zen.org Communal Weblog

Sometimes I wonder while I work on this cookbook..how can I be a good cook if I don’t like certain things? Like blue cheese. Hate it. Bitter herbs and veggies. Hate ’em. Most nuts…really not a nut person. But how can I be objective in creating food if I don’t like some food? And my own food allergies cause me to not be able to use some foods in the recipes. It’s an odd thing. I can create something, but I can’t taste it. Durn.

Just a brain dump :-).

For obvious reasons, breakfasts for us are hard to do. With no eggs, dairy, tomatoes or strawberries, lots of things are cut out right away. It’s difficult, cause making our weekly recipe list, we normally just blow off the breakfasts (cereal, porridge, occasional bagels with smoked salmon, toast and jam). But we like breakfast food. We do make french toast, pumpkin pie pancakes, and right now we’re having raspberry muffins.

What I would do to just whip up a proper fry tho….

Just back from Nantes, where a good time was had by both, and thought I’d make a post about some smoked salmon that Jim had as a starter.

Now, smoked salmon is not a rarity in our household, and I’ve even had it fairly often when eating out, but this smoked salmon was the ur-smoked salmon – it was “welcome to the mother-fish” time.

Within its succulent walls your tongue could track the route that smoke had swirled around the fish’s body; the taste was so clearly defined, you could roll the history of the flavouring process back and taste the individual knots of wood that been used up during the smoking. It was like realising that previously you had only been eating in 2-D, and now whoosh! – here was a third dimension of flavour.

It wasn’t the strength of the taste, it wasn’t particularly strong in fact, it was more the precision and the degree of definition that it possessed. I hadn’t imagined that a taste could be like that…

Tonight Patrick and I went into a wine merchant to pick up a bunch of Stimson Merlot for the upcoming holiday festivities. We walked up, and who was leaving the shop but Elvis Costello. He held the door open for us, as polite as can be. I didn’t have the nerve to wish him luck at the Grammy Awards next year, nor to be honest did my brain recognize him until seconds later after the door had closed. That’s okay, though—he was just another guy getting some wine, and I wouldn’t want to intrude on his ability to live a calm life away from his work.

As I learned when E and I were in Los Angeles, it’s cool to know the person behind the name is a nice normal human being, and not drowning in their own greatness. Even enough to still do common courtesies. 🙂

Today, at 12:41 UTC was the Solstice. I was rolling out of bed at that time, so I faild to observe it.

I have several vacation days I need to use before the end of the year or I loose them. So tomorrow my holiday starts. I hope to make a nice vegetarian Solstice dinner for 余艾蕾 tomorrow, purge the body before the lox, meatballs, ham, herring, and lutfish at my Mom’s Julbord. I know my Mom’s Julbord will be good, hopefully my meal will not be too outré.

Without a doubt, Doogle has got to be the best example of Irish creativity after a lengthy spell at the pub. Absolutely awesome.

Thanks to our friend Jason for the pointer.

The current /. poll asks Last book you read? I had to pick “Other non-fiction” as it was a cook book. I’m not mad that cooking was not an option, I a little bumbed that nobody in the comments has talked about cooking books. I guess not too many people read cook books from cover to cover, skipping a recipe here and there.

Tofu mends broken bones and teeth

A material made from the vegetarian food tofu could help repair broken bones and teeth, UK scientists believe. The de-fatted soybean curd would act like polyfiller to fill in defects. It has the added advantage of encouraging new bone to grow as it biodegrades and releases natural anti-inflammatory agents. (click on the link to read the rest of the story)

NPR had a piece on Slow Food this morning. It should show up in there audio archives some time. If you are the sort of hippy eat to save the world weirdo like I am, it’s worth a listen.

I only discovered Slow Food about a month ago. It seems I was “®” crazy at the time too.

Normally I try to stick to cooking vegetarian, but 余艾蕾 had this coupon, $10 off a ham. Now we have ham laying around the house, I was thinking about pasting the walls with it. Instead, I made this cauliflower based ham soup tonight, and it worked out surprisingly well! Unfortunately, I failed to take good notes, but here is the summary.

I started with about six inches of leek whites, well mostly whites, and a large garlic clove. I minced the garlic clove and chopped the leeks into a pile of rings. In the pot went two teaspoons of butter (I should of used oil I think) and the above mentioned onion matter and sautéed them.

I took half a large head of cauliflower and thinly chopped it; this made a mess as little bits of cauliflower flew all over the place. I threw the cauliflower in the pot and put enough water to cover it, and brought to a boil.

After the cauliflower started getting soft I made it into a purée; I used my hand held blender. Then in went in a healthy portion of white pepper, dash of salt (the ham already has a lot), a bunch of chopped ham cubes, a few spoons of mustard. I let that sit for a bit after stirring. Last, to balance with the red color of the ham, some peas.

Serve with a slice or two of pumpernickel bread for dipping. Now, only if 余艾蕾 would come home from work so I have somebody to serve it too.