Is there a more relaxing Monday night than sitting splayed on the couch with a camphor-and-menthol covered leg wrapped in plastic wrap and sitting on a heating pad, while you precariously balance a marginally functional 2001 laptop on a copy of Watchmen* on your other leg? I submit that there is not, especially since I don't watch Heros.** I'm doing it though, because (1) the leg thing actually feels really good once you get over the plastic wrap-weirdness and (2) the foodblogosphere must know about this quick, easy and cheap pasta and fish with spicy, garlicky, fennel-y tomato ...
The People Have Spoken.
So I added the chives on top for a little contrast, and to make this look a little less like dog food. It's a little trick I use that decreases enhances my effectiveness as a food stylist. Food too beige? Prop a chive on it. Looks a little too much like dog food? Chives. Unattractive dessert? Chives. Kids aren't cooperative for the family photo? Chives. I mean, come on, you can see the results here. I dare you to create an appetizing looking plate of shrimp and grits sans ...
Sigh.
It's not as bad as the night we tried to LIVE IT UP with Paula Deen and ended up with what was essentially a mayonnaise casserole, but it's not good and is made even more tragic by its source: Suzanne Goin! Sunday Suppers at Lucques!
I can sum it up for you in one word: beets.
Make that three words: terrible, terrible beets.
Keep going...
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I think I might have a girlcrush on Charlie Palmer, because his Practical Guide to the New American Kitchen can do no wrong. Every recipe I've tried has been delicious and the book is washable, so there's that. Plus? Scallops wrapped in bacon, creamy paprika-spiked mascarpone* polenta and the most delicious roasted, wine-soaked red peppers the world has ever seen.
*Or, as they say on Top Chef, "marscapone."
Keep going...
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I need something wide and shallow.
Here's the exciting thing about this post: you'll get to feel like you're PART OF THE ACTION. No, I haven't invented smell-o-blogging or taste-o-blogging, but after spending almost 10 hours with Graham and Dodge, 2 chefs from the chi-chi Sanderling resort here on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, I think I can help you re-create the experience I had chronicling them.
Here's how you do it: Buy a case of Miller Lite. Drink half of it, to get a good slosh on. After every photo caption in this post, yell drunkenly, "LIKE YOUR MOTHER!" and ...
When will smackdown get better?*
It's sad, really, because any dinner was bound to be a let down after last night's tomatogasm. I'm still reeling a little, and I spent the whole day cornering co-workers and forcing them to listen to me monologue about tomatoes as they nodded politely (the co-workers, not the tomatoes). Still, this dinner, taken from The New Best Recipe, challenged another one of my food prejudices: pad Thai.
It also made most of my block smell like fermented shrimp because I had all the windows open while I cooked, and for that I'm truly sorry.
*I'm trying, ...
And so, the egg whites have been folded in ANGER!!*
Once again, it's hot as balls in New York City.
Between that and the Tour De France - as I'm sure you all know today is the first mountainous stage, and the Tour chooses its champions where the mountains bear the snows of winter - I didn't want to tackle something overly complicated or arduous. But I did want to do something new, something I'd never made before. I was flipping through Chez Panisse Cooking when it hit me:
SOUFFLE!
More specifically, crab souffle with leeks and green onions, with a ...
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 ...
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 ...