hillvalley

Forgive me, I grew up Methodist. What's all this about fish in the bathtub?? First, I must say that one of my favorite books as a kid was The Carp in The Bathtub. To explain the fish in the bathtub....as my mom tells it, every year before Rosh Hashana and Passover my great-grandmother (who lived with my mom's family) would make gefilte fish. A dead fish wouldn't do. Rather, Bubbe went to the fish market and selected a live fish which she brought home and dumped into the bathtub where she would proceed to fatten it up further. Once she was satisfied with the fish's weight gain, she would kill and gut it. And then turn it into gefilte fish. Now, since the fish would reside in the tub for a week or two, my mom and her sisters would develop an attachment to the fish (they didn't have pets), so the slaughter was quite traumatic. My father tells a similar story about his mom. Nowadays people either buy fish filets and grind it themselves, or cheat at buy pre-made frozen loaves which are boiled with aromatics. If they're really lazy, they buy it in a jar. Same story in my house, just a generation later. They also loved the fish because it lived in the only bathtub in the house, so bath's that week. Now Grandma makes a special trip to a fishmonger she has gone to for years. She picks out a whole fish, but he cleans and guts it for her. She also picks up extra fish heads to simmer in the pot. You can check out the book here.

Wow, the upgrade is great! We have hit 22 degrees! I am sipping a cup of raspberry tea as I get ready for a day of cooking. I am planning to make chicken stock, meatballs and some polenta. Before I got sick I realized I have never made meatballs before, and this is the first chance I have had. Any tips?

Yep! I am craving powdered mini donughts. I'm not going to go outside to get some tomorrow either! Going to go eat some chocolate instead.

I can tell you with absolute belief that it used to swim in my grandmother's bathtub. Nowadays -- ??? I suppose it must have migrated. Grandma always had a carp in the bathtub twice a year, Passover and Rosh Hashanah. I bring in my copy of the book into school every spring and read it to my class. Then we draw pictures of the carp in the bathtub.

I'm actually worried about a couple of my kids. Keeping warm is expensive the month after Christmas.

I live on the wild side. I eat beef during Code Orange.

I forgot to mention that I picked up some basil this afternoon. I love the smell of basil, and this smelled like sad basil. At dinner tonight I came clean to Emme. She said it was okay, as long I don't make it a habit.

So when Emme found out I was doing this blog her reply was "But you never eat!"

This post is dedicated to my friend Emme-lou (if she can find it!). I love ya bubbie, no matter what! Some day while lounging in St. Martin we'll tell our daughters about when we were single and poor. We braved the arctic air for dinner tonight. There are very few people in the world I would do that for, and Emme is one. Before heading out we had a variety of stinky cheeses and a glass of chablis. A peppercorn pecorino, a blue cheese, camambert and a tripple cream hard cheese. I liked the tripple cream best, which is odd since it had the simplest flavor. It just tasted like cheese. When I think of a good, hard cheese, this is the taste I think of. But after a day of eating chocolate, it was perfect. We ate an organic Italian restaurant on U street called Coppi's. It is a small restaurant, with only about 40 seats. Everything that is cooked is done so by a wood oven. There is no gas oven and I think no stove. The menu is mainly pasta and pizza. Most dishes have organic ingredients. Emme grew their vegetables and stacks their wood. There is nothing like eating great food that was grown by a friend. We started with friend (how Freudian, I meant to type fried) parsnips. Now normally I'm not such a fan of parsnips. Sure, they are great for stock, but I never would just eat them. But Emme had grown the parsnips and she wanted to try it. When a farmer tells you to eat their vegetables, you listen. They were unbelievable. One of the best vegetable dishes I have ever eaten. The parshnips were sliced lengthwise and fried in olive oil. They were sweet and salty and crisp. The flavor of the olive oil lingered after the parsnip was gone. Every few pites had fresh cracked pepper which was just enough. I would have prefered that they were crispier, but you can't have everything. The pizza we split was fine, but no where near the pasnips. It was a pancetta, red onion and mozerrella cheese with rosemary and olive oil. The red onion and pancetta played off each other nicely, although the pancetta was much stronger than the onion. The panchetta was sliced thin which left big slices on the pizza. Personally I would have prefered that the pancetta was julienned or diced. It would have been easier to eat. There was not nearly enough rosemary, which I could barely taste. I added cracked group pepper, which added a little bite. The crust was good enough to finish, which I don't normally do. Since we were eating on a budget, which we sort of forgot about while ordering, we skipped dessert. My M&M's await!

The cold hit here Wednesday. Three days before it was 70! Go figure.

We ended up at Coppi's on U street. I reviewed it here. Thanks for all the suggestions. She will be there for a while so I will report back on any we try.

Yeah, I usually try to avoid AM but my friend is house sitting there, and the house has a garage so I can drive down. Frankly I would rather stay in, but oh well. I wanted to do Ethiopian, but she doesn't like it. We'll see......

Hey, we are up to a balmy 17 degrees! Never made it to market, which is annyoing.I just realized all I have eaten today were a grande-decaf-extra foam-whole milk vanilla latte and two piece of chocolate. No wonder I am so cranky and unmotivated to go out tonight! Most weekends I work at camp fairs all afternoon and this morning I was too nausaus to eat. Nausea is a regular part of my daily life, but combined with the cold and the fact that it is the middle of January makes it worse. Stopped at Fresh Fields on my home to pick up a bunch of things. There are three different things I want to cook tomorrow and needed some last minute supplies. One of the best parts of my job is that I can hit the grocerys tores on my way home from work before anyone else does. I am not used to crowded stores.

I am suppose to have dinner with a friend in Adams Morgan tonight and need some place cheap but good. Less than $20 (not including drinks) would be great. We are adventurous eaters, so we'll try anything once!

One of the local stations followed his Nascar career pretty closely of the last decade. Football is one of the few things that brings people together, and this city could use something good right about now. By the way, it's 10 outside. My only comfort is that it seems like it is cold all across the country! Last night's truffle was white chocolate peppermint. The filling was pure peppermint and the white chocolate also had peppermint in it. Tasted like a fancy, creamier Peppermint Patty. yummmmmm I had hoped to get to market this morning to pick up some carrotts and onions for my soup tomorrow, but that never happened. It's just too cold. I'll swing by on my way to work and see if there is anything left.

When I was in middle school my best friend and I used to go to the Godiva boutique in Georgetown and buy the little boxes that held two pieces. We hid them in our desk and at them at lunch.

Oh yeah, I forgot. The Godiva thread reminded me that I forgot to mention two more truffles. One was a coconut and the other is described on the Godiva thread. I'll probably have another tonight. I'll probably eat some Valentine M&M's too.

Such a let down to the end of a good week. Now, to top it off, I think my cold is coming back. At least I have a chicken for soup. I should jazz my recipe up at bit. It is 18 outside, which is absurd. Congress should pass a bill making it illegal to be this cold. By the way, my favorite way to end the week used to include watching A Cook's tour Friday night but.....oh well. I'm listening to Beth Orton's The Other Side of Daybreak. Tracks 1 and 3 are my favorite.

So that's what that was! I thought I tasted hazelnut. Not that impressed. I'm going through a six piece box. Haven't found a great one yet.

Dinner was so bad that I am not going to bother posting the picture. I picked up ribs, greens, black eyed peas and rice, and cornbread from a local place. They were awful. Everything was over salted and the ribs were full of fat. I am so pissed.

All is once again right in his world. In fact, people are smiling a lot more the past few days around here. It's as if we opened the shower curtain and and there was Bobby, showering. The past 11 years never happened. At least on the football field....... I half expect to see traffic on the way back to RFK next fall..... For those of you outside of the DC metro area click here.

I forgot to talk about the Pom. Last night I had about 1/4 of the bottled. It tasted like very intense pure cranberry juice. It was fine, but not worth the money. I was dissappointed. Tonight, it's a whole new story. Combine with some Vanilla Stoli and Sprite. The vanilla compliments the pomergranate beautifully. It would look great in a martini glass, if I had one.

When I was little I hated gefiltefish. My grandmother made it from scratch, heads and all, although the fish didn't live in the bathtub. One Passover, when I was six or seven, I looked at my mother's plate and decided it looked good. Ate three or four pieces that year and have ever since. Until a couple of years ago..... Just as suddenly as I started liking gefiltefish, I stopped. But Grandma, who is very old and the only Grandparent left, still makes it just for me and my cousin. So I eat three or four pieces. With lots and lots of horseradish.

Don't forget to take notes for your book!

Fennel tea? How interesting. Do you make it or is it something that you can buy? Just boil some water with fennel seeds in it. You have to buy the fennel seeds if you don't have some around the house, but that's it. I'll have to pick up some seeds this weekend. Still no luck in the hunt for basil. I want to try it before the end of the blog, but it doesn't look like that will happen. This afternoon I tried the Eastern Market, but my produce guy, Mr. P, was out. I got a chicken from Mel, the chicken man to make soup with this weekend. Growing up my family did most of their shopping there. Mel, Mr. P and the woman who ran the bakery (I can't think of ther name) were regular parts of my life. If you ever come to DC, visit on a weekend morning. It is the best way I know to spend a Saturday morning. Buy vegetables from the people who grew them, taste a piece of cheese at the cheese stand, find out how the Skins are doing from Mel. In the shadow of the country's Capitol is this amazing market that is the centerpiece of a neighborhod tourists never see. Rereading that I realize I have watched too many The Best Of on FTV (nothing else on now that A Cook's Tour is gone). We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.