from the rooter to the tooter
Morita, ancho, pasilla, guajillo, de arbol, cascabel, mulato — and probably a few others I can’t remember — gathered at a fruit market in Playa del Carmen, dried in an oven in Washington Heights, pulverized in a spice grinder. One of the most wonderful kitchen smells there is.
One thing we’ve been doing a lot more of lately is cooking from books and recipes from various trusted websites. I generally turn to these sources for inspiration and then go off on my own riff — not as much for baked goods, since I have less experience and confidence there — but I’ve been benefitting greatly from following more closely the printed instructions. Or have at least been introducing somewhat more variety to our table.
If it’s not the the slowness of film that delays me, it’s the ill-fitting replacement power adapter I got for the scanner or the outmoded dust-cleaner-upper software. But I’m still here, and I’ve been doing a lot of cooking. Let’s start with November.
Moro blood oranges, kaffir limes, cocktail grapefruits… At this stage, the best plan is to simply make one big fruit salad and be done.
This turned out really well. Soaked in water until it ballooned to about 10 times its dried size, then sauteed with pork in a nice sauce that was on the package of hijiki: dashi, mirin, soy sauce, and sugar.
Some days I feel more motivated.
Other days, we have stuff on toast.
I might just prefer sliced hard-boiled eggs paved on mayonnaise over egg salad. Sometimes the parts are greater than the sum.
And I don’t know if it’s because the tomatoes were not as good this year, but I might even prefer the hard-boiled egg sandwich to the tomato sandwich.
Colder days are nearly upon us.
That’s right. I’m done. Over the last four months, as a tribute and adventure, I made all 25 of Mark Bittman’s favorites from The Minimalist. I did them mostly in batches of two or three when time allowed. This was not by any means a Julie Powell-scale endeavor. If anything, it gave me more appreciation for the breadth of Powell’s accomplishment.
Pear, Gorgonzola, and Mesclun Salad
We’ll start at the end. Tonight I made the final dish. Pear, Gorgonzola, and Mesclun Salad. This salad is to the 90s what the Caesar was to the 20s. Who knows how many times I’ve eaten this (plus or minus the toasted walnuts). But it definitely stands the test of time.
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