Posts Tagged ‘Side Dish’

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WND – Oscars 2010

March 12, 2010

I acknowledge that I am not sane about the Oscars. I don’t mean about caring who wins – although I’ve seen more than a usual number of the movies up for awards this year and hoo boy did I have firm opinions about who shouldn’t win Best Picture/Best Director. Mercifully, the Academy chose to reinforce my faith in humanity this year rather than crush it like they did in 2006 so four years from now I won’t still be grousing about what should have won but didn’t. Sadly there were very few really entertainingly terrible dresses this year – which, let’s face it, is the real reason I watch the Oscars. There was far too much pale pink, and flesh-tones, and Miley Cyrus needed to stand up straight (apparently Lauren Bacall agrees with us on this, which is reassuring because it means that I could be turning into a classy dame and not just channeling my father) but nothing that approached the cheerful insanity of Bjork’s swan dress from 2001, although that is the gold standard for insane Oscar dresses and would be hard to beat.

All that being true, the reason I like entertaining for the Oscars is because it’s an excuse to experiment and make things I’m not entirely sure people will like (b’stilla), things that are just too rich for everyday (cauliflower tart), and things that are just fun (pickled grapes). The Oscars are a chance to fiddle with appetizers and try things in small quantities because I’m not entirely sure what they’ll taste like, and if they’re not entirely successful it won’t be disastrous because there are other things on the table to eat. Read the rest of this entry ?

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WND – Jedi Mind Trick

March 4, 2010

I firmly believe that there should be a vegetable on the table at all meals. I don’t think it count unless it’s a green vegetable – or tomatoes, because tomatoes are totally a vegetable in my book. But, when it comes to eating them I tend to smother them with something else that’s on the plate to mask the taste – the sauce that came with the meat, or a forkful of mashed potatoes. I know I’m supposed to like my vegetables, and I’ve never served a meal that didn’t include a green vegetable (unless I’m cooking on a weekend and have run out of salad, in which case it’s possible that I’ll count tomato sauce as a vegetable). I just wish I liked them more, but honestly just not so much. Read the rest of this entry ?

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WND – Obscure Realities

January 14, 2010

I’ll admit that occasionally my concept of what everyone knows bears no relationship to the reality of what is actually common knowledge. I wrote my college thesis on medieval female mystics so obscure that even my father, who is the king of obscure historical European personages hadn’t heard of them. Actually, I was really proud that I’d come up with people so esoteric even my father looked at me blankly, but that’s just a family thing. And, while I think everyone should know what the Conference at Yalta was and who attended*, I have been forced to concede that apparently this isn’t actually common knowledge. Unless, or course, you’ve been who’ve been forced to listen to me explain why Yalta was important about once a year for the last 10 years – which is to say, anyone who plays Trivial Pursuit with us on New Years. Read the rest of this entry ?

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WND – Mastering the Art of French Cooking, sort of

August 28, 2009

pomegranate

I have a confession to make.  I don’t own a copy of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.  Neither does my mother.  In fact, outside of a movie I’m not sure I’ve ever actually even seen a copy of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.  Does this make me a bad person?

My roommate and I took ourselves off to see Julie and Julia one stiflingly hot Sunday a couple of weeks ago.  I’ve read both the books that it was based on – “Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously” and Julia Child’s memoir, “My Life in France” (completed/edited by Alex Prud’homme) – and enjoyed both of them.  In the movie the story of Julie in modern New York cooking her way through “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” is an interesting framing device, but the dual romances between Julia and Paul Child and between Julia and food steal the show.  This is partly because it’s a more unusual and therefore more interesting story, and partly because it’s Meryl Streep and it’s hard to outshine Meryl Streep. Read the rest of this entry ?

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WND Extra – Baby Shower Recipes

June 25, 2009

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 ?

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WND – Of Shoes and Ships and Ceiling Wax . . .

June 11, 2009

pea strings

I was idly flipping channels a couple of Sundays ago and ran across Sandra Lee’s new show on the Food Network.  It’s called “Sandra’s Money Saving Meals”, and I paused to watch it.  It’s indicative of the current financial environment that this kind of show has a place on the Food Network, and given her upbringing Sandra Lee brings a certain amount of authority to the show that I suspect other Food Network Chefs would lack, so I was curious about what it was like.

In the end I was torn between deeply amused and somewhat disturbed by the show.  On the one hand, it’s entertaining because Sandra Lee has branded herself on the Food Network with the prescription of 70% store bought/30% homemade.  But of course that costs money, so on the budget show she cooks everything from scratch.  There isn’t a single instance of store bought sauces or mixes, because it is cheaper to use real ingredients (it also tastes better, but that’s a separate issue).  On the other hand, I was concerned by the sheer lack of vegetables being presented.  In the five shows, and 33 recipes that have aired so far only three recipes have involved vegetables (five if you decide to count spaghetti sauce as a vegetable, which granted I do all the time but acknowledge isn’t really a vegetable). Read the rest of this entry ?

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WND – Things I Fail to Understand

May 28, 2009

cucumber peel

I had something different that I was going to write this week, about Whole Foods and comment cards, and how they’re both similar and dissimilar to the napkin notes we used to leave for Dining Services in college.  But, it stubbornly refuses to come to a graceful conclusion, so instead I give you a random collection of grievances and observations, and other food related things I read on a regular basis.

Things I fail to understand –

– The entire concept of Tofu Wellington with shitake “bacon” (air quotes not actually mine, but well deserved nonetheless).

– People who scratch themselves in public.  I’m not talking about a discrete rub along your thigh, or leaning down to get at that mosquito bite on your ankle.  I’m talking hand down the front of your sweatpants for a solid five minute scratch in the middle of the grocery store.  I stood in the longer checkout line even though I was in a hurry just so that I wouldn’t have to touch anything that he might have touched after his luxurious personal grooming session in the baking goods aisle. Read the rest of this entry ?

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WND – Curse of the Liquid Gold

April 2, 2009

chopped-sage

Dinner this week is the result of a series of events, some of which were in fact unfortunate, but most of which were just ordinary.  No fourth cousins three times removed, or even third cousins four times removed attempted to follow me in strange disguises and steal my fortune*, but I did discover something worrying in my freezer.  Or rather, I discovered a worrying lack of something in my freezer.  Read the rest of this entry ?

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WND – The Day After St. Patrick’s Day Dinner

March 19, 2009

cheese-platter1

Oscar Wilde said, “Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”  As with many things Oscar Wilde, this is both witty and true.  In my next life I aspire to being a professional aphorist.

Nothing will teach you to do, or not do, something quite as effectively as doing it and realizing half way through exactly how bad an idea it was.  That being said, there are a lot of stupid things I’ve done in the kitchen that I’d have been willing to take on faith as bad ideas rather than having to experience them for myself.  Out of idle curiosity I polled Dinner to find out what things they wish someone had told them not to do before they found out the hard way.  For a group of people with (collectively) an alarming amount of education, we did all seem to be a little short on common sense.  Mind you, this does add further proof to my theory that there is an inverse relationship between the quantity of higher education you have achieved and the amount of common sense you demonstrate.

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WND – Is It Spring Yet?

March 12, 2009

garlic-rosemary

At least half the time I find the wives of the presidential candidates more interesting than the actual candidates. I thought that Theresa Heinz Kerry and Elizabeth Dole were much more dynamic personalities than John Kerry or Bob Dole, which possibly has something to do with why neither of them won an election. While I don’t think that Michelle Obama is more interesting than her husband, I do think she’s at least as interesting as the President. Given the amount of media attention on her, I don’t think I’m the only person who feels this way. And just to say, if I had biceps that looked like hers I would wear sleeveless dresses too, even in March.

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