It 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.
The 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.
This 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 ?
I got to the week before Thanksgiving and I had menus planned for every week from then through when I leave for Christmas (12/17) and as a consequence I kept thinking it was later in the year than it actually was and panicking about the rapid passage of time. Eventually I realized that it was still November, not the second week of December, and two things I was planning to do fell through which was on the one hand disappointing because they were brunch and a whisky tasting, and on the other hand gave me so much breathing space. Read the rest of this entry ?
I 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 ?
What is your favorite word? Liminal
What is your least favorite word? Prejudice
What turns you on? Generosity of spirit
What turns you off? Pettiness
What sound or noise do you love? The sound of a cat purring
What sound or noise do you hate? The sound of my smoke detector going off every time I cook
What is your favorite curse word? Oh for f**k’s sake
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Professional Organizer
What profession would you not like to do? Commercial fisherman
If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? “Yes, Shakespeare wrote the damn plays (I wish everyone would stop asking that); Stonehenge was built by ____________, I can show you a time lapse on how they did it; JFK was killed by ________ . . . . ” Read the rest of this entry ?
I’m suffering from an attack of mental dyspepsia brought on by the stream of holiday baking catalogs arriving on my doorstep, the fact that Macys has already put up their Christmas tree, and that stores segued directly from Halloween to Christmas candy without even a pause for post-Halloween candy sales. Read the rest of this entry ?
The boys over at The Bitten Word have helpfully indexed the 250 Thanksgiving recipes that debuted in this month’s cooking magazines. For the record, that is an insane number of new recipes for a holiday in which generally speaking nobody wants anything but what they always have – because, as we all know, everyone else’s Thanksgiving is wrong and ours is the only right one. For example, my cousin’s husband’s family doesn’t do gravy. She called to tell us this the first holiday she spent with them, and I think our collective appalled gasp could be heard across state lines. She ended up marrying him, so clearly his family’s bizarre stance on gravy wasn’t a deal breaker, but I’m pretty sure that she spent some quality time impressing on him the importance of gravy. Read the rest of this entry ?
My thoughts about this week’s Dinner can be summarized as follows: Read the rest of this entry ?
Fair warning, I am about to horrify everyone of Italian descent and anyone born south of the Mason Dixon line (except my mother who doesn’t like grits and therefore doesn’t care).
Polenta and grits are the same thing.
I know, I know, I’ve just committed some kind of heresy, but that doesn’t make me wrong. Don’t believe me? Let’s analyze this. Read the rest of this entry ?
Monday Night Dinner 