Posted by Anita on 01.19.07 7:53 AM
In our house, we’re New England Patriots fans (Cameron’s an East Coast transplant), and Sam Adams is the usual “football juice” on game day. But with the AFC championship at stake this weekend, a more pointed beverage is in order.
This variation on the Moscow Mule seems a fitting tribute to the Pats. After all, the story of Ichabod Crane is a formidable legend, just like our boys on the gridiron. And when you’re playing a team called the Colts, the mere thought of headless horse-men is enough to make you giddy.
Headless Horseman
2 oz. vodka
3 dashes aromatic bitters
ginger ale
orange slice, for garnish
In a highball glass, combine the vodka and the bitters. Fill the glass with ice, and top with ginger ale. Garnish with the orange slice, and serve with a haunting laugh.
Boston, Drink of the Week, drinks, recipes
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Posted by Cameron on 01.18.07 5:36 PM
No embarrassing orthodontia tales here, although I certainly have them. And I suppose that this counts as more than six things for one blog, but:
Despite my savoir-faire with working kitchen jargon, I have only held one food-related job: at a bakery/bistro where I mostly sold pastries and made sandwiches. My signature move was to smear two spoonfuls of unprepared, clear-quill horseradish on a sandwich when the customer asked for said condiment…until someone complained. The owner asked me if I had ever actually tasted horseradish. I hadn’t.
I used to drink Karo corn syrup straight from the bottle. Hey, it was just a nip of courage now and again. I could have stopped anytime I wanted to.
I have an incredible capacity to eat exactly the same thing for breakfast every day for weeks at a time. Lunch, too.
I like Jager Bombs. I’m pretty sure that this and the Karo thing are somehow related.
By the age of 12, I had taken part in the following activities: butchering pigs and cows for family consumption, collecting maple sap (drinking my fair share) and boiling it down, milking cows, collecting fresh eggs (never killed a chicken, though), churning butter, making sausage, and pulling perfectly good baby vegetable plants out of the ground while claiming to have mistaken them for “weeds.”
levity, other blogs
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Posted by Anita on 01.17.07 11:55 AM
Sandi at The WhistleStop Cafe (of Fried Green Tomatoes fame) has tagged us to share “six weird things” about ourselves with our readers. Now, I don’t know about you, but I am guessing you don’t care that I drive a 1966 Volvo, or that I had braces as an adult, or that I’m the oldest of ten grandchildren on my mother’s side… so let’s keep this food related, eh?
- Cameron and I share a surprising number of food dislikes. Neither of us cares much for eggplant, squash, or sweet potatoes.
- We have been known to drive an hour — and to plan our airport flight-arrival times — to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant.
- I’d rather have citrus or caramel desserts than chocolate, any day. I realize this makes me a traitor to my gender. (I don’t dislike chocolate, but I don’t crave it.)
- One of my favorite things to do on vacation is visiting the local supermarket. Sure, farmers markets are great, but the grocery store is where you see what everyday middle-class food looks like.
- My early food-related jobs included: breakfast waitress, bakery manager, drugstore soda fountain jerk (at the place shown in the photo above), pizza-delivery girl, and sundae-scooper. Waiting tables was undeniably the hardest work I have ever done, for the least amount of money. Jose Feliciano was one of my regulars, and he used to say corny stuff like “Sanka very much” when I would bring him refills of decaf.
- We’ve never been to New Orleans. It was on the short-short list when Katrina hit…
levity, other blogs
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Posted by Anita and Cameron on 01.17.07 7:57 AM
Always up for a challenge — and excuses to try new wines — we joined this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday, focusing on biodynamic wines. I thought we might have a difficult time sourcing an appropriate bottle, so I was pleasantly surprised when the wine merchant at Plumpjack Wines in Noe Valley identified a dozen or more biodynamic wines for us, and another 20 or more bottles that were being produced using biodynamic principles, or by wineries that are in the process of converting to biodynamics.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any indication that the wine we ultimately chose from his options — a white from Domaine Tempier, the producers of our favorite rosé — was created biodynamically. According to information on a number of sites, Tempier is indeed a venerable (albeit uncertified) organic winery, but they only occasionally dabble in biodynamics… and one can surmise that their low-end $12 Bandol Blanc probably isn’t the wine they’re dabbling with. (I’m glad we’ll get to try it… but I’m cranky that it was misidentified.)
So, over to BevMo, this time with Fork & Bottle’s list of biodynamic producers in hand. Trust, as they say, but verify.
Our tasting notes:
Patianna Sauvignon Blanc ’05 Mendocino (California) – $14.99 ($18 winemaker’s list)
80% Sauvignon Blanc clone #1, 20% Sauvignon Musque
Pale champagne color; yeasty on the nose; watery and thin flavors, but with an incredibly long finish (with no unpleasant aftertaste); the merest hint of effervescence. Cameron felt the wine had a toasty nose, and found hints of shellfish and sour in the corners. Anita missed the classic dry melon/pear flavors she loves in Sauv Blanc — in fact, there was little fruit at all. It was hard to believe that this was a New World wine. Compared to the similarly priced Chateau Souverain Alexander Valley Sauvignon Blanc (our “house” white), we agree that the Patianna winds up sour and unbalanced.
Chapoutier Cotes du Rhone Belleruche ’04 – $16.99 (€5.09 winemaker’s list)
80% Grenache, 20% Syrah
Straight out of the bottle and then in the glass, there’s a whiff of caramel nose, which doesn’t last, followed by a faint cherry nose and not much else, even when fully (over)warmed. Clear, medium-ruby colored. A lot of mineral tang at first, and though the wine eventually opened up, it never went far enough for us to really enjoy. Better with food than alone, not surprisingly. Fairly astringent for a 2-year-old wine. Thin, not a lot of complexity — it tastes like dried cherries and not a lot else. Trés French and not unpleasant, but seems over-simple and uninteresting compared to our usual array of $8-12 Cotes du Rhone options. Cameron would buy it again for something uncomplicated to drink in the summer…if we could get it for five Euros. Anita would use her seven bucks to try something else.
other blogs, shopping, wine & bubbly
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Posted by Anita on 01.16.07 11:39 PM
Not much of a story: We bought two baby fennel bulbs at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market this weekend, with no definite plan for what to do with them. I decided a nice shaved-fennel salad would be a good, crisp foil for the cheesy softness of tonight’s main course: the Baked Manicotti [* link removed] recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. (I give it a B-minus, not that you asked.)
Cruising the aisles of Bristol Farms, I picked up a beautiful pear and a container of mild bleu cheese crumbles. When I got home, I sliced the pear and fennel as thin as I could — which was pretty thin, since we’d just gotten our big knife back from Critical Edge — tossed them with some Alejandro & Martin “fruity and fragrant” olive oil, half as much champagne vinegar as oil, salt, cracked pepper, and those bleu cheese crumbles.
If I do say so mahself, it was one of the best salads of the year. (OK, so the year’s only 16 days old… it was still good enough that I wanted seconds.) We’re eating pretty well down here in the basement!
Fennel-Pear-Bleu Salad
2 baby fennel bulbs, or 1 smallish regular fennel bulb
1 ripe, fragrant pear
2 tsp. fruity olive oil
1 tsp. Champagne vinegar or other mild-flavored vinegar
1/4 to 1/2 cup mild bleu cheese crumbles
salt and fresh-ground pepper to taste
Remove the fennel tops, and slice the bulb thin, on the bias. Halve the pear, remove the core, then halve again and slice thin. Toss the fennel, pear slices, and half of the cheese with the olive oil and vinegar, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper. Plate up, and garnish with the remaining cheese.
Serves 2
—
* Edited to add: We removed the link to the Cook’s Illustrated manicotti recipe in July 2008 in protest of their bullying tactics.
farmers markets, recipes
1 Comment »
Posted by Anita on 01.15.07 9:25 PM
Mmmm, football-watching Prather Ranch chili dogs…
And we also have a WINNER. In fact, we have a couple hundred. But for those of you sitting on the edge of your seat, wondering whether you’ll be the lucky one getting a care package from us this week, you might want to cast an envious glance in the direction of the appropriately named “Award” — he or she is the winning bidder who will be taking the Armchair Tour of the Bay Area from this year’s Menu For Hope raffle.
Thanks again to everyone who bid and supported this amazing event. Be sure to visit Chez Pim for the complete list of winners.
other blogs
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Posted by Anita on 01.13.07 3:05 PM
This month’s Mixology Monday, hosted by the folks over at Imbibe Unfiltered, features Winter Warmers — a happy thing for those of us who happen to be living in unheated basements. Now, I realize that “warmers” refers to these drinks’ effect on the drinker’s internal comfort, rather than the temperature at which they’re served. But with the weather in Fog City threatening to dip into the 20s overnight, a double-dose of warmth seems wise.
I was looking for something that packed the twin punch of alcohol and heat, along the lines of an Irish Coffee. But unlike my better half, I am not much of a coffee drinker. I love the taste, but I can’t do caffeine… especially once the sun goes down. Mexican chocolate is one of my favorite warm drinks, so it seemed natural to fortify this brunchtime favorite with a nip of something strong.
Plenty of complementary liqueurs came to mind; we tried brandy, Cointreau, Kahlua, and even nocino. But in the end, tequila worked best. A tot of mezcal adds fire and a touch of funk, which keeps the drink from veering off into sickly-sweet territory. A dash of orange bitters rounds out the taste and keeps the tequila’s aroma in check. (In a pinch, Cointreau or another orange liqueur would do the same, but the drink needs no extra sweetness.)
The Spanish word chispa literally translates to “spark”, but it also has connotations of enthusiasm, liveliness, and — a ha! — small amounts of liquor. And in some parts of Latin America, chispada (lit. “sparked”) is a colloquial expression for “buzzed” or “tipsy”. More genteel than borracho (“drunk”), it’s something you might say about your grandma after she’d gotten uncharacteristically alegre at a family gathering. In other words, you’ve imbibed just enough alcohol to warm your toes, but not enough to slur your speech.
If you don’t want to buy Mexican chocolate tablets just for this recipe, feel free to make your own, or simply add cinnamon (preferably canela) to your usual hot cocoa mix or recipe. The texture won’t be the same, but the flavors will still sing.
La Chispa
Mexican chocolate, such as Ibarra or Abuelita
1 cup milk
1 to 1.5 oz. medium-quality tequila, to taste
2 dashes orange bitters (or a dash of Cointreau)
whipped cream, perferably unsweetened
Prepare the Mexican chocolate according to package directions — typically 8 oz. hot milk blended with 2 wedges of chocolate tablets. In a mug or an Irish coffee glass, combine the tequila, bitters and the hot chocolate, and stir gently to combine. Top with a dollop of whipped cream, and dust with cinnamon or chile powder.
Drink of the Week, drinks, Mixology Monday, other blogs, recipes
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Posted by Anita on 01.12.07 8:29 AM
A lot of folks are visiting from Ilva’s Show Us Your Kitchens roundup, so I thought I’d post an update of where we stand on the kitchen remodel.
Demolition is entirely done, all of the new framing is complete, and I’d guess the plumbing is about 2/3 finished. We have new waste and vent pipes in all the right places; now we just need supply lines for both water and gas. Electrical work was also due to happen this week, but seems to have not gotten off the ground yet.
The most exciting day so far was Wednesday, when we came home from work to find our new wall! Now, I realize that to most of you, the idea of making a kitchen smaller must seem rather odd, but the rear of our house desperately needed a hallway. The door from the living room opened into the kitchen, as did the master (which is to say, only) bedroom. All four rooms of the house — living, dining, kitchen, and bedroom — were all roughly the same size. In fact the kitchen was the largest quadrant, because it didn’t have closets or a fireplace eating up space. By sacrificing ~40 square feet of space, we’ve made the kitchen more cozy, gained a little separation between cooking and sleeping spaces, and improved the flow of the house significantly.
That’s probably more theory than you wanted to know. If you want to see the execution, I’ve put up a mini-tour of progress so far, over on Flickr.
Oh, and the combat kitchen? It’s going quite well. We even made our mac-and-cheese-off entry in our new toaster oven. We aren’t fixing anything glamorous, but we’re eating pretty well. Cooking’s not the hard part, no harder than camping or dorm cooking. No, the real bitch of it all is the cleanup. We’ve gone almost exclusively to (compostable) paper plates, but the prep utensils and pans are really murder to wash. This week, we’ve been eating out a lot due to evening plans that kept us out and about. I think we’ll try to do some cooking ahead this weekend, for next week. Planning is key — no more whipping something up that sounds tasty at the spur of the moment.
ps: The next installment of Drink of the Week will happen over the weekend.
kitchen
5 Comments »
Posted by Cameron on 01.11.07 9:05 AM
While picking our way through the tattered wreckage of our kitchen late last week, Anita pointed out an empty plastic wrapper of Sour Punch Straws and said, “One of the guys has a sweet tooth.”
I wondered if it had been left behind by one of the contractor’s children, as I’d seen them at the job site a couple of times. But Anita was sure, and I think that she was right. It had the definite feel of worker debris.
At first I thought that they were a modern take on Pixy Stix–paper straws filled with a mixture of powdered citric acid and sugar. Kind of like crystal meth for kids in fun flavors: rots your teeth and makes you crazy. Turns out they’re more like gummy worms/licorice with sour powder on the outside.
The idea of pouring a pile of powdered sugar in my mouth is about as appealing as eating sand, but I’m no candy snob. When I have a sweet tooth and the only option is the drugstore rack, I can run down a tick-list of several well-loved options.
First up is Payday, that happy combination of nuts and aereated caramel. If I want chocolate, I’ll grab a Milky Way, although that’s lost some of its appeal in recent years. I can also be seduced by Starburst or Skittles. I used to be a complete slut for York Peppermint Patties (are they still running those goofy commercials?). I’d nibble all the chocolate off so that I could get a few bites of the unadulterated minty filling.
Thanks to Mike’s Candy Wrappers for the graphical raw material.
dessert
4 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 01.05.07 3:37 PM
Ruth, Joe and Jeremy Hoffman
Hoffman Game Birds
Manteca, CA
January 5, 2007
Dear Hoffman clan,
I’m having a hard time putting into words how sad I am to read in the CUESA Newsletter that I will no longer be able to buy your birds on Saturdays at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Your beautiful chickens have become one of our weekly staples, and we’d even started coming to the market earlier so as to avoid being disappointed by your “sold out” signs.
I hope you’ll consider teaming up with a retail outlet in San Francisco; I don’t know how often we’ll be able get to Berkeley to visit Magnani’s Poultry, but the thought of going without your birds is too much to contemplate.
I’m sure I’m not alone in my love of your poultry, but I also couldn’t let the opportunity pass to let you know how much we appreciated what you’re doing. I hope the attached post, about your chickens, sums it up adequately.
Sincerely, and sadly,
~ Anita
farmers markets, other stuff, shopping
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