oranges & tomatoes

is it noon yet?

2009-12-24T09:42:00.000-08:00

Is it wrong that I'm already thinking about lunch? Plotting the next meal while I'm doing something else seems to be a favorite game. Kind of like when others are coming up with their next brilliant plan for a novel or the schematic for a floor plan or the cure for cancer - my brain is solving the question of: What interesting meal can I make?

letting your pot roast

2009-12-13T20:07:00.000-08:00

Few things in life perplex me more than a pot roast. A slab of beef, a tough slab no less, that when cooked slowly in liquid becomes a stringy moist mess of meat that makes a delicious belly warming meal. That is if you have the patience...and I do not. Past attempts at this dish have resulted in rubbery sad pieces of meat that aren't fit to give the dog. Which makes me want to conquer said pot roast even more!

Tonight channeling my mother as best as I can (Mom make's the best pot roast hands down) I pull out the LeCreuset, the boneless chuck she gave me and vow to not wreck the roast. I understand the science of the cooking method with this cut of meat, and maybe time, the wait and my mother's long distance vibe pay off.

A delicious meat feast with potatoes and carrots and homemade gravy. Success!

Easy-Bake oven for adults

2009-12-13T13:41:00.000-08:00

In preparation for my Walden experiment I've purchased a toaster/convection oven. Makes me feel like finally, I own an Easy-Bake oven only better.

The convection oven works fabulously! Cookies and biscuits bake up in less time than in my conventional gas oven and seem to brown a bit better.

Still experimenting with the temperatures and timing - not an appliance I feel comfortable leaving alone to do it's thing (think fire.) But I'm certain soon enough I'll be multi-tasking while the oven bakes - not watching over it like an expectant mother.

Dining alone and with others

2009-12-06T10:57:00.000-08:00

10:56 AM I've had enough coffee to make my stomach feel odd; read enough of the Sunday LA Times to feel like there are people I'm missing out on; scouted a location for a Christmas card photograph and all the while let my mind ruminate over the dinner I had last night with 12 strangers.

At best, it was an interesting evening - cool surroundings, interesting views -marred only by the fact that several of the diners fancy themselves to be gastronomic experts and marvels of restaurant service.

Seated at a long table in the wine room at the Andaz Hotel - it is difficult to converse with more than the people one is seated with. But in retrospect, I scored a good seat, surrounded by people who enjoy a food adventure and didn't seem to take anything too seriously. Which is more than I can say for the other end of the table.

The service was a tad poor and the food not all that spectacular, but it was the other half of the table and their behavior that stands out in my mind this morning. Which is sad - as all I remember are two guests in particular who made loud repeated comments about their disappointment with their meals, and the odd service and blah, blah (more like nag, nag, nag.)

A reminder I suppose that when dining with self ascribed foodies, especially strangers, it might be advisable to bring ear plugs, drink much and pretend to not speak the language.

run kitchen run

2009-11-29T17:33:00.000-08:00

Maybe it was the 4 days off of work. Maybe it was the clean floor or the lack of dishes on the counter waiting for a bath. Or it was the solitude of Thanksgiving. Whatever moves me, I've been having a marathon in the kitchen for the last 48 hours.

First it was the breakfast sandwich, cooked to perfection on the BroilKing Pro electric griddle; then it was salsa fresca and a batch of nachos using the yummy La Fortaleza stone ground corn tortilla chips; then burgers; and now an experiment with a recipe from my favorite Weeknight Kitchen® hostess, Lynne Rossetto Kasper. (If you like this recipe, head to www.splendidtable.publicradio.org and sign up for her weekly newsletter or listen to her podcasts of the radio show.)

Marinating in the fridge is an adaptation of her Ginger-Shallot Chicken Breast recipe.

Later...I can't seem to follow a recipe verbatim, unless of course it involves baking - my version turned out quite tasty, served with a Napa cabbage salad lightly tossed with a soy sesame citrus dressing.

burgers burgers burgers

2009-11-29T17:09:00.000-08:00

Finally updated my collection of hamburger photos on Flickr - some so old, I couldn't remember the exact date I sampled the specific slab of ground beef. Oddly, some of places I've tried didn't make the photo parade, I'm guessing either because I'd forgotten my camera or in the case of the burger at Father's Office, it was so delectable I ate it in such haste that a picture was out of the question.

egg mc-this

2009-11-27T10:45:00.000-08:00

Who needs McDonald's?

After an unsuccessful Black Friday shopping experience - I came home to make breakfast. A fried egg with cheddar cheese and prosciutto on a hamburger bun - delish!

non-traditional turkey

2009-11-26T19:32:00.000-08:00

I needed turkey tacos. And a pumpkin spice cake instead of pie. And solitude.
I got them all. And I'm eternally thankful...

last year's candy

2009-02-14T19:12:00.000-08:00

While you're out at some fancy restaurant, gazing into the eyes of your beloved and hoping to get her drunk enough to get laid, know that I'm at home packing boxes for an impending move. In the process I've found time to make some important scientific junk food discoveries!

In the treat basket that hides out in the pantry I found 2 year old chocolate covered espresso beans, looking rather scary - probably still edible, but they looked sad, so they got the boot. Right next to this were two boxes of Sweetheart candies vintage 2008. Curious to see if Sweethearts grow stale, I tried a whole box and much to my sweet tooth's delight I happily report that these things have a shelf life like a Twinkie.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Celebrating Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T22:30:00.000-08:00

Last year at this time I was sitting in an apartment on the Upper East Side eating meat pies from the Down Under Bakery, thankful to have seen the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and Central Park up close earlier in the day. This seems to have kicked off a new tradition of non-traditional turkey day festivities...
This year I found myself imitating a lounge lizard - napping on and off throughout the day to dress late in the afternoon for the final seating at Palate in Glendale where I dined solo on of all things goat!
The meal was fabulous and not at all lonely as diners around me, plus the wait staff all joined in conversation at one point or another during the 2 hour meal. I left stuffed and thankful...

first course:: Celery Root Soup
second course:: Oxtail Agnolotti
main course:: Slow Roasted Goat with Endive
dessert:: Pumpkin Pie + Spice Cream
all the rest:: Coffee, lots of wine, candles and some guy in a green dress

dish pan hands

2008-01-21T19:37:00.000-08:00

If it's possible for a kitchen to be a reflection of the life being lived in it, then mine is screaming of unfinished business. We needn't get into the messy particulars of the life, for now I'll leave this as a story about doing the dishes...

7AM Sunday morning - dishes from yesterday are stacked on the side of the sink, waiting patiently for a bath. And this scene distresses me. To the point where I ignore the pile and begin making coffee. But as the coffee brews, I find myself filling the sink with hot soapy water, washing last's night business, while silently vowing to stop "the dishes can wait" nonsense. I will turn over a new leaf, I will clean up the kitchen each night so that in the morning I'm greeted to order and clutter free counter tops. I will end my mostly hate relationship with washing dishes. Clearly, I have not had coffee.

I play games to make myself do the dishes. Fill the sink, eat some chocolate. Scrub the pans, have a glass of wine. Mostly I cheat. Not to win, but to get out of what I view as tedious housework: the shit jobs that no one else wants to do. The reason why Josephine Garis Cochran invented the dishwasher - well that and she was tired of the servants breaking her fine china. Unfortunately for me, I have no one else to toss the job to. And no one to stop me from eating chocolate, drinking wine and dancing to loud music when I might just be rubbing the plates clean. The only "dishwasher" in the place is me.

Being American, I want to blame someone else for this. It must be the result of having to do dishes as a child I reason or the fact that every damn cooking show I watched did this really great trick with the dirty pots and pans whereby they were placed on a shelf out of view. Think about it, you're 6 and you see the pots and pans get carried off camera - who knows, maybe to get thrown away? Maybe to begin a second career in a film featuring pans with caked on gravy and yesterday's eggs. But certainly not to get washed, because hey they would have shown you that wouldn't they? Yeah, that's it. I'm blaming the Galloping Gourmet and Julia and some guy I remember as Chef Roy. If only they had spent time extolling the virtues of sudsing up a pan. Being up to your elbows in Palmolive.

Bob Blumer playfully addresses the subject of dishwash loathing in his cookbook The Surreal Gourmet -Real Food for Pretend Chefs. Actually he got a friend to give his take on making the process a rewarding one. It seems the author himself feels no more excited about cleaning a dish than I do. And while the advice in his book sounds reasonable, I have yet to get "zen" or find dishwashing to be an art form.

But then last night, some kind lady shows up in the kitchen sporting yellow gloves. She cheerfully cleans up the dishes from the days food adventuring AND puts them away. This cannot be me. I'm still the kid who would rather eat liver than wash a dish - no truly this is a ghost or just a plain figment of my imagination. Still the counter is clear this morning.

Tonight, the same odd lady with the yellow gloves showed up for duty about an hour or so after the evening meal. She scrubbed the pots clean, scoured the plates and bowls and silverware. Handled the wine glasses deftly, washing and drying them without breakage. I didn't hear a peep out of her. The whole thing took about 20 minutes, the washing part that is. I think she left them to air dry, which means I must participate in some way by at least putting the clean dishes away.

Which is to say my business is still unfinished.

not so still life in the kitchen

2008-01-14T19:09:00.000-08:00

The marquee outside this establishment might read, "Messes Made Nightly" if I lived in a theatre or a bar maybe. It seems something is always boiling over or spilling or breaking in the kitchen. Not that I've anything to do with this.

Tonight, it's the rice liquid burbling down the sides of the pan like it is trying to escape the heat by sliding overboard. A dish of salt gets knocked over, grains falling to the floor to join the bread crumbs that landed there when toast had to be excavated from the toaster.

All is not doom and gloom. Here now are some scenes of food less tossed, and messing that turned into meals.

hello good luck

2008-01-01T20:49:00.000-08:00

New Year brought in with the help of the good luck black-eyed peas, some pinto beans and the ham bone from the ham that keeps on giving.

I'm already feeling lucky...

hammin' it up

2007-12-19T19:51:00.000-08:00

Today's question: how many ways can a cook disguise, revise, redo, elevate, reheat, or re-serve yesterday's ham?

But first, a little background story...April 1997 Saveur magazine runs a story about dressing up a cheap smoked ham by slowly cooking the crap out it, while also glazing it up to be so amazingly delicious that it becomes the show stopper at all cocktail parties. Our little stay at home cook finds this story fascinating and promptly files the idea of said ham in her pretty little brain, while simultaneously forgetting which magazine she read it in. Years pass, parties are thrown and opportunities to try the ham are lost, as the article cannot be found.

Yet the idea of the ham remains. In fact our cook is so sure that she must have this recipe somewhere that one day she quietly sits looking through all the food zines she has kept, when viola! The article reappears. This time she marks the spine with a note that reads "The Ham Recipe Is In Here"

And finally on a rainy Tuesday in December, some 10 years or so later the recipe is tried - the ham is indeed delicious and the question posed at the beginning of this tale still remains.

What does one do with the leftovers of a 10 pound ham? Send in your favorite recipes for using up yesterday's ham - I'll try them - if I like them, you get a mention here.

waffle iron grilled cheese

2007-12-18T13:39:00.000-08:00

Today's theme is the illogical, the inane, and the oh hell, why not, let's try it? It is raining, it is freezing inside this apartment and short of wanting to build tents out of blankets like when I was five - the day screams for a cooking adventure.

I never had an Easy Bake Oven. The excuse my mother gave my sister and me had to do with the expense of the miniature cake mixes, the cost of light bulbs and the possibility of an electrical fire. Oh, and I'm pretty certain she threw in a bit about not cleaning up after ourselves. For this, I was probably marred for life and now blame my fascination with devising multiple uses for kitchen utensils on this missing childhood toy. Take my waffle iron for example. Hasn't seen a waffle since I've owned it, but it has in recent months become the new grilled cheese/panini press.

Burger safari no.2

2007-08-06T22:16:00.000-07:00

It starts out as a quest for the perfect burger. Well not really. I intended on turning the leftover steak from the previous night's kick ass meal into mini sliders with a side of Asian coleslaw. Instead, a message on my answering machine beckons me out for a burger.

My neighbor, the one who so graciously listens to me during "My Real Breakup" has decided that since our last burger outing- whereby we foresake free tickets to the Fray in favor of chasing a good hamburger- should continue the safari. I can't say no.
It's an adventure bigger than inventing a new recipe or sitting at home trying to write the perfect resume. I need this burger.

Without hesitation I call back to say I'm in. Oh and to ask "Where are we going this week? He replies simply, "The York." I don't ask, I just agree to meet in five minutes. Five minutes later we are off - Burger Safari no. 2

The York, on York is a cool space. With its safety glass paned windows that open to the street; distressed brick walls, exposed wood beam ceiling; light fixtures ala Thomas Edison with rusty wire coat hanger like chandeliers; all anchored by an L-shaped bar in the center of the room. Booths to the left and back side of the bar, plus metal bar stools at tiny cocktail high tables along the outer walls contribute to an old woodshop sort of feel without the sawdust. The menus, large chalk boards hanging on walls opposite the bar, list the beers, the wine, the food. It works.

And so does the burger. My neighbor proclaims it a good rival to the burger at Father's Office. I can't compare as I haven't had FO's creation yet. But I can say this York burger is delectable and the fries spot on.

fatigue and coffee

2007-07-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

One can't complain too much about temporary employment that provides a machine dispensing 6 types of coffee drinks plus hot chocolate with "real" milk. (Honest to god, that is what the button next to this selection says) But still, I can say that I'm bored - unchallenged by most of the paper shuffling that I'm charged with shuffling. This causes me to drink more coffee than usual. It also makes me want to eat all day long and eat nothing of great interest.

I eat when I'm bored. And I'm bored with eating. To lift a phrase from MFK Fisher I think I may be suffering from "gastronomical fatigue."

Even coffee can't cure that.

useful definitions

2004-01-23T08:55:00.000-08:00

For those times when you really need to define the food eating chain of life or just describe your food loving friends...

Epicure: one with sensitive and discriminating tastes, especially in food and wine.
Your basic food snob. Snob in a nice way of course - this person knows how to prepare the food, what to drink with it, how to pronounce it and most importantly which utensil to eat it with.

Gourmet: a connoisseur of food and drink.
Would someone please tell me why so many "gourmet" kitchens appear to lack anything remotely related to a connoisseur (see definition) other than marble counter tops and a lot of brushed stainless steel appliances?

Connoisseur: one who understands the details, technique, or principles of an art and is competent to act as a critical judge.
Are you really qualified?

Gourmand: a person excessively fond of eating and drinking.
My guess is that most people who call themselves a gourmet really fall into this category.

Glutton: one given habitually to greedy and voracious eating and drinking.
Oink

And now I am hungry.

The real definitions - Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary
Commentary - the mouth in the kitchen.