and a partner to my fiancée. It's not always the easiest balance to achieve, and it takes a lot of mojo. Apparently, I need to work a little harder at it still.

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The beer geek in me, however, wants to report that a Lake Placid UBU Ale matched nicely against the chicken, with its touch of smoke and lemon. It wasn't quite as successful a pairing as the L'Olmaia unfiltered wheat beer I tried several weeks ago, but a credible pairing nonetheless.

Welcoming Fall

This weekend, we needed to use up our CSA share. With nearly fifty bucks left, we binged on a bushel of heirloom variety apples and whatever veggies were still left at the market. (Word to the wise: sleeping in feels good when you don't have the kid but works against getting the best Saturday market variety.) Among the things I picked up was a bag of small to medium sweet potatoes. I've never been a huge fan of sweet potatoes — the Yankee in me comes out sometimes — but I've been trying to expand my cooking horizons this year.

Richmond was finally graced with real fall weather this week. Last week's rains brought a change in the air, and we've been downright chilly at night. On my way to pick up the kid at her mom's class, I decided it was time to welcome fall properly and how better to do that than with soup — Sweet Potato Bisque. And lamb chops.

The kid has apparently lost her taste for sweet potatoes; she would have pesto pasta, the standby. Since she'd finished her homework, I drafted her help. She helped me put together the stock from TJ's concentrate and hot water. She rinsed the apple and the sweet potatoes, peeled the garlic, and added the apples and sweet potatoes to the sweated onions and garlic, stirring all the time. I did the chopping, and she helped with adding the spices as well. Next time, I will be sure to get pictures to have the events recorded for posterity. In the end, it was too bad that she didn't want to try the soup, but truth be told I was glad to be able to up the heat factor to balance out the sweet potatoes and apple.


The sides were pan-seared lamb chops simply dusted with coarse salt and pepper, a cucumber and pepper salad, and a couscous/lentil mix for L. Serve it with a red wine dry enough to counter the sweetness and full enough to stand up to the spice, or better yet get a nice saison to complement the flavors. In any case, here's the improvised recipe...

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Keep in mind that this is all based on improvisation. It's largely a bisque because of consistency, and I opted for bourbon because we were out of sherry. With a good bourbon, it worked nicely.

Ingredients:
1/2 stick butter
1 small onion
4 cloves garlic
1 apple
6 small to medium sweet potatoes
5 cups vegetable broth
1 roasted poblano pepper
Spices: cumin, fennel seeds, salt, pepper, fresh ginger, sweet and hot paprika, and saffron
Bourbon (approximately 1/2 cup)
Plain yogurt

Preparation:
1. Dice apples and sweet potatoes into 1 inch or smaller pieces
2. Chop onion and garlic coarsely.
3. Heat butter in large stock pot on medium heat and add onion and garlic. When sweated to shimmering, add the apple and a few mills of salt and pepper. Allow to sweat for five minutes and begin to add sweet potatoes. Add a dash of each spice and sweat a few minutes until the mixture becomes aromatic.
4. Add 4 cups of vegetable broth.
5. Bring mixture to boil for five minutes and reduce to simmer for 25 minutes or until the potatoes and apples are soft and break up easily.
6. Use immersion blender to puree mixture. Add additional stock and bourbon while blending. If you want a thinner soup, add extra stock.
7. Bring to boil again and drop to simmer for as long as needed.
8. Taste and add spice to balance. Should have a good bite that gives way to the sweet flavors and saffron mid-palate.
9. Serve with a dollop of plain yogurt, a pinch of fleur de sel and a rosemary sprig.

Will serve at least six.

Burned, thrice.

I consider myself a good cook. I know my way around the kitchen, around ingredients, around different preparations. It's a hobby that has gotten more and more serious in the past few years — maybe filling a void left by not playing pool lately. Friends and family enjoy what I cook, and I can usually take an eclectic set of ingredients from idea to execution handily. From time to time, though, there are reminders that I'm just an amateur. Tonight, I made a couple of such mistakes.

The plan was to prepare some sockeye filets we'd picked up TJ's with quinoa and a salad. No big deal, right. Easy. Prep the salmon and give it a quick sear on the stove before putting it under the broiler to get the top. Chop up some veggies for a little slaw to go on it. Add some veggies to the quinoa. Salad. Simple stuff.

The thing is the fish wasn't great. I knew that the moment I took it out of the package. Usually TJ's fish has been pretty consistent, but the last couple times the quality seems to have dropped off a little bit. This salmon was a little beaten up and might have seen a bit of freezer burn, but I didn't have a back-up plan. It was getting late, too. Time to pull some cumin and lemon to the rescue. If I couldn't grab a better piece of fish, maybe I could at least cover up the imperfections. I prepped it and moved on.

The garnish was going to be a bit of cucumber, some sungolds, parsley and a bit of pepper. For the pepper, I opted for a bright yellow hot pepper I'd picked up at the market. It seemed fairly innocuous, and I made sure to prep it correctly — slice open and remove the seeds with a quick wash, dice. I even cleaned my knife and hands afterward to prevent cross-contamination.

The quinoa had a good start on the stove. I salted it liberally and added diced some yellow squash and green pepper a friend had given L. I tossed it in the pan to cook with the grains. Seemed like a fine idea at the time.

Before pulling the salad together, I shoved the salmon under the broiler. I love cast iron for its versatility, and for the ability to get a perfect sear on almost anything. I pulled some greens from the bag and mixed them with the rest of the parsley and a red pepper that had landed on our counter this afternoon. Crumble some stilton over it, add a little balsamic, and we're all good, right?

It was just a couple minutes later that the burn started. My lips were the first hit, then my eyes. Then I realized I'd forgotten one very important detail — the cutting board. I'd washed everything but the cutting board. And now everything was covered in sweet, hot pepper. The salad was, if not ruined, at least the wrong set of flavors. The quinoa had an extra bite to it. My eyes were burning, and to add final insult to injury, I left the salmon under the broiler too long.

The last was the least of my problems since the salmon was already a bit of a flavor and texture fail. The mistake with the peppers bugs me though. It seems like the kind of mistake you shouldn't make if you consider yourself a serious-enough cook.

The truth is that life is filled with those moments, however: little lessons that teach you to always be vigilant, no matter how much you think you know.

Pizza night, the small version

So we were lucky enough to be connected in with a monthly pizza circle in Richmond recently, and I had the chance to see some truly creative work happening with the pies. Though there were no other kids around, it proved a delightfully kid-friendly event for Buttercup, too. Good times.

Fast-forward a few days to Thursday, a night we'd sworn to go swimming after missing the past few days. Pool night means a good bit of relaxation, but it also means eating later than usual. (We've tried going to Mekong after swimming a couple times, and while it is delicious, the night can sometimes be a bit too indulgent.) In any case, we've lately come to three parameters for dinners: 1. Get dinner ready so we can eat together; 2. Eat before the kid gets too tired and/or cranky; 3. Use what we have so we do a better job of staying within the budget.

L suggested pizza. She could thaw the TJ's dough in the freezer. At ninety-nine cents a pop, Trader Joe's fresh dough is a lifesaver — high quality and easy to use. To make life for later even easier, she divided the dough into two smaller pies and pre-baked the crust.

We got back from swimming just after 8 p.m. and raided the fridge. The kid wanted pepperoni and olives. A good quality salumi was a good pepperoni substitute. Add marinara, some grated mozzarella, some feta and a few kalamata olives, and the kid's pie was ready to go. Ten minutes in the oven, and it was finished. Ours was more of a hodge-podge: the last of the artichokes and roasted peppers, some leftover fresh sage, marinara, blue cheese and mozzarella, olives, and some crushed chili. And this is what the hodge-podge looked like:


Delicious. Cheap. And it was all a matter of what we had in the fridge. What a perfect cheapicurean moment.

Continuing the evolution

A few little items of business...

• Based on my last few posts, you may have deduced that beer-blogging will be returning here. Apparently, besides a general passion for tasting new beers, my refrigerator is an indication that I am also beginning to accumulate and collect interesting beers. Stay tuned for more on this.



• Recent changes in life and budget priorities mean that I will be looking very closely at what we are eating and what we are spending. This probably means fewer restaurant meals — not necessarily a great loss — and more creative ways of making amazing (and cost-effective) meals at home. We have also begun to make more aggressive efforts to plan meals ahead. This week's specials: Taco Night and Bamboo Stir-fry Night.


• Banana was informed last night that she'll be helping cook from time to time. We're all looking forward to this, and I'm quietly thinking about the challenge when she is asked to prepare a whole meal for the three of us.



• Reilly has retired to Ohio. He is quite happy about this as it means he gets more attention and more walks on the golf courses and in the woods. We are sad to miss our greeter — and I keep reminding myself when food drops that there is no longer a dog to help clean it up.


• If all goes well, we will be moving to a new house soon with a much-upgraded kitchen. Please keep your fingers crossed that all goes well.


• Before the move to said-house, there will also be a trip to Italy. Prepare for profuse food blogging before, during, and after.


• Lastly, I'm still playing with the question of whether to rename the whole venture to better reflect the direction this is taking and maybe free me up to start another for writing and photography...

Stay tuned for more, longer, and better posts soon.

Easy, delicious gnocchi... thumbs not included.

Because schedules seem busy and complicated lately, I've found myself making dinner for the the kid early and something else for L and I later in the evening. I keep trying to pull things together for all of us to eat at the same time, but it just isn't happening as much as I'd like. In the meantime, though, I've started to simplify what I'm preparing — whether for the the kid or for us. More and more, I find that combining a few really good ingredients and letting the food shine is far more interesting than trying to do full-bore multi-plate meals. This one was one of those pleasant discoveries along the way.

I had a package of Trader Joe's gnocchi — their prepared ingredients often make a good start for my recent creations — and a slew of random ingredients in the fridge. I pulled some bacon out and chopped it into small pieces, slicing off most of the fat. Then I pulled some sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, a quarter-cup at most, and chopped them up. A couple fresh sweet peppers, a few small heirloom tomatoes, and a handful of spinach rounded out the ingredients. In deference to L's vegetarianism, we cooked the bacon in a separate pan. I sauteed the peppers, tomatoes and spinach in a touch of olive oil added the cooked gnocchi plated a small amount for her, sprinkled with fleur de sel, cracked pepper, a touch of crushed red pepper and parmaggiano. I added the cooked bacon to the pan and finished the saute, adding the salt, pepper and cheese.

In all fairness, I also have to give credit to L on this one. While chopping the sundried tomatoes, I nicked my thumb pretty badly. It was bad enough I had to sit the rest of the prep out and put pressure on the wound. She carried it off well and we plated perfectly.

The result was one of the better and simpler dishes I've done in a while. The flavor of each ingredient came through and they complemented each other beautifully. Served with a decent Barbera, this is definitely a keeper in the recipe list.

Bouillabaisse!

One intersection of my lifehacking and cooking efforts happens with my decision to follow through on things I've long said I will do. In the case of this weekend's Valentine's celebration with L and several friends, this included finally making bouillabaisse. It is something I've said I would do for several years, but every time I almost did it, I backed off. Not this time.

I did my usual recipe digging and found that bouillabaisse, like paella, is one of those dishes that has few rules other than the the base ingredients. In my research, though, I kept coming back to a version of Julia Child's original recipe. It is a simple matter of building the stock and then letting the rest of the ingredients come together as needed and based on what you have available to you. And then, of course, there's the rouille.

Once I'd settled on the recipe, the next step was plotting out the ingredients. Bouillabaisse can be a pricey affair — unless you happen to be family of someone who harvests shellfish and catches fresh fish. Since the numbers from dinner could have ranged from 6 to 12, I had to shoot a little high on the ingredients. Since I also had to aim for convenience and time-efficiency, the source would be Whole Foods. I started with a half pound of mussels, a dozen littleneck clams, a dozen extra large shrimp with the shells on, and two-thirds of a pound of scallops. By and large, the shellfish were in beautiful shape, though I did end up pitching about a quarter of the mussels. For the fish, I opted for tilapia and cod, almost two pounds total. They had the right consistency and flavor and were beautiful cuts without being as expensive as other options.


I made a few other substitutions along the way. For the sake of time and since truly beautiful tomatoes are hard to come by right now, I opted for a large can of diced tomatoes. I also skipped the step when fish skeletons are stewed and used a mix of my own fish stock, a quart of Whole Foods' fish stock, and a quart of water to cut the intensity. The other tweaks I made to the base recipe included a healthy splash of Cointreau and about a quarter cup of Sauvignon Blanc. I also decided to rest the broth off heat between the initial near-boil and bringing it back to heat and adding the seafood a couple hours later.

Bouillabaisse was a muse a while back, but not something I'd ever cooked. As such, I didn't know about rouille — the little side sauce that creates a bit of magic when dolloped in bowls and slathered on fresh, crusty bread. Most recipes use water- and lemon- soaked bread as the base for the paste, but Julia's recipe had a variation using almonds. Since we'd be heavy on the bread anyway, I decided to try the almonds as an alternative. By the time I was working on the rouille, I also had word that the crowd would be 12, and I decided to double the recipe. I roasted two peppers using Alice Waters' oven-roasting technique, added my own dried chili from last summer's market. The puree quickly turned a bright orange — aided by a touch of saffron — and I began adding the olive oil per the recipe. At a taste, the flavors were rich and explosive, but L thought it tasted a bit heavy on the olive oil. It was a perfect opportunity for a little kitchen training for the kid, a chance to explain that you countered the fatty flavor of the oil by adding more lemon, more salt, and a bit more of the chili to sharpen the flavor. Another couple minutes running in the food processor, and the rouille was ready to put aside.

After a quick interlude for Valentine's Day celebrations and a glass of Linden Vineyards excellent 2005 Claret (another story for another time), we migrated the food next door for the actual dinner party. The celebration was kicking in, and it would be another hour or so before I'd go through the final steps. At that point, ti became a game of time — adding the shrimp, then the clams and mussels, then the scallops and finally the fish sliced into inch-wide strips at intervals so the soup could be pulled off the fire and served minutes after the last fish was added. Timing hasn't always been my strong suit, but it worked this time.


At final listing, the menu stacked up as follows: cheese fondue with vegetables and bread, a pear/walnut/gorgonzola salad, the bouillabaisse with bread baked fresh by our host, a champagne rose petal sorbet also made by the host, chocolate fondue, and home-made eclairs. The wine flowed, the kids had their own celebration, and it was declared one of the best (and most decadent) food celebrations any of us could remember.

There's something magical to sharing a meal with people. When done well and in the right company, all sorts of boundaries can drop and time stops for a brief, wonderful period. When you step away with full stomachs and the touch of sweet and bite of savory still lingering on your lips, a light just seems to shine on the rest of life.

Bisque!

I've decided to begin running with new ideas and new recipes for the coming year. I want to learn how to do things like make corned beef. I want to challenge the boundaries of dishes and preparations that I already know. I want to pick out an old food magazine every week and find things to make out of it. I want to — as I outlined a couple posts ago — take a second look at the ingredients in my cupboards or in the market and rethink how we're eating.

Last week, I took a shot at this when L and I were debating what to make for dinner — without wanting to eat out again or do another big grocery run. She had an acorn squash, and I had the muse of making a winter squash bisque. With the quick direction to pick up some sherry and another squash at the store, and a plan to get bread at our local French joint — Can Can — I did a bit of research and came up with a nice recipe to tweak.

Instead of the called-for olive oil, I opted for butter, and on the sauté, I added a healthy dose of smoked Spanish paprika. Beyond that, I followed the recipe to the letter. The result was a hearty, smoky cold-weather meal of soup, bread and salad. Since L is not a fan of all-things-smoked, however, I decided we needed another go at the soup this weekend.

The second round I upped the stock a bit and added more tomatoes, since L would be serving it at her book club. This meant all the spices needed a boost, as did the sherry. In the end, I switched up the smoked paprika for sweet Hungarian paprika, and the result was a very different (and much better) bisque. With a dose of ground chili and thyme at the end, the soup struck the perfect note. With any luck, the women in L's book club will agree.

Regardless, I'll be making this one again for sure. What I love about the soup — besides the taste, of course — is that it is so simple. The recipe only involves a few ingredients and some fairly simple preparations to achieve a result that seems (and tastes) far more complex. The next step will be to jump past the kid's pickiness and get her to try it too. Wish me luck on that one...

snow dreams of food

Richmond is seeing its snowiest winter in recent memory this year. It's almost as though all the jokes about runs on the local grocery stores for milk, eggs, and bread when the word "snow" hits the forecast have finally brought karmic retribution back on us in the form of two good-sized storms. Each has dumped nearly a foot of snow on the area and paralyzed businesses and shut schools. The kids have had a hell of a time, and parents are running out of ways to amuse them. After all, there's only so much you can do when you live in the heart of the city to send your kids out to pasture.

There have been some collateral benefits, however. They include slowing down by necessity and re-acquainting ourselves with the house, and remembering to cook more and use more of the food that stuffs the fridge. Recent adventures have included remembering how to make crépes, gingerbread and biscotti (thanks to L), fondue, chili, and more.

Last night's adventure was more of a culinary break than I've made lately. Facing down dwindling supplies of various staples and specialty items, I knew we had a few hurdles to cross. L is a pescatarian, which means I have to temper my meat-loving tendencies for some meals or find a general balance in others. The Kid has lately gotten even pickier about what she'll eat — a foodie kid losing her omnivorousness is another post for another time. Lastly, I realized feeding us all at the same time wasn't going to work. Solution time...

The kid got pesto pasta. It's not the most creative solution, but some penne with TJ's pesto on it is a sure-fire silver bullet when she's hungry and tired. Add a bit of feta and a few grape tomatoes, and the meal is complete and easy to put together while she hangs out with us.

For L and I, I concocted a wholly different idea. I had lentils that had been around a while, a small stash of grape tomatoes, an onion, garlic, and a well-stocked spice cabinet. A quick check of Saveur brought up an Ethiopian lentil stew. That combined with some savory whole-wheat crépes started to sound a whole lot like an improvised Ethiopian dinner. The lentils took about an hour to cook and come together. It was the right amount of time for mixing up a quick crépe batter and running the crepes. I pulled one of the small zucchinis in the fridge and sliced it into quarter-inch-thick half-moons. These I tossed with a bit of olive oil, cumin, salt and pepper, and put on a baking pan to roast while L was working on biscotti, round 2.

When the crépes were ready, I laid out one on each plate as one might find a bed of injera in an Ethiopian restaurant and then added two more, folded to quarters, to section off the plate. On one side went the zucchini, and on the other a pile of lentils topped with a small dollop of plain yogurt. On a shared plate, I put out The lentils weren't as spicy as I'd hoped, so I'll be looking for some real berbere powder for the next attempt. Nonetheless, the flavors came together wonderfully and both L and I finished the meal with nearly clean plates.

I recommend stepping back and looking back at your cupboards once in a while and thinking about new ways you can use the same old ingredients.

Locavore fun.

I got a call from a coworker yesterday asking me if I wanted a piece of venison. He'd pulled a back strap (filet) out of the freezer and had a small chunk of it left. Of course I do, I said. Not being a hunter and without a reliable source, I've never had the chance to prepare venison, but it has been on my list.

The piece he gave me was a little over half a pound, and I decided to prep it for dinner last night. Figured I wouldn't tell the kid what she was eating until after dinner. With distractions like homework and letters to Santa, I needn't have worried. She hung out in the kitchen while I prepped the meal.

I'd done some research on preparations and came down to the following: quick marinade in red wine, olive oil, salt, pepper, and sage. Three minutes on each side to brown it with a touch of olive oil in a hot cast-iron skillet. Seven minutes in a 400-degree oven. Transfer to a plate and put the skillet back on the stove for a reduction. Reduce the reserved marinade with extra wine and a splash of balsamic vinegar thrown in. Serve with couscous and snow peas.

The meat came off a perfect medium rare. With a drizzle of sauce, it was tender and lean and just phenomenal. The kid even ate her whole serving and gave it two thumbs up. I decided to compliment it with a wine produced only a few miles from where the deer had been shot — Villa Appalaccia's Toscanello. I've wanted to pair this bottle with venison since I first poured it at a wine festival two years ago, and I'm pleased to say my gut instinct was dead-on. The pairing was phenomenal. The layers of fruit and pepper from the sangiovese/primitivo/cab franc blend complimented the flavors of the meat so that holding both in your mouth produced a brilliant synergy of flavor.

The kicker on the whole thing was getting around to telling the kid what she'd had. "I ate deer?" she asked. When I said yes, she said, "Hunh. It was good." One more foodie-parent victory...

cooking, or getting to it

I realize that I haven't been writing very much lately on one of my favorite subjects — food and cooking. For one reason or another, I also haven't been doing very much cooking lately.

In any case, the coming weeks will bring my annual foray into my take on my grandmother's Swedish Meatballs. Much as I love IKEA's meatballs in a pinch, they have nothing on this preparation — particularly with the inclusion of meat from Belmont Butchery. In past years, I've done gløg. This year, I may attempt her Swedish fruit soup. Maybe I'll even pull one or two more Swedish traditions out of the woodwork.

For New Years Eve, I'll do the paella I've done the past few years. Since someone else will be doing a seafood preparation this year, I'll be able to return to a full-on recipe. I may even pull the rabbit parts out of the freezer for a flavoring saute, and I may even jump to a wood-fired preparation on the grill. It all depends how adventuresome I feel, and whether I feel like cooking in a tux again this year.

And then there's the Super-Dad Cookie Baking Party...

a few notes and a brief cooking note

First, the notes.

Note 1: I began using a chimney this summer to start my grill. I love it, but I haven't gauged the fires properly yet. Between the chimney and the hardwood charcoal (not briquettes!) that I've been using, I get amazingly hot fires. Too hot, really. I've had a devil of a time figuring out timing and heat, as a result.

Note 2: I need to branch out while at the farmers market. I bring home a nice harvest and prepare it well (usually!), but I don't change up my game nearly enough. I don't buy many new ingredients. I don't challenge myself to stretch my wings beyond some of my tried and true preparations. If all goes well, we will take part in a winter CSA, and I will expand my cooking repertoire.

Now a cooking note:

In midsummer, I found myself with locally raised lamb steaks, corn, and peaches. I'd also snagged a loaf of parmaggiano and red pepper bread. The lamb went in with a chili-, sage-, and rosemary-spiked rub. The peaches were drizzled with a good balsamic. The corn was soaked (in husks) in salt water. The bread was sliced and drizzled with good olive oil. We were using my neighbor's gas grill. The corn went on first. It roasted for close to half an hour on the upper rack with a low convection fire. The fire was brought up and the lamb and peaches went on the grill. The peaches were to the side and the lamb spent 4 minutes on either side. The bread went on for the second half. The ingredients were stacked — bread first, lamb second, peach on top. We pulled an arugula salad with shaved parmaggiano on the side and called it dinner.

The flavors mixed beautifully. The lamb was perfectly medium rare and its juices infused the bread. The sweet and caramel of the balsamic-drizzled peaches countered the chili and spice of the other ingredients. With the salad and the corn, the meal was a damn-near perfect explosion of local, summer flavors.

The Duck

I’d read a slew of different recipes and preparations, and none of them quite struck me. For some reason, smoking the duck seemed like the way to go. I’d been experimenting with smoking in the Weber for over a year now, and this seemed like yet another good test.

Prep started on Sunday night. I rinsed the duck off and patted it dry. In a bowl large enough to accommodate it, I combined sea salt, cracked pepper, and dry green tea leaves. In the cavity I stuffed three lemon halves. Another full lemon was squirted over the duck, and I rubbed the mixture and lemon juice to coat the skin. The bowl was covered and put in the refrigerator over night. I also began a soak of three cups of hickory chips in water and hard cider.

The next evening I fired up the Weber. When the fire was intense and the hardwood was at a searing heat, I added more charcoal (hardwood, not briquets) and then added the drained hickory chips. On the clear half of the grill, I put the drip pan and poured in a quarter bottle of cider vinegar. I put the grill top in place and closed the lid to bring the fire down a notch. (This is the one step I could have let go a little longer to get the heat down to a slower smoke.) After about ten minutes, the duck went on.

I took the liquid left from the duck’s overnight sojourn as a base for the brush sauce. I added about a cup and a half of good red wine, a splash of dijon mustard, a tablespoon of olive oil, more pepper and a couple pinches of sugar. I whisked it together and let stand. Thirty minutes in and at intervals thereafter, I brushed it on the bird.

The skin turned a perfect reddish-brown fairly quickly. At two hours, I decided to pull the duck off. The cavity had a fair amount of liquid in it from the fat and the lemons so I used tongs to pour this off in the drip pan.

The result? Excellent. The skin was perfectly crisped, but the meat was moist and flavorful. The salt, lemon, and tea had combined to balance out the smokiness nicely. Served with cauliflower mashed potatoes and a market salad of arugula, purple cabbage, and radishes, it was a brilliant meal.

There are a few tweaks I’d like to make, but this is definitely one to try again.

weekend round-up, pt. 1 — the market report

The market trip this weekend needed to be abbreviated to accommodate an errand down to The Weekend Brewer in Chester, particularly since we arrived a little later than had been planned. (Non-Buttercup weekends sometimes slip off schedule.) That said, market trips are increasingly hard to abbreviate since the market has become a complete scene. The evolution is not at all surprising, particularly as it grows. What it means, however, is that it is more difficult to get a survey of all the good stuff.

Beyond the social explosion and the lines waiting for Nate's tacos and breakfast burritos, the growing season is bringing all sorts of bounty to the market. Asparagus has given way to squash, and broccoli has given way to cucumbers. There are a whole range of beets, radishes and turnips showing up. We even have a lamb producer added to the meat vendors.

This week's roundup included:

• Arugula


• French Breakfast Radishes


• Cucumbers


• Fennel


• Purple cabbage


• Eggplant


• a duck (!) from Faith Farms

There were a few other random items too, but it's the duck that has me perplexed. I've never cooked one before and plan to smoke it today or tomorrow. Stay tuned...

In coming weeks, I hope to stretch the market report a bit. It will probably take a little more focus and punctuality, however — especially if I want to get there before Blanchard's sells out of whole beans.

comfort food and comfort days

One of my favorite meals growing up was pork chops and spätzen (or spätzle). I would eat huge quantities of them, and I doused them in salt despite my mother's admonitions to taste them first. Later, when I started cooking, spätzle were one of the first dishes I perfected.

Over the years, I have served them with Chicken Paprikas and various other delicious, fat-filled family dishes. What I never tried was a method I've read about — sauteing them in butter and oil after the initial boil. After last night's dinner, I realize what I've been missing all this time: comfort food perfection.

Spätzle are relatively easy to make — really just a blend of flour, baking powder, salt, a touch of nutmeg, two eggs, and either milk or water. The trick is forming the drops of batter and dropping them into the boiling water. I've tried ricers and I've tried colanders. Neither gets the same results as simply using a two-spoon technique learned from my mother. You take a bit of batter on one spoon and knock part of it off into the water. There's a rhythm to it. It's not a speedy process, but you end up with nicely formed spätzle.

Knowing how complicated my schedule can be and knowing that I wanted to make these anyway, I went ahead and prepped them the night before. The plan was to reheat them, but rather than just reheating them, I pulled out the old cast iron skillet and melted three tablespoons of butter and a touch of vegetable oil. I added the spätzle and turned over medium heat. The developed a perfect crust, a bit brown and a bit crunchy. Served with a caraway-coated tenderloin braised in beer and a spinach salad on the side, they were amazing. The only downside: some were a little too crispy for Banana's taste. Her loss!

TJ's and fast home-cooked meals

The latest easy-to-prepare meal turns out to be a variation on one of my mother's mainstays when I was growing up — a casserole we always called "Goo." Basically, it amounted to macaroni and some kind of sauce and meat in a casserole dish. My variation is an easy TJ's concoction. If you're only feeding a couple of people, you'll end up with at least two meals out of it as well.

Boil a pound of pasta — penne or fusilli work best. While the pasta water is coming to a boil, remove the casings from a few sweet Italian sausages — about a pound — and thoroughly brown the meat in a cast-iron skillet. When cooked, drain the meat to take some of the fat out. Let it cool while the pasta cooks. Combine the pasta, sausage and a jar of TJ's traditional marinara (shockingly good for the price and ease) in the pasta pot. Add a couple handfuls of shredded mozzarella, mix again, and pour it all into a casserole dish. Grate Parmiggiano Reggiano on top and put it in a 350º oven for twenty minutes.

Pasta : $.99
Sauce: $1.29
Sausage: $3.50
Cheese: minimal cost if you keep a stash around
Grand total: $5.78

Time of preparation: 20 minutes active; 40 minutes total.