Life Is a Feast

Deviled Eggs, Potato Salad, and Triffle

2008-05-12T09:13:00.001-07:00

Megapost! Mother's Day Brunch was a heck of a lot of fun and the eating was good. Most everything we served was ready to go hours before anyone showed up, which made having both my mother and mother-in-law over (love you guys, but no one makes a girl nervous quite like her mother and mother-in-law) easy-peasy.

Deviled Eggs

Ingredients
1 dozen hard-boiled eggs
3 tablespoons mayonaise
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
fresh ground black pepper

How To
Peel the eggs, cut them in half, and separate the yolks and whites:

Look how pretty the whites are on this bed of greens:

Mash the yolks, mayo, mustard and pepper with the back of a fork until nice and smooth:

Pipe the filling into the eggs using either a pastry bag or a freezer bag with the tip cut off:

Potato Salad

I love roasted potatoes in a potato salad. They're easier to make than boiled potatoes and have better flavor. In retrospect, I should have added capers. Good thing I can make it right with the leftovers!

Ingredients
2 pounds little yellow potatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt, pepper, and garlic powder
2 celery ribs, chopped
5 radishes, chopped
1/4 cup mayonaise
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
1 tablespoon dill
1 teaspoon capers

How To
Wash the potatoes and place on a baking sheet. Drizzle with oil and season generously with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Roast at 450 for 25-35 minutes or until the potatoes have good color and a fork easily breaks a test potato in half.

Let cool completely (I baked the potatoes the night before and assembled the salad in the morning) then cut the potatoes into 8ths. Combine with the celery and radishes:

Mix the remaining ingredients together to make a dressing and toss with the potatoes. Serve chilled:

Triffle

I'd planned to make these complicated little lemon tarts for dessert but everything seemed fated against that plan. So I said why fight city hall? and made a very easy triffle instead.

Ingredients
1 pound cake, cut into cubes
1 pound strawberries, cut up and dusted with a teaspoon of sugar
whipped cream
1 jar lemon curd

How To
Layer cake, berries, whipped cream and lemon curd, ideally in a container that shows the layers. How cute is this dessert in this jar? Adorable! Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

Five for Friday: Five Pages You Should Read

2008-05-09T17:33:00.001-07:00

1.) Common Kitchen Myths

Still heating your pan before adding the oil? Still afraid to salt that pork chop before frying it? This page settles many misconceptions about how things ought to be done in the kitchen.

2.) 12 Superfoods You Need To Be Eating

Finally, verifiable support for my avocado addiction!

3.) Why You Should Read The Numbers On Your Fruit Stickers!

Come on, you knew there had to be a super-secret code. Embrace 9, reject 8!

4.) Eat This, Not That.

Wouldn't it be great to live in a world where one never had to eat at a KFC or a Carl's Junior? But we gotta live in this world. This website can help with making better choices.

5.) How Much Coffee Will Kill You?

I'm a goner after 273.00 cans of Slim-Fast Cappuccino Delight Shake.

Aztec Brownies

2008-05-07T18:39:00.000-07:00

I love sweet and spicy together and I love the combo of chocolate and cinnamon. These brownies fulfill all of those cravings.

If you don't like spicy foods, feel free to omit the cayenne. If you love, love, love spicy sweets, add an extra teaspoon. One teaspoon is enough to create a little bit of heat that builds as you eat but it's not so spicy that it becomes the focal point (or keeps you from eating more than is good for you, darn it.)

Ingredients

8 ounces of good-quality chocolate, chopped (try it with milk chocolate, try it with dark. Both are different and both are good.)
2 sticks of butter
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup of sugar (I use evaporated cane juice)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup flour (I use whole wheat)
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

How To

Grease a brownie pan and preheat oven to 375 degrees. Begin by beating together the eggs, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, cayenne and salt for about 5 minutes.

Melt the butter slowly over low heat. Once the butter is completely liquidated, pour over the chopped chocolate to melt.

Stir the chocolate and butter together. This is an easy way to both melt the chocolate and cool the butter.

Add the chocolate mixture to the egg mixture slowly, mixing very well. Lastly, add the flour and baking powder, mixing until just combined. Spread in your brownie pan:

Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Look at the nice crackly top crust on this bad-boy:

You can either leave well enough alone, or you can sprinkle the top with additional chocolate while the brownies are hot.

Let the heat of the brownies melt the chocolate, then spread across the top with the back of a spoon. Num.

One last brownie beauty shot:

Patrick needs to take these to work tomorrow. I'm not to be trusted alone with them in the house!

Mother's Day Brunch Menu

2008-05-07T11:23:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day is this Sunday. You better buy a card now-- all the good ones will be gone and you'll be left with something like this:

I don't know about you, but there are two days I really don't want to go out to eat-- Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. It's not that I don't want to celebrate both those days, but being in an over-stuffed restaurant surrounded by people at other tables whose faces hold all the joy of folks having foot surgery just under the table... it's not my idea of a good time.

So we're having a Mother's Day Brunch at our place. My parents are coming, Patrick's parents are coming and my grandmother is coming too. Here's the menu so far:

Asparagus Galette
Deviled Eggs
Potato Salad with Lots of Dill

Baby-Back Ribs
Grilled Shrimp
Brownies
Little Lemon Tarts
Prosecco & Bloody Marys

We're still open to suggestions and will flip some things around but this seems like a nice, spring-time menu.

Eating Out: Dish

2008-05-05T08:09:00.000-07:00

So, I like food. I like to eat. And on Saturday, I had to eat crow like nobody's business.

A good friend of ours had her wedding on Saturday in La Canada. I wrote on "the family calendar" that the wedding started at two. Anticipating glasses of champagne, we were ultra-responsible and took a cab up to the La Canada Country Club. Yeah, the wedding didn't start until six. Six. Six. Poor Patrick. I still feel terrible about that screw up. Sorry, baby.

We had four hours to kill so we took another cab back down the hill and walked along Foothill Boulevard, looking for a place to have a drink. We originally thought of Taylor's but they are seriously under construction. And thank goodness! Taylor's is fab, don't get me wrong, but we would have never found Dish.
How cute is this place? This is the restaurant side (can you tell it was between lunch and dinner? It got a lot busier around 5 when we were leaving) but we sat on the bar side.

Because it was the Kentucky Derby, we were treated to the Dish Mint Julip (Maker's Mark, mmm...) We ordered sweet potato fries and they were perfect-- hot and crisp without being soggy or sticky like sweet potato fries can be.

The bartender urged us to have a red velvet cupcake and, oh, I don't like red velvet cupcakes but look what we did to this one:

And then three-and-a-half seconds later:

Want one? You can either go to Dish (and you should) or you can watch how to make them here:

We can't wait to go back for a full meal!

Five for Friday: Five Cooking Tools I Want

2008-05-01T22:14:00.000-07:00

It's my birthday this month! I'm not one of those people who yawn and act bored by their birthday coming around. That's not to say I don't try to, but I stink at it. I always like my birthday-- it's a day where I see my favorite people and eat my favorite things and open pressies. What's not to like?

1. A Muddler

I'm pretty strict with myself about new tools I take into my kitchen. Our wedding stocked our utensil drawers to the brim and most of our four-square-feet of counter are occupied by appliances so anything new that comes into the kitchen has to be something that there is a demonstrated need for. I've learned that buying a tool will not make me do whatever it is that the tool does (I know, shocking!) So, buying a pasta maker will not make me make pasta. It's better to monkey around with pasta dough and a rolling pin to see if it's something worth pursuing than to spend a couple hundred bucks on a big machine that will just live as a testament to my own lack of follow through.

I've been smashing mint leaves with the back on a wooden spoon for months now. Time for a muddler!

2. The OXO Citrus Press

I broke my cheesy three-dollar plastic lemon sqeezer. Time to upgrade! I love pretty much every tool that OXO makes. They're sturdy but not heavy, comfortable in the hand without sacrificing function and they clean up easily.

3. An herb garden.

Nora, I'm lookin' at you for this one, good buddy. My thumbs are black but my heart is pure! Help me. I could fund a trip to the Build-A-Bear Workshop with the money I spend on mint, rosemary, basil and thyme every month.

4. A Le Creuset Square Skillet Grill

I look at this pan and imagine making steaks and burgers and paninnis and I also picture the weird pleasure I get from seasoning cast iron. But that doesn't seem like enough use to devote a whole pan to.

What do you think? Do you own one of these? How often do you use it and what do you use it for?

5. The Wilton Large Cupcake Pan

I feel giddy, honestly giddy, when I look at this pan and the magic it promises to create. It's a giant freakin' cupcake! Come on!

Roasted Cauliflower

2008-05-01T08:05:00.000-07:00

I'm cheating again. I posted this recipe for the first time last year but it's worthy of a repost with pictures-- it's too yummy! And it makes a believer out of former cauliflower haters (like my husband.) Spicy and crunchy and savory and oh, so good!

Ingredients
1 medium or large head of cauliflower
1/3-1/2 cup olive oil (depends on the size of the cauliflower)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
salt and pepper

How To
Mix the olive oil, red pepper, fresh ground black pepper (about a teaspoon) and garlic together. Wash the cauliflower and remove the florettes, cutting as much of the stems off as possible. Break the florettes up into bite-sized pieces and place in a bowl.

Drizzle with the olive oil mixture and sprinkle with salt, about a tablespoon.

Mix well. Let "marinate" for 20-30 minutes while preheating the oven to 400 degrees.

Spread the cauliflower over the bottom of a shallow baking pan and place in the oven.

Roast for 20-25 minutes, occasionally stirring in order to achieve even browning. Serve hot.

Here is is, served up with pork chops, mashed pots and homemade gravy:

Eating Out: Johnny Rebs'

2008-04-30T08:54:00.001-07:00

On Monday, I was scheduled to have blood work done for my annual physical. So I did what any reasonable person would do and went for a gravy-laden breakfast at one of our favorite places: Johnny Rebs':

We go to the Bellflower location, though they have locations in Orange and Victorville. Johnny Rebs' has bad luck when it comes to their buildings. The screened-in porch above was slammed into by a drunk driver a few years ago and last year, their Long Beach location burned down (grand reopening is slated for May 16th.)

Maybe they can break this unlucky streak by opening a Pasadena location? Please? Really, I'm thinking of them and not myself here, oh no.

Now, I don't want anyone to get the idea that this is some weird California version of southern cooking. The only evidence that this place is on the west coast is the presence of a vegetarian omelette on the breakfast menu.

Their blonde ale is delicious and comes in one of the frostiest glasses you've ever seen-- it actually freezes the beer a little, making the most excellent beer slushy. Of course, it was 10 a.m. on this visit but that doesn't mean I didn't seriously consider it.

Patrick had the salty country ham (they will question you when you order it-- have you had this before? Do you know how salty it is?) a fluffy biscuit, a side of gravy, cheese grits, and scrambled eggs.

I had the chicken fried steak (crispy crunchy and tender), grits (check out that wad-o-butter. Paula Dean would be proud.), fluffy biscuit and eggs over medium. Heaven.

If you go for dinner, have some hushpuppies and sweet potato fries to start, then some of their ribs and pulled pork. They have a deep fried apple pie that I have never had the hubris to order, so let me know how it is if you do. The food is tremendously good, service friendly and absolutely worth the drive.

Jalapeño Cheese Bread

2008-04-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

We're getting close to "oven off" season in this household. In our apartment, the mere thought of turning the oven on increases the temperature within it by ten degrees. In the winter, this is great-- make a pot roast and heat the house! Yes! But the rest of the year, forget about it. The summer months are spent in the yard, using the grill and the smoker.

It's only April but it's supposed to be in the triple digits tomorrow. What better way to deny the coming of summer than to fire up the oven and bake some bread?

Ingredients
1 package dry, active yeast
3/4 cup warm water
pinch of sugar
3 tablespoons of butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs
4 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
3 jalapeño peppers-- one cut into slices and the other two seeded and chopped
3 big garlic cloves, minced

How To
People get all freaked out about making bread with yeast, which I've never really understood. What's so scary about it? Yeast is fun-- it's like filling a paper-mache cone with vinegar and baking soda to imitate a volcano.

First, you proof your yeast by combining your yeast, pinch of sugar and warm water. The water should be just warmer than room temperature. Here's the yeast just after being mixed:

And here it is five minutes later. Bubbly fun!

If it doesn't bubble, then it's time for a trip to the grocery store because your yeast is no good.

Pour the flour into a mixing bowl and make a little well. Fill the well with the eggs, butter and yeast mixture. If you have a mixer, use the dough hook to mix and kneed the dough for several minutes.

Now, I made lots and lots of bread by hand before I owned a mixer. It's time-consuming (but is that a bad thing?) and takes elbow-grease (again, why is that a bad thing?) but doable. I feel a little spoiled by my mixer (I've only had it for a year but use it weekly.) Here's a good tutorial on how to mix and knead dough by hand if you're working without a mixer.

But I've got my mixer so I used my mixer (the KitchenAid Professional 6-Quart Mixer, if you're interested) to work everything together. Here's the dough just starting:

And here it is after about 5 minutes. Magic! If your dough is still sticking to the sides of the bowl, add flour little by little until the dough begins to take shape but is still sticky:

Move the dough to an oiled bowl and cover to let rise. Here it is before mixing:

And here it is after letting it rise for about 30 minutes:

Neat, huh? Punch it down and let it go another round of rising.

One the dough has gone through two risings, it's time to heat your oven to 350 degrees. You want your oven nice and toasty once it's time to put in the bread.

Spread the dough out in a big rectangle. I use a combination of a rolling pin and my hands to massage it into shape. The nice thing about yeast doughs made with eggs and butter is they tend to be more glossy and elastic and a little less sticky than others doughs. I don't even use flour on my board while I roll it out:

Sprinkle the dough with the chopped jalapeños, minced garlic and handfuls of cheese. I'll confess that I don't measure the cheese when I do this, I just eyeball it. Don't go too crazy with the cheese though-- too much cheese and it will bubble out of the loaf and just make a big mess.

Now comes the tricky part. Roll the dough up like you would if you were making cinnamon rolls. One:

Two... (I am totally the one-armed dragon lady here, no?)

Three!

Pinch the final layer of dough to the top of the loaf and roll it around a bit to smooth out the seam. You want the dough to be fairly well sealed in on itself. The less sealed the dough, the more likely you'll have cheese on the pan and not in the bread like you want.

Center the loaf on a greased baking sheet. Cover and let it rise again for about 30 minutes. Press slices of jalapeño into the top and sprinkle with more cheese.

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Tap the loaf in the center. If it makes a hollow sound, it's done. Be sure to let it cool completely before slicing.

And then here it is... notice how rolling everything up makes yummy pockets of cheese:

Five for Friday: Five Ways to Make Entertaining Easier

2008-04-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

I love, love, love having people over and I always have. Just because I love it doesn't mean that I've always been good at it. Entertaining is no fun though when your head might just pop off and fly around the room because everything needs to be "perfect". "Perfect" will make you drink too much, be short with your spouse and insult your own cooking. Not that I've ever done that.

1.) Do as much in advance as possible.

If you plan to clean your house, buy groceries, set the table, prep and cook all in a six-hour span before your guests arrive, your heart might just explode out of your chest by the time dessert rolls around. You will not have fin and having people over should be fun!

When you plan your menu, plan dishes that aren't touchy-- braised meat and potatoes are comforting and delicious and will forgive a little forgetfulness on your part. Look at your days before having people over. I like to have one day of house-cleaning, one day of shopping, and one day of deep prep for the meal. I even set the table the night before. I'm a sucker for a pretty table:

2.) You don't have to offer the world.

Now, if you have a vegetarian coming to supper or someone with a known food allergy, then by all means, do your best accommodate them. But aside from that, try and keep your offerings simple and cohesive. If you're serving dinner, all you really need to serve is the standard protein-veg-starch. Dessert can be coffee and chocolate. Anything else is extra and should be treated a such. This isn't your last meal or your guests'. It's better to concentrate your efforts on making a few things well than many things poorly.

3.) Let others help.

When your guest says, "What can I bring?" the correct answer is "dessert". Or whatever it is you don't have some overwhelming desire to make. Whatever they bring, make sure it's a dish that doesn't need to be assembled in your busy kitchen, which is why I love it when people bring dessert. Check out the sexy cake my friend Nora brought when we had her and her boyfriend over for dinner:

4.) Put out snackies.

Setting out cheese and crackers puts me at ease. If your guests have something to snack on and some wine to drink, the start-time for dinner is less important. And I like to use our cheese board-- it's shaped like a giant piece of cheese! And it has another little piece of cheese to cut with!

5.) Relax.

If you're not enjoying your guests and having a good time, you're missing the whole point. It's an hour until your guests arrive. House still cluttered? Shove it in a closet. Mirrors in the bathroom need cleaning? Unscrew the lightbulb and light some candles. Have a glass of wine, eat some of your cheese and check on dinner.

Garlicy Buttery Spinach

2008-04-24T08:41:00.001-07:00

I love spinach. I made this last night to go with some chicken curry and naan. The not-very-secret ingredient? Homemade chicken stock.

Ingredients
1 bag frozen spinach
3 big cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 cup chicken stock
3 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper

How To
Saute the onions and garlic in the butter until translucent. Have you ever heard the trick of cooking onions and garlic before guests arrive for dinner, even if they're not part of the meal? I think my mom taught me that one.

Add the spinach and chicken stock. Cook until the spinach is bubbling and bright green. Season with salt and pepper to taste. If you're feeling naughty, lob another tablespoon or two of butter into the pan just before serving.

This does a great job of cutting through the spiciness of curry, though this could also easily be a creamy accompaniment to steak or grilled chicken with the addition of some Parmesan cheese and a pinch of nutmeg.

Chicken Stock

2008-04-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Michael Ruhlman's The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef's Craft for Every Kitchen, which is 1/3 essay and 2/3 reference guide. It may sound like a funny thing to sit down and read cover-to-cover but one of my favorite non-fiction books is Words on Words, a reference book exploring the origins of various words and phrases in a mildly insulting way. Yes, I sit around reading reference books. Wanna fight about it?

Ruhlman puts a lot of emphasis on making your own stock, which, yes yes yes, you gotta make homemade stock. Store-bought stock... it's like having a cup of weak tea when you're dying for a mug of strong black coffee. Technically, they are both hot morning beverages but to say they are the same thing is silliness.

But Ruhlman emphasizes veal stock, which is a problem in this household for a couple of reasons:

1) We have a 14-square foot refrigerator. I know bones don't have to hang around for long, but it's far more practical for me to make room for a roast chicken that we can have for two meals before it ends up in the stock pot.

2) It's veal. Now, I am not so stupid as to think that when I go out to eat, the chef isn't spiking sauces and whatnot back there with veal stock (and gobs of butter) but I just can't bring myself to go out and buy veal. The ethical issues surrounding of veal are well-documented, I won't go into it here, and I already feel an ethical weight regarding my choices in the grocery store... I don't need to add veal to the list.

3) I make a kick-ass chicken stock that is magical on its own. Now, I won't claim it's equivalent to veal stock, but that's okay. I'm not really interested in trying to imitate the work that happens in a professional kitchen because, well, I'm not a professional. I'm a home cook and I like that. Now, if I was over at French Laundry at Home, I would be making veal stock because with a project like that, you've got to go big or not at all.

4) Chicken stock speaks to my frugal nature. I know, I probably don't seem like a very frugal person at all with all I cook, but I'm a wee bit fanatical about trying to waste nothing and spend as reasonably as possible. I love that I can roast a chicken, serve roast chicken for dinner, then pick the carcass clean the next day and make curried chicken salad or whatever, and then make stock with the carcass. My eyes, they gleam with penny-pinching delight. Here's how I make mine:

Ingredients
1 chicken carcass (don't worry about picking it too clean-- bits of meat and skin will add flavor while the bones will give gelatin.)
2 onions, roughly chopped
3-4 carrots, roughly chopped (I was really lazy with my chopping this time. Sorry, carrots!)
1-2 celery ribs, roughly chopped
a few peppercorns
1 big bay leaf

Now, you're going to learn how you like your stock as you go. Some people add garlic and I try that every once in a while. Anytime you try something new, write a reminder to yourself on the container. Monkey around with herbs and other aromatics. You'll find a combination that speaks to you before long.

My father-in-law and I have long talks about making stock (he makes a chicken/beef blend that he gives out to people he likes and thank goodness we are people he likes! Did I marry into the right family or what?) and we both agree that you can almost never have too many onions or carrots but celery is another thing entirely. Too much celery will make a stock bitter and weird-tasting.

How To

Dump all of your ingredients (save the peppercorns and bay leaf) into a pan and pop it in the oven at 350 degrees. Let everything roast for about thirty minutes or until everything is nice and brown and fragrant. Watch your bones-- burn them and you're sunk.

While everything roasts, bring a kettle of water to boil and get your crock pot or stock pot ready. I'm a big fan of my crock-pot:

But you can also use a stock pot over very low heat. I prefer my crock pot because I have a gas stove, which I just don't feel comfortable leaving on while I'm out (I imagine the cat climbing up there and setting her tail on fire or something) and a crock pot is great for cooking stock because it abides by the #1 rule of making stock:

Don't boil it. Don't even simmer it, if you can help it.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Once your bones and veggies are roasted, dump everything in your stock pot or crock pot. Now, take that boiling water and use it to clean all the lovely brown bits from your pan and dump that water over the chicken. Mmm. (Why boil the water first? Cold water + hot pan = warped pan. The pan may even "pop" and splatter everywhere. You don't want that.)

Pour additional water into the pot to cover and then add the bay leaf, peppercorns and any other herbs. Put it on very, very low heat or the low setting on the crock pot. Let it go for three or four hours. Scum will start to come to the top and you should scrape that off from time to time but there is no reason to stir it.

Your house will smell wonderful. Now it's time to stain your stock. I do this in two times-- once with a regular strainer to take out the big stuff, then a second time through a strainer I've lined with cheesecloth. Cheesecloth, how I love thee. So cheap, so useful! But someone tell me what is going on with this package image-- are they straining tomato soup on top of a car? Hmm.

Chill the broth overnight. The fat will come to the top and you'll skim that off and be left with lovely, gelatinous, golden chicken stock. If space is an issue for you, like it is for me, you can reduce the sauce further by simmering it for a while.

I realize this probably sounds sort of complicated but it really, really isn't. You'll do it in your sleep after a few times and it just feels so good to walk into a house where stock has been cooking.

Eating Out: NOLA

2008-04-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

I'm at the end of my posts about New Orleans and I'm bummed. New Orleans is a paradise for food. It's a paradise for living. Really.

I've had a lot of people ask me with this sort of sad, puppy-dog look, "How was it? Still pretty messed up, huh? Pretty depressing?" like our visit was something we trudged through, making the best of things and sighing as we laid down our credit cards. It really wasn't.

I can't speak with any authority on the pre-Katrina New Orleans because this was my first visit but I was impressed. I was happy. I was probably the happiest I've been in my life, save the first days of our engagement and the week of our wedding. The food, the heat, and the history of the city... all of that made me feel peaceful and I beamed with happiness all day long but what I loved best were the people. Everywhere we went, we met people and spent hours talking and laughing. We were kind of like this the whole time:

Could it be this way in LA? I don't know; I don't think so. Could you go to a goth club at 2 a.m., dressed to the nines after a fancy dinner out and not only be welcomed with smiles but sit around chatting with a guy in a top hat and eyeliner and a pale girl in black wings? I don't think so. It seems like in LA, there's a constant critique going on, a questioning: do you belong here? But in New Orleans, it's almost assumed you belong by virtue of you being there.

Katrina changed the city, don't get me wrong, and there are parts of the city-- particularly the ninth ward-- that will make you weep. There is still work going on all around the city and trailers parked here and there but visiting the city isn't a pitiful experience by any means. It's possible to visit and not really be aware that something so awful happened not so long about. Go and spend your money if you want to support New Orleans; it's the best way to keep the city on its road to recovery and it's just an amazing place to be.

But this post is supposed to be about NOLA and here I am, getting a philosophical and shit. Here's some bread-- jalapeño cornbread was my favorite:

NOLA is an Emeril restaurant. I don't really watch cooking shows. I like America's Test Kitchen and I'll watch an episode of the Barefoot Contessa every once in a while. Top Chef and No Reservations are other favorites but they seem like cooking shows to me no more than watching a Dodger's game qualifies as an exercise show. The fact that this is an Emeril restaurant did pretty much nothing for me. Okay, I'll admit it. I find Emeril to be a sort of dorky phenomenon and I did overhear a "bam!" from a corner of the restaurant towards the end of our meal, but who cares? He's a great restaurateur and this was a heavenly meal. The service is as strong as the service at Commander's (quite a statement) though the diners are packed in more tightly (not a bad thing necessarily-- we had a great time getting to know the couple to one side (though not such a great time with the party of eight who'd obviously had some quality time on Bourbon Street before coming to dinner.))

Patrick ordered the chef's tasting menu, and his meal started with this lovely, classic salad with caviar, salmon and creme fraiche topped blinis:

I had the arugula salad with parmesan and shaved bresola. I told myself that I wouldn't eat the entire thing. After all, we had three more courses coming after this, but I really could not help myself:

Next, Patrick had mango enchiladas stuffed with crawfish:

And I had the baked gulf oysters and crabmeat with garlic and butter and breadcrumbs. Both were so, so good. I was asked if I wanted some bread to sop up the sauce that remained in each clever little cup once the meat was gone. Yes, I did, but I also wanted to live to see the next day and feared those few additional fatty bites would push me from the world of "food coma" to "real coma". I passed.

Next came Patrick's flat-iron steak:

And here is my hickory-roasted duck. Ah, such heaven:

I needed to visit the little girls' and was taken there by the arm by one of the male waitstaff, an odd little custom that I was surprised I enjoyed. When I came back, dessert was waiting. We lingered over pecan pie, totally stupefied by all we'd just consumed.

It was our most expensive meal of the trip but absolutely worth it (by LA standards, it was a bargain.) Patrick says that the meal was awesome, though he preferred his meal at Commander's, which he said was "like preferring a Mercedes over a BMW." When you visit the city, go to both and expect to take a long walk after each meal.

Five for Friday: Five New Orleans Cheap Eats

2008-04-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

1. Beignets & cafe au lait

Oh, Cafe Du Monde! Your fluffly hot beignets are crispy and sweet, your cafe au lait is smoky with chickory. $7 for two milky coffees and two orders of beignets. Tip your waitress well-- she's working her ass off and is still smiling.

2. Oysters & crawfish

Both are seasonal and both are plentiful and cheap when the time is right. A dozen oysters for nine bucks? A pound of crawfish for even less? Yes, please. These are from Acme Oyster House but there are great oysters and crawfish to be had all over the city.

3. Po'boys & muffalettas

Sigh. These sandwiches... oh, these sandwiches! These were some of the last bites we had before leaving the city and, oh, what good bites. These were both from Ignatius Eatery on Magazine Street, a new restaurant. The roast beef po'boy was stuffed with fork-tender beef that was perfectly seasoned and very juicy. The muffaletta was something stolen from the buffet in heaven. Get the muffaletta warm. I was stuffed but could not stop eating it. We had others while we were there (and Patrick has probably eaten enough over the years he was living there to fill a taxi cab) but these were simply the best. Two huge sandwiches and two beers for just over $20.

4. Breakfast
There is great breakfast to be had all over the city. The pictures above are from Petunias but there are lots of other places to get a great, hangover-chasing breakfast. Camellia Grill is another great stop (chili cheese omelette with a pile of french fries, anyone?) If there's a line out the door at 10 a.m. and the scents wafting towards you are making you salivate, get in line.

5. Abita
I'm not a huge beer person (moonshine, anyone?) but I will never turn down an Abita, especially when they run about $3 a pop in the city (you can get Abita from BevMo. See that you do.) Their strawberry lager is delicious but hard to find outside of the south. Second best (for me) is TurboDog. Their brewery is just over the causeway* in Abita Springs and is a nice little day trip, especially when coupled with a visit to Insta-Gator.

*haha, just over the causeway... also known as the longest causeway in the world. There's nothing quite like being in the middle of Lake Pontchartrain with only water surrounding you!

Eating Out: Cochon

2008-04-17T08:56:00.001-07:00

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time or know Patrick and me, you know that we have a healthy (unhealthy?) appreciation for all things pig. There are few foods that cannot be made magical by being married with some bacon. So when we heard there was a new restaurant in New Orleans that shared our obsession, we had to go.

Cochon is a bustling little place in a not-great part of town. Of all the places we visited, this reminded me of LA most. Not that this is a bad thing, but there was a certain element of seen-and-be-seen about it. But who wouldn't want to be seen at the restaurant that won the Crazy Bastard Special Achievement Award at the Golden Clog Awards? Or was named one of the New Your Times ten most significant new restaurants? And did I mention they constructed a special microwave that can nuke an entire pig?

I try and keep discrete notes throughout a meal but my notes from Cochon consist of one line: MOONSHINE = GOOD. Yep, Cochon stocks moonshine. Thank goodness I can't get Catdaddy on the West Coast. I expected a harsh mouthful of something like Everclear but found it unbelievably delicious, dangerously so, just slightly sweet and floral, an excellent accompaniment to my meal. Frankly, I can't think of any food a small sip of Catdaddy wouldn't improve.

The service at Cochon is hurried but not unfriendly. We started out with the wood-fired oyster roast. We ate a LOT of oysters one our trip but none were as good as these. I don't usually like cooked oysters but these were spicy, smoky, creamy and not one bit rubbery:

Can you guess what this next dish is? No? Pigs ear. I know, you're thinking this can't possibly be good but it is. I've been calling it the calamari of the pig. It's a shame that some might pass this up. It was crunchy, tender, the mild flesh paired nicely with a rough mustard sauce:

Next, came fried alligator with a chili garlic aioli. The exterior was perfect, the sauce was unbelievable but the chunks of alligator were just too damn big. Alligator is a virtually fat-free meat (and, no, it does not taste like chicken.) and these big chunks didn't achieve the right balance of sauce/fried exterior/meaty interior. Still, I'd be tempted to order it again, just to have the sauce:

Sorry this next picture is so terrible. Blame it on the moonshine. These were Patrick's pork ribs with watermelon relish and they were falling-of-the-bone tender but not mushy, sweet but not cloying, absolutely perfect:

Smothered greens. Tart and savory, very good:

Here's my soft-shelled crab, which I am kicking myself for today. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious. They know how to fry things here and I always get a kick out of having the whole of something but this was very close in style to the fried alligator and why didn't I order the cochon? I blame moonshine:

A revelatory part of the dish was the bacon mixed in with the greens underneath. Oh, such bacon! And we eat a lot of bacon round these parts. They make their own and I pray that the next time we go to Cochon (and we'll be back, there's no doubt about that) we'll be able to order a plate of bacon as a start to the meal. Heck, they could dredge it in a little flour and brown sugar and serve it as dessert.

Eating Out: Commander's Palace

2008-04-15T20:53:00.001-07:00

My husband told me there was no other place on earth like Commander's Palace, that it's the best restaurant on the face of the earth. Patrick is a story teller, a man of passion and emphasis, a man who loves New Orleans so much, he bleeds purple and gold and green when he cuts himself shaving (it's quite revolting.) So I didn't know what was waiting for me or if I'd agree.

Here are some nummy little slices of garlic bread while I go on and on:

What I knew was the menu looked promising, their awards impressive, but the hurricane had been hard on them. Not only had their building suffered extensive damage, losing a reported 18,000 bottles of wine, but much of their staff was lost too. Part of what makes Commander's so remarkable (and it is remarkable, it is amazing, there is no other place on earth like Commander's) is the staff.

I love good food (sort of a stupid statement, I know) and I love good restaurants but I am not a big lover of fancy. It's not that I mind having a seat pulled out for me (I love it, in fact) or a visit from the sommelier but there are certain places where I feel like... well, you know the feeling, don't you? Like you're barely tolerated, like the waiter may take your order in the back and say, "Go ahead and drop this one on the floor. They won't know the difference."

Here's some of the insanely delicious shrimp and tasso while I flap my gums:

The service at Commander's is impeccable, there is no doubt about that, but it isn't stiff or snooty or uncomfortable. Instead, it's like going to dinner at the house of friends who just want you to relax and be happy while they feed you all their choicest bits. Like these beignets topped with foie gras and served with a warm espresso sauce:

Great food makes your shut your eyes. All you need is the mouthful and the scent. And when you open your eyes, there's someone smiling at you, nodding, saying, "It's so good, isn't it?" Oh, yes, yes, it's good. It feels like a special sort of cruelty to look at these pictures now and not be able to have just one more bite.

Am I being too over the top? I can't help it. Turtle soup with sherry, anyone?

Patrick had the turtle soup (so good!) and I ordered the gumbo. Sorry, gumbo, you were out of step with the glory of the rest of this meal. Just a little too salty:

After soup, came my red fish:

...and Patrick's gulf fish:

We could have been told that we were both fired from our jobs and our apartment was on fire and we still wouldn't have been able to stop grinning. We were stuffed but dessert was on its way. We drank coffee and chicory and chatted with the staff.

Patrick had the bread pudding soufflé, something he'd been talking about since we booked our plane tickets:

And I had the strawberry shortcake made with Ponchatoula strawberries, which are at the height of their season right now:

After dinner, we were invited to tour the restaurant and kitchen. I was able to thank the pastry chef in person for the flaky, salty-sweet biscuits that sandwiched sweet berries and cream. He assured me with a sly grin that I'd make them like that in my sleep after making a few thousand batches. I hope so; I need that taste again.

Patrick tells me Commander's isn't the same since the hurricane-- it's even better.

Home at last...

2008-04-14T23:56:00.000-07:00

...and bitter about it! Good thing I have grip of pictures and lots of food to write about. I think I'll console myself by making stock this week, eating strawberries, and reliving many good meals by writing about them. Thank goodness one of the colleges I teach for is on spring break. And remember...

Five For Friday: Five Ways To Eat Good Away From Home

2008-04-11T07:52:00.000-07:00

I've been sitting here, trying to come up with a line that sums up how amazing New Orleans has been so far and I can only come up with that tired, over-used superlative "amazing". But it is. It's everything a city ought to be. I love it here.

1. Talk to people.

This is the most basic advice and often the least used. People often feel awkward talking to strangers and to do so while traveling? To look like (gasp!) a tourist? But looking like a fool for a few seconds might yield you one of the best meals of your life and people love to talk about food, especially the foods that make their city great. Just asking "where should I eat?" is a good way to start, though you might get directed to the tourist traps. Try, "It's your birthday, where would you go? It's your last meal before you move away for a year. What are you having?"

2. Go to the Grocery Store.

You learn a lot about a place by wandering the halls of the local Piggly Wiggly, Acme, Tom Thumb, Howie's or whatever the heck is the dominate chain. You'll learn what's expensive and what's cheap and what they have that you don't have and what you have that they don't have. Be sure to check out the candy and chips-- ever part of the world has their own preference for junk food and may even make good souvenirs for the folks back home.

3. Go to a Dive.

If you're only eating at places where there are cloth napkins and nobody calls you "hun", you're missing out.

4. Try the Local "Delicacies".

In Philadelphia, it's cheesesteaks and scrapple. In Hawaii, it's seafood and tropical fruit and plate lunch. Often, these treats a served at the above-mentioned dives and they're also great fodder for conversation with the locals. Ask someone where you should eat in New Orleans and you'll get an answer, but ask where the best oysters in town are, and you're in a whole other ball park.

5. Visit a Farmer's Market.

Like visiting a grocery store, you'll learn a lot about where you are by seeing what they grow and what it's worth to them. Sure, you probably don't have access to a kitchen and can't pick up a pound of muchrooms, but all you need is a little water to rinse off a peach or some strawberries. Lots of farmers' market have hot food vendors too, which is another way to take care of good ol' #4 (which I considered making #1 and then I wanted to reorder everything and then I said screw it because New Orleans is outside my door and I need to get off the computer and go eat some things.)

Adventure!

2008-04-08T09:40:00.000-07:00

The suitcases are being brought in from the garage. The cat knows something is up (don't worry, kitty, grandma and grandpa will take care of you.) We've bought books to read on the plane and I bought a ridiculous hat that I will probably only wear in the hotel room. Patrick and I will be on our way to New Orleans tomorrow! I've never been but Patrick went to Tulane and even worked at a waiter in the French Quarter.

We have reservations at Cochon, Commander's Palace, and NOLA. While we're there, the French Quarter Festival will take place and Patrick has plans for us. Big plans. Excel spreadsheet plans. I still have to teach my online classes, so I'm hoping to fit in some updates here.

Oh boy! Good eating on the horizon!