This is the annual Farm-to-Table Dinner. Someone at Dinner foolishly asked if I could name all the farms that the produce came from, and not only can I tell you that, I can tell you when the corn was picked (5:30am the day I bought it – which, granted, I only know because that’s what the sign on the enormous pile of corn said, not because I actually asked).
If you’re curious, yes there was entirely too much food. Read the rest of this entry ?
Since Jess has been busy with the U.S. Open and the new puppy, the rest of us have missed our weekly excuse to catch up and eat delicious food. (Also, our time to play with the puppies. We need our dog time.) My excuse for hijacking this particular week is that I just moved into my very own condo, making hijacking MND sound like an easy substitute for a housewarming party.
Invariably, when you move into a new place, you spend the next few months learning things.
For instance, it turns out that my kitchen window lets in ants. Given that the fan from the stove does not vent outside, this is unfortunate. It’s even more unfortunate to discover this when one has arrived home only half an hour before guests are to arrive. Oh well, lonza (which I was told would be even better with melon than prosciutto) and melon will keep people entertained for awhile, right? Fortunately, the ants are gone in time for me to begin cooking before anyone arrives.
Digression: I bake. Well, I used to bake a lot before I lived in an apartment with an oven that couldn’t hold a temperature. If it couldn’t be made in a toaster oven or a friend’s oven, I stopped making it. So, I’ve been super excited about the gas stove and functioning oven in my new place. Everyone else has been super excited that I’m starting to bake again.
Back to the main storyline: It turns out that the new oven has a safety feature which automatically shuts down the oven when it gets too hot, say when the broiler has been on for twenty minutes straight while one broils repeated batches of eggplant and summer squash for a casserole.
I discovered this when, with two guests already there and four more on the way plus a casserole and a crisp to be baked, the oven shut down completely, even the digital clock. According to my panicked scan, the oven manual does not mention this feature. I had a vague memory that the circuit breaker for the unit was in the garage, but really didn’t want to go down three flights of stairs unless absolutely necessary. So, we searched the closets just to reinforce that, yes, the circuit breaker really is in the garage. (Picture the movie Clue here). When the circuit breaker wasn’t flipped, we decided it had to be a safety feature. (Running back upstairs in a group.)
Luckily, after two more guests arrived, the oven turned back on. Time to pull out the appetizers and wine to keep people entertained while dinner finally cooks!
Read the rest of this entry ?
When I finished 10th grade everyone involved agreed that for their sanity and mine it was better that Chemistry and I part ways. I don’t know exactly what my mental block on Chemistry was, but I was terrible at it. The only parts of it that I even marginally understood were the parts where you set peanuts on fire and boiled water in a test tube from the resulting flame (to calculate the number of calories in a peanut), and balancing equations. The balancing equations part of chemistry I still wasn’t exceptionally good at, but at least derived a sense of satisfaction from making everything achieve a state of equilibrium on either side of the = symbol. This is also, I suspect, why I enjoyed doing math proofs (plus, at the bottom of math proofs you get to write Q.E.D. which always made me feel terrible erudite and like I was one step closer to inhabiting a British school boy novel). Read the rest of this entry ?
There are certain things that I firmly believe you have to either have grown up with, or been introduced to at a tender and impressionable age to truly appreciate. Among these I include Ambrosia Salad, Marmite (or Vegemite) and the Eurovision Song Contest. I grew up with Ambrosia Salad at church picnics and was introduced to Eurovision in early middle school and love both unironically. Marmite/Vegemite I was also introduced to in early middle school, but think is one of the most revolting things you can do to an innocent piece of toast. So possibly you can grow to appreciate Eurovision, but Vegemite has to be introduced to you prenatally. Read the rest of this entry ?
I have a very clear memory of walking down a street with my mother when I was quite young being given a crash course in Afternoon Tea etiquette as we made our way to the house of a British friend of hers. I don’t remember whether I successfully didn’t embarrass my mother (on that particular occasion, at any rate), but I was quite young (and American) so I probably got a pass from her friend (who, being that kind of English, would have been too polite to say anything anyway). Read the rest of this entry ?
Last week (about Dinner three weeks ago) I expounded on my difficulty in finding rabbit or wild boar to make any of the tasty recipes featured in Food & Wine’s March 2012 issue. This past weekend I ended up doing a little more rabbit hunting because I’d talked and thought about it so much that (a) I was really craving rabbit, and (b) it had become a quest. Read the rest of this entry ?
My office runs a Super Bowl pool every year, and every year I get asked multiple times if I want to participate. I get tired of finding clever non-offensive ways to say no (in my office an unexplained ‘no’ is not an acceptable answer). Most years I don’t even know who’s playing – although this year I did because it’s impossible to live in Boston and not know that the Patriots have made it to the Superbowl. This year my standard response was that I didn’t care about the Super Bowl, but if someone wanted to handicap the Oscars I’d be in like Flynn. Nobody too me up on my suggestion. Read the rest of this entry ?
There are three things you need to know before I tell this story.
Firstly, my father is generally a fairly dignified person. He’s more Yes, Prime Minister than Monty Python. This means that on the occasions that he’s not, it’s disproportionally funny, and the event tends to live on (and on) in the collective family memory. Read the rest of this entry ?
In the mid 1980’s we lived in Hong Kong for 18 months during which period we somehow managed to have enough time to visit Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan, China, Macau and Singapore. On the apparently rare occasions that we were at home, we used to meet my father at noon every Saturday and go have Dim Sum. We’d meet my father at his office, and then cross through a public garden which on a Saturday was full of brides in bright red wedding dresses having their wedding pictures taken (possibly Statue Square?), to the Dim Sum restaurant at the top of the neighboring office tower. Read the rest of this entry ?
I was not a kid who had to suffer through many cafeteria meals during my school years. I was spoiled and my mother packed me a lunch almost every day well into high school. By and large the only times I ever bought lunch were on the rare occasions that the school cafeteria was serving something I really wanted to eat. In the year I spent at Convent of the Sacred Heart this meant the days that they did Indian Fry Bread for lunch – don’t ask me how that was nutritionally viable, but it came hot from the fryer and covered in powdered sugar and everyone wanted one – and any time they served tater tots. In the year and a half I spent at the Old Greenwich Elementary School this meant the occasional pizza on Friday (why I wanted burnt pizza is an issue to explore some other time), and any time they served tacos. Read the rest of this entry ?
Monday Night Dinner 