Monthly Archives: March 2009

Chicken Piccata

Posted on March 30, 2009 | Leave a comment

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“We have not an hour of life In which our pleasures relish not some pain, Our sours some sweetness.”  — Philip Massinger.

Why does sour get such a bad name? The word is practically synonymous with misfortune and unpleasantness.   A business deal goes sour.  A friend develops sour grapes.  A neighbor becomes a sour puss.  You can’t help but develop a sour disposition.  In fact, under these conditions, your whole outlook on life may turn sour.

These expressions are hardly novel or recent. Sour has held its pejorative crown for centuries.  The expression “sour grapes” dates back Continue reading →

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Homemade Bread Crumbs

Posted on March 29, 2009 | 1 Comment

Seasoned Bread Crumbs: Awaiting Processing

Bread crumbs are one of those indispensable ingredients.   They give gratins and casseroles their attractive topping, they give meatloaf its consistent texture, and they give fried chicken its trademark crunch.  To accommodate these various roles, bread crumbs come in two styles: fresh (soft) or dried.

As the name implies, fresh, or soft, bread crumbs are fluffier and softer than their dried counterparts.  Because of their consistency, they are frequently used as a binder in meatloaf and dumplings, or as a topping for gratins and casseroles.  Dried bread crumbs, on the other hand, are finer and crisper than the fresh variety.  Their crisp texture makes them perfect for breading meat and seafood.  With the addition of herbs and spices, each variety can be transformed into seasoned bread crumbs.

Any good bread can serve as the raw material Continue reading →

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Posted in Miscellaneous

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Sauteed Broccolini

Posted on March 23, 2009 | Leave a comment

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Like the Camry, the Walkman, and the Wii, broccolini is one more Japanese product making its way into the American household.  And like its predecessors, the vegetable is one part engineering and one part marketing.

Broccolini was developed in 1993, when the Sakata Seed Corporation crossed broccoli with gai lan, or Chinese broccoli.  Sakata originally marketed the green as “aspiration,” perhaps a not so subtle allusion to its hopes for the product.  The name may have also been designed to suggest a connection to asparagus.  Indeed, Sakata also tried calling it asprobroc and asprospeer – never mind its misleading nature.  Crossing broccoli with asparagus, one article noted, would be like breeding a chipmunk with a tree: it can’t be done.

Ultimately, the more accurate broccolini prevailed, though brocoletti was in the running for some time.

Broccolini is basically Continue reading →

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Posted in Sides

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The Grim Peeper

Posted on March 16, 2009 | 8 Comments

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For the past three years, the Washington Post has invited its readers to participate in its Peeps Diorama Contest.  The rules for the contest are simple – create a scene, concept, or event, in which the characters in the diorama are played by Peeps, “those marshmallowy chicks and rabbits plaguing checkout lines in every convenience store this season.”  Throw a clever pun into the mix, and the Post promises the possibility of extra-credit.

Our first thought was an ode to Obama – “The Peeple’s Choice” – in which a throng of marshmallow figures crowded the Washington Mall in witness of an historic Inauguration.  But, we worried, the Obama idea would hardly be original.  Indeed, even the paper warned that it was “tired of the campaigns.”

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The other major theme of this year, of course, has been the economic crises.  And the more we thought about it -  industries collapsing, banks failing, unemployment rising, stocks plummeting, and savings disappearing – we knew that some larger force had to be lurking behind the nation’s financial calamities.  Our diorama, submitted last night, reveals Continue reading →

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Hamantashen

Posted on March 10, 2009 | 4 Comments

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According to an old Jewish joke, if you put three Jews on a committee, you’ll get four different opinions. . .which is exactly the number of different explanations I found detailing the origins of Hamantashen.

Hamantashen are triangular cookies that are served during the Jewish holiday, Purim.  Purim tells the story of how the Jewish people in Persia avoided persecution at the hands of the King’s vizier, Haman.  The three-cornered confections, commonly filled with jam or a poppy-seed concoction, owe their shape to Haman’s ear, clipped with shame.  Or maybe to his triangular hat, which was the style at the time.  Or maybe to his pockets weighted with bribe money.  Or maybe to the three Jewish patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  In other words, no one really knows.

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Even the origins of the word are disputed.  One explanation says Hamantashen derives from the Hebrew word “tash” for weakened, so that the word refers to Haman’s defeat.   A second source Continue reading →

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Posted in Desserts, Holidays

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Chicken Roulade

Posted on March 8, 2009 | 5 Comments

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Within my circle of friends, two of us cook.  Which gave Jamey, the host of our weekly poker game, an idea.  He would volunteer to host a cook-off between Eric and I – a Top Chef Deathmatch as he billed it. As part of the competition, Eric and I would be charged with creating an appetizer and an entrée in ninety minutes, which our friends would then collectively judge and critique.  As part of the rules, Eric and I could bring our own proteins and rely on our girlfriends as sous-chefs.  We could also help ourselves to any ingredients and cookware we found in Jamey’s apartment.  The competition had yet another element.  The four judges would be bringing Continue reading →

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Spaghetti and Meatballs

Posted on March 3, 2009 | 1 Comment

Meatballs and Spaghetti

In August 2002 (back in the early days of blogging), Julie Powell began an interesting project on her blog.  Frustrated with her job, her marriage, and her living arrangements in one of the “outer boroughs,” she vowed to master the art of french cooking.  That is, Powell decided to make every one of the 536 recipes contained in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year’s time.  The project’s simplicity, balanced with its sheer scope, soon captured the interests of her fellow bloggers and several media outlets (and eventually earned her a book and movie deal).

On a much smaller scale, the Barefoot Bloggers make it their goal to blog roughly twenty-four of Ina Garten’s recipes every year – or two every month, which Continue reading →

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Thomas Jefferson’s Chicken Fricassee

Posted on March 1, 2009 | 3 Comments

Chicken Fricassee

At a dinner honoring forty-nine Nobel laureates, President Kennedy looked around and pronounced that this was the “most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

That Thomas Jefferson was brilliant is undeniable.  He was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. He founded the University of Virginia. He was a renowned horticulturalist, botanist, and architect. He was an accomplished inventor, designing the Lazy Susan, a folding chair, and a pedometer, though he refused to pursue a patent on any of them.

That Thomas Jefferson dined alone is more suspect.  Continue reading →

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