My Culinary Life In Pictures

Sipping on some 25 year old port in NOLA

Woweeeee. It’s been a CRAZY few months. I’ve been insanely lazy about posting anything recently, and it makes me feel sad. Almost so sad, that I want to insert an emoticon. But I won’t. I have self respect. I’m going to blame my lack of posting on the fact that I’ve had an off and on cold for a few weeks that has zapped my appetite, but also because my bank account has seen better days. How can I buy oodles of serious ingredients without some serious moolah? That’s right, you can’t. (Note to self: Look into culinary prostitution. Need money will work for Shaw’s gift cards!)

However, as I look through my new Iphone, I realized that I actually have eaten some fun stuff the last few months (I also realized I need to stop taking pictures of my cat with bows I’ve placed on her head) both things that I have made and things that I did not. So why not share all my fun feasts with you – my 7 fabulous followers?? Hi Mom!

Pork: The Other White Meat I Never Eat. Wait, I Think That's a Haiku!

This past Labor Day weekend, I was on Cape Cod and had dinner at Adrian’s in Truro. My friend Erin had heard that Boston chef Will Gilson had a pop-up restaurant at this little outpost this summer, so we drove to way out there Truro to sample the delights. The food was insane. This was pork loin (cooked to perfection btw) served with these neat little carrots, roasted leeks, and peaches. I love when fruit makes an appearance in a savory. I also can't tell you the last time I ate pork. Why don't I eat it more often?? It's just so delicious! My favorite part of this dish was the orange puree, which was actually chorizo flavored! Hot dog. Even though we got a flat tire on the way home, totally worth it!

Sufferin’ Succotash

One weekend this summer I drove my BFF back to her home-town of Fort Worth, Texas. That’s right, I drove to Texas in 2 days, suckaaaaaa. One night we stopped in New Orleans and ate at a stupendous restaurant called The Green Goddess where I had this duck sausage served with a black eyed pea succotash. I love the idea of a succotash ( I love to say the word even more!) so put together my own little mimic of that dish, subbing some chicken sausages for the duck. The black eyed peas really made this dish though be forewarned if you make a whole bag of beans, you will have A LOT of beans to eat. Of course if you are me, they just sit all guilty in a Tupperware in your fridge for a month before you come to the sad conclusion (or your roommate yells at you) that you're just never going to use those beans. I don’t do well with leftovers….

Norway: Fjords, Fish, Meatballs??

The premiere of The Amazing Race was at the end of September. A few friends and I are AR junkies, and thought it would be fun to have a "foods of the world" themed pot-luck event. It was my brilliant idea to pick our chosen country out of a hat, and of course I got stuck with....NORWAY! Kids, there’s a reason why Norwegian restaurants aren’t on every block. Their food is just weird. Just kidding - that’s mean. I will say that most of the food is pickled fish, brown bread, some weird brown cheese, reindeer? Not really pot luck caliber dishes. I did find a recipe for some meatballs with a spicy cream sauce - and by spicy think cinnamon not jalapeño. Here are the meatballs as they sizzled up. They turned out great and that’s mostly because I used about a pound of butter and lots of heavy cream.

No More Nachos!!!

There came a point in early October, where I was sick of eating nachos for dinner every night and smartly raided my bank account and splurged for scallops. Was I embarrassed that I went up to the fish market guy and said I wanted 3 scallops? Hellz no! It still cost me about $2 bucks a scallop and they were on sale! I wanted to make a restaurant worthy meal this night and one of my favorite things to order out are seared scallops over a risotto. For this risotto I did peas and a hint of lemon. Divine! I’m always a little wary of the whole scallop searing process. Butter or Oil? How long per side? They are just so delicate and they are really easy to over-cook. I got a pretty good sear on these though, and they were damn good.


If you turn 25, I’ll make thee Duck

My sister turned 25 on October 14th! Happy Birthday Andre! Andre loves duck and part of her present this year included me cooking a delectable duck feast. Well Monsieur Duck seriously took it out of me. I was at the peak day of my October coldfest and spent the morning running around trying to find duck breasts whilst guzzling various cold meds. I ended up buying a whole duck and teaching myself how to de-bone it via a YouTube video. I went for the French classic, Duck a L’Orange. Like a lot of French dishes the sauce was really complicated and by complicated I mean 28 different steps, lots of reducing stocks, caramelizing sugar, etc. Those French are serious over achievers. Duck is also a tricky bird when it comes to cooking it just right—but I got a pretty good sear on these and got them to a nice medium rare. I served the duck over a simple asparagus risotto with Romano cheese. Yum Yum.

Wow, Onion Rings Are FANTASTIC.

Andre also inspired me to make another meal recently; BBQ Bacon Cheeseburgers with Onion Rings. This particular burger is Andre’s Holy Grail burger and one day she was eating it and I asked her if I could take a sniff. Oh the pathetic lives of those who cannot eat burgers on buns! The smell was intoxicating; fatty burger, tangy bbq, smoky bacon, and the fried yumminess of the onion rings. I nearly swooned. I ended up making my own bun-less version, complete with gluten free onion rings! I used GF pancake mix for the breading and it all worked out rather well. It was my first onion ring in almost 10 years and I had forgotten how flipping amazing they are.

MY CAT IS CUTE DEAL WITH IT

There is no culinary story tied to this little gem, but I do enjoy taking pictures of my sweet cat. This is a mini raspberry sorbet that I got and that IS food, so I think it qualifies for the montage. Cat Lady, what what??