We all grew up on tuna fish sandwiches, whether we liked it or not. Sally pulls out her bag of carrots and a PB & J, Frankie his bologna with Kraft slices, and I pull out a soggy, fishy, tuna sandwich, and everyone stares. And holds their nose. But it turns out my mom was on the right track: James Beard famously said that tuna is the "only food better canned than fresh." He was entirely w...
It was a terrifying moment: The bottom of my pan was lined with raw pig skin, on top of which were alternating layers of beans, the meat from pig knuckles, duck confit, sausages, a paste made of blended onions and more boiled pig skin--and I was rapidly reaching the top rim. In fact, I'd already reached it. I still had a bowl of beans, not to mention 4 cups of gelatinous bean and pork water...
Ah, the avocado. I'm not sure where it can't be used--sandwiches, tacos, burritos, soups, or salads. The last, particularly, has been of interest lately, as it adds some healthy heftiness (is that a real thing?) to any otherwise wimpy salad. But not content to merely place it in my salads, I wondered what it might be like on it.
But I was worried it might go too far. When it comes...
Honestly, there's a real need for these signs. When we were venturing around the mercado square in San Antonio, a land of slightly schlocky and catchpenny Mexican crafts, every third vendor warned against this practice, where gringo , giggling tourists pretended to experience Mexican culture by putting on outrageous hats and saying " Arriba, Arriba " like Speedy Gonzalez. How to a...
I (Blake) turned 24 yesterday and, in celebration, my girlfriend thought up and orchestrated a gorgeous meal of French provincial food. From the surf to the turf, we ate, drank, and otherwise acted like shameless hedonists. Since I'm groggy and barely awake this morning, and don't much feel like working very hard, I'll just put up some pictures and perhaps post the recipes some other time...
Rice, beans, pasta. These are the ways we make sure we haven't incidentally fallen into the Calorie Restriction Diet . They keep us looking flush and healthy and let us concentrate our attention on careful preparation of everything else on the plate. Just about every recipe we've cooked has one of these ingredients incorporated so that we don't leave the table hungry.
Yet I've never...
First off, a language lesson: refried beans are not fried twice. It's understandable that most people, myself included until I started writing this, assume a literal translation of the word "refried" and, employing razor-sharp detective skills, deduce that the beans are fried, let rest, and then fried again. But the word refried is actually an approximation of the Spanish word refrito , me...
Lately I’ve been going to restaurants and leaving with ideas for what to cook at home. A previous post , a salad of roasted squash and dandelion greens, was inspired by the restaurant 360 , an unpretentious little spot where you can eat for $25 and the wine list, which emphasises organic, is very reasonable. My version of the squash salad wasn’t nearly as good--I didn’t have the...
After four days of intense bonding with my 10 pound ham , the meat stopped magically improving in the fridge, and started instead to develop what could best be described as a funk. Not necessarily revolting, and I'm sure perfectly edible, the smell was offending enough. And with something less than a pound left, I didn't feel too bad chucking the slimy, sour-smelling flesh into the...