…On an office whiteboard.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2016/03/30/truer-words-were-never-written/
Mar 27
Dirty Rice, Cher!
[Cher translates from the French or Cajun as “dear”.]
Cajuns in Louisiana are experts at making great eats with inexpensive, often overlooked foods. Consider dirty rice. They grind up chicken gizzards and brown them, then add vegetables. Rice, seasoning, and liquid go in and the mixture cooks until the rice is tender. It’s also a good way to clean out the produce bin. Half an onion? Cut it up. A jalapeño that you couldn’t add to last week’s chili because your friends are wimps? Use it. How about that sorry celery heart? Certainement! No chicken gizzards? Pas de problème, use ground meat, leftovers, or even a can of red or kidney beans.
I’ve been making dirty rice since my days as a poor lab technician in Dallas. As a new mortgagee, dirty rice still hits the spot taste- and budget-wise. I made a batch last Wednesday with some gizzards we had in the freezer. I needed to buy a bell pepper and some celery, but everything else was on hand. Dinner was ready in less than 45 minutes.
Some ground rules:
Use the food processor fitted with the steel blade to grind up the gizzards, if you use them. To save time, you can chop up the onions in the food processor after the gizzards.
Don’t overdo the celery and bell pepper. Use about twice the amount of onion as celery and bell pepper combined.
Don’t forget the garlic.
Season more than you think you need to. Use lots of Cajun seasoning. I used the “Cajun Foreplay” I bought at the Dinosaur Barbeque last fall. Also, use broth instead of water.
Use about 2 parts broth to 1 part rice. The veggies will give up a little fluid as well.
Set the table while the rice is cooking, mix up a salad or microwave some frozen green vegetable, and open up a beer. Julian’s preferred accompaniment is Dixie Blackened Voodoo, but any IPA will do as well. Put extra hot sauce on the table if you didn’t add enough oomph to the pot. Once it’s ready, sit down and break into your best Justin Wilson imitation. I gar-on-tee some good eating.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2016/03/27/dirty-rice-cher/
Mar 19
Almost-Diners in the Northwest
In an earlier post I wrote about the diner culture in the metro New York area. We have a few places hereabouts that could qualify as almost-diners. These are two examples in the Seattle suburbs.
Jay’s Café in Kenmore. Jay’s has the all-day breakfasts and daily specials, along with the paper placemats featuring local businesses. In addition, it has a regular group of retired men who sit around, drink coffee, and bemoan the state of the world. (Julian told me about this, since he fits into that demographic; however, he has yet to join such a group.) We’ve stopped there for lunch a few times on our way to downtown Seattle.
George’s in Kirkland. To my mind, downtown Kirkland is an odd place for a diner. This town has more plastic surgeons and BoTox/collagen injectors per capita than anywhere else in Washington. (Cheaper rents than Bellevue, maybe?) The city’s vibe is also more arugula than iceberg lettuce. However, George’s thrives. It’s run by a Greek family, so it has the standard gyros, dolmades, and moussaka. You can also get pasta, burgers, and the all-day breakfasts. Last month George’s had a scratch-off card promotion. You could get discounts off your check, and be entered in a raffle for a large-screen TV. One night on our way to French class we got a 20% discount on our check. Not bad at all.
One reason I refer to Jay’s and George’s as almost-diners is they both lack the killer dessert case. No respectable diner in New Jersey or New York would survive without one. Even if you have to haul half your dinner home (as we often do at George’s), you’re still supposed to be offered the temptation of some pie. Just ask the patrons of the Double R Diner from Twin Peaks.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2016/03/19/almost-diners-in-the-northwest/
Mar 19
Boxed Out
We had a chest freezer delivered today. It’s now chilling in the garage. We had to move or get rid of a bunch of stuff to accommodate our new acquisition, including a boatload of empty boxes, styrofoam peanuts, and air pillows. This brings up an interesting “Venus vs. Mars” question: Do women keep stuff and throw away the boxes, while men keep boxes and throw away the stuff?
Julian has a habit of keeping every box anything he bought came in. A widget from amazon.com? Keep the box. The shipping box for a lens cover from B&H in New York? Keep it. His logic is simple: “I may have to send it back.” Never mind that we have a LOT of folded-up boxes in our storage closet from our move here. Yesterday he had to pack up one of his camera lenses to send back for a software upgrade. We had to stop at a UPS store to get a box, even though there was a perfectly good one that the lens would fit in ON THE SOFA from a delivery he received the day before.
This box-hoarding habit is not just a Julian phenomenon. Years ago I commented on a friend’s collection of packing boxes in his garage. His reply was classic: “I have boxes for stuff I don’t have anymore.” Since he’s lived in the same place for the better part of 30 years, he probably still has the box that his original Macintosh came in. (I half expect an email from him with a picture.)
When the freezer was delivered, the delivery guy asked if we wanted the crate and packing material. I answered quickly, “NO.” After the truck drove off, Julian commented, “It’s a good thing they didn’t leave the crate. I think I’m cardboarded out.” Alleluia!
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2016/03/19/boxed-out/
Mar 12
Default Dinners
Julian and I alternate dinner duty. This is usually not an onerous task, since the fate of the free world does not depend on what we eat. However, there are times when the chef du soir is just too tired to cook. Over the years we’ve frequented neighborhood restaurants that have maintained domestic tranquility and served us well.
Oak Cliff, our old neighborhood in Dallas, wasn’t a dining destination in the early 1990’s. It was dry at the time. It took until 2011 to wet the whistles of the good people of Oak Cliff with something other than iced tea (unsweetened, fortunately for me) or Dr. Pepper. However, we found a couple of places near our home that provided reliable food. My personal favorite was a Salvadoran restaurant called Gloria’s. Not only was the food excellent in quality and value, it offered complimentary private club memberships to patrons so they could have a beer with dinner. For quick takeout, we opted for a place called Pizza Patron. I could call in my order just before I left my lab at the med school and the pizza would be ready by the time I got there. This outfit made national headlines when it decided to take both US dollars and Mexican pesos as legal tender (they still do, according to the website). This raised the ire of Rush Limbaugh. Any restaurant that irks him is okay by me.
As I said in an earlier post, Greensboro had a surprising amount of Southeast Asian restaurants. Our far-and-away favorite was Saigon Cuisine. The three Nguyen brothers and their mom ran the restaurant. One brother was the cook, one ran the bar, and the third, Duckie, ran the front of the house. Duckie was an expert schmoozer, and could chat up anyone. Another restaurant we frequented was an upscale sandwich place called Liberty Oak. Our favorites were the Smokin’ Granny and Uncle Wally on a Bialy. (Folks in North Carolina know from bialys??? In Krispy Kreme country?) We also went to a couple of Middle Eastern restaurants, Jack’s Corner near the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Pita Delite. The latter we referred to as the “Hello people” restaurant. Whenever someone walked in, all of the staff would say hello; when someone left, the staff would say thank you in unison. When 9/11 whipped up anti-Arab frenzy in relatively liberal Greensboro, we made a point to go to Jack’s to support their business.
Our default joints here in the Northwest are predominantly Asian, with a couple of exceptions. Phaya Thai is just two blocks from our old home in Seattle. Our former next-door neighbor has its phone number on speed dial for quick meals. They deliver–a good thing, since those two blocks can be a very risky walk or left turn on or off Lake City Way. Yummy Café is a small Chinese place that will accommodate our gluten-free friends by using tamari sauce in the dishes they order. When we go to downtown Seattle, we frequent Long Provincial, the sister of Tamarind Tree in the International District. Here in Bothell, Korea House seems to be replacing Phaya Thai as our go-to Asian joint. The waitstaff are very outgoing and willing to answer questions from clueless Anglos. We were there for my birthday, and Julian asked the waiter where to get gochujang (a Korean chile paste) for a recipe he’d seen in Bon Appétit. We were given a container on the house! Downtown Bothell has two Mexican restaurants. El Gallo de Oro serves standard Tex-Mex. Their mole sauce is excellent. Julio’s across the street is a little more upscale.
It’s nice to see that many of our old haunts in Dallas and Greensboro are alive and expanding after many years. Pizza Patron is now a franchise with branches around Texas (take that, Rush Limbaugh!). Since we left Dallas in 1995, Gloria’s has branched out to Fort Worth, Houston, and Austin. Pita Delite has a couple of branches around the city and in nearby High Point. Saigon Cuisine and Jack’s Corner are at the same locations as they were when we lived in Greensboro, but Liberty Oak has moved downtown. Good food and attentive service foster longevity in an industry that’s notorious for short-lived ventures.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2016/03/12/default-dinners/
Mar 12
Another Not-for-the-Better Change
Last Sunday we were on our usual caffeine run in downtown Seattle. Once we got Julian’s fix of choice at Caffe d’Arte, we were going to swing by the Penzey’s store around the corner and pick up a couple of things. QUELLE HORREUR!!! The store closed January 10th! Most of the spices and dried herbs in our kitchen come from Penzey’s. We do have other spice shops in/near Pike Place Market. I can’t go into Market Spice because the stench of their most popular tea (think Bigelow’s Constant Comment on steroids) gives me a migraine. World Spice is a block up from the Spanish Table. It has a wide selection that turns over quickly, as many of the restaurants in town buy from it.
I guess I’ll have to go back to ordering my Penzey’s supplies online; failing that, we can visit one of their stores in the greater Portland area. (Hey, any excuse to go to Powell’s Books and Pok Pok.)
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2016/03/12/another-not-for-the-better-change/
Mar 02
I Am a Cuminist
No, I didn’t spell it wrong. Cumin is one of my favorite spices. It plays major roles in Mexican, Caribbean, Mediterranean, Indian, and other Asian cuisines. It’s the major undertone in chili powder and curry powder. Some recipes allow cumin to take the starring role.
Tonight I made a lamb chop recipe that required me to toast and grind equal amounts of cumin and coriander. Loin lamb chops were crusted with this spice mix, browned on top of the stove, and finished off in the oven. The aroma of cumin hung heavily in the air. Julian came up for dinner and declared, “You are a cuminist.” Fortunately, this will not get me drummed out of town.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2016/03/02/i-am-a-cuminist/
Feb 27
Home Sweet Home
Casa Sammamish is ours (and the bank’s)! We closed yesterday, after signing all the papers on Thursday. Two hours later we were at the Homeowners’ Association annual meeting. We’d met several of our neighbors through the effort to keep the golf course from getting developed. Tomorrow night we’re having our former landlords over for dinner, to celebrate the peaceful passage of title.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2016/02/27/home-sweet-home/
Feb 27
For the Birds
We started feeding backyard birds over 20 years ago as a way to keep our strictly-indoor cats entertained. The original name of the bird feeder was Phoebe’s Phly-In Caphé, in honor of our first Russian Blue cat. The feeders gave Phoebe and her brothers (Roscoe, followed by Jasper, followed by Luka) hours of tail-wagging and chirping at the birds and squirrels. Neli has taken over Phoebe’s place in birdwatching.
Phoebe, the original birdwatcher of our home.
The birds we have here in Bothell are more diverse than what we had in Dallas, Greensboro, or even in Seattle. For one thing, we don’t have cardinals. We have a subspecies of chickadees called chestnut-backed chickadees. We have a species of hummingbird that winters here rather than flying south. And then we have our friendly neighborhood bald eagles. One could say that we feed them indirectly, although they seem to be more interested in the carp in the river.
In search of dinner.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2016/02/27/for-the-birds/
Feb 21
Bird Food
Here’s another post from my friend, Michele. I’ll add our take on feeding birds afterward.
My grandmother, of blessed memory, lived for most of the years I knew her in the two-family house where my mother and her brothers grew up. The Friedman family had the second floor, with living room windows that looked out over the roof of the porch and then to the street. Every morning my grandmother would wet some bread in water, open a living room window, and put the wet bread out on the roof for the birds. As far as I knew and as far as I remember, she’d been feeding the birds this way for as long as she’d lived in this house: 40 or 50 years by that point, I imagine.
When I was a kid, my mother used to leave the uneaten bits of our sandwiches (PB&J crusts, anyone?) and other odd bits of leftover bread out on the kitchen counter to get stale. Then she’d add them to already frozen plastic bread loaf bags with prior stale bread. When we went to the zoo, we would take these bags of “ooz food” with us to feed the animals. Eventually, the zoo outlawed the practice of feeding the animals, although I have no memory of what my mother did with leftover crusts.
We keep a bird feeder outside the dining room’s plate glass window, generally filled with mixed birdseed and sunflower seeds. Dubbed the “TweetStreet Diner,” the feeder provides hours of entertainment for our cats (especially Prospero, the smallest and the best hunter). TweetStreet customers entertain us as well: I keep the Birds of New York Field Guide (second edition) nearby and we’ve learned to identify a number of regular and occasional customers.
Recently, I had an aging loaf of bread in the drawer, so I set it out to grow stale before it could mold. A few days later, I broke the bread pieces and spread them below the birdfeeder. Squirrels and birds had a feast, and that simple act of tossing the stale bread brought old, good memories—of my grandmother Sarah and my mother’s ooz food—flooding back.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2016/02/21/bird-food/
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