Archive for the ‘Food Stuff’ Category
Doing the Right Thing
I think there are times when doing the right thing means not playing it safe. — Ronald M. George, California Chief Justice and author of the majority opinion for In Re Marriage Cases, legalizing gay marriage in California [quoted in: Maura Dolan, "California chief justice says same-sex marriage ruling was one of his toughest", Los […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Food Stuff
Cold Lemon Soufflé
This is a dish I've made several times, always substituting some non-sugar sweetener for the sugar in the original recipe. In the past that meant aspartame, which made a dessert that tasted good but never had quite the right appearance or texture. I last made this for Ars Hermeneutica's last annual meeting, and that time […]
Sloppy Ur-Joes
You may recall that I have been thinking deeply since this summer about Sloppy Joes, first when I shared a recipe that I have been refining as one that seemed to my adult taste buds to recreate the experience of eating the product of a recipe I used when I was a little chef ("Jeff's […]
In: All, Food Stuff, Personal Notebook
Buttery Sweet Potatoes
One year for our traditional pot-luck Thanksgiving meal I was asked to provide "the sweet potatoes". Naturally, given my proclivities towards non-traditionalism, I did not want to make anything usual or familiar. About that time I happened to receive, via a cooking group, a recipe for "Sweet Potatoes Anna". Sounded good! Now, I was long […]
Spamish Approbation
Still reading from my Baltimore Sun "Food & Drink Newsletter", I have enjoyed the first part of an article called "The Great Debate: Spam". I agree, naturally, with Mr. Schleicher, who writes to praise Spam; but my four regular readers will be aware already that I do what I can to advance the cause of […]
Questioning Snobbish Validity
Each week I get from the Baltimore Sun newspaper people an email that tries to entice me to read online various of their "Food & Drink" articles. This week's "newsletter" had this curious teaser in it: A few gaffes, a lot of golds The July announcement set the wine blogs buzzing: Charles Shaw Chardonnay, the […]
In: All, Food Stuff, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
A Summer Evening's Dinner
Isaac is away for a few days at his annual conference of choral directors, so I'm doing my best to enjoy this small island of solitude. I redeemed some of the day's laziness by mowing the lawn tonight, which I completed despite the late evening heat that was a little more enervating than I had […]
Fruity Slow-Cooker Pot Roast
Last Monday I used the slow cooker to prepare a pot roast and, happily, it came out tasting to me just about exactly as a pot roast should, so I'm going to make a note of the recipe before I forget the details. This is somewhat modified by me from the recipe for "Lazy Day […]
Mt. Olive Pickles
Oddly, this post's title is not meant to be ironic, metaphorical, or symbolic. We had some Mt. Olive sugar-free sweet pickles with our dinner tonight, and I felt like writing a few words of praise. Mt. Olive is a brand of pickles and condiments and such things that is common is our area; I don't […]
In: All, Food Stuff, Personal Notebook
Some Elizabethan Food
I like to read cookbooks, and sometimes I take a particular delight in reading cookbooks that reveal some of the history of cooking. Recently I enjoyed Francine Segan's Shakespeare's Kitchen : Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook (New York : Random House, 2003). She takes a nice tour of choice recipes from Elizabethan sources and […]
Chicken Cacciatore
Let's continue on these food thoughts for just a bit longer. A couple of weeks ago we had the annual meeting of the board of directors of Ars Hermeneutica, and I made dinner for everyone. We had a casual sort of meal: slow-cooker chicken cacciatore, served with angel-hair pasta, a big Italian style green salad*, […]
Brussels Sprouts Wisdom
For years I have cut a cross in the bottoms of brussels sprouts, but this time I bought them ready to cook, I forgot about it, and it didn't make any difference. [Ava Astaire McKenzie, At Home in Ireland : Cooking and Entertaining with Ava Astaire McKenzie (Niwot, Colorado : Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1998), p. […]
In: All, Briefly Noted, Food Stuff
Sloppy Joes Again
The Sloppy Joes saga continues; now it threatens to get thoroughly out of hand and rather sloppy, if you will. Recently, in my search for a simple, basic recipe for Sloppy Joes that recreated a taste I remember from childhood, I presented "Jeff's Sloppy Joes". Whatever it was that I was remembering, I knew that […]
Jeff's Sloppy Joes
Speaking of Sloppy Joes, which I was last week ("Beef & Mac"), that's what we're having for dinner tonight. It's on the stove simmering even as I type. When I was young, way back in the last century, I had a recipe for Sloppy Joes in my first cookbook, a smallish volume for kids published […]
Mock Apple Pie
Okay, for how many years have you been reading that recipe on the box of Ritz crackers for "Mock Apple Pie" and wondering what it tastes like? Could it really taste at all like apple pie? C'mon, it's made from Ritz crackers, and they don't taste a thing like apples! Haven't you always wondered what […]
Beef & Mac
One of my favorite comfort foods is a simple dish frequently marketed, in frozen, single-serving trays, as "Macaroni & Beef": ground beef in a tomato sauce with elbow macaroni. At its best it's deliciously unctuous and satisfying. Obviously it's not a terribly complicated dish but I'd never tried to make it up on my own, […]
To The Fourth Cheese
There were several memorable dishes that we ate at Ristorante da Cecio, our favorite dinner spot in Rome, but one that stands out was their Gnocchi ai Quattro Formaggi, or "Gnocchi with Four-Cheese Sauce",* a plate of little snail-shaped potato dumplings in a satiny smooth and unctuously cheesy sauce. The sauce was not a garish […]
Three Plates in Rome
Eating in Rome is fun and different for me, for very little reason other than what seems a refreshingly different approach to organizing the meal. For years I had learned and mostly implemented a French-style, multi-coursed approach to a dinner, with a progression of courses that followed certain prescriptions. In Italy, it all seems much […]
Peeps Evolve
I was quite delighted to discover last night, when I stopped in at our neighborhood drugs & sundries store, that there was a new variety of Peeps evident in pre-easter menagerie on display. Perhaps it was even a new species, but it might be too early to tell. Recent times have seen the appearance of […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Food Stuff
But Raman Noodle Live On
Like the author (Lawrence Downes) of the appreciation of "Mr. Noodle" in the New York Times (9 January 2007), I don't think I ever knew that Raman noodles had an inventor. I suppose I'd always imagined that such a ubiquitous part of Japanese culture and cuisine — as I thought of it — had always […]
In: All, Food Stuff, The Art of Conversation