Let the good times roll

Yesterday was the first day of the Lunar New Year (fire monkey, for those of you keeping score at home).
Today is Fat Tuesday. Between the Hunan Chicken and the red beans with rice and andouille sausage followed by paczki. I'm feeling a little too fat.
But we are supposed to be whooping it up with one last drunken revel before lent begins. So if you didn't get your pancakes or your paczkis, perhaps the Garden of Earthly Delights [note: link has audio] will suffice.

Vacation, day 2

In celebration of the shortest day of the year, I spent it in my kitchen baking no less than a gross of Christmas cookies in five varieties. Quite possibly the worst way to spend a day off. But another box checked on my list of things to do.

Pie!? We don't need no stinkin' pie!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I am fortunate enough to have a TON to be thankful for. (Health, happiness, family, a beautiful and accomplished daughter, a considerate loving spouse, a precious little house, a few affectionate cats, very dear friends, etc, etc, etc.)
To celebrate, we are gathering at mom's for a big dinner and I am bringing dessert. Not pie. I know I've already committed the ultimate holiday solecism here --on par with politics at the dinner table-- but there are only eight of us so we don't need to go big. And while there are only eight of us, all of us like something different, so in order to please everyone I would have to bake at least three pies. For eight people. Ridiculous.
Also ridiculous: the piecaken (although frankly I'd eat it). Maybe next year...
But now I hear from Slate that apple pie is "wrong" at Thanksgiving. The author advocates strongly for pumpkin and pecan pies, so she will be hugely disappointed if she comes to our Thanksgiving dinner where dessert will be a caramel-apple cheesecake.
If I'm going to do Thanksgiving dessert wrong, I'm going all-out wrong.

Por favor

My Spanish is so rusty that I only caught every third word in the Jorge Ramos - Antonio Banderas interview. It's okay though. Because Jorge Ramos and Antonio Banderas.

Slow cooking

Fall is here and this weekend that meant fall cooking for me. I love a good beef stew or ham and bean soup that cooks all day.
The end result is delicious, but the fact that it was cooking for hours makes it so much better. Cold weather is such a huge motivator to me to break out the dutch oven.

Now, who wants leftovers?

Please make a note, LSH.

I know this is going to sound like a commercial, but now that I have my chronic heartburn under control, I am going to want to attend many more wine dinners. The one at Fahrenheit tonight was delicious and fun.
I also learned that the Mondavi patriarch who first emigrated to the U.S. ran a saloon in Minnesota, of all places! And no one is a stranger after 5 full glasses of wine.

Cheers!

A different kind of pat

I'm not a big fan of corned beef. And I don't know anyone who can't live without cabbage (certainly everyone over 30 ought to give it a pass). So this St. Patrick's Day I ate butter. Lots of butter.

Hungry

I have a friend who is almost constantly trying to lose weight. She has tried more diets than I even knew existed. She has a love-hate relationship with food that I find rather unhealthy. She will deny herself all but the most miniscule portions of cucumber and lettuce in order to "pay for" a weekend of what she calls overeating (and what most humans refer to as just "eating").
Now, just to be clear, I could probably do with more meals made up of cucumbers and lettuce and fewer meals made up of cheeseburgers. In fact, if I substituted all my cheeseburgers with cucumbers, I could drop about 50 pounds.
But I take pleasure in food. I love trying new things and eating well courtesy of world-class chefs at restaurants and making special recipes at home. I don't ever want to see food as my enemy. Or as a chore.
And I wonder if women who spend their lives denying themselves a pleasurable relationship with food are also women who do not find joy in other parts of life. 
Is there a study for that? Are foodies more likely to enjoy life's other pleasures? Or does enjoying life's pleasures mean you also enjoy food? We've all heard the cliche "fat and happy." Are we also "fat and satisfied"? "Fat and joyful"? "Fat and pleasured"? 

Well, some of us are. ;)

Cheesy

Yesterday was a good soup day. It was cold and a little snowy, and most of all it was the day I won (for the second time in three years) the local church's soup cook-off.
This year it was lasagna soup with three kinds of cheese --ricotta, parmesan, and mozzarella. The key to winning, I have discovered, is cheese. If you make a soup -no matter how mediocre- with cheese, you can win. (Provided no other soups have out-cheesed you.)

Thin mint?

Nope. I got nothing.

Try this instead:
Buy Girl Scout Cookies online year-round!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

It's finally winter here. The air is biting and promises to be chewing and spitting out as the week goes on. So in response I roasted a chicken yesterday and made stock with its bones today.

Chicken Noodle Soup.
Take that, Winter!

Next Iron Chef Secret Ingredient

It's never too early to plan for the new year. Here is some excellent advice, "New Year’s Resolution: Eat More Squirrel in 2015"

Up until 1975, The Joy of Cooking included an illustration and description of proper squirrel skinning within its pages. But in the past four decades, squirrel cuisine has dwindled to a rarity, even among hunting families. 

This explains the resurgence of squirrel-Qaeda.
If we put these suckers back on the menu, there will be fewer incidents like this or this. Or this. Or even this (proof that they hate our Christmas).

Every Food has its Day

Does every food have its own day?
Yes.

Last week, we happened to be at Ikea on National Cinnamon Bun Day. (25% off all cinnamon buns and the entire store smelled DELICIOUS.)
Yesterday was National Pierogi Day.
Today is National Moldy Cheese Day (Yes! Really!)
And there is even a National Liver and Onions Day. (I'm not going to celebrate that one.)

Dirty mind?

I have an 8½ pound butt and I will rub it all over, then I'll let it get super hot, nice and slow.

I'm making pulled pork.
Sickos.

Java

I used to drink coffee indiscriminately. It has been my drink of choice for years, but in the not too distant past, my only qualifications were black and sweet. Now, it has to be strong and good. There are way too many places that serve crap coffee. And now that I'm a coffee snob, I won't drink them.

Except at work. No way am I getting through the day without coffee, so I have to tolerate theirs (but I'm used to it).

Sugar rush

Why aren't Pixy Stix socially acceptable for adults?

Pixy Stix was invented by Sunline Inc. which started in 1952 in St. Louis, Missouri. Originally it was a drink mix in the late 1930s, sold as Frutola, but J. Fish Smith found that kids were eating the sweet & sour powder right from the package. He shifted the name to Fruzola and added a spoon. Later it was repackaged with a dipping candy stick as Lik-m-Aid and also sold in little straws as Pixy Stix. The non-resealable straw pouring loose candy powder in the hands of children led to routine objections from parents. During the 1960s a solid version of the confection formula was created from Pixy Stix named SweeTarts and grew in popularity with other hard packed candies, which caused Pixy Stix to become almost extinct.

Ah. SweeTarts.
Well, it's just not the same thing.

On your marks...

For the Kentucky Derby this weekend, I'm trying out mint juleps. I learned that the mint julep was probably originally medicinal (like all bourbon, right!?) and dates to the 1700s. Julep refers to a manner of sweetening drinks to make them taste better. Palatable potables.
Juleps may or may not have originally contained bourbon, but without question they do now. I was going to make mine the cheater way by muddling the mint with the simple syrup and adding the bourbon over ice. The traditional method calls for crushed ice and a sprinkle of powdered sugar so the finished beverage resembles a sno-cone in a fancy silver cup.
All you need is mint, sugar, water/ice, and bourbon. And a horse. I'm kinda liking Ride On Curlin so far.

Springtime

Half-price peeps.

Ethnic

Every once in a while, I like to get Indian food.
Do you think Indians every once in a while like to grab some chicken fingers and fries?

Soup's on!

One of the loveliest things about truly horrible weather is how good it makes soup taste. On a miserable Saturday afternoon, making a pot of soup is satisfying, but not nearly as satisfying as eating that pot of soup.
I have been collecting and experimenting with every kind of soup I can find from minestrones to chowders. Simple or complicated, all winter long I make a pot of soup every weekend. It is the most elemental meal. The word soup shares its origin with the word supper. Eating and soup are one and the same when you trace their meanings back hundreds of years.
Soup is the sustenance that has been provided as charity for nearly 2000 years. There is a reason we call centers where poor are provided with food Soup Kitchens. When we are sick, we get chicken soup. When we are cold, we get toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. After Thanksgiving, we get turkey soup. The Pease Porridge in the rhyme we learned as children is what we would today call pea soup (which has gotten a bad rap over the years).
Last weekend I made bean soup. This weekend it was mushroom-barley. Next weekend I will make an old standard, smoked turkey chowder for LSH's church soup swap. I may have to make a double batch so we have some for ourselves.