Thursday N…afternoon Smackdown: I’m Having Dinner at Babbo, Suckas 03 Jul 08

At a VIP table, no less. Suck on THAT.

Okay, I know this is bad form. It’s my blog, it’s my inaugural event, and here I am, copping out and making a quick lunch so I can skip out on you to spend a night on the town. But here’s the thing: cook eat FRET is in town. And she’s now total BFFs with Joe Bastianich, co-owner of many of Mario Batali’s restaurants, so she managed to get this fancy-ass table at Babbo tonight. And I am not afraid to send a deluge of whiny emails to internet personages to secure reservations like this one. And her mother will be at dinner, so hopefully I’ll get a stock of embarrassing childhood stories I can use as blackmail to get more invitations to dinner like this. And so the circle of life continues. It’s beautiful, really.

I couldn’t not smack something down, though, so I decided to make a light lunch that would be worthy of the occasion but would be light enough so as not to impinge on this evening’s gastronomic adventure. Therefore: Chilled cucumber-yogurt soup with quinoa timbales, courtesy of Lorena Sass’ Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way. It’s a perfect refreshing summer lunch, or first course at a fancy vegetarian restaurant, the kind where vegans go for special occasions. (”Will you accept this cruelty-free Canadian diamond set in hemp as a gesture of my desire to spend my life with you in monogamous co-equal sustainable partnership?”)

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The Great…e-SCAPE. Get it? You know, because there are scapes in this 02 Jul 08

You don’t get it at all, do you Steve?

Sometimes I wish I could post in 3-D, because that peanut? Totally looks like it’s poised to leap off the screen at you. That peanut will cut a bitch.

I often bemoan the fact that I am too fucking lazy* to get up early enough to make it to the Greenmarket in time for quickly snatched up, fleeting seasonal delicacies like ramps and garlic scapes. I salivate over other people’s beautiful photos, promise myself I’ll go this coming Saturday and then stay up late on Friday reading back issues of Love & Rockets and sleep until noon the next day (I’m fortunate to have equally lazy dogs who enjoy sleeping in on weekends).

Thankfully, I now have my own personal organic farmer to provide me with fleeting seasonal delicacies. Well, me and the 75 other people in my neighborhood CSA. He grows ‘em, he brings ‘em to the neighborhood, and I pick ‘em up after work and enjoy my beauty sleep guilt-free. So thank you, Farmer John, for enabling me to eat this delicious new potato and garlic scape puree with my pan-seared halibut and snap pea slaw.

*On a laziness scale of 1 to 10, I’m a 17. On a good day.**

**I REALLY like sleep.

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July 2008 First Thursday: Let’s get ready to rumble 02 Jul 08

I know you’ve all been diligently pouring over your cookbooks and magazines to find THAT PERFECT RECIPE, and now it’s time to let loose! Tomorrow is the first Thursday of the month, so whip up that meal and get your post on.

Complete instructions are here.

If you’re one of those folks who likes badge-y type things, this is for you. Now go! Go! Go!

Cheap Ass Monday: Down by the Boardwalk 30 Jun 08

Not actually on, near, under, or down by a boardwalk.

I’m going to tell you right now: this post? Is not really funny. Feel free to leave if that’s a problem, and we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming later this week.

As you can imagine, it’s been a bit of a rough weekend; I haven’t really felt like cooking, let alone photographing and describing my meals in detail. Funerals and their associated activities are always kinda rough, and I’m not nearly far enough in the mourning process for my own father not to have all that shit get dredged up, compounding things. Blargh.

I gotta tell you, the Orthodox Jews and their burial services? I to the N to the T-E-N-S-E. It’s so…biblical, with the actual rending of garments and the shoveling and the Hebrew and the phlegm. I’m emotionally drained just thinking about it.

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Thursday Night Smackdown: Not it. 26 Jun 08

There’s been a loss in my family, so I regretfully must announce the cancellation of tonight’s smackdown. Go freeze yourselves up some beer to drown your sorrows.

ETA: Thanks for the good wishes, everyone, I really appreciate it.

Guess what this is. No really, guess. 25 Jun 08

If you look at the categories or URL then you are a FILTHY CHEATER.

It’s refreshing, light, fruity but tart, utterly irresistible. It looks so civilized, doesn’t it? Like something you would serve to the ladies who lunch when they come over for the garden party benefiting the foundation one of them started to purchase wheeled carts for paralyzed needy dachshunds. I almost don’t want to tell you what it really is, because I don’t want to damage my reputation as ONE CLASSY BITCH.

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Cheap Ass Mondays: A Little Fancy, A Little Schmancy 23 Jun 08

I made this dinner purely as an excuse to gloat about my egg-poaching skills. Seriously, look at that fucking thing. It’s like art.

Did I make this dinner just so I could gloat about my infinitely awesome egg-poaching skills?  I may have.  But maybe I ALSO made it so I could gloat about my willingness to make things painstakingly by hand - let us not forget the angel hair cucumbers - rather than relying on the modern conveniences that would hasten dinner’s journey to my table. Because I? Am better than you.

To wit: fresh, hand rolled and cut pasta tossed with onions, garlic, red spinach and bacon and topped with a poached egg. Proof that cheap can still be pretentious!
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The Snozzberries Taste Like Snozzberries! 22 Jun 08

Tiny martini glasses: cute presentation, or painfully twee?*

A few weeks ago, The Kitchn highlighted an old Bon Appetit recipe for wine-marinated grapes. Because while fruit is tasty on its own, it is almost always improved by being soaked in booze.

I was immediately drawn to this recipe - if you can call it that, it’s so simple I don’t know if it rises to the level of “recipe” - because frozen grapes have always been one of my favorite summer snacks. And if I love frozen grapes, and soaking grapes in booze will make them better, then Newton’s 5th Transitive Rule of Snacks dictates that wine-soaked, frozen grapes should be fan-fucking-tastic. Newton’s actual words.

*Even though I took these photos, I’m going to have to go with “twee.”

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Thursday Night Smackdown: Maybe Fish Sauce Isn’t Entirely Evil 19 Jun 08

I don’t want to harp, really, but I do feel that I must state here again that I do NOT own a mandolin.

I finally got a copy of Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Asian Flavors of Jean-Georges, and immediately wanted pretty much everything in it. I was going to do the peking duck, because yum, but the directions instructed me to hang the glazed raw duck from a hook overnight in the fridge, where you’ve also placed a small battery-powered fan to keep air moving around the duck. Thanks for adapting that recipe for the home cooks with normal-sized refrigerators* at whom your book is aimed, Jean-Georges! Really helpful.

Still, I can’t be too angry at him because despite his chef stardom he still eats hot dogs. So I decided to go with his Charred Lamb Salad, a riff on traditional Thai beef and lettuce wraps that sounds MUCH more boring that it actually is.

*Maybe I didn’t read the introduction carefully, maybe it’s only for home cooks with home meat lockers.

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The Big Stomach Wave Makes the Love 18 Jun 08

What does it all mean? Hell if I know. All of today’s captions are brought to you by the nutjobs who found TNS via google. This one’s for you, Mr. or Ms. “Upside Down Belly Button.”

Really, what was this person looking for? “The big stomach wave makes the love”? Is it some grody thing that I’m naive for not knowing? If so, I’d like to continue on in my blissful ignorance.

A few weeks ago the New York Times Wednesday food section had a feature article on ricotta that included instructions for making it yourself, and I’ve been brooding over it ever since, wanting to make it. I could resist no longer, so I decided dinner tonight would be ricotta crostini. It’s a win-win-win: I love cheese, I love nibblies, and I love dinner. Success!

I ended up making two savory crostini - one with prosciutto and thyme, one with a sweet and spicy quick tomato compote - and one sweet, with honey, walnuts and cardamom. All were dinner worthy, and all will re-appear on my table. Quoth Brian, “It’s like crack!”

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