Monday Night Dinner

I fly South (culinarily speaking) for Easter.  Specifically, I (re)visit New Orleans every year for my Easter Dinner.  This link bears only a tangential relationship to logic, and has more to do with a sequence of free association that drifts from Mardi Gras to New Orleans to Lent to the joyous celebrations that accompany the end of Lenten fasting (assuming you were being abstemious during Lent, which I can’t claim I/we were) and back to New Orleans because those are folks who know how to throw a good party. Read the rest of this entry ?

Did you know that potatoes contain a healthy dose of Vitamin C? No, nor did I. When I think of great sources for Vitamin C my list generally begins and ends with citrus – oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit. However, it turns out there are lots of fruits and vegetables that rank higher on the Vitamin C scale than your average orange. These include, bell peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, dark greens (kale, spinach, etc), kiwi fruit, strawberries, and pineapple. Apparently oranges just have a really good PR campaign. Given how much of all of these foods I eat during the winter it’s a miracle a cold ever manages to penetrate my Vitamin C shield, but somehow I managed to succumb to the common cold twice in under two months. Yet another reason that I want to break up with winter (Dear Winter – It’s not me; It’s you). Read the rest of this entry ?

We had our annual Oscars extravaganza this past Sunday (err, two Sundays ago).  We’ve realized we don’t watch the Oscars because we care about the winners or losers.  For one thing if any of us have seen more than two of the nominated movies we’re doing well.  That said, the Oscars are tradition at this point.  We’ve been hosting an Oscars party since college, and any excuse to eat far too much, perhaps drink a little too much, and mock the stylistic choices of people we don’t know is worth taking, particularly in the doldrums of winter when we all need a little cheering.

In the beginning I did all the Oscar party food (well, okay in the very beginning I think Oscar party food involved calling Dominos, bags of Hershey’s kisses, and a bottle of wine – we were in college).  But, that got exhausting, so I started outsourcing some of the Oscars menu to the whims of potluck.  Gradually we settled into a tradition of theming the Oscars food on the nominated movies, and then last year I had the genius idea (well, I think it’s genius) of playing Russian Roulette with the nominated movies and the type of food you bring to the Oscars party.   Read the rest of this entry ?

Cold Spiced Cider
1 gallon apple cider
1 cup orange juice
1 Tbsp lemon juice
3 cinnamon sticks Read the rest of this entry ?

Warning, attempting to make this recipe will cause it to snow. Now, I’m not sure if it’s this specific recipe that causes snow – in which case you are all safe because it’s an America’s Test Kitchen test recipe and I can’t put it up online – or if it’s all chicken pot pies, in which case you might be in danger if the pictures of Dinner this week inspire in you a craving for chicken enrobed in creamy sauce topped with flaky pastry. I’ll take responsibility for three rounds of snow in Boston, but I think I won’t take on the responsibility for snow elsewhere. Read the rest of this entry ?

Generally speaking I am not a beach type person.  When I go on vacation I want to do things and see things (and eat things) I’ve never done, seen, or eaten before.  I want to actively pursue the accumulation of new experiences, and new understandings of the history and culture of the place I’m visiting.  Generally speaking in my personal pantheon of hell, going to an all inclusive resort for a vacation is somewhere around the 4th or 5th circle.  It’s further out than being falsely jailed on drug charges in Thailand (thank you, Lifetime Movie Network) or being trapped on a giant cruise ship, but closer in than running out of reading material on a transatlantic flight*. Read the rest of this entry ?

Apparently I never made New Year’s (Food) Resolutions last year.  This is probably for the best, because it means I don’t now have to contemplate the scale upon which I failed to live up to my best intentions.  Nonetheless, with a sense of doom and foreboding, I shall make food resolutions for 2014. Read the rest of this entry ?