I just wanted to start today by congratulating The Bitten Word and other winners and finalists in the Saveur Best Food Blog Awards. I am thrilled just to have been on the same page as so many talented and established cooks, writers, and photographers.
Getting back to food…I started flipping out when rhubarb season began. And then I flipped out some more when I found this recipe for rhubarb jam.
The deadline for Charcutepalooza’s Grinding Challenge feel right between my law school finals and graduation this month. Some people go nuts and subsist on burgers, fries, and Diet Coke for all of exam-time; my craziness takes the opposite form – I get very routine-driven, work out daily, and graze on nuts, protein bars, and turkey burgers with za’atar-spiced roasted fennel. After all of this I couldn’t quite face a big hunk of pork shoulder. So, I tried chicken sausage!
First order of business: today is the last day to vote for Cookbook Archaeology in the “Best Cook-Through” category at the Saveur Blog Awards; it only takes a second, and your support is much appreciated!
Today is also my last day of law school. And this is the cocktail with which I will be relaxing in the sun at 5 PM when I finish my last exam. It’s called a Lime Shrub, and it’s made with rum.
You may have noticed a trend in my posts over the last couple of weeks – my oven has been getting quite a workout. It’s that time of year: stress baking time. The latest attempt to calm my nerves about law school finals yielded a seriously delicious lavender-lemon tea bread.
I deal in historic recipes, but food can have any number of kinds of history: development over centuries, fusion with new cultures, family tradition. Some recipes have personal history: these molasses bars belong to this last group.
Passover has been past for a while. At this point many [meat-eaters] who observed it are still breathing a big sigh of relief every time they sink their teeth into a piece of bread. The hankering for brisket from the first seders, however, can also linger for a while after the holiday. Whenever I cook brisket I make a lot, and have leftovers for days. Yet I’m always bereft when the last of it is gone: I’m kind of an addict. Thankfully, I found a recipe in The Complete American Jewish Cookbook for a prune-sweet potato tzimmes made with brisket. It’s far simpler and faster than a full-on brisket, but still yields tender, flavorful meat.
This month’s Charcutepalooza challenge is grinding. When I was reading up on sausage in Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie, however, I stumbled across a recipe for one of my favorite foods: blood sausage.
Yep, you heard right. I adore blood sausage. In all its forms. I accidentally wound up eating soondae (Korean blood sausage) in a restaurant in Queens where I ordered by pointing at an English-less menu. Halfway through the meal I realized this wasn’t your average sausage…but by that point I was hooked. Since then, I’ve never looked back, and have only forged on – to morcilla, black pudding…and now my very own homemade boudin noir.
