Muffins, Old School

Remember the pre-Starbucks America? The one where coffee was a weak-flavored, brown liquid that cost less than a dollar and came with never-ending free refills?

Thank god those days are over. That shit was vile. If you’re too young to remember those days, grab a cup of drip coffee that’s been sitting all day on a warming burner at a gas station, and you’ll get some idea.

We will return to your regularly scheduled program...

Things have been busier than usual with the day job in the last few weeks, so there has been little cooking of interest going on--or rather, no cooking worth writing about, at least. I'm hoping to get another post up soon. For what it's worth, btw, if anyone has a recipe they would like me to tackle and (amateurishly) photograph, I'm open to suggestions. 

In the meantime, I direct you to this piece written by NPR's Linda Holmes. She blogs about popular culture for NPR, and is the host of a truly delightful podcast called Pop Culture Happy Hour, which I cannot recommend highly enough if you are interested in television, movies, theatre, and/or music. 

In this case, she's written a very funny takedown of contemporary menu speak, which is one of my pet peeves. If, like me, you're old enough to remember when dishes had names, it can be particularly irritating to read of "Unicorn Ranch Free-Range Tofu Braised in Willamette Valley Shallot Confit with Wildebeest Reduction," or whatever. Ms. Holmes seems to understand. 

[Inarticulate Scream of Frustration]

1. Make sauce

2. Boil water


3. Realize I’m out of pasta

I write a food blog.

#sadreally 
#Juliaisspinninginhergrave
#goingto711tobuypizzarolls

Addendum

OK, I still want to emphasize that everyone should give the Chinese Braised Pork Belly a go. It's amazing. Really. It's a recipe from Michelle Humes at Serious Eats. 

But I’m not one to ignore the practicalities of everyday life. And although people seemed to think the preceding recipe looked great, a lot of people complained.

Chinese Braised Pork Belly

OK, this one is a bit of an undertaking. I’m aware of that. It may not be easy to find the necessary ingredients. I’m aware of that, too. And it’s time consuming. But hear me out. Because this one was amazingly good. Seriously, it was. And I don’t say that as a boast—I was just following directions. But damn. If you can get the requisite ingredients, you have to try this.

Vegans, vegetarians, and pescetarians: sorry, but I got nothing for you on this one. Check back next time.

A Salt Lick for Humans

So. I’m back.

I was talking with someone about this blog this summer, and she spoke the fateful words “Yes, but now you have to keep it going.” Argh. ‘Twas a curse. The day job got busy, the dog ate my homework, etc. Sorry.

Chicken Thighs au Pépin

We return to the works of Jacques Pépin this time. As mentioned before, Pépin has been really innovative in making French cuisine and French tastes more accessible to American cooks, and really, to home cooks in general. Classic French cuisine was largely derived from the cooking of professional chefs, primarily via the works of Auguste Escoffier. Although he is a classically trained chef, Pépin has been extremely successful in adapting French (or French-influenced) cooking for weeknights—as much as I love JC, her books lean more toward the spend-a-weekend-afternoon-making-dinner end of the spectrum rather than to fast-dinner-thrown-together-after-a-long-day end.

Pépin is particularly skilled with chicken, in my opinion, and so I’m showcasing his method of cooking chicken thighs this time. We’re really talking more about a technique rather than a recipe on this one. Once you’ve cooked them, you can serve them plain (my tendency), or make a deglazing sauce (Pépin’s approach), but they lend themselves to other applications as well. I’ve been known to dunk them in Buffalo sauce and serve them with celery sticks and blue cheese dressing, and was quite pleased with the results.

Potato Pancakes

T.S. Eliot was wrong; August is the cruelest month, not April.

April: cool and rainy. August: swelteringly hot and dry (in my neck of the woods, anyway).

I’m back. Sort of. The day job has been keeping me ridiculously busy, so I’ve not done any blog-worthy cooking. Or rather, I have, but nothing I could say anything witty or original about. For instance, the mega-talented J. Kenji Lopez-Alt of Serious Eats created this amazing recipe for the best gazpacho I’ve ever had. But given that I did exactly what he says (aside from straining the finished soup, because I’m lazy and straining is boring), there really wasn’t any value added to my version, if you’ll excuse my use of bureaucrat-ese.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Asian noodle post

OK, this was originally going to be post about an Asian noodle dish that I stumbled across in the "Recipes" folder on my computer. There were a few little warning signs here and there, like the fact I had failed to note where the recipe came from, or that the file name was called "Dan Dan Noodles" but the text called the dish "Sichuan Noodles." But I was in the mood for Chinese noodles, so I pressed on and made the dish, taking photos throughout the process so I could share it with y'all. 

And then I sat down and ate it. And it wasn't very good. It wasn't horrible, mind you. Just kind of blah and uninspired. The sort of thing that I would not want my culinary reputation hanging on. And while it wasn't an ordeal to put together, it required a fair number of ingredients that I don't always have on hand. So with a great sigh and much cursing, I decided to scrap it, at least for now. Anyone who wants to share a good recipe for Dan Dan Noodles (which was what I was in the mood for in the first place), please email me or paste it into the comments below. 

Edible Harlotry

Yes, yes, I know that the name “Pasta alla Puttanesca” means “Pasta in the style of a prostitute,” or “Harlot’s pasta,” or (in the words of Nigella Lawson) “Slut’s Spaghetti.” Take your pick. Most cookbooks that feature this recipe give you some whimsical nudge-nudge-wink-wink explanation for the name. The most ludicrous, to my mind, are the numerous books that claim Italian prostitutes would attract clients by preparing this dish. Because that’s what men go to brothels for—the cooking.