I didn't write about my Valentine's Day festivities yet. After the pantry purge of 2012, I had a lot of old chocolate to throw out. Lots of Hershey's Kisses that were pushed to the far reaches of the cupboard and some Baker's chocolate that also ended up in the dark corners - neither fit to eat nor bake with.
That stuff could go straight to the dumpster. Or it could go to the dumpster covering whatever else was headed for the dumpster.
If you didn't follow that, you wouldn't be alone.
After a lot of "Why would you waste chocolate like that?" questions, a few people came over for a night of chocolate covered anything! They brought random non-edibles for us to cover in chocolate. My old T-ball trophies were going to look so much cooler in chocolate.
Some of the items we dipped were necklaces, light bulbs, CDs, and Texas-shaped stuff. My personal favorites were the copy of Twilight and a hubcap.
And here's something that always makes me laugh. Pretty much what I'm looking for in a valentine:
I'd heard about Brennan's since I was young. My dad took a family trip to New Orleans when he was young. More than once he talked about that trip and quoted their cabby, who when asked where to eat in New Orleans, said, "You don't eat in New Orleans. You put your feet under the table and dine!" Dad often told me how wonderful Brennan's was. For him, Brennan's set the standard for Hollandaise sauce that mine would be judged by.
Brennan's is in an old French Quarter mansion on Rue Royale, my favorite street to stroll in the Quarter.
The decor and place settings were as fancy as at August. Definitely a champagne breakfast sort of place. My waiter was O'Keefe. I knew what I wanted to order before I even arrived at the restaurant.
First, I had the New Orleans Turtle Soup. It was dark and thick and rich, and then O'Keefe poured a good shot of sherry on top of it, and it looked even better.
Next I had the Eggs Hussarde. The menu described it thus: (A Brennan's Original) One of the dishes that put "Breakfast at Brennan's" on the map. Poached eggs atop Holland rusks, Canadian bacon, and Marchand de Vin sauce. Topped with Hollandaise sauce.
Not one, but two French sauces! I try to be ambitious in the kitchen, but even though the recipe for Eggs Hussarde is on Brennan's website, I doubt I'll ever attempt it. It would take me all morning to make and still wouldn't be half as good as what they served me.
I finished up with the most fun course, Bananas Foster for dessert. This is the place they invented Bananas Foster! If you don't know about it, watch this clip from the Food Network:
O'Keefe brought the pan with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and sliced bananas over to the table to show me. Then he stepped over to the cart and put the pan over a flame to melt the sugar and bananas. He added the banana liqueur and quietly said he'd tell me when it was time to get the camera ready for the flambé. He poured the rum in and tilted the pan to catch the flame.
The flame went higher than his head. After the mixture cooked a moment and the flame died away, he poured the pan's contents over vanilla ice cream. The hot caramel melted the ice cream a bit, and the texture of the ice cream, soft bananas, and syrupy sugar was divine.
I don't know if it was the sentimentality of the connection to my dad at Brennan's or because it was my last meal in New Orleans, but the food at Brennan's was my favorite. I didn't eat again until the next day. This was a breakfast of champions indeed.
In honor of Mardi Gras, I'm finally going to post the tales of my fantastic New Orleans dining. I had my best 24 hours of eating out in New Orleans, where I ate at August for lunch, Cochon for dinner, and Brennan's for breakfast.
Starting with August: The only picture I took was outside the restaurant. August's website describes their location as an historic four-story “French-Creole” building from the 1800s, with a rich interior of hardwood floors, soaring columns, mahogany paneling, monumental floral arrangements, and antique mirrors and chandeliers.
I took my camera inside, but somehow I felt uncomfortable about snapping photos with a loud SLR and disrupting other guests in the pristine, white linen and silver fork restaurant. The food was delicious and beautifully presented. Pulling out the camera could only have cheapened my experience.
But here are the details about what I ate and links to photos taken by diners with less scruples but better photography skills.
First, the waiter brought me an amuse bouche, courtesy of the chef. It was a seafood custard with sabayon and caviar inside an eggshell. Photo Here. Elegant and delicious.
The first course was the pâté de campagne (country pâté) of La Provence pork, with toast points, greens, and seasonal marmalades. Photo on Right. The pâté was very good, rich and meaty with a hint of acidity. How did they cook the toast points so evenly?
The chief course was lamb belly on braised mustard greens. Photo.
For dessert, I had the milk chocolate peanut butter croquant with salted caramel and McEwen’s buttered popcorn ice cream. Photo. It was like a really good candy bar. I thought the dessert was the weakest of the courses. I probably ordered the wrong thing.
For something completely different, I went to Cochon for dinner, which had a very different vibe. Their website describes their location as a rustic, yet contemporary interior of a renovated New Orleans warehouse. Simply decorated. Very casual. Fairly loud. I loved it.
I started with the wood-fired oyster roast. I love oysters anyway, but these were superb. I used my bread to sop up the spicy butter left behind in the half shells. I ordered an Abita root beer. And then I had another. I'd walked the mile from my hotel on Canal to Tchoupitoulas St. in the New Orleans heat and humidity and I felt justified to load up on Louisiana cane sugar.
My main course was the Louisiana Cochon with Turnips, Cabbage, and Cracklins, which is pulled pork, formed into a patty and seared, served with turnips and cabbage, and topped with pork cracklins! Amazing!
When you're at a restaurant this good and the waitress asks you if you want dessert, the only correct answer is "Hell yes!" I got the Blueberry Buckle with Vanilla and Salted Caramel Sauces. If memory serves, that streusel had cracklins in it, too!
I'd never had blueberry buckle before, but that dessert was so fantastic that I had to try my hand at making it when I got home. Plated with Smuckers caramel sauce and a good helping of sea salt. It was actually pretty marvelous.
My back is much, much better today. I could walk at an almost normal pace, sit down without easing myself into the chair, and drive without wincing when I moved my foot from the gas pedal to the brake. I have high hopes that in the next few days I'll even be able to bend at the waist. Such dramatic improvement!
I'm doing well on my goal to keep a clean pantry. I don't even want to reveal how bad it was before. The first step is admitting you have a problem. Here's the damage as it was on January 2:
And as it is today:
I took an inventory of everything in the cupboards. The most interesting realization was that I had 15 varieties of salt:
Mesquite Smoked Maine Sea Salt
Black Cyprus Flake Mediterranean Sea Salt
Alea Coarse Hawaiian Red Sea Salt
Hawaiian Red Alaea Sea Salt (former bought in bulk at Whole Foods and latter packaged by faerie's)
Slovenian Fleur de Sel
Gusto Mundial Hibiscus Flor de Sal
RealSalt All-Natural Sea Salt
Morton Table Salt
Morton Kosher Salt
Fleur de Sel
Saltworks Smoked Serrano Salt
World Classics Fine Ground Sea Salt
Bolivian Rose Fine Salt
Lemon Coarse Salt
Alderwood Smoked Sea Salt
Certifiably insane! I'm glad I didn't order any Guerande or Maldon sea salt as I wanted to last month. Completely crazy. I also have 8 kinds of honey and 7 types of vinegar, but only 4 kinds of peanut butter, which may be a record low.
Good progress on my other resolution as well - I haven't eaten out this month, or to be specific, I haven't paid for a meal out. I've spent $282.97 on groceries so far this month and feel confident I can ring in under $300 for January. And that total includes the cost of a dinner party I hosted for 8 people. Not bad at all for me. More details on the dinner party to follow.
The next project is to transform the other kitchen cupboards into a picture of organization that would make Martha Stewart proud.
I've camped out at Mom and Dad's for a few days because of a nasty pain in my back that makes any movement excruciating. The highlight of my day was when Katie and Nancy came home from the library and Nancy showed me the book she chose for herself.
She curled up next to me on the bed and we flipped through recipes for Croque Monsieur sandwiches, Sole Meunière, and Clafoutis.
My niece has very discerning tastes. She asked for seconds of a 72% dark chocolate and sea salt bar from World Market.
Another high point was finding that I could laugh without writhing in agony, so you know, small victories today.
Now that I've been back from my trip to Belgium for 3 months, I figure it's time to blog about it before it becomes like the Alaskan cruise that I never wrote about or the New Orleans trip about which I still have posts sitting in the drafts folder.
There's a burger chain in Belgium and France called Quick Burger. While we were there, Katie and I saw ads everywhere with two burgers in battle mode that read Hard Pepper vs. Strong Bacon. I laughed every time I saw it. Best photo evidence I could find online here and here.
My friend Shelley sent me a link to a story about Quick's new Dark Vador Burger, which has a terrifyingly black bun.
Who do you think will win that battle?
One of my favorite parts of traveling is walking up and down city streets. It's especially fun when you've traversed cultures because there are even more things to gawk at, very discreetly, of course.
A few pictures we snapped in Antwerp:
And if you were wondering what language Smurfs speak, it's clearly Flemish. Clearly.
Happy 2012! Does anyone have any resolutions or goals with regards to food? I'll go first.
For the month of January, my goal is to not eat out. It looks like I spent about $180/month at restaurants last year, but I didn't count the calories. I'm hoping that I can cut expenses and pounds by cooking my own meals. Wait wait, I just checked my supermarket purchases for last year, and they averaged around $260/month. I don't know if eating at home will save me any money, but I do know that I have an overstocked pantry right now that I could probably eat on for a month. Which brings us to goal #2...
My goal is to keep my kitchen pantry organized. No expired foods. No partially opened bags spilling in the cupboard. No pushing unwanted items to the back of the cupboard to be forgotten for years. I'm doing a pantry purge now and it is not pretty. I was well past the point of needing an intervention. I realize that I can be a hoarder. I'll try to combat it with an inventory list and by trying to make do with ingredients I have on hand, Chopped-style, no matter how crazy the combinations may seem. I accept the culinary challenge.
I'll evaluate my success with not eating out at the end of the month. I already know I'll make an exception if I go out of town. And I'm not offering to cook at my house if I am asked out on a dinner date. It could happen. I'm not very confident in my motivation to maintain the pantry inventory list, but as of now I'm resolved to do it. I hope it will reduce the amount of food I let go to waste.
As for the pantry purge, I think the winner, or rather, loser, of my game of expiration date roulette was the seaweed package with a use-by date of July 26, 2006. I know I didn't buy that because I can't read ANYTHING on the package except the expiry date. I assume the rest of the characters are Japanese. Now I'm trying to remember why someone gave me seaweed.
I ended the year with a hangover-free club soda taste test. I've gotta give up this party-girl lifestyle. Next year.
The contenders were Canada Dry, Seagram's, Schweppes, White Rock, and Food Club (store brand). My favorite was Seagram's.
Here's my year in cities. Not too extensive on domestic travel, but the Paris+Belgium trip was unforgettable.
San Diego, California Hot Springs, Arkansas Mountain Pine, Arkansas Austin, Texas (in April and November) New Orleans, Louisiana Houston, Texas Palo Duro Canyon, Texas Albuquerque, New Mexico Santa Fe, New Mexico Paris, France Brussels, Belgium Bruges, Belgium Damme, Belgium Antwerp, Belgium Amarillo, Texas
This year stacks up pretty well compared to previous years: 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010. Wish list for 2012: Australia, Chicago, Hawaii.
What's on your 2011 list?
This was a fat and happy year for me. Life just keeps getting better. Cheers to a fantastic 2012!
Yesterday, I ate Brussels sprouts for lunch. Brussels sprouts with fish sauce on them. That was an interesting way of combining two reviled foods into one dish.
Have you ever tasted fish sauce by itself? The Red Boat Fish Sauce I had was bright red and beautiful. I couldn't resist tasting a swig, because when you looked at it, you thought, now that's going to taste really great! Here's the thing, you're not supposed to eat fish sauce by itself. The appearance makes you want to pour yourself a glass, but that would be like drinking Worcestershire or soy sauce. Fish sauce is made from fermented anchovies. The Vietnamese name for fish sauce translates to salted fish water. Upon tasting it, you'll recognize the flavor from sauces and curries.
I adapted this David Chang (of Momofuku) recipe for roasted Brussels sprouts. I tossed the sprouts with some olive oil and roasted them at 425º for about 25 minutes. I mixed fish sauce, water, sugar, garlic, cayenne, and Chinese Five-Spice powder and tossed the sprouts in that. I added a little bacon, just because.
The dish was good and just screamed Thai/Southeast Asian. After using that fish sauce, my house smells like Thai Pepper, which was unusual since I don't cook many ethnic foods at home.
Final verdict: If you have picky eaters who say they don't like Brussels sprouts, this is probably not the recipe that will convert them. I think I'll save the fish sauce for a curry, and I'll stick to a more traditional roasted Brussels sprouts recipe like the Barefoot Contessa's, which I could eat twice a week. Fish sauce is good for cooking, not for drinking.
With Thanksgiving approaching, many of us contemplate the myriad blessings in our lives, but my mind turns to the most important part of Thanksgiving, the food. This year I'm bringing Roasted Turkey and Gravy, Mashed Potatoes, and Pumpkin Cheesecake to the table.
So far, I've cleaned my kitchen, thawed a turkey, and prepared the mirepoix for the turkey roasting pan.
When I wake up, I'll rub the bird down with melted butter, salt, pepper, cumin, ginger, and perhaps some other herbs and spices before it goes in the oven. I like to wing it. Get it? Then I'll get the gravy going.
I'm excited about this pumpkin cheesecake. It's cooling down now.
If there's any baking that makes me quake in my boots, it's baking cheesecakes in a water bath. Water always manages to seep into my springform pans, no matter what precautions I take. Double wrapping the pan with heavy duty foil doesn't seem to prevent leaks. We'll see if I fared better this time.
Also on this Thanksgiving Eve, Mom suggested that we start a tradition of watching On Moonlight Bay (starring Doris Day and Gordon McRae) the night before Thanksgiving because of the funny turkey scene. But the scene is actually in the movie's sequel, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, which we didn't have. We watched On Moonlight Bay anyway, and still enjoyed it. Here's the Thanksgiving scene from By the Light of the Silvery Moon:
