petite tête de chou

You could include hazelnuts or pecans in breakfast-sausage patties, burgers, meatballs and stews. Saute mushrooms in bacon fat with leeks and garlic, add stock, wine and cream. Simmer. Whirl in blender. Add toasted, crushed hazelnuts and fresh thyme. Make hazelnut liqueur.

Snowman poop. click

Yup, Alaskan Brewing Co. Good stuff!

Last night we had cheeseburgers, chips and potato salad, definitely beer food! We had Michelob lager and Alaskan summer ale. Yum.

Incredible. I will now believe that even *I* can prepare a terrine. Thank you Lucy. I've seen quite a few terrines that seem to use gelatin, but I see that you didn't. Does it serve another purpose aside from holding the terrine together and adding a lovely gloss? What is "bard?" Is it used for other dishes?

The best ideas I've heard/read for marrow. Thanks Artichoke!

I don't think so -- I just believe the French perfected the art... ← I wasn't sure. Thanks!

Are there specific ingredients or preparation that make a terrine uniquely French?

Loco Moco with a green salad and iced green tea.

Slice or quarter radishes and saute in butter, finish with snipped chives and salt/pepper.

Grilling in the rain- steak, scallops and asparagus with a green salad and Harp lagers. No pictures of the finished dish- too hungry and WET!

I don't know if this applies..but I always scoop the marrow from smoked ham shanks used for stock and add it to my mirepoix for split pea and white bean soups.

My hang-over helper is a sriracha-laden bloody-mary with lots of celery sticks.

Chicken chili garnished with melted cheddar, chopped red onion and parsley/cilantro. Toasted halves of cheesy corn muffins with butter. A saute of broccoli, zucchini, asparagus tips, red bell pepper, garlic, oregano and finished with a pat of butter. Husband had a few glasses of red wine and I had beer.

I second the Higgins recommendation. click edited to add link

Yesss...! That is what I will do with the rest of the celery I have. I had never seen a head of celery like this before. I got it in my favorite Thai market. It is mostly leaves -- beautiful leaves -- with the other part of the stalks very, very skinny, and it even has some little tiny shoots of what looks like a plant going to seed, sort of blossomy. Do you know or does anyone know... is this an Asian variety of celery? I love the sounds of your entire menu! ← It sorta sounds like lovage. click

Tammy, Thank you so much for taking the time to blog. I really wasn't sure what the heck to expect from what was mentioned as being a baby-oriented blog and it has been fascinating. With regards to Liam, I found your community-living lifestyle an absolute original in my experience. It's so cool that can you can send an e-mail to your neighbors looking for stock and other ingredients. Do you folks use this communication method for other things? Such as Birthday parties, etc? Perhaps you have covered this in an earlier post but I just gotta ask what made/encouraged you to decide to live in an extraordinarily close/small community? Were you involved in the community before you had Liam? Maybe these questions aren't related to food...but I think they are by the very nature of how you live. The community meals are, I think, a foreign reality in most folks lives. Thanks, again.

I'm so glad, happy, estatic that you are blogging Kristen. Are we too late or early to see pictures of Japan's lovely cherry blossoms?

Hi Tammy, I noticed that your shopping list called for 4 cups of tahini. YOW! The 16 oz. container of tahini in my 'fridge cost about $11.00. Is yours this expensive?

Thanks for the compliments SuzySushi and Chufi. I called it my "April Withdrawls" supper. As much I love winter vegetables I.just.couldn't.take.it.anymore and craved a taste of summer, seasons be damned.

I remember it. click

Grilling in April...first time posting an image, please bear with me. Shrimp, asparagus, bread, red onion etc.

Print out this page and leave copies of it everywhere.

Gary, When I met my husband about seven years ago he wouldn't eat any type of meat except skinless, boneless chicken breast, deli cut meats, ground turkey breast, only the turkey breast on Thanksgiving (still true) and an occassional grilled steak. What can I say? He is a wonderful gent even if his taste in food was less than stellar. He wasn't raised by folks who knew how to cook and his past girlfriends were, obviously, not up to the task. That said, when he met me I had an eating disorder for about 12 years and was, alternately, vegan and vegetarian (absolutely no animal meat or seafood). So. We were quite the pair. Instead of damning us BOTH to hell I stopped the bulimia/anorexia and have loosened (considerably so) my past restrictions on food. Especially meat. I eat and cook all of the aforementioned meats. And it has been a slow process for both of us to eat a very fine cut of meat. By "very fine" I mean FATTY!! I've made slow braises with turkey legs and thighs. Steaks and chops with a ring of fat and truth be told I will nibble at the charred bits of fat before cutting most of it off and serving it to him. But he, and I, are coming along quite nicely. I love and know how to cook meat. I prefer it on the rarer side. He, of course, does not. "Cook it allll the way through, babe." -sigh- I have taken to including a bit of the fat on a chop or steak, the skin on a breast and he actually eats it. Cool. That said, I can't give you much insight on what to do in regards to cooking for yourself (the chef must be joyful in his/her endeavors) and your family. Try out lots of new spices or marinades. But this will only pacify you, the chef, and allow your family to taste only a wee bit of what is out there in terms of cuisine. Best of luck.

Potato madeleines! click