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Young & HungryIf you can't take the heat, get outta the kitchen! |
| 3 February |
Just when I had come to terms with the fact that I was not getting a callback, there it came! A call from an unknown number in LA mid-wine tasting. On a side note, I would like to give kudos to the Tasting Room in Sandy Springs for hosting one of the best and most informative wine tastings I’ve ever attended. Back to the phone call. Not having yet realized the importance of the mysterious number in my call log, I thoughtlessly dialed voice mail while perusing the isles of the wine shop next door with my girl friends. Stop. Drop. Squeal! They called and are wondering if I’m still interested! Duh, of course I am. Roll camera!
It all started with leftover nuts. Hazelnuts, to be exact. I have quite an assortment of nuts lingering in my pantry from Christmas just begging to live up to their full potential. Who am I to deny a lonely hazelnut their proper fate? And so I thought, hazelnuts and…..orange….and….fish! Yes it sounds like a bizarre combination, but upon my required due diligence I found that many a chef has gone there before. And so I had my main course, orange scented hazelnut encrusted halibut or err…salmon. With sides still TBD, I kept thinking until I came up with a more complimentary rendition on a braised fennel I learned in a cooking class in Italy and, last but not least, the curious potato risotto from this month’s Bon Appétit!
| 5 January |
In need of something warm, rich, and creamy that won’t break the theoretical calorie or actual bank? This risotto just screams comfort food! Perhaps that’s why it’s one of my favorite things… I find it ironic that New Years, with all its resolutions and whatnot, falls right when you feel like wrapping yourself up in the Snuggie you got for Christmas and not coming out until Spring. Speaking of Snuggies, I am now the proud owner of a hot chocolate brown Dreamie. Snuggie’s O.U.T. Especially after they failed to send me my free sample… What is a Dreamie you ask? It’s a fleece blanket with a sizeable pocket at one end for your pillow! I am about one day away from bringing my shiny new Dreamie into work to stop the shivering during these cold winter months. Seriously though, I’m cold inside and out. Day and night. Layers or bare. Get the point? So before you end up like me, fired after being caught purple-handed with my pillow-laden Dreamie and space heater, try this risotto to keep those cozy feelings coming even when it’s 8 degrees outside.
| 30 December |
It’s that time of year again. The holidays have come and will soon be gone leaving us with new memories, toys, and a lot of cold days to resolve everything that got lost in the shuffle. There will be resolutions to eat right, save money, and work out, among other things. But, in response to these three that frequent everybody’s To Do list, I bring you this soup! It’s hearty, healthy, and will keep you toasty and warm during the chilly days to come.
| 18 November |
Did someone say more pumpkin please? Ok, if you insist. I know I have failed to deliver as much pumpkin as promised this year, but here’s to making up for it. The inspiration for this recipe came to me on the cold rainy night before Halloween. I had leftover sage and sausage and probably could have made use of the 4 fresh pumpkins purchased for our Halloween party the consecutive night, but opted for the easy canned variety. Speaking of, I have a number of Halloween party recipes in store for you, but at this point they’ll have to wait for next year… In the meantime I hope you enjoy my Little Miss Piggy Pumpkin Pasta named after the muppet most resembling me this holiday season. Eh, I’ll pick a new one come New Year’s!
| 2 November |
I imagine it’s not too common for someone to be inspired to plan an entire meal around something like radicchio, but thanks to Michael Chiarello that’s exactly what I did. This episode of his show on grilling was nothing out of the ordinary, but the idea of taking a boring leaf vegetable and putting it through marinade, direct heat, and a good stuffing is just plain inspirational. For those that don’t know, radicchio is that bitter red “green” aka chicory that you usually pick out of your salad! This recipe, however, transforms it into a charred veggie quesadilla-esque masterpiece. The cheese melts gluing the leaves of the lettuce together into a sandwich of sorts while the marinade helps hide the bitterness that is also reduced through a nice long ice bath. The juicy radicchio serves as the perfect counterpart to the oh too usual dry and overcooked pork, unless you too like risking salmonella in avoidance.
As far as your starch for the meal is concerned, couscous went well and put to good use the leftover marinade from the radicchio. Michael seems to take a heavy hand to the marinade; I found that half was more than sufficient. If couscous isn’t your thing, I might do something simple like mashed or baked potatoes especially now that summer has come and gone and the colorful heirloom tomatoes have disappeared from the stores and markets.
| 10 September |
If you don’t like scallops, I don’t like you. I mean not really, but you do lose major cool points in my book of judgment and ridicule. Scallops, although still bottom feeders, are superior to their friends The Oyster and Mr. Muscle. Yes, they consist mostly of an abductor muscle, which is the delicious part you eat, but I was surprised and slightly disgusted to learn that scallops also have eyes to help detect light and motion and can be hermaphrodites, consisting of both sexes at the same time or switching sexes mid-life. Now that sounds like a crisis. Luckily for the scallop, they are notably one of the prettier of the species, having very symmetrical shells that are musical as well as functional when on a daily swim or escaping predators on the prowl.
Outside of the physical realm, scallops are associated with Saint James and fertility. Going forward one might take special consideration of the occasion for which they are making scallops, being the apparent symbol of fruitfulness that they are. Perhaps had I paid more attention to mythology or art in my time abroad I would have remembered that in The Birth of Venus, the Roman Goddess of fertility and love, was in fact on a lovely half-shell or scallop shell. Upon further investigation one learns that the Greek Goddess Aphrodite was also carried to Earth in the shell of a scallop thus earning the scallop its reputation as an aphrodisiac.
| 23 August |
For those of you that live alone, skip to the recipe or, if you’re lonely, keep reading with a reminiscent heart. Now, to the readers who cohabitate, let us reflect on all the lessons learned from roommates past. There was my first roommate from West Virginia who taught me that most of the rumors about people from West Virginia are not in fact true, most. She also tried to teach me how to shotgun a beer in our freshman hall’s bathroom to no avail. My next roommate taught me a lot about boys, you could call her a boy magnet of sorts. She had flirting and the fine art of dating down to a T, ahh that was a fun year. Next I went through an assortment of roommates traveling abroad to Florence and west to UCLA. They taught me a myriad of things from the greatness of In-N- Out to how to appreciate a fine wine. I learned to recognize cheeses even though they mostly look and feel the same, that the only thing Italy got wrong was that they forgot to put the gelato between two freshly baked Diddy Riese cookies, and to appreciate tofu – the other white meat? Finally, they reminded me how to swim laps to work up an appetite for aforementioned good eats, particularly during water polo practice.
My current roomie has followed suit bringing an entirely new set of lessons to the table, my favorite of which are probably from her Mom’s organic garden which turns out by far the best tomatoes and blueberries I’ve ever had. When she’s not feeding me my veggies, however, we take delight in our love of mayonnaise and late night pizza. Not at the same time of course, usually. She also has taught me that impromptu infomercial purchases can, in time, earn their keep. And so, we were happy when we were able to use both the Chop Wizard and the mass quantity of mayo in our kitchen for this recipe. The ShamWow, however, I fear will never see the light outside our laundry room… Here’s to a Snuggie come Christmas.
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