Soup Swap: A Craze that's Sweeping the Nation

I'd like to introduce you to an idea called a "Soup Swap." The name tells it all really, and there are "rules" you can follow or break, but the main point is that you get to come home with some pretty fine booty, ie. six soups made by your friends. If you invite carefully, as I did, the booty is yummy indeed.

Kathy Thompson was kind enough to host the first ever Fayetteville Soup Swap, and she decided to serve her soup to us then and there, which I'd say everyone thouroughly enjoyed considering we started the festivities with a delicious belt of Patron's Añejo. Kathy prepared a wonderful tortilla soup with chicken and tomatoes. Side sprinkles included queso fresco, sour cream, cilantro, avocado and of course home fried corn tortilla strips. As we tucked into our dinners, the so-called "telling of the soup" began with Kathy divulging this fine detail: "Lime oil is my secret." And indeed the fresh, invigorating scent of limes wafted in the air like a walk in Florida groves.



The first soup I decided to try at home was Rob Sharp's tomato okra and chicken, and I coincidentally had some arkansas bacon that Rob's father Frank had given me after a recent tour of the Ozark Mountain Smokehouse. While son's soup heated on the stove, dad's bacon sizzled in the pan alongside some fresh eggs. Jennifer and I enjoyed a lunch of Rob's family favorite soup with a crunchy bacon, egg and cheddar sandwich.

Incidentally, previous soup swap rules suggest giving a door prize to the maker of the last soup picked. Unfortunately, a Scharfenberger chocolate bar didn't seem to assuage. On the way home Rob said, "It was like being in middle school again, like being the last one picked for kickball teams." Tomatoey with an italian herb kick and lots of okra, Rob's soup was just the thing for a cold winter lunch.



Today I rushed back to the office after a noontime meeting and was able to put together a very satisfying lunch for Jennifer and myself. Thanks to Lisa Sharp's borscht, all I had to do was quickly pan fry some smoked pork chops and sliced cabbage in one skillet, and reheat the soup in a small pot. In about fifteen minutes I had the following.



A couple slices of my own rustic bread, along with a dollop of sour cream, and we had a fantastically colorful meal. Lisa's secret to save time: canned sliced beets. As well, she combined efforts from a couple different borscht cooking sessions. Sounds like a great method akin to good cassoulet making...Hmm...I'll have to ask her about making some.

Friday lunch, and Jennifer was preferring hamburger and french fries as fuel to unpack cases and cases of the new spring shoe fashions. As Haley Duke and I listened to Choice Cuts by Mark Kurlansky on my iPod, the subject was English pizza. After a few minutes, she said, "All right! I've gotta have pizza now." I said, "No, I'm about to go heat up some soup and fry brats. Eat with me." She agreed. Today's soup was Christian and Sabine Borgmann's lemonny lentil with cilantro oil. Hearty and meaty like a lentil soup ought to be, it also had a refined lightness about it that surprised. The flavors melded very well, and Haley and I passed part of our lunch conversation trying to guess at the mysterious simplicity of the soup. To add to our meal, I defrosted some hand made brats Christine Miller and I made a couple weeks prior on a snow day. With a little sautéed kale and bit of my now dry (and slightly disappointing) bread, we enjoyed yet another satisfying lunch on a cold winter's day.



Being a little too busy to make an occasion out of lunch today, I reheated Dede Peters's Chipotle Beef Stew, marked *SPICY*. Indeed it is a bit on the spicy side, I didn't think overly so, but then I have a palette with a high tolerance for hot due to years of eating spicy dishes. The stew offered a nice variety of textures with the addition of hominy, tomatoes and onion. Christian recommended a dollop of sour cream, which with a couple pieces of toasted and buttered brioche, I thoroughly enjoyed my quick meal on the fly. More stew please!



Well, at long last, I've finished all my soups. Tonight, Aaron Rhoades invited me to dinner and had on offer a kind of asiany sea scallop dish that was great. He served them with a salad of mixed greens and a warm orange/onion viniagrette and some soba. I offered to bring my last soup, Emily Loving's Viatnamese Hot and Sour Soup. It was an adaptation from Hot Sour Salty Sweet by Jeffrey Alford and Naomiand Duguid; it ROCKED. I'd have to say it was my favorite soup of the swap, and it went very nicely as part of a pan-asian meal along side a Saki Martini.




Unfortunately for Christine, I can't give a full write-up about her Chicken and Sausage Gumbo. Since I'd had it on a few occasions already and knew how much I liked it, I "graciously" decided not to choose it so others could enjoy. Christian can claim that he must not really like South Louisianna cooking, but I know it was delicious as always, AND hers was the first soup chosen...so you be the judge. Click here for Christine's recipe.

As well, you'll just have to cook my soup for yourself.

Reid and Jennifer's Birthday Dinner

Jennifer and me...sorry Reid, no really good pictures of you to speak of.

So this dinner party was really fun and interesting on many counts. I've been working really hard on "remodeling" my rental apartment kitchen to make it more condusive for having people over for dinners. The cupboards are painted, the hinges and pulls are replaced. A brand new dishwasher is installed. I've put up some crazy seventies wallpaper and reupholstered the dining chairs and even repaired the trick ones. So, save the countertop mosaic tiling, my whole apartment has undergone quite a transformation. I've got actual worksurfaces and plenty of dishes, so it was time to throw my inaugural party. Reid and Jennifer's closely occuring birthdays seemed just the excuse. It was a hard thing to decide on because I really wanted a "fancy" sitdown affair. I landed on six as a comfortable number. That seemed altogether too exclusive for a proper party, so I decided to have the dinner first followed by a full on coctail party.

I've been reading a whole lot about dinners, eating, hosting, recipies, traditions, etc. So I've had all sorts of things on my mind. Larousse Gastronomique by Prosper Montagne and The Rituals of Dinner by Margaret Visser are the two books that I've been spending most of my reading and thinking energy on. From the banquet entry of "Larousse Gastronomique" I learned that in Roman times there was a tradition that any person that came to your house would be treated as a god. And indeed there are myths that speak of gods disguising themselves as guests in order to test the mortals on their hospitality. The most notabe example being that of Amphytryon. As for "The Rituals of Dinner," I've been reading her chapters about host and guest rituals, manners and tacit cultural understandings of these things. This party in particular was a sort of amalgamation and test of some of the ideas I've been toying with.

To this point, my apartment hasn't really been set up for dinner parties on the scale that I've become used to thanks to Jennifer and Reid. Their recently remodeled home includes a wonderful, large kitchen with all the best cooking equipment and appliances. They have a lovely dining room with a table big enough for twelve. The last two Christmases, we have collectively thrown spectacular dinner parties with exotic ingredients, carefully chosen menus paired with Reid's expert wine choices. All of it has been a wonderful collective effort, but I was really curious to try this out in my own apartment. I made some risky food choices. But I think the dinner was a big success.

Strangely enough, there have been three separate "freakouts" that have come up for me in relation to this one single party. The first one was telling a dear friend that in fact he wasn't invited to the dinner portion of the evening. This was especially hard for me because he's been going through some rough times right now, and I felt like it would have been "the nice thing to do" to invite him. The second was inviting another friend to the coctail portion, but also telling him that his girlfriend was NOT welcome. Geez, I don't really know how I've gotten so wrapped up in the idea that I need to be "true" to my feelings and honest with my friends; but it really sucks having to tell someone that they're not invited or that their girlfriend isn't. Lastly, I got wind that woman that I'm really not particularly fond of seemed to have invited themself. I dismissed this rumor with the idea that the mutual friends involved knew better, but indeed, she DID show up uninvited.

Now how does this play itself out? Well, first I still think friend A's feelings might be hurt, friend B didn't show at all, and well, univited guest C? I was totally rude to her as well as one of the mutual friends. So whereas the dinner portion of the evening was a smashing success, the coctail portion has left me feeling very lacking in hosting skills. The dinner was rather an expensive feat for me to pull off. I was glad to do it and have absolutely no regrets. I would have done it anyway, but coincidentally, Reid and Jennifer treated me to TWO extravagant nights out to dinner this past week. With the expense of the dinner and the fact that I asked each invited guest to bring a drinkable item, I left myself rather unprepared for the number of guests that arrived empty handed. Ordinarily this is never a problem, there is always plenty to go arround, just help yourself. Somehow last night left me feeling like I'd been caught with my pants down.

So uninvited girl shows up with uninvited boyfriend and two mutual friends. The clever one shows up with her classic favorite: Crown Royal. The former must have had three drinks a piece in the first 15 minutes they were there, and I was starting to get really annoyed, so in my best southern lady manners, I offered her an extra small drink in an extra small glass. She definitely registered something that was more surprise than understanding, so I just smiled huge and said, "Cheers!" in the most exaggeratedly cheerful voice I could muster. To make matters worse I told off my friend for having brought her AND for showing up empty handed AND for drinking more than his due...and what the hell??? Am I the worst host ever? I mean after reading all this stuff on hosting and manners, I turn straight around and dump it all and go for the bad behavior award. I think I need more practice.

If you're still with me after all of that, this was the dinner menu and a brief synopsis.

All of the recipes came from the March 2006 Special Issue of Saveur. Being that it was the March issue, they featured several stories and recipies from Ireland, and that seemed like a really fun seasonal fare for Jennifer's March birthday. There was an intersting looking recipe for stinging nettle soup, but being that I don't know where or how to pick it, I settled on watercress as a substitution. Very peppery and garnished with a heavy cream swirl and a fresh sprig of cress, it turned out to be a very popular contender for the favorite dish of the evening. In making this dish, I have discovered the best ever chicken broth that will always be a standby in my cupboard: Swanson's Certified Organic Chicken Broth. It tasted like my own homemade but better. One word to the wise though, it's rather salty to start, so be careful if you're using it as a soup base and your recipe calls for salt.

The Soup Course: Watercress Soup

2 T Butter
1 med onion, peeled and chopped
7 c Swanson's Certified Organic Chicken Broth
2 medium red potatos, peeled and chopped
1 leek, trimmed, white and light green parts only, washed and chopped
1 bunch watercress, trimmed, washed and drained (about three tightly packed cups)
salt and freshly ground pepper

Sauté the onion in the butter until softened. Add the chopped leeks and continue to sauté until just wilted. The onions will have started to caramelize by now. Add the potatos and chicken broth and bring to a boil, turn heat down and simmer until the potatos are cooked through and yielding easily to a fork. Add the cress and stir briefly. When the leaves are just wilted and the stems seem to be just softened but the color is still bright, take off the heat and blend until smooth. Work in small batches with the blender to avoid a soup explosion.

Drizzle about a teaspoon or more of heavy cream on top and swirl, garnish with a little sprig of cress or other greenery.

The Fish Course: Whole Lobsters Served with Melted Butter
Look up the recipe in Saveur, it sounds just perfect, but I was pressed for time, so I opted for the directions on the bag they placed my lobsters in. It was just a quick boil of ten minutes. I added a ton of salt, 1 halved lemon, 1 quartered onion, 1T peppercorns, 6 bay leaves, 1 T thyme and that was it. I've never really done live lobster before, and the tail meat was surprisingly tough, so I'm curious to try Myrtle Allen's methodology to see if it makes a difference. When you have 1-1/2 hours to spend on your fish course, give it a try.

The Main Entrée: Spring Lamb's Livers, Colcannon and Watercress Radish Salad

The lamb liver felt like quite a risky choice for the main course, but I really felt that there had to be love for liver in our group of friends. What with Lisa's beloved chicken liver and bacon pâté and our gushing love for foie gras this past Christmas Eve, it seemed like it would be a well calculated risk. The livers were very yummy and rich. There was a definite iron flavor, but it wasn't overpowering, and the texture was lovely and soft. The creamy mashed potatos of the colcannon was a great vehicle to sop up all the delicous creamy onion gravy, and the pepper snap and bright lemon viniagrette all came together really successfully. Jennifer declared it a "great plate." Well too, the absolutely clean plates afterward were proof positive that I was on the right track.

Colcannon

3 lbs large red potatos, peeled and chopped
10 T butter!!!
1/3 small head cabbage, cored and sliced into 1/2" thick strips
2 lightly packed cups kale (one bunch)
1c whole milk
4 scallions, green parts only, chopped
salt and freshly ground pepper

Boil the potatos in salted water until yielding to a fork. At the same time, place cabbage in a small covered pot with 2T butter and 1/2 c water. Bring to boil and then simmer until the cabbage is wilted. Take off heat, drain and set aside.

Blanch the kale briefly in the boiling potatos. This helps reduce the bitterness. Trim leafy bits away from the woody stem and then slice thinly and sauté in 2T butter until cooked but still bright green. Add to the cabbage and set aside.

Boil the milk and 6T butter with the scallions until the scallions are wilted. Add this to the drained potatos and masha masha masha. Add in the reserved greens and cabbage, stir thouroughly. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust.


Lamb's Liver with Whiskey and Cream

2 lobes (~1lb.) fresh young lamb's liver, membranes removed and sliced into 1/2" sections
2 c milk
salt
4T butter
1 large yellow onion, peeled and diced small
1T Jameson
1T whole grain mustard
1/2 c heavy cream
freshly ground black pepper
1T chopped garlic chives

Rinse and drain the liver slices and place in one layer in a nonreactive bowl or tray, add milk. Cover with plastic wrap and refridgerate over night.

Next day just before preparing, drain livers and rinse lightly. Pat dry with a dish towel.

Melt 2T butter in cast iron skillet and sauté onion until lightly browned, remove to warming tray.

In the same skillet, melt 2T butter until sizzling and sear livers both sides until golden brown. This should take approximately 1-1/2 minutes per side. Remove to warming tray.

Deglaze with whiskey add back onion, mustard and cream. Bring to a simmer and add back livers. Stir thoroughly until the livers are warmed through.

Serve atop a pile of colcannon, ladle with extra gravy and garnish with chopped garlic chives.

For the salad, I washed, trimmed and lightly chopped 1 bunch of watercress. To this I added about 8 thinly sliced radishes. For extra unexpected fancy, slice them in the same direction they grow and leave the long root intact and some of the green stems. Toss with lemon viniagrette.

For the lemon viniagrette:

juice of a lemon
1/2 t salt
pepper
1T sugar
1T whole grain mustard
1 mashed garlic clove
1/4 to 1/2c olive oil

Place all in a jelly jar and shake well together. Taste for salt and sour balance. Adjust with more sugar as neccessary.


So there was meant to be a sorbet course with fresh blood oranges to cleanse the pallete before the cheese course, but I was feeling pressed for time, so we skipped it. The cheese course was a variety of lovelies from the UK including a strange coffee noted smoked cheddar and stilton with blueberries in it.

For desset: Tipsy Puddings
They're really much prettier than they tasted. They were too tart and since I'd made them a day ahead, they were surprisingly dry and tough, the liquid didn't soak all through. Just whatever hohum. I'll leave off the recipe. You can look it up in the mag if you're really interested.

TV Dinner

Last week Ellen called and asked if I'd cook dinner at her house for the Oscars, and I agreed. As the week progressed, it came out that she already had some salmon fillet, so I spent a good amount of time with my wheels spinning on what to do about main ingredient: SALMON! (In my mind I'm hearing the chairman of Iron Chef announcing the word with a crazy flourish.) I asked around, casted about with some cookbooks, and even happened upon a really cheap first English edition of Larousse Gastronomique. The best suggestion I received though was from a new aquaintance named Christian from German Happy Hour at the Radisson Hotel Bar on Friday Nights. He suggested the following:

Chop an onion and sauté it in butter until sweated; add some chopped garlic and stir briefly until a bit cooked but not browned. Add some halved cherry tomatos and cook about five minutes. To that add some white wine and simmer about half an hour until well cooked and slightly reduced. Run it all through a sieve, mash it well and extract as much liquid as possible. Simmer a little further, add some cream to lighten then add a generous amount of chopped chervil, chives and tarragon. Laddle lovingly over a salmon filet sautéed in butter, leaving the middle rare. I asked him what it was called, he said, "It's something French." Ohh La La.

Sounded delicious, but I really wanted to consult my new aquisition, the Larousse Gastronomique. I looked under Salmon, and the first entry was a "salmon à l'américaine"...perfect I thought. It wanted you to top the salmon filet with a slice of lobster, then a little pile of pulled lobster meat, then ladle with a sauce americaine--see SAUCE. Well, they explain that sauce americaine is a sauce used with salmon or lobster à l'américaine...but no actual recipe. So I combined Christian's suggestion with the idea of salmon topped with lobster. It was REALLY yummy and decidedly rich in the way only the french can think up.

Here's the list of substitutions from the above recipe: I used dried tarragon, which was added in the final simmer (just before adding the cream); then right after the cream and right before serving, I stirred in a generous amount of chopped flat leaf parsley and thinly sliced greens of scallions. Also, I used romas, not cherry tomatos. Lastly the final garnish was a delicous and beautiful addition of a tomato confit. I sliced cherry tomatos and pearl onions in half and tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper. Then layed them out in a single layer on a cookie sheet and baked at about 350 until they looked all shrivelled and browned.

A second attempt at polenta failed; this recipe was a disaster at first. It wanted equal amounts of water and cornmeal. When I added the corn meal slowly (as noted) to the boiling salted water, it made playdough. I thinned and thinned and thinned until it was the right consistency but I had unassailable lumps through out. That was the only part that was disappointing. I forged ahead (not admitting defeat A. Barb) and added a couple spoons of butter and some grated extra sharp cheese.

That was the under layer, then the salmon, then the lobster, then the sauce, followed by the tomato onion confit garnish, and finally a delicious side of grilled asparagas. You've gotta try this at home. It was the yummiest thing I ever appropriated from multiple sources.

There was a salad too of mixed field greens topped with the classic pear half sauted until browned in butter, put a nice lump of blue cheese on top, sprinkle with caramel coated pecans and a sherry vinegar/mustard viniagrette.

Shoot that Poison Arrow

La Maison des Tartes Presents: Valentine's Day: Everything is Chocolate but Dessert.

WOW! That kind of says it, don't you think? When I first heard about this dinner that Vince Pianalto and David Lewis were hosting, I got really excited. I couldn't believe my luck, and I thought, "I'm on some kind of 9 course meal jag or something." Since I wasn't really interested in trying to drum up a romantic date for the occasion, I started asking around for friends to go with me. The food sounded too spectacular not to pull together a group of people who I knew would appreciate the spectacle of an interesting theme and a multicourse meal in our very own Fayetteville. After a bit of guest list juggling, my fantastic meal companions included [clockwise from the top] Steven Gibbs, Kathy Thompson, me and Ellen Cato Crouthers. I hope they won't mind my speaking for them and saying that we had a super spectacular evening.

If you've never been to Maison des Tartes at night, you really have to go. The shift in lighting to candles really makes all the difference in the world. It was cozy and inviting, the red table cloths brought a really nice touch of formality and class to an otherwise open and lofty coffee house feel. With David playing the rôle of maître d' and sommelier and Leilani as our practically fawning waiter, it was an altogether different sort of experience from your typical Saturday morning coffee and pastry or Sunday morning brunch. Towards the end of the evening Vince and David were even met with a standing ovation.

Let me get my small disappointment out of the way first, and it requires background info too. I had prepared foie gras for Christmas Eve dinner, and upon the advice of my French friend Antoine, we were meant to pair a nice glass of Sauterne with it. In the end, we had a great substitution of an Ice Wine, but it left me curious about what I'd missed out on, never having tasted a Sauterne before. I was really excited when I'd seen that Maison keeps a Sauterne on their wine list, so I'd looked forward to the pairing at last. Alas, the wine supplier didn't come through. The good news was that David suggested a really amazing white: J. Vidal-Fleury, Côtes du Rhône, 2004, Ampuis, France. At thirty dollars a bottle, in a restaurant no less, the wine was out of this world. Go out right now and buy a bottle of this wine!

In discussing the menu with my foodie friend Paul in Chicago, he was intrigued enough to want to fly in just for the meal, but timing and plane fares unfortunately didn't work out in his favor. One of our primary musings was whether the never endling lists of flavors Vince was planning to put together would be "pull-offable." When we read through the menu, we started to think about all the ingredients for one, then the fact that every dish is gonna somehow include chocolate for two. It all seemed very intriguing and exciting, but we felt a touch dubious. We couldn't have been more wrong. Whether or not I loved loved loved a dish, every one had very clearly managed to get the chocobalance pretty much right on.

Below, the foie gras.

For me, there were two super stand out dishes. Number one: the Quail Terrine, and thanks to two of my fellow diners, I got to taste it. It was super delicious, and I loved the presentation with the little bone in. T'was a little meat pop to suck on. In fairness, it was a real rival to the foie gras option, which I loved. I thought the sautéed bananas on the side was truly inspired. The Mole Negro Oaxaqueño was delicious, but that quail really grabbed my attention.

Amazement number two: Cheeses and Chocolates. Ok ok, I know that for bread in this town, Maison des Tartes is clearly the stand alone perveyor, but what really mattered for this dish was the chocolates and cheese. Two hand crafted chocolates and one brazil nut praline with bittersweet chocolate, each paired with a different cheese. This was a mind blowing experience for me. We all tasted them in tandem and toasted our little choco-cheese combos like they were tiny glasses of wine. The pairing of full on, refined chocolates with an amazing assortment of french cheeses is a flavor idea that has changed my life. Please experiment at your leasure at home. I certainly will be.

Hopefully Vince will bless us with the addition of his amazing fleur de sel caramels with lavender blossom as part of his usual offerings. One word: YUM!

I loved my lamb chops and the snapper option was also tasty. But oh my god, the chocolate mustard crust!


The two remaining dishes were interesting but problematic. Langoustines and Shrimp on a Raft of Celery and Cucumbers in a Chocolate Chocolate Sea featured the one shining moment of green for the evening--pea shoots, but the flavor combo was too varied and didn't quite meld for me. Kathy really liked the leeks, but I found them on the overcaramelized side.

The oxtail broth had the interest of the asian pear and the fresh marjoram, but I really missed a bolder meat flavor.

Click here on the photo to enlarge for reading purposes.


Well then, dessert.I don't know how, but I at first forgot to take a picture...then after two bites remembered. I had to reassemble from my fellow diners' plates. At the time it was really funny to go helping myself to everybody's plates, but in a fit of anxiety last night, I woke up thinking, "What the heck have I done? Could I have been more rude?" Jeez, thanks friends.

In parting, Steven Gibbs has a now famous quote amongst us, "I LOVE love."

Friends Over

Well the other Tuesday, I invited Jennifer and Reid and Steven over for dinner and cards. I moved all my furniture around to create a dining room from what had been my living room. I've been excited to have someone over to see the changes and to enjoy the possibilities of actually having a dining room again. It's all put a big ball in motion, and now I want to move the kitchen around and add a dish washer and repaint all the cabintry and replace all the hinges and door pulls and make it all look about a million times better than it now does.

So the dinner was meant to be really simple, and I set myself the task of not having to go grocery shopping. I decided I was only allowed to prepare food from what was at hand already. I mixed up a little martini and sat down in the easy chair in the corner of the kitchen and had a flip through some of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazines. I shuffled around and found the one from last Dec/Jan. I figured it couldn't hurt to be seasonal about my looking, even if it was an "everyday" meal.

I landed on Lemon Butter Fillets of Sole, which sounded really easy and yummy. Check on all the ingredients and switch the sole to tilapia. Then towards the back, I found a recipe for polenta. That was a good idea since it was a change from rice, and Steven was coming over, so I could ask him to babysit it for me while I took care of other cooking chores. Then I had some collard greens and caramelized onions, and done. I'd pulled my menu together. When I opened the freezer to take out the tilapia fillets, I found a bag each of frozen peaches and raspberries. "Great," I thought, "that takes care of dessert." Peach/berry crisps in little individual sized ramekins.

So I had a little swig and set to work. The recipe for the fish had you do this fancy thing where you roll up the fillet into a little log for the fancy part, which I did, but I had to stab them through with a tooth pick to keep them in place. While I'm on the subject of this fish, I just remebered that I cheated. I had to go out for some dry white wine, and indeed that's what I was drinking at this point, not a little martini. Any way, I followed all the instructions, got it all ready to go in the pot, with only to turn the heat on and cook for a few minutes, then finish off the sauce.

Everyone arrived, and I broke off the cooking to make everyone a Negroni, and we all sat down in the dining room to enjoy them together. Conversation turned to our idea about starting a food club. Reid, having been a frat guy in college was brimming with ideas about how to run it, and what mean tricks would have to be played on the pledges to our society. It was all fun and games, but I was having a hard time focusing because my head was already in the kitchen. So after I finished my coctail, that's where I headed, and I carried on with my part of the conversation being shouted from one room to the other.

Then I couldn't find the damn magazine, so I wasn't going to be able to have Steven make the polenta. I sort of had a little nervous breakdown; but, I gathered myself up and thanks to some looking help from Jennifer, I managed to find the magazine which had slid down behind the toaster oven. Onward. Steven started the polenta exactly following the proportions laid out by the magazine recipe. I have to say that when I'd read through it, it seemed like 4 cups of water to 3/4 cup of corn meal sounded really out of control, but not having made it in ages, we soldiered on with the recipe as written.

This turned out to be a mistake. I found the polenta too runny. It was more like grits I guess. All poridge and runny. Anyway. The fish finished right at the perfect moment. I plated it all up with two scoops of polenta on the bottom of a small orange plate, then a small pile of collards and onions, then two fish rolls on top, topped with a couple spoonfuls of the lemon butter sauce. It was very simple, very pretty. It was also kind of gross. The fish hadn't cooked thoroughly through for one of Jennifer's fillets, and then the sauce wasn't balanced right. The polenta gravy goo tasted alright, but was just plain runny for my liking. The best part of the meal was the collards, but there was only enough for one serving each, and I'd've loved to have more of them. Anyway, it felt like a bit of a disappointing diner. Everyone was gracious. The dessert was really good, and we all enjoyed the wine Reid and Jennifer had brought. And the cards were fun too, even though Reid won.

I give the evening an A- and the meal a C+. I'm not going to bother to post the recipes cuz the food wasn't that good. I had thought I wouldn't even write about this meal, but then Paul dared me to write about polenta goo, and I realized it wouldn't be altogether fair to edit out my personal disappointments with cooking. So here you are, I sometimes suck in the kitchen, I even get disappointed at times, but I still really love it.

Out of Town Dining Fun in Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Well, special thanks to my friend Ellen for calling me up and inviting me out for dinner in Eureka Springs. She said it was with her friends and that it would be Indian; that was enough for me to say, "I'm in!" Turns out that her friends just opened a restaurant called The New Delhi, right on the main downtown shopping and entertaining strip.

As compared to other Indian food I've had in places like New York, Chicago, even Bella Vista, it was really good, if a touch sweet, but who's complaining. The little venue was absolutely packed with only 1 and 2 empty seats here and there at random tables. The food was served buffet style, and though Steven said he'd never had Indian cuisine before, I think his refill trip and dessert were testament enough that he liked it too.

We sat inbetween two different tables, each with two couples sitting at them, and us bridging the gap. I have to say that I was really smitten with June, a septuagenarian whose youthful vigour and disarming smile completely brightened the evening even more (if that were possible). Stories of nearly a hundred foreign exchanges students and living and traveling all over the world had me totally captivated.

In addition we were entertained by the Camptown Ladies with Opal Fly, Gina Gallina, Mellisa Carper and special guest Warren B. This live jazz band threw me back to the song stylings of Josephine Baker. All in all it was a magical experience. Given the easy interactions with strangers, the homey ambiance, the music and spicy food, I'd definitely recommend it. The lead photo is the only food picture we took; it's a tapica pudding with a kind of donut hole soaked in sugar water scented with rose and cinnamon. Vistit: The New Delhi, 2 North Main St. in Eureka Springs, AR (6 p.m. till ?) 479.253.2525.


Also on the menu for the evening's fun was a visit to a couple local bars. Enjoy the easygoing basement bar atmosphere of Chelsea's Corner Cafe and Bar (10 Mountain Street, 479.253.6723). With hand drawn signs like the one pictured here, it's no wonder that the clientele were so friendly; and it seemed not a problem in the world that we crashed a wedding party on the back patio. Drinks served the old fashioned way in mason jars are not to be missed if it's memories of summers gone by with your grandparents in the country that you're looking for. Cash only, so plan ahead.

Ask Mary to mix you up a Hot Buttered Rum at Jack's Place (37 Spring Street, 479.253.2219). In such a dark bar, the drink of the house that night, at $5.00, was a bargain that brightened up our spirits. I was curious that the house drink took as long as it did for Mary to prepare, but when I asked her about the recipe, I saw why. Made totally from scratch there, you've gotta try this one at home for your next fall or winter gathering.


Hot Buttered Rum

Cream together 1lb. of powdered sugar and 1lb. of butter. Mix in ground spices such as cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Taste for balance. Roll into a log, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze.

To prepare a coctail, Mary said, "take a scoop." I'm gonna translate that to a heaping tablespoon. Put it in a mug and top with boiling water. Stir well. Float a shot of rum on top and serve.

If it's Atole or Champurrado, I don't know, but, it was Chocolate.

An evening of home-made hot chocolate with Francesca.

Francesca is a new friend of mine that I met through Faith. They used to be roommates in college, and one Saturday I ran into them at La Maison des Tartes for coffee. We sorta hit it off right away, talking about having lived in NYC and having interest in food, specificly Mexican. She challenged me that day with the taunt, "Well I bet you haven't had hot chocolate where you roast your own beans?!?!"

Well, tonight the duel commensed, and it was really fun, if a bit exotical. Something that first occured to me about Francesca's style of preparing Mexican Hot Chocolate was that the steps seemed very many, and a little difficult to follow. Something about the number and almost randomness of how it went together had me a bit confused. And of course that's when my suggestions started flying. I mean I've never done any cooking of this sort, but based on other experiences, I had all these theories of what should happen next, and what the approach should be. Francesca was very generous and understanding.
So, now follows the pics in the order they were taken. These should give you a basic understanding of how to do this if you ever dare it at home alone.

Here you see the unroasted cocoa beans.

Francesca wasn't exacty sure what difference the roasting made, but knew that it was how she'd seen it done before; and that it aided in removing the chaff from the beans.

Over about medium heat, she roasted the beans until they darkened and popped. Stirring constantly.









So then all you have to do is crack the skins off all the beans.











Grinda, grinda, grinda!

I'm gonna breeze through a bunch of steps now that are a little more familiar. First, roast some anise seeds in a skillet until they're browned and starting to pop. Grind finely. Next, break up some cinnamon stick and grind to a fine powder.

I had asked Francesca about Mexican canela, but she said she just used the kind you get at the store here. I've used the canela from a little Mexican market shop and found it slightly lighter in flavor and flakier in texture, like if cinnamon stick could be shale. At any rate use pre-ground cinnamon if you like.

Add the cocoa powder and spices in a proportion that seems natural to you to a like proportion of milk and heat. You're gonna use quite a lot more ground cocoa than you might suspect. Stir every so often, but don't neccessarily let it come to a boil.

Next strain through a fine wire sieve. Make sure and press as much moisture as possible from the remaining paste. (Incidentally, this resulting paste can be used and an exfoliating skin moisturizer. Rub in well. Rinse. But before you do that, there are some more steps involved, so hold off on your beauty treatment until later.)




Next comes the Mexican blue corn flour/starch.







Put a few tablespoons in a blender with some water and whip up to a nice creamy consistency and add to the strained cocoa and milk mixture.

Continue to simmer until it thickens to a rich creamy texture. That accomplished, run the whole mess through your sieve again which still contains your strained cocoa paste--you're doing a second round of extraction. After you've passed your concoction through and pressed as much liquid out as possible. Add a little water to the paste and express again. Now stir in a small amount of sugar and taste. We added a very minimal amount of sugar. Just enough to sweeten slightly, but really as though you would use salt to brighten and bring out flavors.


Serve and enjoy!




As to my impressions of the flavor of this decidedly home made hot chocolate, I'd like to say that it was similar to the one that I had one morning for breakfast in Granada; though that one was more "refined." And, I don't mean that exactly in a good way. It was finer in texture, but much less nuanced in subtle chocolate flavor.

I tasted the beans before and after roasting. Also, one of Francesca's friends named Stuart brought over a fancy electronic bean roaster, and he brought his chaff to a very dark brown. All three versions differed significantly in flavor. The unroasted lacked flavor almost completely, though the texture was already similar to that of a roasted coffee bean. Francesca's pan roasted beans had a very light and subtle chocolate flavor. It was nutty and the texture compared to roasted coffee beans. I was surprised that it had almost none of the very dark bitter flavor of a dark chocolate. Lastly was Stuart's machine roasted. These beans were very dark in color and flavor. These tasted almost indecernably of a light roast coffee bean, and were decidedly missing the chocolate note one would expect. Neither Francesca nor I favored these beans on their own. Stuart, however, liked them, and we added them to the mix. I suspect that they did bring a touch of darkness that would have otherwise been missing.

On a final note, we discovered a couple kinds of "reject" beans. The first were ones that didn't seem to roast and were beigish in color. I had read about "quakers" with coffee beans (unmature beans that add a bitter acidic taste to coffee) and suspected them to be the cocoa bean version, so Francesca agreed and we avoided using them. The second type was a bean that sort of shattered in your hand as you tried to remove the chaff. Francesca said they were fine, but once they were shattered it became impossible to separate out the chaff, so I threw this type out as well.