Writing For Salmon, Or Vice Versa

I just realized I haven't written a food blog for a month.  More than a month.  That is shocking. 

It isn't that I stopped eating or cooking; I was just so busy with work and poetry and fiction and wedding planning that I wasn't doing anything particularly complicated or noteworthy from an amateur food lover's perspective.  That changed with the arrival of salmon from Local Catch Monterey Bay.  Salmon season has brought not just an influx of dolphins and whales to Monterey Bay, but also fresh inspiration for my blog!

Our last two Local Catch deliveries were fresh chinook salmon fillets.  My big discovery has been the secret to salmon's popularity.  It has so much natural flavor that you don't need to do much to it.  It will still be delicious.  I appreciate this even more now in light of my previous efforts to infuse fish with flavor.

In both cases, I cooked the fish on the stove-top, using a grill plate that is placed over two burners.

Salmon on the grill

The first stab at salmon, I paired it with couscous, one of those ever-reliable five minute instant couscous boxes from the local virtuously organic grocery store.  The fish looked fantastic, and it browned up nicely, even if the second picture posted here makes it look oddly like the See-Threepio of salmon.

Parsley and lemon, with salt and pepper during the cooking, were really all the additions I made to this, with just a few bits of garlic added to the olive oil in which I cooked the fish.

 So it looked great.  Unfortunately, it didn't really cook all the way through the first time, so we had to put it back on the grill for a bit longer, which ruined the effect.  It tasted great, of course.

See-Threepio hides behind couscous

 The second time, conversely, I cooked it long enough that it was done all the way through, but I might have cooked it too long, or I tested it too frequently with the knife and fork, because the salmon kind of fell apart.  I cut the fillets in half and cooked them hot, trying to get the skin to just crisp up a bit, but it still fell off this fish.  Next time I'll use a spatula instead of knife, or maybe not cook it as long.  Thoughts?  How do you keep salmon fillets intact and still ensure they cook all the way through?

This second time of asking, we paired the salmon with corn on the cob from Trader Joe's, and a Not This Pink wine from Bonny Doon.  As you can see, the plated fish was more a pile o' fish than a fillet at that point, but it was still delicious.  Overall, it was successful, and we felt smugly healthy as we ate vegetables and protein at the same time.  Can't wait for the next fish challenge!

Back To The City; or, Heading To Margaritaville

It had been months--literally--since I had been to San Francisco prior to Saturday. Ever since the move to Santa Cruz last October, I put out roots like a particularly sedentary house plant and stayed put.

A meal at Tres--formerly known as Tres Agaves--was a great way to go back, especially because Marina and I met up with Emily and Vaughn.

St. Patrick's Day--and a rainy, chilly St. Patrick's Day at that--spent at AT & T Park watching two soccer games amidst raucous fans of Mexico left me hungry. We wanted a place close to the park so we could have an easy walk back to the Cal Train Station at 4th and King. We also wanted a place where we could make reservations, because, well, it was St. Patrick's Day, and judging by the number of people riding the train that morning who were fully outfitted with cases of beers, it was going to be a busy Saturday night.

Tres fit the bill, especially because we could make a reservation en route via an Open Table app on Marina's iPhone, obviating the need for any extraneous human contact. I remembered Tres from the Tres Agaves days, when Jeff and I went there for drinks one night. They are famous for their tequila, and by extension, their margaritas.

They did not disappoint. A pitcher of house margaritas was elegantly divided up by our server into four glasses, two salted, two un-salted. It was elegant in how they were ordered: Marina--no salt; me--salt; Vaughn--no salt; Emily--salt. Alternating not just in salt-no salt terms, but also by boy-girl. How civilized is that on our part?

The margaritas were good, the tortilla chips, salsa and guacamole were excellent and warm, and the shrimp tacos I had were perfect. We were also impressed by the service. Not only was everyone friendly, professional yet relaxed, but they were also magicians. The table we sat at was quite wobbly, and one of the busboys came over with a napkin--a napkin, a tell you--and fixed the issue after a moment's study of the table. Marina or Emily called him the Table Whisperer.

The point of my blog is: go to Tres. You will be very impressed before you can count to three.

So That's How They Do It!

I have just discovered marination. Wow. My fish-life just got a lot more flavorful.

Last week, Local Catch Monterey Bay provided black cod, and I decided to try something other than frying it in garlic and butter. I decided to bake it, and like Robert Frost, I found that that has made all the difference.

I chose the following recipe from the Local Catch website:

Baked or Grilled Black Cod Teriyaki

Quantities are for 2 black cod steaks or fillets.

2 black cod steaks or fillets
2 teaspoons melted butter
1/2 cup teriyaki marinade
2+ cloves minced garlic
black pepper

1 Mix together the melted butter, marinade, garlic, and a few dashes of pepper. Pour the mixture over black cod steaks in a shallow glass dish, and let marinate for at least 20 minutes.
2 Bake at 350 in a casserole or baking dish in the marinade for about 20-30 minutes or until fish flakes easily.
OR
Grill on a stovetop grill pan or BBQ grill, turning carefully once, until fish flakes easily, about 15 to 20 minutes, brushing occasionally with marinade.
3 Serve with rice, with the juices (if you baked) poured on top.

I had to look up marinating, because I wasn't sure what all I had to do. Apparently, not much, which is fantastic, given the results. At the store, I didn't see any plain teriyaki marinade, so I chose a sesame seed teriyaki marinade, and I'm quite pleased with the results. (I also looked up cloves, just to make sure I was right and wasn't going to use too much or too little garlic. Scratch that; there is no such thing as too much garlic, only too little.)

Here are photos of the fish and the marinade before and after baking:






I now love baking fish. All I had to do was prepare it, marinate it, and stick it in the oven, and then serve it up with a packet of Trader Joe's Rice Medley.







From the first bite, I was extremely happy. It was sweet and flavorful, with the marination having done the trick. I paired it with a 2009 Le Cigare Blanc from Bonny Doon, and that was very successful.

In other words, hurray for baking!

Fishing For Perfection

My quest for the perfectly-prepared fish continues. Monday night, I prepared chilipepper rockfish from Local Catch Monterey Bay. Or at least I think it was chilipepper rockfish. The bags aren't actually labeled, and when you get fillets, you can't compare them to a picture of a whole fish. The weekly email from Local Catch said 90% of the fish being distributed was chilipepper rockfish, and damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a marine biologist*, so I'm playing the odds and saying that yes, I prepared chilipepper rockfish.



Marina was out of town, so I didn't attempt any of the more complicated recipes on offer that required glazing or basting or any methods that required a mastery of French vocabulary. I decided to cook it on the stove with my usual mix of butter, a splash of oil, garlic, lemon juice, Old Bay, and salt and pepper, focusing on the advice I was given to cook it hot and fast. Lemon juice was key, because our backyard lemon tree is heavy with lemons at the moment.



So yes, the fish preparation was basic, but I did decide to add side dishes. Nothing complicated, just a bit of pre-mixed salad and some instant risotto, just to make a more complete meal.

There have been two challenges I have found so far since I've started cooking seafood on a regular basis: making it flavorful and preventing it from falling apart into mush. This dish was certainly more flavorful, with good texture, although it still fell apart a bit. The flavor could be a result of combining the fish and the risotto, as the risotto did add a sweet creaminess, but I think the proportions of garlic and lemon juice were better this time. As for the fish falling apart, I may have cooked it just a bit too long, although the structural integrity was still better than my last attempt with rockfish. This is key, because everyone knows that structural integrity is the first qualification that one looks for in a gourmet meal.



Overall, I would say this meal was a success. Tonight I'll be preparing black cod, and since I have the day off, I might actually investigate some more complicated recipes. Marina is still away, so now is the time to experiment with potential disasters, right?

*Also, damn it, Jim, I'm a blogger, not a doctor, so don't come to me for free medical advice.

A Hat Trick Of Stylish Dining

It's been a while since I've offered thoughts on a dining-out experience. Hopefully you will find it was worth the wait, as I have scored a hat trick, in that the last three restaurants I've dined at have been extraordinary experiences.

Restaurant 1833

Ever since I read a review in the Chronicle of Monterey's Restaurant 1833, I felt compelled to go there. The description of American comfort food, diverse cocktails, large oak trees and fire pits, all called to me like a siren.

For my birthday weekend, we headed to Monterey on Saturday the 11th, to see the Aquarium and scout out details for possible wedding venues. We stayed at the Casa Munras Hotel, which I remembered from childhood stays. The most convenient aspect of the hotel was the location: a scant two or three blocks from Restaurant 1833.

We had a reservation at 9 p.m. When we arrived, they were running a little late, and the place was overflowing with young folks. Apparently it is quite the hip scene. The hostess suggested we get a drink at the bar. We found two stools in an alcove at the end of the bar and perused an extensive cocktail list. The bar itself was luminescent, white marble, maybe? The room felt almost like a library, with a shelf at the opposite end of the room, up above the heads of all the happy drinkers, featuring an old-fashioned clock and lines of books.

There were three young men behind the bars, two of whom seemed to be busy with wiping glasses and looking detached or bored, not offering a greeting. But finally, the lead bartender came over, cheer and light, and we ordered. I selected a Kentucky Waffle, featuring bourbon and lemon-maple syrup, cider, and cinnamon. Before the drinks were delivered, though, our table was ready.

This table was a standout. Marina sat on a comfortable bench against the wall and I took the heavy-duty beige easy chair, with tufted buttons. Our cocktails arrived soon thereafter, and were as good as advertised.

For an appetizer, we tried the biscuits, which the Yelp reviews had touted, and they are truly essential if you go, light and fluffy and flavorful.

For the entree, after ascertaining that the fish was line-caught and therefore sustainable, I ordered the Potato Crusted Snapper. Per the recommendation of the waitress, I paired it with a chardonnay. The snapper was amazing, light and flavorful, and from my own attempts, I know that making fish flavorful is not an easy thing. The chardonnay was not particularly memorable, but overall, it was an outstanding meal.

It was a little crowded, overall, and leaving through the front courtyard, we came face to face with hordes of young people, which made me glad I'm no longer on the dating scene. Let's face it: young people can be kind of annoying when they are trying to impress members of the opposite sex.

Still, I loved going there, and the dessert, apple mille feulle or something like that, was delightful.

Aquarius

Considering how often Marina and I stayed at the Dream Inn on our weekends in Santa Cruz before we moved here, it's hard to believe that we never ate at Aquarius, the restaurant attached to the beachfront luxury hotel. Well, actually, Marina could easily believe it, because I was always so fascinated--enthralled even--by the concept of room service.

On Saturday the 18th, we strolled along West Cliff Drive at sunset for a 6 p.m. reservation in the oceanfront dining room. I loved it from the moment we walked in. The table was wooden, golden brown in the light, and spaced comfortably away from the other tables. The walls featured small, asymmetrically-arranged lamps that looked like swarms of jellyfish in red, blue, yellow and green, and the walls were floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the beach, the wharf and the pier.

I ordered the mint julip that I had enjoyed before via room service, and for dinner, I ordered fish and chips and an Anchor Steam. Before the entrees, we tried an appetizer of warm Brillat-Savarin cheese with bread and quince paste. I had never heard of such cheese before, and now I am angry with the world for not introducing me to this cheese earlier. Or I would be angry, if this meal, cheese and all, hadn't put me at peace with the world for at least six more months.

And then came the fish and chips.



I had been craving fish and chips, and I had been thinking about going to the Parish Pub during the week to come after our meal at Aquarius, when Marina would be out of town. After Aquarius, that was no longer necessary, because these were some of the best fish and chips I have had in some time, and Marina agreed. They were light and tasty, the batter crispy but not too oily. Just right. Nothing more needs to be said.


Hoffman's Bistro

The trend of restaurants--and in one case, a bar--projecting black and white movies silently on one wall has puzzled me. I saw it at Specchio and Foreign Cinema in San Francisco--and at Dalva's Bar. I didn't get the point. You don't know what is happening in the movie, unless you happen to have seen it before. If you haven't, all you know is that these vaguely European people are walking around, looking angsty and significant. It's like the restaurant was saying, "We're hip enough to show these classic movies, but way too sophisticated to have you actually watch them."

But now I get it.

Hoffman's Bistro in Santa Cruz features live jazz nightly, and this went surprisingly well with the showing of Casablanca on a front wall, even with no sound for the film. It added a certain je ne sais quoi to the atmosphere, and I liked it.

The food and drink was even better. For an appetizer, we chose the Trio--garlic hummus, tabouli style quinoa, and tomato couscous, served with flatbread. Best hummus I can remember, creamy and flavorful, and not overly salty as you can find with grocery store hummus. Marina agreed, saying it reminded her of the homemade hummus she had in Vienna, that was made by a Syrian doctor for all the roommates of the flat where he and Marina were staying.

The wine was outstanding; our server recommended a local Pinot Noir by Alfaro. We immediately decided to visit the winery in the near future. One odd detail was that the glasses were placed on the table empty, and we each got a small carafe with the actual wine. I saw this once before at 1833 with the chardonnay, and I was puzzled. I asked the server, who said it was a new concept to him as well, but that it was basically intended to ensure an equal pour for every glass, and also to allow people to sniff and sample the wine in small doses first.

For dinner, I was torn between the catch of the day and the Chicken & Waffles. I eventually went with the latter, which was southern fried chicken, golden waffles, spinach and a jus sauce. Outstanding. The chicken was delicious, melting in the mouth, and surprisingly good when paired with the waffle. I never would have pictured combining a waffle with spinach, fried chicken, and sauce, but it was delightful. Marina tells me this is a staple of southern cooking. Huzzah for southern cooking, is all I can say.

Breaking Oysters; or, Screwdrivers In The Kitchen

Last week, our Local Catch Monterey Bay share consisted of a big bag of oysters from Tomales Bay. I've had oysters before, with saltines and beer primarily, but I've never had to deal with the shell. Oyster-shucking sounds dramatic, and apparently you can get a specialized tool, but a screwdriver was also recommended.

I know, that surprised me too, but I do have a screwdriver, and I don't have an oyster-shucker. Before now, the only association I made in my mind between the kitchen and screwdrivers involved vodka and orange juice--those were some dangerous DIY projects, let me tell you, but also quite entertaining.

Marina was out of town, so I invited her sister and brother-in-law over. Marina's sister doesn't like oysters, but he was enthusiastic. We discussed the options for preparing the oysters. The first consensus we reached was that beer was a vital staple. Actually, that was probably always implied.

It was too dark to fire up the grill, so that left the options of baking them or eating them raw; neither of us felt brave enough to try them raw, although that would have given us an option for introducing vodka into the equation after all.

So baking it was. I washed off the oysters, checking to make sure none of the oysters were already open, which would be a sign of poor health and a reason to discard it. The oysters had rough, asymmetrical shells with two distinct halves, a cup and a flatter lid. They looked rather daunting to my inexperienced eye.



Once the oven reached the required temperature, I slid the baking sheets in. Before long, I was puzzled by a loud pop. Did the baking sheet explode? Was the house under assault? Fortunately, no. When I looked in the oven, I discovered the source of the sound was the oysters actually popping open, like magic!

It was quite impressive.



Not all of the oysters popped fully, and I wasn't quite sure how to wield the screwdriver. However, I soon found the knack; I would slip the tip of the flathead screwdriver in the seam that appeared between the shells, and they would actually part quite easily. The shells, after baking, felt a little more delicate, a little flakier.

I will say there was a bit of mental disconnect when comparing the pile of discarded shells with the much smaller pile of oyster meat, but no matter.



As the meat was small, we supplemented the meal with pasta. For the oysters, I made a sauce of garlic, melted butter, and lemon juice. I was worried I heated the sauce for too long, as it almost seared the garlic pieces, but it turned out deliciously. I also had bought a bottle of cocktail sauce, but I think the butter sauce was my favorite.

The oysters themselves were delicious, and the kitchen retained the seafood smell for hours, which made me happy. Marina's brother-in-law wants to try mussels next, so we may actually branch out into seafood experimentation beyond the Local Catch adventures. That would be wild, just like the ocean from which we get the seafood, so very appropriate.

Fish On The Run

We had great plans for our Local Catch Monterey Bay share this week, which consisted of rockfish, either vermilion or yellowtail, I'm not sure which--the fillets came in a plastic bag in an ice chest, and maybe I missed it, but I didn't really see a specific label. The fillets looked vaguely reddish as opposed to yellow, so we'll just say it was vermilion rockfish. Oh well.

In any case, we were going to cook it in a complicated fashion and serve with rice and a nice chardonnay that we got for free when Marina and her sister toured a winery recently as a potential wedding venue--who said that getting married didn't come with perks?

As it turned out, we served it as part of a scramble, by which I don't mean we mixed it in with eggs. Marina had been out of town on Tuesday, and I was working late Wednesday through Friday, so Saturday was our last option to eat the fish before Marina left town again, and we were having her family over for Thai food. We decided to saute the fish to share with Marina's sister and brother-in-law; Marina's mother had recently had an unfortunate fish encounter, so did not wish to partake.

Local Catch Monterey Bay provides great recipes; I had no time for recipes, as things happened rapidly, as they often do in our fast-paced, high-pressure, glamorous kitchen on Woodrow Avenue. As everyone savored spring rolls and beer, I squeezed two lemons freshly plucked from the backyard lemon tree, whacked at a clove of garlic until it was a collection of smaller bits of garlic, and tossed the garlic into a heated pan with olive oil, and then I tossed in the fillets. Well, I didn't so much toss as carefully place.



I poured half the lemon juice over the fish, added some salt, and let it fry for a few minutes. I wasn't sure how long to cook the fish, as I wanted to make sure that no one died on my (Seafood) Watch.

After a few minutes, I judged things were ready to flip, so I did.



I added the rest of the lemon juice, some more salt, and let it fry for a few more minutes. I was worried about overcooking, and I was worried about undercooking. In the end, I might have overcooked it a bit, as when I tested the fish to see if it was starting to flake, it kind of all dissolved into chunks.



Fortunately, even if it wasn't attractive, it still tasted okay, although not as flavorful as I would have liked. In retrospect, I should have sauteed the garlic a little longer, or added some more fennel or butter. Still, it wasn't bad for a last minute fish fry.

What secrets do you have for cooking fish and making it flavorful while retaining cohesion?

I've Got Crabs! In The Good Sense.*

*Or, this time the kitchen kind of did explode.

In the spirit of trying new things, I would say that sauteeing Dungeness Crab ranks right up there with the most complicated kitchen endeavors we've attempted so far. It also makes a nice counterpoint to the cookie-baking experiment earlier this week. With cookies, I was actually constructing something from an assembly of ingredients, not just opening a package and cooking the contents. With the crabs, we were actively destroying something. There is a nice yin-yang parallel there somewhere.

Not that there wasn't drama a-plenty, and not just because I was afraid those claws were going to suddenly come alive and pinch me. My mom was allergic to crabs in her younger days, which meant there was a good chance that I would kick the (crab) bucket. But I like to live dangerously, so I was ready to try it.

We recently subscribed to Local Catch Monterey Bay, which for those of you familiar with community-supported agriculture, is just like that but for seafood. This week, our share consisted of a bag of four small Dungeness Crab, freshly caught in the bay.

We had considered whether we should research and invest in heavy-duty implements, but in the end, we just kind of went for it, following a recipe provided by LCMB for sauteeing the crab in a wine, garlic, and butter sauce.

The kitchen, as you can see, was a whirl of activity.



The recipe called to heat a cup and a half of wine, to boil off the alcohol, which seems counter-productive to me, but who am I to judge? Into the wine went the chopped garlic, the butter, lemon juice and Old Bay seasoning, and then the crabs, which were split and cleaned and cooked for us ahead of time; we just had to heat them.




Doesn't that look both amazing and scary at the same time? I've never before cooked a meal while being concerned that the food was going to crawl out of the pan and come after me.

We realized belatedly that we should have tried to further crack open the crab legs before putting them in the pan, as the recipe said this would allow the sauce to mix more with the meat. Using tongs, we extracted some of the bigger legs and twisted and cracked them and put them back in.

It didn't take long, really; in the end we moved them to the nice new bowl we got recently. It just seemed like the sort of classy meal that demanded new dishware.



Yes, the blurry part of the photo is indeed steam rising straight up towards me and the camera.

After that, things got a little less classy and a little more messy, as Marina handed me a mallet, and the phrase "Hallett With A Mallet" became legendary once more for evoking destruction and chaos. When you whack a bit of crab, it fractures the shell like an egg, and shell-fragments and juices go flying. It was kind of fun. I had intended to take photos, but I got caught up in the thrill of smashing things.

Apparently I am a boy.

And oh my goodness, was it worth it. Once we could access the crab meat, it was amazing. Tender and sweet and more flavorful than most fish I've had. Marina's favorite parts were the claws, but I enjoyed how the bodies split apart and kind of blossomed outwards into a crab-meat flower. We had Bonny Doon's 2009 Albarino and baked potato wedges to go with the crab, and it was one of the simplest, tastiest, messiest, and most satisfying meals I've had for some time.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I have not yet died of crab allergies, so that is also a plus.

Help! Help! The Kitchen Is Exploding!*

*Note: this was one possible consequence of my attempting to bake cookies, but the kitchen did not, in fact, explode.

There are days when Marina goes off to work and I stay at home, due in part to unsynchronized weekends, and also to the fact that Marina has to work in San Francisco some days, while I am a full time telecommuter. In light of this work situation, and in a clever inversion of the '50s paradigm of the American household, I decided I would bake chocolate chip cookies to be waiting for her on her return home.

Am I a hero for inverting social role stereotypes? Some might say so. Some might say so indeed, especially since I didn't burn down the house, not even after two bourbons-on-the-rocks which accompanied the baking. (Is that the proper pluralization? If not, why not?)

Did you know there are a lot of ingredients that go into making cookies? I was lucky enough to buy just enough butter, when I bought two sticks at Safeway today. As it was, we'll need to buy more butter prior to tomorrow night's adventure in Dungeness Crab.

It all started two nights ago, around 10 p.m., when I asked Marina if I could get her anything. She kindly said I could make her some chocolate chip cookies. I hesitated, because what I had in mind was more on the lines of a glass of milk or a cocktail. But hey, I'm a romantic, so I figured I would give it a shot--"Uh oh, we don't have vanilla extract!"

I know, I know, that's what guys always say, but in this case, it was true. We really were out of vanilla extract.

So I made Marina a deal. We put off the cookie-making until today, when I was off of work and she would be coming back to Santa Cruz after working in the city.

I intended to bake in the morning, but one thing led to another, and it was four o'clock before I sat down to take stock of the process. That's when I realized we didn't have cooling racks. I know some people--Marina and my mom, for instance--said that I could use wax paper to let the cookies cool, but the recipe was precise in saying that you transfer the cooling cookies from the baking sheet to a wire cooling rack. It's called a recipe, not a suggestion.

So I had to make a hurried dash to the store to pick up a cooling rack or two, after a morning excursion to buy salt, butter, vanilla extract, and, of course, bourbon.

When I set forth, I have to say that it looked like chaos waiting to be unleashed upon the world, or at least upon Woodrow Avenue.



There would have to be method to prevent madness, and also to preserve our limited counter space. As I added the flour, baking soda, and salt to one small bowl, and the softened butter--butter can be softened in the microwave, FYI--white sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla extract to a mixing bowl, I clipped shut each bag and moved it back to the proper location. Who knew that organizing a kitchen could pay off?

It was a daunting prospect, so first I followed the recipe for a needed element of the cookie-baking process:

1) put a big ice-cube in a tumbler;
2) drown the ice-cube with bourbon;
3) sip the bourbon while figuring out how to bake stuff.

At first, things looked, well, gloppy, like a bowl full of ingredients.





But then, food began to take shape. Adding eggs and beating the mix with a whisk made things begin to stir and change--I belatedly thought of trying to figure out Marina's fancy electric hand-mixer, but that would be like Hannibal invading Rome with electric flying elephants: far too easy, and lacking in character-building.

I would soon learn that the worst enemy of mankind, far beyond pestilence, greed, and mankind itself, is flour when you want to mix it with something else. Good grief. At least I gave my arms a proper workout, but flour really makes you work for it. Now I know why everyone likes just buying cookies at the store.

But I persisted, and eventually I was able to stir in chocolate chips, and the mix looked like a bowl full of Impressionist art.



After that, it was simply a matter of spooning it on to baking sheets and sliding them in the oven, setting a timer, and then pulling them out to cool.

When I say "simply", of course, I mean after figuring out how to use another spoon to get the stupid cookie mix out of the tablespoon and on to the baking sheet in some coherent pile.

In the end, everything came out amazingly well. I'm not saying I'm ready to take over the baking of a wedding cake, but I'm really quite happy with the results, as odd-shaped and globbed-together as they could be.





And the timing couldn't have been more perfect. Marina got home just as I put the last batch on the cooling racks, so she entered to a house that smelled like cookies. That's just awesome.

I don't know quite why I'm so tickled about this, but I think there is a special satisfaction in baking something, because you are combining ingredients from scratch, which is much different than frying chicken on a stove, because you aren't really changing the basic components that much when frying chicken. When you bake cookies, you are actually converting a lot of different elements into a radically different product.

That's probably why I'm so crazy about these cookies.



As a corollary, I've decided that the phrase "You can't have your cake and eat it too" is absurd. You can always bake more cake.

Clearly, I'm giddy on power. Maybe I shouldn't be allowed to do more baking.

Or maybe that's just the bourbon talking.

My Most Fearsome Cooking Challenge Yet

On Tuesday, January 10th, I faced my sternest kitchen challenge to date. No, it had nothing to do with trying new spices. Nor did it involve stuffing one ingredient inside another ingredient. Nor did it involve trying to pronounce anything in French.

It involved cooking for the toughest audience possible.

Before I reveal the secret identity of the choosy critic, first I will present a new cocktail that I have learned to make, after browsing my Mixology app on the iPhone and surveying the liquor components we purchased at Shopper's Corner. Marina wanted something with gin, and I found a cocktail called the Water Lily. How could you possibly go wrong with a name like the Water Lily?

The recipe calls for 3/4 oz Gin, 3/4 oz of Creme de Violette, 3/4 oz Cointreau, and 3/4 oz lemon juice, all to be shaken with ice and strained into a chilled cocktail glass. The glass was chilled by placing a large ice cube in it while preparing the drink, and for the lemon juice, I squeezed half of a fresh lemon. Our backyard features lemon and lime trees, as well as a fig tree. Weep with jealousy, or just flatter me enough to cadge an invitation, your choice.

The end product was slightly modified from the recipe. I substituted Grand Marnier for the Cointreau. Also, I accidentally left the ice cube in the glass after pouring the drink. I learned how to make an orange twist, which surprisingly does not involve teaching fruit to dance to the musical stylings of Chubby Checker. In fact, you take a zester and peel a long, thin bit of the peel, which you then twist over the drink to release the flavor and juice. You then plop the peel in the drink.



It came out quite well, sweet and gentle with just a little kick.

Speaking of the need for cocktails, the super-secret challenging audience I referenced at the beginning was a three year old boy. Marina's mom, sister, and nephews came over for dinner on Tuesday night. As our pasta supply was a little diminished, it became an exercise in eclectic pasta-making, featuring half a box of penne, half a box of wagon-wheel pasta--not the official name, but I can't recall the official name at the moment--chicken-apple sausage and turkey meatballs, with a roasted garlic sauce. I had all four burners going at once, which was a step into a much busier kitchen for me.



Not remembering the nephew's previous reactions to tomato sauce, I served up, only to hear him immediately start to wail when looking into a bowl with pasta and sauce. I felt guilty; do I really want to be the sort of chef who makes small children cry?

But once we all started to eat, and the food did turn out well, as pasta and sausage tends to do, he seemed to reconsider, and his mom figured out that what he was objecting to was not the sauce or the pasta per se, but the lumps of tomato. Once those were extracted, he happily devoured all before him.

The lesson here is never fall for a child's tears when it comes to pasta.

How do you trick a small child into eating things that look weird? And after that battle, what gin-related cocktails do you prefer?