This morning dawned bright and glorious. Today is the last day of standard time, so it'll be dark again in the morning for a while (at least until the summer solstice, when the sun rises at like 4:30am).
Sunny mornings like today's make we want to jump out of bed and do something productive. The fact that the kids were in our room by 6:00 helped, too. So today, I went on an excursion to Borough Market by myself. I've written about the market before, and we went every Saturday religiously last summer. Visiting the Market makes me to think creatively about food. The rich palate of colors, sights and smells splashed boldly against a backdrop of ancient brick and Victorian iron make it nearly impossible not to be inspired to reach for a new culinary experience.
Today, though, was even better. I rarely get to go to the market without the kids, and never before about 10:00. Today I found myself climbing up from the London Bridge tube station at about 8:15. The streets around the market were empty, so much so that I was thinking that maybe it was closed for the winter right up until I turned into the alley that runs along the side of the market and saw the familiar reds, greens and yellows of the produce stall. Today, I could get as close as I wanted to the stalls. Today, I could browse at a leisurely pace. Today, I actually got to talk to some of the vendors.
Today, I am making sea bass.
Fish is good for us. We should eat more of it. As a kid, I never really liked fish. It was too, well, fishy. I liked fish sticks, though, which back in the 70's actually contained some fish. Ah, the good old days. But I digress.
I had gone with the intention of buying sea bass filets, since I know there are several fishmongers there. I figured I'd make the rest up based on what looked good. Trouble is, everything looked good. It was a difficult decision, but I finally settled on pan-fried sea bass with red chillies and fennel, asparagus and baby carrots and boiled new potatoes. Hm, but wait, that rocket looks good. Maybe a rocket salad to start. With fennel, stilton and a light vinaigrette. Wait, I can't put fennel in the fish, too. Oh, damn.
My first challenge was the fish. As one accustomed to buying his fish in filet form, the prospect of fileting my very expensive sea bass was somewhat daunting. In hindsight, I should have bought a few trout or something to practice on. The web is a great source of information, as I've alluded to previously, but it's difficult to learn from photos how to deal with fish on the hoof, as it were.
I managed to mangle the first attempt, eventually producing two thin strips of pinkish almost boneless flesh. The second turned out much better, though I nearly destroyed that one trying to remove the skin. We'll just have to eat them with the skin on. And watch out for bones.
The carnage over, fish parts sprayed around the kitchen, a sensible person would have taken pity on the poor creature gazing sadly up at me, covered in its own offal. A sensible person would have tossed away the carcass, happy to quit while he's ahead. A sensible person would have poured a glass of wine and read a book. Not me, though. What do you do with a perfectly good fish carcass? You make fish stock, of course! This required another heretofore unattempted feat of knifework, that of removing the gills.
Outside of high school biology, in which I paid very little attention, I haven't dealt with fish gills. Ever. Fortunately, Google came to my rescue yet again, finding for me a helpful diagram of how to remove the gills from a fish. It's a messy process, at least the way I do it.
I'm still cooking, so the menu might change, but here's what I have so far:
- Rocket salad with fennel and stilton, vinaigrette dressing
- Pan fried sea bass with thyme, chillies, leeks and lemon, sauce veloute
- Baby carrots and asparagus
- Boiled new potatoes
- Pear and dark chocolate tartelets
- A 2006 Viognier, highly recommended by my friends at Wimbledon Wine Cellar.
We'll see how this all turns out.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Happy Easter
Geez, sorry I've been away so long. No excuse really, just haven't had the energy or time to write much lately. Seems I was pretty drained by taking care of the children while Michele went' back to the US for a week. It was a lot of fun, actually, getting to observe the children in their natural habitat and all, but I barely sat down from 6:15 in the morning until about 8:30 at night.
I did get a bit of time to myself later in the week - even spent a few hours in a suny park reading a book. Don't think I've done that since college, and back then I only went outside when I couldn't take the smell of whatver it was that had died under my pile of 6 weeks' worth of laundry.
So glad that Michele was back, I went back to work just in time to pack all of my stuff for the move to a new building. I say "new" only in the sense that it's not the building I've been in since moving here. In fact, it's about 20 years old, and shows it. The wallpaper is vaguely reminiscent of a set of kitchen chairs I had in the early 1990's, with colorful spongue painting effects on them. Very leg warmers and big hair.
The view is no great shakes, either. In the first building we were on the top floor, with panoramic views upriver to the City, and all of iconic London spread out below us - Tower Bridge, St. Paul's, the Gherkin, the Eye and, with a bit of a squint and a favorable wind, Big Ben. We shared the clouds with the gods.
Now, from my new 5th floor vantage, I can see the roof of my building and the tube station. Yeah, it's still London, and so by definition, even the new view is more interesting than the view from my office in Conshohocken, which was of the hotel next door, but still...
Caroline lost her first tooth the other day. Most kids would be happy to just stick the tooth under their pillow and get a dime in return for their trouble. Not my daughter. She had to leave a note for the tooth fairy, expressing her undying affection, and requesting a self-portrait. Fortunately, Michele took care of this, as she is, as has been previously noted, the artist in the family.
Having realized on Saturday that not only was I completely unprepared for any sort of Easter dinner on Sunday (except maybe ordering a curry), but also that everything was likely to be closed on Easter, I called a local butcher, who not only had a beautiful 2kilo pork loin in stock, but also delivered it within about 15 minutes! Who says service in England is bad?
What I hadn't really thought about, since I was fully expecting the butcher to be closed on Saturday, was just how much pork is 2kilos. A kilo is 2.2 pounds, for the metrically challenged among you. In short, it's a lotta pork. What to do with this gigantic slab of pig? So, pork loin in hand (er, fridge), I set out to find an interesting recipie.
One of the most wonderful things about the Internet is its ability to find things. Life would really be perfect if I could Google for, say, "where's my remote"? (In fact, I just tried this, and received this list of helpful suggestions). The fact that one can search by a bunch of arbitrary key words is incredibly useful. Finding recipies this way is a breeze. For example, I wanted to do something involving pork, mustard and rosemary (we have a rosemary bush). Rather than needing to know the name of a dish involving each of these ingredients, I just searched for "'pork loin' rosemary mustard".
One of the other downsides about the searching on the Internet is that search engines are generally kind of dumb. While a human of even modest intelligence would realize from those keywords that I was after one recipie containing all three ingredients, Google isn't that smart, at least not yet (the notion of intelligence in searching is part of what's loosely called Web 2.0). So while the results contained mostly recipies with the three ingredients, all three weren't necessarily all in the same dish. This actually turned out to be a good thing, else I'd never have found this: Roasted Pork Loin with Apples and Rosemary. I won't bother repeating the recipie here, but will note that I did this with just the two halves of the pork loin, butterflied, and that I added 3-4 large shallots, finely chopped, to the stuffing. It was delicious. If I did it again, I might lower the oven temp to 350 and plan to let it roast for about 1.75 hours.
In addition, I made a really good batch of Brussels Sprouts. Now, I realize that most of you are turning up your noses, but these are unlike any Brussels Sprouts you're likely to have had. I made a similar dish for Thanksgiving, but I think this one is much improved. The beauty of this is that you can get everything cooked ahead of time, and then at the last minute just heat it all up just before serving. The key to successful Brussels Sprouts is to not cook them too long - overcooked, they become most unpleasant, but done just right, they are crunchy, sweet and a little bit sharp. These went really well with the pork.
Totally Edible Bacon Brussels Sprouts
1 lb fresh Brussels Sprouts
1/2 lb bacon, diced
2 large shallots, finely diced
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp white sugar (might be good with brown sugar, come to think of it)
Tabasco sauce
1/4c cider vinegar
Salt
Fresh ground pepper
Prep (You can do all of this on the day well in advance of serving): wash sprouts and trim off the stems and outer leaves. In a large pan (I use a wok, but that's just my style...), heat olive oil over medium heat, and when hot, drop all of the bacon in and stir it to break it up. Reduce heat to low and let the bacon simmer until it starts to brown. Add the shallots, salt and pepper to taste, a few drops of Tobasco, stir well and continue to cook over low heat until the bacon is dark brown and crisp. Remove from heat and set the whole pan aside.
In the meantime, cook the sprouts by bringing a pot of salted water to the boil and dropping the sprouts in. Cook for 5 minutes (the water will eventually start to boil again, but start counting the 5 minutes as soon as you drop the sprouts in. I happen to like mine pretty crisp; if you prefer them a little less al dente, you can cook them slightly longer, but in any case, no more than 7 minutes or you might as well just throw them away). Drain and put them back into the pot, filling it with cold water. Run cold water over them continuously for about 3 minutes, or until they no longer feel warm. Drain again and set aside.
Finish (just before serving): Heat the bacon mixture over medium-high heat until it starts to sizzle. Add the cider vinegar and stir for a few minutes to deglaze the pan. Then add the sprouts, turn them to coat with the sauce, and heat until hot (1-2 minutes) stirring occasionally. Adjust seasoning if needed.
I hope you all had a happy Easter...
I did get a bit of time to myself later in the week - even spent a few hours in a suny park reading a book. Don't think I've done that since college, and back then I only went outside when I couldn't take the smell of whatver it was that had died under my pile of 6 weeks' worth of laundry.
So glad that Michele was back, I went back to work just in time to pack all of my stuff for the move to a new building. I say "new" only in the sense that it's not the building I've been in since moving here. In fact, it's about 20 years old, and shows it. The wallpaper is vaguely reminiscent of a set of kitchen chairs I had in the early 1990's, with colorful spongue painting effects on them. Very leg warmers and big hair.
The view is no great shakes, either. In the first building we were on the top floor, with panoramic views upriver to the City, and all of iconic London spread out below us - Tower Bridge, St. Paul's, the Gherkin, the Eye and, with a bit of a squint and a favorable wind, Big Ben. We shared the clouds with the gods.
Now, from my new 5th floor vantage, I can see the roof of my building and the tube station. Yeah, it's still London, and so by definition, even the new view is more interesting than the view from my office in Conshohocken, which was of the hotel next door, but still...
Caroline lost her first tooth the other day. Most kids would be happy to just stick the tooth under their pillow and get a dime in return for their trouble. Not my daughter. She had to leave a note for the tooth fairy, expressing her undying affection, and requesting a self-portrait. Fortunately, Michele took care of this, as she is, as has been previously noted, the artist in the family.
Having realized on Saturday that not only was I completely unprepared for any sort of Easter dinner on Sunday (except maybe ordering a curry), but also that everything was likely to be closed on Easter, I called a local butcher, who not only had a beautiful 2kilo pork loin in stock, but also delivered it within about 15 minutes! Who says service in England is bad?
What I hadn't really thought about, since I was fully expecting the butcher to be closed on Saturday, was just how much pork is 2kilos. A kilo is 2.2 pounds, for the metrically challenged among you. In short, it's a lotta pork. What to do with this gigantic slab of pig? So, pork loin in hand (er, fridge), I set out to find an interesting recipie.
One of the most wonderful things about the Internet is its ability to find things. Life would really be perfect if I could Google for, say, "where's my remote"? (In fact, I just tried this, and received this list of helpful suggestions). The fact that one can search by a bunch of arbitrary key words is incredibly useful. Finding recipies this way is a breeze. For example, I wanted to do something involving pork, mustard and rosemary (we have a rosemary bush). Rather than needing to know the name of a dish involving each of these ingredients, I just searched for "'pork loin' rosemary mustard".
One of the other downsides about the searching on the Internet is that search engines are generally kind of dumb. While a human of even modest intelligence would realize from those keywords that I was after one recipie containing all three ingredients, Google isn't that smart, at least not yet (the notion of intelligence in searching is part of what's loosely called Web 2.0). So while the results contained mostly recipies with the three ingredients, all three weren't necessarily all in the same dish. This actually turned out to be a good thing, else I'd never have found this: Roasted Pork Loin with Apples and Rosemary. I won't bother repeating the recipie here, but will note that I did this with just the two halves of the pork loin, butterflied, and that I added 3-4 large shallots, finely chopped, to the stuffing. It was delicious. If I did it again, I might lower the oven temp to 350 and plan to let it roast for about 1.75 hours.
In addition, I made a really good batch of Brussels Sprouts. Now, I realize that most of you are turning up your noses, but these are unlike any Brussels Sprouts you're likely to have had. I made a similar dish for Thanksgiving, but I think this one is much improved. The beauty of this is that you can get everything cooked ahead of time, and then at the last minute just heat it all up just before serving. The key to successful Brussels Sprouts is to not cook them too long - overcooked, they become most unpleasant, but done just right, they are crunchy, sweet and a little bit sharp. These went really well with the pork.
Totally Edible Bacon Brussels Sprouts
1 lb fresh Brussels Sprouts
1/2 lb bacon, diced
2 large shallots, finely diced
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp white sugar (might be good with brown sugar, come to think of it)
Tabasco sauce
1/4c cider vinegar
Salt
Fresh ground pepper
Prep (You can do all of this on the day well in advance of serving): wash sprouts and trim off the stems and outer leaves. In a large pan (I use a wok, but that's just my style...), heat olive oil over medium heat, and when hot, drop all of the bacon in and stir it to break it up. Reduce heat to low and let the bacon simmer until it starts to brown. Add the shallots, salt and pepper to taste, a few drops of Tobasco, stir well and continue to cook over low heat until the bacon is dark brown and crisp. Remove from heat and set the whole pan aside.
In the meantime, cook the sprouts by bringing a pot of salted water to the boil and dropping the sprouts in. Cook for 5 minutes (the water will eventually start to boil again, but start counting the 5 minutes as soon as you drop the sprouts in. I happen to like mine pretty crisp; if you prefer them a little less al dente, you can cook them slightly longer, but in any case, no more than 7 minutes or you might as well just throw them away). Drain and put them back into the pot, filling it with cold water. Run cold water over them continuously for about 3 minutes, or until they no longer feel warm. Drain again and set aside.
Finish (just before serving): Heat the bacon mixture over medium-high heat until it starts to sizzle. Add the cider vinegar and stir for a few minutes to deglaze the pan. Then add the sprouts, turn them to coat with the sauce, and heat until hot (1-2 minutes) stirring occasionally. Adjust seasoning if needed.
I hope you all had a happy Easter...
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Research project
Some time ago, Michele started a fun little family tradition - enclosing a hand drawn picture in Caroline's lunch box. This was cute when she was in preschool and only had lunch at school maybe once a month, but it got old pretty quickly once we had to start sending her lunch with her every day.
Still, never one to willfully disappoint our darling little girl, Michele continued to supply a daily artistic reminder of her undying affection. Continued, that is, until Caroline decided she wanted to have school dinners instead of a packed lunch. There was much rejoicing in our household on the occasion of this pronouncement. School dinners meant that Michele could get back the 20 minutes a day she spent drawing and packing lunch. And at £1.85 a day, it's actually cheaper to buy lunch than to pack it.
Everything was fine until suddenly, for no obvious reason, Caroline decided to switch back to packed lunch. This week. The week Michele's away. The week I'm doing the childcare. Figures.
Any artistic inclination I may have had at birth was mercilessly stamped out of me in the fourth grade by that jackbooted thug otherwise known as Mrs. Sauter, our school principal's secretary. I'm not really sure what jackboots are, but as the word itself sounds fascist and repressive, I can only assume that she wore them. I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say that as the crayon-work of my construction paper snake evidently wasn't up to her exacting standards, she felt compelled to publicly critique my creation, much to the delight of my tittering classmates. Her constructive criticism, like "you went all different ways with your crayon," was just the sort of brutal honesty I needed at that age to quash any notion I may have had either at that time or in future of pursuing anything even loosely affiliated with the world of art.
Many years and many thousands of dollars worth of psychotherapy later, I still vividly recall that painful little incident from my formative years, which is why Caroline could not possibly have chosen a less inconvenient week to revert to packed lunches. I suppose I could have just packed the sandwich and left out the note, but backing down just is not my style.
Scrambling for some acceptable replacement for Michele's quotidien sketch, I hit upon a seemingly simple and foolproof (even for me) plan: a daily joke. What little kid doesn't love a joke? OK, so their sense of comedic timing is a little underdeveloped, but surely someone who thinks the 'orange you glad I didn't say banana' knock-knock joke just gets funnier with each retelling can't be that hard to please.
Or can she? There is a distinct lack of acceptable jokes for first graders. A google search for "first grade joke" turns up any number of jokes about first graders (a priest, a rabbi and a first grader walk into a bar...), but few which are actually for first graders.
A few websites seemed promising on the surface, but their categorization of jokes was utterly useless. Rather than grouping jokes by age range or by type of joke (e.g. knock-knock/what do you get when you cross x with y/dirty limerick/whatever), they choose to classify the jokes by their subject matter. Why on earth would anyone need to find jokes which are exclusively about elephants? Does anyone have that specific a sense of humor? Would they find other pachyderms equally humorous, or is it just the elephant that tickles their fancy? Talk about a fetish.
Anyway, I made do with a few old chestnuts on Monday and Tuesday: 'why did the banana go to the doctor' (extracted from the jokes about fruit section of the aforementioned website) and 'what time is is when an elephant sits on your fence', but I was a little panicky about finding material for the rest of the week.
So today I was browsing for books in the local thrift shops (absolute goldmines those places, by the way, Grandma seems to be on to something with her Nearly New addiction. Oh, and happy 21st birthday, Grandma (Feb 29th). I hope you weren't too hung over the next day...) when I came across the serendipitously titled "1,001 Cool Schoolyard Jokes". It was in new condition, and only 75p. It was bathed in a heavenly light. There were choirs of angels. It was manna in the desert.
But, as so often happens, the euphoria of a seemingly perfect purchase quickly dissipates under the harsh light of a closer examination (closer, anyway, than a glance at the title). Many of the jokes are too complicated or abstract, or just plain stupid to make their way onto that carefully crafted scrap of love in Caroline's lunch pack.
The book is also British (no surprise there, considering where I live), and I encountered, with a surprisingly high frequency, jokes which make absolutely no sense to me. One would think that any random string of words would be uproariously funny so long as at least one of the words is 'elephant', but sadly, I must either lack sufficient cultural context or possess a too high a degree of education to understand such knee-slappers as:
Why do elephants have Big Ears?
Because Noddy refused to pay the ransom.
Still, there are a few chuckles in the book, though almost none of them are going to help me out of the little jam I've gotten myself into.
At least there are only 3 more days. Hey, heard any good jokes lately?
Still, never one to willfully disappoint our darling little girl, Michele continued to supply a daily artistic reminder of her undying affection. Continued, that is, until Caroline decided she wanted to have school dinners instead of a packed lunch. There was much rejoicing in our household on the occasion of this pronouncement. School dinners meant that Michele could get back the 20 minutes a day she spent drawing and packing lunch. And at £1.85 a day, it's actually cheaper to buy lunch than to pack it.
Everything was fine until suddenly, for no obvious reason, Caroline decided to switch back to packed lunch. This week. The week Michele's away. The week I'm doing the childcare. Figures.
Any artistic inclination I may have had at birth was mercilessly stamped out of me in the fourth grade by that jackbooted thug otherwise known as Mrs. Sauter, our school principal's secretary. I'm not really sure what jackboots are, but as the word itself sounds fascist and repressive, I can only assume that she wore them. I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say that as the crayon-work of my construction paper snake evidently wasn't up to her exacting standards, she felt compelled to publicly critique my creation, much to the delight of my tittering classmates. Her constructive criticism, like "you went all different ways with your crayon," was just the sort of brutal honesty I needed at that age to quash any notion I may have had either at that time or in future of pursuing anything even loosely affiliated with the world of art.
Many years and many thousands of dollars worth of psychotherapy later, I still vividly recall that painful little incident from my formative years, which is why Caroline could not possibly have chosen a less inconvenient week to revert to packed lunches. I suppose I could have just packed the sandwich and left out the note, but backing down just is not my style.
Scrambling for some acceptable replacement for Michele's quotidien sketch, I hit upon a seemingly simple and foolproof (even for me) plan: a daily joke. What little kid doesn't love a joke? OK, so their sense of comedic timing is a little underdeveloped, but surely someone who thinks the 'orange you glad I didn't say banana' knock-knock joke just gets funnier with each retelling can't be that hard to please.
Or can she? There is a distinct lack of acceptable jokes for first graders. A google search for "first grade joke" turns up any number of jokes about first graders (a priest, a rabbi and a first grader walk into a bar...), but few which are actually for first graders.
A few websites seemed promising on the surface, but their categorization of jokes was utterly useless. Rather than grouping jokes by age range or by type of joke (e.g. knock-knock/what do you get when you cross x with y/dirty limerick/whatever), they choose to classify the jokes by their subject matter. Why on earth would anyone need to find jokes which are exclusively about elephants? Does anyone have that specific a sense of humor? Would they find other pachyderms equally humorous, or is it just the elephant that tickles their fancy? Talk about a fetish.
Anyway, I made do with a few old chestnuts on Monday and Tuesday: 'why did the banana go to the doctor' (extracted from the jokes about fruit section of the aforementioned website) and 'what time is is when an elephant sits on your fence', but I was a little panicky about finding material for the rest of the week.
So today I was browsing for books in the local thrift shops (absolute goldmines those places, by the way, Grandma seems to be on to something with her Nearly New addiction. Oh, and happy 21st birthday, Grandma (Feb 29th). I hope you weren't too hung over the next day...) when I came across the serendipitously titled "1,001 Cool Schoolyard Jokes". It was in new condition, and only 75p. It was bathed in a heavenly light. There were choirs of angels. It was manna in the desert.
But, as so often happens, the euphoria of a seemingly perfect purchase quickly dissipates under the harsh light of a closer examination (closer, anyway, than a glance at the title). Many of the jokes are too complicated or abstract, or just plain stupid to make their way onto that carefully crafted scrap of love in Caroline's lunch pack.
The book is also British (no surprise there, considering where I live), and I encountered, with a surprisingly high frequency, jokes which make absolutely no sense to me. One would think that any random string of words would be uproariously funny so long as at least one of the words is 'elephant', but sadly, I must either lack sufficient cultural context or possess a too high a degree of education to understand such knee-slappers as:
Why do elephants have Big Ears?
Because Noddy refused to pay the ransom.
Still, there are a few chuckles in the book, though almost none of them are going to help me out of the little jam I've gotten myself into.
At least there are only 3 more days. Hey, heard any good jokes lately?
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