When someone asks me what I want for Christmas or my birthday or something, my answers tend to be food related. Cookbooks, utensils, Dutch oven, apron…that kind of thing. It is true, my job has nothing to do with food, but seriously, cooking and baking and thinking about what I will be cooking and baking next really does take up a lot of my mind space. I am okay with that. I need you to be too.
It is hard for some people to understand how someone (me) can spend hours in the kitchen, laboring over a meal and honestly enjoy it. Don’t ask me how, but I really do. It is my ME time. My moments to get lost in my cooking and let go of other frustrations. I guess it is the same as other people waxing poetic about camping or hiking as I stare at them in disbelief (“You actually like that?”) Or how some people can spend hours working on their cars when others spend a minute and a half making an appointment at the nearest JiffyLube for an oil change.
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Decadence, thy name is, well, me.
I think it is clear that I love my sweets. To say that I have a massive sweet tooth is an extreme under-exaggeration. While Brian would rather order a second steak, I would rather skip the steak and have double dessert. He often teases me about my “sweet teeth” and how my one savory tooth must get lonely sometimes. It is true. It might be a pathology. I love my desserts. Almost anything dessert-like, I am for them: cakes, brownies, cookies, ice cream, sweet crepes filled with nutella (heck, anything filled with nutella is okay with me,) pie, bread pudding…well, I think you got my point.
Then, there are classic pairings that just belong together. Apple pie and ice cream (some would say apple pie and cheddar cheese. I know that is supposed to work but I just can’t bring myself to eat them together. Someone convince me!) Carrot cake and cream cheese frosting (I knew someone in college who filed a complaint with the university because the carrot cake didn’t have cream cheese frosting. I know it seems severe, but these are serious issues! And, no, it wasn’t me.) Doughnuts and coffee. And I am hoping, one day, chocolate chips and bacon will be considered a classic pairing (I am doing my part!)
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Okay, I admit. I have kind of sucked the last few weeks. I have been MIA and I don’t have much of an excuse…
…except to say that Brian and I took an amazing trip to France this month and I was having “back-to-reality” syndrome where I did not want to admit that we were back from such a vacation. I usually have that problem with vacations. We eat and drink our way through a location and then I can’t get back in the groove of things when I am back in the Windy City. Don’t get me wrong, I love Chicago. I think more people should take their vacations to Chicago. The food and drink in Chicago is incredible and getting more incredible every day. But, for me, it is home. Which means work, mortgage payments, bills, cleaning my own condo and doing my own dishes. Not cool, people, not cool. I am sure that it is the same feeling that Parisians feel when they return to Paris after a trip to Chicago (right, David Lebovitz?) However, I can’t imagine someone not wanting to go back to the buttery croissants, crusty baguettes and wine-at-any-time mentality that is ubiquitous throughout France. Of course, I understand, what is different for me is same old, same old for someone else.
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Essence of pig. Pork in a jar. Anyway you say it, pork rillettes are piggy deliciousness. If you find yourself drawn to the likes of pork chops, bacon, sausage or baby back ribs, you owe it to yourself to make pork rillettes and never ever run out of them.
Pork rillettes are essentially spreadable pork (I have also seen duck and rabbit rillettes. This salmon version is especially good, I must admit.) It is a great way of taking traditionally tough pieces of meat (pork shoulder and pork belly, in this case,) cooking them for hours and making the meat so tender and delectable, you can spread it on a cracker (and you will want to, trust me) not unlike a pate.
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The Return of Lard Revolution. Join me in my quest.
Lard. Does the word scare you? Does it conjure thoughts of middle school taunts (usually accompanied by the word “butt,” or the like)? Does it sound like a four letter word that the culinary gods would smite you for saying, much less using in your food?? If the former is true, I am sorry to hear it, I feel your pain and all I can say is what I was told when I was likewise taunted, “it builds character.” If the latter is true, I joyously proclaim that you are utterly mistaken in your presumption that lard is bad.
Now, let us be clear. There is good lard and there is bad lard. Outright, the bad is the prepackaged stuff that the megamarts sell in boxes out on their shelves. A good rule of thumb when it comes to lard: if it doesn’t need to go in the refrigerator to survive, it should not go into your body. That mass-produced shelf stuff that one buys at the store has stabilizers and preservatives added to it, is partially hydrogenated (read: bad bad bad) and thusly is chock full of trans fat (read: bad bad bad.) Trans fats are, of course, the bad kind of fat that we need to strip from our diets completely (which might be one of the reasons that lard has acquired such a bad rep in recent years.)
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You know, I think there are condiment people and non-condiment people. There are people who cannot fathom the idea of loading anything up with ketchup, mustard, barbecue sauce, honey, butter or mayonnaise. No judgement, of course. Food is a very personal and intimate thing and no one can (or should) attempt to figure out why some people like certain things a certain way and others are completely opposite. So, for my condiment-adverse comrades, I accept you. I still love you. I am willing to look the other way. However, in turn, please accept that I am a condiment person, through and through.
I love almost any condiment. I don’t think I have met a condiment I didn’t like. Wait, I take that back. I tried Vegimite when I was in Australia and I can easily say that I did not care for that flavor and it is, in fact, an acquired taste. (My cousins, who were born and raised in Australia, love the stuff. When they travel, they are sure to pack a jar of it and insist on their mother sending more in her care packages.) So, yes, I can say that I like most condiments. Condiments are made to make whatever you are eating taste better. A buffalo wing, in my opinion, tastes better with a dollop of blue cheese dressing. A chicken finger tastes better with a hint barbecue sauce or honey mustard. A soft breadstick tastes better with a dunk of marinara sauce.
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I really love an interesting food combination. Sure sure, sometimes they don’t work (chocolate and raisins come immediately to mind. Although I am not a fan of raisin anything, so maybe that is a bad example.) However, if there were not risk-takers out there thinking outside of the box, we would never have gotten black pepper-and-mangos, coffee-and-chocolate, or the (almost) famous chocolate-chips-and-bacon you can find here. So, I am usually more than willing to give an unusual food combination a try. My thought is, Hey, what can it really hurt? And I am usually at least pleasantly surprised, if not blown away.
So when I came across this recipe for Sausages in the Skillet with Grapes from renowned Italian chef and cookbook author, Lydia Bastianich, I was ready to give it a go. This is a recipe from the Umbria region of Italy, so while it might not be a strange combination to a distinct population of Italian people out there, it was surely a surprise for me. So, I categorize it as such.
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The sandwich. A mainstay of pretty much every person’s life on the planet. Every culture, every country and every region has their version of the sandwich.
The Vietnamese have the Banh mi.
The Greeks have the Gyro.
New Orleans has the Po’Boy.
The Mexicans have the Torta.
Chicago has the Italian Beef Sandwich.
The Cubans have, well, the Cuban.
What did humanity do before the sandwich was invented, before the Earl of Sandwich asked for meat between two slices of bread? Now, I am not sure if the Earl of Sandwich story is 100% accurate, but I do know that the sandwich is a thing of beauty. I mean, come on: tasty, versatile, convenient, easy and…did I say tasty?
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I think I am a pretty daring. Wouldn’t you agree?
I have attacked my seafood phobia. I have cooked with pig’s feet. I have put candied meat into cookies. And I have to say, it has all turned out pretty good. Those mussels were easy and delicious and I think I can even move on to red snapper and sea bass soon. I am trying to find new ways to use pigs’ trotters. And you are missing out on something fabulous if you haven’t tried these Chocolate Chip and Bacon cookies. But I have to admit, there are things that make me a bit…well..scared. It sucks, I tell you! I love cooking, I love baking and I love trying new and interesting things. I pushed it off and I pushed it off until I just couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try it: the jelly roll cake (or a rendition, thereof.)
Jelly roll cakes, or cake roulades, are so intriguing to me. Jelly, ice cream or some delicious filling that a thin sponge cake is rolled around in a decorative log shape?? You have got to be kidding me, what is not to love? First of all, it looks impressive. Secondly, it looks delicious. Alas, as many cookbooks and Food Network stars that told me how “easy” it was, I just could not bring myself to make one. How is rolling cake even possible? I have cracked cake layers just moving them for a layer cake. This cake is supposed to get rolled and not unroll? No way. To turn the cake out, roll it and not have it crack and fall right apart and stay in place, I just didn’t think I was up for it.
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There are some foods I feel bad for. It just doesn’t seem fair. They have less than their 15 minutes of fame (if any fame at all) and these oft-overlooked foods usually get forgotten about altogether. Prunes are not only for regularity and the elderly. Brussel Sprouts don’t have to be stinky and the bane of all childhoods. Some people don’t even know what cardamom tastes like. One such food, is the lowly, underappreciated, underrated and underutilized fresh cranberry.
The poor cranberry. Cranberries have such a short window of time to shine. I am sure the week before Thanksgiving is a cranberry’s favorite time of year. It finally feels respected, wanted and needed that week. “You like me, you really like me!” Even the day after Thanksgiving, leftover cranberry sauce can be used as a spread or topping in a fat leftover turkey sandwich. The day after the day after Thanksgiving, however, the cranberry gets shifted into the shadows once again, left to wait for the following mid-November to feel loved again.
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Posted in Pie, Vegetarian
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