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…

a few weeks ago i received an email:

Dear Claudia,

We are co-hosting a dinner with Joe Bastianich Thursday, at 6:30 on Thursday, June 4, at ‘City House Restaurant‘ on 4th Avenue North. The dinner will feature City House’s exceptional cuisine paired with Joe’s wonderful wines. Seating is very limited, so let us know as soon as possible if you would like to attend.

i immediately rsvp’d, yes + 1.

as you most likely know, joe bastianich’s mom is lidia of famed ‘felidia‘, and the writer of no less than 5 of some of the best italian cookbooks around.  it was lidia bastianich who was requested to cook for the pope when he was recently in nyc.  she prepared his lunch and dinner each day, some of what would have been typical dishes from his childhood in germany.  joe was his server – which he described as somewhat of an out-of-body experience… a greater honor could not have been bestowed on this italian (via croatia) – american family.

but before any of this, back in 1971, lidia and her husband opened their first restaurant, ‘buonavia’, on queens boulevard in forest hills where i grew up, about 6 blocks from our apartment on yellowstone blvd.  joe used to work there when he was a little boy and my family used to eat there as it was by far the best italian in town, kicking the competion ‘la stella’s’ culinary ass.  i remember the limos parked out front… these are kind of memories that stay with a kid.

then came ‘felidia‘ in ’81, right around the corner from my dad’s art gallery on 58th and 3rd.  and again, we ate there often.  i grew up on lidia bastianich’s cooking, so it’s no wonder that i know and love great italian food.

joe grew up to become a rock star restaurateur, opening his first restaurant, ‘becco‘ at just 23 – a menu scattered with page references to recipes in lydia’s cookbooks.  he and mario batali have been partners for 10 years now in about a dozen restaurants all over the country.  and in 2005 joe won the james beard foundation’s ‘outstanding wine and spirits professional’ award as well as bon appetit’s ‘wine and spirits professional’ at their annual american food and entertaining awards.  and just THIS month he and batali won the ’2008 outstanding restaurateur award’ for babbo.  another huge recognition of undeniable greatness.

photo from the ulterior epicure 2007

but the best news of all is that he’s a really fine man, who speaks softly and seriously with a sense of true humbleness.  his love of wine is undeniable.  and so when he spoke of his vineyards, describing both the history and terroir of the region with an undeniable depth of knowledge and passion, i was mesmerized. 

photo from the ulterior epicure 2007

"bastianich wine dinner"

june 4. 2008

bastianich rosato 2007

***
antipasti
house cured ham
farro, radish, english peas, local greens, almond, lemon, pecorino
georgia shrimp, lemon, chilies, mint, marjoram

bastianich tocai friuliano 2006
bastianich tocai plus 2005
***
pizza
prosciutto cotto, mozzarella, oregano, chilies, egg

bastianich vespa bianco 2006
***
pasta
rigatoni, tomato, meatballs, montasio

la mozza aragone 2005
***
secondo
oven roasted goat, salsa verde

la mozza i perazzi 2006
***
cheese
hopeville tomme, blood orange marmelade
***
dolce
cookie plate – selection of southern cookies
***

so keeping an impartial palate after now meeting joe – and already wanting to love his wine, well, it was going to be tough.  but dear readers, i truly thought that what was presented that evening was outstanding and the next day i ordered a mixed case of his wine.

i sat next to joe for the first half of the dinner and we talked of food and food blogging, and songwriters and songwriting, and bourdain and batali…  and then i had to release him to the other 30 or so diners so he could work the room.

joe handed me his card and told me i could call him if i ever needed anything.  i looked at him and said, "well, what i was really hoping for was ‘babbo’ on my birthday".  and now - it is done.  the first and last time i ate there was 1999 and it was one of the better dinners i can recall.  bur it’s a tough reservation. and believe me, i have put in the phone time – trying to get in.  the week before i had even emailed the general manager, to no avail.  (by the way, babbo does have a show-up and wait to be seated policy, and i think you can eat at the bar… but it’s not a guarantee.)

and now i’m in los angeles, adhering to this painfully plain raw diet for a 3 week spell.  i wasn’t going to do any real dining out, but i am weak in the face of a batali/bastianich driven restaurant.  and so now i’ll be checking out ‘osteria mozza’ on melrose, my last night here. 

i can’t wait. 

thank you, joe…