The painting is done, so my frantic 12+ hour days have abated for now. Happily, there’s all kinds of vernal burgeoning going on in the garden and elsewhere, so my return to the kitchen has been made even more inspiring by all the good food that’s growing everywhere. I had promised my wife a special dinner for having cooked most nights while I worked through the evenings, so last night I delivered.
I’ve always been a fan of mistakes as the metaphorical equivalent of mutations in genetic code. Most of them result in failure, but once in a while they make for dramatic improvements that could not have occurred otherwise. It’s true in my studio, and it’s most definitely true in the kitchen, where a recent mistake made for a pretty wonderful discovery. This post is supposed to be about duck prosciutto–the first of the Charcutepalooza assignments, which I joined too late to get done in time–but I honestly don’t have much to say about it that I haven’t already. I’ve been making it for several years, and try to never be without it. Here’s a post about it and other goodies from a few years ago. And since it was a hard heel of cured duck that gave me the idea that turned this pwn upside dwn, it seemed like a legitimate jumping-off point for this post.
With the wet, semi-cold weather comes the familiar scratchy-throated, fatigued feeling of impending sickness. We all have our various folk remedies. Mine centers around immediate and prolonged sleep, and has been known to include (in extreme cases) swabbing the throat with cut garlic cloves and cotton swabs dipped in tabasco sauce. Recently, though, when a couple of fingers of good whiskey neat don’t seem quite enough, I’ve been playing around with the storied combination of booze, honey, citrus, and hot water.
Usually when I see the end product in my mind before I begin to cook it turns out pretty well. I don’t know why this is, but I’ve learned to trust it; when I want to make a particular thing–even if I’ve never made it before–I do my best to make it. It almost always works.
A recent outing to a place that carries decent if inconsistent seafood yielded a dozen littleneck clams and a bag of wild Pacific shrimp. Our seafood options are limited up here, so I was thinking of ways to mix up what we can get that is both tasty and defensible. So on the ride home I did some thinking, and then some more once safely back in the kitchen. The results were quite good, and paved the way for a very compelling meal the following night. The difference between good and great food often lies in saving bits and pieces from previous meals.
We went to a potluck birthday on Saturday, and among other things this is what I made to bring. Last summer I came up with a coconut borscht using Thai curry flavors, and it worked pretty well. This time around I made the same thing, but using smoked chicken stock as well as a couple of other additions. Do yourselves a favor and make this as soon as you can.
Improvising dinner is a funny thing; sometimes–like two posts ago–it fails utterly in the absence of attentive preparation. Usually it works fine, especially when it treads familiar, well-worn paths of technique and ingredients. And sometimes it exceeds wildest imaginings, making for a perfect plate of food. Happily, last night was such an instance. I did the usual pre-dinner survey, pulling various containers and vegetables out of the fridge, and took stock. (I actually took stock…
I was out of town for a few days, visiting Providence and Boston. Most interesting culinarily was a trip to a Burmese restaurant in Brighton (or Allston, maybe) right near where the greatest Vietnamese restaurant in Boston used to be back in the 80’s. Viet Huong (in Allston) had about 4 tables, seated 8-9 people at very most, and had a lovely old couple who did everything: she cooked, he served. It was freaking genius.…
