Chile powder

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.

Book learnin’

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.

Sometimes you can’t win

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.

First time for everything

Hot kitchen, lazy dinners

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.

Eggs Benedict at home

Yes. At home.

When it’s too hot to cook

I’ll still sweat it out over the stove to make the panade from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook. In fact, through the heat wave in July, I made panade three times — it’s that good. Luisa, from whom I had first learned about this dish, responded when I tweeted about it: “It is obsession-worthy. (But isn’t it a million degrees where you are? Are you still making it in the crazy summer heat?)” Yes. I can’t stop.

Recently, elsewhere on the web

I wrote this and this.

If you find yourself in Deming, New Mexico

Be sure to stop at Sì Señor for lunch.

And have the milanesa with — of course — green chiles and cheese.

Citrus I have loved

The one thing that makes me a little sad about imminent Spring: