When I was growing up we used to go to my grandmother’s in Virginia for a month every summer. We’d get there and it felt like time just stopped and that one month lasted forever. It didn’t matter where we were living at the time, we always went home for a month in the summer and things were exactly the same as I’d left them the year before and I knew that they’d be the same the next year. Read the rest of this entry »
I got a package in the mail on Tuesday and squeaked with delight when I opened it up and it revealed the folding, reusable plastic grocery bag that I’d ordered late last week. I’d been wanting a reusable shopping bag that was small enough to carry around with me so that I’d have it when I need it (read, for unexpected trips to a farmer’s market during lunch), and that I could carry over my shoulder. I love getting food at farmer’s markets but I hate lugging it home. Baggu makes shoulder strap reusable plastic grocery bags that fold up into a tiny square that’s so small it can get lost in my purse. They also come in a huge variety of colors, and I’m vain and I like having a pretty shopping bag (I got the purple flowered bag, if you’re curious – second row from the bottom in the middle – and it’s adorable).
What do you serve 14 people, one of whom is vegetarian, and one of who doesn’t eat eggs or dairy?
The quick and dirty answer is vegetarian chili with cornbread. You substitute plain noodles for the cornbread for the person who can’t eat eggs – or embrace better living through chemistry and use egg substitutes to make the cornbread. I can’t quite bring myself to do this, but others might not be quite as up tight. Read the rest of this entry »
You’ll have noticed the lack of Dinner this past week. This is because I was in San Francisco visiting Jes (and a few other people) eating the most fabulous food every night. I believe on Wednesday night I was feasting on Zereshk Polow at Lavash. Or maybe I was tucking in to a fish taco at Park Chow, or possibly I was indulging in decadent lemon ricotta ravioli at Zazie’s. I also ate at The Girl and the Fig in Sonoma – excellent cheese, terrible service – and breakfasted at the Farmer’s Market at the Ferry Building and managed to have coffee from the Blue Bottle twice. I will cheerfully admit that it’s the best coffee I’ve ever had and I understand why people stand in line for it for hours. It was decided that Jes should give up this historian thing that she’s doing and become a full time restaurant guide for San Francisco, because all her recommendations were amazing.
This week we’re delaying Dinner until Sunday because we’re doing a hail and fairwell dinner for a friend who’s in town briefly after a year in Japan before she jets off to Madison, Wisconsin to start grad school in media studies (it’s possible I’m just a little bit jealous).
I have a love/hate relationship with America’s Test Kitchen. On the one hand any recipe you get from America’s Test Kitchen will be absolutely reliable. It will work as advertised, and it will result in the quintessential version of whatever it is that you’re making. If you’re looking for the archetypical beef stew, or apple pie, or blueberry slump, you cannot do better than referring to America’s Test Kitchen for a recipe.
On the other hand, in their quest for perfectly replicable results and classic recipes they often end up adding about seventeen more steps than I think are necessary, or am willing to contemplate doing. I’m sure that their garlic bread with two kinds of garlic – slowly cooked in a little butter until sweet and nutty, and also sprinkled on raw at the last minute for punch – and eight steps is the best garlic bread in the world and if garlic bread had aspirations, this is what it would aspire to be. But, I also think that’s a lot of work for garlic bread. Read the rest of this entry »
Identity is made up of a weird and wonderful shifting mass of collected experiences, memories and adopted mores. On any given day I will identify as any one of a wide variety of things, some of them mutually exclusive. I am a graduate of a women’s college – in the case of Bryn Mawr, this is actually more like belonging to a benign cult than anything else.
I carry two passports, and while I don’t know that my world view is specifically Dutch, it is very definitely tinged by growing up in Europe. I follow American politics with dismay and varying degrees of disillusionment. I follow French politics with a bowl of popcorn and a fine appreciation for the ridiculous.
In it’s greater wisdom, or possibly as the result of a new marketing consultant – and if you’ve ever watched Slings & Arrows you’re going to be tempted to ask if they’re named Froghammer – the Sci-Fi network has rebranded itself as SyFy. It’s pronounced the same as Sci-Fi. It has the same line up of shows as Sci-Fi. It makes the same mind-bogglingly bad movie-of-the-week movies as Sci-Fi. But now, they’re called SyFy.
If I see one more Dunkin’ Donuts ad for iced coffee to “cool you off during those hot summer days”, or get another email from Anthropologie suggesting “sultry colors for spicy days”, or have to watch another episode of Barefoot Contessa where she picnics outside in the sunshine I may snap and do something drastic. Like move to England in search of the sun, it looks lovely and sunny at Wimbledon.
In which baby showers are had, the cause of the recent bad weather is determined, and the limitations of etch-a-sketch are discovered . . . .
The baby shower was a success. It wasn’t outside, since while Saturday dawned sunny and beautiful and the temperature rose to the heady heights of the mid-70s, we paid for it on Sunday with endless drizzle and temperatures that were back in the low 60s. We are all, I’m afraid, paying the price for my vanity. I was the one that bought the white sundress three weeks ago in the expectation that it might be summer soon and I would be able to wear cute little sundresses to work. Louisa May Alcott is rolling over in her grave. Read the rest of this entry »
Spanish Omelet
6 Tbsp olive oil
1.5 lb (Yukon gold) potatoes
1 small onion, sliced thin
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
11 eggs*
Peel and quarter the potatoes, and then slice into ¼” slices. Slice the onion thinly and add to the potatoes. Toss with 4 Tbsp olive oil and ½ tsp salt and ½ tsp pepper. Read the rest of this entry »
Monday Night Dinner 