One of the great joys of parenting is that it’s like having a VIP preview to all of the season’s latest must-have microbes. Milo got a cold on Friday, and of course inevitably I got it a couple of days later. Since it was just the two of us this weekend, I made a big vat of minestrone with a chicken carcass, lots of roots and herbs from the garden, alphabet pasta, and heirloom cranberry…
Category: Technique
The spinach we planted in March is starting to bolt, so I took that as an opportunity to yank most of it up and do something fun with it. We loves us some spinach pie here, so I made it the center of a warm day dinner (though it does need the oven, it’s better eaten once it’s cooled off a bit.) The haul from the garden also included bolting arugula, some lettuces, and a…
Jeez. Roughly in order of proportion: Rub: Espresso Garlic Kosher Salt Cumin Cinnamon 5-spice Pepper Curry Chilli Togarashi Sudachi Zest etc. Sauce: Red Wine Tomato Paste Tamarind Paste Molasses Cider & Balsamic Vinegar Soy Sauce Maple Syrup Espresso Yuzu Juice Yuzu Kosho Sriracha or Sambal Oelek Cinnamon Cumin Other Powders, depending and other liquids/pastes from the fridge, depending (most recent batch had Dijon mustard.) Happy now?
So as if by design, upon my return our neighbor Kenny had just brought some rainbows he caught at one of his favorite spots upstream. Combined with the (not quite seamless, but pretty close) overlapping of the bolting winter greens and fast-arriving new ones, the stage was set for exactly the kind of homecoming dinner I had been craving while I survived on coffee, carbs, and wine all weekend. Milo was so happy to see…
So there was this pork shoulder in the freezer. It had been there for a very long time (properly vacuum-sealed, don’t worry) and the warm, burgeoning gorgeousness all around- plus the fact that the smoker is right next to my studio, so I see it 20 times a day- inspired me to thaw it and do things to it. To begin, the espresso-based rub, and then a bit of time to sit while I lit…
Shopping with a kid can be a fun random-vegetable generator for the home menu. It can also involve many pleading lunges for the infinite variety of ghastly sugared crap all conveniently arrayed about three feet off the floor for maximum grabability. For the most part, though, it’s enjoyable, and we end up bringing home things I wouldn’t normally get, like eggplant in April. They were too big and shiny to resist, and it’s hard to…
I woke up this morning figuring that I should have planned something nice for Easter, but that since I hadn’t- bad parent/husband that I am- I should pretend that I had and figure out what I could bust out convincingly. To begin with, we had eggs. A good start, and lucky, because the wife she likes the eggs so we’re often low or out. And I had bought a big bar of organic super-dark chocolate…
We had made plans with Chris and Sirkka to get together for dinner, so this morning I pulled a giant (8 lb.) lamb shoulder- complete with ribs that I could have turned into chops if it hadn’t been frozen- and got to work. It was too big to fit in anything but the oven, so I broiled it for a bit to render off some fat and get a good brown on it. Then I…
Have you ever wondered why your homemade Indian food never quite achieves the rich, satisfying depth that even the cheapest restaurant delivers all the time? There are two reasons. The first is that if they’re any good, they grind their own spices fresh every day. The second is butter. Clarified, yes, but butter. And cream. In copious quantities. I discovered this shocking- SHOCKING- fact the other night when I absently glugged the last of some…
We learned this from John, and I think he learned it from Richard. It’s a kind of pesto, but made with a bitter green from the endive/radicchio family like pan di zucchero or radicchio; lately we’ve been using the galia endive because it’s at its peak. Frisée makes a divinely creamy mash. The suribachi is the ideal tool for making mash, and though it takes a bit of work, the result is well worth it,…