Posts Tagged ‘Starch’
December 7, 2011
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 ?
Posted in *Petra | Tagged fruit, Side Dish, Starch | 2 Comments »
October 20, 2011
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 ?
Posted in *Petra | Tagged Meat and Seafood, pork, Side Dish, Starch, Vegetables | 4 Comments »
October 5, 2011
Some books should come with warning labels. I don’t mean the kind of warnings that land books on the Banned Books list. I mean warnings like ‘Do not read this book unless you have time to make cinnamon rolls this weekend’. Or, ‘Map the route to your nearest Moroccan restaurant before starting this book.’
I’m not talking about the obvious books either. Anyone who didn’t know that “Like Water for Chocolate” was going to leave them hungry was clearly not paying attention to the cover copy. I’m talking about books like the one I just finished. Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in *Petra | Tagged Chicken, Meat and Seafood, Side Dish, Starch, Vegetarian | 5 Comments »
September 30, 2011
There are any number of food related bandwagons which I have not just jumped on to, but have walked in the parade, cheered on the sidelines and made large posters with sparkly puffy paint to promote (well, figuratively anyway).
I’m on board with the local food movement. I was a proponent of the slow food movement before it had a name. I’m kind of an adherent of the organic food movement – by which I mean, I’ll do it when it’s easy, convenient and not wildly more expensive than the alternative. I spend quite enough of my budget on food as it is, I don’t need to look for ways to spend more. Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in *Petra | Tagged bread, Side Dish, soup, Starch | 4 Comments »
September 21, 2011
Last week I was critical and complaining about trends in food TV. Friday afternoon devolved in a series of small annoyances which cumulatively were enough to make me wish I kept a bottle of scotch in my desk drawer the way that everyone in the 1950’s seems to have (or so television would suggest). I spent the first half of this week playing phone tag with a restaurant manager so that I could complain about mediocre service we’d had on Sunday afternoon. In the light of all that negativity, I feel the need to redress the balance with a burst of positive thoughts. One of the podcasts I listen to ends every show with a segment called “What’s Making You Happy This Week”, so in that spirit here’s a list of what’s making me happy this week. Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in *Petra | Tagged Birthday, Dessert, Meat and Seafood, Side Dish, Starch | 1 Comment »
August 10, 2011
For reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture, I’ve been staring at a lot of upscale restaurant and catering menus recently. This is an activity which is mostly completely pointless because the event that I’m perusing them for isn’t happening for another three years at which point some of these restaurants may no longer be around/as good as they are now, and other new exciting restaurants will have opened. These facts have not stopped me in the slightest.
Having now looked at more menus than I can count I’ve realized several things. One, I actually have a better reason than I’m pretentious for liking farm-to-table restaurants. Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in *Petra | Tagged bread, Salad, Side Dish, Starch | Leave a Comment »
April 28, 2011
There are days when the obvious answer just completely escapes me. I have spent hours trying to track down a phone number on the internet and never once had it occur to me to just try calling information for the number. Conversely, I’ve spent the past month fruitlessly searching for amchoor powder and toor dal at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Penzys, Wilson Farms, Stop-n-Shop, and Food Master. I had reached the point of trying to decide if I was curious enough to buy some online if the shipping was going to be twice the price of the product when it belatedly (as in, Wednesday morning) occurred to me that I could google Indian grocery stores in the Boston area and solve my problem that way. Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in *Petra, Uncategorized | Tagged bread, Side Dish, Starch | 3 Comments »
March 1, 2011
Where does the time go? I swear we just did this like a minute ago, and with movies I’d actually seen.
Still, it’s that time of year again. Time to have firm opinions about winners and losers without any sort of evidence for said opinion. Time to mock celebrities and their lack of ability to dress themselves mercilessly. In other words, it’s time for the Oscars.
Since The Social Network and The King’s Speech were leading the pack for nominations, this year’s pot luck food theme was:
Junk Food Fit for Royalty
Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in *Petra, Uncategorized | Tagged Chicken, Dessert, drinks, fruit, Side Dish, Starch, Sweet, Vegetarian | Leave a Comment »
February 18, 2011
Other people have these moments too right? Those moments when you crash headlong into the wall that divides your expectations of the world from other people’s expectations of the world? And you’re baffled, because how could other people do this thing differently? I’m not talking about the little things you learn when you live with someone – like they tend to leave cupboard doors open, or will return empty bowls to the fridge – which granted are equally baffling, but you learn to live with them. I’m talking about times when you realize that not everyone’s mother considered knowing how to iron a shirt, or sew on buttons, or rewire a light socket essential life skills to be learned before departing the ancestral home. Because, how can you not know how to iron a shirt? Read the rest of this entry ?
Posted in *Petra, Uncategorized | Tagged Chicken, Side Dish, Starch, Vegetables | 3 Comments »
Monday Night Dinner 