He said:
Back from an amazing trip to one of the most unusual places we’ve ever seen. An incredibly artsy place of breathtaking landscapes with a foodcentricity (my brand new word) that rivals that of NOLA, and I never thought I’d say that. So, we’ll have a detailed rundown on the Santa Fe/Taos dining scene coming up, and no doubt our adventures will color our experiences back home in the Big Easy.
He said:
We’ve made a reference here and there to the, shall we say, biblical abundance of squash in our household lately. One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about eating seasonally is the way it has made me more attuned to what are the characteristic products of the season and how to be creative with them. The biggest reason why we rundown the week in food (last week delayed slightly by our field trip, but coming soon) is to archive a record of our attempts to eat seasonally but also interestingly each week, finding new ways to work with ingredients as we go.
Well, we have certainly been tested by squash; actually, stalked by squash is more like it. I’m not sure when squash will stop showing up in our weekly Hollygrove basket, but I’m ready for the day I can open the fridge and not have a little battalion of squash just sitting there, staring at me. Last weekend, I counted 13 freaking squash, and it was time to take action. Thus, the recipe below, which uses 8 of them. This actually made two trays of the casserole, easily enough for thanksgiving dinner, and this felt like that kind of a dish to us. So, yes, after eating leftovers for lunch and pawning some off, we still have an entire tray frozen, but at least those guys aren’t taking over the fridge any more. The details:
She said:
So, the husband is finally taking me out of the box. Well, that’s not entirely true. But as we all know, it is how I recall events that actually matters.
In actuality, we have had some amazing opportunities to see the domestic and international world over the past 12 months. We started with an 11 day trip to Rome and Positano, Italy. Next to New York, then Portland, and most recently San Francisco and Napa Valley. I am so excited that we plan to round the year out with one last getaway… to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
You see, Southwest offered this little fare sale at which time we very spur-of-the-moment pondered where we had thought of going that we hadn’t made up our minds to spring for fare. Santa Fe has made our list of options many times but for one reason or another, not made the cut (He said has really wanted to check it out). Now’s the time. So for two months, we have been eagerly awaiting our next jaunt.
At 7:30 we depart for this new adventure. He said and I long ago figured out that we are at our best when we are traveling. Some people will work for food, and I, well, will work for travel. So, here we go. And this time we have our camera in hand (I know we are terrible about the whole taking pictures of food thing- we are going to try, I promise) for our 5 day journey to the Southwest.
Oh, and did I mention that I am so excited to have the opportunity to not cook for 5 days straight? For 3 straight months, we have thrown aside most of our dining out in favor of cooking at home using the great local produce etc. we have been getting at Hollygrove Market and the Crescent City Farmers Market I really like cooking, and I think the Mr. would agree, but good lord can we use a lot of dishes~
More to come, I promise!
He and she said:
We heard about Twitter for the first time last year, and both of us were like, meh, that’ll never catch on. I guess you can tell why this is a blog about food, not technology.
So, since Twitter has now taken over the world, we knew we’d better figure out how to use it in our quest to… well actually we don’t have a quest, but maybe we’ll get one.
We thought that we could just tweet what we were doing. Something like: “chopped onion,” or “zested lemon,” or “ordered appetizer.” No telling how many people would be fascinated by that, right?
Ok, on to plan B.
Posted in He and she said, Rants, Uncategorized
He said:
So, here is the recipe for the shrimp we had last week. This is a staple of Spanish tapas. We’ve had it at Lola (love that place), Mimi’s in the Marigny, Rambla, Madrid, and Cafe Granada. We’ve also had it in Barcelona, and the city of Granada. At it’s heart, this is just garlic, red pepper, and olive oil, but we’ve dressed ours up a bit. Cook this in a cast-iron skillet and just put the skillet down in the midle of the table, add some crusty bread for dipping (essential), open a little Rioja (even more essential), and you are ready for food, drink and conversation among friends. Great, quick food. One of our favorites.
The details:
She said:
I was on the westbank for business yesterday and thought it a good opportunity to meet with the Mr. for some dim sum. I swear this stuff is like crack, and I have been craving it since my very first experience in mid-June in San Fransisco. We did our homework and decided on a place next to Hong Kong Market. Unfortunately as we entered we realized that things were not as we had hoped and that they did not have the dim sum we planned our trip around. And so it was time for plan B….
Posted in Lunch, Restaurant, Reviews, She said
He said:
This classic French vegetable stew is so good in so many ways. Incredibly tasty, it is also super-healthy: basically, two tablespoons of olive oil, herbs, and vegetables. Perhaps best of all, it requires a cutting board, a knife, and one pot. Have I mentioned that we wash a lot of dishes?
Here’s our go-to recipe for this, which in it’s original form came from the wonderfully named cookingforengineers.com. We’ve modified it and made it our own, and it remains one of our go-to dishes:
He Said:
Eric is a Boston guy cooking his way through Ratio one recipe at a time. He is at Culinary Agoge, which we’ve added to our links. Go for it Eric; we’ll be interested to see your progress.
Posted in He Said, Other blogs
He said:
We’ve mentioned already how much we like Ratio, Michael Ruhlman’s book on the fundamentals of cooking. We’ve decided to begin working our way through it, and we began this weekend with bread. It was very cool for me to make our first boule from scratch, as my baking knowledge is rudimentary at best.
