Eureka! Beet Salad: Spicy, Tangy, Hot & Sweet

Confession: I haven't been very inspired lately when it comes to cooking.  I go to the market - something I normally love to do - and I just wander around the produce aisles, mentally shrugging my shoulders and seeing  nothing that excites me. Being stuck in a rut is no fun, and I realize I've let several things drag me down into the doldrums:

A Guest Post by Poppa Trix: New York I Love You, But You're Making Me Fat

In which Poppa Trix goes to New York and eats and eats and eats while I have to stay home and work and work and work. 

 

When I told Trix that I had to go to New York for a few days of family business she went through a brief period of jealousy before settling on the kind of statement that gets made all the time around here: "You know you're going to have to write a blog post about this, right?" She had a point. I already had a list of old favorite food joints I wanted to check in on and her challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to try some new places as well, meticulously documenting every dish in photos and notes along the way. If she wasn't going to get to join in on any of the actual eating at least she was gonna get a nice trip report out of it. And in an effort to keep things cheap I decided to hold all meals to $10 or less (not including alcohol, of course!)

What Makes Trix Tick?

I am super-excited (not to mention extremely flattered) to be this week's subject for Refrigerator Soup's "20 Questions With Our Favorite Food Bloggers" feature. After all these years as a writer/journalist, it was definitely a new experience to be the one answering, rather than asking, the questions. Here's a tiny little taste of the interview:

Refrigerator Soup: Do you watch a lot of cooking shows on TV?

Trix:  ... because I love nothing more than a hot mess, I do like to catch re-runs of Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee. The food is just so appalling and hilarious, I can’t get enough – I especially love how excited she gets for cocktail time.

That's all you get! If you want to read the rest, please head on over to Refrigerator Soup and check it out. You'll learn the answers to such burning questions as: If I were a food, what would I be? Who are my culinary heroes? What superpower would I most like to have?

... And much, much, more!

Thanks so much to the crew at Refrigerator Soup - I had a great time doing it.  I hope you all enjoy reading it, and if you get a chance stop back and let me know what you think.

Sticky Buns, Challah Bread, Dinner Rolls & Doughs: Culinary School is Back in Session

 

After two snowstorms closed everything down and put the kibosh on my baking & pastry classes, we are finally back to cooking it up. And boy, are we making up for lost time. In one session we produced country bread, a preferment,  and enough dinner rolls (pictured above) to feed an army, and the next week we made copious amounts of sticky buns and  challah bread:

 

In that session, we also made Danish and puff pastry doughs to freeze and use the following week. Now, you may be thinking, "So what? She's making rolls and bread. I can do that. Who goes to school for this?" I totally understand. These are not complicated or exotic recipes to be sure, and, except for the Danish and puff pastry doughs, they require very little in the way of finesse. But I am learning that culinary school is about more than cooking and baking - at least at this early stage.

My Gnocchi Came Naked to the Party: Nude Gnocchi a la Al Di La Trattoria

Welcome to the international gnocchi party! Hosted by Penny aka Jeroxie, my fellow guests and I have been tasked with bringing an umami-rich gnocchi dish to this virtual shindig. (There's a complete list of the other attendees, with links, and the bottom of this post.)  I took this challenge as the perfect opportunity to re-create a dish that has stuck with me for over 10 years: the malfatti, or nude gnocchi, as they are made at Al Di La Trattoria in my old digs of Brooklyn, NY.

When I first tasted these delectable pillows, I knew next to nothing about food or cooking.  I could tell something gastronomically special was going on, but I couldn't have pointed to the nutmeg, sage, Swiss chard, or brown butter as key players. I just knew I wanted more, more, more - but alas, I was broke and couldn't afford to eat out often enough to feed my malfatti addiction.  Plus I couldn't cook.

Daytime Drinking: Soju & a Movie

 

 Above: A very strong drink

Below: Daytime Drinking movie poster

Back in December, a rep from Eleven Arts contacted me to see if I wanted to review the South Korean independent film Daytime Drinking, to coincide with its New Orleans premier. I was a bit bemused, as film reviewing is something I've done in my other life as a journalist, but not as a blogger.  I've only ever blogged about food and drink. But, given that the film was clearly about something near and dear to my heart - booze - I thought it would be fun. 

Senegalese Yassa, My Way

When we moved into our current neighborhood, Poppa Trix and I were super excited to see that there was a Senegalese restaurant within walking distance of our house. All the cab drivers eat there, which  in my book is usually a very good sign.  Unfortunately, it turns out that if you're not from Senegal and/or a cab driver yourself, your meal may take upwards of an hour to eventually find its meandering way onto your table.

Now, that wouldn't be so bad if the food were stellar. But the kitchen always seems to have just run out of the very thing I want, and the dishes they do have are literally swimming in deep rivers of palm oil. After several attempts to love this place, I realized that I had no choice: If I want Senegalese food, I'm just going to have to make it myself.

A Good Luck Mini-Feast for the Lunar New Year and What To Do with Stale Bread

 

 Chinese almond cookies, with a Valentine's Day twist

Delicately scented tea eggs, for prosperity

 

 

Rice noodles and shrimp, for long life and happiness

My childhood,  from a culinary standpoint, was a vast wasteland of pot roasts, pork chops, pizza, and casseroles, with the occasional Pillsbury cinnamon roll or piece of peanut butter toast thrown in for variety. Vegetables were boiled or steamed, bread was white, and cakes came from a box mix. Let's face it: Like many American kids, I grew up with exactly zero food-related traditions.  A deep and enduring love for Utz potato chips is as close as I come to a cultural identity.

So if I want any food-related culture at all,  I need to look elsewhere, which I frequently do.  Enter the Year of the Tiger and my very scaled-down version of a Chinese New Year's feast. One thing that I love about this holiday is the symbolism of the food - dishes represent things like prosperity, luck, long life, happiness or good fortune. By the same token, the wrong dish may bring you bad luck or worse, so I  fervently hope that my research didn't lead me astray!

Of Bread & Dough & Lots of Snow; Or, When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Baking

 "Without bread, all is misery."

William Cobbett, British journalist, 1763-1835

 

 

After two major blizzards dumped punishing amounts of snow on us and brought commerce, fun, and life as we know it to a screeching halt, everyone in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. has developed their own version of the Snow Story by now, myself included.  You know the kind of stories I'm talking about - people getting stuck in the snow for hours, or not being able to find milk, or losing power, or having their roofs collapse from the weight of all that nasty heavy wet stuff.

And let's face it: You're sick of hearing about it, right? Well, we're sick of it too.  But given that most of our streets still aren't plowed and most things are still closed and driving around is at worst hazardous and at best incredibly annoying, it's hard to stop talking about the snow and its aftermath. There's nothing else to do. Look, people, this isn't New England or Wisconsin or Canada! We aren't used to this sort of thing. So please, bear with us.

Homemade Fettuccine, Two Ways

 

The first way: with fresh basil and a sauce of roasted tomato, garlic, & thyme

 

The second way: with butter, Parmesan, salt & pepper

Don't worry, I don't think I invented homemade egg pasta: I realize that you've probably seen something like this before.  But, much as I did with my post about homemade gnocchi, I'm going to ask you to indulge me. This is my first freshly-made-at-home fettuccine, so it's exciting.  Well, to me anyway.