Thursday N…afternoon Smackdown: I’m Having Dinner at Babbo, Suckas 03 Jul 08

At a VIP table, no less. Suck on THAT.

Okay, I know this is bad form. It’s my blog, it’s my inaugural event, and here I am, copping out and making a quick lunch so I can skip out on you to spend a night on the town. But here’s the thing: cook eat FRET is in town. And she’s now total BFFs with Joe Bastianich, co-owner of many of Mario Batali’s restaurants, so she managed to get this fancy-ass table at Babbo tonight. And I am not afraid to send a deluge of whiny emails to internet personages to secure reservations like this one. And her mother will be at dinner, so hopefully I’ll get a stock of embarrassing childhood stories I can use as blackmail to get more invitations to dinner like this. And so the circle of life continues. It’s beautiful, really.

I couldn’t not smack something down, though, so I decided to make a light lunch that would be worthy of the occasion but would be light enough so as not to impinge on this evening’s gastronomic adventure. Therefore: Chilled cucumber-yogurt soup with quinoa timbales, courtesy of Lorena Sass’ Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way. It’s a perfect refreshing summer lunch, or first course at a fancy vegetarian restaurant, the kind where vegans go for special occasions. (”Will you accept this cruelty-free Canadian diamond set in hemp as a gesture of my desire to spend my life with you in monogamous co-equal sustainable partnership?”)

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Thursday Night Smackdown: Maybe Fish Sauce Isn’t Entirely Evil 19 Jun 08

I don’t want to harp, really, but I do feel that I must state here again that I do NOT own a mandolin.

I finally got a copy of Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Asian Flavors of Jean-Georges, and immediately wanted pretty much everything in it. I was going to do the peking duck, because yum, but the directions instructed me to hang the glazed raw duck from a hook overnight in the fridge, where you’ve also placed a small battery-powered fan to keep air moving around the duck. Thanks for adapting that recipe for the home cooks with normal-sized refrigerators* at whom your book is aimed, Jean-Georges! Really helpful.

Still, I can’t be too angry at him because despite his chef stardom he still eats hot dogs. So I decided to go with his Charred Lamb Salad, a riff on traditional Thai beef and lettuce wraps that sounds MUCH more boring that it actually is.

*Maybe I didn’t read the introduction carefully, maybe it’s only for home cooks with home meat lockers.

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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: Wherein I Fail to Learn a Lesson 05 Jun 08

Another mistake, or a deliberate refusal to learn?

I’ve been wanting to start cooking more vegetarian meals; we’re definitely a little meat heavy*, which is both pricey and not super great for us. I’ve got the Moosewood book and Patricia Wells’ Vegetable Harvest, the most butter-and-cream heavy veggie cookbook I’ve ever seen, and I recently picked up a copy of Veganomicon. It’s a vegan cookbook, and I freely admit that while I had read good things about it, I bought it mainly for the title. Because who doesn’t love Evil Dead II? “Give me some sugar, baby.”

I thought I’d use the book this week because I knew I’d be eating a giant hunk of filet mignon at a gala event Wednesday night. Also because I have not learned my lesson about tofu (although as with the mac and cheese, it was not the tofu that doomed this dish (not that the tofu helped)). So: vegan moussaka.

If you don’t want to read about vegan moussaka, I’ll sum it up for you using Brian’s description of the meal: “Tofu? Tofucked.” And I promise animal fats up the wazoo next week.

*Understatement.

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Thursday Night Smackdown: Now With 100% Less Pork! 29 May 08

Get ready for a whole lotta beige.

I’m having a very love hate relationship with pork right now. On one hand, pork is unbelieveably delicious, and bacon is one of my major food groups. On the other, exposure to 18+ hours of smoking pig has left every one of my pores, hairs, lungs, bath towels, dogs and pieces of upholstered furniture embedded with immense amounts of microscopic pork particulate. Which is not as much fun as it sounds, trust me.

The week has been pretty meat-free since Memorial Day to give my kidneys some time to recover from protein overload, so it was as good a week as any to bust out The New Moosewood Classics for some tofu mac and cheese and a simple green salad and vinaigrette. Because if I’m going to eschew pork, there should at least be cheese. Lots and lots of cheese.

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Thursday Night Smackdown: Everything’s Better With Butter 22 May 08

Nothing on this plate is not coated in butter. Nothing!

Every time I endure a Smackdown that stretches the boundaries either of food or my patience, I have to do a 180 the next week to recover. That’s why this week we turned to a chef who, although she has an entire chapter on meat-based aspics, would never ask me to eat pureed, extruded, poached, fried fish: Julia Child. Or, as I like to call her, La Grande Dame du Beurre. Join me on this buttery journey as we begin to Master the Art of French Cooking* with sauteed Mediterranean-herbed chicken with wine-butter-egg yolk sauce, baked cucumbers, and sauteed new potatoes, won’t you?

I could make this all sound much fancier by giving you the long, Frenchified names, but to do that I’d have to get off the couch and go upstairs to get the book. Although there is some Amaretto ice cream upstairs… nope, I’m not moving. Deal.

*$4 well-spent at a used book sale.

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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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Thursday Night Smackdown: Charlie Trotter goes “meh.” 08 May 08

If Tastespotting doesn’t want this one, they can officially SUCK IT.

Thomas Keller could maybe take the teensiest lesson from Charlie Trotter. Because in addition to his many other cookbooks showcasing his incredible restaurant food, he puts out books like Charlie Trotter Cooks at Home. Do you hear that, Keller? AT HOME. IN ONE’S HOUSE, where there is a HOME KITCHEN, one does not want dinner to take 17 HOURS TO PREPARE and liquids move from one place to another CONSTANTLY without going through the chinois which one does NOT EVEN OWN. AT HOME. HOME HOME HOME.

Possibly I am still a touch bitter.

So tonight, from Charlie Trotter Cooks at Home, we have seared duck breasts with orange vinaigrette, ginger-braised celery and swiss chard. And yes, it was slightly meh, but it also took slightly less than 1 hour to prepare.

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Thursday Night Smackdown: The Grill Flies at Midnight 02 May 08

Happy Ribtoberfest, everyone!

I know it’s not October, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be Ribtober. If it were up to me, we’d also have Ribtember and Ribril*, so it’s probably a good thing for all of us that it’s not up to me.

Tonight’s ribs come to use thanks to The Food of Thailand: A Journey for Food Lovers a book about authentic Thai street food and home cooking written by three Brits. They (the ribs, not the Brits) are accompanied by sweet corn cakes, cucumber salad and a decidedly non-Thai but outstanding bottle of Saison (a crisp summer Belgian ale).

*Doesn’t that sound like a pharmaceutical? “Ribril is not for everyone. If you are pregnant or may become pregnant, talk to your doctor before starting Ribril. Side effects may include nausea, dry mouth, uncontrollable palm sweat, male pattern baldness and Scurvy.”

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Thursday Night Smackdown: Ladies’ Night Poussin 24 Apr 08

Yes, I ate a baby chicken and no, I’m not sorry.

Dinner tonight comes thanks to douche-baggy pretty boy Tyler Florence’s Eat This Book: honey and soy glazed poussin with curried green apples.

I should state for the record that I have no real reason to believe that Tyler Florence is a douchebag. It’s just a feeling I have, but I’m pretty sure he’s That Guy. For example, this recipe comes from a section of the book called “devouring,” which contains a collection of recipes with no discernible theme, other than the fact that they’re all meant to be eaten. Other sections include Consuming, Tasting and Noshing and are equally motley. Why, Tyler? The recipes look pretty good; why don’t you want me to find them?

But his shrimp and grits recipe is the shit and his book was 50% off, so there you go.  I’m such an enabler.

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