Saturday, 1 November 2014
I saw this and knew I had a goooo-gle session in my future. What the heck is rye flour riddled? What’s the riddled part? Turns out it refers to sieving, but I can’t tell what level of fine/coarse it produces. It’s a Russian term, as near as I can tell….
Bonus photo; already forgot what kind these are….
Friday, 17 October 2014
I remember Mom’s explanation of the meaning of the phrase “composed salad.” I just couldn’t fathom the word composed in that context; of course, we were a tossed salad family—sometimes slaw, so our table didn’t have composed salads (and we rarely ate out).
Glazed pecans, crunchy bacon, blue cheese, grape tomato halves—what a tasty version/composition/ of iceberg. Although is it really a composed salad?
Thursday, 16 October 2014
Often, I think up at least a partial menu before I go shopping. Sometimes I have no focus/creativity/ideas.
Today, I was in the latter situation.
I saw the stalks of Brussel-ees were marked down…and thought: gee, temps below normal…I should do an autumnal oven meal.
Sausage, Brussels and cauliflower, a few button mushrooms, some simple stuffing (cornbread, from a box), and a pound of tofu turned into hoisin-slathered “steaks.”
Perked us both up, although we both have vestiges of jet lag dogging us.
Sunday, 5 October 2014
Late yesterday, I got whammied by a bad cold. Sniff, blow; repeat. I managed to get plenty of sleep, thankfully, but I spent the day an energy-less lump.
The Great and Wonderful Guru went out for supplies, and discovered the nearby street was a forest of vendors, mostly of used clothing, heavily attended by locals, along with a few tourists. He came back with a fine grocery assortment, including a Bob’s Red Mill soup mixture, an Italian version called zuppa di farro. It has split green peas, lentils, and farro. I found a deep pot (kitchen has a good assortment of tools), loaded it with water and some of the soup mixture, and set it to boil. I figured 50 mins of simmering, and that was about right.
Farro is a type of wheat (Triticum spp.), and WikiPee notes botanical and common names do not always match up. The ones in this soup mixture are longer like “regular” wheat, not stubby like barley. This soup mixture would have been customary to ancient Romans, and peoples of the Levant.
By day’s end, I felt on the mend—fingers crossed.
Friday, 3 October 2014
Is there a clamoring out there for FOOD shots/info/stories?
Okay…a tidbit, an appetizer, you might say. Here on the Liguria coast, one specialty is Tegame, which is a stew/roasted dish of potatoes and anchovies (fresh, mind you), along with tomatoes.
The fish is nothing like anchovies from a can, and quite tasty. (The appetizer version of anchovies with lemon, whew!, very fine!)
I’ve had Tegame from three different restaurants here in Vernazza, and the version pictured is from Trattoria da Sandro (the name varies), up the street from the harbor-square. It is the most carefully formed and stacked of the trio. Potato slices are on the bottom, several layers deep, then the anchovy layer, then tomato slices. Every version is yummy, and I couldn’t pick one as better than the other two; they are just a spectrum.
Today we were bold. We hiked from here to Corneglia (not to be confused with Cornelia, Gee-Ay, although the pronunciation is very, very similar). The route was very up, from sea level here at Vernazza to a high point of 207m, if the sign was right. Since the up and down are not singular, there’s a bit of excess and repeated up/down, so the gained elevation far exceeded 207m…at least that’s the way it felt.
This was the first true trail-day for my Cascadias, which I purchased on the repeated recommendations of my social media friends who’ve recently hiked the AT, PCT, and other fine trails in the USofA.
The CinqueTerre trail materials we saw said to expect to take 1.25 hrs to do the 3.5 km from here to Corneglia. We took breaks, and it took us 3 hrs, maybe a bit more. We may have been slow, but the printed recommendation is shorter than I bet the young hoofers that passed us traversed it. Few of the people we saw made it in that span, I am certain. And, we don’t even know if the 3.5 km distance is close to correct…. Not whining, we had a fine time, and were in the cool morning shadow for much of the trail coming out of Vernazza, which was very very pleasant, despite the elevation gain (pant pant).
Sunday, 21 September 2014
We’re in a phase of ordering frizzante, bottled mineral water with bubbles, with our meals. It’s not always Pellegrino, but I have noticed that two times the bottle held 92, and today’s restaurant served us a 75. (I think the units are decilitres/deciliters.)
Haha, we probably even paid more for the 75.
And umph years ago, all the restaurants would have been serving full liter bottles!
Saturday, 13 September 2014
As we devastated this pie, I thought about the term Florentine appended to a dish usually means that it contains spinach and cream (in a sauce), or appears to—at least that’s the convention on this side of the Big Pond. Without a doubt the cooking style of Florence is far more complex and interesting, however….
Thursday, 11 September 2014
King Arthur Flour calls these 50 lb bags (the two outside ones) “professional flours.” They have cutesy names like Sir Galahad, Sir Lancelot, and Queen Guinevere. What I’m not sure about is the Gold Medal bag in the middle from General Mills, which says: DO NOT EAT RAW DOUGH OR BATTER. Why is this on the flour bag? Not that the advice is flawed, but why the concern by General Mills (not to be confused with another General, General Motors)?
Monday, 1 September 2014
So, Labor Day in the US of A dates back to the 1880s. Today, the gains in labor conditions and workers’ rights during the interim seem…like a given; they actually represent a huge shift in top-down attitudes and governmental policy. Still, I’ve worked several Labor Days, but not this one—not punched-in work, anyway.
We got wild and opened the PAMA this evening to celebrate…. It’s too yummy to just keep around, though….
Monday, 18 August 2014
If today had been sunnier…(this was yesterday).
Sunshine eluded us today, and after midday we enjoyed (??) precip.
Most of the time, I’m a fan of precip. In moderation…. Today I could groove on it…listening to the pitter-patter on the roof, and watching out the window….
This evening, we wrangled the kitchen’s leftovers…not the usual leftovers, but merely those foodstuffs already purchased but not yet consumed…into a dinner to share with friends…. I called it pot-roast-noodle casserole, and in Peg Bracken style, I gussied it up with bacon and mushrooms (but not, shiver, any creamed canned soup), served it with stellar (yet simple) apps and dessert, accompanied by some fine red wines…and, pfft, fine fine fine!
* Not the usual social-science core-periphery, but the gustatory version, with a core of roast beef, and a periphery of…whatever else I thought could fit into an orchestral accompaniment, gastronomically.