Fried Okra

I really like southern food. I am not that great at making it though. I am a little hesitant to use all of the fat and salt that makes it so great. When I used to drive around the country on a regular basis, I used travel as an excuse to eat the things that were specific to the region and really, really bad for me. In the south of the USA, gas stations were my favorite snack place because of the readily available sweet tea and deep fried okra.

Okra is one of those foods that turns people off. I think it was my dad that said, "thats been eaten before." It is slimy and viscous. When you make it the right way, the natural okra mucus (so so gross of a description, but so accurate) doesn't have a chance to form and ruin your dish. The key is to make it work for you. I used it as the binder to keep the coating on the okra. I chopped the pods into bite sized pieces and poured a tablespoon of cream on them. I let them sit in my fridge for an hour or so and stirred them every 15 min. The cream and the slime mixed together and coated the okra. The seasoned flour and cornmeal stuck to the binder very well. I pan fried them in olive oil and had to flip every single one. I let them sit on a paper towel to drain off the excess grease and sprinkled a bunch of salt on them. Crunchy, tasty and great. So bad for me, yet so so delicious.

The Garden (Chapter 2)

After C worked herself to the point of complete exhaustion and moved all (most) of the dirt into the beds, we spent a Saturday planting the plants and sowing the seeds. I think that it is one of the best gardens I have ever seen and it has been really fun and exciting to spent time out there on the weekends. This weekend will be spent cleaning up the paths and weeding the rest of the yard that has been a little neglected. I don't have very much time...what can I say. The above photo shows globe artichoke, tomatillo, edamame, corn and a patch of brocolli seeds.
This is where we planted our lettuces, arugala, and brussel sprouts all intersperced with radishes.

This is the climbing bed filled with purple hyacinth beans, scarlet runner beans, climbing sqash and rosemary.
This is the view from my bedroom window.
The plan is to put a table and chairs in between the triangle beds. Once we get the paths done and the plants start to take over, this is going to be where I eat all of my meals.

The fruit season's first cobbler attempt.

I love cobbler. Fruit that is baked with sugar...I mean who doesn't love that. Add a cakey topping and serve it warm out of the oven, everyone will swoon. We swooned over this one and I have to admit that it was just okay. I didn't have a recipe which usually works out fine, but I forget that baking is a little more scientific than cooking. It was my first one though. I'll get it next time. This cobbler consisted of white peaches, blueberries and strawberries with a lavender and lemon zest topping. I like more of a biscuit topping than a cake topping and next time if I use lavender, I will use only peaches as the fruit filling and not muddle in too many flavors. And...it was vegan, so there was no butter, only margarine. That is something that I have to play around with since all of my friends are vegan. If I want them to eat my food, I have to make adjustments (sometimes).

The Garden (Chapter One)

I live in a compound. A large fenced in area with a big house in front and a small house (mine) in back. C, one of the big house owners, decided that she wanted a big garden to grow all of our food. There is a big area of land behind my cottage and it was just the right size to feed all of us.
C did most of the work since she is on break from grad school and I have to work all day long. She convinced me that buying the plants would make us work faster, so we bought a bunch of heirloom vegetables at the farmer's market. That, my friends, was the easy part. Next came a week of math. C measured and did a lot of math on construction paper to get the amount of wood and dirt that we would need. After a very exciting Saturday at hardware stores, we were able to start.
We set out all of the wood and all of that colorful math worked its magic. We bought the right amount! We screwed a bunch of them together and cleared as much room as we could before we were too tired and had somewhere else to be.
Later in the week, J and C put the rest of the beds together and C moved 6 cubic yards of dirt by herself. She worked for 12 hours one day and was exausted. This was just the beginning!

Serious (breakfast?) Pie

I went to Serious Pie with my cousin. He is my favorite dining partner these days. He is just as into food as I am, if not more. Ok, more...he goes to Italy for truffle dinners. This isn't a review since we all know that Tom Douglas is a bad ass and he only hires bad ass servers, this is just a rant on how awesome my pizza was.

Arugala, guanaciale and fontina cheese topped with soft cooked egg. A true breakfast pie. The flavors complimented eachother very well and the guanaciale added a light element of salt. Top the whole thing off with the creamy yolk...I loved it. I want it now actually.

Usually the term "breakfast pie" has referred to the left over White Chocolate Coconut Cream Pie from the Dahlia bakery that my family can't finish after stuffing ourselves at the Palace Kitchen. Douglas has now earned full rights to the term in my book.

Charcuterie: Attempt #1

There is one food category that I constantly crave and never get sick of....cured meats. Smoky bacon, spicy coppa and light as a feather bresaola are a few of my favorites, but I am by no means dismissing the rest of them. Charcuterie is an art form that I admire above most. People will literally eat slices of white pork fat when it is cured and titled "lardo". My co-worker and I have thoroughly discussed our love for meat on a regular basis and when she showed up to the office carrying her duck breast prociutto for us to taste, I decided that it was time to get into curing and flavoring our own meats.

We went to the farmer's market and picked out our one of our favorites, pork belly. Later in the week during pre-hot pot dinner time, we decided to forgo the bacon route because of the lack of a smoker and make pancetta. Going through the available spices in N's cabinet, we chose a blend of berbere, schezuan peppercorns and black peppercorns and mixed them in a mortar and pestle. After coating the patted dry meat in a freshly ground garlic paste, we patted on the spice mixture and a lot of kosher salt. The belly sat in the fridge for 7 days where I believe a little more salt was added to ensure curing.

After a week was up, N brought the belly to work wrapped in cheesecloth and we hung it in our office supply storage room for 2 weeks. When it was done, we took it down and our executive chef sliced it in perfect baconesque slices. When he handed it to us, it was like Christmas/Hanukkah/birthday all rolled into one. We were beaming with pride; Our pork belly baby had just graduated to charcuterie status.

Some notes: Next time, more spices and less refriderated curing time for such a small peice of meat. Ours has a really light flavor and a little too much salt. Also, if it would have air cured for a few more days, I truly believe it could be eaten without being cooked. It was almost there.

Crush (My first official restaurant review)

Until I moved into my new house, I ate 95% of my meals out. I have explored hundreds of menus, tasted a lot of cocktails and allowed a thousand different bites to linger on my tongue to find the quintessential dining experience. I would never claim to be a food snob, but I do believe that everything has a time and place. When I am spending $1.99 on my Wendy's value meal, I know what to expect and I feel the same should go for $200 at a fancy dining establishment. I can't tell you how many times I have been disappointed by different restaurants. I think that loving to cook and having a certain level of skill in the kitchen makes this more difficult. I have a hard time justifying a $150 bill on something that I could have easily prepared in my own kitchen, but it won't stop me from trying.

Crush delivered. Our server was friendly and knowledgeable and she didn't bat an eye when I requested that the insanely large amount of food that we ordered come out in a very specific succession. After putting in our request, she came back out saying, "the chefs like how you think and here is a plate of gourgeres to get you started." Bringing more food that I didn't order is the key to my heart, especially when it is delicious. If these puffs of perfect pastry and cheese were a hint of things to come...this place was a good choice. Next was a taster size plate of the tiny beet salad with miner's lettuce, pear, blue cheese and caramelized walnuts. A classic combination done beautifully with red and golden beets.

A plate of seared rare scallops with rhubarb confit on top of a bed of spring onion risotto appeared right on time and was a highlight of the meal with everything cooked exactly the way I want it. Almost raw scallops with a crunch crust on one side and the risotto was so creamy and smooth, I wanted to keep the bite in my mouth as long as possible. This was followed by a plate of crispy fried sweetbreads (they held on to that sweetbread flavor nicely) with a so-so bourbon sauce that tasted like soy sauce. The dish tasted great, but couldn't compete with the preceding scallops. Then came the lobster tail. The menu had it listed in a coral sauce with mascarpone ravioli, tangerine and truffle oil and we had only ordered one....but there were 2 dishes served to us. The chefs had prepared us a special taste of lobster cooked in a curry sauce with carrot gnocchi, tangerine and fresh fava beans. Both dishes were exceptional with the curry dish standing out against its plainer counterpart. I am a stickler for a perfectly cooked gnocchi and these did me right. They held their shape and consistency even though we had begun to slow down and they sat in front of me a little longer than normal.

I was damn near full with another course to go and the house sent us out another surprise treat and my new favorite food of the month, olive oil and lemon sorbet. They paired the bite with an Australian Moscato d'Asti, a sweet sparkling white wine. The sorbet had a clean, sharp tang and a smooth creamy aftertaste brought on by the olive oil flavor that definitely stood out to me. There was a hint of sweet but it was savory enough to sit in my mouth tandem with the wine without over sugaring my tongue. I swear I am buying an ice cream maker. I want to eat a mountain of this sorbet. The foie gras steaks that came out next ( the premier reason for us trying this place) were tasty, but I wanted more sorbet. The brioche and huckleberry sauce was merely an obstacle standing between me and my goal. I ate the carmel-y liver, pushed everything else aside and called out for the dessert menu. The trio of sorbets: rhubarb pinot gris, cucumber mint and olive oil lemon finished the meal in the lightest and freshest of ways and I was satisfied, literally to the point of being sick.