The Great…e-SCAPE. Get it? You know, because there are scapes in this 02 Jul 08

You don’t get it at all, do you Steve?

Sometimes I wish I could post in 3-D, because that peanut? Totally looks like it’s poised to leap off the screen at you. That peanut will cut a bitch.

I often bemoan the fact that I am too fucking lazy* to get up early enough to make it to the Greenmarket in time for quickly snatched up, fleeting seasonal delicacies like ramps and garlic scapes. I salivate over other people’s beautiful photos, promise myself I’ll go this coming Saturday and then stay up late on Friday reading back issues of Love & Rockets and sleep until noon the next day (I’m fortunate to have equally lazy dogs who enjoy sleeping in on weekends).

Thankfully, I now have my own personal organic farmer to provide me with fleeting seasonal delicacies. Well, me and the 75 other people in my neighborhood CSA. He grows ‘em, he brings ‘em to the neighborhood, and I pick ‘em up after work and enjoy my beauty sleep guilt-free. So thank you, Farmer John, for enabling me to eat this delicious new potato and garlic scape puree with my pan-seared halibut and snap pea slaw.

*On a laziness scale of 1 to 10, I’m a 17. On a good day.**

**I REALLY like sleep.

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Thursday Night Smackdown: It had a really good personality 12 Jun 08

John Stewart: the bald spot is growing, but he’s still damn funny.

So a few weeks ago I randomly left a comment on a post at Serious Eats, the result of which was my being randomly chosen to receive a copy of Paula Disbrowe’s Cowgirl Cuisine. Paula is a French-trained New York-based food writer who removed herself from the big-city rat race to live in Texas, cook on a ranch and write a cookbook filled with pictures of herself. I know we’ve all wanted to flee our humdrum existences to live a life of leisure surrounded by goats in the Texas Hill Country, where “Texas Hill Country” is read as “Tuscan villa” and “goats” as “Italian supermodels.”

Seriously, there are a LOT of pictures of her in the cookbook. And not pictures of her cooking or engaging in Texas-type activities like riding horses, erecting homemade border fences or driving to Mexico for cheap over-the-counter pharmaceuticals; that would make too much sense. Just pictures of her standing around, lying in fields and, I shit you not, stripping down to go skinny dipping (don’t get excited, you can’t see anything).

Anyway, despite all the auto-photography and the terrible, terrible title, I bring you: shrimp-stuffed poblanos with walnut sauce and classic cornbread.

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Thursday Night Smackdown: Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here 16 May 08

Really, abandon it. Now.

I will give you $10 if you can guess what is in this bowl of soup.

I can make that bet because I know you will not be able to guess, and if you did, you are obviously a cheater. What we have here is a bowl full of “noodles” made of pureed, extruded, poached, fried fish.

Pureed, extruded, poached, fried fish is UNHOLY. And not in the good way, the way candied bacon is unholy. It is a thing that should not be. Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto and your New Art of Japanese Cooking, you have failed me. I should have known better than to trust the Iron Chef most likely to make salmon cupcakes with veal cheek buttercream.

And I gotta tell you, I’m not even that excited to write about it. Never have so many worked so hard only to have to order a pizza at the end of the night.

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Friday Night Smackdown: Welcome, Fish Overlords 11 Apr 08

This red snapper wants to be taken to your leader.

Tonight, a special edition cranky and overtired Friday Night Smackdown: Whole fish baked in a salt crust from Cooking with Jamie by everyone’s favorite British scruffmuffin, Jamie Oliver. Because it’s a method I’ve been wanting to try, and it seemed like a pretty straightforward dish to prepare after a long day on the road.

Cue ominous strings of foreshadowing.

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Fish balls, fish balls; eat them up. Yum! 31 Mar 08

Did you know: If you want to take your fish balls out to the movies, you DON’T HAVE TO PAY to get them in! What a deal!

Say someone challenged you to come up with a dish involving your choice of seafood, lime and coconut. You’d probably come up with something a lot like this, I’m sure: coconut rice and yellowtail suckers with a trio of spicy lime dipping sauces. Because when people think “fish,” they think “lollipop,” right?

Okay, I know, it sounds freaky and maybe a little bit gross. It’s just that the ingredients for this month’s Foodie Joust over at the Leftover Queens’s lent themselves so well to a variety of Thai-inspired fish dishes and curries. And they’re all looking really good, and I don’t think I could top ‘em. So I figured, if I can’t beat you in flavor inventiveness, I can… also not beat you in shape and form. But at least in the meantime, I get to eat a fried thing on a stick. Also I get to say “fish balls” a lot.

Fish balls. Fish balls. Fish balls.
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Thursday Night Smackdown: Thomas Keller is a hardcore motherf*cker. 20 Mar 08

The news said there was a 65% chance of vampires, so I figured better safe than sorry.

Tonight: Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry Cookbook (cue foreboding music)

I tried to keep the title clean, in case, you know, your frigging kids are reading over your shoulder (go to bed). I’m in a bit of a mood, you see, because Thomas Keller has roundly defeated us with his precise ways and time consuming techniques and bizarre use of hard-boiled egg yolks. How does the man get a single dish out of his kitchen - a phalanx of oompa loompas? Because we’ve been working for 3 days here; we’ve used every dish and pot in the house and I believe several workers may have died of cholera during construction.

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a thursday night smackdown of questionable methodology 13 Mar 08

It’s not meat!

Tonight’s Smackdown comes to us from Creole by Babette de Rozieres, a beautifully photographed collection of 160 classic and not-so classic creole recipes. On the menu: Creole Seafood Risotto.

On the surface, this dish seems like a total winner: shrimp, scallops, and fish, risotto finished with some creme fraiche, saffron and scotch bonnet peppers bringing the creole mojo, and more shallots (8) than I have ever used in a single dish (It serves 4. So, 2 shallots per person. Babette doesn’t fuck around with shallots.). Although the flavor is ultimately a winner, a tragic misunderstanding of classic risotto procedures leads to fatal textural compromises. Amazon informs me that Babs is a French celebrity chef, making this all the more surprising.

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Thursday Night Smackdown: Petoncles a l’anchois avec du pieds. Victoire! 07 Feb 08

Unlimited juice? This party’s gonna be OFF THE HOOK.

Tonight’s smackdown come from Molly Stevens’ wonderful bible of braising, All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking: Vietnamese Caramel-Braised Scallops. We also followed Molly’s suggestion and served the scallops with some plain jasmine rice and a simple, clean cucumber salad.

There’s something about this dish that makes you feel like you’re eating out at home (unless you live in a Vietnamese restaurant, or with your Vietnamese mother), and it has an intriguing, umami-y flavor that makes each bite taste better than the last. It’s simple to prepare, and is a technique that can be used with other foods as well - caramel glazed ribs, I have you in my sights.

I do feel, however, that I have a responsibility to disclose that pouring fish sauce into a bubbling pan of hot, nearly-burnt caramel will make your whole house smell like it’s located within the week-old sock of a long-distance runner. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

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Hardly even a recipe. 30 Jan 08

Anyone who would like to donate a Nikon D70 is free to do so at any time.

Shrimp + garlic + good butter + red pepper + pasta = tasty and satisfying homemade dinner suitable for the I-don’t-feel-like-cooking-but-I-can’t-order-
any-more-Pad-Thai-takeout nights. You say you don’t have those nights? You’re never too tired or stressed to whip up a nutritious balanced home-cooked meal? To you I say, we are women of action. Lies do not become us.

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Thursday Night Smackdown: A Narrow Victory 11 Jan 08

Paradise City: Where the grass is green and the girl are pretty. Won’t you please take me home?

Tonight’s smackdown beatdown, courtesy of Sally Schneider’s The Improvisational Cook: Swordfish poached in shallot-thyme scented olive oil, leek “noodles” with creme fraiche and hazelnut oil, and crispy risotto cakes.

Unlike last week’s smackdown, with flavors that exploded on the tongue, this meal is full of melting textures and richly subtle flavors. Although I was defeated handily by the risotto cakes because of my own shortsightedness, we redeemed ourselves with clear victories over both fish and leeks to eke out the win.

First the bad.

Just an urchin livin’ under the street.

I made extra farro risotto earlier this week, reserving some without the artichoke hearts I added to that night’s dinner for these cakes. Unfortunately, I underestimated how badly the lack of starch-laden sauce would betray me when it came to keeping the risotto in neat little cakes for frying. Things started out okay…

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