Kitarra at Cooking Debauchery is not only a fabulous cook, but a great photographer as well. Her posts are always sure to make you exceptionally hungry. The writing is great, and the recipes she posts cover all different types of food, and she has items that folks of any skill level can try out. Definitely worth checking out.
Cooking Debauchery also has an RSS feed available.
Described as “a food blog with drawings,” Lobstersquad is one of my favorite food blogs. The author is in Madrid, Spain and not only does she write wonderfully about food and eating and cooking, I absolutely adore her illustrations. If my drawing skills ever improve and I start posting them here, you can blame her for the inspiration.
It’s always an enjoyable read, and I definitely will have to go to Madrid someday as the food options sound delightful.
Lobstersquad also has an RSS feed available.
So, how do you celebrate Cinco de Mayo and the Kentucky Derby? By going to the land of many beers and having treats from countries having absolutely nothing to do with either event. :) The Brickskeller is celebrating 50 years in business this year, and it’s fun to go to a place that my Dad went to when he was in college.
The claim the world’s largest beer selection, and I don’t doubt it – however, given the vagaries of suppliers, distributors and other such things, any given night there’s a chance you’ll pick something off the beer list that isn’t available. However, with so many to choose from, you’ll definitely be able to find something. Last night I met up with some friends and for once, remembered to actually mark up the menu and bring it home, as I always lose track of what goodies I had over the course of the evening. And here’s what I had…
Xingu – Brazil – This is labeled as a “black beer.” I’ve had it before and really liked it, but the availability is sketchy so I was thrilled to discover that they had it. It’s basically a porter, with a nice crispness to it and very smooth.
San Miguel Dark – Phillipinnes – More of a sentimental choice, as I’ve not had a San Miguel in years, and hadn’t tried the dark before. Not too bad, slightly bitter, but not offputting.
Abita Purple Haze – Louisiana – Another one I’ve had before – a raspberry wheat beer. A little sweet, but not in an overwhelming way, and when I first had it, it took me a while to figure out exactly what the underlying fruit was. A good summer beer.
Baltica #8 Wheat Ale – Russia – This was ordered by someone else in the group – my friend Todd identified the flavors of clove and banana in it. I couldn’t quite decide if I liked it or not, as I’m not a huge banana fan, but it was pretty light and also would be a good summer beer.
North Coast Russian Imperial Stout – California – This was presented as a substitute for Rogue Shakespeare Stout that I was going to split w/Todd. It was terrible. My first thought when I tasted it was “soap!” – overly smokey, bitter and definitely not one I’d have again.
Wye Valley Dorothy Goodbody Wholesome Stout – UK – Oh dear lord. This was on tap and ordered by someone in the group and ended up getting passed around. It was labeled as “rare” on the menu – well, there is a good reason for that, cause it was horrid. Incredibly bitter, and another one I’d take a pass on if I was presented with it again.
Urthel Samaranth Quadrium – Belgium – I had a taste of this earlier in the evening and decided this would be my “dessert” beer. It’s got an insanely high alcohol content for beer (I believe the bartender said 11%), but it is really lovely. Incredibly smooth, no alcohol burn (surprising considering how much alcohol is in it) and has a very heavy honey sweetness going on. I really think it would go well with a fruit tart or something along those lines.
The Brick has a full kitchen with standard pub fare and they serve food until 1 hour before closing. Last night I went with the pierogies – cause can you really go wrong with potatoes and cheese? And I took the fried option – I only have these once in a blue moon, so regardless of how bad they are for me, it’s not like I have them every week.
All in all, a great evening with friends and beer.
The Brickskeller is at 1523 22nd St, NW, Washington DC. 202-293-1885. A few easy blocks from the Dupont Circle Metro station.
Rather than dumping all the other great food blogs & other internet resources into the sidebar all at once, I’ll be giving each one it’s own entry with some information and props on what they’re putting out there.
The first isn’t a blog, but it’s usenet – rec.food.recipes. Moderated by Patricia Hill, among others, it is a treasure trove of recipes that cover just about every possibility out there. Requests can be sent in and the request list is published a couple times a week, and you can submit your own recipes, regardless of if they are on the request list or not.
Because it is a moderated list, the signal to noise ratio is excellent – no flame wars here whatsoever. Though the relative randomness of what gets posted may be a little disconcerting to some, I find it’s great for getting ideas on cooking things I just haven’t made in a while, or trying a new ingredient.
The link here and in the sidebar is to the google groups version of it, but any newsreader should be able to pick it up. (The google groups version of it also has a search function that seems to work well if you’re looking for something with a specific ingredient or such.)
I’ve added a page (over on the right) with links from the recipes I’ve posted over at Cafe Chat Noir. Enjoy!
So Saturday morning I got up and headed over to the kitchen at the Left Bank restaurant. If you ever have the chance to muck around in a commercial/pro kitchen – do it. Gas ranges! Convection ovens! Prep bowls and spatulas as far as the eye can see! Tasting spoons! (I no longer feel like a freak for the fact that I routinely go through half a dozen spoons in the course of cooking something.) Seriously, I was in heaven the minute I walked in.
Chef Christine put the menu together based on what’s in season (or coming into season very soon) and we had an absolutely fantastic lunch as a result. The two main items were rockfish and soft-shelled crabs. She pulls the crabs out and they’re in a metal dish and iced down. She takes off the ice and is talking about something when someone says, “Um, are the crabs…moving?” Yup – still alive! Which makes perfect sense, but it was just wasn’t something anyone expected.
The kitchen was pretty decent sized, but there were 12 of us and the Chef, so we were a little cramped to start with, but quickly got to the point where we were working around each other very well. It was easy to be able to keep an eye out and see what was going on in other parts of the kitchen, so even if you were working on one thing, it was not a problem to see how something else was being made at the same time. Oh, and good for grabbing spoons and tasting things as we went along, too.
Basically everyone paired off and grabbed a recipe and went to town. Jo (my partner) and I started with cleaning the crabs – no one else really wanted to do it, I think because of the “still kicking” part – I got over the entire “meeting my lunch before I eat it” problem in about a minute… Pull the tab, clean the gills, cut off the face, next!
Once we got done w/cleaning the crabs, we passed them off to another pair for dredging and sauteing as they were already doing the sauce for them as well. We discovered that no one had taken on dessert yet, so that would be all us. It was a variation on strawberry shortcake – a orange-strawberry compote on orange poppyseed biscuits.
The chef had gone ahead and made the biscuits beforehand for time’s sake, which was very helpful. :) I looked at the recipe and realized this definitely couldn’t be a “prep as you go” thing given the cooking times and the order and timing of everything going in. Off to the racks in the back for prep bowls! I am a total mice in place* kinda gal anyway so the whole prep & staging before actual cooking comes naturally to me, and I honestly think it makes it easier when you actually start cooking anyway. I will say that I think it is definitely more difficult to try and prepare the same dish with another person vs. doing it on your own – especially if you’ve only met the person 15 minutes beforehand and have no idea what their kitchen work style is like. Fortunately it worked fine and no saucepans were thrown at each other in the course of making dessert.
Something I realized after the fact was that while I was having an absolute blast, I was also in complete “work mode” – we had to feed 12 people dessert, we had a great recipe, excellent ingredients and absolutely no reason whatsoever that this shouldn’t kick ass and dammit, it would. Totally in the zone. Chop, zest, juice, stop and think and look around and make sure the answer isn’t right in front of me before bothering Chef with a question, get everything staged in the order to be used, make sure I’m thinking a couple steps ahead so as not to forget anything, and most important, don’t do anything that would make Chef think I am a complete fuckup. Mind you, this was in no way any kind of a boot camp class or anything like that, but I still was in work mode anyway…and was loving it.
So, Jo got going on cutting up a ton of strawberries, while I fought with the oranges. (And won.) Chef did show me a much faster way to section them, which was a godsend, because while I do know how to do it, I just don’t have the mad skillz to do it quickly. Well, I didn’t before this weekend. Then it was cook, add something, stir, cook, make sure it’s not burning, stir, cook, add something, cook, done! Off to the racks in the back again to find the right container to put it in an ice bath, since there was no way it was going to cool down fast enough on it’s own. While we were waiting for it to get to a useable temperature, it was time for the whipped cream. Snag the mixer, cream, sugar and vanilla. Or, not… Check the prep table where Christine had put out the ingredients we’d be using, checked under the table, looked around the rest of the kitchen – no dice. Snagged Christine and asked where it was hidden – I was SO sure it was probably right in front of me the whole time, but turns out it hadn’t come over from the other kitchen. So, we skipped the vanilla in the whipped cream with no adverse effects, and I took care of that while Jo did the garnishes for it. After what seemed like forever trying to get the cream to soft peak stage, we finally got to put everything together. Have to say, it looked awesome when we got it all together.
By some awesome miracle (well, thanks to the excellent direction of Chef Christine), everything came out wonderfully and at the same time. We had enough food for a small army and it was all spectacular:
– Herb crusted rockfish. Awesome.
– Soft shelled crabs dredged in cornmeal and sauteed and served on a roasted corn sauce that was just to die for.
– Oven dried tomatoes – again, what a difference very fresh tomatoes make.
– Bacon cabbage slaw – the recipe we have can be made w/ white wine vinegar or champagne – we went w/the white wine vinegar. I think I’d go w/the champagne when I make it, because it was a touch vinegary to my taste, but still really tasty.
– Cream of asparagus soup – another super dish.
– Chilled asparagus salad with strawberry vinagrette and vanilla strawberries – can you tell asparagus and strawberries are in season? Also, just fantastic.
– Orange-Strawberry shortcake. Given that I had the recipe, cooked the stuff and put it all together, I knew exactly what it was supposed to taste like, and it tasted exactly the way it should, but it was still kind of overly sweet to me. But, everyone else devoured it, so it’s all good.
While we had our lunch, the sommelier, Lynette Sumner, gave us 4 different wines and went over pairing wine with food. This gal seriously knows her stuff – and if she wasn’t so incredibly nice, she’d be very intimidating. After about 5 minutes, I realized the most intelligent thing I could say about wine was, “I like red wine!”
Everything was just spectacular and everyone had a terrific time. I ended up getting a sandwich from Tommy’s Market for dinner, cause there was absolutely no way on earth I could finish another full meal after lunch.
Originally posted at Cafe Chat Noir on 4/30, so if it looks familiar, that’s why.
You may have noticed that yes, there are ads on this site. Bandwidth and hosting isn’t free, and every little bit helps out. I’m just using Google’s adsense right now, so the ads are targeted towards the content. I am not actually “connected” with any of the advertisers that have appeared so far – rest assured I’m not getting any kickbacks for saying anything about any particular advertiser. They are also served up on a relatively random basis, so I am not picking or choosing the adverts that show up.
If at some point I have direct/non-google advertisers, I will make a point of letting folks know they are there.
I’ve tried to keep them as unobtrusive as possible (and trying to fix the dang sidebar width so that blends better) so they should not detract from the rest of the site. There will be NO dancing monkeys offering you great rates on refinancing at this blog.
If you are interested in advertising on the site, do feel free to contact me at cdc@addmorewine.net.
My Mom always said when it came to cooking, “When all else fails, add more wine.” Now, she never specified if it applied to the saucepan or the cook, but it always seems to work either way.
In 2006 I quit my job, and am now essentially self-employed. With the extra time, I have been able to reconnect with my love of food and cooking – fortunately, this also coincided with taking up running again, so the scale is still my friend. The last weekend in April, I spent the weekend at the Sanderling Inn in the Outer Banks of North Carolina for their “Cooking School Weekend” and had a wonderful time. Upon returning home, I realized I really wanted to setup a dedicated food blog – I love to cook and eat, and I love to write – so here we are. I’ve posted a lot on food and such at my “regular” blog, Cafe Chat Noir, so if you’ve seen that site, you may notice a few repeats as time goes on – the weekend at the Inn will definitely be reposted here. (And yes, the layouts are identical – it’s not your imagination!)
I am not a professional chef, nor have I had any formal training to date other than spending that weekend with Executive Chef Christine Zambito and Pastry Chef Kevin Wirt at the Inn. This may change as time goes on, but for now, I’m just a happy hack in the kitchen.
There are a lot of other great food blogs out there, which I’ll add to the blogroll and talk about as time goes by. But, the internet is a pretty big place, and food is a pretty comprehensive subject, so I think there’s room for one more.
Enjoy.
- Cindy