Archive for the ‘*Petra’ Category

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WND – Curried Fruit and the Internet

May 15, 2008

I am a child of the internet age, or at least I’m an adult of the internet age. When I graduated from high school personal email addresses were still unusual enough to cause comment. By the time I graduated from college it was understood that if you couldn’t find it on the internet it didn’t exist.

I probably own 20 or 30 cookbooks, but I only use them if I already know the recipe I want. I don’t browse them for recipe suggestions – unless I’m really desperate for ideas on a Sunday morning. I like flipping through cookbooks in the bookstore, but in the real world I find myself hampered by the inability to key word search them for an ingredient, and by the lack of user feedback. I’ve been spoiled by the reviews section of epicurious.com and foodtv.com. When I read a recipe I now want to know if it really works before I try it. I want to know if it needs to cook for longer than written, or if it’s okay as written but spectacular if you add half a cup of cheese. I want to know if people would make it again, or whether it was more trouble than it was worth. Also, I’m lazy and I never want to have to put away the stack of cookbooks, with the internet all I have to do is close my laptop.

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WND – Sumer is icomen in

May 8, 2008

Summer is my favorite time of year. I love everything about it. I love the colors. I love the fabrics and the clothes. I love the heat. I love the humidity (yes I know I’m crazy, it’s been pointed out to me before). Most especially, I love the food. By the end of winter I’d be willing to engage in minor felonies for fresh fruit and vegetables.

Summer to me is ice tea in the fridge, melon for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and tomatoes bursting with so much flavor you could almost eat them for dessert. It’s open windows and the smell of freshly cut grass, and planning your meals so that you don’t have to turn the oven on more than necessary. It’s letting the heat soak in to your bones so that you can store it up against next winter’s cold.

Massachusetts is gracing us with a real spring this year, and summer feels like it’s around the corner. The days are (with a few exceptions) warm and sunny. There’s been enough rain to turn everything green, but no so much that I feel like I should be contemplating the logistics of building an ark. It’s not quite summer yet, but I can see it from here.

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WND – No Dinner

May 1, 2008

We’re* having ourselves a cultural sort of week.

This weekend we took ourselves off to the Museum of Fine Arts for the annual Art in Bloom installation – which was very cool, not the least of which because we know the person who does the posters for the event.

This Wednesday we cancelled dinner in favor of going to see Eddie Izzard at the Orpheum. We tried to go on Tuesday night instead, but we couldn’t get tickets. We debated whether Eddie Izzard really counted as a cultural experience but decided since it required us to leave our house and it was high brow comedy that it counted.

WND will be back next week when hopefully the weather will be more cooperative with what I want to make for Dinner.

* We being Dinner folk in various combinations and permutations.

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WND – Spicy Roasted Potatoes

April 24, 2008

My mother asked me an interesting question the other day: Is it cheaper to make pancakes with Bisquick than it is to make them from scratch?

I cook from scratch (a) because I like cooking; (b) because I’m inherently distrustful of the preservatives they use to extend shelf life; and (c) because it honestly doesn’t take any longer to make pancake batter from scratch than it does to use Bisquick. And okay, (d) because there’s a part of me that feels superior for doing it, although I usually manage to not actually say that.

My mother was reading an article about the rising cost of groceries in the US, and the problems that’s causing in conjunction with the failing economy. What struck her was the picture that accompanied the article of a woman with a shopping cart piled full of Bisquick and cake mixes. If you are pinching your pennies and cutting back on meat and other luxuries on your shopping list, are you compounding the problem by relying on mixes rather than making your own? Read the rest of this entry ?

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WND – My Colors are Blush and Bashful

April 17, 2008

“The groom’s cake! It’s awful…it’s in the shape of a giant armadillo. Worse, the cake part is red velvet. People are going to be hacking into this poor animal that looks like it’s bleedin’ to death!” – Steel Magnolias –

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WND – Look Ma, no chicken!

April 10, 2008

When I find myself merrily crafting extended metaphors to the effect that beets are my roommate’s Mr. Tilney while spinach is my Mr. Darcy*, I have to contemplate the idea that there is such a thing as too much Jane Austen.

The Jane Austen whimsy may be explained by the Masterpiece Theater’s current season of all Jane Austen all the time. There is, however, no rational explanation for why the realization that tonight’s dinner contains no chicken should lead me to wonder what kinds of stories poultry tell each other at bedtime. The Tale of the Golden Goose is clearly a trickster tale. But, does Chicken Little feature as a cautionary tale against foolishness, or as a French farce (or perhaps just a farci)? Is the golden goose in Jack & the Beanstalk enslaved to the giant, or is that her happily ever after (in which case Jack is even more of a grubby urchin than the story makes him out to be)?

I sometimes think this blog should be renamed 1001 Things to do with Chicken. Of the 28 main dish recipes we have listed so far, 12 of them are poultry based. I’d protest that we don’t really eat that much chicken, but we really do.

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WND – Chili Take II

April 3, 2008

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I cleaned my fridge this weekend which was a more revolting endeavor than I should probably admit to in public. But, I’m reasonably sure I didn’t break the Prime Directive for first contact with any new life forms, and I don’t think I set back modern medicine by throwing away any useful mold cultures and now I have a pile of clean Tupperware and a disconcertingly empty fridge.

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WND – Seasonal Ennui

March 27, 2008

I am experiencing seasonal ennui. It’s reached that time of year where I just want it to be Spring already. On the one hand, I am greatly in favor the earlier roll back of Daylight Savings Time. I’m not convinced I’m saving money on electricity, which I think was the point, but I am enjoying walking home in the sunshine, however thin and cold it might be. On the other hand, I keep expecting it to be much warmer outside than it is. Technically it’s Spring right now, although you couldn’t prove it by the weather outside which is stubbornly resisting my desire to leave my heavy winter coat at home.

They’re predicting snow for later this week (it won’t stick, but still) and sadly I can’t fly south for the rest of the winter. To console myself I made Southern food for dinner because it reminds me of summer, and if I can’t actually be in a warmer climate I can at least eat like I am.

Barbeque Baked Beans
Chicken with Root Beer Barbeque Sauce
Corn Muffins
Ambrosia Salad
Salad

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WND – Chicken with a side of nostalgia

March 20, 2008

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All hail the mighty power of the internet.

When I was in high school I discovered the greatest cooking show ever filmed. It is a tragedy of Greek proportions that it has never been released on DVD. However, youtube and google came through for me and I recently found a few clips of the show online.

Tournedos d’Anguille
Gratin de Fruits de Mer
Cuisses de Grenouilles
Magret aux Pruneaux
(fair warning, it was a French show but I think they’re worth watching even if you don’t speak French, although possibly slightly less amusing)

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WND – Pumpkin Pasta Take II

March 13, 2008

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Pasta with Pumpkin Sauce
Salad

The interesting thing for me about doing this blog – other than the chance to reveal the not at all secret facts that I obsessively watch the Food Network and don’t like tofu to an even wider audience – is that it lets me keep track of how often things turn up on the Dinner rotation. I apparently make apple sauce far more often than I’d ever have guessed, and make corn pudding less frequently than I’d assumed.
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