fimbul

I'm with you there. Might be the first time I've wanted to try a restaurant based on the chef's ability to use a sentence.

My faves, hands down, are the pork belly and that tomato-water bloody mary. Both are unbeatable.

I was walking down Mount Vernon Avenue in Del Ray this weekend and realized a new shop had landed without my noticing. It's Cheesetique, which promises to be a neighborhood cheese shop opening just a couple blocks from Chez fimbul. It doesn't open till 9/2/2004, but just the idea of a boutique cheese shop in Alexandria is thrilling, though I wonder about the owner's business acumen, if not his/her sense of the quixotic. I have my fingers crossed, though. Anyone know anything about this? Anyone?

Hrm. Let me guess, you guys were the four top in the corner beneath the cauliflower. Am I right? I guess the incognito thing didn't really work, then... No, no. The trenchcoat and Groucho glasses totally threw me off.

Hrm. Let me guess, you guys were the four top in the corner beneath the cauliflower. Am I right?

Good lord 'n butter, what a night! What a restaurant! My SO took me to the Tasting Room at Restaurant Eve last night to celebrate my 29th birthday, and my mind is still too full of joy and goodwill to write any sort of blow by blow description of the (nearly 4 hour) wonderful dinner we had there. I can, however, tell you everything on the nine course tasting menu was good, much of it was great, and the generosity (and savor faire) of Todd Thrasher and the staff is to be marveled at. The stand-outs, to my mind, were the wonderful game bird consomme served as an amuse, the lobster creme brulee (which I so expected not to like, but was fucking incredible), the marvelous, light, crispy sweetbreads (!!!), and the brilliant almond cake served alongside a blackberry granite in a hollowed peach. Those sweetbreads may haunt my dreams (though I remain devoted, as I told Todd, to Eve's pork belly, which is worthy of becoming the center of new religion). Jeannie, my SO, in her turn, has not quit singing the praises of the foie gras, which was served beside roasted peaches on a bit of brioche, laced, I think, with a touch of honey. She liked it better than the foie gras we had at Maestro a few weeks ago, and I'm not sure I don't agree with her. It really was a killer dish, and one hell of a way to start a meal. I was also impressed by a Belgian dessert Todd brought out for me (with a candle in it and everything) the name of which, despite his best efforts, has lodged in my brain as a "Woolly Bully." This creature was a fried puff made from flour leavened with beer yeast and served with a beer float made of Gouden Carolus Tripel with vanilla ice cream. I liked this a lot. A LOT. I want the recipe very, very badly. I realise as I write all this that I'm giving short shrift to the wines Todd brought out to us, all of which were awesome, and the names of none of which do I remember save the half bottle of Duckhorn's Paraduxx, which I adored and which complimented our venison loin perfectly. I'm also forgetting Todd's Sour Apple Martini, which was a yummy-but-scary concoction that makes me suspect Mr. Thrasher spends too much time in a laboratory beneath the streets of Old Town, surrounded by test tubes, beakers, and monkeys in cages, and muttering about how they laughed at him at the mixology institute. This was a scary drink, kids, and worth trying if you get a chance. Gah. Must stop. Must do work. My thanks to everyone at Eve. You guys rock.

I'm excited to go back to Eve no matter what, but now I'm thrilled. My darlin' just got us reservations in the Tasting Room for Monday night -- apparently the Tasting Room's a 6 days-a-week affair now. I'm already salivating.

O dear. I'm being taken back to Eve for my birthday Monday. I think I'll have to make one of those a present to myself. Awesome.

That's how I feel yet most every woman I've dated in the past 15 years has routinely offered to do my laundry... usually something along the lines of "I'm already doing laundry for myself and (the kids... my son... etc)... it's no big deal to throw a few things of yours in with it." Maybe I'm too independent but I just can't get with that. I've been doing my own laundry for aboutthe past 35 years just fine thanks. Now we move to the present - my current GF actually gets offended if she offers to do my laundry and I decline (I"m only there on visits at present until I relocate). So, in the interest of harmony, I give in. But she always wants me to do the grilling. Hunh. The conversation in my house usually runs, "I was just going to do a load of laundry, do y-" "YES! HERE! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!" The first speaker is then buried in a morass of dirty linen and abandoned. We alternate filling the above roles. Doing laundry is something we both abhore, not really a matter of principle. It may make a difference, though, that we were both born in 1975 -- any notions of domestic roles we might have inherited are so muddled, we just make up our own rules. I'm okay with this, and so is she.

My girlfriend's man cooks. When GF and I started dating (6 years ago), she cooked, and I baked bread, or the occasional cookie. Then, I began to cook the odd fancypants meal on weekends. Over time, as the cooking bug has taken hold and I've gotten better and faster, the deal has evolved so that now I cook most weeknights and she cooks the (often more elaborate) weekend meals. I think I enjoy the thrill of buying ingredients and producing something decent from them in the two hours I have after work before I go *FLOOMP* and cease to be a human being. I am, if I say so, pretty good. If we're cooking for company, we cook together, which is fun. In such cases she more often ends up practising The Black Arts (baking), while I stick to the savory foods. Some crossover does occur there, though, because she claims that pastry cooks get no glory.

I think less salt is good. I give mine a good rub with kosher salt, rather than burying them entirely, and I rub/rinse them off before cooking. edit: And keep that fat! It's marvelous stuff, good for potatoes and even for cooking the odd pork chop or fish fillet.

Too late, I know, for your reservations, but I think your mother-in-law would like it. I've been impressed, the two times I've been to Nectar, by how uncomplicated it all is. "Stupid simple," was how Mr. Slipp described their cooking to me when I asked him a question about how the duck breast I was munching had been prepared.

You think so, do you? All my "training" has accomplished so far is that my cat thinks his name is"AAAAAAARGH! YOU FUCKING BASTARD!" and associates a squished paw/tail with spilled food.

okay, but all I can offer is boiled cat.

Hey everybody! Go bug NeroW in the kitchen -- she'll give you a fat joint! Bugger. I wanted wine. I'll be in hathor's kitchen.

Hrm. I don't mind talking, yelling, music blaring, or any other assorted distractions in the kitchen, so long as I'm not in a frame of mind that allows me to find these distractions, well, distracting. When I'm distracted, I can usually say, tersely but politely, "Not now." or "shut up." or "die, blabbermouth!" as the situation merits. There are, however, two things that annoy me without fail in my (home) kitchen: the first are the errant guests who position themselves in front of my stove/oven when they know (or should know) damn good and well that thar's food in that thar stove, and I need to get at it. The second is small, four-footed, furry, and says "moo." (I dunno why, ask him.) goes by the name of Behemoth. His greatest joy in life is to twine himself about my legs just as I pick up a pot of boiling water or a chef's knife. I think it's a murder/suicide thing. Or he's an action cat. Either way, one day, he will be the death of one or both of us. edit: some days, you can write. other days, you just throw letters up on the screen and hope they stick in manner that makes the sense.

Based on a single visit, Vermillion on King Street seemed to serve better than your average tourist-fare. Over more in my neck of the woods, in Del Ray, I second the vote for Taqueria el Poblano and can't say enough good things about the Bombay Curry Company. (I onced asked for the Chicken Kadai extra spicy -- don't do that.) The Evening Star (the original restaurant of the folks who brought us Vermillion) is so wildy inconsistent that I treat a meal there as an evening spent gambling rather than Having Dinner Out, but I've had good meals there.

Oh, I think I'd only start worrying if the folks at CI ever agreed with my opinions. I'm just surprised at the "dull blade" comment, because mine was so sharp I sliced through my dish sponge the first time I washed it. But that's interesting about having to sharpen brand new knives -- I never knew that. Is it because the manufacturers don't put a final edge on them on purpose, or that they aren't stored properly, or some other reason? The folks who tell you that new knives need to be sharpened right out of the box are generally, in my experience, real knife nuts. Most folks I know find their knives are never as sharp as when they're new, because they neglect their knives from then on. I think "sharp enough" is a fairly relative state of mind.

The work involved in putting away a real bouillabaisse is worth all the effort because the sum-of-its-parts payoff is so incredible. But this must be enjoyed with friends and lots of wine. I agree wholeheartedly, I enjoy the long cooking process of making a stock, cassoulet, paella, etc (It's how I relax) These dishes are pretty much ready to go when served. I guess it's when I'm faced with hunger pangs and am unable to gorge myself at a reasonable rate Indeed, I think it depends on one's mindset. Somedays, I love the work and mess involved in eating smaller, fiddly foods. Then, other days, I find myself sitting in front of a quail roasted whole and I think, "O, come ON! I don't wanna mess with this!"

I dunno exact numbers, but, from my experience a tablespoon of powdered agar agar will gel anything that's not too acidic. I use "a pinch" to gel a "a cup or three," depending. I should note I only play with the stuff in a dilletantish, Mr. Wizard wanna-be way. After getting excited about the possibilities of the stuff, I remembered, "O yeah. I fuckin' HATE Jello." That said, I did find a use for jello recently. I made spring rolls of braised rabbit, slow-roasted tomatoes, and fennel, and used agar agar to gel tomato water enough to make it a dipping sauce. I added a tiny sprinkle of the stuff to a cup of tomato water spiked with sea salt and a drop of white wine vinegar, heated the solution just to boiling, and let it set a bit. Then I pureed the gel to soften it up into a saucey-sorta thing.

Every summer I play around with what originally was a warm poblano soup, but has morphed into a tomatillo-chile thing. Um. The recipe below is less a recipe than a translation into English from the language known as Seat-of-the-Pants or Littleo'this-Littleo'that. Finely chop several (8 largish?) poblanos. Finely chop a clove of garlic and half a white onion. Sweat onions and garlic in butter in a large pot until translucent, then add the poblanos and some salt to the pot. Sweat until softening, then add chicken stock, water, or a combo to cover. Cook until tender. Meanwhile, pull the husks off a half dozen medium-sized tomatillos and roast them in a heavy pan until soft and blackened. Add a serrano to the pan if you like more heat. Working in batches, puree the chile mixture with the tomatillos in a belnder. Add salt and lime juice to taste, and a handfull of cilantro leaves, if desired. Strain through a seive and chill. To serve, thicken the soup with cream, yogurt, sour cream, or a mixture, and adjust seasoning to taste. I always garnish with a dollop of sour cream, cilantro, and a sprinkling of ground ancho or chipotle chiles.

Eh, who knows. My rabbits might have been from Perigord.

Oddly enough, the last two rabbit I cooked had livers of a size nearly equal to their loins. Is this an oddity? Did I have heavy drinking rabbits? At any rate, from two rabbits I got two large livers, 3 kidneys the size of gizzards from a 3.5lb. chicken, and two hearts a tad smaller than those. I ended up using the hearts in the stockpot, the livers for my (spoiled) cat, and the kidneys in a sauce, but I'd think, given the richness of organ meats, that you could make a meal for two from two or three bunnies. Am I nuts?

I'm in Alexandria/Arlington, VA. The local Whole Foods sells whole bunnies, though they come sans blood.

For what it's worth, I've had some troubles with brined poultry myself. I've taken to simply rubbing a whole bird well with sea salt a few hours before I roast it. When I'm cooking pieces, I rarely bother to do anything at all, since I usually cook dark meat, which needs very little extra to oomph it up. My other great disappointment is brined pork tenderloin. I find if I'm using decent pork, the brine's not really needed, and, if I'm using supermarket pork, brining tenderloin makes it taste like cheap ham. I suspect the fault there lies in the fact that most supermarket pork is already injected with some salt water nonsense.