Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris

It’s occurred to me recently that this dear blog of mine isn’t really about me. It’s about only one thing that I enjoy… FOOD…. (and cooking), but nothing else. After this thought dawned on me, I engaged in a one-person debate as to whether this is a cooking blog for anyone looking for the recipes that I like to make, or if it’s a blog of my life, of which, large parts are spent cooking. Me or my audience, the personal vs. impersonal. This debate went on for many weeks, and I’ve finally reached a conclusion…. I don’t know. What I do know is that I’d like to share more than just food and recipes, because, as much fun as Besotted’s been, it’s starting to feel a little one-dimensional. So, for anyone interested in the cook behind the curtain, a couple fun facts about yours truly:

1. I don’t spend my days cooking or eating, or even generally thinking about food. I spend my days running marketing for a kick-ass wireless start-up. Though, even there, I am known as the girl with tons of food at her desk.
2. I hate cleaning in a truly profound way (but I also hate when things are dirty and messy – it’s a problem). I have a dear friend, LN, who used to live very, very close to me. She confessed that on the rare occasion that she woke up with a hangover, she felt compelled to whip into a violent cleaning frenzy, apparently to exorcise the demons from the night before. I tried plying her with alcohol in the hopes of inducing one of these cleaning exorcisms and gently luring her into my apartment. It didn’t work. Apparently, when redeeming yourself for nightly sins with a Dyson and bottle of bleach, the affects can only be felt when working on one’s own apartment. Damn.
3. I’ve become addicted to J Brand jeans. I can make (and consume) as many cream sauce-laden dishes as I like and no muffin-top. Brilliant.
4. I’m really not liking Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I love Jane Austen. She’s brilliant, witty, sardonic, subtle, and should not be altered. The addition of katanas and brain-chomping zombies too stupid to notice the difference between human brain and cauliflower (really? REALLY?) just doesn’t do it for me. Not to mention the fact that the contributing author (Jane Austen is still credited as the original) had the graciousness to dumb-down Austen’s satire for more commercial viability. Thanks a bunch, guy. I never would have picked up on the subtle shift in Elizabeth’s feelings towards Darcy following receipt of his letter if you hadn’t treated every thought like a tectonic shift in plot. Maybe you’d like to try being a real author and pen something original some time? Just a thought.
5. I have an obsession with Paris that borders on lunacy. It’s more than just the food (though that is enough to compel me to buy an absurdly over-priced plane ticket). I love the architecture, and I don’t know anything about architecture. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a Federalist and a Georgian building; I don’t know the terms or how to identify a building that’s been designed well vs. crap. I know nothing. And, yet, I could sit and stare at the buildings in Arrondisement 1-10 (possibly 15) for hours… in fact, I have done that, and it never fails to bring me joy.

That seems like enough sharing for one day. I’m off to clean up my apartment before heading to Canada for the weekend with J (and possibly, hopefully, Dr. Em) to visit Dr. S. It will be agonizing (the cleaning, not the weekend), but I’ll muddle through.

Oh, and one last thing… It’s summer, eat vegetables, good ones, simply made.

Truman Capote once wrote, “The difference between the very rich and regular people is that the rich serve such marvelous vegetables.”

Obvious snobbery aside, was Truman making an observation on the socio-economics and agro-economics of setting a table? After all, to invest more resources in order to enhance the quality of a low-calorie food suggests that one’s resources are not terribly constrained. To prioritize the pleasure of a ‘marvelous vegetable’ over the utility of a higher-calorie comestible does seem luxurious… until you do the math on a farm-share or CSA membership.

I’ve paid $125 to split a quarter share at Allandale Farm in Brookline, with my dear friend, LN. For the $250 combined we get a weekly box-plus (they always hand over another bag of vegetables) to share for 20 weeks. The quality and variety are, to use Truman’s description, marvelous, and I do agree with his sentiment that the difference between an ordinary and an extraordinary table can be found in the quality (or marvelousness) of the vegetables served.

So, for those of you that think that farm-shares are just for trustafarians or the Bohemian-rich, do the math and you may be surprised to find that even us not-very-rich-folk can serve marvelous vegetables, too.

Below are a few tips for enjoying truly marvelous vegetables, but, please, don’t try these techniques with sub-par fare. The techniques are simple and designed to enhance existing flavor, not add any, so, if you’re using crap vegetables with no flavor, you’ll just end up with hot or slightly-warmed crap vegetables with no flavor.

Enjoy!

Roasted Tomatoes – Drizzle cherry tomatoes with olive oil, salt & pepper and roast in the oven or toaster oven at 300° for 10 minutes.

Roasted Carrots – Chop carrots into ½ inch slices. Toss with olive oil or dot with butter and 1 Tsp-1Tbls. (depending on how many carrots you’re using) five spice powder, salt & pepper, and raw sugar. Roast in a 350-400° oven or toaster oven for 20-30 minutes.

Beets – Peel beets, toss with olive oil , salt & pepper. Roast in a 350° oven for 30 minutes

Corn – Remove the kernels from the cob. Saute in 1 part olive oil and 1 part butter over medium heat for 10-15 minutes (longer if you like your corn mushier). Season with salt & pepper. Optional: Add chopped basil, goat cheese, feta cheese, thyme, cayenne pepper, or any other flavorings that you like (not all at once, in case that wasn’t obvious). Corn makes a great canvas for your culinary creativity and preferences.

I once read that when bakers go into bookstores, they always make a beeline for the cafe section and pick out the frothiest confection. When foodies, comme moi, go on vacation, we always bring back gourmet souvenirs. In my case, I try to pick up delicacies that both travel well (stinky cheeses, not so much), and our indigenous to the region. Some of my faves so far:

1) Olive Oil from Baena Spain – they came in pretty glass bottles, one of which has been re-purposed to hold my vinegar hair-wash (my glam side comes with a bit of crunch).

2) Coffee from Vienna – no explanation should be needed

3) Swirly, top-like wine glasses from Iceland. They’re a little too fragile – they can swirl themselves right off the table, and I’ve already managed to have two casualties as a result, but still very chic (for as long as you can keep them whole)

4) Dried mushrooms (chanterelle, porcini, and the uber-exclusive morels) from a Wisconsin mushroom farm.

5) Utterly fabulous and unique oils and vinegars from Portland, Maine, the newest foodie mecca on the East coast.

6) Olive wood serving set from off-the-side-of-the-road, Andalucia, Spain (no, I’m not kidding). We saw a “we-make-our-own-furniture” store on the side of the road, decided to check it out, and they had the most wonderful serving pieces if a really beautiful olive wood. Totally unique, functional, reasonably priced, and a great conversation piece.

Obviously, the consumable souvenirs have a literal or figurative shelf-life, but they make cooking so much more fun. Drizzling Andalucian olive oil over a dish is so much more exotic and cosmopolitan than the most dressed up bottle of fancily refined olive oil in Whole Foods, not to mention the authenticity it adds to the flavors.

Hell has likely frozen over if you ever catch me in a t-shirt/sweatshirt advertising where I’ve been, or worse, some ridiculous get-up like the Flamenco dresses that street vendors try to sell to American tourists (a Flamenco dress makes me as much of a dancer as reading glasses make Britney a librarian). But, if you see someone and her companion marching through an airport, struggling under the weight of too many jars of local preserves, oils, vinegars, spices, or seasonings, or possibly indulging in the first bite of a Wisconsin sour cherry pie, that’s probably me, already dreaming up ways to remember a lovely trip.

I love real Wisconsin bacon, farm fresh eggs (gathered the day that I buy them), English muffins with too much butter, and babies (especially the particularly fetching one cracking himself up with toy frogs and turtles right in front of me).

I’ve just spent the loveliest of lovely weeks in Wisconsin (Lake Delavan to be precise), filled with aggressive wave-running, leisurely boat rides, golf, baby coos and tears, and some epic eating, Mid-Western-style (why, yes, I will have a third slice of local cheese on my half pound burger, thanks!)

People looked at me askance when I said that I was going to Wisconsin on vacation (me, of the around the world-jet-setting circa 2009), but I think the following list of highlights pretty much sums up the rationale to hit the Midwest hard:

This little guy is obviously #1 – can’t get enough of those chubby, little cheeks.

Funny Face

The G-Unit Garden… I have a basil plant, they have a basil bush. ‘Nough said.

Drinking beer in the afternoon. Priceless. Drinking beer in the morning. Problematic.

Trying cheese curds. It may not be exactly a highlight, but it was unique to the trip and had to be done, or I may not have had a job to come home to.

The most colorful dinner, served al fresco – you can’t get colors this vibrant from factory-farm-food.

Wave-running… I like to pretend that I’m a protagonist in a Mission Impossible-style get-away, even though I rarely top 30mph. It’s pretty awesome.

Scrabble every day. It’s like “I Gotta Feelin”… “party every day, party every day”, only it’s Scrabble every day, Scrabble every day. Yes, I’m that cool.

Cherry Pie. Love it.

Hammock reading – there’s just something about swinging in a precariously assembled web of netting that makes all of your worries disappear.

Last, but not least, my dear seat-mate that, thanks to a couple of Bacardi nips, tried to exit the plane while we were still 30,000 feet in the air. Thanks for making the ride out so swell.

Here’s to Wisconsin 2011!

I know, I know, it’s been WAY too long since I’ve posted. And, I could sit here and list out all of my excuses – crushingly busy at work, wedding season, the fact that my un-air-conditioned apartment has been topping 100 degrees lately, and the idea of sitting with my laptop in my lap makes me want to tear off my own skin – but I won’t.

I will tell you that, despite the internet-evidence, I have actually been cooking quite a bit. My farm share, split with the former Miss LM, now Mrs. LS (!) started a month or so ago, and I’ve been having such fun playing with new recipes, including the minty mashy peas (and about 12 variations on them) from a previous post, spinach pasta with roasted beets in a cream sauce, creamed cauliflower, veal scaloppine with butter and shallots, and, most recently, dear CS’s surprising and addictive basil ice cream.

Other major updates include the addition of Mini-Cooper to the Besotted kitchen… no, not a car, but the cuddliest, cutest little bundle of joy, care of CS; the aforementioned wedding of Miss LM to Jimmy; and the start of my cooking class series. The first class, held in late June at the Boston Center for Adult Education, included recipes featuring fruits & veggies that are harvested in the mid-June to mid-July time frame – lots of greens, carrots, berries, green onions, and peas.

The next class will be held August 25th, and, while I haven’t decided on the curriculum yet, I’m leaning heavily towards a tomato, corn, and peaches-heavy curriculum – think tomato, basil, and ricotta tarts, peach pies, sauteed corn, grilled corn with queso (a la Toro), and light, fresh tomato sauces. This is just a sneak preview for what I’m thinking of – if there are any suggestions, now’s the time to send them. And, if you’re in the Boston area, you can sign up for the class here.

Now, for the main event – this minty, mashy pea recipe is as versatile as it is tasty. I’ve spooned it straight out of a cup for lunch, spread it on toasted nan for dinner, or covered little toasts for an appetizer, and it all works beautifully. Not only that, but most of the ingredients, even the peas, as I near-disasterously discovered during my cooking class, are subject to substitution. Toss in basil, mint, parsley, or other herbs at will; add more or less garlic, depending on your taste; capers would go nicely, if you like them. The only items that are not optional are the feta and greek yogurt – they really make this dish.

Minty Mashy Peas, Serves 4
Adapted from Bon Appetit

Ingredients:

1 Clove Garlic, minced
1 Bunch Mint, chopped
Juice of 1 Lemon
1 ½ cups frozen or shelled peas or sugar snap peas
1 Bunch Scallions, chopped
4 Tbls. Olive Oil
½ lb. Greek Yogurt
½ lb. Feta

Preparation:

Set water to boil in large sauce pan and boil peas for 3 minutes and drain.

Put the minced garlic and lemon juice in a bowl and set aside.

Put the yogurt and feta in a bowl, mash well to blend and set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor, chop the peas, garlic and lemon juice, scallions, and mint until they’re a lumpy consistency.

Add the pea mixture to the yogurt and cheese, mix well, and season with salt & pepper.

Enjoy!

So, I took my first cooking class at the BCAE this weekend with a 16-year veteran, Diane Manteca. She specializes in Italian cooking (and tosses a couple Chinese courses in to keep things interesting). I was there auditing the class to see how they’re run, test out the facilities, and get some tips from one of their most popular instructors.

The class was great, but it dawned on me in the middle of it that while I’ve been caught up in all of the exciting elements – talking about farm shares, locally grown produce, what apron I would wear, should I wear practical clogs or really fun heels? – I’m yet to nail down the particulars of what I’m actually going to cook.

All is not lost though…. I have some favorites from last year’s share, and I’ve been getting on a ‘veggie-heavy’ kick since the snow thawed and more local produce has been showing up at my local Whole Foods.

Let me know what you think of the dishes below – recipes not included just yet, as I’m still doing a bit of tweaking in advance of the class. Also, if you have any meat dishes that also include Spring time produce, please send my way – while this class is about how to cook farm share produce, it’s not vegetarian, and I’d like to toss in some meat options, loaded with veg to round out the offering.

Let me know what you think….

Minty Mashy Peas…

Roasted Golden Beet and Sugar Rhubarb Spaghetti….

Sauteed Asian Scallops with Leeks and Asparagus….

And, an oldie but goodie – Asian Veggie Raviolis….

You can’t make friends with salad…. unless that salad has bacon, parmesano reggiano, and toasted pine nuts, in which case, you’ll probably find yourself with new friends that you don’t even know.

Jamie Oliver introduced me to the concept of the warm salad several years ago with a poached egg and prosciutto version that I made at least once a week for a year. This version is the same concept – select, high-quality, delicious treats, warmed or toasted, spread over a dressed salad, and served immediately. There’s something about crunchy, spicy arugula as a bed for crispy bacon, caramelized onions, toasted pine nuts that makes something that should induce a ton of bikini-weather’s-coming-guilt into a meal… and a meal that has salad in the name. Hoorah!

Let’s not kid ourselves though, this is not low calorie food, which is why it’s even more important to use the best quality bacon, parmesan, and pine nuts sparingly, served over huge heaps of the arugula.

Speaking of arugula, I can’t wait for farm share season to start, not only because I’ll be sharing it with my lovely friend, LN, or because we’ll get to discuss her upcoming wedding when we split our share, but because I’ll be teaching a cooking class at the Boston Center for Adult Education on cooking for a farm share in June! I’m so thrilled and can’t wait for the class – for those of you in Boston, you can check out the agenda (and sign up) here.

Enjoy!

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Warm Arugula Salad, Serves 2

Adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Happy Days with the Naked Chef

Ingredients:

4 Cups Arugula

4 Slices of Bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces

3 Tbls. Olive Oil

1 Red Onion, peeled and sliced into eigths

4 Sprigs of Thyme

¼ Cup Pine Nuts

½ Tsp. Salt

4 Tbls. Balsamic Vinegar

Parmesano Reggiano

Preparation:

Heat a saute pan over medium heat, add the 4 slices of bacon and cook for 5-8 minutes until crispy. Remove the bacon and drain on paper towels, pour off the bacon fat, return the pan to the heat, and add the olive oil, onions, thyme, pine nuts, and salt.

Fry for 5-10 minutes until the onions start caramelizing and turning deep purple.

Meanwhile, toss your arugula with the balsamic vinegar in a large bowl and set aside.

Once the onions, pine nuts, and thyme are done frying, add the bacon back to the pan, toss around a bit, and add to the dressed arugula. Toss. And divide between two plates. Shave some Parmesano Reggiano on top. Sit your bum in a chair, and dive in. Enjoy!

So, first of all… I’m back! From Vegas (yes, again, but this time for work), and from settling into the new job…

So, for this first post since the little Besotted break, I wanted to pay homage to some fantastic holiday gifts I received this year and in years past. From friends who had only known me a couple of months to a couple of decades, they were all perfectly suited for me, and happened to have made their way – in one way or another – into this Pork Chop with Fresh Bay Salt, Crackling, and Squashed Purple Potatoes dish.

First, the dish is adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Kitchen, given to me 3 years ago by my then-new-boss, Di. This was a charming custom that I had not, as of yet, been made acquainted with… a lovely and personal gift given at the end of the year by my boss as a “Thank You” for all of the hard work. In the end, I received what was soon to become one of my favorite cookbooks – both beautiful and hugely functional – and Di received a truck-load of gratitude in the form of late nights and weekend work. A happy win-win situation.

With salt as a main feature in the dish, I forewent the standard kosher salt and opted for the Black Lava Salt, one of a selection of fancy-pants salts given to me this past Chanukka-mas by dear CS. Super-pungent and really impressive-looking, the Black Lava Salt adds a certain special piquant flavor to the dish…

Plus, like the final gift, it’s definitely a conversation starter. I store my fancy-pants salts in the most ME-gift, I may have ever received. They’re part funky (it’s from Anthropologie, which, if you haven’t seen my homage to their aprons, is my second favorite store… right behind Barneys), part culinary , part dorky, and part dry wit…. They’re a selection of numbered spice jars from Anthro, but, what makes them so incredibly cool, is that my darling sisters opted for the sequence “1, 1, 2, 3, 5”. I love the humor, and, for those of you that don’t get it, or didn’t study math in any super-advanced way, scroll to the bottom of the recipe to see the joke… er… it’s not so much a joke, as something that only mathematicians would find humorous, but scroll down anyway.

Double Thick Pork Chop with Bay Salt and Squashed Purple Potatoes

Adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Kitchen

Total Prep Time: 1 Hour 15 Minutes

Ingredients:

For the Pork Chops:

4 Double-Thick Pork Chops (½ pound, each)

Black Lava Salt, Sea Salt, or Kosher Salt

Black Pepper

2 Tbls. Olive Oil

3 Tsp. Thyme Leaves

1 Tsp. Mustard Seed

10 Bay Leaves

For the Squashed Purple Potatoes:

1lb. Purple Potatoes

Black Lava Salt

For the Apple Cider Sauce:

1 Cup Apple Cider

1 Tbls. Whole Grain Mustard

4 Tbls. Crème Fraiche

2 Tbls. Butter

Preparation:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, par-boil the purple potatoes for 15 minutes, drain once finished, and set aside.

After adding the potatoes to the pot, preheat the oven to 400° with the saute pan inside, to heat up along with the oven.

Adding purple potatoes to the mix is more fun!

Score the skin of the pork chops and season with salt and pepper. Drain the par-boiled potatoes. Once the oven has finished pre-heating, remove the saute pan, add the olive oil to it, add the pork chops, thyme, and potatoes to the saute pan and return to the oven for 15 minutes.

While the pork and potatoes are cooking, pulverize the mustard seed, black lava salt, and bay leaves with a mortar and pestle until very fine.

Remove the pork chops from the oven and set on a chopping block and remove the potatoes and thyme to a bowl. Heat the saute pan over medium heat on the stove top.

Drizzle the pork chops with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with the bay leaf mustard spice. Cook the pork chops, two at a time, in the saute pan for 3-4 minutes on each side.

While the pork chops cook on the stove top, bring the cider and mustard to a boil in a small sauce pan. Allow to boil for 4-5 minutes in order to reduce the quantity by half. Add the crème fraiche, and continue to boil for another 5-7 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the butter. Set aside.

I love, LOVE this stuff!

Once the pork chops have finished cooking, lay each on a plate. Add a side of purple potatoes, mash slightly with a fork, and add a small sprinkling of black lava salt. Drizzle both pork chops and potatoes with the apple cider sauce, serve, and enjoy!

* 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 is Fibonacci’s sequence, where the first two numbers are 0 and 1, and each remaining number is the sum of the previous two. It takes a true dork to appreciate the hilarity and thoughtfulness of this gift.

I love to cook (in case it wasn’t already obvious) – chopping and stirring, kneading and sauteing, it all gives me tremendous comfort and enjoyment. Buuuut… I’m also a big fan of kicking back with a glass of champagne, and let world-class hospitality experts stuff you full of lobster profiteroles, salmon and caviar, and chocolate-covered strawberries?

It was dear CS’s birthday (and baby shower!) this past weekend, and, as a special treat for the mama-to-be, her lovely parents took her, her sister, and me to high-tea at the Taj. We may not have really been able to kick-back (what with wearing a tight, little Milly dress and perching ourselves on Louis 16^th settees), but we did manage to oh-so-daintily stuff ourselves with all of the aforementioned delights and more.

What took me by surprise about high-tea was just how spectacular the tea actually was. As a devout coffee-drinker and real-tea virgin, I had no idea where to set my expectations, but the Vanilla Earl Grey tea that I ordered, served in a lovely porcelain (I think) tea pot, over a candle warmer, was soft, lightly-perfumed with vanilla, and had a silkiness that I had never experienced with tea before. To top it all off, the dessert tray came with scones so buttery that they make mine look dry, and quite frankly, kind of boring , along with some darling mini lemon meringue pies, chocolate cakes, and short breads.

As I said, the tea was extraordinary, but it did occur to me that the English obsession with tea may have something to do with the butter-laden pastries that accompany it. Either way, it’s certainly a tradition worth trying out… and keeping around. Check out the foodie pics below…

So, I’ve never been much of a gambling fan (if I can’t eat it, wear it, or visit it, I don’t want to spend money on it), but, after my first fun (not work) trip last week, Vegas has grown considerably in my estimation for 3 reasons:

1. The FOOD – when you’re slumming it with Mario Batali, you know you’re in a dining mecca

2. The sparkles – not on the slot machines, but the shopping…. there’s all sorts of eye candy on display to oooh and ahhh at. And, if by chance, you can’t stand to walk through a mall without hitting Chanel or Gucci, no worries – there’s one in just about every hotel (I’m not kidding).

3. The FOOD – it’s good enough to get mentioned again. Some of the more memorable items were:

1. 1. The foie gras special at Carnevino – it was light to the point of fluffiness and served with a citrus gremolata. Exceptional.

   2. CK’s 1-year-aged beef – if you closed your eyes and took a bite, you may have thought that you were taking a bit of cheese. The entire composition of the beef had metamorphosed and been re-invented as an entirely different and foodstuff. Extraordinary

   3. Brunch at Bouchon – If you’re a brunch fan, and I’m pretty sure I qualify as the biggest, this brunch is beyond spectacular. Beignets, perfectly poached eggs, and chocolate croissants were my highlight, but there’s about 50 other amazing items to choose from and love.

   4. A 6-liter bottle of pink champagne at LAX. Baller.

What really impressed and kind of stunned me about Vegas was the consistency of the quality of the food and service.

PT and I ordered our favorite weekend mid-afternoon snack, and, it wasn’t until the waitress sauntered away in her micro-mini (they all wear micro-minis) that the decision to order oysters in the desert seemed questionable. Living next to the ocean makes you a little spoiled and unaware in those regards. However, when our tray came out, bedecked with mini tabasco sauce bottles and lovely mignonette, they could have easily passed for the same you would find on the sea-side – they even managed to have sea water inside of the shells, which indicates that they are extremely fresh, or the purveyors are master manipulators. Either way, I was exceedingly pleased.

I can’t wait to go back, and, amazingly, I won’t have to wait long – heading back to LV in 4 weeks for CTIA (for those of you that didn’t know, I spend my days working in the wireless world). If anyone out there happens to be in the same boat, let me know.

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