Frankie and Emma 

Frankie! 

It's snowing again...

Shoveling awaits

Squirrels and birds looking for sunflower seeds 

...and once again the streets are clogged with people rushing to get to the grocery store. I just don't understand this phenomenon. Number one, the weather people have been predicting this storm since Sunday. Number two, what is so urgent that you have to get to the store right now? I have enough food in my pantry and freezer to last me for a month, minimum, and that's before we get to the dubious stuff with scratched labels. I suppose being out of milk is a good reason as most people lack a spare dairy cow in the garage, but really, can't you go without for two days? The worst part about this sort of pandemonium is the SUV owners who think SUV=Tank and fail to remember the part about them rolling over at high speeds. It's so not fun to have to drive behind these people.

No rosemary for you! 

On a more pleasant note, my next-door neighbor presented me with a giant fruit basket last night as a "Welcome to the Neighborhood" gift. Mind you we've lived here for over a year now, but it was very kind of him nonetheless. It's huge, and it's all healthy, so maybe that will encourage me to try dieting for the next two weeks. Hah, hah, hah.

Thank you for your kind gesture, Mr. Director. Have it left in my dressing room with the roses. 

Mmmm.... cake

Gingerbread snacking cake 

Sometimes, you just gotta have cake. I like this recipe a lot, even if it did originate with Martha Stewart. Quick, hard to mess up and it doesn't need any icing to make it tasty. Eliminating that extra layer of sugary fat frosting is one way to justify the calories. The other handy justification is to get a lingering flu virus that makes you dizzy for oh, two weeks or so. Being forced to stay indoors for fourteen days can make anyone go a little nuts, the kind of nutso only alleviated by cake.

I am thinking towards the MS walk in April and wondering if I should come up with some sort of gift to give back to donors. Listening to Kim & Tod's podcast (see links on the right) and hearing Tod's idea of giving seminars in radio broadcasting made me want to do something similar. Would people be interested in learning how to bake? Herbals? Or should I just offer a give-away, like a recipe booklet? Hmmm... or doggie biscuits?

So that's how you make brussel sprouts!

Swedish Spaghetti 

My first memories of cooking were a lot of fun. I think my favorite was the one where the spaghetti fought back, because eating spaghetti was an ongoing battle for a 5yr old with limited hand-eye coordination.

Then again, the lobster battle is a general fan favorite.

Valentine's Day Perfection 

I love my husband. I love that he knows to get me See's Candies, the only American style chocolates still worth eating. They are so yummy and fresh and perfect and delish. Thank god they are only available on the West Coast or I would have a serious problem. As it is, this box will be lucky to make till next week. There's just something about See's that makes me unable to control myself.

Souffailure

Soooooooooflay! 

This morning I found a great-looking menu for Valentine's Day over on Epicurious. Immediately though portions were eliminated for excessive fussiness. Herbed crepes with smoked salmon and goat cheese? How about some nice olives and cheese on a board instead. Raspberry champagne cocktails? There's really no improving on the basics when you have a bottle of Veuve Cliquot Grande Dame sitting in the fridge. I did really want to give the frozen praline souffles a shot though as they seemed tricky but within my scope of abilities. Hurdle #1: getting past the incredibly obnoxious review left by someone in Manhattan, New York. Quoting from it won't do it full justice so here it is unedited:

"Brilliant but a little time consuming. Portions are way TOO large--our guests (except piggies) left at least half or more. Suggest using 2-3 oz ramekins with 1/2" crown."

Excuse me? "Except piggies?" This one little parenthetical afterthought left me amazed and terrified at the same time. Do people actually have dinner parties where they judge their friends based on how little they eat? I thought the whole point of inviting your friends over to eat was to laugh a little, drink a little, eat a little and maybe get a compliment or two on your cooking. How naive have I been all these years, and just how piggy do they all think I am?

Hurdle #2: Making the praline. Actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. Got it to work on the first try without any issues. I should have known something worse was coming.

Hurdle #3: Make a meringue. Meringue? I thought this wasn't baked! Crap. So how hard can it be. Starts off similar to part 1, making a caramel of sorts, really more of a simple syrup. Use a candy thermometer. No worries, got one of those. Except however, it's too long for the small pot. Uh, ok, I'll time it. Turn my back for one second to start whipping the egg whites and boom, it's a light brown. Well, guess it's done. As per recipe directions, start adding syrup to whites in a slow stream while on high. Suddenly large, hard blobs of sugar are banging around in the bowl, the fluffy white egg whites are now dried blood brown and bits of sugar are clinging to everything. Having never made this before I can't judge if this is the desired outcome but I can guess that's it's not quite what Ruth Reichel would call up to editorial standards. In a fit of perfectionism I dump everything down the sink, wash it all off and start off. This time I watch the syrup like a hawk, and pull it off well before it turns dark. The egg whites are doing well, and again, slowlyslowlyslowly I pour the syrup into the whites. Now I get one giant chunk of glass-like sugar crud in the bottom. But the color is better - pure white. I switch the whisk out for the harder beater and decide to beat the hell out of the egg whites. This sort of works in that the giant Pangaea-like chunk has broken into seven smaller continents of sugar. Meaning it didn't really work. I decide I'm not really up for pastry chef imitations this evening and make up for the unevenness of the egg whites by making the whipped cream consistent. Everything folded together well enough and is now sitting in the freezer. Next year I'm sticking with chocolate sponge cake, even if it is predictable.

That's just under 2 feet of snow on top of the barbeque! 

Can you see how high the snow is on the lawn? 

I said a little prayer to Joseph that the carpenters who built our roof knew what they were doing. Hopefully it'll melt on Wednesday when it's supposed to be in the 50's. 

Monday morning things looked a little brighter. He has his orange jacket on mostly so I don't lose him in the snow. 

Someone wants a tip. "Next time fix the snowblower! There's your tip!" 

I'm cold, I'm wet, and I'm NOT happy! 

Frankie finds it difficult to lift a leg without falling into the snow 

This stuff sucks! I want to go back to South Carolina! 

Worst blizzard ever in NY 

It's still snowing hard in this picture 

Luckily there was a handyman available to shovel out the driveway 


Blizzard of '06 Begins! 

Slaw-riffic!

SuperPurpleApple Slaw!

Last week I made pork chops with a spice rub for a dinner party that never happened, and I made some of this cole-slaw to accompany it. I'd never tried to make cole-slaw before and was amazed at how easy it was. I made it even easier by buying pre-shredded cabbage and carrots from Whole Foods. The recipe was also far healthier than I thought it'd be. No mayonnaise, no buckets of oil, just cider vinegar, apple cider and a little dash of olive oil. Plus it looks so pretty! I am now a born-again slaw fan. Does that make me a slawyer or a slawb?

PS The recipe in the March issue of Bon Appetit for Chicken with Parsnips is amazing, don't miss it! Also pretty healthy if you skip adding butter at the end.

Slowly making my way towards the middle...

Joe Average tries to score with Jane Hipster, but she can't hear him with her iPod turned up full volume 

I have now made an excellent batch of gingerbread cookies, the best I've ever managed in fact. I think I would put it all down to finally having a convection oven and silpat matts to put on the cookie sheets, plus a great deal of luck. I invited a few friends over to help make cookies - such the delegator - and Josh was amazingly good at rolling the dough out to a perfect thickness. We didn't get around to making the butter cookies so I guess I'll have to bang those out sometime tomorrow. In the meantime I managed to decorate the gingerbread peeps pretty well, if I do say so myself. I'll get some pictures up tomorrow maybe. I was almost disappointed that I didn't have any amputees to ice. I should make gingerbread crutches to accompany the ones missing a leg. Considering I managed to fall ass over tea-kettle down some stairs on Thursday and am now limping on a gammy ankle maybe I should try and make a full-size gingerbread crutch. Hah, hah. Maybe I could make a bunch of cookie crutches and wheelchairs to sell at the next MS walk-a-thon. Maybe throw in a few Copaxone syringes? Any left-over random splotches of dough I could bake and call lesions. Wonder how that all would be received though as it seems to me that there are usually two kinds of people with MS - those with a sense of humor about it all and those looking for drama. (!!) Or is that just how different people handle life?

I also tried to make a decent coq au vin casserole but I must admit it was pretty much a total disaster. Came out miserably soupy and yet somehow the chicken was overcooked. I'm not exactly sure where I went wrong, but it pissed me off since I have memories of banging them out one-two-three in my kitchen in London with no problems. I think I put those casseroles in the oven instead of simmering on the stove though. Maybe I'll try and make small versions until I can get it exactly right. I hate to admit it, but this is one of those things that you just know America's Test Kitchen would have the perfect recipe for. ATK is the tangible expression of every perfectionist cook's dreams. Most of the time I don't have the patience or the persistance to follow all of their iterations but damn, it would be great to have a perfect coq au vin recipe.


Spanish lady out for a walk with her oversized Welsh Corgi