November 24, 2009 by Jill
Thanksgiving week is always a strange one for me, being in the grocery store business and all. In food retail land, black Friday is actually Wednesday. And by the Monday prior to that Wednesday, the majority of my Turkey Day marketing is done. All I can do is watch people go through the store, point out where the Cope’s Sweet Corn is, suggest items I’d like to be eating right now and, of course, bag groceries.
I will soon make my way into the store, turning from employee to customer, as I search for the ingredients for my Thanksgiving Meal(s). This year, I am essentially making an entire dinner, spread out among four different gatherings. Because I’m not relied upon to provide the traditional side dishes, my dishes will all be based on food from my CSA. Sadly, it’s my last week of veggies from Wayward Seed Farm, and I want to put them to good use.
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Tags: CSA, easy
Posted in Home Cooking | Leave a Comment »
November 24, 2009 by Maya
I tried, you guys. Really, I did.
But Saveur’s recipes only served to enlarge the Gourmet-size hole in my heart, so when I decided to throw a dinner party a few weeks ago, I pulled out back copies from the months of October and November, dating back to 2006, for my menu. I won’t pretend it wasn’t bittersweet, but in doing so, I realized just how little I’ve actually cooked from the magazine—there was enough material in each issue to keep me in meals for awhile yet, which lessens the blow of its demise ever so slightly. For this particular gathering, I chose an amalgam of dishes, unrelated except for a faint autumnal thread.
My favorite item, the one I was most excited to make and happiest to eat, was from the most recent/final issue: beet-pickled deviled eggs.
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Tags: dinner party, Gourmet magazine, insanity
Posted in Home Cooking | 2 Comments »
November 23, 2009 by Jill
A trip to the Ohio Valley requires, by law, a stop at DiCarlo’s Pizza. Even those of us who didn’t actually grow up in the area have grown to have an affinity for this pizza.
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Tags: Ohio Valley, pizza, road trip, Steubenville
Posted in Destination: Appetite | 1 Comment »
November 19, 2009 by Jill
After seeing a small crowd in Downtown Bakery in Steubenville, I knew I had to inspect. This South Fourth Street bakery is one of the two bakeries that provide the bread for Naples’ heels. When I wandered into this place, there was a line long enough to bring my total purchases to $16. With each passing minute, I mentally ordered another butter-laden cookie.
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Tags: butter, Ohio, Steubenville
Posted in Destination: Appetite | 1 Comment »
November 17, 2009 by Jill
It was clear that Baseball Boy and I were the lone tourists in Steubenville this past weekend, and between my camera and our erratic stop-and-go driving, we drew attention to ourselves. We found ourselves stopping frequently to look at an old building, a mural, and anything food related. We joked a bit about our “staycation” in the Ohio Valley, but truth be told, we were vacationing there, if even for a night.
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Tags: history, Ohio, road trip, Steubenville, tourism
Posted in Destination: Appetite, Roots | 3 Comments »
November 17, 2009 by Maya
I was much less itinerant than planned last weekend, unfortunately; the Carnivore’s father was hospitalized, so we were grounded in NYC. It was a birthday trip; I couldn’t go without him, even as starved for travel as I am. Of course, staying in town meant that I had to scramble to come up with a place to celebrate at the last minute; luckily, I keep a long list for just such an occasion.
His only requests were for oysters and fruity cocktails, and Momofuku Ssäm Bar had both on the menu. Not the best idea for a Saturday night at peak dining hours, but we grabbed a quick drink at a nearby pub, then headed back to the restaurant. We’d barely had time to order a beverage from the extensive list (that’s his Ginger Rogers at the top of the picture, composed of rum, cognac, lemon and ginger, and my ginger-pomegranate-rye sour at the bottom) before we were summoned to the communal table.
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Tags: David Chang, Momofuku Ssam Bar, pork
Posted in In The Neighborhood, New York City | 5 Comments »
November 16, 2009 by Jill
Prior to this weekend, all of my trips to the Ohio Valley had been to see family. I grew up going to Steubenville and the surrounding areas several times a year – always on the agenda of the adult driving the car. To be honest, the place terrified me as a child, and I found everything there gray: the buildings, the temperament of the people, the sky and even the music on the radio. That, however, is not how my dad viewed his childhood home, the land of Big Red football, Dean Martin and excellent sledding hills.
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Tags: Italian, Ohio, road trip, Steubenville
Posted in Destination: Appetite, Roots, Table Service | 6 Comments »
November 13, 2009 by Jill
Ironic that the more food-related things that I do, the less time that I have to write about food and relations. For example, this week, I saw (and hugged) a food celebrity, attended a conference promoting sustainable foods in Ohio and served (literally; I was the waitress) dinner for 30 people featuring the entire menu from Gourmet’s “Rural Pennsylvania Thanksgiving” menu. I’d say right here that I plan on writing about these experiences, but every time I promise something like that, it never happens.
At any rate, I have exciting news: Maya and I are both itinerant this weekend.
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Tags: Ohio, road trip, San Francisco, Steubenville
Posted in Destination: Appetite, Roots | Leave a Comment »
November 11, 2009 by Maya
In keeping with my vow to eat cheap in order to pad the bank account for upcoming trips, I went back to the well for inspiration. The soup well, if you will. (No? As you were, then.)
This one’s from Cooking Light, clipped back in 2002. It had those magic words—potatoes and Gruyère—and promised to cure my cravings for leafy greens, in a form that, purportedly, wouldn’t leave me feeling as if I’d just swallowed a brick. Win, win, and win again.
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Tags: almost vegetarian, Cooking Light, soups/stews
Posted in Home Cooking | 3 Comments »
November 9, 2009 by Jill
Last night, despite some minor setbacks (including two recipes with the words “refrigerate” and “overnight” closely linked), I pulled off one of my most successful dinner parties to date. (As determined by my guests, all frequent diners at Café Moorhead). I definitely cannot take credit for the success; I had both a strong cast of characters (high-quality ingredients pictured throughout this post) and an amazing assistant director in Maya, who threw some great last-minute recipes (and gchat advice) my way.
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Tags: autumn, beets, couscous, CSA, lamb, local, mushrooms, vegan, vegetarian, watermelon radish
Posted in Columbus, Ohio, In The Neighborhood | 7 Comments »
