Bread Baked in an Iron Pot

I baked this inside a 7 quart iron dutch oven according to a recipe in Michael Ruhlman's Ruhlman's Twenty cookbook. That's smoked sea salt on the crust there.

Grilly the Crab

Dinner with the Wife

This is the first time I've been able to fully apply myself to cooking for my wife, and only my wife, for one month. There has been much cooking, but often for a crowd in recent weeks.

The menu is:

Lamb chops on a bed of roasted red peppers with mint

Risotto with garlic and fresh oregano and rosemary

Salad of organic greens with beets, goat cheese and pecans

I had Acacia pinot noir. Lindz had San Pellegrino Limonata with muddled mint.

She took all these pictures. Here's an action shot of me preparing the red peppers:

The meat meets the heat:

I used Grandma's spoon for the risotto:

Here's the finished plate:

I was pleased with how the mint worked with the peppers and the lamb. I also enjoyed using my new All-Clad saucepan for the risotto. Lindz and I had a nice, romantic dinner while thunder rumbled outside.

A Traditional Independence Day Meal

Lindz was wanting something spicy involving seafood. She's really been digging Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook lately, so here's where we ended up: Banh mi with shrimp and scallops. What could be more typically American than Vietnamese sandwiches that are clearly a fusion resulting from French colonialism?

I made bread from scratch, but I did it on the grill as a big flat loaf instead of as a baguette in the oven. I marinated the shrimp and scallops in ponzu sauce, garlic ginger and sesame oil. I grilled them under a threatening thunderstorm sky, and we smeared the bread with sambal- and lemon-spiked mayo. We heaped it with cilantro, shaved carrots and bean sprouts. I drank Lone Oak Vin du Roi 2005 with it. I was very happy.

Rust, Reptile and the Flag: an American Triptych

Our famous nation is 235 today. Here are three snapshots from The Old North State, one of the original 13.

We bought our gas grill as soon as we moved into our first house. In fact, I think it was the very first "homeowner" purchase. I just replaced the lower grate (the grate upon which the lava rocks are piled). Note: it's not supposed to be easy to bend it like that, and, ideally, there should be more metal than rust in this item).I went to the North Carolina Museum of Art on Saturday. Its grounds are adjacent to the Capital Area Greenway, a very enjoyable system of paved walking/paths. In addition to large installations of scuplture, I found this fellow. I believe he's a rat snake, and I'd say he was five or six feet long. Although it's a non-venomouse type, "Don't Tread on Me" still seems appropriate for today.

And finally, here's Old Glory, flying at my house. I artsy-fied it with Photoshop Elements. I think it's the "palette strokes" option in the "contrived ways to make a picture more interesting" pull-down menu.

Grapefruit Bitters

I used a wine bottle to do the steeping. Lindz thought that making bitters would be a cool idea, and, by golly she was right. This bottle contains six feet of grapefruit zest (three grapefruits' worth), some grains of paradise, coriander, rosemary, ginger and Everclear.

It should be quite a potent cocktail sharpener. I added a bit of sugar syrup after straining it 24 hours later.

There is no end to the permutations of home made bitters.

The December Cocktail

(Listening to "The Color of Right" from Test for Echo, by Rush)

I whipped this up for Lindz and myself after a day of her being very productive and of me being much less so. She painted the upstairs (almost the entire upper storey), and I raked a couple of leaves, oiled a squeaky storm door and bloodied my thumb somehow.

It is built on standard cocktail methodology, but it has a magical ingredient that wouldn't be sitting around the house any other time of year. Lindz made candied orange peels, and the sugar syrup that was left is packed with flavor. The oranges were cara-cara oranges, rich in that spritzy orange zest goodness. My favorite cocktails (especially the whiskey sour) involve the use of simple syrup, but it was clear that this orange syrup would add more to a drink than just sweetness.

I figured "December Cocktail" would be a fairly civilized name that wouldn't be out of place in the Savoy Cocktail Book. More respectable than "Winter Bitch-Slap" or "Aberdeen Reacharound."

2 ounces gin (I used Amsterdam)
3/4 ounce sweet Italian Vermouth
1/2 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce orange peel infused sugar syrup

Add the ingredients to a cocktail shaker full of ice cubes. Shake the hell out of it, and strain the drink into a red or green cocktail glass. Put a few ice cubes in there and garnish with a candied orange peel. Enjoy. Repeat as necessary.

If you use bourbon instead of gin, it is a delicious but different cocktail. A bit darker in character. I would call that one a "Manhattan in December."

No More Grandparents

(Listening to Henryk Gorecki's Symphony #3, Op. 36, "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs")
This is a glass of single malt whisky, the most contemplative of drinks. It stands in front of a slice of apricot tree. The man in whose yard that tree stood until 31-odd years ago just passed away this evening. I grew to appreciate the qualities of this sort of whisky when Dad passed away in 1993.

The stark reality that all the grandparents have gone is now standing on top of me with stunning weight. Why does Time have to keep moving? Can't nostalgic, deedless fools like me have a few more decades to figure out what life is all about?

More Adventures of Guardian Service

 

We drank a bottle of Lone Oak Vineyards Vin du Roi with dinner. I boiled the potatoes in Grandma's Guardian pot, then put them on the grill for a bit of smoky flavor. The main course was marinated grilled chicken thighs, and the veggie was a foil packet o' vegetables, also done on the grill.

The Pot Awakens

This is a piece of Guardian Service cookware. This stuff was manufactured from the 30's to 1956. We believe Grandma and Grandpa Zucker got the set for their wedding in 1939. It has been used to cook what amounts to, I am sure, a staggering amount of food over the decades. And now it's mine. It probably hasn't been used for a number of years; Grandma was doing poorly for a little while before she passed on.

 

I boiled fingerling potatoes in it tonight. I tossed the potatoes in olive oil, rosemary and garlic and served them along with broiled scallops with lime butter and grilled asparagus with reduced balsamic goo and pecans. Lindz's home made ice cream was dessert. I hope Grandma would be pleased.

A Seal Having His Teeth Brushed

Diving Bird, Glass Dude

Lindz caught this shot of a Puffin at feeding time at the Seattle Aquarium:

And I shot this in the Hot Shop of the Museum of Glass in Tacoma:

Life's Rich Pageant

 

So much stuff packed into so few blocks. I believe we took this picture as we were walking down the hill to go to dinner at The Pink Door, a marvelous restaurant in Post Alley. We had some off-the-menu seasonal things: risotto with fava beans, mint and goat cheese and some unbelievably delicious bacon-wrapped monkfish on a bed of braised artichokes. The pear tart was a very fine dessert, and I had some very good Oregon grappa while we watched the famous burlesque show that begins at 11 pm. We arrived at 8 to assure ourselves a spot.

As far as Seattle goes, I'd say we did a halfway respectable job of scratching the surface. 'Tis quite a town.

Pile o' Cheeks

 

It was a cruel irony that I was surrounded seafood in such profusion while setting a personal record for being the most miles from my kitchen. I imagine these cheeks would have been good prepared thusly: Pan-seared with a little dollop of chardonnay jelly, next to some asparagus risotto.

Smile

 

A monkfish at the fish market in Seattle. We got there early; they weren't throwing fish yet.

The Museum of Glass in Tacoma

 

This tunnel of spectacular glass works is on the way into the Museum of Glass.

The Astonishing 360 degree Slinky Video Screen at the U2 Concert

The whole stage setup weighs 170 tons, apparently. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" came off very well.

Naan Sequitur

I suppose you'd call it naan, anyway. I made bread dough (1/4 whole wheat, 3/4 all purpose flour) and kneaded lots of fresh rosemary into it. After a few hours' rise, I flattened it, made it nice and slippery with olive oil, ground some pepper over it and grilled it:


It was good. The grill has hot spots, so there were some burnt spots. Still, there's nothing like that rustic, smoky flavor that bread gets from being made on a fire.

Father's Day

Another Day at Work