fimbul

Right now I'm running through Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog). Not specifically food related, but food is mentioned an awful lot. A certain perverse tin of pineapple springs to mind.... Also just started listening to audio tapes of Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander during my daily commute. Some interesting discussion of meals so far, which is fun, since I know little of the cuisine of that era.

I wear a chef's apron, with a towel tucked into the side. Not all the time, though, usually when I know I'm going to be doing marathon cooking over the course of several hours. If I'm just sauteeing a pork chop I don't bother. I cook most nights in jeans and a t-shirt. I own a chef's jacket because I have to have one for cooking classes, but the damn thing is so hot I don't bother with it at home. Even in class I roll up the sleeves.

Whoa! Skimming this thread again, I thought you said: "I also make my own marijuana sauce. 'cause who doesn't? Is bong water one of the mother sauces now? Hunh.

Just last night my girlfriend and I showed up at her parents' with a gift: duck "prosciutto," i.e., cured duck breast. The looks we got were somewhere between confusion and abject terror. Both her mom and dad ate one slice to be polite, the rest went untouched (except by my girlfriend and me -- it was good stuff).

Wednesday night: - Seared beef "tartare" on diced tomatoes and romaine - green beans sauteed with scallions, sprinkled with ground sumac and ancho chile powder - pan-roasted chicken legs with cilantro-habanero sauce - julienned roasted red peppers with chives This was a good, and very pretty, meal. Thursday night: - seared rack of lamb, briefly marinated in buttermilk, lemon juice, raz-al-hanout, and mint - green and yellow squash with pureed tomato and chiles - mushrooms sauteed with bacon and thyme - a large salad of arugula and spinach with red grapes, red onions, diced cucumber, and a tomato-sherry vinaigrette.

No inspiration for Monday night, so I bought a chicken and some tortillas. Finally ended up serving: - thinly-sliced, sauteed, skin-on chicken breast --with salsa fresca, guacamole, and a killer homemade hot sauce-- in tortillas - pan-grilled asparagus - spinach salad. Served the wings as appetizers, threw the caracass in the freezer with the other for stock, fed the liver to the cat, and saved the legs for another night.

Friday night: - Rabbit loin wrapped around sauteed scallions. - pasta (mini- lasagna) with a sauce of braised rabbit legs and shiitake mushrooms. - suteed leeks - green salad with julienned red peppers, diced cucumbers and duck confit Sunday night (Father's Day): - lamb curry - basmati rice - steamed green beans - chipatas

The strangest food book in my collection is easily the one written by Vincent Price and his wife. I forget its title... A Treasury of Great Recipes perhaps?

Cool! Thanks. I think I'll skip the vinegar trick, though. No point in doing simply what can be done with great difficulty and lots of swearing. (<-- I learned this from my dad.) My cat was very nearly renamed Asshat the other week. It's a wunnerfully useful term.

Er... I'm about to. I just ran out and bought two boxes (24 in each) of quail eggs at a closer Asian market. I must confess my imagination had skipped straight to the bit where the eggs are already peeled. I had given nary a thought to the actual peeling itself. Ah well. My girlfriend's away tonight, so it looks as though I'm in for a nice quiet evening of quail egg-shucking and tv watching. Um. Yay? edit: Me fail English? That's unpossible!

So, I've been commssioned to make an appetizer or two for a friend's cook-out tomorrow. And, after trying to come up with a fun idea, I finally gave up. I figured I'd do boring old tabouleh and make a couple of salsa and bring chips. And I started reading this thread, and thinking about devilled eggs. And I remembered all the enormous, cheap boxes of quail eggs I saw --but did not buy-- at the Asian grocery store yesterday. I'm kicking myself for not buying the things. And it's too far to get to today. But devilled quail eggs would've been a neat trick, since I doubt if many of the folks who'll be at this party have ever eaten a quail egg in their lives. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Thursday night: - seared skirt steak with anch-chipotle sour cream and orange-habanero salsa - wilted spinach (cooked in the pan in which I'd seared the steak) with a touch of mushroom stock and a handful of toasted pepitos - green salad with chiffonaded endive and red pepper with a sherry vinaigrette. Tonight is looking like I'm going to leave work early to prepare pasta with a sauce of mushrooms and rabbit. I'm looking forward to it. It's been a loooong week.

Monday night's dinner was produced in about 5 minutes after a long, long day. It was: - Roasted pork tenderloin that had been quickly marinated in hoisin and chipotle Tabasco sauce with shoyu, ginger, and rice vinegar thrown in for fun - asparagus with balsamic - tomato - red onion vinaigrette - green salad with white wine vinaigrette With a bottle of Greek white wine. Eh.

So, my girlfriend and I catered a party for my mother on Saturday night. It was a fairly big to-do, and beside the ham biscuits, cocktail shrimp and sauces, and cheeses she'd put out, I served: - Grilled, marinated duck breast served on cilantro biscuits (marinated duck breast in rum, mint, tamarind, and habanero; biscuits were buttermilk biscuits spiked with ancho and cilantro) - Phyllo triangles filled with chicken and preserved lemon (poached chicken legs ground with caramelized onions, raz-al-hanout, and preserved lemon wrapped in phyllo and brushed with clarified butter) - Goat cheese tartlets (a custard of goat cheese, cream, egg, and shallots in a prepared phyllo cup) - Cucumber cups filled with feta and mint (er, what it sounds like) - Tomato, mozzarella, & basil skewers (absurd & precious, but people loved them: halve a grape tomato, run one half on a tooth pick followed by a piece of basil and a piece of cheese; add second half of grape tomato to make a more or less whole tomato on a stick. Repeat one gabillion times) - Vanilla truffle squares (white chocolate. butter. vanilla. gah.) - Mexican dark chocolate truffles (dark chocolate. orange. cream. butter. dusting of cinnamon.) - Hazelnut toffee (butter. butter. butter. sugar. chocolate. hazelnuts.) - Black pepper & almond biscotti (er... an experiment. I forgot I hate biscotti.) ...It occurs to me now that cocktail fare may not really belong in the dinner thread, but for most of the guests, this was indeed their evening meal, so I guess it counts. Last night we cooked more simply: - pasta with a North African take on pesto (mint, sheep's milk cheese, marjoram, etc.) - sirloin steak marinated in preserved lemon and yogurt, with a yogurt sauce on the side - squash sauteed with garlic and a chile or two - green salad with a white wine vinaigrette Then we fell over.

I don't get it either. But I'm damned if I'll ever let him near my fruit basket.

My girlfriend and I rarely go out to dinner, since we'd almost always rather cook for ourselves. We're pretty good cooks, and we often just like our food better than J. Random Chef's. When we do go out, it's either a special occasion and we go somewhere fairly fancypants, or it's because we're crazy-busy/exhausted/nearly dead -- and we go to the Indian place up the street or the (sorta) Mexican place around the corner. (Both places have very good food, so it's no skin off our noses.) Lunch is a different story. My SO usually eats leftovers or nibbles on fruit, yogurt, and juice. I eat leftovers or salads when I can, but I'm often pressed to go out by co-workers, so I end up eating out or ordering take-out. I'd rather avoid this, but, sometimes that's easier said than done. That said, I'm trying to go out to dinner just a little more often, just to see what's out there. So many ideas to steal, so little time (and money)....

I'm sorta kinda catering a party for my mom this weekend, so I'm up to my eyeballs in food for others. I did, however, find time last night to cook for myself, though things were a bit slapdash: --Boneless country-style pork "ribs" (cut from the shoulder, if I understood the butcher rightly) marinated overnight in tomato and ancho paste with a hint of star anise and achiote and grilled. --Serrano salsa (a dozen serrano chiles charred on a griddle, then thrown in a blender with half a white onion, a large handful of cilantro, salt, 2 cloves of toasted garlic, the juice of half an ugli fruit, and the juice of a lime). -green beans tossed with a teaspoon of duck fat. -Belgian endive sauteed in duck fat, then tossed with an orange-mustard-tomato vinaigrette. Dessert was a little toffee, a few chocolate truffles, and a few nibbles of duck fat. My kitchen is a warzone. Fats vie for supremacy on every surface. I love it. edit: I can speel!

Ha ha! Silly git. I threw several huge mixer-bowls full of scraps onto my compost heap. I'm thinking about asking my Chef if I can start taking the scraps home from school. Our class, what with the tourne, produces a LOT of scraps lately. O, the things I'd give for a compost heap. I'm told, however, our yard is too small, and that the space we do have is needed to carry out some sort of master plan. The cat and I cower in anxious anticipation.

They're both Belgian style Ales. The Chimay is perhaps my second favorite Tripel (after only the Westmalle). It is an absolute classic and well worth seeking out. The Golden Monkey is a US made Belgian style Tripel. It's a good deal (quite a bit cheaper than the true Belgians) but IMHO has some weaknesses in terms of execution against the style. A good beer, but not on par with the true Belgians or the top American Belgian style ales (Allagash and Ommegang for example). Hunh. I like Golden Monkey (in the 750 ml bottle at least) far better than anything I've had from Ommegang or Allagash. The latter two always seem to fail me at the finish. *shrug* Victory's V-10 is also very, very good. It's another Belgian inspired (strong) ale. It's worth seeking out if you've not had it. Damn. Now I have this craving....

I tried, once, just to be a silly git. Trouble is, to get good at tourneing, you need lots of practice, and damn me if I'm going to waste a whole sack of potatos just so I can say, "Hey! Honey, c'mere and look at this!" * One day, though, I'll try it again. And, yeah, it was the 7 sides that got me too. Apparently, that number was chosen to inspire maximum anguish. * I know the scraps can be turned into part of a meal, but I'd produce a lot of scraps, and my house contains just the two humans (the cat hates spuds). Home cooks can't really save and use scraps the way commercial kitchens or cooking schools can.

I went there a few moths back. If I recall correctly, my thoughts mostly echoed yours: it was a fun experience, but pricey, and the food was not much to write home about. I too like Moroccan food, or at least other examples of it I've had, so I was pretty keenly disappointed not to enjoy the meal more. The b'stilla, in particular, stick in my memory as being inedible; it was gummy and oversweet and just plain bad. But, yeah, the bellydancing was awesome.

Sunday: Boneless leg of lamb roasted on a bed of brunoised fennel, carrots, and onions spiked with cherry peppers, rosemary, and orange zest. (This was very good, if I do say so myself.) Royal trumpet mushrooms sauteed in bacon fat and sprinkled with chives. Spinach cooked with tamarind and pumpkin seeds. Monday: Bone-in pork loin chops marinated in lemongrass and fish sauce, then seared and bunged in the oven for a moment. Green beans blanched and sauteed with diced red, yellow, and poblano peppers.

Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich Steak Dinner?

Came home last night feeling gloomy and out of sorts. I found my fridge full of odds and ends, and out of sorts. As a result, dinner was an unsatisfying hodge-podge. It wasn't bad, but, as Lola Granola said, It didn't soar, dammit! I pan roasted two scrawny duck legs that I'd rubbed in homemade red curry paste, and served them with Chinese eggplant that I'd cooked quickly in a touch of chicken stock and tossed with tomato concasse. Eh. This was, in all probability, very good, but I was out of sorts, so it didn't suit me. (If this rain doesn't stop soon, I'll pop.) I followed this with a salad of (*ahem*): chopped Boston lettuce, sliced endive, watercress, mint, green garlic, scallions, julienned serranos, and julienned ginger. I topped this ode to chaos and excess with stir-fryed pieces of hanger steak that I'd picked up (already sliced) at Super H Mart (a big, not-quite-Korean grocery store, for those not in the know). As a dressing, I put out fish sauce spiked with lime juice, ground toasted rice, ground toasted chiles, and a little more chopped mint. Moral: I like hanger steak, ground toasted rice is gritty, and gloomy days make me irritable.

It is out on tape. There are a couple other threads about Chef! around here somewheres, which astounded me, since, for a long time, it seemed as though I was the only one who'd ever seen the show. edit: =Mark beat me to it. O well.