Lighter Reading

I just finished reading The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz and loved it.  I highly recommend it.  He is a hoot.  It was laugh out loud funny while also being quite informative should you find yourself traveling to Paris anytime soon!

Books

Well I just finished reading We the Animals by Justin Torres.  This book was incredibly written but it was sad and dark.  I definitely recommend it for the prose alone, but now I think I need something lighter so I decided to finally pick-up The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz.  What could be lighter than reading about a bakery chef's journey to live and survive in Paris.  This has to be good.

Before We The Animals I had read Kim Severson's book Spoon Fed and loved it.  I can't thank Kim enough for writing a book that was so real and honest.  Sometimes you just need to read other people's truths to help you discover some of your own.  She's a great writer and full of inspiration.  I very much enjoy her style and I always enjoy learning more about food and cooking!

I will let you know how the baker makes out in Paris when I'm done, but I already know he's doing just fine because I follow him on twitter!

A Few Good Books

It is Sunday and I finally have a minute to update some book reviews.  This week I completed two books.  The first book, titled Breaking Bread, by Lynne Christy Anderson was a great book, especially if you enjoy reading about food. Ms Anderson is an adjunct professor at Boston College and she also teaches English as a second language.  In her earlier years, she had worked as a chef.  At some point she got the bright idea to interview her immigrant students about the foods of their country.  She asked them to teach her about a special recipe from their homeland.  So in addition to their stories about success in America and missing the country from whence they came, you also received a recipe from them.  I will not say much more than that, except that I highly recommend the book.

The other book I finished this week was actually a book on tape titled Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese.  This was actually a great book to listen to on tape.  The actor who did the reading was wonderful.  This is a story, simply put.  It is a story about 2 twin boys and begins with their birth and takes you through their lives, as narrated by one of them. I don't want to say too much other than I recommend the book-on-tape version.

The 4th of July 2011

Happy 4th of July to everyone. Today is actually the 4th, but we had our BBQ/4th of July party on Saturday. Most of the neighbors were present at some point of the day or evening, and, we even met some new neighbors from the 'hood! I didn't actually make a whole lot this weekend. We had some customary dishes like a salad of mixed greens. Jenny & Bob brought their slaw and Vicki made a potato salad. This was good because the week before I had made both coleslaw and potato salad for my mother's birthday party and I really didn't feel like doing it again. I decided to make my "Greek Salad" since it is now summer and I have had a hankering for it. I make mine with peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, sliced red onion, black olives, garlic (since I'm using the garlic raw, I leave them whole and cracked, so people can pick them out) olive oil, oregano, and salt & pepper. The oregano is actually from Turkey that was brought over by Joe's nephew's in-laws who visited us this year for Easter. They also brought ground cumin, red pepper, ginger and sumac. I actually used the cumin and red pepper in the black been recipe below. I love gifts like that! Anyway, back to the Greek salad - this is usually best after it sits for awhile. I usually add the tomatoes shortly before serving as well as some (or in my case a lot) of feta cheese. You get great "juice" with this salad so I will warn you now that you will need a loaf of great - and I mean great European style - bread for dipping.

In addition to the salads, we roasted some cauliflower and broccoli and made an asparagus dish prepared with pignoli nuts, leeks, prosciutto, and orange & lemon zest. Joe BBQ'd some chicken on the Weber Kettle, some baby lamb chops (lollipops) on the open wood grill and some ribs on the smoker. He also smoked up some squab he had in the freezer. I think everyone had enough.

As for trying new recipes this weekend, I didn't do much but I did discover a new way to make ice coffee. My problem in the past was always that after I added the leftover coffee from the morning to the ice in my glass, it became very diluted. And, after adding the milk it became even more diluted. But, you needed the hot coffee to dissolve the sugar I like to put in my ice coffee. Apparently, the way around these obstacles is to make espresso ice cubes and a simple syrup to keep in the fridge for such occasions. This is really good ice coffee.

I also tried a recipe Sunday morning for black bean pate that I had seen in the paper the week before. It was pretty good and something I think I will make again to put out prior to dinner. If you are interested in the recipe, go the NY Times and search for Black Bean Pate'. It is one of Martha Rose Shulman's Recipes for Health.

I almost forgot about the Blackberry Caipirinha's that I couldn't wait to try. Doesn't that sound wonderful. Anyway, I ran to the store last week to pick up a bottle of Cachaca to make them because when I saw the recipe on the food52 website, I knew I had to try them over the 4th. You simply muddle some blackberries - about 6-8 plump ones - with 2 wedges of lime and a teaspoon of sugar. Add ice and 2 ounces of cachaca. Sounds good, but I didn't care for them. They were a bit strong for my taste. However, if you add a little of that simple syrup you made for the ice coffee and some cold Pellegrino you have in the fridge, they're pretty good. So, now that I have all of these blackberries that I wasn't going to use, I had to put them in the food processor with a little sugar and lemon juice to make a syrup and keep in the fridge to add to my Prosecco, which I am having right now.

The only other thing that I really wanted to have this weekend was strawberry shortcake. When I went into town this morning, I was reminded that it was Monday and therefore the Schroon Lake Farmers Market, and, guess what - someone had fresh strawberries. I just finished making the biscuits (I used Marion Cunningham's cream biscuits) and tonight I will finally have my strawberry short cake.

In addition to a couple of new recipes that were tried and tested this weekend, I also just finished reading a great book titled: Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton. This memoir was fascinating because she has not lived the "normal" life, but what I really connected with is her desire for food prepared simple and fresh. She feels the same way about food that I do and that is that real food doesn't really need to be fussed with very much to taste good. She doesn't do "foam" on her food. I am also never going to feel uncomfortable about making dinner reservations for the 6:00pm time slot - which is when I really want to eat - not at 8:00pm - after reading her book. I have not yet eaten at her restaurant (Prune) but I am so encouraged that food being served in restaurants may be coming back to this way of thinking since she was the winner of the James Beard Foundation award for best NYC chef this year!!!!! Congratulations to Gabrielle. If you like food and, the story of how someone discovered their love of food and food preparation, you should pick-up this book. If nothing else, her life and her style of writing is great entertainment.

So that's it for my 4th of July weekend 2011. I hope yours was a good one and a healthy one spent relaxing and with people you enjoy. Until next time.....

First "BBQ" of the season

I realize Memorial Day weekend was a whole week ago. Why does it take a whole week to write about what you prepared and ate over the weekend? "What have I been doing all week?" you ask! I was doing "stuff" like I always do. And, unfortunately none of that stuff included a trip to the gym. It was a good thing I made it to yoga all four days over the long weekend. It was great - I felt like I was on a yoga retreat. A rainy yoga retreat but a retreat nonetheless.

Dead End Gene Pool

Well, I just finished listening to Dead End Gene Pool by Wendy Burden. (I enjoy listening to books on tape (CD) while in my car. It makes sitting at all of the lights on Route 9 so much more enjoyable.) This book was incredible. I am amazed that someone would want to put all of that in writing for the world to read. It reminded me of Angela's Ashes only this is about the uber wealthy. The book is a memoir and Wendy is a descendent of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Unbelievable. The rich are so different in so many ways, but I don't think they are happier! I am not sure why she wrote this book as she mocked her grandfather for writing his memoir in her (this) book. Anyway, if you're up for some trash and want to learn about how the rich love their alcohol, drugs and porn, pick up this book. Otherwise, stick to something more rewarding.

Biscuits & Locavores

I wasn't going to write anything this weekend because I didn't actually do much. I only tried one new recipe and it was a biscuit recipe. Which is really unusual because I do not make "stuff" like biscuits. However, I saw this recipe in a new cookbook I purchased by Heidi Swanson called Yogurt Biscuits and it sounded really good. They looked good in the picture too. I have been following Heidi on her blog: 101 cookbooks for years now and finally broke down and bought her cookbooks titled: Super Natural Every Day and Super Natural Cooking. All of her recipes are vegetarian, so these books are not for you meat lovers out there. I made the biscuits with Spelt flour and I highly recommend them. They are almost gone! (And I can't figure out why I keep putting on weight.)

The real reason I decided to post this weekend was because of an article I was reading in the new issue of Adirondack Explorer. They did a story about the local farms in the Adirondacks and how they are (or are not) getting their fruits, vegetables and meats to market. What I found really interesting was what the Keene Central School was doing.

Weekend with Eileen

I am still trying to work this whole “blog thing” into my life by writing about certain aspects of my life on a regular basis. I’m not sure why. I don’t know if anyone is going to be interested in reading about what I am doing, cooking or reading. My plan is to thematically limit my blog posts to stories about food, primarily at our home on beautiful Bullet Pond and maybe an occasional book review. Four years ago, Joe decided it was time to expand the kitchen. It started out as an 8 foot expansion, but because we were going to need to put in a foundation no matter how large the addition, we decided to make the addition large enough to accommodate a two car garage downstairs and a master bedroom and bath upstairs. The final plan ended up doubling the size of the house. The new kitchen with its 3 sinks and enough counter space to allow for catering of parties became the new family room. We spend all of our time in the kitchen and we spend a lot of time cooking or simply preparing food and meals there.