SobaAddict70

I occasionally stick a bag of spiced almond chai or vanilla/chamomile in the oatmeal. Makes for a great flavor-upper. Also coconut milk in place of regular milk.

Almost forgot. Olney's pumpkin gratin in Simple French Food. Works with kabocha squash btw. Cut pumpkin or squash into chunks. Olney stipulates 1/4" cubes but I prefer larger pieces, plus my knife skills aren't very good. Combine with chopped garlic, minced parsley, salt and pepper. Sprinkle a little flour and stir to make sure chunks are well-coated. A friend of mine substitutes panko bread crumbs instead of flour. Oil a shallow baking dish or gratin dish. Add squash mixture, drizzle with some more olive oil. Cook for 2 to 2 1/2 hours in a pre-heated 325 to 350 F oven or until crust has transformed to a tawny golden-brown. Gratin is done when the chunks hold their shape but are near-purée at the touch of a fork.

Cut into chunks, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, then roast them. Combine roasted pumpkin with crumbled pork sausage and serve with ricotta gnocchi. Or by itself. Edit: spelling

Pasta with chickpeas, parsley, garlic and lemon. The powdery pale-white stuff is Parm-Reg cheese. I'll post the writeup on the blog later. The recipe uses A LOT of parsley, about 1 1/2 bunches worth.

Heh. In the shot above, the light is coming from the left from about 10 to 15 feet away. I had two lamps at a 20 degree angle focusing slightly off-center off the plate. I took about 40 pictures from a variety of angles, including some overhead shots. I didn't use most of those, partially because of the glare. Black plates tend to reflect too much light, something I can't fix using Picasa. The light bulbs are your typical 60 watt bulbs that GE makes. You can get them from any supermarket I imagine. Nothing fancy.

Thanks for the kind words. I have a studio set up arrangement at home. It's really nothing more than a couple of adjustable lamps and overhead lights that I can rotate, depending on the amount of light that I want to throw onto or deflect from the food.

Baked shrimp, with garlic, parsley and potatoes Takes about 40 minutes from start to finish. Perfect with a glass of white wine. Brine 1/2 lb. peeled medium shrimp in 1 cup cold water + 1 tablespoon kosher salt. Set aside for 20 minutes, then drain and pat dry with paper towels. Prepare roast potatoes as you would normally -- I usually quarter baby Yukon Gold potatoes, drizzle with salt, pepper, chopped garlic and olive oil, then roast at 350 F in a roasting pan or Pyrex baking dish. Takes about 40 minutes if I were just making roast potatoes and nothing else. Roughly 2/3 of the way through cooking the potatoes, add the shrimp to the pan. Stir. Return pan to the oven and cook until shrimp are done, about 10 minutes. Basically add the shrimp until close to the last few minutes. Finish with chopped parsley. It occurs to me that the addition of tomato confit and some kind of soft cheese like feta or manouri would seriously ramp up this dish. I'll be making it again, and soon.

For me, less is more. Garlic, anchovy, tomatoes, red pepper flakes or crushed dried chile. Olive oil. Olives if I happen to have any around. Parsley to finish. No capers.

This has become my favorite middle tier Japanese restaurant in the city. They're doing things that no other similar place in the neighborhood is that I know of. A recent dinner involved a bento box featuring sliced lotus root in a miso broth, salt-baked mackerel, cubes of kabocha squash simmered in mirin and soy and luscious chunks of tatsuta age (batter-fried marinated chicken) in a perfectly crispy, greaseless coating. Even the ginger-carrot dressing, that ubiquitous salad dressing tastes different. Here it's more piquant and less sweet, and the ginger is more pronounced. I'm happily eating my way through their menu. I want to see what their chirashi looks like. They have a variation of chirashi, called bara-chirashi which is apparently cooked fish and vegetables/pickles, mixed into sushi rice. http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/gajyumaru/ for the NY Mag review capsule. 1659 First Avenue (East 86th Street)

For the past two years, I've been getting together with friends in TriBeCa for a decidedly non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Last year's menu was: Rancho Gordo Mayacoba and Rio Zape beans, posole,... and wild rice, plus brown rice and onions caramelized in bacon fat; Sautéed squid (marinated with olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes); Baked delicata squash rings with butter, Rancho Gordo New Mexico chile powder, and maple sugar; Green chard sautéed in duck fat; Spicy mac ‘n’ cheese (1/2 pound of habanero cheddar, 1/4 pound of extra sharp, plus many other cheeses all added to the white sauce base, which began with almost a whole large onion sweated in the butter and seasoned with nutmeg, Old Bay, and dry mustard, and topped with cheese/cheese cracker crumbs); Sliced avocado and homemade pickled onion; Homemade salsa verde; Salsa roja/pico de gallo of canned and soft-dried tomatoes, onion, jalapeño, garlic, cilantro, fish sauce, rice vinegar; Mixed lettuce, cucumber, grape tomato, red bell pepper salad with olive oil and homemade tarragon vinegar; Sachertorte (my contribution); Chocolate cinnamon ice cream; Almond butter cookies Coffee, tea and too many wines to remember. This year's menu is still being worked on. I'm making a quick tomato confit the night before (my contribution to the dinner). Will report back after the feasting.

Agreed. When your most popular establishments are places that serve ... meatballs, devilled eggs, pork belly and cocktails, you go into waiting mode.

Their turkey sandwich is well-made but not particularly exciting. That's not the fault of the restaurant ... I don't particularly care for turkey in general. That being said, I ordered it because I'd heard so much about it that I had to try it. As for dinner, I haven't been there yet. I have read elsewhere that in terms of dining well, the quality of food at Torrisi is not much more than what one can produce if one were a home cook with higher than average skill. That's not quite the kind of thing I want to hear when I'm considering dining out at a place that has upwards of a 60 to 90-minute wait for a table.

Fry up some chopped garlic, lots of sliced fresh chiles (as many as you can stand) and some mustard seeds in ghee, then add thinly sliced broccoli (stalks and florets). Salt to taste. Serve with steamed rice. This is also great with cauliflower or cabbage.

I have a Coolpix. It's a Nikon L3. Not a very good camera when if you believe ratings guides because of the time it takes to properly load, in addition to the on-screen opening animation. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I can already hear Blether gasp in horror -- I don't use a tripod. Never have. Oh sure, I *should* probably use one and it might improve my photography somewhat, but I'm satisfied with the material I'm producing. It's not magazine quality material but I'm not shooting for a professional publication. And the only person I need to satisfy is myself. On the other hand, lighting is key. A photo of a dish that's not presented very well can be touched up quite a bit during the post-photo processing phase (using Picasa or similar software) and you will find that some improvement will come through IF the light is adequate. However nothing can save your photo if the light looks washed out, too dim or worse, if it appears that you used flash when in fact you did not. For an example of what I'm talking about, compare this photo with this pic None of the pix were taken using flash, however the top pic makes it appear as if I did. A professional food stylist friend of mine says that it appears that I used flash because it looks washed out and flat. He even goes so far as to recommend getting a key light and a fill light (in other words, one light source that is dominant from whatever angle you choose, and a fill light source to soften and lighten the shadows cast by your key light source). He's technically correct but I'm don't bother because by the time I'm done futzing with stuff, the food is cold and someone has to eat it. By the way, closeup shots look better especially if there's detail work involved (i.e., Indian food with lots of visible spices). I'm late for a meeting, otherwise I'd post an example now. I'm going to put myself out there (possibly exposing myself to criticism) by saying you don't NEED a super-expensive camera to take quality photographs. There are things that a good camera can do, like taking photos in low-light settings (i.e., restaurants) where flash would be intrusive. But for my purposes, my Nikon suits me just fine. What you do need however is great lighting, a little knowledge (from forums such as this one) and some experience (which comes with time).

I have a little over 20, but the funny thing is I don't use them as much as I should. They're mostly for ideas (and the occasional instruction, like this past weekend's scrambled eggs with lobster (never cooked a lobster before)). I take inspiration from a variety of sources ... mostly from outings to restaurants and cooking blogs. Most are vegetarian-friendly. I wonder if that's a subconscious decision. I'll never be a vegetarian but my eating has been trending in that direction for the past several years.

Scrambled eggs, with crème fraiche, lobster and lobster roe. This was made using the double-boiler method. More labor intensive than usual, but it produces extraordinarily creamy and consistent results.

Chicken stock.

Sautéed shrimp, with chanterelle mushrooms and frisée Credit to Marc Murphy, of Landmarc in NYC for the inspiration.

All stoves are different, so you should adjust for your individual appliance. My stove is a little quirky. I suppose medium-low is probably more accurate. As for roasted vs. unroasted, there is a distinct difference. It's hard to describe. A friend of mine, speaking about black peppercorns, once told me that the worst thing you could do would be to have the peppercorns "catch your throat". In other words, the spices should be pleasantly warm/hot to taste, but not have a "rawness" to them. A tip: some recipes will instruct you to roast the spices collectively. I prefer to roast them separately. If you're going by the fragrance test, this is probably the better route to go.

Chiles -- if I'm making garam masala or a mole. Cinnamon -- ditto, also excellent as a flavoring base for gelato or ice cream Cardamom (either green or black), shajeera (black cumin), peppercorns, cloves -- for garam masala Easiest for me is if I pan-roast them. Place in a skillet, heat over a medium flame and roast for 6 to 8 minutes. Stir occasionally. You will be tempted to accelerate the roasting process by turning up the heat. Resist this temptation ... it's better to slowly roast them than to have the spices darken on their exterior and remain "raw" inside. Let cool, then grind in a spice grinder, coffee grinder or mortar/pestle.

Dakki, thanks. I was with friends so I couldn't exactly take as much time as I normally do when I shoot food. Blether ... heh.

Summer vegetable tian. This version has three types of heirloom tomatoes, along with eggplant, zucchini and onion. Closeup shot. The spindly things are rosemary needles.

No flash -0.3 exposure Adjustable overhead halogen lamp at left I could probably have used some reflectors to soften the lighting on the right side of the bowl -- or at least, lessen the glare -- hence why the picture is cropped. One of the better pix I've taken in a restaurant setting ... I would kill for this kind of light at home.

Leftovers, however this was served as an appetizer: Herbed goat's milk ricotta cheese, with heirloom tomato confit Ricotta cheese: Mix 1 cup fresh ricotta with 1 tablespoon each chopped tarragon and garlic chives, along with a pinch of salt. Set aside and chill for an hour. Tomato confit: Halve 1 pint heirloom cherry tomatoes (I used a mix of Sungold and Yellow Pear); peel 3-4 cloves of garlic. Combine in a baking dish or roasting pan along with 2-3 bay leaves, salt, black pepper and olive oil. Roast for one hour at 325 F. To assemble, spoon cheese in the center of a plate or shallow soup bowl. Top with tomato confit (and chopped herbs, if you like). Serve at once.

Purée it, add some butter, nutmeg and creme fraiche. Leftovers are great, plus you can use this as the base for a soufflé. Steam it, then sauté in butter or ghee; toss with capers, lemon juice, lemon zest and tarragon.