zoramargolis

Sounds delicious, I voted too, do you think I could use PAN arepa flour instead of masa?

You have permission to do whatever you want. I don't know whether arepa flour is made from nixtamalized corn. If it isn't, the cakes won't have the flavor I intended.

Hi fellow Rockwellians. If you aren't familiar with the Food52 website, it is a great resource for home cooks, started by Amanda Hesser, former food writer for the NY Times. They hold recipe contests, and I occasionally enter them, and have been a semi-finalist on a couple of occasions. The current contest is called "Your Best Recipe With Corn" and this time, I am a finalist. There is currently voting going on to choose between my recipe and one other to be the winner. One needn't have cooked the recipe to vote, but you do need to sign up to be a subscriber to the site--a very simple process. I hope that you will consider voting for my recipe, so I can "get the cigar." The only prize is bragging rights, but c'est ma vie. My recipe is called "Savory Masa Corn Cakes with Green Chile, Cheese and Lime Crema." And my online name on that site is "zindc." Here's a link to the contest page: click

Don--you have an extremely sensitive palate. So does J.--he finds very intense and pungent flavors overwhelming. But he really loves good stilton on baguette that has first been spread with sweet butter--stilton is probably the mildest of the blue cheeses. Cashel blue is similarly delicate. And gorgonzola dolce.

City of Light cocktail

pulled applewood-smoked pork shoulder sandwiches with zq sauce and red cabbage/fennel slaw

creamed smoked corn

roasted asparagus

I'll be on the LES visiting my SIL week after next. She lives on Rivington between Norfolk and Suffolk, a hop and skip from Katz's and Russ & Daughters, which are always on our agenda when we visit.

Tim Carman visits a local Thai restaurant with our own resident Thai Guy, Fishinnards (aka Eric Gordon). Tim and Eric were introduced by a <cough, cough> mutual friend.

Elephant Jumps

Eco-Friendly rose veal piccatta

smoked basmati rice

Farm at Sunnyside Chinese broccoli puree--an experiment that will not be repeated

sugar macerated strawberries with butter pecan ice cream

2011 Mondavi fumé blanc

Oyster stew and lobster stew are not typically thickened in the kitchen--traditionally, seafood stews and chowders were eaten with dry crackers (called store or common crackers) crumbled and submerged in them, which provided the thickening that flour, starch or pureed potatoes are now used for.

Let's see. I know what I want and anything else is by nature a step down in my hierarchy of desire, and so is not as good. VS. There are lots of places I consider worthy, so if one is less available to me, I can find another that will satisfy me equally.

As we used to say back in the day: "different strokes for different folks," or these days "whatever floats your boat," both particularly apt expressions in this case, with one of the involved parties having a penchant for rowing.

I wasn't suggesting that it was good. My late MIL wouldn't cook tomato sauce because it stained the sink when the pot got washed. She disliked mustard, vinegar or anything spicy, the only fresh herb ever used was parsley, and she wouldn't ever have fresh garlic in the house, just used a brief shake of garlic salt occasionally. When I visited I did the cooking for the most part, and would grocery shop before I came. One day, I was looking around for the head of garlic I had brought and left on the counter. She had double wrapped it in aluminum foil and plastic wrap and stuck it at the bottom of the vegetable drawer, fearing that it would stink up the kitchen, just sitting out. This is how I came to understand why J., to this day, loves food that is creamed and cheesy (like macaroni or cauliflower in cheese sauce), or crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, in other words, most anything fried. Those were the best things he ate when he was growing up. He was very young when we met, and amenable to having his palate expanded dramatically, and he enjoys many tastes and foods that his mother would never have eaten let alone cooked. But the flavors of childhood exert a powerful emotional pull.

my late mother-in-law's secret for thickening NE clam chowder--instant mashed potatoes.

meatless monday:

linguini with green garlic/basil/spinach pesto

marinated grilled cauliflower with charcoal roasted red peppers

semolina/almond cake topped with rhubarb and soaked with the spiced syrup that the rhubarb cooked in

2012 Terra do Castelo godello

last night:

charcoal grilled, herb-brined chicken thighs basted with zq sauce (cooked with the pork chops the night before and re-heated)

potato salad with hard boiled egg, mustard, pickles, green garlic and dill (bound with mayo and yogurt)

red cabbage and fennel slaw, lime vinaigrette, serrano chile, and cilantro

leftover Mother Stallard beans

Devil's Backbone Vienna lager

last night:

a glass of vin gris, Bread Furst baguette, Taleggio

charcoal grilled herb brined eco-friendly pork chop with ZQ sauce

fresh corn polenta

Mother Stallard beans stewed with onion sauteed in bacon fat, aromatics and chopped prosciutto

sauteed baby kale

the rest of the bottle of vin gris

Wow. Sorry to hear this, but I know it is a relief to finally have a name for what has been ailing you. Unfortunately, too many doctors, when the symptoms aren't severe and the answer is not obvious, will ascribe the problem to anxiety or stress, especially for women. An older cousin of my husband--who lived very close to Lyme, Connecticut for crying out loud--went to a zillion doctors with pain and cardiac symptoms until someone finally considered lyme and tested him for it. His case was very advanced, and he had neurologic symptoms and spent six months with a central line and daily i.v. antibiotics. It has unfortunately become fairly common. J had a bulls-eye rash, and even without confirming that he was positive, his MD gave him 6 weeks of antibiotics to take.

Seafood stew based on Zora's advice above:

Red snapper, scallops, mussels in shrimp stock with tomatoes, fennel, a little carrot, a little onion, a little garlic, green olives, parsley, thyme, fennel seed, saffron, and a small amount of sausage that I picked up from Wagshall's a few months ago and froze.  It's a very dense, fine-textured and somewhat garlicky sausage that's great in bean and lentil dishes, but I simply can't remember what it is.  :-(

A few hunks of palladin from Bread Furst to go with it.

Ciao Bella coconut sorbetto for dessert.

As an aside, one of the things I love about the BlackSalt fish market is that the staff are incredibly helpful.  I do not often cook fish or shellfish (last night was the first time I've ever cooked mussels), but I love to improvise and not follow recipes.  I can go into BlackSalt and say "I have this [vague] idea, how should I do it?" and go out with some awesome ingredients and a clear notion of how not to ruin them.

Sounds fabulous. Were you happy with how it turned out?

J and I will be visiting mid-coast Maine in a couple of weeks. We'll be staying at a friend's place near New Harbor, but making forays up the coast from there. If we get to Bar Harbor, we will definitely stop in.

Cook it all to well done and re-freeze. Four days with the door closed, and the contents still cold means that it all thawed slowly, given the mass of cold stuff inside an insulated box.

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ISO ideas.  I have three jars of shrimp stock in the freezer that I'd like to use for something.  I've had a hankering recently for the seafood stew that BlackSalt used to serve (can't recall if it was supposed to be Portugese or Provencal).  Any ideas for a fairly simple and straightforward way to use the stock?  I did not grow up eating fish or seafood so I don't have any natural sense of what to do with that kind of ingredient when I have it on hand.

One of my family's favorite dishes:

Buy some monkfish, squid, shrimp, mussels, or what-have-you. Saute onion and/or leek, fennel, garlic, red pepper. Add canned tomatoes, splash of white wine, bay leaf, bundle of thyme, tarragon, rosemary, parsley. Simmer for 10 minutes, add shrimp stock. Simmer and reduce for about half an hour or forty five minutes. Taste for salt.  Optional: splash of Pernod or other pastis. Cut fish in chunks, squid into rings. Add all the seafood and cook at a simmer until shellfish have opened and other elements are no longer translucent. Chop some fresh herbs to sprinkle on top. Serve with lemon wedges and good bread.

Vary aromatics and herbs to make it Italian or Latin. Or to make it more BlackSalt-ish, add some cooked chorizo or linguií§a.

meatless monday:

cannelini beans stewed with aromatics and fennel seeds

stovetop grilled kohlrabi and grape tomatoes with vinaigrette

orzo with green garlic, olive oil and grated reggiano and romano

Sorry. I'll be in Maine, eating lobster on a dock overlooking the water.

eco-friendly rose veal piccata, reduction sauce made with veal stock, vermouth, shallots, green garlic, meyer lemon juice and zest, capers and parsley

oven roasted asparagus

leftover freekeh pilaf

shoofly pie    photo

2011 G.D. Vajra langhe nebbiolo

 I personally like the idea of getting custom-made things and giving them a special place in my heart.

Somehow, the idea of a custom-made very sharp blade finding a place in your heart sounds sorta-cidal, Don...

Lebanese Butcher and Halalco, both in Falls Church, break down whole animals on-site, so they are also a possibility.