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: