Weekend Evaluations: 'All I Want to Do is Drink Beer for Breakfast'

Things at work are crazy - no time for long winded explanations; but it's bothering me that I'm not keeping track.  So here are the last two weeks in one post.

Got the first winter share, all root vegetables all the time.  The list of what's included looks short, but we always get a lot of everything.

Weekend Evaluation: Greatest of All Time (aka Stop Saying 'Low and Slow')

We went out for lunch on Saturday (Red Hook Lobster Pound....this was fine), and dinner on Sunday (Paulie Gee's - always good - my favorite crust texture).  So not a lot going on here in terms of volume. 

Finally tackled the goat shoulder in the freezer. Next up: rabbit, and another ham.

Gretchen decided goat is gross- although she pretty much eats anything else; which to me makes no sense.  First of all, I'm pretty sure she's had it when I've gotten it out - and I mean what's the difference really. 

In fact goat is the world's most consumed meat. Plus, it tastes pretty much like lamb or mutton - and she likes lamb in general.

So I had to come up with some way to break it into portions so I could handle eating it; but I still wanted to roast some of it.  It did take forever to cook; but that's my fault.

Last regular CSA of the year this week - on to all root vegetables all of the time.

Weekend Evaluation: the long weekend was not long enough

The past couple of years we've had people over for Gretchen's birthday.  I usually try to take a dish or ingredient that she's really liked over the past year and put some kind of creative spin on it.  This time I started with the short rib croquette and worked backwards, and went with a German-leaning menu again (after the Alsatian/Germanic food last year: tarte flambe/sweet potato spaetzle).

Although I wanted the food to be good, I also really want to make sure I can hang out when we have friends over.  The past couple of times we've had people over I feel like I spend too much time in the kitchen, and I think from that standpoint dinner was a success. 

The food was okay, definitely not great, but scaling to larger quantities is not something I'm used to.  So to feel like things weren't horrible and my planning was good; it went okay.


Since we had all week off, I'm including two weekends, I just didn't have time to finish the post last week.  We're also coming up on the end of the normal CSA share - the final share is this week- and then the winter share starts.  Get ready for rutabaga.

Weekend Evaluation: This Guy's Got Like...a Plan

It seemed like a pretty relaxed weekend for cooking, even though I made sausage.  

That usually becomes a big production, but it seemed to go pretty well. It's all about working in steps; I try to find time before work or after dinner to season or grind/emulsify the meat mixture; not having to do everything all at once is the key to making it not seem like so much work.

Overall, the whole thing ran pretty efficiently; dinners weren't outstanding but okay.  How's that for a compelling read....6 out of 10....boring. 

Weekend Evaluation: Getting a Little Bright In Here

I retested the recipes for Gretchen's birthday, and they worked out a bit better from a construction standpoint.  I'll be doing more prep next weekend.  We went out to dinner on Sunday night, so I didn't do a lot of cooking last weekend.  I expect this coming weekend, I'll be working on a lot.

Airing of Grievences: The Myth of High Greenmarket Prices

This dude is an idiot – why would you pay $7 for some radishes? 

'I'd shop at the farmer's market, but everything is too expensive!' is the classic excuse that people use to justify going to the supermarket.

Just like anything else you need to look at your options.  I understand that the green market has some stands that rip you off (more often at Union Square and Grand Army), but there are plenty of farms that offer better than supermarket prices; and that’s supposed to be the one advantage of a supermarket.  

Here are some examples (after the break):

Weekend Evaluation: I knew it would be bad, I did not know it would be this bad

We're having people over for Gretchen's birthday in a couple weeks.  For her birthday the challenge is to frame a dish, or flavors, she likes in a new way. Last year's dinner was tarte flambee and a brown butter spaetzle dish, which was more or less a take on the farmer cheese/noodle thing she's all about. This year is still kind of coming together, but I'm starting to get ready.  

So the next few weekends will be a combination of testing and prep work.  

Weekend Evaluation: 50% More Ingredients

It was another slow weekend from a cooking standpoint.  We ate at a friend's house on Saturday, where I was pretty interested to see the recent chicken pot pie recipe from Cook's Illustrated being made.  I have to say the crumble top was really good - a smart recipe, that was well executed.

Gretchen brought cake to dinner, so she was in the kitchen a bit too. The Hazelnut cake she made has been really successful both times she's made it.  My cooking this week - a little less successful.  I've been falling into a trap of too many things on the plate; and my rut of having everything stacked lately has been another rut, that's caused bad results.

Weekend Evaluation: Waiting for the Other Hoof to Drop

It was a quiet week cooking wise.  We had a project on our hands around the house - painting the bathroom- so I didn't want to be worrying about cooking at the same time.  Plus we went out to dinner on Sunday since it was nice out, part of our attempt to get out while we can.

Weekend Evaluation: 0 for 3

Everything from Buffalo were losers this weekend - the Bills, the Sabres, my wings.  

We haven't even gotten to Knick season and I'm sick of losing; maybe I can thank the Mets for that. At least the New York City doesn't really have a signature food I can screw up - maybe a knish? pizza?  I've definitely screwed up pizza before...

Weekend Evaluation - At least the Bills weren't the only thing that got smoked this Sunday.

This weekend the Buffalo Bills reminded me of how I started trying to cook more intricate foods.  When I first moved to New York, I used to go watch Bills games at a bar, or a friends house, but as the years of unwatchable, losing football dragged on, I started questioning why I was spending Sunday afternoons going out of my way to pay attention.

I finally decided I would just listen to games while I worked on some other projects; that turned into making dinner more and more labor intensive. This week the game was on TV here - but true to form, the Bills never showed up, so by the third quarter I was doing something else.

On a side note- why are Buffalo fans so outraged by this year's team - did they do anything to make you think they'd be any better than the past 10 years?

Went to the smoker two weeks in a row, it just worked out that way. 

Weekend Evaluation: I'd Already Rather Be Bow Hunting

I've been working on prepping a lot of things for the freezer - this weekend was more sausages.  As is typical, I totally got depressed about all of the projects on Sunday night, and went into my typical bullshit routine of  'I'll never be good at anything if I can't do it that often...why do I spend 50 hours a week at work when I could be doing something I care about' - like I'm the only person to ever think that they don't care about their job.  I made my office-working bed, now I have to lie in it.  Besides everybody knows food service workers don't get paid anything.

At least the CSA is starting to pick up again in volume - and the farm gave some explanation about what happened this summer.  I guess they lost zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers, lettuce, and green bean crops to disease and drought.  Last year the rain ruined everything, now it was drought.

Weekend Evaluation: Summer's Greatest Hits

In my beer-centered calendar, once Oktoberfest starts, summer is officially over. We had Sauerbraten, choucroute garni, and speatzle for dinner, followed by beer and chocolates on Sunday night; safe to say summer is over.

It's ok - After this weekend I'm finally ready to move on - the corn is starting to look old, the eggplant are tasting a little bitter.

Weekend Evaluation: Do you know how much 15 pounds of ravoli costs?

Continued to get ready for winter - prepping tomatoes.  I gave up supermarket tomatoes after reading the article in gourmet about the near slave labor conditions in Florida; and this year I'm giving up on canned tomatoes (BPA); so I decided to freeze a bunch this year.

Weekend Wrap-Up (Sept 4-6 & Sept 11-12)

Lard Rendering and Tomatoes Dehydrating

Since it's still technically summer, we're still busy, so I'm combining two weekends into this one post.



Weekend Evaluation: This is the Largest Freezer I Could Afford

Depressing to think about, but I saw 4 brands of pumpkin beers show up at the supermarket this week.  First of all - the pumpkin beer thing is out of control, there are only like 3 that are any good and get the balance of squash and spice right - that's beside the point. 

It's too soon, I'm not ready for summer to end.

Now I have to make stock, render fat, can tomatoes...soon you won't be able to let the ingredients do all the work; you'll have to do something to make them better

At least it's not February, that's about as horrible as it gets; I'm fearing the winter, with all of the rutabega and potatoes that come with it.  It's nice when those are an option in the late fall and early winter - but it's not funny anymore after three months of root vegetables and winter squash.

I guess it's just time to get ready for winter, while cramming as much corn, zucchini, eggplant as possible in to my feed hole.  Soon we won't have the option until next July.

Airing of Greivences: Berkshire Brewing Company

We were in Cape Cod this past weekend; left after work on Friday, and came back on Sunday. 

So no new post; but as is the case when we go away we try to eat as many local foods and drink as many local beers as possible. 

So for Cape Cod we tried to eat all seafood and ice cream; and drank beer by Wachusett, Cape Cod, and Berkshire Brewing.  I think I had a Rock Art (VT) in there too....

At least we know now that New York isn't the only city with some mediocre (to bad) local craft beer - Berkshire was available at every package store; so I bought one, and then drank one on tap at a restaurant.

Both the Extra Pale (bottle conditioned) and the IPA (on tap) gave me a horrible headache and I couldn't finish them.  At least I can finish the Sixpoint beers, I just think they are all the same, and aren't close to the style they're supposed to be.

Weekend Wrap-Up (August 21-22)

Fried Bananas

The weather wasn't so great in NYC on Sunday, so Tom was a little more prolific in the kitchen. He made a lot of stuff, I took a lot of photos. So let's just get down to it, shall we?

Weekend Evaluation: I know I-tey food when I hear it - it's all them 'eenie' foods (aka 'His name's not Fellini, it's Jake')

I feel like I'm only cooking Italian food right now; kind of boring myself, but you don't want to get in the way of these ingredients.  In the summer I usually cook a lot of mexican too, but this year I'm in a Mediterranean rut - we need to have some sopes or something soon.    I guess I shouldn't complain, the next thing you know we'll only be potatoes, cabbage, and winter squash everyday.

Speaking of which - we did finally make it to the Red Hook carts this weekend, the papusa was pretty good and I got my hands on some chicharron and beef tendon tacos.  I do think I prefer Tortilleria Nixmatel.

Weekend Evaluation: Working Hard or Hardly Working

I do wish I worked from home every Friday, I would get a lot more meat smoked.

Weekend Wrap-Up (Aug 14-15)

Tom and I have been busy this summer, so he hasn't had any real food 'projects' recently. Its mainly every-day type of cooking. Plus, it seems like all we've been eating are corn, zucchini, tomatoes, and eggplant. I guess that's summer for ya.

This past Friday, Tom decided to work from home, which gave him some time for a sort-of project. He smoked some pork ribs, and made beans and coleslaw.

Ribs, Beans and Coleslaw

Weekend Evaluation: Keeps the Hot side Hot, and the Cold side Cold

Gretchen's Mom was up this weekend, and we went to visit some friends who had a new baby, so it was busy yet again.  But I did cook a couple times, but didn't have any real projects.

Weekend Evaluation: I've Tried Nothing and I'm All Out of Ideas

Sometimes I have an idea that I'm sitting on for days, and other times I can't come up with anything until I'm actually cooking.

This weekend I had both - a gratin dish (nothing special) that I wanted to make for a while, and on Saturday I had no idea what to make.

Weekend Wrap-Up (July 31- Aug 1)

This weekend was almost like an episode of 'Chopped' at our house. If you're not familiar with the tv show on Food Network, contestants get a basket of random ingredients (typically things you would never think would go together- "here's potatoes, beef, and a chocolate bar!") and they have to make a dish using all the ingredients in 20 or 30 minutes, depending what round it is. We had a bunch of random ingredients in our fridge that Tom wanted to use up, so he spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to make with them.

Weekend Wrap Up (July 23-25)

Most things slow down and get lazy in the summer- it must be the heat, since people in the South move slower in general. Tom's cooking has been no different, so my posts are going to be shorter as a result.

This past weekend, Tom wanted to use up some ingredients. So here we have some jars of stuff:

Blueberry Jam, Chicken Liver Pate, Pickles

Weekend Evaluation: I Don't Have Time To Bleed

We weren't at home much this weekend, like most summer weekends.  I guess it's a bad time to start documenting how much cooking you do when it's not a time for being indoors.

Besides, I have no room in the freezer for projects right now.  The project these days is to clear out the freezer; I got the chicken livers and mole out of there.  Maybe I'll have room for the ice cream maker soon, we were out of ice cream for the hottest days I can remember.

I haven't made breakfast for the both of us in weeks, and I'm missing that and making bread; but I'll have all winter to do that.

Weekend Evaluation: Taking a Relaxed Attitude Toward Cooking (and blog posts)

Not much to report here -  it was my birthday on Saturday, so didn't cook much except Sunday dinner.

Maybe I'll throw in some thoughts on restaurants, which all were good with few exceptions.

July Wrap-Up (July 1-17)

Happy Birthday Tom!

Hey all, sorry it's been awhile since I put up a post here (although Tom's been keeping up with it). Its summer, when we all get lazy (and in our case, busy). Plus, Tom hasn't been cooking too much, or that much interesting stuff, its mostly CSA vegetables that run our life during the summer, and this season its no different.

Weekend Evaluation: Owner of a Lonely Heart (aka Heart of the Sunrise)

This was the weekend of beef heart.  I've had a small beef heart in the freezer for months, so I decided it was time it come out of there.  To break it down into workable pieces of meat you have to trim away lots of silver skin and fat; which leaves the leanest meat you probably can find.

You'd think all of those uptight people who eat chicken breast and who've influenced our pork industry to breed out all of the fat from our pigs would love this cut....but oh yeah- they're scared of everything, so they wouldn't try heart.

This was also the first weekend of our vacation, so we were out a lot, and we went to Meatopia - a BBQ event on Governor's Island - marred by the unacceptable inclusion of Sixpoint beer.

Weekend Wrap-Up: Celebrate Your Country's Independence by Smoking a Small Piece of It.

I was planning on making hot dogs for a cookout at a friends house this week, so maybe this post would have been more interesting. When it got canceled I was sort of relieved to not have to try to make sausage with it 100 degrees out.
  

It didn't mean that I was going to let it stop me from using the smoker.

Weekend Wrap-Up: June 26-27: Potential Disaster

This past weekend, Tom and I moved, so I don't have any food to report on or review (unless the take-out Mexican and Indian food counts? Or the decent but still too expensive dinner at Quaint?).

As far as moves go, it was fairly smooth, thanks to a lot of help from Tom's parents and professional movers. But it was still stressful, and things still got misplaced, but I knew that the missing items would eventually turn up.

Weekend Evaluation: I Just Want To Make An Omelet

This will be the last Geico reference for now - I promise.

We moved this weekend, so we were busy - but I was able to make an omelet.

Airing of Greivences: Good Beer Seal

For people who like beer you're late to the party.

Weekend Evaluation: This is Not Awesome

Maybe this should be an airing of grievances - but summer is the greatest time of the year; but it's also the most frustrating.  The produce is amazingly great, so you should cook at home all of the time, but it's so nice out you want to be out enjoying the weather.

I guess this is why people have grills.  Too bad we just bought tiny house and it doesn't even have any outdoor space.

On top of that, since everything looks great so I always buy too much at the farmer's market.  I don't want to miss out on a thing, especially in the early spring certain product comes and goes so fast.  You need to jump right on asparagus and favas since before you know it, they're gone.  So with this stuff on top of the regular CSA share I always have a slammed refrigerator every Saturday; and spend the weekend digging out of the mess. 

This week asparagus, rhubarb and scapes probably made their last appearance at the market, but cherries showed up, so I felt compelled to buy them with no real idea of what I was going to do.

Usually this means a lot of great food that's fairly easy to prepare and an opportunity to be creative; but not when you're not trying to prepare to move in less than a week and still get out and enjoy the 86 degree weather.  It becomes just one more thing you have to deal with, a chore...almost. 

This led to some rushed and sloppy cooking; pretty stupid.

Weekend Wrap-Up (June 5-6)

Bacon, Anyone?

Sorry this is up so late this week.

Here's what Tom made this past weekend:

- Oatmeal Ice Cream (my idea!)

- Pickled Asparagus 

- Smoked Bacon

- Smoked Blackstrap Molasses Ham

- Molasses Glazed Ham Steaks w/Mushroom Cognac Sauce; Sauteed Chard with Roman Beans and Smoked Bread Crumbs

- Fava Beans, Sauteed Garlic Scapes

- Whole Wheat Flat Bread

- Whole Wheat Sourdough Sandwich Bread

- Merguez Sausage with Grilled Spring Onion, Zucchini, Garlic Scape, Spinach, Olives, Feta with Flatbread and Potato Salad

Weekend Evaluation: Never Had a Touch to Lose

A minute to learn...a lifetime to master.

How can anyone get good at anything when you do it once a month at most - depressing.

Airing of Grievances: Who's With Me?

We'd like to know that people are actually reading our blog (and we're not just doing this to indulge Tom's obsessive nature). So let's get some comments, suggestions, questions, and possibly discussions going on here people!

Chaz, AKA Guanciale

Chaz and the Charcuterie Book

Weekend Wrap-Up (June 5-6)

Banger, Mashed Turnip and Turnip Greens with Onion Gravy

The amount of cooking taking place in our apartment is going to be steadily increasing over the summer because our CSA share has started up again. Every Thursday, we get a box full of veggies and fruits, and Tom has to figure out something to do with it all. It's been warm so far this year, so hopefully we'll get a good variety of things. Last year we got a lot of the same things, like cabbage (not one of my favorites), so that wasn't very fun.

For the most part, the CSA share is a good thing because we eat a lot of veggies and try some things we might never purchase at the farmer's market or grocery store. When was the last time you purchased daikon or watermelon radishes?

Weekend Evaluation: I heard if you don't use it, you'll lose it

I was out all day on Saturday at a cooking demonstration and a party.  On Sunday we were at the Mets game; so I didn't get make a ton of stuff.  Also we're moving soon, so I've been trying to clear out the freezer.

Airing of Grievences: This is a Cooking Demostration, not a Photo Shoot for Your Blog

Went to this yesterday - and after every chef did a demo there were 12 people (there were only 20 there) lining up to take pictures of the plated food.  

Weekend Evaluation: An Unfortunate Turn of Events for the Home Team

I wasn't planning on being home to cook that much this weekend.  we were supposed to be out of town at a family party on Saturday.  Well, thanks to some squealing, grinding brakes we were unexpectedly home on Saturday, so I did some cooking but no real projects - and we went out to eat a lot.  Luckily with a bike you can still get to a lot of food.

Maybe I'll include a couple restaurants in the Weekend Evaluation.

Weekend Wrap-Up (May 27-31)

 Asparagus, Portabella Mushroom and Spring Garlic Pizza

This weekend was our anniversary (May 27th- 3 yrs already!), and Memorial Day weekend. Tom didn't cook much because we were out and about as much as possible. We also had plans to visit family out of town, but some bad brakes on the car kept us home. We probably should have been doing more productive things than eating, drinking and riding bikes, but the weather was awesome, and it was a holiday weekend. And we needed some fun!

Airing of Greivences: Brasserie Des Franches-Montagnes

People have called BFM the brewer of the 'best beer in the world' - but I don't buy it.

Weekend Evaluation: Hear that Funny Sound? It's My Hooves!

When Gretchen bought me this t-shirt for my birthday a few years back I don't think she expected me to actually cook all of the parts that are delicious.

Weekend Wrap-Up (May 22-23)

Pig Trotter Terrine

This weekend was a quiet food-weekend in our house. It was almost disastrous on a major level- our oven stopped working on Sunday. Tom was braising a pig foot in the oven, when it suddenly shut off and the digital display went black. I expected a melt-down of epic proportions, but Tom shocked me and didn't seem to mind too much. The burners on the stove still worked, so maybe that helped ease the situation. Tom had been planning to bake bread, but instead had to turn the dough into English muffins, since they're cooked on a griddle. I guess when life hands you a broken oven, you turn it into English muffins.

(Note: we were able to get the oven working several hours later. All we had to do was unplug it and plug it back in, and it worked! It's amazing how many things can be fixed by unplugging it, pulling a battery, or just whacking it really hard.)

Airing of Grievences: Just Because Its Local Doesn't Mean Its Good

We’re not waiting until Festivus -We've got a lot of problems with people, and now, you're going to hear about it.

So Gretchen and I are going to start regularly posting things that annoy us or don’t make any sense.  Let’s face it, you’re going to see a lot more from me in this category. 

I try to buy everything at the greenmarket and through my CSA.  We’re talking about products that need to be consumed fresh so the quality is going to be better if they haven’t been transported from California or Florida in a truck; and in a lot of cases the greenmarket vendors are no more expensive than the supermarket and you get to spend your shopping time outside.  

These are great reasons to get your product from the greenmarket. It doesn’t necessarily mean you can just show up at your local farmers market, co-op, or store and buy something labeled ‘local’, ‘organic’, or ‘artisanal’ and expect it to be good.  In a lot of cases you're going to pay way too much for food that isn't as good as it should be.

With this in mind I’m going on the record about food that I think doesn’t live up to its billing. 

Weekend Evaluation: I Was Hot and I Was Hungry

Sometimes cooking is a great feeling.  There's an awareness and confidence that you can feel while cooking, it seems like you can't make a mistake. You know exactly what is happening and why - the cause and effect are completely linked.  Your evaluation of the ingredients, the plan you put in place, and the techniques you apply to achieve the final product is all are very clear.  

You feel in complete control of what's happening and everything works out exactly how you want with very little effort.  

This effortless feeling is why I cook.   

This weekend was not effortless.

Weekend Wrap-Up (May 15-16)

Sometimes things just don't go as smoothly as you'd like, even though you've planned for days to make sure everything goes ok. Sometimes you accidentally cut yourself when you're only washing the knife and not actually cutting. Sometimes you use the wrong ingredient. Sometimes the blade on your Kitchenaid food processor gets jammed, and no amount of hammering, drilling, pulling, heating, soaking or other form of destruction will get it off (seriously, why is this so hard to pry off?). Sometimes things just go wrong, and unfortunately this was one of those weekends in our kitchen. A lot of beer was consumed in the aftermath.

Here's what Tom made this weekend:

- Harissa (a North African hot chili sauce)
- Biscuits (for the bangers)
- Sausages - Merguez; Bangers (pork); Mint, Thyme, and White Wine Mutton Sausage
- Mutton Chop with Mint Spring Onion Burre Blanc, Potatoes a la Boulangere, and Sugar Snaps
- Sourdough Rhubarb Whole Wheat Coffee Cake
- Rolls (Kolsch, Pale Ale)
- Asparagus and Spring Onion Tart, with Carrot Top and Pea Pesto
- Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
- Roasted Radishes
- Hummus (for my lunch during the week)

And now for the problems:

Weekend Evaluation: In Theory and Practice

I'm not sure if I cook a lot on the weekend; it seems like it, but it's all about having a basic plan of when you're going to do things, and then sticking to it.

I just like to spend my time away from work doing what I enjoy, being productive, and swearing at inanimate objects.  Not that I'm above doing that at work too; I'm pretty sure I've told a computer, phone and copier all to f-off on company time.  Is that stealing time?

Here's a couple observations from this weekend's cooking. 

Weekend Wrap-Up (May 8-9)

This past weekend was a non-project weekend, but that doesn't mean that Tom wasn't busy in the kitchen. I'm a 'late' sleeper on weekends (until 9 am) but Tom is up at the crack of dawn- sometimes before. When I wake up, Tom's already gone running, been to the farmers market and the grocery store, baked a loaf of bread, ground some meat, and made us breakfast. I'm not exaggerating, its pretty unbelievable how productive he is while I'm still sleeping. This works out for both of us- I'm not in his way while he's doing all this, and I don't have to hear the inevitable swearing or freak outs. If you've never heard someone yell 'F*** you!' to a fridge, come on over Saturday morning around 6 am. You won't be disappointed.

This weekend, we went to a Mets game, Tom had a basketball game, and we rode our bikes. But here's what he still managed to make on a non-project weekend...

Cook's Complaints: Duck Confit w/ rhubarb gastrique over mint/coriander israeli couscous, peas, and lentils

What I hate about blogs is that the writer's tend to make their lives sound perfect, or how they were always thrilled with how great they are a something.  I am not a great cook, I'm not even good - I'd like to think working at something daily and striving for a higher level will make you better, but I make the same mistakes over and over.  In the interest of improvement, I think that writing them down will keep me from repeating them.  So this is where I'll complain about the food, and follow that by a brief description by how I prepared it.

The biggest problem here was timing....

The Weekday "Usual"

When we eat dinner at home, Tom always cooks. My cooking skills are very limited (I get excited when I properly fry an egg), and Tom enjoys it. He has roughly an hour to prepare dinner since I work out when I get home from work, and we eat when I'm done. (By the way, I do realize how absolutely lucky I am to have a husband that cooks!)

A typical weekday dinner consists of grains (lentils, couscous, quinoa, etc) with additions (usually veggies and a meat), and some kind of saucing. The meat additions are typically something that was a weekend project, like duck confit, lamb neck rilette, or bacon. Another common weekday dish is some sort of open-faced sandwich on bread that Tom has baked. (Did I mention he bakes too?)

Thursday night, we had one of these typical weekday dinners. He made Israeli couscous and lentils, which he topped with peas, mint, duck confit, duck cracklings, and a rhubarb/honey sauce.

Welcome to my blog!

My husband, Tom, is kind of obsessed with food and cooking. He reads books and magazines about food, is online for hours reading blogs and websites devoted to food, watches tv shows about food, and has recently taken a few cooking classes. He talks about food, thinks about food, and even wakes up in the middle of the night after dreaming of food. The dude likes food.

I like food, too (who doesn't?), but it doesn't control my life like it does Tom's. We plan our weekends around his 'food projects.' If I want to use the oven to bake cookies, I have to clear it with him to make sure he's not planning to smoke meat that day. After I've made the cookies, I just eat them and enjoy them. That is not the case with Tom, who tends to discuss (obsess over?) a meal for hours- sometimes days- after it's been eaten.

Tom's interest in cooking started when he realized it was just as easy (and tastier) to make his own food instead of making something frozen or out of a box. Why use a pancake mix when you've already got flour, salt and baking powder in the cupboard?

We live in New York City, which has some of the greatest restaurants in the world, a perk we try to take advantage of. Eating some of the most amazing food on the planet at these restaurants has also inspired him.

This interest in cooking, and Tom's skills, have blossomed over the years. He started out simple, making dishes like roasted chicken with pan sauce, but lately he's been getting into making 'fancier' stuff like terrines, sausages, duck confits, and even rendering fat to make lard. I've had all sorts of gross things in my refrigerator- jars of animal intestines (for sausage casings- they are still in there), pig hearts, chicken feet, pork cheeks, lamb necks, and a hunk of pig skin with hair and the USDA stamp right there in your face.

Everytime he orders meat from our CSA vendor I worry what we'll end up getting. A whole bone-in ham to put in our already stuffed freezer? A cow heart? More chicken feet? They're all coming soon.