lunch on 35th Street

We had a few errands to run in the Center of the Universe (otherwise known as Fremont), and took the opportunity to eat lunch at one of our favorite places, the 35th Street Bistro. It has a lot of what I like: great natural light, good wine list, French-themed bistro food that isn’t too locked into the classics, one of the best cheese plates in town, and a darned good hamburger. We’ve been here many times, and I can only remember being disappointed once (I shouldn’t have ordered the yam thread fries).

On this visit, we honored our immediate cravings: J got the burger, which is a magnificent, juicy, rich-tasting production, with a glass of barolo, and I indulged in the moules frites with a glass of verdejo. As always, the food was solid, well seasoned, and well prepared. The frites were perhaps not quite as good as the ones at Bistro Zazou, but still excellent, hot and crispy. We passed up even looking at the dessert menu (I knew it would just get me into trouble). This place makes me happy.

Bistro Zazou

 Edit: I just found out last week that Bistro Zazou has closed. Alas. 3/18/08

One of our favorite restaurants in Bellingham used to be the Calumet, until one day we headed there for my birthday dinner and it had gone out of business. We ended up discovering Flats as a result, so we ended up happy that day, but we continued to walk sadly by the old location. The last time we did, though, we saw that a new place had arisen - Bistro Zazou - a French bistro! We’re very partial to casual French restaurants, since we hiked our way through the Vaucluse in 2004, so we try to check out any place that looks like it might have that certain vibe. We finally got there this weekend, and while it didn’t quite live up to my (admittedly high) expectations, I’m happy to have this little slice of France somewhat nearby.

The space is warm and inviting, with lots of mirrors and black and white photographs. The table we ended up at (after I asked to not be seated right next to a table full of young children) was next to a small gas-fire stove, so it was fairly cozy. We ordered cocktails and studied the menu hard.

In the garden: a dusting of snow

It snowed on Sunday morning - nice big fluffy flakes. Then it all melted. Sigh.

I finally caved this year and bought a Black Mondo Grass at the Northwest Horticultural Society Plant Sale. I hated this grass for years, but suddenly I find I love it. It’s sturdy and looks great when it’s wet - important attributes in a Skagit County winter.

lemony pork chops & sweet potatoes

You ever have something in your fridge or pantry that’s really old, not very appealing any more, but not nasty enough to just throw away? I have this problem with preserved lemons - not the lemons themselves, I usually use them right up - but the syrup that they come in. Even after the lemons are gone, that juice is still good! But then you forget to use it, and it gets shoved to the back of the fridge, and you feel guilty about it but never quite want to toss the jar and buy a new one…at least that’s what happens to me.

So anyway, I wanted to do roasted sweet potatoes this week, so we went to the store looking for something to go with them. Pork chops sounded nice, and we were suddenly struck by the notion that we could use some of our leftover lemon goo on them! We used to roast pork blade steaks with preserved lemon and garlic, but hadn’t thought of it in a while.

Vegetable quiche

We’ve had a lot of soup recently for our late Monday night dinners, and I had some good gruyere on hand (left over from a wonderful cauliflower gratin I forgot to photograph), so this week I made quiche. Nothing special, just something to use up some leftover vegetables - we had mushrooms left from the risotto the night before, and a couple of red bell peppers withering away in the produce drawer. I followed my usual procedure, after sauteeing the mushrooms and peppers together and adding a handful of frozen chopped spinach. The only seasoning was a bit of salt, a grind of pepper and one pinch of oregano. Actually, I was practically making it in my sleep - I almost forgot to get it out of the oven!

Mushroom risotto with kielbasa

Yes, the weather has been nasty around here, windy, cold and wet. It snowed rather convincingly on Sunday morning but then settled back into a glum, clammy grayness. I wanted something warm, easy to eat and comforting for dinner, as you might imagine.

I had a little Arborio rice left, so I made risotto. I was going to do a plain mushroom risotto with a piece of salmon alongside, but wasn’t thrilled with our store’s fish selection (an unusual occurrence). So we went for one of our frequent emergency backups: kielbasa. It’s quick, easy and gives a great savoriness to anything you put it in. We use Hempler’s, a local brand.

curry & parathas

One disadvantage of this otherwise rather nice town is that there is not a single Indian restaurant. During the time we’ve lived here there have been two: a decent enough place attached to a motel that turned into (yet another) Mexican restaurant a couple years ago, and a really great place with a real tandoori oven, which turned into an office furniture shop. Now there’s nothin’. This is part of the reason we cook so much Indian food at home. Besides, it’s fun.

We had friends over last weekend, and fixed up a pretty standard set of dishes to take care of any Indian cravings: red lentil dal, basmati rice, spiced okra, flatbread and chicken curry. The bread and the curry were (pretty safe) experiments: I made paratha for the first time, and the curry was the Chicken Simmered in a Tomato Sauce (very straightforward title) from Meena Pathak’s book.

In the garden: red berries

I’m pretty sure this is a “Ruby Glow” barberry. Or was it “Rosy Glow”? Can’t remember. Anyway, love the berries in winter. Birds don’t seem to bother them, maybe it’s the thorns.

Cooking class: French Canadian Christmas

Why do we do this to ourselves? We go straight from work, spend two hours chopping, two hours plating and serving, another hour cleaning up, and constant dishwashing throughout. Then we go home and collapse on the couch for an hour because we’re too wound up to sleep, but we still have to get up at 5 the next morning. Hmmm….

 Because we get to help cook things like this?

Pork braised in milk

Our plan for Sunday - which actually worked out, astonishingly enough - was to go get our Christmas tree at a local farm, set it up, and braise something for dinner so it could be cooking away and scenting the house while we decorated our tree. Often, of course, these plans don’t work out, because getting the tree into the house takes approximately five times longer than you think it will, and by the time it’s upright, the floor is vacuumed and the furniture has all been rearranged twice, you don’t have time for an involved dinner. But we actually allowed enough time for once, so we had our braise and our tree, too.

I was very pleased with the braised short ribs I made out of Molly Stevens’ book All About Braising, and wanted to try another recipe or two from her. We have an Italian friend who used to make pork cooked with milk and sage, but I had never tried it myself (I think I still wasn’t convinced it really worked) so when I saw a recipe for Pork Loin Braised in Milk, I thought I’d try it just as written and see what happened.