While I was out today running last minute errands for our trip (we leave in 5 days!!!) I stopped into REI to pick up a small SIGG water bottle to bring with me as well as one of those neoprene insulator pouches with a strap so I can hang it off my camera bag or my messenger bag I also picked up this incredible cute little case.
Can you guess what it is?
More photos and a description below.
I know, I KNOW, it has been rather silent around here lately. My mojo to write hasn't left, but the number of hours in the day have been dwindling in inverse proportion to the amount of things I need to get completed in them.
Vacation planning, lesson plans to be completed, recipe testing, food costing, the languishing garden, the seeds that should be started, the list people, she is long.
In the meantime, I tantalize you with two things to come.
Tales and reviews of my friend Mark's new place in Newton Highlands Citrio
and a recipe and breakdown of Rabbit Ragu with Fresh Made Tagliatelle
More soon. Honest guv
Just some general questions and advice if anyone has any words of wisdom....
First: I have a Canon 40D camera and a new ipod classic. I have read on the old www
that it is possible with the 5th generation ipod to transfer pictures
(via an adapter) DIRECTLY from the camera to the ipod without having to
stop off at the laptop and itunes. Has anyone done this? Does it
work?
I don't want to take my laptop with us and I will need to empty my data
card every couple of days so i can take more pictures. I was looking
at storage devise like the Sanho Hyperdrive, but why drop another $300 if ipod will do the work.
Second: We will be renting a car. Likely it will have a CD player not
a cassette so my usual means to listen to the ipod in a car not my own
will not work. here in the states I have tried the unit that plugs
into the ipod and uses a radio station tuner to listen. Here in Boston
that NEVER works since every frequency is full. I don't even know if
the device will work in the U.K.
Does anyone have any suggestions on using the ipod in a car? Particularly in Europe.
Third: We heard a mouse. We baited the electronic trap. We awoke
Saturday morning to find a mouse running in circles in the sink, around
and around and around. Husband went to find a glove to remove the
critter and...wait for it...he ran down the disposal shute. Ewwwwww!
No!!!! We didn't turn it on.
husband hovered over the hole with a set of tongs at the ready.
Foolish thing ran right between and CLIP, husband snagged him. He has
been in the mouse relocation program and currently resides behind the
garage with the litter of skulls.
Fourth:
If, IF, I brave bringing my laptop along with me, how easy will it be
to get WiFi connections in Northeast, northwest, southwest england and
far western Wales? We are not talking London here, we are talking
rather countrified, remote locations. Is it worth lugging this beast
around?
Fifth:
Carry-ons International flights. Can we bring noshies? I know we
can't bring liquid, but would they dump our sandwiches in the trash if
we brought them through in our carry-ons?
Sixth: Want to help us with kitchen decorating advice? Here we are, fire away!
Thanks in advance for all of your wisdom!
I may be sick of winter, fed up with snow, tired of being a hermit, but I am not yet tired of the fruits winter brings. I love citrus. Give me anything tart or sour and I am one happy girl.
David Lebovitz once said that there are two kinds of people in this world, and I paraphrase here; chocolate lovers or lemon lovers. How right that man is. I'd like to say that I am sorry to 99% of the world, but I really don't like chocolate. Not one little eensy, teensy bit, but give me a lemon, a lime, a grapefruit, a kumquat, a tangerine, a satsuma, yuzu, heck, even an Ugli fruit and I am happy.
Since Meyer lemon season is winding down to a close rather soon and since I have been cooking things in the Morrocan, Lebanese, Turkish, North African realm of late, I thought I would preserve some lemons. Meyer just seemed like an interesting choice and Marcella Hazan had a nice easy way of preserving them so i thought I would give it a try.
All you need is a clean canning jar, some kosher salt, some Meyer lemons and a bit of olive oil. I'm not going to tell you specific quantities, because it depends on the jar you have and the number of lemons you wish to preserve, but I will tell you what I did with my 10 lemons. Six lemons were blanched for 5 minutes and then drained and left to cool. I sliced them open, removed as many seeds as I could and tossed them in a bowl with 2/3 cup of course sea salt (or kosher if you wish).
I tossed them around, packed them in the jar, poured over the excess salt from the bowl. The other 4 lemons I juiced and poured into the jar. Your goal is to almost cover your lemons with the juice. Then I topped it off with some olive oil to cover everything. These are now hanging out for about a week and when I walk by them, or think of it, I just shake everything up a bit. I don't know how I am going to use these yet, but I am sure to think up something good. Perhaps more reports later.
It began last week when our order from Sysco came in and the 50# bag of flour we ordered was listed as Out of Stock.
"Out of Stock, Sysco is out of freakin flour?" I tossed across the office to A as I was entering the costs in my database.
"What is up with that?"
Today A went to Restaurant Depot and reported back that there was a sign indicating that customers were not allowed to buy more than 5-50# bags flour.
Is it Ethanol? Are all the farmers switching to corn? What is going on here?
Anyone in the business noticed A.P. flour becoming an issue to get?
Did I miss some front page story?
UPDATES:
A few updates from last night. A co-worker B sent this along from King Arthur Flour in Vermont:
I also thought I would move out the articles mentioned by Sam in the comments box.You’ve undoubtedly heard the news about rising foods costs; perhaps you’ve already felt the impact on your pocketbook. Global wheat prices are at an all-time high, well over triple the cost per bushel since spring of last year. The combination of poor wheat harvests in parts of the world, low carryover stocks from last year, and high energy and input costs have created a very grim situation for wheat prices, which leads of course to higher flour prices.Although all King Arthur Flour is milled from wheat grown here in North America, where the harvest was plentiful last year, global demand on our domestic supply has forced the price of wheat sky-high. We’re doing all we can to keep the cost of flour down by making our business as efficient as possible, but there’s simply no way for us to absorb entirely the impact of current record-breaking wheat prices.Despite recent increases in prices for our products, you can be assured that King Arthur Flour is not compromising on product quality. We’re still providing the best-performing flour you’ll find. While the unstable market may convince other suppliers to use lower-quality wheat, King Arthur Flour will continue to maintain the highest and most consistent standards for protein content and product performance. Our flour will continue to be the best-quality flour in America, as it’s been since 1790.We appreciate your understanding of raised flour and mix prices during these difficult market conditions.Michael T. Bittel
Senior Vice President/General Manager
King Arthur Flour Company
What I did on Sunday.
Made Cheese
Brined my pork roast from my Stillman Farm CSA meat share.
Put cute little rosemary trees in my potatoes for roasting with duck fat and shallots.
And, I even won a Make My Day Award!
So sweet. Thank you KT! I'm supposed to choose 10 people to pass the award to, but I think that if you just peruse that little sidebar of linkie love you can find a whole host of people who very often make my day.
This week I do a cheese making demo at Cambridge. Upstairs in the fridge I have 20 pounds of cheese curds...CHEESE baby,it's all about the cheese.
Bacchus. God of Wine.
Canon 40D. God of camera.
I finally made my DSLR camera decision after researching and hemming and hawing for over a year.
So many buttons! So many settings! I need to get up to speed before the trip. And I hope to finally post some nice food shots around here as well.
Wouldn't you like to sip wine out of these?
These glasses are a set my Mom gave me to put up on eb*y to sell. She and I are slowly pairing down our collective STUFF that we have been living with since Grandma the antique dealer and collector passed away in 2000. Let me tell you, we have a lot of STUFF. I've been packing up and shipping things hither and yon for a few months now. I just loved the way these glasses looked this morning in the light streaming in on the upstairs table.
I'm off soon to make Turkish food with my 11-13 year old peeps and to hear all the latest gossip from school. My peeps LOVE to gossip.
Cheers!
Oatmeal.
Does anyone get excited over oatmeal?
I suppose it wouldn't help to call it porridge or gruel, mush or pap. Not many of those words sound very appealing. Regardless of how they sound, I craved oatmeal. Love the stuff. But it, alas, didn't love me. If I wanted to eat a nice warm bowl of oatmeal dotted with dried fruit and sprinkled in dark muscavado I'd have to sprinkle on a jar of crushed antacids as well. But like a junkie who knows that what they crave hurts them more than it helps their cravings, I kept trying.
Instant, long cooked, old-fashioned and steel cut, the results were all the same. Then one day recently when the mercury dropped around the zero mark I broke out a box that had made its way into the house during one of husbands aisle grabs. It had been sitting, taunting me, on the bottom shelf of the pantry.
McCann's, for some reason, is the one.
Finally. It's oatmeal love.
Geez.
You think to yourself. Didn't this used to be a blog about food and cooking?
I know, things have been mighty quiet around here lately.
With the dreaded sickness, yea - um, the hospital called the day after I was released when the cultures they took finally revealed the culprit.
Not Norwalk.
Salmonella.
Mmmm Hmmm. I know. in fact I am ServSafe certified, so i really, REALLY know. Still not sure where I contracted it, but I will tell you here and now it was the sickest I have ever been IN MY LIFE.
My advice to you, don't eat poop.
Of course we have been eating around here. Just not eating anything newsworthy. I am trying to be a bit better about my choices in the coming year, more on that later, but I am afraid we are IN A RUT, eating the same things over and over. chicken, trout, swordfish, blah blah blah.
Mussels/Moules have become my new addiction and I must have them once a week. Trip planning is beginning to revolve around where we will be EATING, what CHEESE i will finally be having and where i shall be laying my delicate head nightly.
But for you, dear reader, I resolve to do some new dishes soon. SOON I SAY. Expect reports.
Oh, and by the way, it IS national delurking time again. Do be sweet to me, click on that little button below and say hello. Don't be shy, I don't bite.
1. It is suggested that when one is considering getting the Norwalk virus that one should have more than a single bathroom in the house, both, preferably loaded with toilet paper (heirs and spares)
2. It is preferable to have plenty of clean underwear in the house.
3. Because you cook for a living, your family will assume you have food poisoning first.
4. Don't buy and clean two rabbits and make rabbit stock in preparation for the next nights supper, you will promptly get ill and the stock will sit on the stove (covered at least) for 7 days until you get out of hospital and throw it promptly away. (**Note to self: Husband would NOT make a good bachelor)
5. Goo Gone is excellent for removing the reside medical tape leaves on your IV site.
6. All sheets, nightgowns, jammies, blankets and items that came in contact with you whilst dealing with Norwalk virus must be washed, fumigated even, before ever coming in contact with your presence again.
7. The formulas: X= Fluid In and Y = Fluids Out
Good Formula:
X > Y
Bad Formula:
20Y+X (repeat this formula every two hours for 5 days) = Two days in hospital and 20 bags of saline drip.
Study up!
Newton Wellesley is a really great hospital. I'd really like to thank all those ladies who pampered me (even the ones that kept bringing those needles!)
It is soooooooooooo nice to be home.
Having made it through storm 1 for the week, husband and I donned our lists and braved hitting the grocery store in preparation of storm 2 on Sunday. I plan on happily watching the storm from inside, decorating a tree and cooking a lovely rabbit, red pepper and merquez braise.
What is it about rabbit that makes so many people squeamish? I can't even get my father ,the Italian, to eat rabbit. Nope. Too cute. Remember when Roger and Me came out people were ranting about the woman who sold rabbits for meat?
Here we are bitching about sustainable foods, eating locally, eating less red meat, eating leaner meats, etc. Why has no one started a campaign for raising and selling rabbit? Surely they are easy to raise, eat a mainly herbivore diet and are certainly rather *ahem* prolific breeders. Can it just be the cute face factor that is stopping people from trying it?
Pel-freez has been around since I was a kid but the only place I see it is at our butcher in Maine. Sometimes Super 88 has rabbit, but sometimes I'm just a little too nervous to buy meat at Super 88. They don't have the best smelling meat department, n'est ce pas? Today I went by my favourite butcher, John Dewar, and picked up 2 D'Artagnan rabbits. This afternoon I will butcher them, marinate the meat and make a rabbit stock with the bones. Tomorrow I'll slowly braise everything with the stock, some roasted red peppers and spicy merquez sausages.
Rabbit tastes great without being too overpowering for some peoples delicate palates the meat is lean and it is very adaptable to various cooking methods and it could easily become a very economical source of protein.
Rabbit, have some tonight.
****Update to the Update below: margalit has chosen the following for the donation.
OK, my choice for being such an astute shopper (heh) is to
donate it to Family Table at Jewish Family and Children's
Services in Waltham. Family Table is the food pantry that serves
the Jewish community.
***Update -The final $ amount I paid at Stop & Slop was $65.81. Margalit of the always acerbic ever entertaining What was I Thinking came closest at $59.72. I'll make it her choice where I send the money or drop off more food items. As always, thanks for playing.
No, I don't mean your food pantry, or my food pantry. This is the time of year when people begin to think about being charitable. I don't know why charity seems to have a season, but you can't deny that this time of year your mailbox, and voice mail are filled with organizations seeking contributions.
Husband works up in Beverly and his company sent out a notice that they were accepting contributions for the non-profit Beverly Bootstraps Food pantry. We could bring any items that were in a can, or dry non-perishable items, but no glass...I wonder why no glass?
On Sunday we hit the local Stop & Spend with every other New Englander readying themselves for the first storm of the season. In keeping with local traditions the bread aisle looked like it had been assaulted by a hungry army of sandwich makers or perhaps they had all heard about Adam's French Toast Alert System. The milk choices were narrowing down to lactaid and strawberry milk - who drinks strawberry milk?
We had fun wandering up and down the aisles choosing what we thought was a pretty good selection.
I thought to shake things up a little I would propose a contest. If you can guess what we spent on the items listed below, I will purchase the same amount of groceries again and donate it to another local food pantry or perhaps to a blogger somewhere that I feel could really use the donation. It will be the winners choice which option is chosen.
The contest is open through Friday December 7, 2007 and I will purchase the items that weekend and show the receipt here after the weekend to show you that I have purchased the items.
Why would you want to participate in a contest where you don't get a prize? I think you really get something better than a tangible object here, you get to feel good that you have helped a family or families have something on their table this winter and really there is nothing food bloggers like better than seeing food on a table.
1-6 box package of Annie's mac and Cheese
1 box Barilla Rotini
1- Can Bumble Bee Chunk Light Tuna
2- Cans Bumble Bee Chunk Salmon
1-6 pack of Bumble Bee Tuna
Starkist Tuna packet - Lemon pepper
Starkist Tun Packet - Herb and Garlic
Barilla Spaghetti
2- cans Bush's Baked Beans
2- Contadina Tomato paste
2- cans S&S Tomato puree
1- Goya butter Beans
1- S&S cannellini Beans
1 - Goya Dark Kidney Bean
1 - S&S Can of sliced carrots
1 - S&S Can of small peas
1- Goya Vigo Rice with saffron
2- Vigo yellow rice dinner
Zatarain Jambalaya mix
Zatarain Black beans and Rice
Zatarain Dirty Rice
Zatarain Red Beans and Rice
2- cans Hunt's Roasted Diced Tomatoes
1- can Libby Corned Beef
Progresso Minestrone
Progresso Chicken Barley Soup
Progresso chicken with Wild Rice Soup
Progresso chicken Soup with Noodles
Progresso Light vegetable with Barley Soup
I have a kid that I adore in my Wednesday night class.
He's 10 9. We'll call him 'S'.
He is the SPITTING image of this kid right here, down to the hair (color is different but shape is spot on) and the voice and the mannerisms. I wish I could find the Underwood Deviled Ham ad, but I can't find it anywhere.
Some 'S'(isms)
As we are putting the lamb chunks into the hot saute pan..." THIS is a vegetarian's worst nightmare!"
We made Baked Cod with potatoes.."I've never had fish before, what will it feel like in my throat?"
What will he bring tonight?
Ah..tonight when it was explained to the class that polpette is the word for meatball in Italian and that if one had gone to Italy 10 - 15 years ago and ordered Spaghetti and Meatballs they would not have received the American invention that they were used to having. I asked them what they thought they might get.
"S" immediately piped up and said succinctly, "Pigs intestines with cow's eyes." So there you go, from the mouths of babes.
Love him.
Perhaps if I tell you what I have eaten since last Thursday you shall have a little insight into my absence around here and how I have been spending my last week of summer vacation.
Thursday: Chicken stock, sweated scallion, cayenne pepper and pastina
Friday: Chicken Stock, sweated scallion, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, sesame oil, hot chile oil and a few pieces of peking Duck leftover with pastina
Saturday: Annie's mac and cheese, made for me by husband
Sunday: Chicken stock, Aleppo pepper, pastina, Parmigiano Reggiano
Monday: Hot Dog with sauerkraut - Hey it's labor day!
Tuesday: chicken soup with matzo balls (lunch - Jewish penicillin), chicken stock and tortellini (dinner - Italian penicillin) all supplemented with Amoxicillin and Robitussin with Codeine (yum!)
I long to have both my taste buds and the ability to swallow back soon!
You seriously wish you had smell-o-vision at this moment.
My cherry plum tomato plants decided to give up their harvest in one fell swoop. Following along Kalyn's idea I roasted away.
Cut in half, tossed with EVOO, fresh rosemary and oregano and roasted in a low, low oven for 5 hours, skins pulled off, these are officially tomato candy, tomato leather, tomato heaven, essence of tomato. Frozen for later delectation when the winds blow and the snow is knee high to a beagle's ear.
I urge you to try it.
Spotted today in Waltham, corner of main and moody at the Farmer's market while waiting in line to purchase peaches that actually SMELLED like peaches, a man, tall, rather burly, purchasing large amounts of gorgeous basil. Over his shoulder was a black and yellow messenger bag that read:
Knitting Mafia: 8 inches of cold hard steel and we know how to use it.
Loved it.
Tonight, fresh corn on the cob, new dug potatoes, swordfish on the grill from Captain Marden's in Wellesley. More on them later.
I am serious.
15 years old, that is INFANCY in Aga years.
4 ovens
2 French tops
Fire engine red
Needs to be OUT of where it is within two weeks.
Aga man has said $2,500 to dismantle/move/change gaskets/recondition/reassemble, but I am pretty sure that is based on a New England/Southern NH move
I spent several hours this morning begging my husband, pipe dreaming about building an outdoor cookspace, a 3 season porch with the Aga as centerpiece for cooking and HEAT. Setting it up in the garage, etc. he wasn't buying a SINGLE one of my ideas..and people he' a BRIT! He should be all about the Aga, ah well.
My loss could be your gain. Contact me immediately if you would like further details.
Oh yea...I just saw the rat tonight and i am in L-O-V-E.
Collette rules. And the scene where he is snoring and she is talking to him with the sunglasses on?
Priceless.
Dish we are making next week in The Flavours of France? Ah...I think you might have guessed it.
For the past year I have been a teaching assistant at Cambridge School of Culinary Arts working with a group of Professional chef students as they wend their way through the 37 week curriculum. We started together back at the beginning in egg class and wound our way through baking and basics, Italian and French, Asian and American and ended a few weeks ago in a fusion cuisine class.
I hugged everyone as I left and ended up as I always do with goodbye as a teary eyed mess. It's a good thing I don't wear mascara on a daily basis.
One of the benefits of teaching as a profession that I didn't expect as I entered my new career was how proud I would be at seeing the accomplishments of the students I work with at the end of their training. Sure I have taught 6 and 7 week classes where I see the same faces weekly. I get to know their personalities, their strengths, what they like and dislike, I hear about their families and their dirty little culinary secrets that they wouldn't normally tell a polite audience.
This group was different. We were together every week for 9 months. I watched them all come in on day one, very much like I was, lost in the kitchen, kit still all complete and tidy, not knowing where anything was, amazed that you could actually stand in the fridge (walk in), uniform still sparkling and white, hats donned and shoes new and clean, Ralph and Ted leading them around the kitchens and stores, telling them the rules and regulations.
They were all a bit deer in the headlights.
Little by little though they gained confidence. They made it through one chef and on to the next learning each ones style,they learned how to work as team and not just as an individual, they learned that food is art as much as it is taste and that what you put on the plate needs to appeal to your eyes as much as it does to your nose and stomach. In those 9 months I watched Ana move from a terrified girl in the kitchen to a confident take charge woman, no more asking before she did every single task. Eventually we all figured out Marina's accent and we could understand what she was talking about and we were all blown away by her mean knife skills, that girl could seriously brunoise wood. Will worked his way through school in the kitchens of Rialto and came in with newer and better tricks up his sleeve each week. Amber, Kerry and Sally all worked so hard and developed their own styles and sorry Amber, I was always leaning in your just sanitized and cleaned space. Sandra came in the middle and joined us until the end, she was the Mom of the group, not sure what she was going to do with her education but enjoying the ride for all it was worth. And I always take one bird under my wing, the one I see has potential but just needs to be gently nudged in a direction, Patrick was my project this term. Someone has to show a nice polite Southern boy that there is more to the world than Barbecue. He caught on quick, just don't ask him to make a Genoise please. Come to think of it, don't ask me to make one either.
Saturday my peeps graduated. I came home from that last fusion class to a message from them that they bought me a ticket to their graduation, they wanted me to come and see them finish.
Husband and I polished ourselves up and went to the very same place I was just 18 months ago. I couldn't have been more proud to watch them all get their awards, meet their families, and have them all tell husband how much they enjoyed having me with them all year.
They all pitched in and bought me a gorgeous copy of The Best of Art Culinaire that I had long coveted, I was flabbergasted and quite humbled.
But the proudest moments? Amber,Tzu-i, Kerry and Marina all picked up academic and lab awards. Patrick received the blossom award and Will was awarded the Young Professional award from the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, he received a medal and a stipend. I think I clapped so hard that day my hands still hurt.
Now they all head out to new places, Amber to the West Coast to try and open her own place, Will to the Carolina's for some new restaurant, Tzu-i to Hong Kong for two years as the wife of a diplomat - and hopefully to learn how to make hand pulled noodles and work in a kitchen in the city. The others will find their niche one day I am sure and I look forward to hearing back from them one day.
I am sure I will go on to teach many more classes and see many more students come and go, but like your first bike ride without training wheels or your first raw oyster you will always remember the first one as the sweetest.
I know that usually when you come here, clicking through on your way to some other site, there would be a recipe or a tale of some new decadent thing I had recently cooked or eaten, today however, shall be an entirely different story.
Today you see, I offer one of my white trash, dirty little secrets.
**stage whispers**
Sometimes I secretly crave onion dip with Ruffles, ridges only please.
THERE.
I've said it.
I grew up in the 1970s in deep suburbia in a little 495 border town called Chelmsford. My parents were only 16 and 17 years older than me, barely out of being babies themselves. We moved to a typical ranch house and the first thing Dad did was build a bar. It was equipped with all the amenities you could desire like stools and copper rails, and that bitchen little toy that makes seltzer water with tiny little bomb shaped cartridges, and my parents often threw parties. Wild, wild parties.
They were in their mid 20s then. I was allowed to come out and swan around in my pajamas and say hello to everyone and then I would be banished to my bedroom for the rest of the night to watch bad T.V. and press my transistor radio to my ear until I could sleep though the pounding drone of Creedence, Joe Cocker or my Dad's reel to reel's of Arnie Woo Woo Ginsburg and old WMEX 1950's radio shows. These parties would always get a bit wild, a bit crazy and in the morning my parents would sleep late to recover.
In the morning I would tip toe out of my bed and head straight to the family room where the bar was.
Amongst the mess and stale smoke there would always, ALWAYS, be leftover Lipton Onion Soup dip and Ruffles chips along with the dregs of assorted Manhattans and Daiquiri's, stale Sombrero's and beer bottles with cigarette butts dumped down the neck.
I would sit my 10 year old self down and scarf that salty dip for breakfast while watching some cheezy early Sunday morning cartoon like Davey and Goliath reveling in the after party smells that screamed adult to me.
Years later when I moved out and lived with the jazz musician, we used to frequent this real dive bar on the waterfront right near the world trade center. All his friends at the neon shop where he worked days would come over and we would drink ourselves silly on cheap whiskey and beers. Every time I walked in that bar it smelled like those parties, a lingering aroma of cigarettes and stale beer and it took me back to those parties, only this time I was a part of it all and no one was sending me to bed, although looking back, they probably should have on a good few occasions.
Last night we decided to make burgers. Husband was having his with fries and me, well, let's just say there is one less box of Lipton Soup mix and Sour cream at our local Star.
For Shame...For shame.
Any dirty food secrets in your cupboard?
Never let it be said that husband never gave me anything big and shiny. Today we shan't speak about food, but instead about the tools that let us create the food. For 10 years i have worked in this kitchen sans a vent hood, sans any sort of ventilation. Cook Fish? You'll know it for the next week. Roast a chicken? Make sure you wash the jacket you left in the room lest anyone standing next to you on the train know just what you had for dinner last night.
About 4 years ago we replaced an aging and no longer repairable 6 burner range who's name I believe was Kitchen Queen. We searched long and hard, researched pros and cons and ended up with a Thermador Professional 6-burner with a griddle. I would have loved 8 burners and no griddle, but the only company making those went up a few thousand. A year later we bought the 60" vent hood to accommodate the beast as it is affectionately known. The vent hood promptly went into the garage and rested on the floor and there she lay for the last 2 years while husband, a design engineer by trade, rendered 3-D drawings and modeled all sorts of configurations and crunched weight and load ratio numbers to plot hanging the 330 pounds of hood, framing and stainless steel sheathing off our 18 foot high pitched roof. That would be framing and stainless steel sheathing that husband would have to design and have fabricated since you buy the vent hood and the motor to mount on the roof, everything in between is up to you.
Oh and the other caveat? We would do it ourselves. Frugal, proud Englishmen refuse to allow wives to hire outside help when one can 'do it ones self'.
Here in a nutshell is how to hang a vent hood.
First you build a wood frame to hold the hood up off the stove at the required height.
We're going up here to the motor on the roof. The only thing he would let me have our friend Brian the carpenter do.
Then he and I had to move this giant hunk of metal over our heads...
and onto here.
This was followed by the metal frame and several ladders, some rope and quite a few words I had not heard my polite husband utter in 9 years of marriage.
Apply some serious bolts...
Add some ducting...
And then some stainless steel cladding...
...and voila! Gorgeousness! The view when you enter the kitchen protected from evil spirits by Ganesha and Foo(d) dog.
What you wouldn't be scared of this face?
And the view from my side
Will this make me a better cook? No. Will it make me a cleaner cook? Yes, yes YES. Now I won't have to hose down the entire contents of the kitchen every month because all the cooking grease settles. Will this make me a happier cook? OMG yes! Not to mention that this hood has light. LIGHT! I have been cooking IN THE DARK for 10 years. Want to see if your sauce is right? Lift up the pan and carry it over to the light and then back to the stove. Dinner tonight is going to be late. I want that sun to set and the crickets to sing and I am going to cook IN THE LIGHT!!! I think I husband a really good meal for this one. That's item #1 off the 'Honey Do' list.
I can't believe I checked in here this morning to realize that I haven't had a thing to say since late April.
Seriously? No, not really, I've just been incredibly busy for the last few weeks. After emerging from my self imposed winter hibernation, all this green around me and the warm sun has me out in the garden tending to things when I'm not planning classes and working.
Husband has been laid off from his company (don't worry, there are potential things coming down the road) so he has been working on the 'honey do' list around the house. Soon, very soon I hope, my two year old vent hood will be leaving the garage floor for its rightful place hanging from my kitchen ceiling. No longer shall every bit of culinary grease and smoke settle on every blessed surface of this room. The lawn has been seeded. Shelves have been installed. Workshops built. We even built a small pond out back this past weekend. You know, cause I really don't have enough other stuff to do.
I did a cooking demo at a lovely little bridal shower at the Belmont country club. I had a full house for my Thai class last week at Newton Community Ed, I've decided to not run it again this summer but it will pick up again in the fall. Hopefully the whole rebuilding of Newton North where the class is held will not put a wrench in those plans, I do hear Newton South has quite a nice kitchen set up, so maybe it shall move over there instead. I have started tutoring a student form Thailand in Italian cooking. Imagine not just having to learn English, but Boston accented English, and then throw some Italian culinary terms on top of that. Imagine coming from a culture that doesn't eat cheese or dairy products and having to learn all of the DOP cheeses in each region of Italy. It is not a task I envy him. I finished up another 6 week run of Back to Basics at Cambridge Culinary and as always the group was sorry to see it reach the end. They all ask if we can put together an advanced Back to Basics so the classes can carry on. I've added that to my plate and I hope to work on it this summer. I'm still a T.A. in the Professional chef's program and my students are almost ready to graduate. Just three weeks of classes left and then they have the countdown to their practicums and finals. I've also volunteered to T.A. in the Italian classes for the rest of the semester as well. There is a new instructor teaching and I have heard incredible things about her. I love to see each of the instructors teaching styles. I learn something new every time I watch someone else work.
I'm about to head out in the monsoon to shop at Russo's and the Middle Eastern markets in Watertown to gather some ingredients. My friend Kathi and her lovely Irish husband have bought themselves a little hacienda in Wilmington and the house warming is tomorrow. I never did get around to finding them a wedding present, so instead I am making a boat load of food to bring. Another of her friends, djKarl will be setting up his decks in her barn, records will be spun and I do believe that the Irish contingent will be getting their proverbial groove on. Funnily enough, I had djKarl as a student in one of my Back to basics runs at Cambridge Culinary and we didn't know we had Kathi in common until a few months later when she sent me a link with his latest remix. A small, small world it is.
The menu plans so far are as follows with potential photos coming later.
Muhammara
Roasted Garlic Hummus
Sate chicken and peanut sauce
Shrimp salad
A variation of a Nicoise salad I make with Orzo
Puff pastry straws in various combos (cheese, poppy seed, alleppo pepper, etc)
Bacon Ricotta and Gruyere tart on puff pastry
Asparagus and Gruyere tart on puff
Fior di Latte and Heirloom tomato tart on puff
And who knows what else might strike my fancy?
Purchased today at The Brown Jug in Sandwich, MA on Route 6A and eaten in the car on our way towards a beach in Dennis.
Who knew that they made Lamb and Mint crisps???? Of course husband buys the cheese and onion whenever he can find it for a taste of home, but even he had never seen these.
My final critique is a general first impression of the salty crust of a roast lamb with a finish of mint sauce. Rather odd, yet surprisingly not unpleasant. The Brown Jug is a cute little shop with cheeses, wines, oils and vinegars, oddly shaped pastas and some neat specialty items like a simple syrup flavoured with lavender. That would make an interesting martini or a Provencal Gin and Tonic I think.
A palate cleansing sip of car temperature Evian and I tasted husband's Roast chicken crisps. I can't say I really tasted ROAST chicken, more like a light dusting of chicken boullion, again, not unpleasant, just rather odd.
A stop in the lovely used bookshop down the road, called Titcomb's, yielded some lovely additions to my Time Life foods of the World series, America: New England, America: The Northeast, A never seen copy of Latin America, Vienna's Empire, A Quintet of Cuisines, Scandinavia and Italy.
I also picked up Notes from a Country Kitchen by Jocasta Innes to tell me how to brew, make cheeses, cure, pickle, etc. Also, because I have been reading the fabulous United States of Arugula and I feel saturated in Mr. Beard's influences, I picked up his American Cookery to augment Gran's collection of Beard's tomes.
We are back from our little jaunt to the Cape, we decided to head out and enjoy it today before the onslaught of summer visitors. Husband is having grilled swordfish and chips (natch!) and I am making Mahogany clams and chorizo. Must have been all that salt air.
Speaking of, can anyone identify this evil stuff we saw all over the beach?
I have no idea what it is, but it all looks a bit nasty, yet not unlike a nice lobe of foie gras.
A new catalog landed in my mailbox last week and I meant to mention it sooner.
As I turned each glossy page of the Meduri World Delights catalog visions of salads and tagines, desserts and appetizers swam through my head. I confess that I do not like chocolate. Nope, not one bit, but give me good fruit anytime, especially vine fruits or citrus and I am one happy girl.
How about the mandarin orange slices in a cake? Or maybe pork with those morello cherries? Just look, LOOK at those raspberries up there. Those are dried yet they look absolutely perfect, I imagine those are like summer, maybe steeped in some vodka or rum. And OMG the strawberry rhubarb bites...how can you not want to try that?
Sign me up for one of those 3-month plans today please. Excuse me while I go mop off my keyboard.
Friday before the storm began we headed out to John Dewar in Newton to pick up the usual supply of Irish bangers we require along with some for husband's boss, another ex-pat with a hankering.
While I was there I picked up a few other things, some chicken breast for Vesuvio, some duck boobs to go with the sour oranges I found at Stop & Spend in Watertown to make L'Orange, a wild boar roast for later and a small tube of D'Artagnan foie gras to perhaps have on some steaks with cognac sauce one night.
We hit a few other stores and came home as the storm began to ramp up. I parked the pick up near the door and we began to unload our bags. The counter quickly became covered and we placed a few on the floor as well. I went to park the truck and husband brought in some wood. We emptied all the bags into cupboards and freezers and fridges and I went off to work on some recipes and husband went down to work on his computer.
A few hours later I was cooking dinner when the distinct sound of a beagle howling could be heard. I ignored it at first assuming she was howling at husband for her daily "w", but a few minutes later he appeared in the kitchen as well to ask what all he commotion was.
We figured out that she was in the upstairs living room so husband wandered up to check and reported that she was under the coffee table, barking at the couch. Sure, some of you might find that odd, but those of you who have lived with a hound dog know that this is pretty normal behaviour.
We promptly ignored her, joked about a potential mouse being under the couch and went about working. After a bit I noticed husband missing and I grabbed the flashlight and headed upstairs.
There was husband staring at the Beagle lying under the coffee table still howling to the couch. I lay down on the floor and aimed the flashlight under the couch sweeping from right to left. My eye caught on something that would be *just* out of Beagle snout reach and in a flash I realised what it was.
Someone *cough* must have grabbed the foie gras out of the grocery bags while we were parking the car and they had the foresight to hide it away somewhere until later. The only mistake they made was loving the foie gras a little too far under the couch for paw reach. Husband grabbed the tube and I promptly threw it away after calculating that it had been out for a good 5 hours now, not to mention the slightly chewed appearance at one the end. The pooper sadly followed us down the stairs and into the kitchen and watched me plunk the treasured object in the trash.
Last night I watched her climb the stairs to the living room again, since she hates to be in a different room from us, I sent husband up to check on her after she had been up there for awhile. He came back down and said she was lying under the coffee table wistfully staring under the couch just hoping that another tube of love would come her way.
Last night I taught my Thai class at Newton Community Ed. Each time I teach this class I tweak the recipes a bit, change things around and edit.
last night we made:
Jasmine Rice
Cucumber Pickle
Fried Spring Rolls (Beef and Shitake)
Chicken with Holy Basil
Thai meatballs with Peanut Sauce
Thai Beef Salad (my personal fave)
and Pad Thai
I've seen many, many Pad Thai recipes and none of them have satisfied me for the necessary mix of hot and sour, salty and sweet. They all generally made too little sauce to the ratio of noodles and/or incorporated odd ingredients in order to make it 'user friendly'. A few weeks ago the fabulous Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim fame posted her version of Pad Thai for beginners and something about they way she wrote it, more as a technique primer than a 'recipe', caught my attention.
First, she has you make a good quantity of the sauce and you balance the flavours in that sauce for the components that are critical for making Thai food - hot, sour, salty, and sweet. Having made Pad Thai many times I know it is not easy to try and adjust the seasonings in the end.
Most of the ingredients should be easy to find these days. The only ingredient I had to seek out were the dried shrimp. I can usually only find these in a true Asian market, or course Super 88 has them if you are in the local Boston area, or perhaps Asian market on Waverly Hill Road in Waltham. The dried shrimp are kept in the refrigerated section not on the shelf.
When I poked around in the store I happened to find some very, very tiny ones. For an idea of how small those are, one strip of the butcher block underneath them is 2" wide. The shrimp are between 3 - 5 cm long. I have bought them in the past and they were much, much larger and very orange. These, as you can see, are very pale in colour. These are an important flavour in the dish and I highly recommend seeking them out.
Pim also implores you to treat the shrimp in a particular manner.
It's important to use the mortar here and not your cuisinart, which will turn to dried shrimp into a hard, dried chunks (entirely capable of cracking a tooth) instead of fluffy bits of salty shrimp.
However we didn't have a mortar and pestle last night, I really didn't want to lug my 20 pound slab of marble mortar and pestle with me so we tried using a spoon and a bowl but it was not getting us anywhere near flaky and fluffy. We dredged through the cupboards and found a mini chopper and I am guessing because these shrimp were so tiny and soft it worked perfectly instead of making shrimp rock candy we had fluffy light shavings and we were off and running.
I confessed to my students after they had made the dish that I had used them as guinea pigs for the recipe, but I don't think they minded at all, the recipe worked perfectly. This recipe, friends, is restaurant quality Pad Thai. I highly suggest you go and read her words and heed her advice, this Pad Thai recipe can't lose.
Some paperwork was submitted this week to the lovely Commonwealth of Mass. This paperwork could effectively allow me to teach at Private or Trade schools in the state if the powers that be deem me worthy enough.
Then again...they could say no.
People, I implore you, a little finger crossing for me please.
I need all the mojo I can get right now.
Michael Ruhlman comes through again.
Go now and read this hilarious guest post from Anthony Bourdain about the dumbing down of food TV, his glorious slamming of Sandra-Semi-Homemade-my clothes always match my sets-Lee, and the best part, his dream Iron Chef America pairings....Marco Pierre White vs. Gordon Ramsay, Mikey from Top Chef and Sandra Lee...Bring it on!
Fond.
Fond = Foundation.
Every building needs a solid foundation and every dish needs to start with one as well. Sure we live in the 21st century where rotisserie chickens from the local store can stand in for the roast chicken on a busy weeknight and you can **shudder** buy vegetables pre cut so you don't have to hurt your wee little fingers cutting celery and onions when you get home exhausted from another day on the gerbil wheel. Yes, I can buy fairly decent chicken stock in the store. Organic and Free Range if I so desire, but I can promise you with my hand held on my heart and no toes and fingers crossed...homemade chicken stock is easy to make and it tastes oh so, oh so, much better than the stuff in the box or the can.
Last Saturday I had a class at CSCA on Soups and Stocks. We were able to talk about the theory behind making a stock. The problem with a three hour class is that we really don't have the time to make a proper stock.
I
decided that since I really needed to restock the freezer myself I
would record the steps as I developed the stock and leave it here for a
reference.
When it's time for me to replenish my freezer I raid the larder and see how many necks and backs I have stashed away while cutting up whole chickens. I had a turkey carcass from Thanksgiving. I had a package of wings that was getting a wee bit freezer burned. I've bought backs and necks before at Whole Foods so I stopped by and picked up 10 pounds at about $1.00 per pound. All in all I ended up with about 15 pounds of bones.
Now there are two schools of culinary thought when it comes to chicken stock. White stock is made using bones that are not browned first. You can make white stock with either veal bones or chicken bones, I wouldn't recommend making it with beef bones. I'm firmly in the brown stock camp. I like the extra flavour, colour and richness that roasting the bones brings to the table. It also has an added advantage of less scum to skim off, but we'll get to that later.
I lay all the bones out on sheet pans and roast them for 30 - 40 minutes at 350 being careful to turn them once or twice and ensuring good colour without burning. When they come out of the oven I pour off the fat that has rendered and let it settle. If anything good appears on the bottom I siphon it off, but most of the time this is 100% fat. AS you can see I was able to siphon off about 2 cups right off the top. Of course once the stock is made, strained and chilled, a bit more fat will rise to the top to be skimmed off, but this early step of roasting the bones also makes it a bit easier to get rid of the fat.
I set up my giant stock pot on my lowest burner.
I know my range very well and out of the 6 burners i know the middle front burner gives me the most control when I need to simmer for a long time. As extra insurance I use a flame tamer ring as well. This assures that I can walk away for an hour or two at a time and not worry about the finding the stock that was gently simmering now at a rolling boil. In go the bones.
While the bones were roasting I also prepared my aromatics. The general rule of thumb is 20% aromatics by weight to the amount of bones you have. In this case, 15 pounds of bones means 3 pounds of aromatics. The other general rule is for the aromatics themselves. 50% onion, 25% carrot, 25% celery. I had onions and I also had leeks so I used them both. Be sure you clean your leeks throughly first to remove any sand. When I cut one of the leeks open to wash it I loved this cool pattern inside. Peel your carrots, peel your onions. I know plenty of people will say why bother, but I believe it lends an off taste to your stock. This is not the time to clear out your vegetable drawer and throw in the dregs of the contents, limp celery, molding onions, a red onion piece that had been hiding in the back that is now sprouting. You are making your stock, your foundation, the liquid you are going to use to make gorgeous soups, sauces, stews, braises, tortellini en brodo, now is the time to buy gorgeous produce and treat it kindly.
I also set up my bouquet garni to add. A traditional set of aromatics, bouquet garni is comprised of parsley stems, thyme stems and bay leaf. You can add other items depending on your fancy. You can be all anal and wrap it in cheesecloth and tie it with kitchen twine to remove later, but my feeling is since you're dumping this whole lot later to strain it, why bother?
I do roast my aromatics as well to add a further dimension to the stock with their caramalized flavours.
Once I am done with the sheet pans I also pour some water on them and use a spatula to scrape up any browned bits to add.
Now I cover the bones with cold water. Always start with cold water, bringing the temperature up gradually allows the bones to release all of the collagen and flavour slowly. It gives you less impurities in the stock. Turn on the heat and put the lid on slightly askew to allow it to begin.
A scum may form on the top.
Skim this off and discard it. I have found that the pre-roasting of the bones tends to reduce the amount of scum you need to remove. Once the scum stops forming, add your roasted aromatics and your bouquet garni. Now you can almost walk away for a few hours. Set your temperature so that you are at a very gentle simmer. Ocassional bubbles should be breaking the surface, but no rolling boils are allowed. Allow the stock to simmer like this for 5 - 6 hours. Sure it takes time, but you don't have to babysit it. Just check in once in a while and verify the level of simmer.
Once it is ready I ladle off as much as I can from the top and put it in the large lexan storage containers I have and then I pour the rest through a collander lined with damp cheesecloth which is placed over a bowl. This ensures I get everything out of the aromatics and the bones as I press down hard with a wooden spoon.
The key now is to get this stock out of the danger zone. The danger zone is 41 - 140 degrees. In that temperature zone bacteria multiply at a furious rate. Tossing this much hot liquid straight into the fridge would also increase the internal temp of your fridge effectively putting everything in it into the danger zone as well. What I do is use freezer packs, you know, the ones you use in your cooler. I toss them in a ziploc, squeeze all the air out and toss them right into the stock. In about 40 minutes or so they are cool enough to now cover and put in the fridge.
After they chill overnight the stock is removed, the fat skimmed off and it is portioned into containers for the deep freeze.
Months of goodness ahead.
Last night in my Kitchen basics class at create a cook we were working on moist heat cooking.
We made a Cajun Maque Choux stew with chicken and sausage and a steamed Sticky Toffee pudding for dessert but the surprise hit of the night was a vegetable dish I'd adapted from the wonderful book All About Braising by Molly Stevens. Parents wandered in to pick up their kids and they were stunned to find them scarfing down a vegetable dish rather than the sweet brown sugar coated dessert in front of them.
This really is a very simple dish to make, a few minutes prep and then bung it into the oven for an hour and a half. It also incorporates one of my favourite vegetables, the leek. I think many people ignore using leeks because they really aren't sure what to do with them. One of my favourite methods to treat leeks is over here, but I am sure this recipe is going to soon become a favourite in this house as well.
Heat your oven to 325.
Heat up some chicken stock until just before it boils.
Cut the leek where the pale green meets the dark green tops. Discard the tops or save them for stock. Run your knife gently down the length of the leek through 1 layer and peel and discard that outer layer. Slice the leek into 3 inch lengths. Take each 3 inch piece and slice through it lengthwise. Lay each half down and cut half moons about a half of an inch wide.
Scatter all of these pieces in a bowl filled with cold water and slosh them around. Lift out the pieces of leek leaving any sand or grit behind in the bottom of the bowl.
Toss the leeks into a baking dish.
Peel a potato, Yukon gold preferred, but not required. Cut the potato into half inch chunks. Toss these in with with the leeks.
Grab a few thyme sprigs and holding them over the potato and leeks, strip off the tiny leaves by running your thumb and forefinger up the sprig against the leaves. Don't worry if you get a few bits of stem in there as long as they are then tender tops of the sprig and not the tough woody bottoms. Make sure you have at least 2 teaspoons of thyme leaves scattered about.
Season everything generously with kosher salt and back pepper.
Dot the top with 1 - 2 TBS of butter, unsalted preferred, but again not required.
Now depending on how much volume you have of potato and leeks, add about 5 ounces of chicken stock per 3/4 pound potato. You just want some liquid in the baking dish, the vegetables will not be covered just gently swimming in a little puddle.
Cover your baking dish tightly with foil and toss it in the oven.
After an hour and a half, take off the foil and add a splash of cream to the baking dish, if the dish looks very dry, add a tiny bit more chicken stock. Put it back in the oven, uncovered for another 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, check that the potato can be gently pierced with a knife. If the potato are done, take it out, give it a little stir and serve.
I was finishing up teaching the knife skills class at Cambridge on Saturday, week one of a six week series when one of the students sidled up beside me and in her very sweet French accent whispered the sweetest words I have ever heard.
"I am a cheese maker, would you like me to bring some samples next week?"
It took a few seconds for the words to register,the temptation to utter Blessed are the cheese makers to pass and for my jaw to close.
"You are?"
"Yes, I work as a cheese maker at Vermont Butter and Cheese, I spend a lot of time working with the chef and I wanted to take this series to learn some techniques."
"Yes, please, samples would be great." I stammered out while shaking my head up and down.
I'm a girl with a dedicated cheese drawer in my house, I can't pass a cheese counter without finding some new little nugget to take home, I've smuggled cheeses in from other countries and I've managed to make a few basic fresh cheeses on my own, but I relish being able to ask her some questions and maybe, just maybe find a way to go up north and see her in action.
Cheese baby, it's all about the cheese.
This article is not pretty to read.
It is an eyes wide open look at one of the largest commercial hog producers in US. It just confirms for me the need to support smaller agricultural and farming interests and to spend our money wisely. Every time you choose to buy cheaply from a Smithfield or a Perdue you are choosing to support the giant machine. Look outside the box, know where your food comes from.
link via Michael Ruhlman
Now that I am sure Mom is on the road driving from Virginia to Boston as we speak I can finally reveal what is happening tomorrow in my kitchen.
Tomorrow my Mom is turning 60 and we are throwing her a surprise brunch...while she is staying here, NOT the easiest of tasks to pull off.
I have told my Mom more lies in the past few weeks than any time in my life, including the teen years. Normally I talk to her every day, but I have found myself avoiding her calls at all cost so I don't have to concentrate on what recent lie we have had to weave in order to get her out of the house tomorrow morning bright and early, why I can't come along with them, why husband must stay home as well, and why she must be back at the house by noon.
I'll give you a little preview of what we will be having and then hopefully I can manage to snap a few photos along the way so I can show you some of the things we made and put up some of the recipes.
There will be:
Kurobuta ham roasted and glazed
Veal Grillades
Goat cheese, artichoke and smoked ham strata
Piperade on garlic croutons
Gratin Dauphinoise
Brie en Croute
Waffles, buttermilk and chocolate with maple syrup and Blueberry or Strawberry Compote
Croissants and Danish
Bagels and Lox
Pithiviers
A selection of cookies
A decadent chocolate cake
Champagne Punch
and various other things whose names escape me at the moment.
The Pithivier filling is in the fridge chilling, the onions for the grillades are caramelized and I am off to prep the veal.
More later!
I'm sitting here up to my elbows in cookbooks planning my classes for the next runs at create a cook and I thought I'd nip in and list the classes I'll be teaching for the next couple of months, at least the ones I know about!
January
Monday's:
Teaching Assistant Professional Chef's Program at Cambridge School of Culinary Arts - Regional Italian
Tuesday and Thursday:
create a cook - Kitchen Basics 101 for 11 - 13 year olds
Wednesday:
create a cook - Winter Warm ups for 9 - 11 year olds
Jan 19th:
Cambridge School of Culinary Arts - Friday - Tapas - 6:30 - 9:30 - Just ignore the Cooking Couples part, bring a friend any friend and enjoy the night making Tapas and drinking wine!
Jan 26th:
Cambridge School of Culinary Arts - Friday - French Cooking - 6:30 - 9:30
Jan 13th, 20th, 27th:
Cambridge School of Culinary Arts - Saturday's 10:00 - 1:30 - Back to Basics. A great series that starts with Knife Skills and progresses through eggs, soups and stocks, moist heat cooking, dry heat cooking and the mother sauces.
February
Monday's:
Teaching Assistant Professional Chef's Program at Cambridge School of Culinary Arts - Regional Italian
Tuesday and Thursday:
create a cook - Kitchen Basics 101 for 11 - 13 year olds
Wednesday:
create a cook - Winter Warm ups for 9 - 11 year olds
Feb 3rd, 10th, 17th - Cambridge School of Culinary Arts - Saturday's 10:00 - 1:30 - Back to Basics. A great series that starts with Knife Skills and progresses through eggs, soups and stocks, moist heat cooking, dry heat cooking and the mother sauces.
Feb 18th:
Williams Sonoma - Burlington Mall - Sunday 9:00AM - 11:00AM -Kids Cooking Pasta Dinners
Menu:
Pasta Rustica w/Chicken Sausage and Three Cheeses
Fettuccine Alfredo
Linguine alla Carbonara
Cavatappi w/ Sausage and Tomato
Extra-Crispy Baked Rigatoni with Beef Ragu
Feb 24th:
Cambridge School of Culinary Arts - Saturday - Tapas - 6:30 - 9:30
Feb 25th:
Williams Sonoma - Burlington Mall - Sunday - 9:00AM - 11:00 AM - Kids Cooking Sweet Breakfast Treats
Menu:
French Toast
Buttermilk Pancake
German Apple Pancake
Basic Crepe
Sour Cream-Blueberry Waffles
Feb 26th:
Newton Community Ed - Monday - 6:30 - 9:00 - Thai Cooking: A feast in five flavours
March
Monday's:
Teaching Assistant Professional Chef's Program at Cambridge School of Culinary Arts
Tuesday and Thursday:
create a cook - Kitchen Basics 101 for 11 - 13 year olds
Wednesday:
create a cook - Winter Warm ups for 9 - 11 year olds
Mar 4th, 11th, 18th, 25th - Cambridge School of Culinary Arts - Sunday's 10:00 - 1:30 - Back to Basics. A great series that starts with Knife Skills and progresses through eggs, soups and stocks, moist heat cooking, dry heat cooking and the mother sauces.
March 23rd - Cambridge School of Culinary Arts - Friday - Tapas - 6:30 - 9:30
I hope to see you there!
Tomorrow is not only Christmas Eve, it is also my husband's birthday.
Imagine spending your early years hearing this is your Christmas/Birthday gift, or realizing that someone else would always outshine you on your day.
For the first few years of our marriage I would try to find a restaurant that was open and book reservations well in advance. We would relax all day and then dress up and hit some swanky spot for dinner. When we had finally been married long enough for me to know that he wasn't going to run in terror, I took him to Christmas Eve with my Italian relatives.
I can tell you that attending a family event is like watching a Soprano's episode live and you can nod your head sagely and say 'sure it is', but really, honestly it is. After we left the house the first year he was silent in the car. I looked at him and asked if he was okay and he just looked at me and said, I didn't believe you when you told me but it IS like the Soprano's. Bless him, he now tells me every year that he would like to attend, he quietly enjoys the crazy yelling, the smooching relatives, the whole buzz of the event. Quite a bit different from his staid Brit upbringing.
The dinner is held at my cousin Fuzzy's house, Fuzzy, a nickname he received due to his resemblance to a famous golfer of the period when he was born is a criminal lawyer which can be a convenient family relation at times, at least for a few of the famiglia. Fuzzy has no idea how to use a kitchen, he is married to the very beautiful 'G' who is equally inept in the kitchen.
My cousin 'J', who is closest in age to me, we are nine days apart, is the head chef for this event. With my Aunt's help (my father's sister) he will make all of the dishes for a clan that hits 20 - 30 en masse. This is one event I get to attend and don't get to cook anything! I shall relay all the dishes served when I return, but the one I am pining for, the one that brings me back every year is the stuffed calamari. Strips of calamari are stuffed and closed with a toothpick and simmered in a marinara sauce for hours. Oh My It Is G-o-o-d.
There will be screaming and yelling, kids running around, wildly gesticulated storytelling, sporting events blaring loudly from the wide screen T.V. in the next room, singing, booze shall flow freely and my Boston accent shall come out in force. It is one of the few times I lapse into it. There will be seven fish dishes as is tradition, strong espresso, Sambuca and loads of Italian Cookies for dessert. I will make a Pithivier tomorrow to bring as my contribution and a nice bottle of Barolo for the hosts and I will soa
