Our Very First Houseguest

Andy's cousin Meghan is coming over to spend the night and attend the Dublin Irish Festival with us tomorrow.

For dinner I am planning to serve Lamb Kabobs and Feta Sauce from Everyday Food: Great Food Fast, Salad with dressing from the same book, and some kind of bread, either hummus and pita, naan, or just a crusty bread dipped in roasted garlic oil. For dessert we are having grasshopper sundaes, another very simple recipe from GFF.

I will soon be able to write a review of this cookbook.

For breakfast tomorrow we are having pancakes with blueberry syrup and toasted pecans and turkey sausage.

Fireworks and Barbeques!

Really, those are the two things I associate with July 4th. Say what you will about freedom and independence, I generally think about these things every other day in various political and intellectual contexts and actually welcome a break from it.

My contribution to my aunt's barbecue is my famous Orzo Salad with Feta, Spinach, and Mushrooms. I may have used more spinach than I needed, but I think it turned out well.

Whenever I cook something from my Food & Wine magazine, I feel a twinge of gourmet guilt. My original goal was to cook at least one thing from every issue. I think I need to resume that goal. Beginning this month, I am going to try to do this, likely for our weekly "treat" dinners, those meals where nutrition takes a back seat to taste and decadence.

I will begin with Cold Peanut Noodles with Tofu and Red Peppers. In addition to the F&W goal, it also brings me closer to finding the best cold peanut noodle recipe in my collection. I think I will also be attempting the brandied peaches (with vanilla ice-cream) because they look simply amazing and amazingly simple. Perhaps we'll enjoy them on the same night.

Strangest Jamaican Jerk Ever

Last night I did something truly unprecedented. I sent my jamaican jerk chicken wings back to the kitchen because I after attempting to eat them, I couldn't have them near me. I really wanted to like them, but it was just impossible. I had a feeling something was very wrong when they arrived. Even my friend Mike noted the incredibly strong smell of rosemary. Rosemary? The best way to describe them is that they were over-spiced. Not too spicy, but over-spiced. The jerk sauce that I make is a mild sauce, the most prominent flavor being nutmeg (but just barely). My sauce is not the best, but I believe that it approaches the taste of a good jerk sauce. These wings, however, went above and beyond, landing someplace more akin to pot-pourri than anything edible.

So now my curiosity is piqued and I am looking through all my favorite recipe sites in an attempt to discover, not the genesis of this particular jerk recipe, but something that might explain what the chef was attempting. Last night's chicken appeared to be encrusted with something other than the usual nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. Probably rosemary, as Mike indicated. The jamaican "jerk" wing and other jerk recipes on epicurious.com as well as the encyclopedia on allrecipes.com indicate thyme as one of the spices used but not rosemary. Perhaps it was a liberty taken by this particular chef.

This is a mystery.

I was still hungry when the waitress took the wings away, but no longer wanting chicken or anything savory or spicy for that matter. I went for sweet and ordered the bread pudding with bailey's irish cream sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, which more than made up for the wings. The pudding was exactly the texture that I like, not too dense or soggy. Last night's culinary adventure, however, has led me to wonder if a menu consisting of jamacain jerk chicken with bread pudding for dessert would have too many conflicting flavors. I imagine that an appropriate dessert to accompany jamaican jerk would be fruitier than bread pudding. There is a bread pudding recipe with a spiced rum sauce, but that may be overdoing it as well. Thus I think that last night's "meal" has inspired two separate menus:

Menu one:
Jamaican jerk chicken with sticky rice
Vegetable kabobs
Sliced Peaches

Menu two:
Vegetarian pasties with mushroom gravy
Steamed, crunchy broccoli
Bread pudding with warm bourbon sauce and ice-cream

Eating like multicultural peasants.

When it comes to spending money; our biggest extravagence is eating out. In order to remedy this we've agreed to set certain goals after the wedding. First, that we will limit our eating out to one night per week. The benefits of this are two-fold. First, we will save money. And second, we will stay slim. Of course, eating at home does not guarantee either; both require planning

Unlike Altanta (which has some of the best restaurants I've had the pleasure to dine in) the desire to eat out in Columbus comes less from the quality of food that is available than with the difficulty of trying to cook in Andy's kitchen, which has almost no counter space and no room for either of the two carts that I have aquired over the years of living in small apartments. Andy is starting the hunt for a new apartment this weekend and one of the requirements is counter and cabinet space. An eat-in kitchen or some kind of dining area would also be nice. I told Andy that we're not a "family" until we start eating at a table that is not between the couch and the television.

Columbus does have a few things going for it in terms of food preparation: many small ethnic grocers. From these shops we can procure the basic ingredients for our favorite Chinese, Indian, and Mexican recipes. It never ceases to amaze me how much people will pay for a tiny bottle of toasted sesame oil from Whole Foods or even Kroger when one can spend less for a large bottle from the various Korean and Chinese grocers in town.

Currently, I am compiling lists of recipes and ingredients. I am aiming for variety with just enough overlap so that we can keep and use a set of "pantry basics": basmati rice, black beans, toasted sesame oil, buckwheat noodles, couscous, and so forth. Recipe examples (things that I have made before) include: chana masala, basic black beans, buckwheat noodles with broccoli, and pan seared tofu.