a sampling of some fresh picked wine berries, huckleberries and wild blackberries – a gift from my friend jack on my birthday last month

it’s not that i’m not cooking. because i am. there are gatherings of friends and just plain hungriness resulting in well, dinner. i even sometimes whip out the nikon and snap a few lame shots but these days not so much. and i’m not sure what’s come over me. but just the thought of posting on ceF was beginning to feel like ‘work’ and god only knows we wouldn’t want that to happen to a nice woman like me… after all, my lack of ambition is my greatest luxury. (i stole that line from my friend emily and have been using it ad nauseum but only because it is SO TRUE.)

but we’ve been to chicago and then i went to cleveland. dallas is this week and seattle comes next. i’m doing the 4 day cooking gig again come the first of october and then i’m off to nyc…  and all i want is to go back to italy. is that asking so much? IS IT? but honestly, i’m not complaining. it’s a charmed life. the past week or so has pretty much revolved around trips to the park in much appreciated cooler than normal temps, so after a 9 week hiatus i’m back on the bike and fighting the fat (albeit somewhat of a losing battle).

but mostly – if i could just say, i’m so deeply grateful for this amazing life that i get to live that i could cry. for those of you that read the sunday ny times magazine section yesterday, we are the fortunate ones…

ok – back to food…

presenting… a summer dinner. grilled corn with flaky maldon salt and a squeeze of lime. grilled tomatoes with thyme and a farro salad with a slightly overcooked poached egg on top. i’ve got just a vague recollection of what was in the farro salad but i’m thinking it was pequillo peppers and goat cheese – and something else but remembering is difficult…

best beans ever. rancho gordo cannellini’s with grape tomatoes, basil, thyme, lemon zest and juice, some potlikker, finely minced anchovy, a very good olive oil, salt and pepper. i think that was it but i’ve no idea because i can’t recall a damn thing.

lamb meatballs with a cherry sauce over whole wheat couscous finished with mint leaves. a lot of ingredients went into that sauce until it was nicely balanced and pretty damn impressive tasting. but i’m not sure exactly what i did – because of my memory…

all cary ever really wants for his birthday are two (2) angel food cakes with his grandmother’s ’7 minute boiled icing’. the icing becomes slightly hard on the outside and then yields to a slightly marshmallow like goo on the inside. ruhlman’s angel food cake from his bestseller ‘ratio‘, takes this cake to where it needs to go – from spongy and boring to totally delicious. in my opinion it’s all in the weighing of the flour and then using both lemon juice and vanilla. for your viewing pleasure i give you 4 pictures as they were all so awful i just couldn’t choose… this is the whitest cake in america and despite the absence of any fats and the overabundance of sugar, somehow it just works.

my icing technique is legendary. obviously.

moving on…

i phone pics before i bought the 3Gs. but this is the wonderful donnie madia pictured at his flagship restaurant blackbird. for my money, he and eduard seitan are the best restaurateurs in chicago with blackbird, avec, the publican and the newest addition, a tacqueria opening very soon. donnie’s attention to every detail is second to none with a modern sensibility that slays me, as i am highly susceptible to such things. with executive chef and partner paul kahan at the helm of the kitchen, it continues to be a recipe for greatness. we were in chicago for only 4 nights and ate at avec, then publican and then blackbird – finishing up with an anniversary dinner at tru, a gift from my mother. and for a whopping $425 that included only one glass of wine, it paled in comparison by such a long shot that i can’t even begin to explain the differences in the food except to say that in the end, blackbird kicked tru’s ass – big time. tru is supremely elegant and the room is lovely. it’s quiet and serious and the servers are ON IT. but dinner at blackbird was once again phenomenal. oh AND best negroni ever – hands down.

so, a few things… and please again – forgive the poor photo quality.

salad of endives with crispy potatoes, basil, dijon, pancetta and poached egg = sheer perfection. not kidding. this salad was incredible in every way.

chilled cuttlefish noodles with green garlic, red onion jam, trout caviar, nasturtiums and buttermilk = amazingness. i loved it.

wood-grilled california sturgeon with english peas, braised peanuts, crispy bacon and bourbon caramel = seriously impressive.

cary had the organic pork belly and crispy sweet shrimp with chinese broccoli, preserved green tomato and black pepper. he started with the pistachio gazpacho with ahi, watermelon confit, sea beans and cocoa. both were smashing.

this was my idea. sorry.

desserts were wonderful. donnie brought us three and each one was greatness. ricotta fritters with compari, rhubarb and pine nut ice cream, pistachio panna cotta with a raspberry consommé and brown butter ice cream and a torn black sesame cake with pineapple that looked a little something like this that was  – out. of. this. world…

avec, a bit more down to earth, is my favorite restaurant in all the land. and at the publican, albeit a bit on the loud side, we had an abundance of seriously excellent food. beer, oysters, fish and pork. just splendid.

chicago is such an extraordinary food town… thank you donnie.

south west of chicago. mies van der rohe’s masterpiece – the farnsworth house. i wept in its presence. it is genius if not impractical.

no tinkering with picassa was going to help this photo taken through the door of my oven. it was shredded zucchini and yellow squash with minced garlic, chiles and ricotta. i stole the idea from city house restaurant here in nashville. their’s was far better and i’m going to work on this because it was frustrating that i couldn’t replicate it. i need to call chef tandy wilson and ask for help. plus my chiles were so strong that they almost hurt. so, fail, although not in an epic way…

the project – buy 20 lbs of balaton cherries from earthy.com and use 10 to make some cherry bourbon hooch. i’ll get back to you in 6 weeks on how it turns out and if you’re on the short list, it’s what’s for christmas, so no surprises here. the other 10 lbs. became a salted cherry vanilla bean balsamic compote.

oh, and jack’s arm after blackberry picking. the things friends do for friends…

ok. this was good. as in very good. as in i won’t go all yoplait ad on you, but this was another definite do-over. and the sooner the better.

i take very little credit as this plate of pasta was nothing more than a blend of: the latest post from rachel eats‘ blog, along with the addition of some murray’s cheese mail-ordered burrata. i’ve since found out – and to my surprise, that trader joe’s carries "burrata", but my obvious thoughts on that were although it’d most likely do in a pinch, there’s no way it could be even close to the same quality as these delicate cream filled mozzarella balls made in italy on monday, and at my door on wednesday…

because you deserve a closer look…

it’s hot as hell in nashville. we’re on day 10 of 90+ degrees with the usual humidity issue, and well, cooking is only so appealing. the ovens are off limits but i will boil a pot of water and saute some onions – and happily.

but here’s what i won’t do. although i preach high quality ingredients and authentic preparation, here’s another ceF ruling to go along with the whole ”i don’t do pastry crusts" thing. so now you can just go on ahead and add to that – "i don’t slip the skins off tomatoes". because honestly, it just seems SILLY. yet despite this blatant admission, i still struggle with the fact (if only ever so slightly) that this conscious oversight would be sneered upon by better cooks than me. i mean the italian nonas do things for GOOD REASON. but then i quickly rationalize the whole thing – i honestly don’t think it changes the experience. and i’m at peace with tomato skins – though i have succumbed to certain other kitchen practices such as always trussing my chickens.

adding to the list of ‘do’s', i also have claimed the red onion as my personal onion of choice for nearly all cooking purposes. i just like them better. and they look beautiful on my counter.

an important component of this dish is that you barely cook the tomatoes. for the record, mine were not home grown, as those are not quite yet available in nashville, but joyously coming soon. still, what i’d picked up at TJ’s were juicy and tomatoey. i used a fair amount of chopped basil from my herb pots, adding it the same time i added the chopped tomatoes to my pan of slowly sauteed onions, thinly sliced into half moons. you salt, you pepper and you’re done in 15 minutes. if that.

and then i strayed away from the recipe because I AM A REBEL and cut a creamy burrata ball in half and plopped it on top along with some more fresh basil. it’s a perfect dish. it just is. even with the aforementioned skins still thinly present…

but by far, the best part of dinner was the company. we had new friends over – emily and kevin. they brought extra tomatoes (in case), bread (i had none), wine (2 bottles of pino grigio) and a glazed lemon almond poppyseed cake that was quite good and tangy. and while we all sat there happily digging in to our respective slices, emily took her first bite and i watched as she sat there wrestling the flavors and consistency in her brain, thinking out loud about all of the things she perhaps could have done for it to have been better – and how she could improve upon it the next time.

and i thought to myself, i’m going to love this chick…

update  – with 3 reports now in on trader joe’s burrata, i am strongly recommending that you stay far away. my good friend heidi robb who i trust implicitly says, "Take a big hearty PASS. Their Mandara buffalo mozzarella is more burrata like than this insipid stuff."

every now and then a dish comes along that knocks me out. and i don’t even mean anything complicated. just a simple plate of food that satisfies you on some primal level – food that is almost soulful. like this ‘pasta. to. die. for’. it’s barely even cooking, yet it blows my mind every time i make it. and now, this pasta ceci. i mean, where have you been all my life? all those trips to italy – all those italian dinners and piles of books – somehow i’ve missed you. but now i know, and it’s all with thanks to rachel, an english woman living in rome who authors the beautiful blog, ‘rachel eats‘.

rarely do i ever cook things twice. perhaps mostly because my cooking tends to be experimental or often just a curiosity – or i don’t remember what i even did to ever redo it. but this pasta ceci? this will be made often. after all, we’re talking both pasta AND (rancho gordo) beans…

pasta ceci
from rachel eats

first and foremost, i doubled this recipe and i’m glad to have had the foresight to do so. i highly recommend doing this and freezing some. i used red onions, extra tomato paste and i used my chicken stock to supplement the liquid.

serves 4

250g dried chickpeas soaked overnight and then simmered for 2 hours until tender or 450g tinned chickpeas
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
medium carrot peeled and finely diced
stick of celery finely diced
mild onion peeled and finely diced
2 tbsp tomato concentrate
small sprig of rosemary
500ml vegetable or chicken stock or water the chickpeas were cooked in with more plain water added to make up the 500ml if necessary.
optional – 500ml extra water or stock for if you cook the pasta in the soup.
parmesan rind
salt and freshly ground black pepper
225g small dried tubular pasta
your nicest oil for on top

prepare your soffrito of finely chopped onion, carrot and celery, sauteing them gently and slowly in the oil in a large heavy based pan until soft and floppy and translucent.
then you add the tomato concentrate and a sprig of rosemary, stir, and then add 2/3 of your cooked chickpeas.
stir again and then cover everything with stock or water, throw in a parmesan rind. bring the pan to a happy boil, reduce to a simmer and then leave the pan to bubble away gently for about 20 minutes.
now remove the rind and rosemary and pass everything through the mouli or give it a blast with the hand blender to create a smooth gloopy soup.
now you add the rest of the cooked chickpeas and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
now the two choices:
1. you can either add some more water or stock to the soup, bring it to the boil and cook your pasta directly in the soup
or
2. you can cook your pasta separately in some fast boiling salted water and then add it to the soup, then let things rest for about 5 minutes so the flavours mingle.

serve dribbled with more extra virgin olive oil and some freshly grated parmesan..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

everything i needed was already in my refrigerator, freezer and pantry except for the ditalini pasta which i could have substituted with any number of the other pastas that are currently shelved…

but i never said i was completely cured, now did i?

in less than three weeks i take off for nyc for the tri-annual mommy visit, haircut and restaurant go around. therefore all socializing over food has now come to a screeching halt and my already compromised caloric intake needs to come down even further in preparation for what inevitably becomes quite the food-centric getaway. until then i am TRYING VERY HARD to figure out a way to order light and not feel the need to eat everything. or drink too much wine. and still have dessert. but not over do it.

in other words i am going to attempt to not be me.
wish me luck with that…

but the other night, overall, i thought i did quite well. there were 6 of us for dinner and i was in my kitchen and in control of the menu. beforehand i had boldly told my friends. no nibbles or appetizers, no salad – or dessert. i’m serving one thing. and a loaf of crusty bread, which for the record i personally abstained from – as well as the impressive wines that my friends brought over, because i am not only disciplined and strong (albeit in small spurts), but obviously also a masochist.

under these circumstances, i knew whatever i made had to be pretty striking. i also knew i was going to do a seafood dish but couldn’t face the selection at nashville’s ‘whole foods’. i considered a few cioppino recipes and even glanced at julia’s bouillabaisse. but then i wandered over to suzanne goin’s ‘sunday suppers at lucques‘ and i spotted "the dish". page 268-9. mussels and clams with vermouth, cannellini beans and cavolo nero. reading through it, i was captivated by the ingredient list. this was so very my kind of food. for those of you that haven’t been paying attention, i gravitate towards simple italian food, stressing the quality of the ingredients – ad nauseam.

i called d’artagnen to ask who they considered to be their seafood equivalent and they reminded me of browne trading. the way i see that is: if it’s good enough for eric ripert and daniel boulud, then i’m in. so i ordered my fish from them, which turned out to be a good move on my part. after speaking to nick for awhile about what was freshest and best, that’s about when i i decided to veer from the recipe, if only by upping the seafood ante. goin called for using clams and mussels, and to that i added 3 small lobsters, scallops, haddock and the last of the wonderful maine sweet shrimp, which was to be used as a garnish due to its inability to take much heat. i also doubled the recipe. because you just can’t have too much of a good thing…

and that, dear readers? is the very philosophy that gets me into trouble…

the largest serving vessel in my home is my 16" wok. i rarely use it because, well, it’s just huge. but this was the perfect thing for this dish and i was grateful that i had it around.

everything was piled into the wok which filled it to the brim – and somehow our italian seafood dinner looked quite at home, all nestled in the unfamiliar asian skillet. i wish i’d been more ‘on it’ with my photo’s, but once that seafood was ready to rock and roll, i had other things on my mind. so cary, being the good boyfriend, grabbed the camera and took some shots.

the recipe is both straight forward and detailed  – a testament to goin’s book which leaves very little room for any error with a lot of very helpful techniques and explanations… go and buy this book. seriously. it’s a great one…

the beans were of course from rancho gordo. they were soaked for a few hours, although goin throws hers in dry. the bean component was made the night before and i’ve got to tell you, it is beyond truly outstanding.

here’s how it works: toast 2 teaspoons of fennel seeds until brown and then pound them roughly in a mortar. in a medium pot heat 1/4 cup of olive oil and when hot, add to that a sprig of rosemary and a crumbled chili de arbol. sizzle for a minute and then add the fennel seed and a cup or so of diced onion along with a tablespoon of thyme leaves. sauté until the onion is wilted. add the beans and coat them for about a minute and then add water to 3" above the beans. bring to a boil and the reduce heat. place a paper towel over the beans to keep them submerged and add 2 teaspoons kosher salt after about 30 minutes (mine took longer to soften) and then cook adding water as necessary. you want to have a good amount of bean liquid that is starchy and rich. because this is THE STUFF that makes the final dish sing. there’s no fish stock used in this recipe.

and even if you don’t make this dish then just make these beans. and serve them with roast chicken. or with a poached egg and broccoli rabe. the beans themselves will knock you over. you will make them and then you will love me because i will have opened your eyes to greatness. they way i see it, it’s the very least i could do...

i also must tell you that these little sweet maine shrimp are very delicious little suckers, but you have to treat them with the utmost respect. too much heat and they turn to a mealy mush. after the dish was done and off the heat, these were placed on top of the rest of the shellfish and the residual warmth was all that was needed.

a perfect 1990 barbera sits beside a grassy tuscan olive oil. one bowl to eat from, and another for the shells…

a precarious balance – a profoundly visual metaphor for life…

the kale gets blanched in salted water and wrung out and cut into ribbons. olive oil goes into a (wide not tall) hot pot followed by diced red onion, a bulb of chopped fennel, tons of sliced garlic, chiles, rosemary, thyme and salt and pepper. then the greens for about 10 minutes until they break down – and then the beans along with the liquid. after a few minutes add the clams and then a couple of minutes later the vermouth and then the mussels. let it all steam until the shells open and then stir in a few tablespoons of butter. i forgot to taste for seasoning but i lucked out. it was just right.

when i make this again, and i will, i think i’ll keep it less busy. the lobster was wonderful but extraneous, the haddock got knocked around by the shells and shredded – making for a heartier broth, but really in the end was unnecessary. the browne trading’s scallops were fresh and phenomenal, as was all the seafood. they’d be a do-over for sure, if only because cary loves them best.

goin’s ‘sunday suppers’ is a seasonal book – from market to table. this recipe was listed for fall, which although we’re completely faced in the other direction, it still felt right on a cool and rainy friday evening. we talked, they drank, and we laughed our asses off for 4 hours. everyone chipped in on the seafood tab which eased the $ load and we couldn’t have had a better seafood dinner anywhere in nashville.

and i’ll venture to guess that no one missed dessert in the least…

i eat a lot of beans. i didn’t used to. but rancho gordo changed all that. i know, you’ve heard it before. but RG has radically altered my personal food pyramid and now, well – i eat a lot of beans…

so in the past two weeks, i’ve made three big pots of very different bean stews and all of them were quite good. but being that this is my every day kind of food, i don’t always write about such lunches and dinners. but there i was, home with no car and a new puppy – and so i took a few shots anyway – and now i’ve decided that as a trio it all makes for a solid post. and so i present to you a virtual hill of beans…

but – being that my memory is only so acute, i may have forgotten a thing or two about the first dish. and in all fairness, that one isn’t even a bean dish. it’s lentils and orzo. and i am not lying when i tell you that i’ve no earthly idea what went into that one. except the green lentils and the last of a container of whole wheat orzo. and carrots and onions. oh, and chicken stock. and i vaguely remember a healthy dose of my sicilian oregano going in there… but ok, really. now i am clueless. except to say that it was damn good food and even better with an egg on top.

oh dear, i just remembered this one too…

these were some leftover christmas lima beans from something or another, way back when, and this was lunch one of those days and it was just so pretty i couldn’t resist taking a picture. a typical lunch in the life of claudia young. now you have it. more beans. and arugula, which i love almost as much as i love beans, if not more. depending when you might ask…

bean dish #2 was actually really fun to make. i had no idea what i was going for, and i just kind of let each ingredient added determine the next in line. at one point i realized i’d better write down what i was doing – and it looked a little bit like this:

brown tepiary beans
whole garlic cloves
celery
carrots
bay leaves
chopped shallots
lots of fresh thyme
a heaping spoonful of pimenton
a can of san marzano tomatoes
collard greens
white rice
crushed chili pepper
one fat anchovy
a lot of balsamic vinegar
3 cups of brown veal stock

all served up in a bowl with a healthy pour of some wonderful grassy green olive oil floating on top. and of course, the obligatory fried egg…

somehow there’s no picture except for this, the final addition of the veal stock, which i kind of got a kick out of. being that it was an afterthought, i grabbed some of my stock from the freezer, peeled off the bag and stuck it into the middle of the pot like a meaty popsicle.

and then lastly, i had soaked some calypso beans and had a few sweet potatoes laying around so i decided to get crazy, veer from the italian and go all carribean. which was an interesting study being that i know nothing about that genre of cooking. BUT by god, i’m a googling fool and after punching in "carribean bean and sweet potato stew", my next ingredients were:

cinnamon
thyme
bay leaves
chopped onion
chopped celery
frozen spinach
allspice
chili flakes
AND (just because)
this very italian mugolio pine syrup – i could have used brown sugar but i had this and well, on a whim in it went. i had recently bought it, tried it and was a little unsure of how i would ever use it. i love market hall foods but this particular product didn’t have quite the kick i had hoped for. in all fairness it’s just as they describe – a honey like syrup with pine overtones. whereas i was thinking more pine in the forefront.

served over a nutty brown rive, everyone really loved this. it was unlike what i usually do – which was a nice change.

i suppose the beauty of this food is that it is supremely healthy and i always use whatever is in my cupboard and the draws of my fridge. i never go to the market to shop for my next pot of beans. they just become whatever they were meant to be on that day.

oh, and did i mention the cannellini’s that are soaking in my kitchen right now?

yes, cicerchie. i know. you’ve probably never heard of it. well perhaps you have. but it was certainly new to me. a google search tells me that it dates back from roman times and was a common dish of peasants.. luckily i came across a package of these and now i am thinking that they’re perhaps my most favorite pulse ever. it’s like a wild garbanzo did it with an ear of corn – or something. maybe the field pea was involved too. i really don’t know, i wasn’t there. but this humble bean is absolutely wonderful – and ridiculously hard to come by.

in umbria a hunk of pig fat is traditionally used to prepare this dish. but i resisted using instead my best umbrian olive oil. i’m an avid fan of umbria. on my last trip to italy i spent a lot of time in assisi and orvieto and montefalco and spello… hill town after hill town, we spent time exploring – and eating. and i grew to love the region that is often overlooked by tourists in favor of the more popular tuscany. but the food in umbria really is spectacular and the olive oil, which many consider to be better than what you might find in tuscany, is comparably scarce in this country.

while on the subject of perhaps the one ingredient that i could not live without, one of my favorite olive oils comes from liguria. it’s smoother, if not gentler and more luxurious than the bold tuscans. if it were an actor it might win best supporting role. ligurian olive oil allows the other flavors of the food to shine through with just enough of the rich olive flavor to remind you just who it is…oh but that’s another post. – and most likely it will involve pesto…

i soaked the cicerchie overnight and gently boiled them for about 40 minutes with 4 fat garlic cloves, adding some salt at the end. i chopped and steamed some swiss chard, sliced some grape tomatoes, despriged some thyme and tossed it all together with salt and pepper. i wanted it to remain simple. i wanted to really get to know this bean. ok, is that weird? maybe it’s weird.

but if you really want to hear something weird, get this:

so i’m reading the ny times last sunday morning and in the style section the cover story is about gwyneth paltrow and her lifestyle website called goop (tag line = nourish the inner aspect = hee). as one might expect there are lovers and there are haters and well, i’m pretty much switzerland. whatever gwynne does is fine with me. i like her and i have decided to not hold a grudge against her, bittman or mario regarding the debacle "on the road again". i have let go of my disgust because i am trying to be more like ‘the buddha’. but anyway here’s what i read… mario, yes, our mario batali, gwynne’s bff, at the very end of this lengthy article, comments about her cooking saying "she has a great sense of proportion, which gives her food a natural balance."

and then the coffee squirted out my nose…

dear readers? is it me?

and they’re completely unrelated. but i thought i’d give you two for the price of one. because i believe that you deserve two – if only because i am the slacker of all food bloggers and have miserably fallen down on my posting. and because neither dish photographed all that well. and perhaps mostly because time somehow disappears and i’ve no idea where it goes…

today is a completely lovely day in middle tennessee and well, i sold my car by accident and the new one’s not here yet (or even close) so i am housebound with the ‘amazing growing puppy’ and two pissed off cats. meaning, i need to write, if only as a diversion to my current state of affairs. and ummm, if any one wants to come to my house and take me shopping, that would be super.

so anyway, these are for you and really, they were both excellent.

below we have my adaptation of a gordon ramsey recipe from his book ‘healthy appetite’ which i dearly love due to the fact that the recipes are interesting AND light. so even if his own personal goose is getting cooked right now, i’m still a fan. he is without a doubt a great chef. but gordon? perhaps you shoulda killed ‘em with some kindness afterall, as your karma might be messing with you…

regardless, the scallops were wonderful. peas and lima beans (both frozen) with a lot of mint and a hint of butter, the perfect bed to rest 3 scallops upon, seared with fresh thyme. gordon called for fava beans, not lima’s – and fresh shelled peas. but i don’t have to fear ‘the ramsey’ getting all up in my face, so the executive bean decision was – lima.

fyi – the scallops were NOT burned they were just deeply colored rendering them unattractive yet delicious

and this is a staple around here. greens (turnip this time although usually lacinato kale) and beans (rancho gordo – cannellini’s) with a dose of good red wine vinegar and olive oil, accompanied by copious amounts of rosemary and garlic – topped with a poached egg. and this is really just very, very damn good.

fyi – this totally tasted so much better than it looks here…

lately my food has been simple. even more so than usual. we’re eating things like whole wheat pasta with my own tomato sauce. the current blend is made with heirlooms grown in canadian hot houses, thrown in a blender and then added to a saute of olive oil with garlic, an anchovy, capers and red chile flakes with just a touch of sugar for balance and a few black kalamata olives. 5 big shrimp thrown on top work quite nicely. and then i have most certainly become a vegetable roasting fool. the last batch was portabella’s with eggplant, fennel and red bell peppers – served up with a grilled bison steak. so this is what i’ve eaten lately. not terribly exciting. but really good and wholesome. there is no cheese to speak of, no cream, minimal butter or (sob) bacon, no real desserts – and portions are definitely on the smaller side. yet somehow i am surviving. and i feel better already.

and THEN there are my guilty pleasures because i am ONLY HUMAN and i thought i would tell you what fills in the blanks these days:

(in no particular order)

• laughing cow low fat cheese wedges – 35 processed calories = a hunk of creamy spreadable cheese
• acai juice – 1/2 cup per day. which tastes almost like someone got funky chocolate on my funky raspberries
• diet dr. pepper – one a day. my fave besides dr. browns diet cream soda
• very lightly buttered toast with marmite and a cup of tea – i love this…
• sparsely spread peanut butter with june taylor’s blood orange marmalade
• amy’s frozen dinners – especially their ‘veggie loaf’ and ‘rice macaroni and cheese’ and well, i’ve been eating these for a long time…
• imagine’s boxed soups – butternut squash and creamy tomato (not proud)
• very little pieces of good dark chocolate with an espresso

for the record, my 1000 calories a day is looking much more like 1150. when i can stay at 1000 i am pleased with myself – but yes, it’s a tough number to adhere to. i’m on week 4 and i’m down about 6 lbs. i won’t lose much more than 1.5 a week (age and lack of exercise) but as long as i stay the course, i’ll be fine before too long. it’s still about 4 more solid months of me being ON IT. then i can loosen up a bit.

(i keep eyeing my spring clothes tucked away in the corner of my closet. one very pretty little pale overpriced grey dress in particular…)

merle, my loved and adored burmese kitty: february 1, 1994 – december 25, 2008

happy new year. it’s been so seemingly long now since i’ve written that i barely know where to begin except to say that i’ve thought of you. often. like every time i cooked or ate i’d think – i’m a food blogger and i should be telling somebody something about this. and then i’d go watch a movie.

but first of all, thanks for supporting ‘menu for hope V‘ and for bidding on the mullet roe from ‘rk’s black hammock smokehouse’. the total worldwide effort raised over $60k which will make a real difference in the lives of so many african children. or it could buy me the bmw i’ve had my eye on. you decide. anyway, i hope that a ceF reader wins the mullet roe because then you’ll finally understand just what i’ve been going on and on about regarding this esoteric florida delicacy.

and please note that i truly believe that you are all more than worthy of this amazing foodstuff and i can assure you that if i were empress there’d be mullet roe sacs for each and every one of you. because that it the kind of empress i would be. and if being empress were an electable position, smoked mullet roe and bottarga would be my platform, and my campaign slogan would be "smoke fish eggs, not your enemy" or "more sacs, less tax". granted, the concept needs tons of work. but i would totally be there for you in this way.

and thanksgiving in december was finally celebrated on ny’s eve. and after i read through every suggestion that you left in the comments, we took it all to heart and as many of you suggested, opted for sheer simplicity. we kept the food close to the ground with few ingredients. i roasted 2 chickens using the infallible zuni café method of salting smaller sized birds and covering loosely in the fridge for 2 or 3 days, then hitting them with a very high heat for about 50 minutes. the result – crisp skin and moist meat every time. i baked a simple cornbread using olive oil and made the stuffing using that and chicken sausage, red onions, garlic, celery, sage and veal stock. i also caramelized some brussels sprouts in a heavy skillet and hit them with a balsamic glaze and then roasted some sweet potatoes in nothing more than olive oil and salt. the cranberry sauce had fresh orange zest along with the juice, just a bit of brown sugar and a cinnamon stick.

at dinner, santos toasted to his beautiful wife rudrani, recognizing the auspicious evening and upcoming year with an excellent bottle of tattinger’s and we ate our dinner with a bottle of cotes du rhone. we felt grateful to not only be alive – but together, looking forward to the best year of our lives, if only because it is the one we will be living.

and being the exciting people that we are, cary and i were in bed at 11:30pm and flicked on the tv to watch all the festivities in nyc and do the whole pretend countdown (we’re on central time) and DID ANYONE ELSE SEE DICK CLARK AND GET FREAKED THE HELL OUT? it was, shall we say, NOT GOOD. it wasn’t the slurring due to the stroke it was "the face". he looked like he had died 2 days before and was embalmed, then put in full make-up and propped up in a chair. NOT GOOD. we both got the willies and quickly changed the channel. so much for going out with grace… i think much of america collectively gasped when they saw him. it kind of broke my heart.

and there was actually some food worth mentioning that happened to get cooked and then photographed in my kitchen during the tail end of ’08. so i thought i’d purge what was left in my files and hit you with it all at once in the name of starting fresh and not being wasteful.

this first dish, which i’ve now made perhaps 4x and have neglected to mention it to you, dear readers, is a smashing thing to eat. it’s a total wow and you need to make this one soon. grilled haloumi with caramelized fennel. oh. my.

just grill the fennel in some olive oil until it caramelizes, toss it with chopped italian parsley and spritz with lemon. then top it with the grilled halloumi. it is so much better than you might imagine it to be. so even if you are sitting there thinking, "no – i get it. that would be excellent", then you go and make it and it’s like crazy good and everyone thinks you are a brilliant cook and talks about you for days on end. i saw this dish on an australian blog called souvlaki for the soul. besides his beautiful food, the guy is a serious photographer. anyway, you heard it here second. now go make this.

jennifer? i told you i was going to make this and i did. and then i bought the book because ‘sunday suppers at lucques‘ by suzanne goin is most definitely a must own. and romesco is a must have in your repertoire. it works with nearly everything and although i’ve no recollection what fish this was, it was an excellent accompaniment to the romesco along with steamed broccoli.

romesco sauce
from ‘sunday suppers at lucques’ by suzanne goin

5 ancho chiles
2 T raw almonds
2T blanched hazelnuts
1 ¼ c extra virgin olive oil
1 slice country bread, about 1 inch thick
1/3 cup canned san marzano tomatoes
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 T chopped flat leaf parsley
½ lemon for juicing
kosher salt

preheat the oven to 375. soak the chiles in hot water for about 15 minutes, then seed and stem them. spread the nuts on a baking sheet and toast them for 8-10 minutes. remove from the oven and set aside. fry the bread in a bit of the olive oil, then let it cool and cut into cubes. return the pan to the stove, heat the chiles for about 2 minutes, then add the tomatoes. cook them until they break down and the juices are reduced, then turn off the heat and set aside.

pulse the nuts, bread and garlic in a food processor, then add the chile and tomato mixture and pulse again to combine. pour in more olive oil while the machine is running until you have the texture you want. taste for seasoning, then stir in the lemon juice and parsley.

ok. i know. not beautiful. but i am so incredibly proud of what’s going on in that bowl you just couldn’t know. you see, peter and heather are constantly cooking all these amazing asian dishes filled with mysterious ingredients to the point where i personally find it to be borderline between annoying and inferiority complex causing. my problem? i’d say so. but a few weeks ago i whipped up this little number using only what i had on hand. undoubtedly a red bell pepper would have come in handy along with some bamboo shoots or something else with color but it tasted pretty damn good and it contained the following, in no particular order:

white miso
mirin
shoyu
raw chicken breast
a chopped shallot
frozen peas
sriracha sauce
fresh rice noodles – sold refrigerated in the vacuum sealed bag
gochujang
sesame oil
my poultry stock

never to be duplicated, but again, it was a proud moment – especially since there is no chinese food in nashville worthy of buying unless you count ‘pf changs’. sad but true.

presenting, farinata – a thin chickpea pancake/pizza like thing that’s pretty popular in liguria. i saw farinata mentioned somewhere and then i found this recipe on the food & wine website – and well it’s very much my kind of food. yes yes, i scorched the top a bit with my broiler but really it was no big deal – just a very surface ring of black. you basically mix garbanzo flour and water and let it sit for a couple of hours. then you preheat the oven to 500f, skim any foam off the batter and add salt, rosemary (i think i used sage) and olive oil. then heat a cast iron skillet in the oven for 10 minutes, add some olive oil to the pan, add the batter and bake. again, i made the mistake of deciding to brown the top a bit more and i took my eye off the oven…

but there were no complaints and it went fast…

this was from the ‘king arthur flour whole grain baking‘ book. i’m pretty sure this recipe called for peaches but i loaded it up with 3 pears being that i had just bought a huge box of them to support a friends daughter school choir. great idea… so much better than gift wrapping or magazines. anyway, i lowered the amount of sugar the recipe called for and well, cary ate the entire loaf in one day.

vegetables on brown basmati rice. exciting, i know. please try and contain yourselves. but for the record we’ve got brussels sprouts, carrots, onions, garlic, broccoli and some lovely briney olives lightly sauteed in olive oil and finished with a balsamic glaze. and i must tell you, it was quite delicious. and since i took a picture of it, i felt the need to share. because not only am i needy that way, but also because the rice had the perfect bite and the vegetables were cooked to that crisp but not overdone finish. i got lucky on this one. it was a moment in time where all the planets aligned just so, and the vegetable gods smiled down upon me. and i was grateful and appreciative and all those things that the vegetable gods expect one to be.

scarlett runners from rancho gordo dusted with espelette. there’s some pan fried tilapia back there with a spicy green olive tapenade on top. but the beans and the espelette were seriously good. and even more seriously basque.

but regarding the espelette… like if ever you were to get some? think eggs. scrambled, deviled, fried or perhaps just one orange egg yolk sitting atop a small mound of sheeps milk ricotta mixed with a bit of orange zest, sprinkled with this extraordinary pepper and then tucked carefully between 2 sheets of thin pasta…. yes. think that.

so dear readers, for the record – my personal ‘o9 resolution is to lean down both physically and financially. and i’m heading in that direction, yes i am. and there’ll be more on that later.

and although i may be 4 days late, allow me to raise my virtual glass to you. here’s to a kinder, gentler new year…

one of the best meals that i have ever had, as in EVER, was not surprisingly at a restaurant owned by the stellar batali/bastianich duo, along with chef nancy silverton. the dinner was spectacular. it was one of those nights when the kitchen must have been firing on all cylinders, unlike my dinner six nights later at babbo where we had a somewhat disappointing culinary affair. but osteria mozza was a solid 9+. it was truly a near perfect dinner. i distinctly recall the simply prepared and impeccably grilled octopus with potatoes, celery and lemon, the calf’s brain ravioli (that absolutely blew me away) as well as the crisp and ultra tender duck that came served on a wooden plank with a wonderful pear mostarda. all three dishes were exquisite. somehow i can only barely remember the rest, but to begin with there was ’mozza’s’ obligatory and creamy burrata, ours served with a leeks vinaigrette – and to finish, a torta with pine nuts and honey along with some bombolini and lemon curd. absolutely smashing.

being an east coast oriented kind of person, i was somehow not aware of nancy and the famed ‘la brea’ and ‘campanile’. and all the cookbooks and the awards and various accolades, i was in the dark… until last year when i fell upon a book called ‘a twist of the wrist – quick flavorful meals with ingredients from jars, cans, bags, and boxes’. but before you gasp at the very notion that i’ve gone all sandra lee on you, let me assure you that this is nothing like that. or maybe it is, except the jars, cans, bags and boxes that silverton suggests are the very kind that line my pantry. most of which are mail ordered or bought at specialty stores. most of which might be considered ‘high brow’ or ‘pricey’ or just not what most people are used to seeing. and so if you know me then you would easily understand that i LOVED the idea of this book when i heard about it because well, i am only willing to go so far with my cooking. but i am, if nothing, a fanatical fan of the finest…

and i was excited enough about this book to want to spread the word. so one afternoon, not long after owning ‘twist of the wrist’ a friend stopped by and began curiously flipping through its pages. so i sent her home with the book – if only to prove the "convenience" point. i haven’t seen it since (although i was truly and duly thanked) and i’ve been remiss in buying another.

but just the other day i was fortunate enough to come across this recipe on the new food & wine website. and with a jar of beautiful piquillo peppers and a can of chickpeas along with some fage greek yogurt - all already owned by moi, i made us a spectacular dinner served over instant italian organic polenta. and dear readers, we were eating a superb dinner that was prepared in about 30 minutes from start to finish.

lamb meatballs with piquillo peppers and chickpea sauce
adapted from nancy silverton’s ‘a twist of the wrist’ via food & wine 

*cook’s note - after the meatballs were browned, i drained off probably 3/4 of the oil and fat in the pan before adding the peppers, stock and yogurt.

1/2 cup roasted piquillo peppers from a jar
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup whole-milk yogurt, preferably greek, plus more for serving
2 pounds ground lamb
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 cup minced flat-leaf parsley, plus more for garnish
1 tablespoon thyme leaves
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
4 teaspoons (i suggest using 3) kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 3/4 cups chickpeas from a jar or can, drained

in a mini food processor, puree the peppers. transfer the puree to a bowl and whisk in the broth and 1/2 cup yogurt. in a large bowl,

combine the lamb, eggs, garlic, 1/4 cup parsley and the thyme and smoked paprika. add the 4 teaspoons kosher salt. using your hands, gently mix, then roll into sixteen 2-inch meatballs. in a very large skillet, heat the oil until shimmering. add the meatballs and cook over moderately high heat until browned all over, about 8 minutes.

slide the meatballs to one side of the pan. add the red-pepper sauce and the chickpeas and bring just to a boil. (*see cook’s note above)

simmer the meatballs over moderately low heat, stirring and turning them occasionally in the sauce, until the sauce reduces slightly, 10 minutes. season with salt. transfer the meatballs and chickpeas to a platter,

spoon the pepper sauce on top, garnish with parsley and serve with yogurt.

as of tonight, ‘twist of the wrist’ has once again been ordered. if you come by the house, i’ll be keeping an eye on my copy…

              

my rss feeder broke.  and i didn’t realize it for 3 months.  mostly because i (still) don’t even understand what exactly an rss feeder is, or what it does – talk about being oh so techno savvy… but my stat’s were dropping off and well, try as i might to just ignore the cold hard numbers, i started to take it personally.  was it something i said?  something i cooked?  where did so many of my bleaders go and why would they leave me after all we have meant to each other? 

but before i called my therapist, i called mark from simpler computing! and he quickly came to my rescue – again.  thank you mark.  you solved the mystery and now once again you are so totally my blero. 

so listen up – all you techno losers out there that just like to cook and write and take a little photo here and there, but do not want to bother your pretty little heads with html and templates and embedding and wordpress editors that suck and the like, call mark.  today.  he can tweak your blog into submission.  AND he likes to cook… (btw – ceF is still under construction as i type so please bear with…)

speaking of liking to cook… here’s the deal.  i cook a lot.  but sometimes it’s just dinner.  and sometimes it’s not my idea of a blog worthy post.  and usually it’s just that i’m too lazy to write.  but it’s totally me, not you.  you, i adore.  you make my life better, adding an entirely new fangled dimension that did not exist just 16 months ago. but still, i am often unmotivated, or perhaps even more often than that, i’m just reading OPB’s…

so what happens is that some of these dishes fall by the blogosphere’s wayside.  but i thought since we were dealing with feeds and feeding, i’d show you what gets fed around here to my immediate world.  so i’m going to hit you with a fair few of what i’ve not bothered to bother you with until now, along with some pictures. take a deep breath – here goes…

look familiar?  this one was made with the half and half, as per ripert’s recipe.  was it better?  yes.  did i LOVE it?  not so much.  it’s ok.  kinda brunchy, not desserty.  i like custard.  life is good.  and eric, you’re totally cool and sexy and hot and all those things.  but my tony still has you beat, big time. i hope you can understand…

ok so i realize i am blogger #4721 to make jim lahey’s no knead bread.  but i did it.  quietly.  and it was a good and crusty loaf of bread that if nothing else looked very, very impressive. 

i baked it in my romertopf that i dug out and dusted off.  although it stays unused and because it looks so beautiful – i keep it.  i’m sure you understand such things.  so, i soaked the terracotta in water and then baked the bread as per the direction for a dutch oven.  i felt my dutch oven was too big and i didn’t want a 2" high bread.  somehow, this worked out quite nicely.  so take a chance, dear readers – bake no knead bread.  oh, and have i made this again since?  nope.  will i?  maybe, probably not.

this was made quite awhile ago.  it was panko encrusted chicken livers served over what i think was swiss chard and finely sliced ‘delightful tiny purple potatoes’ and shallots sautéed with pimm’s and port.  what?  you think they may not have been tiny and delightful?  you are sooooo wrong….

i present to you… delightful. tiny. purple. potatoes.  i only wish i could have been in the room when the marketing team thought of that.  can you imagine what the discussion would have sounded like?  i only know they were republicans with bad haircuts.  after that, i know nothing.

so now you ask, what the hell is that?  that, my dear readers is a watermelon salad with mint leaves, chili oil and feta – topped with a very anti-locavore piece of barramundi from costco via australia.  in a previous life i lived down under (husband #1) and ate this fish regularly.  perhaps i didn’t need to sit the barramundi on top of the watermelon, but it seemed like a good idea at the time… and it was our dinner that night and we were happy enough.  so stop smirking.  thank you.

i made this last weekend and it was good and rich and saucy and chicken thighey – all that with trofie pasta thrown in for very good measure.  it’s what patricia wells eats when she’s at home in provence, a recipe that i picked up from feeding groom.  oh and it’s got sherry vinegar and garlic cloves and dijon mustard and lots of tarragon and minced sundried tomatoes… it’s more wintry than it is septembery in nashville, but i had 4 chicken thighs in the freezer and suddenly this just happened…

ok are you ready to hear what this was supposed to be?  what it almost was… what i wished it might have been and what it could be if i ever decide to take it on again?  salted butterscotch pudding with chocolate covered bacon.  thank you and goodnight.  the end.  by claudia. 

except it never really thickened properly.  and benton’s bacon is crazy salty.  so salty that i forgot just how salty it was therefore making it an out and out wrong bacon choice.  because it seems that is actually possible.  to make a wrong bacon choice.  you’d think not, but what this dessert needed was a thin cut good bacon that crisps up in a curly, artsy strip, and only then could it be dipped into lindt chocolate and put into a pudding recipe that WORKS.  because this recipe did not.  and another blogger tried it and it didn’t work for her either.  so. oh well,  we all drank our pudding and chucked the wayyy too salty pork.  seemed sinful but we got over it.  we lived and learned, moving onwards and upwards – with the comforting knowledge that bacon rarely ever lets you down…

so not even a little pretty.  AND the wrong color bowl.  but it was just a simple dinner of fresh crowder peas with bacon.  the bacon did just as it should, redeeming itself from the previous mishap.  there was something else served with this but really, i have no idea… i think it was grilled tilapia.  unexciting, quick and easy and not exactly memorable – but hey, not every night can be foie gras…

OK – EVERYBODY STAND UP AND STRETCH.  NO REALLY.  BECAUSE I AM NOT DONE.  BATHROOM BREAK?  GO ON.  I’LL WAIT….

oh, hi, you’re back.  wonderful, because i was worried… ok, just a few more…

this was lazzaroli’s sweet potato and ricotta ravioli.  i dressed it up with a side of kale, done in a sauce of olive oil, cream, honey and sage, and then dusted the pasta with nutmeg and parmegiano.  again – super fast and easy.  (tommy noodles, you are a nashville godsend… thank you for giving me an option that is first rate and still allows me to get creative.)

yes, i too jumped on the bandwagon thanks to michelle from thursday night smackdown and all the rest of you that grilled the hell outa a bunch of pizzas…  except michelle was the one who took my call on a saturday night so i could get very specific information about the whole pizza grilling process.  this particular pizza was taken from her post and it was damn fine.  i cooked down some swiss chard in a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, and used copious amounts of minced garlic and ricotta.  i also sliced up a big ripe yellow tomato with red stripes running through it (we will miss you beautiful heirloom tomatoes),

awesomeness, no?  well yes – but… from here on in i’ll stick to the pizza stone with my oven set to broil and 550f… because grilled pizza is too damn white on top.  and flipping it before the toppings go on doesn’t allow the cheese and sauce to bake into the dough and well, my grill runs hot (it’s infrared) so even on the lowest setting it never got the top brown and i kept having to turn the flame on and off so as not to scorch the bottom and was nervously moving it to the top rack and well, i like my pizza stone in my oven.  so if i had a real charcoal grill which i don’t and do not plan on getting because it’s too much work and i am not willing (go on – think of me what you will but there are extenuating circumstances… like a boyfriend who is also happy with oven baked pizza’s), maybe that would be better.  but as it stands, and i repeat – i am a pizza in the oven kinda gal – set to broil on super high heat with the stone on the very bottom rack.  but i made the obligatory grilled pizza.  yes i did.

i present to you… voodoo mac and cheese

do you read gild the (voodoo)lily?  if not, you need to read gild the (voodoo)lily…  heather is very smart and very funny and this bitch can cook.  and i mean that in a good way.  heather is another one of those foodcentric people that seriously knows how to put ingredients together.  like if you turned your pantry over to her, she’d blow your mind.  and you’d be thinking all, why didn’t i think of that?… and the answer is because she KNOWS MORE THAN YOU DO.  plus she’s a botanist.  a freakin’ botanist... so she’s always growing and foraging and well, it’s a little bit intimidating.  heather could totally kick your ass and never even touch you…

anyway, back in july she made something called garden mac.  for her it was merely a ‘clean your fridge out’ kinda dinner, and i’m thinking – mac and cheese with roasted tomatoes in a bechamel base?  sign me the hell up. 

the ingredients i used were as follows; mostaccioli pasta, the 4 cheeses were – asiago, parmigiano reggiano, st jerome and fontal.  and for the garden part – fresh thyme and heirloom tomatoes, kale, onion, squash and zucchini.  i drove all the ingredients about an hour south, down to my friend shannon’s house and we spent the day cooking and drinking wine and talking and laughing and then we sat out on the porch overlooking her farm and had a late lunch…

and for the grand finale i give to you an extremely abbreviated version of my veal stock mission…

bones arrive from snook’s.  i tried for weeks to find a local source.  nada.

20 lbs.

because i am awesome…

i made brown and white stock.  i followed the ruhlman way.  it is the only way. (great version here)

otherwise when you die, you go to culinary hell where you are forced to live on nothing but shoney’s buffets. (please click on the shoney’s link.  there are no words…)

and hey, thanks so much for reading.  i realize this post was a commitment. 

you can go now…

this is all straight out of lidia bastianich’s book, ‘lidia’s italy’.  it has begun to irk me that for all the wonderful cookbooks that i have lining my shelves, i find myself rarely cracking the covers.  i need to do better in that regard as i am well aware that nearly every book i own contains a mini university.  and especially in this case where i adore lidia’s food, and have since i was a kid – and there’s so much to learn… and i’d be well suited to learn much of my italian repertoire from her.

these are two recipes that i know i will go back to again and again – together and on their own.  they’re pure sicilian… and well, that has a personal allure that i can barely explain.  the two cities i dream of spending time are palermo and barcelona.  i’ve been to barcelona – but many years ago and for only a couple of days.  and i’ve never been to sicily.  ever.  although i have been to the amalfi coast, twice… but i need to cross the strait of messina.  it is something i feel strongly about.  maybe ’09 will be my year…

tuna or africa?  you decide…

frankly, i’d have to say that the tuna steak right there is about as good looking as a tuna steak gets.  it was bought from costco which could potentially mean food coloring, waxing, plumping and extra added mercury… i’ve really no clue how any of that works but was willing to take my chances with this surreal looking piece of fish.  wait, i just googled this and sho’nuff, the odds that my tuna was gassed with a smokeless carbon monoxide (banned just about everywhere but the usa) is probably near 100%.

it’s yet another case of the old "too good to be true" reality, here to bite us once again…  but see how we learn together?  it was worth my ingesting artificially induced watermelon red colored tuna – just so we could have this moment…

the tuna steaks come off the grill and get a drizzle of olive oil and a shake of the oregano bouquet…

tonno riganatu
adapted from ‘lidia’s italy’ by lidia bastianich

stir thinly sliced garlic, salt and pepper into extra virgin oil and let it sit for up to an hour.  reserve some of the oil for later and use the remainder to marinate the tuna for 2 or 3 hours making sure the steaks are well coated on both sides.  flip them about 3 times through this process.  heat the grill to hot, oil the grates and sear for 2 minutes and then flip for another 2 or 3 minutes.  the flesh should not be fully cooked and will continue to cook when taken off the grill.  remove to a platter.  stir dried oregano into the garlic infused oil and immediately brush over the fish.  sprinkle with some coarse sea salt and serve.

a perfect accompaniment to this dish is ‘panelle’ which translates to fried chickpea polenta, in foodspeak.  there are 4 ingredients in this panelle and 3 of them are water, salt and olive oil.  the 4th is garbanzo flour which i found at whole foods.  imagine the three way love child of polenta, french fries and hummus and meditate on that for a moment…

panelle is where it’s at.  this stuff is crazy good.  you mix it up, slow cook it like polenta for about 20 minutes and then you cool it on a sheet, cut and pan-fry in olive oil.  i made a quarter of lidia’s recipe and then cooled it in a small round cast iron pan, hence the triangles.  i believe it is traditionally cut into squares.  but i’d eat them in mickey mouse head shapes.  because they are awesome.

panelle
adapted from ‘lidia’s italy’ by lidia bastianich

4 cups water
1 tsp coarse sea salt
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil plus more for frying
1/2 pound garbanzo flour

pour 4 cups water, the salt, and the olive oil into a saucepan, and gradually whisk in the garbanzo flour until smooth.  set over medium heat, and whisk constantly as the batter slowly heats.  it will thicken and eventually steam but does not need to boil. cook and keep whisking, scraping the bottom and sides of the pan frequently, until the mixture is quite stiff and starts to pull away from the sides as you stir it, 15 – 20 minutes.

turn the batter onto an oiled 9×13 baking sheet and spread it quickly with a stiff metal spatula before it cools and sets, so it fills the pan in an even layer.  wet the spatula with water and and smooth the top of the batter.  let cool for an hour or longer , until completely firm.

cut pieces with a sharp knife into whatever size and shape you like.  lidia recommends 1 1/2 inch squares for appetizers and 2×3 inch bars to accompany a main course.  lift the cut pieces with a spatula and seal the remainder with plastic wrap and refrigerate for longer keeping.

cover the bottom of a skillet with 1/8" of oil and set over medium heat.  when the oil is hot, lay in the panelle, leaving plenty of space between them.  fry about 3 minutes until the underside is crisp and golden and then flip and and brown the 2nd side about 2 minutes more.  drain the panelle on paper towels and eat while they’re warm.

in palermo they pile these fried panelle in layers onto a semolina sesame seed bun and then top it with fresh sheep’s milk ricotta and pecorino romano.

see why i need to go there?

because that would be so very boring.  so very uninteresting.  even downright plebeian.  but if i were to tell you that this was one of the very best things that i have made in as long as i can remember, well – you would just have to take my word. because this bean dish was incredibly delicious. a perfect melding of flavors and textures. and the true test of how good this really must be? it’s that i’d feel pretty damn fine serving this to gabrielle hamilton any day.

i have decided after great thought and inner debate that gabrielle is ‘my chef’.  everyone who cooks is supposed to have ‘that one’ –  that one who inspires them on a level that gets them thinking in the kitchen a certain way.  now, please realize that it’s a serious toss-up between gabrielle and mario.  but mario is decidely italian - all the way and through and through.  and even though i lean heavily in that direction, gabrielle’s food is just simple, rustic perfection that’s really regionless.  i absolutely love the way she cooks - and i feel drawn to her food.  so it’s official, i have declared my loyalty.  and i just know that gabrielle would covet these beans…

rancho gordo’s giant white lima beans are absolutely the best lima’s that i have ever eaten.  they’re so good that after i made this dish, i immediately ordered 5 more bags of the giant white and 3 bags of the christmas lima’s.  because i was afraid that they might run out.  and then i’d be lima bean-less.  and well, we just couldn’t have that.  not after this…

not your average lima bean salad

soak for however long, and then low boil in salted water until the bite is right.  drain and add the following:

your best olive oil
minced garlic
chopped parsley
thinly sliced red onion
lemon zest and some of the juice
pimenton (i use sweet)
cayenne
salt

it’s one of those dishes where your friends will say to you, "hey (insert your name) what’s in this? because these beans are INCREDIBLE", and you will rattle off the ingredient list and still, they will be perplexed.  because it all sounds way too simple for anything so damn good.  but you see, it’s those RG beans.  they’re dense and creamy - and well, again i declare that they are bean perfection.  and ah, i just now checked their site?  and ummm, they are all sold out.  sorry.  love you.  mean it.  kiss kiss.  come on by and i’ll make you some – cause i have pahlenty!

the buddha is all about the lima beans…

oh, and did i mention the little lollipop lamb chops?  because they were totally the perfect side dish for these lima’s…

another egg.  and it could happen again.  eggs are reason #1 as to why i could never ever consider being vegan.  of course i have countless reasons, but let’s call this the first.  and mozzarella and ricotta and parmigiano could be 2, 3 and 4.  root beer floats are 5.  and well, that’s enough for now.  oh and really good cake, as in BUTTER.  ok, so maybe that’s #2. 

the other morning i had been reading somewhere about huevos rancheros.  i’m not sure how that managed to spark this dish, but it did.  i used pita instead of tortillas, and i didn’t feel like running to the store for feta or goat cheese… i just used what i had.  which as you all know, is a very good thing to do.

the lentils had been in my freezer since the early spring porkbelly chronicles .  these were the wonderful puy lentils from france and they’d already been cooked with salt and onions – nothing more.  when they defrosted i hit them with fresh orange zest, cayenne, pimenton and a ton of minced garlic, parsley and chives.  then i put it on the stove to just warm through.

i had an interesting cucumber – big and tan in color and sweet and crunchy.  it had been picked up from the farmers market last weekend.  no idea what exactly it was except to say that it was damn good.  so that sliced with grape tomatoes, roasted red pepper and radish – drizzled with a very good olive oil and my favorite guerande salt.

dinner…

…and a pork chop. 

but in this instance, who cares?  not me, that’s who.  it was a run-of-the-mill chop from ‘the fresh market’, and personally, i can always take or leave these kind of pork chops.  cary’s a fan, so i pick some up on occasion.  but those beans?  you’d have to fight me for those beans..  rancho gordo – all the way… yellow eyes cooked with sweet potatoes, fresh thyme and a solid lb. of tennessee’s finest – salty, smoky ‘benton’s bacon’.  it is the burgundy of bacon’s…  a straight forward cure of brown sugar, salt and pepper - with a heavy-handed hickory smoke.  on a BLT it would be sheer perfection.  i’m keeping a package in the freezer in anticipation of summer tomatoes.  so don’t even waste your time trying to sweet talk me out of it…

the yellow eyes are a creamy, dense bean.  and totally cool looking.  if this bean were a man, i’d do him in a ny minute. 

not that i like dense men… because i don’t.

(from rg’s site, i present to you the pulchritudinous and dense-in-a-good-way, yellow eye bean…)

the salad was on another plate.  sorry to deprive you of the much needed greenness.  i kinda wasn’t thinking.  it happens.  a lot.  but so you know, it was a simple toss of romaine and radicchio with toasted walnut oil and guerande salt. 

just close your eyes and pretend…

i made this up. i just opened up my fridge and started grabbing jars and after the 4th i stopped. i suppose i’d call this dish moroccan. i mean, i could really call it anything i pleased – as long as i didn’t call it late for dinner… hee.

i just grabbed some organic roasted peanut butter, harissa, preserved lemons and some honey – and that was the sauce. is this a sauce? well it is now. cause i made it up. honestly we really liked this. it wasn’t too much of any one thing and it kind of transformed the 4 ingredients into an entity unto itself – "ceF’s moroccan’ish sauce". the carrots and chickpeas were sauteed in blood orange juice, freshly ground cumin, with a touch of sugar and salt. the fish was pan fried tilapia, served over brown rice pasta with chopped green onions.

all in all, it was really freakin’ good. i’ve got a small jelly jar full, and i’m thinking its next appearance will be with a roasted chicken. or seared scallops. or a grilled flank steak.

hey, did i tell you that i made it up?

dear readers, i’m past the point of caring who chooses to defend this statement – but overall, the mexican food in nashville is Not. Good. it is the subject of many a local conversation and frankly, i am OVER the topic and am currently inconvincible of anything otherwise. for the most part, i’ve just given up. unless of course i decide to go it on my own – which i did – but not really. because hey, i have new foodie friends. and they not only love to cook, but they’re extraordinarily agreeable and easy to get on with which totally helps this fledgling relationship because the older i get the more ADD i become which can often make hanging out with me a bit of a chore.

so brad is the ‘true cook’ of the couple, but that joanna… she is very well versed in the art of the knife. and any woman that can happily slice and dice while making interesting conversation in my kitchen?  total keeper. there are those that cook in solitude, and i do this most often. no tv, no music. the time goes by quickly and i am more than content. but if you were to offer to help? i’d put a knife into your hands before you could ask ‘what’s for dinner?’ i love to "direct" in the kitchen. and when i win the lottery i’m not hiring a personal chef, i’m hiring a personal sous chef.

we decided to do a saturday night dinner thing, and i had fish tacos on my mind because i just happened to be in the room when martha’s show was on and emeril had just signed his life away, jumping onboard the ‘martha-god’ mothership. so the BAM-man was nervously smiling and kissing martha’s golden ass – while subserviantly making a poblano and avocado salsa to put over his halibut tacos with a grilled corn salad on the side… and well, despite the whole media love-fest freak show happening before my eyes – i was carefully paying attention. because i love me some fish tacos. truly, deeply and with feeling.

grilled fish tacos with roasted chile and avocado salsa
very adapted from emeril via martha (because i can)

2 poblano peppers
1/2 haas avocado
2 T olive oil
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
juice of 1 lime
1/2 t salt
1 t cayenne powder – or to taste
1 halibut fillet (about 1 lb)
white pepper and salt
olive oil for your cooking surface of choice
8 corn tortillas
chopped onion
cilantro and avocado as toppings

blacken the skin of the peppers directly on your stove top or grill personally, i use a butane torch which works surprisingly well cool, remove skin and the seeds (i let them sweat in a covered bowl and use a tea towel to rub off the skin) add to blender peppers, avocado, oil, water, onion, cilantro, lime juice, salt and cayenne blend till smooth season the fish and grill however works best for you heat the tortillas then you put it all together and you turn yourself around cause that’s what it’s all about…

grilled corn salad
adapted from emeril via martha

we opted to omit the tomatoes and if i had it to do over i would leave them out again as i think they would detract from the dish.

4 ears of corn, in their husks
2 jalapeno chiles
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1 T very finely chopped garlic
1/4 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
2 T mint, roughly chopped
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

submerge the corn under water while in their husks and soak for an hour, then grill the corn over a low to medium heat for about 25 minutes until the husks are blackened. do the same with the jalepenos for about 6 minutes or so. remove husks and silk from corn, remove kernels from cob and place in a large bowl. stem, seed, and finely chop the jalapenos and add to bowl with corn along with the onion, garlic, cilantro, mint, lime juice, olive oil, and salt. stir to combine and serve

brad suggested a side of beans to round it all out and after days of (i am so very sure) relentless hand wringing and agonizing over how he might seriously impress me with a killer dish – he decided upon a red mole which i then strongly insisted be paired with not just any bean, but with my vaquero ‘rancho gordo’ beans and brad happily obliged – not that he had much of a choice after my 10 minute non-stop dissertation on the many and varied attributes of those beautiful heirloom beans of which i have become so fond. i soaked, cooked and lightly salted the beans and brad arrived with a bowl of the mole from rick bayless’s book, ‘mexican kitchen‘ – and quite honestly the dish was phenomenol if not the best thing we ate all night. today, when i glanced at the recipe in the book i saw precisely why that was – as well as why i instinctively winced. it’s a total major production – if not reminiscent of my all too recent and never to be repeated mole making experience. joanna remarked how the mole would be even better the next day and i told her it was too bad that she would never know, and then refused to let them bring any of the leftover beans home – because i am like that. i’ll tell you about the exploding dessert when i am able, recovered and ready to talk about it.

which is like so not now…

as one might imagine, mostly i cook for others.  and so when it comes time to serve dinner i’m always having to say, ‘please, go ahead and start’, because i am usually behind a lens, tackling a tripod, trying to take a pic of whatever’s on my plate.  so sometimes i rush.  and this was most certainly one of those times.  and i just felt the need to try and explain, while pledging to try and do better – and with no real guarantees…

so, we all have cookbooks that we go to regularly, and while i’m quite partial to my collection – each book chosen with care, with those that disappointed either given away or banished from the kitchen – i have some serious favorites.  and honestly, i think i am most in love with chefs rose gray and ruth rogers, who comprise the dynamic duo team at ‘the river cafe’ in london.  their food is simple, with short ingredient lists that rarely outnumber your fingers.  and their inherent understanding of what works together never ceases to excite and inspire me.  it is rustic italian food – my kind of food, in its highest form.

i was to make a dinner for some new friends as a reciprocate gesture to a decadent meal served in their home one week ago. for the record they served five (5) different wines with dinner, from a champagne to a dessert wine with whites and reds inbetween that had years like 1997 on the bottles and set the table as though martha stewart was coming to dine. and so it was to be a tough act to follow.

with cary’s endlessly late hours at the office, my kitchen has become a revolving door of constant friends and food.  i’m put to task regularly and by choice – and i love it.  every now and then i’ll make something totally out of my comfort zone but pretty much the food i am cooking is ingredient driven, and simple.  kinda like this…

chickpea and shrimp 

italian easy recipes from the london river cafe by rose gray and ruth rogers

(this recipe is listed as a soup but i would think it to be more like a stew as there isn’t much liquid. i added about 1/2 cup of water to thin it out a bit.)

14 oz can of chickpeas
1 lb shelled shrimp
1 oz dried porcini
3 garlic cloves
2 dried chiles
2 T dried oregano
14 oz can of chopped tomatoes
1/2 lemon
ciabatta loaf
ex. v. olive oil

soak the porcini in 1 cup hot water.

drain and rinse the chickpeas. peel and chop 2 garlic cloves, and crumble the chiles.

strain the porcini, keeping the liquid, and roughly chop.

heat a thick-bottomed pan with 2 T olive oil, add half the chopped garlic, the porcini, oregano, and chile and season.

cook for 4 minutes. add the tomatoes, and simmer for 20 minutes, adding the porcini water as the tomatoes reduce,

to keep the soup liquid. season. in a separate pan, heat 1 T olive oil and add the remaining chopped garlic.

add the shrimp and when colored, add the chickpeas and stir to warm through. season.

add the juice of the lemon. mix together with the tomato.

cut the bread in slices and grill on both sides, rub with remaining peeled garlic clove and place in bowls. pour the soup over and drizzle with olive oil.

and it was even better the next day.  but served with a shaved pear and fennel salad with crisped d’artagnan jambon de bayonne (aka french prosciutto), it was pretty damn fine the night before…

god bless italy

i swear this dish started out as a vegetarian dinner. and it was. twice. until it just couldn’t be anymore. and really, there is so very little meat on this plate. just 2 measly strips of: "MY-VERY-OWN-UNFREAKINREAL-CURED-BACONY-STUFF". i mean, who the hell knew you could do this? next thing you know i’ll be baking my own baguettes… not. but hey, first let’s talk about the beans. which are not just any beans. they are rancho gordo’s scarlet runner beans. and i love them. truly and with feeling. here’s a fact: if you’re buying the beans on the shelf of your supermarket, just know that they can easily be up to 12 years old. and even if you think that those beans are "just fine", it’s only because you’ve never tried rancho gordo’s beans. and when you do, i believe you’ll be a convert, just like me. so there ya go.

when i looked on RG’s site, they say that they like to make the scarlet runners with wild mushrooms. so i got to thinking… and after a good long soak, i added the beans to a pot of onions that had been caramelizing for about 30 minutes. then i added some reconstituted wild mushrooms – a good mix of porcini, morel, shitake, oyster and portabella, – along with its (strained) soaking water. towards the end of the cooking i added a large amount of chopped mustard greens, fresh thyme and some salt and pepper – and let the dish simmer until i felt the beans were done. for planning purposes, please note that these beans are of the extra large variety and take a long time to cook – 3 hours or so.

so after eating the hell out of this damn fine pot-o-beans, i began to yearn for something more. something well, meaty. so i channeled my inner gabrielle hamilton from the AMAZING – but AMAZING – restaurant ‘prune’ in nyc’s east village, and i wacked a coupla slices off my beautifully cured belly, trimmed the skin off the edges and fried those porky strips right up. and then, because it’s what i do – i poached an egg.

and you think that’s it, right? like what more could i possibly do to improve on this, right? well the next night when i gave cary the last of it for dinner, i added some leftover polenta as the bottom layer. and i set that bowl down before him and said "of all the things i’ve made in quite some time – i am the proudest of this dish". i really think that gabrielle would be just fine offering this on the ‘prune’ menu. no really. i do.

delusional? perhaps.

and the parsley sprig? that’s so totally for you…

beans! beans! they’re good for your heart! the more you eat, the more you fart… unless you change the soaking water every couple of hours to remove the offending sugar molecules called oligosaccharides. see what you get from me? both immaturity and education! i am like so totally worth your time…

after the butter and cream, the foie gras and all the excesses of december, and then with the inevitable regrouping that comes each january, here we are in february and i’m ready for some simple cool weather comfort food. and the fact that beans are low fat and don’t cost a fortune – well you’ve gotta love the beans if only for that. so after months of hearing endless raves about rancho gordo’s heirloom beans, i could stand it no longer and i went to their tres cool site and placed an order. and voila, as promised a box arrived at my door with an assortment of no less than 10 bags of some mighty fine looking legumes. now i guess i’ve got my work cut out for me…

i opted to begin with the borlotti beans. they’re similar to cranberry beans but the coloration is different and they’re slightly bigger. borlotti’s are commonly used in italian cooking and i’ve been wanting to make ribollita for awhile now, so this seemed like perfect timing. and well, that timing – it’s everything… so i started reading up and it seems that every cook’s ribollita recipe varies, but all share the common theme of taking dried beans, stale bread and winter vegetables – and wowing the hell out of you. ribollita translates from the italian to ‘re-boiled’. as with most stews and soups, this dish benefits by sitting for a day and then reheated the next.

ribollita
(heavily adapted from the ny times column ‘eating well’ written by marion burros in 1992)

3 cups dry borlotti beans, soaked 8 hours
1/4 cup fresh sage leaves
8 cloves garlic, peeled, 4 left whole, 4 minced
6 ounces pancetta – medium dice
2 large onions – coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup canned Italian tomatoes
4 carrots – chopped
4 celery ribs – chopped
1 fennel bulb – sliced
1/2 cup of chopped flat leaf parsley
6 sprigs fresh thyme – chopped
2 pound cavalo nero (lacinato kale) washed, trimmed and cut into thin strips
1 pound potatoes, coarsely diced thin slices of stale tuscan bread – i used a loaf of pugliese

1. drain beans after soaking and cover generously with fresh water, adding the sage and the 4 whole cloves of garlic. bring beans to boil and cook 45 minutes to one hour, until they are quite tender. reserve liquid.

2. meanwhile, saute the pancetta, the 4 minced garlic cloves and the onions in the olive oil.

3. when beans are cooked, puree half of them in a food processor, using a little of the cooking liquid

4. combine the pureed and the whole beans with the pancetta mixture and with tomatoes, carrots, celery, thyme, kale, potatoes and 3 cups of the bean broth. cook for 30 to 60 minutes, adding water if soup becomes more like porridge. season well with salt and pepper.

5. place a layer of bread in a casserole and top with some soup. repeat until all the bread is used, ending with soup on top. the dish can be served this way, as a bean and bread soup. to make this a true ribollita, refrigerate overnight. the next day, mash the soup and the bread into a thick porridge. boil to reheat. as an alternative, you may saute the ribollita in a non-stick skillet in some olive oil until it forms a light crust. in either case, each serving should then be topped with your very best olive oil. i added slivers of parmigiano.

and yes, i grabbed my skillet and opted for the lightly crusted version. i mean, how could you not? my ribollita was then served right alongside a simple salad of romaine with dried cherries and a walnut oil and black fig vinaigrette.

it’s as close to tuscany as i’ve been in too long.