Category: Cooking

A New Background

· Leave a comment ·

I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to Marc from Robot Attack for helping me out a bit with my blog (thanks Marc!).  He switched up the sidebar some, and also made me that pretty new background!  I’m trying to spruce this baby up a little bit, in preparation for something exciting–I can’t wait to share it with y’all, I’m just waiting for a few more logistical specifics!

My birthday yesterday was good, low-key fun.  I’ll recap it tomorrow.  In the meantime I am having the laziest Sunday ever.  I am currently watching the Heels battle out the hated FSU Seminoles in the ACC championship game.  I might even skip the gym today (which I NEVER do).  I did go to the gym yesterday–as you can see, I’m a crazy addict type.  I considered heading to Durham‘s Central Park area for the Food Truck Rodeo, but I have so much leftover food in my fridge from my birthday that going out and paying for food just seemed wasteful and not particularly economical.  If any of you go to the Rodeo, I hope you have a great time!

Happy Sunday everyone!

Fall!

· 1 Comment ·

I know I went poof for a few more days, but I have some good excuses for it.

Firstly, isn’t this weather great?  I love the fall, everything seems crisper and brighter and better.  And sure it has been a little rainy these past few days, but who cares?  Fall, guys, fall.

Jon’s birthday was last week.  I got him this cake from Whole Paycheck Foods.

I also got him the Carnivorous Plant kit about which I wrote.  I’ll update on that later this week.  Unfortunately we won’t see any actual growth for a few months, so the first few updates will probably just be pictures of dirt.  Life takes time y’all.

On Friday Jon and I volunteered to help out our friend Heather Gordon at the Golden Belt Third Friday Artist Demo Night.  A number of the artists in the studios were doing fifteen-minute demonstrations of their work throughout the night and Heather, who was organizing the demos, needed some extra hands to help out.  Jon got off easy, he just had to film a few videos.  Me?  I had to wear a sandwich board:

So stylish.

(more…)

On Alan Richman’s Review of M. Wells

· Leave a comment ·

If you pay any attention to the food world then you are probably aware of GQ food critic Alan Richman’s review of the upscale diner M. Wells.  If you don’t follow food, M. Wells is a hot-spot diner in Long Island City, Queens.  The diner is run by a husband and wife team, the husband being a well-respected chef in his native Quebec.  Bon Appetit recently named the restaurant one of the best new restaurants in America, but due to issues involving the rent agreement the restaurant will be closing at the end of the month.  The owners are already looking for new locations in Long Island City to reopen their restaurant.  To be 100% clear, I have not eaten at M. Wells.

All is not well at M. Wells. Sadly I was not the first person to say this today.

(more…)

Reading and Eating for Nerds

· Leave a comment ·

Two great sites that I’ve been poking around on lately:

The first is a list from the website This Recording of the 100 best science fiction and/or fantasy novels ever.  Of course this is objective but I’d say a lot of it is spot on: Ursula K. LeGuin is the bestest after all.  It seems, however, that I have some major catching up to do–I guess I need to read Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the Long Sun huh?  I had never heard of that–actually, there was a lot I had never heard of, but there was also a lot I have heard of or have read etc.  Also, no Malazan: Book of the Fallen?   Shaaaaaaame.

If it weren't for the Kindle my house would look like this.

Oh, also Dhalgren, I need to read Dhalgren, because it was written by Samuel Delany and he once wrote a book about giving a bunch of blow jobs in the 70s and because he looks like this.  Which is amazing.

The blow jobs book is called Time Square Red, Times Square Blue, just in case you were wondering.

So on the eaterly end of things, a blogger named Adam has taken it upon himself to cook every food mentioned in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire.  The blog is called Cooking Ice and Fire and it looks like a really fun and clever endeavor. He describes it as the Julie/Julia project but, you know, with more meat and mead.  I guess he decided to take the reins from Tom Colicchio’s Game of Thrones food trucks seen earlier this year

Adam does preface each entry with a selection from the books, so the spoiler nervous should probably avoid.  I’ve avoided reading the non-recipe parts too closely because I’m not quite done with A Dance With Dragons yet, but I think he’s mostly kept his recipes to the first four books.  There are some honeyed locusts in book five that I hope he makes–that’d be commitment.

Huzzah bitches!

Quesadillas, Inspired by KoKyu

· 2 Comments ·

So in my last post I wrote about the amazing KoKyu short rib quesadillas.  They were so good that they inspired us to make quesadillas for dinner on Saturday night.  We grilled up some flank steaks, made a filling of grilled onions, peppers, mushrooms and jalapenos, and stuffed the whole thing with plenty of grated Mexican-blend cheese.

Those are the flank steaks on the grill, Jon picked them up from the Carrboro Farmer’s Market.  I made a Mexican-style marinade with soy sauce (works like a charm in terms of adding salt!), oregano, lime, sugar, cumin and some oil and let the steaks sit in it for a few hours.  Jon cooked the flank steaks perfectly: they were so tender and pink on the inside.  We had a good guide in the Food Lab’s How to Grill a Flank Steak over at SeriousEats.

That’s the flank steak with the grilled vegetables for the quesadilla filling.

Quesadilla fillings!  Cheese, flank steak, peppers, onions and jalapenos!

Now here’s the fun part.  We decided that, once the quesadillas were assembled, we’d throw them right back on the grill to get that crispy, smokey finish on the outside of the tortilla.  This worked perfectly.

Look at that char!  Perfect.

The grill was such a great summer investment.  The last few summers I’ve lived in an apartment with no outdoor space, which is a bummer when reading amazing seasonal summer recipes that extol the glories of the grill.  Now I can make all the fantastic, summery dishes about which I’ve read.  Grill victory!

And yes, the quesadillas were delicious.