Cooking Misc.: February 2005 Archives

The little town I grew up in is not so little anymore, and it has two major chain supermarkets that sit across Main Street from each other, Safeway and King Soopers.

I found a great Mexican-food section in the King Soopers, though. Cans of dulche de leche, dried chilis, five pound bags of masa harina. I brought home some Mexican chocolate for hot cocoa and a chorizo spice packet. A comparative tasting of hot chocolates to come.

The little town I grew up in is not so little anymore, and it has two major chain supermarkets that sit across Main Street from each other, Safeway and King Soopers.

I found a great Mexican-food section in the King Soopers, though. Cans of dulche de leche, dried chilis, five pound bags of masa harina. I brought home some Mexican chocolate for hot cocoa and a chorizo spice packet. A comparative tasting of hot chocolates to come.

Todd's been in the doghouse the last few weeks - until this weekend he hadn't had a day off for about a month. Then he took a trip to Finland for business, which is why I took a trip home to Colorado.

But while I was staring at a cupboard full of meal replacement bars and drinks at my parents', Todd was eating a Scandinavian meal at a nice place in Helsinki. Fortunately for our marriage, the Helsinki airport offers a good selection of food gifts. He brought me some caramels and birch syrup, which I guess is the equivalent of maple syrup, although I did notice it starts with a sugar syrup and then adds the birch stuff.

I have to admire the Finn's package designs, at least. I reserve judgement on the food itself.

I spent the last few days in Colorado with my parents and for my last night there I decided to make the lamb in the previous post. They had really liked their first taste of lamb, the lamb pitas we had the last time they visited.

Then my brother and his wife said they'd like to come, but she doesn't like the idea of eating baby sheep, so I added a chickpea stew to the menu (identical to the chickpea soup without the stock, water and bouillon). To round out the meal I added some roasted zucchini and dates and mint tea for dessert. I piled the lamb on a bed of couscous.

My dad and I prepared it together: shopping for ingredients, preparing the spice mix and prepping the meat in advance, chopping, sauteeing, etc. Last Chistmas I lamented not having someone to cook with, and now I have someone! And it's so gratifying to cook for a group of folks, and introduce them to new flavors.

Todd was in Finland while I was in Colorado, and that's inspired me to try a Scandinavian menu next. I wonder if I stll have that Aquavit galley floating around?

I had a weird confluence of reading material sent my way last week. One former coworker sent me the new Ruth Reichl book, Garlic and Sapphires, and another sent me an interview with William Grimes that was in Newsweek when Grimes resigned as restaurant critic (the coworker ran across it while doing some research). Then there was an article in the Times about the loathing restaurant workers feel toward diners. They just all drove home to me the weird interaction between diners and the restaurants they go to.

When Reichl was offered the job as the New York Times’ new restaurant critic, she said the Times should be writing reviews not for people who will go to the restaurants but for those who may never set foot in them. Yet throughout her new book is evidence that she does feel responsibility toward the more disenfranchised of the dining public to portray an honest picture, because they will act on her advice. No doubt her ability to write food porn would have been better if she had shown up to restaurants as herself and let them lavish her with their best efforts. Instead she became the kind of characters who often receive servers’ scorn.

It makes sense, but I never realized high-profile reviewers would go to such lengths to disguise their identities. One of the pleasures of the book is Reichl’s exploration of how her various disguises affected her. I ate it up.

But it strikes me as odd that restaurants are willing to create such an artificial experience for reviewers, and therefore artificially high expectations for their diners. In her book Reichl describes an instance when one of her guests paid the check for the couple sitting next to them, who obviously had saved their money to go to what reviews had called one of the most romantic restaurants in the city. It also served about the worst food and had treated the young couple very badly. That's a familiar scenario.

It's kind of terrible that eating at a great restaurant is for a lot of people an entirely uncomfortable experience that they're paying a huge amount of money to have.

I had a weird confluence of reading material sent my way last week. One former coworker sent me the new Ruth Reichl book, Garlic and Sapphires, and another sent me an interview with William Grimes that was in Newsweek when Grimes resigned as restaurant critic (the coworker ran across it while doing some research). Then there was an article in the Times about the loathing restaurant workers feel toward diners. They just all drove home to me the weird interaction between diners and the restaurants they go to.

When Reichl was offered the job as the New York Times’ new restaurant critic, she said the Times should be writing reviews not for people who will go to the restaurants but for those who may never set foot in them. Yet throughout her new book is evidence that she does feel responsibility toward the more disenfranchised of the dining public to portray an honest picture, because they will act on her advice. No doubt her ability to write food porn would have been better if she had shown up to restaurants as herself and let them lavish her with their best efforts. Instead she became the kind of characters who often receive servers’ scorn.

It makes sense, but I never realized high-profile reviewers would go to such lengths to disguise their identities. One of the pleasures of the book is Reichl’s exploration of how her various disguises affected her. I ate it up.

But it strikes me as odd that restaurants are willing to create such an artificial experience for reviewers, and therefore artificially high expectations for their diners. In her book Reichl describes an instance when one of her guests paid the check for the couple sitting next to them, who obviously had saved their money to go to what reviews had called one of the most romantic restaurants in the city. It also served about the worst food and had treated the young couple very badly. That's a familiar scenario.

It's kind of terrible that eating at a great restaurant is for a lot of people an entirely uncomfortable experience that they're paying a huge amount of money to have.

In addition to the cassoulet and cake, we had a simple salad on my birthday: just romaine, vinaigrette and some grated Parm from my Zingerman's box. And I'm eating the salad and thinking it's one of the best I've had, but I can't figure out why. The flavor was full and mellow, almost thick and buttery. Then I realized it was the cheese.

Maybe it was some special alchemy with the sweet, thick balsamic I used in the dressing. I even felt weird about the combo, but it stood up. All that richness worked beautifully with the hearty, crisp romaine.

As a followup to my previous post: the cassoulet was good, and the cake was dense and moist, better than their sometimes dry cupcakes. As for the frosting, a little goes a long way since it is almost pure butter, too rich. Every plate always ends up with a smeary gob left on it.