chips & egg

This is kind of embarrassing, but I can’t deny (and you’ll know this if you’ve been reading for a while) that I will put a fried egg on almost anything. And when you think about it, French fries aren’t that different from hashbrowns, right?

I don’t usually bring leftover French fries home, but these were special fries. We had lunch at Nell Thorn last weekend, after spending a quiet Sunday morning in La Conner checking out some of the Art’s Alive exhibits. Thinking we’d be restrained and share an order (after downing some incredible oyster shooters), we asked for a single Nell burger with fries and a side salad. Unfortunately for our good intentions, the kitchen cut the burger neatly in half, put each on its own plate and filled in the space around it with fries. And these are Nell Thorn fries, done with local potatoes and herbs and served with spicy house-made ketchup. We ate far too many, then just had to take the rest home. And, of course, ate them for breakfast. What would you have done?

cranberry crumble tart

Here’s something a little different. I wanted to make a pie, but couldn’t decide what kind (pear? apple? brown butter cheesecake?), so I started flipping through a few baking books. What caught my eye was a recipe for “Warm Cranberry Crumble Tart” in The Art and Soul of Baking, one of the books I brought home from the International Food Blogger’s Conference last spring. Festive, seasonal and something I’d never thought of trying – perfect.

In some ways, this tart is kind of odd. The cranberry-orange flavor is so strongly associated in my mind with turkey that I find it hard to remember I’m eating dessert. But it goes great with vanilla ice cream (especially homemade), which makes up for the fact that the tart isn’t very sweet on its own. The more I ate, the more I liked it.

Sunday comic: from the mouths of babes

www.toothpastefordinner.com

Why are so many foods marketed to kids made of plastic faux-food crap, anyway? Walking by the “lunchables” section of the supermarket makes me queasy. Some kids never get to find out what real food looks or tastes like, which irritates the heck out of me.

Miss Sleepycat

We both had Wednesday off for Veteran’s Day, so we celebrated by taking the cats to the vet. It’s really hard work for them, since they have to hide under the furniture and be dragged out, then wail continuously on the drive across town, then shiver with fear in their carriers, then be manhandled in embarrassing ways by the vet. By the time we all make it home, they’re just exhausted. Everyone found a sunny spot and slept the day away. I would have liked to do the same thing.

The good news, after all that fun, is that all the cats are healthy (even Stella of the plump tummy and palpable thyroid) and their teeth are in good shape, thanks to the rather pricy tartar-control food we give them. Fortunately for us, they adore it and consider it a great treat every time they get it. Beats paying for teeth cleaning.

deep blue sea

Jon has taken to reading cocktail recipe books like novels lately, and making lists of everything he wants to try. Inevitably, there’s some ingredient we just don’t have and can’t get locally. Our area liquor stores have some interesting stuff, but when I asked for Creme de Violette at the Burlington store I got an extremely blank look. We had to make a special trip to the Capitol Hill liquor store (where the clerk accused us of buying stuff off of the “fancy-pants” shelf) to get a bottle.

The drink I really wanted to try with the Violette was an Aviation Cocktail, but it wasn’t until we made it by the Crown Hill liquor store that we managed to score some Maraschino liqueur and I was able to try one. I thought it was disgusting – apparently I don’t have a taste for Maraschino as yet. Fortunately, in the meantime Jon had found a recipe for another drink that I ended up loving, called the Deep Blue Sea.

cooking class: Chinese food

Last week at Gretchen’s we helped out with a class on Chinese cooking. Presented by Huiming Hsiao, the daughter of Taiwanese restauranteurs, the food was heavy on the pork, light on the vegetables, and extremely yummy. I’m hardly going to complain about too much pork. Besides, there was also chicken and shrimp.

Most of the food was served at once, but we started the guests off with a curried chicken skewer. Huiming brought the boneless chicken thighs pre-marinated in a lively blend of star anise, Sichuan pepper and curry, and all we had to do was skewer them and stick them in the oven.

pasta with wine-braised sausage

One of the real perks of living in Ellensburg, as we did many years ago, was proximity to the town of Cle Elum, home of Glondo’s Sausages. Recently recovered from a serious bout of vegetarianism, we were ready to take advantage of Glondo’s wonderful products, and this recipe is what we invariably made when we were feeling festive. Now that we’re an inconvenient 140 miles from Glondo’s, we have to make do with the sausages from our local grocery, but the pasta is still very tasty.

Brouwer's

Do you like beer and fries? How about mussels? Or single malt Scotch? If any of the above catch your eye, Brouwer’s is the place you’ve been dreaming of.

Located in an unlikely building that looks like a cross between a castle and a warehouse (and feels that way on the inside, too), Brouwer’s is a Belgian-inspired bar and restaurant in the Center of the Universe (otherwise known as Fremont to you non-Seattleites). We’ve gone many times (as have my parents) and are constantly blown away by the length of the beer list, the quality of the fries, and the astonishing tastiness of the merguez lamb burger.

orange-rosemary salmon

Even after I had learned how to cook most things, I had no idea how to deal with a piece of salmon. It was embarrassing, but I was sufficiently terrified by the idea of cooking, not just salmon, but any fish, that I almost never tried. I was scared of it being raw, but I hated it overcooked. So I just skipped the whole thing, which is really a shame when you live in the  Pacific Northwest.

Enter that saviour of timid chefs everywhere, Mark Bittman! All of his recipes tend to have a comforting, you-can-do-this sort of tone, with simple techniques and ingredients. I discovered a stovetop-to-oven method of cooking salmon fillets in his book The Minimalist Cooks at Home, and it worked so well I wouldn’t cook salmon any other way for years. It repeatedly produced fish that was moist, tender and cooked all the way through. It’s simple: crust the fish with herbs and spices, melt butter in an oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat, add the fish seasoning-side down and cook one minute. Flip and cook one more minute. Put the pan in the oven and cook about five minutes or until done how you like. Easy.

Sunday comic: wine appreciation

www.toothpastefordinner.com

Sundays should be reserved for reading comics, don’t you think? If you have a slightly twisted sense of humor, like me, you should get to know Toothpaste for Dinner: an online comic that is low on artistic finesse but big on sarcasm. I have three on my refrigerator at this very moment.