Very occasionally aphorisms come true. In the first instance, virtue was both its own reward and the early bird caught the worm. Or, put another way, a couple of weekends ago I got myself up and dressed on Saturday morning long before I actually wanted to be awake and took myself off to the grocery store to get it out of the way so that I could have time for the more interesting parts of my weekend. The reward for my virtue? I scored two of the few bundles of early local asparagus at Wilson Farms. In fact, I had a bag of green beans in my hand when I spied the slender green stalks of local asparagus out of the corner of my eye, turned around, dumped out the green beans and grabbed for the asparagus. It’s possible the Produce Manager at Wilson Farms laughed at me a little when I squeaked in excitement. Ask me if I cared; I had asparagus. Read the rest of this entry ?
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

TND – On a Mission
April 4, 2012Last week (about Dinner three weeks ago) I expounded on my difficulty in finding rabbit or wild boar to make any of the tasty recipes featured in Food & Wine’s March 2012 issue. This past weekend I ended up doing a little more rabbit hunting because I’d talked and thought about it so much that (a) I was really craving rabbit, and (b) it had become a quest. Read the rest of this entry ?

TND – 3 Weeks Ago . . . or Dear Food & Wine
March 28, 2012Dear Food & Wine,
Thank you for your recent spot light on alternative sources of protein. I enjoyed reading the recipes for Green Curry of Rabbit with Butternut Squash and Dill which manages to combine three things I like all in one place, and the Braised Wild Boar Shanks with Sweet Soy and Star Anise which sounds amazing. While I couldn’t work up much excitement for the Quinoa & Brown Rice Bowl, or for the Red Quinoa and Lentil Pilaf, I appreciate the balance in the article – not all non-meat proteins, but not all meat proteins either. Read the rest of this entry ?

TND – Librarian Adjacent
February 15, 2012https://pinboard.in/u:mondaynightdinner/t:MND/
Plus, 127 of the recipes (and counting) I’m idly eying with a view either towards Dinner, or dinner the other six nights of the week. Read the rest of this entry ?

TND – Color me Unimpressed
February 9, 2012When I was little we lived in a sequence of places that were nowhere particularly near Virginia. This is only relevant because Virginia was where my grandmother lived, and my mother and I used to spend a month visiting with her every summer. I loved the month we spent in Richmond, among other things it has left me with a lifelong appreciation for heat and humidity which pretty much nobody else I know shares. What I didn’t love was the process of getting there, which was long and tedious. I imagine it was even longer and more tedious for my mother who had to play the responsible adult in that scenario as opposed to being the bored 7 – 9 – 12 – 14 year old whose biggest responsibility was trying to sleep on the plane, picking at the food, and not being too much of a pill about traveling for 24 hours straight. Read the rest of this entry ?

TND – Year in Review + New Year’s (food) Resolutions
January 11, 20122011 was the year of discovering that it wasn’t that I disliked entire categories of ingredients or cuisines, it was just one iteration of them that I disliked and that iteration happened to be the only one I’d ever eaten. Read the rest of this entry ?

TND – All things considered, I’d rather be on Curacao
January 6, 2012It was 12 F when I left my house on Wednesday morning, and that was before wind chill. While it has warmed up considerably since then, I can still say with absolute certainty that not only would I like to still be on vacation, I’d really like to be back in the 85 F sunshine of the Caribbean.

TND – The Dinner That Wasn’t
December 16, 2011The applesauce was made. The figs were soaking in chai tea. The green beans had been trimmed. Two heads of garlic had been pulled apart. The ham just needed to be grilled and served. In other words, everything was ready for Dinner on Tuesday when I got suddenly and dramatically ill on Tuesday afternoon and abruptly had to cancel Dinner in favor of careful sips of ginger ale at discrete intervals.
This was to be the last Dinner of the year – Saturday I’m heading off to sunny Curacao for Christmas with my parents (I know, my life is tragic). So, unless ninjas decide to hijack the blog again next week like they did last year, I will see you all in the New Year. Happy Holidays to all.

TND – Best of 2011?
December 8, 2011This is the time of year when everyone comes out with their “Best of Lists” and either my reading material has changed in the past year (entirely possible) or cooking/food has become a much bigger deal (also possible) because I’ve seen more “Best of 2011 Cookbook” lists in the past few weeks than I think I saw in the previous decade.
A random, and completely unscientific, sampling of lists (epicurious, Bon Appetit, NPR, the NYT, the Boston Globe, Serious Eats, The Kitchn, David Lebovitz, Kirkus, and The Huffington Post) reveals the following moments of agreement and endorsement. And, in a rare moment of being insync with the zeitgeist I have not only read two of the three books, I wholeheartedly second their endorsement. Read the rest of this entry ?

TND – Not for the Onion Shy
November 22, 2011I was not a kid who had to suffer through many cafeteria meals during my school years. I was spoiled and my mother packed me a lunch almost every day well into high school. By and large the only times I ever bought lunch were on the rare occasions that the school cafeteria was serving something I really wanted to eat. In the year I spent at Convent of the Sacred Heart this meant the days that they did Indian Fry Bread for lunch – don’t ask me how that was nutritionally viable, but it came hot from the fryer and covered in powdered sugar and everyone wanted one – and any time they served tater tots. In the year and a half I spent at the Old Greenwich Elementary School this meant the occasional pizza on Friday (why I wanted burnt pizza is an issue to explore some other time), and any time they served tacos. Read the rest of this entry ?








