Monthly Archive for November 2008
Not What You Think
I’ve been feeling under the weather all week, with a cold or flu or something that I just can’t seem to shake. And it’s had me craving comfort foods: brothy soups, bowls of oatmeal, pretty much anything that can be eaten while huddled under a blanket, curled up in the corner of the couch.
Do you see those strands up there? The ones twirled around the tines of the fork? Well, they’re cloaked in a simple olive oil sauce, spiked with a heavy dose of both garlic and crushed red chiles. And they satisfied my comfort food criteria beautifully. But, they’re not what you think they are …
(Click “more” to find out what it is, see the photos & read the recipe.)
Lined with Gruyere and Spilling Over with Caramelized Onions
If there is any solace to the cruel fact that the days of sandwiches stuffed with thick slices of sun-kissed tomatoes are over (emphasis on the “if”), it is that we have now arrived in the portion of the year in which sandwiches are only complete—only right—if they ooze with melted cheese. And that is a silver lining I can get behind. Plus, what’s more American than a grilled cheese sandwich (even a gussied up one, sporting, erm, imported cheese)? And, on this brilliant morning, I’m feeling pretty proud to be an American.
Another cold weather sandwich staple of mine is caramelized onions. So, when I discovered this recipe, which marries both of my go-to hibernation season sandwich fillings (for review: cheese warmed to its stretched-out-and-stringy state; soft curls of sweet, slow-cooked onions), I think I not only drooled a little bit, but I even—and please don’t hate me for this—willed winter to hurry up already.
(Click “more” for the rest of the story, more photos & the recipe.)
Swept Off My Feet
Celeriac (or celery root, if that name is more to your liking) has been courting me for some time. At first, it threw come-hither looks my way from its perch in the produce section at Whole Foods, tucked among the rough-and-tumble root vegetables, many of which sport long, floppy, leafy mohawks and all of which are spotted with clumps of earth. It was round, but not perfectly so, with a mottled pale flesh brushed with light strokes of lime green. It was an unlikely suitor, but, still, I was intrigued.
Next, it caught my eye at the farmers’ market, where it sat in a heap next to bundles of the tiniest celery I’d ever seen. There were even a couple bulbous rounds of celeriac with the celery still attached, which led to quite an aha! moment (sort of like studying one of those illustrated diagrams of a cow, showing where each cut of meat comes from). You could say we made eyes at each other, that celeriac and me. But, something about it made me shy (how does one prepare it? what would it taste like?) and I ended up going home alone.
(Click “more” for the rest of the story, more photos & the recipe.)