10.02.11: anniversary dinner (piemonte specials – carpionata piemontese and pappardelle with porcini mushroom and white truffle))

Carpionata Piemontese

Now I am quietly waiting
for the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.
The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.
It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.

Frank O’Hara, excerpt of “Mayakovsky” from Meditations in an Emergency

This passage kind of perfectly expresses those mean reds I mentioned a week and a half ago that have taken up in casa TMFP. It hasn’t helped that it was a fairly rainy week and therefore the sky grew dark out even sooner than it should, and in one of those rainstorms Michael’s new car was lightly clipped by some jerk near his office. And ugh–as I write this it’s gotten grey and moody outside again. It’s like the weather is gleefully pissing all over my “Operation: Abolish Mean Reds” efforts with every cold, grey, sodden day. It’s why we curled up with the second season premiere episode of Mad Men in all of its angsty glory but at the same time pushed ourselves from a culinary perspective–we may be indulging our grumpiness in some ways, but tasting something new and different could also be the jolt we both need. First up: our anniversary dinner on Sunday and going back to a genuine happy place.

7.01.11: hummus and musings about time, cooking, and shopping.

Caramelized Onion Hummus

In the five and a half years I’ve lived in Connecticut and New York, I’ve been fortunate to be within easy walking distance to gourmet shops that stocked most of the basics we might need for a weeknight meal–in New Haven, it was Romeo and Cesare’s, and in New York I didn’t even have to leave my own building as our apartment was literally above a bodega. I’m going to miss being able to take the elevator down there and swan around in flip flops and tank tops ind the dead of winter while the bundled-up folk give me the side-eye, but now I miss it as an easy resource to pick up a block of cheese, some lemons and limes or a can of chiles in adobo whenever I needed it without adding any significant time to my otherwise epic commute, because it allowed us the freedom to be spontaneous.

Now that we’re in Stamford, things have changed drastically. The closest convenience store to our building advertises their stock of sodas and body oils, which doesn’t inspire the most confidence in the quality of any food they might carry,  so if either random inspiration strikes us or we realize that we forgot to get something at Fairway, the closest store we have to walk to is…Target.

05.01.11: dinner (garlic, cheese and herb pizza and duck, fontina and onion pizza)

Duck, Fontina and Caramelized Onion Pizza

One of the incredibly irritating things about moving is slowly losing access to things that you maybe don’t use everyday–your spontaneity becomes more limited. or at least more time-consuming, as you suddenly have to knead dough by hand.

The humanity!

One thing I really hate about moving is when you realize that certain things are the “last” things: the last time we had to make the trek from Fairway Harlem laden with bags (that was Sunday), the last time I ride the 1 regularly (I don’t want to think about that right now), the last time you make pizza dough or fresh pasta dough. Of course, all of these vary in emotional significance–although my lower lip may have trembled a little bit when we were in line for the register at Fairway and I stared out the window at the foggy Hudson and cursed the fact that the weather was so crappy. But then Michael casually mentioned packing away the Kitchen Aid and I realized that these pizzas were the last to be made here in New York. If they must be the last…at least they were delicious. And a little over the top.

02.27.11: dinner (beef and oxtail bourguignonne)

Beef and Oxtail Bourguignonne

[Editor's Note: Michael is filing this while at a conference in California, so he deserves a few props.]

Over Christmas,  I made a point of requesting a large number of cookbooks in the name of expanding my culinary repertoire boldly into the realm French cookery. One of my first attempts was an as yet unpublished, seemingly straightforward Beef Bourguignonne. While everything seemed right on the surface, the final product was a bit too dry for my liking. I wondered if our very lean American supermarket beef was to blame for the discontinuity. We resolved to try again, this time with an ingredient that we hoped would be more foolproof.

03.06.11: dinner (vegetable tortilla and a revisit of catalan meatball soup).

Tortilla de Vegetales

I have a confession to make, but I’m not sure how you’ll take it, so I’ll provide a little back story. It started on a Friday night and the conundrum of what to do for food for the week when we were traveling Saturday through Sunday morning (really, we were in Pennsylvania for less than 24 hours) and so Friday we I spent the evening poring through cookbooks and logging some ingredients into our Fresh Direct order.

As I read the list of ingredients from The Book of Tapas, Michael surmised that we were making “a more complicated version of a Western omelette.” Suddenly warning bells sounded in my ear, urging me to proceed with caution. I took solace in the fact that the tortilla we were making was only one of two dishes, and the second was a longtime favorite: Catalan meatball soup.

Why the worry, you ask? I’ll be frank: I don’t like omelets.

02.12.11: dinner (duck ham and caramelized onion pizzas)

Duck Ham Pizza with Ricotta, Arugula and Grana Padano

It’s cold, it’s dry, it’s been a little while since you’ve set off the smoke alarms, so you decide to cook up some homemade pizza.

All E had said about the meals that weekend was: I want to make duck ham. Simply making a pair of cured duck breasts and just eating them, while enticing, felt like a bit of a waste. We decided a nice pizza, where our salt-cured duck breast could take the traditional place of prosciutto in a classic Emilia-Romagnan piadina recipe we had read about a few years back would be perfect. I blind-baked the crust for five minutes, then topped it with ricotta,  arugula, grana padano. I waited on adding the delicate duck until the last few minutes to ensure it didn’t cook opr worse still, dry out. [Ed.--we did put a few slices through the broiler, but having some of the fresh-cured and the broiled slices made for a nice flavor and texture combination.]

Shopping in New York: Russ & Daughters on the Lower East Side.

Russ & Daughters

I have a new thing–sitting on benches in front of world-famous stores and glaring at people as they pass by making asinine comments.

Michael

It’s a good thing (for us) that the Lower East Side requires several subway changes to get to it from where we live, mainly because the primary attraction for us is Katz’s Deli. Were it any closer than I’m pretty sure M would be dragging me there any time he had a craving for pastrami to the point where we’d require assistance in getting out of our doors on a daily basis. As it is, we save our trips down there for special treats, maybe only going a few times a year at most. But we now have an additional excuse to visit this neighborhood, which will test my limits of self-restraint whenever I’m craving some smoked nova salmon: Russ & Daughters. I had heard of it prior to going in on Saturday, of course, but never ventured inside because the timing never seemed conducive to shopping there. On Saturday I told Michael that we would be stopping there so I could get brunch provisions for the next day, and my resolve was to the end so steely that I even refrained from ordering my usual lox platter at Katz’s and went for the latkes.

12.12.10: dinner (chili served in a china bowl makes it fancy)

Michael's Knock-You-On-Your-Ass-Chili

This weekend was a slightly melancholy one, I don’t know why. General crankiness, weird weather, who the hell knows. Regardless, Sunday night we needed some therapy, and at the suggestion of the lovely Mrs., I made some flipping chili. And that was that.

I made lots of chili in grad school, I even won the Chemistry Department chili contest my last year (second the year before, c’mon!). I took it a step beyond with this batch. Luckily, our kitchen was stocked with dried chiles, which I was able to toast and grind into my own chili powder along with some lovely cumin seeds. I browned a pound of each ground pork, sirloin and lamb, then added two huge sweet onions followed by crushed tomatoes, a beer, the chili powder/cumin/cayenne and some water. A few additional spices here and there and a loooooong cook down on the stove and then there was chili. I added two cans of black beans (the store downstairs was out of reds) with 30 minutes to go and the rest is history. We finished the bowls with some sharp New York cheddar and, and I must stress this, fresh green onions. The fresh onions really added much, I cannot overstress this.

We are enjoying this for lunch all week and it really is a great pick-you-up on these long cold winter days. The spice, the warmth, the sustenance, it’s all perfect. So to your ranges and warm your homes and your life with some luscious chili or other stewishness. Until next time, friends- stay warm and cook on!

11.21.10: dinner (bikini-pizza and sausage, peppers and onions pizza)

Sun-dried Tomato, Cremini Mushroom and Fresh Mozzarella Pizza

[Ed.--Elizabeth found herself craving some bikini-pizza from this post, and so when Michael suggested making pizza to use up some leftover fresh mozzarella an actual pizza was born.]

With the prospect of Thanksgiving looming, we deemed our weekend ought to do without my beloved roasted chicken. One night we opted for a duck ragu, and the farthest possible go-to from that, I guess, must be two homemade pizzas.

The first, the ‘bikini-pizza’ as it were, was a bit wet once all was put upon the dough thanks to lots of fresh mozzarella, mushrooms and a twist with sun-dried tomatoes instead of fresh or canned. I anticipated this and and as such did not blind-bake the crust, giving the entire assembled pizza as much time in the hot box as possible. I covered an up-turned baking sheet with foil so if too much cornmeal got into the oven and burned, I could pull the entire thing out for the second pie. The day was dry and the dough was well-behaved, disembarking the pizza peel with ease. We bailed it after about 13 minutes at 500 F with a couple of spatulas and some oven mitts, as well as a optimally placed cutting board to rest.

11.20.10: dinner (duck ragu with garganelli, aka hand-made penne–duck is the new turkey)

Garganelli with Duck Ragu

We’ve been a bit quiet this past week for several reasons, namely travel and work, but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been cooking up a storm during our increasingly limited free time–and we sometimes spend our evenings making labor-intensive meals. There’s something so…comforting, or freeing, or delightful about sitting at a dining room table and hand-rolling your own garganelli after hitting road blocks with a work project–especially when you realize you’re not half-bad at it. Michael even compared me to Iron Chef Italian Masahiko Kobe in the eventual speed I picked up in rolling the little squares into quills.

When you’re having a less-than-awesome day or even weekend otherwise, the little compliments like this can light your grin for the rest of the day.