Taffy Tastes of Summer
First off, please observe the amazingness of my blue milk glass hob nail compote dish-cum-candy bowl. Next, please cast your eye upon the homemade salt water taffy therein. It is rose-flavored.
Marie’s Melanzane Sott’Olio (Pickled Eggplant)
When I was about ten, I went to a traditional Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes for Christmas Eve. Truthfully, there might not have been exactly seven fishes, but there were many courses and there were many old Italians; the dinner was held my grandmother’s best friend Marie. Marie lived in the same Florida development as my grandparents, so I always saw her when I went to visit them; I don’t think I realized until I was about seven that we weren’t related. She is a fabulous cook, and her Christmas Eve banquet was one of my formative food experiences; I remember sitting through antipasti, pastas, fish, cheeses, desserts, thinking “I want to be able to do this one day.” One of the antipasti served at the start of this dinner was a traditional Sicilian pickled eggplant – melanzane sott’olio. I was not a huge fan, but my parents went nuts over it and my mom got the recipe. It languished in her recipe box for years, but since I’ve got a more developed palate than I did at ten, and I’ve been getting into pickles, I decided to try it out…
Nectarine-Tomato Chutney
I promised recipes last week and I’m not one to break promises, so here’s a quickie in celebration of the fact that I’ll be free of the bar exam in a week. Another winner from The Dallas Junior League Cookbook: nectarine-tomato chutney.
Sweet-and-Savory Rhubarb Jam
I just wanted to start today by congratulating The Bitten Word and other winners and finalists in the Saveur Best Food Blog Awards. I am thrilled just to have been on the same page as so many talented and established cooks, writers, and photographers.
Getting back to food…I started flipping out when rhubarb season began. And then I flipped out some more when I found this recipe for rhubarb jam.
Boudin Noir
This month’s Charcutepalooza challenge is grinding. When I was reading up on sausage in Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie, however, I stumbled across a recipe for one of my favorite foods: blood sausage.
Yep, you heard right. I adore blood sausage. In all its forms. I accidentally wound up eating soondae (Korean blood sausage) in a restaurant in Queens where I ordered by pointing at an English-less menu. Halfway through the meal I realized this wasn’t your average sausage…but by that point I was hooked. Since then, I’ve never looked back, and have only forged on – to morcilla, black pudding…and now my very own homemade boudin noir.
Muller’s Delicatessen, Part 3: Cream Cheese and Mustard
We’ve had lox and pastrami the last couple of days, on bagels and rye. Neither of these sandwiches would be anything, though, without cream cheese or mustard.
Muller’s Delicatessen, Part 2: Pastrami on Rye for Charcutepalooza
As I mentioned yesterday in my bagels & lox post, this month’s Charcutepalooza challenge – brining – had visions of pastrami dancing in my head within minutes. With rye, mustard, and pickles, obviously. Somehow, I made it happen.
