Category: Awesomeness

November 29, 2009

For the last two Thanksgivings I have thrown down 11-course extravaganzas (links here and here; menu for second link here) which took days to make and hours to eat. This time around, we were to have the meal in Vermont, and I just couldn’t deal with having to bring lots of components and more than a few tools, gadgets, and plates to do it there. So I just did a straight-up all-on-the-plate at once dinner,…

November 21, 2009

Local 10-grain mix pressure-cooked with beets. Lentils simmered with onions, herbs, homemade bacon and smoked chicken broth. Green mash made with curly endive, pan di zucchero, ume plum, pumpkin seeds, and olive oil. All kinds of awesome.

October 21, 2009

Sunday and Monday I did a heap o’ cookin’ for the November article, and Jen the photographer was scheduled to come Monday evening to shoot the results. The article will be a Thanksgiving thing, showing some ways to make the preparation easier and flavor richer than the normal version without going completely off the reservation (as it were). And John was around. Like waterboarding Dick Cheney, it was a no-brainer. Jen came early, and shot…

October 15, 2009

We went to Vermont last weekend, and there was some good eatin’- most interesting was a shellfish stew with local kielbasa that I’ll describe in the next post. This afternoon I got busy trying to turn the last of the season’s tomatoes- bought at the farmers’ market yesterday because ours are done, and now dead from frost- into a couple of kinds of salsa to compensate for the complete lack of home-canned tomato sauce this…

September 7, 2009

I’m heading off to Miami today for a show- I’ll be gone a week- so here’s the post of the ridiculously off-the-hook steak we had the other night to tide you over until I get back. It’s a perfect example of how the simplest ingredients can attain perfection when they’re properly sourced, grown, and prepared. In this case, a seriously badass steak and a bunch of just-picked vegetables. Sounds pretty average, right? But oh, what…

August 30, 2009

Organic heirloom red fingerling potatoes roasted with lardons of homemade miso-cured maple-smoked bacon, fat cloves of garlic, and branches of rosemary are very, very good. That is all.

August 10, 2009

It seems kind of meat-centric around here, I know, but that’s partly because the camera was out of town and partly because some of the meatless things I’ve made lately haven’t been super photogenic. Despite what it may seem, our life is not all bacon all the time. Sorry to disappoint you. This post, for example, has no bacon in it at all, and will instead feature massive amounts of smoked and simmered non-belly pig…

August 7, 2009

Since the family is away for a few days, and this last week has been a trying one, I’ve been getting a lot of work done and not cleaning up after myself- just like I used to do every single day before I had a family. To celebrate, and also to treat myself to some hedonism as the wretched poison ivy abates under the onslaught of steroids, I constructed a burger that may well be…

August 1, 2009

Remember the bacon? I finally got around to smoking it, only a couple of days later than I intended to. The two cures had made noticeable differences to the meat; the traditional cure (I use the word loosely here, since it had coffee and tons of garlic in it) had firmed it up and darkened it noticeably, while the miso cure had left the meat firm but still supple and only slightly colored. I put…

July 27, 2009

On Saturday we piled in the car- along with Oren, who took the bus up from the city- and headed to the Berkshires for Richard’s 60th birthday party. It was every bit the party we all knew it would be, and we all brought something since it was a surprise; Susan could not have made anything ahead of time without giving it away. This is a real shame, considering that they have the most unbelievable…