Oh, hello there

It's been a while. I've got so much to share! 

I'm a bit overwhelmed, let's go present to past. I made arepas and Piccadillo and sweet plantains. 

Yeah, they're not shaped that great. But it was my first time. I've been informed it's all palm, no fingers.

Piccadillo is ground beef and olives and raisins and garlic and onions and tomato paste and I put chorizo in.

That's the stuff right there.

 

Then I went to my friend's uncles house and was involved in a heated dominoes game. Thank god I had a knife in my boot, just in case...

Black beans and rice, Venezuelan shredded beef, chicken, and delicious potato salad with cilantro.

I've got another update, I wanna split these up. Catch it soon! In the meantime, how bout those Mets!!! Everyone's getting in the mood!!!!

Penn's Woods

I took off a few days last week to visit my family.

First stop was Philadelphia. I went to Modo Mio with my sister. If you're ever in Philly, stop in. This ones intense...

That's chicken liver bruschetta. Faithful readers will know I've made my own delicious chicken liver pâté. That's what this tasted like. But they added apricot to kick it up a notch. Delicious. I'm gonna steal the recipe and make it.

That's my sister's cured beef with arugala, pear, and fresh ricotta. Unbelievable.

Here's my favorite of the night. Agnolotti stuffed with a sweet pea purée. This was so good. There's honey in the sauce to accentuate the sweetness of the peas. And those are hazelnuts which added terrific crunch and accentuated the earthiness of the peas. This was top notch. A pea extravaganza.

My sisters pasta dish, ravioli with fresh cheeses and golden raisins. Stupendous.

And a break before the main dish. This is how we started.

And here's an awesome veal cutlet. This was perfect.

And my sister got suckling pig. This was a flavor bomb. This was intense pork mania. It was almost too much. 

But, there's always room for dessert.

My apple crostini. Yep.

And espresso and sambuca.

This place was great. It's only $38 dollars  per person for 4 dishes and it's byo. Also, they don't skimp on bread. Being the piggy boy that I am, I had bread for every dish to sop sauce. 

I was really full after this meal. So full I shat in a bar later that night.

Hahaha, such a classy meal, and such low brow language.

The next part of the trip I went out to lovely downingtown and visited the farmers market, on a rainy, cold Saturday, and really cleaned up. 

Goat cheese and beets and snap peas and arugala and broccoli and cauliflower and purple cauliflower and rainbow chard and brussell sprouts. And eggs for aioli. 

Yeah, I finally made this stuff. I never realized how easy it is and how my fathers Caesar salad dressing is so closely related to French mayo. Oh well, now I know. 

I made it to have with roasted market veggies. 

That's Bronzini with the veggies and pork below. I blew the pics of the roared veggies and meals. Oh well.

Til next time 

Hello Old Friend

It's been since May since I blogged???? Woweee wow wow. Where does the time go???

I guess I didn't cook enough. 

I went to a Mets game and ate in the Acela club. 

My friend and his brother got to watch batting practice because his brother was honored before the game as one of the top 10 teachers in all the city. What doe this have to do with food? Nothing...but my friend Chris got to meet the immortal John Glaser and profess his love of cheap seats. He had just come from cataract surgery:

The other big news is that it was my father's birthday in June and my mother's birthday just this past week. 

So for my father's birthday we shot the moon and went to a lovely place in Pennsylvania called the Kimberton Inn. It was a chance to wear dress pants and a blazer with the following pattern:

The food was stupendous...let's take a look, shall we? (All photo credits to my sister, since I can't take food pictures worth a damn)

 

Ooh, what lovely shrimp cocktail! I came close to summoning Beetlejuice by saying his name twice, but decided against saying it a third time and having a shrimp hand attack my mother.

Ooh, what lovely duck confit!

I couldn't wait for my sister to take a pic, I had to dive right in too my scallops. They made heaven a place on earth.

Some creme brûlée, macallan 12, and the remnants of my espresso. 

It was all great. 

Next was my mothers birthday. I wanted to cook...so I did. I also was able to go to the farmers market while I was visiting to pick up some goodies. I was seriously excited. I love the goddam downingtown farmers market so damned much. Holy moly is it the best!

I went with my mother, who got these beautiful flowers:

I also got a lot of food. I need one of those panorama settings:

I got pickles and pickled turnips, and bread, rosemary, kale, beets with their greens, eggs, cherry and pistachio goat cheese, chive goat cheese, heirloom tomatoes, white potatoes, blueberries and apricots.

Out of these

 

Came this beauty:

It all disappeared later that day.

We had the goat cheese before dinner as well as some shrimp.

The piece de of the resistance was rack of lamb, which I prepared according to my fathers recipe. That golden brown is Dijon mustard, olive oil, a head of crushed garlic and the market rosemary.

I made garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus, roasted beets and beet greens...it was greeeeaaaaaaat!

I did it, I really did it! I made a delicious dinner for my mother!

Let's get caught up.

Last Wednesday I roasted some beets. I then cut up the greens, mixed them with spinach and kale, made honey mustard vinaigrette, and it was devoured.

For dinner was salmon, red potatoes and dill, and asparagus. I got the fish recipe from this book:

It turned out terrific. The salmon didn't need any lemon or nuthin. Unfortunately, the picture looks like someone threw up on a piece of salmon:

I'm trying to give Martha Stewart a run for her bad food picture money.

And then, Wednesday turned into Thursday. And that means FARMER'S MARKET!

So, the last time I went, the market had been moved to a masonic lodge. Then snow came and changed because no one took care of the parking lot. So, the market is back outdoors at Kerr Park. Some hot pics:

Hi, can I have some kale, and chard, some beets, some parsnips...and HUMAN MEAT!!!!!

So here's the haul:

That's curly kale, then from the left, baby red kale, spinach, baby swiss chard, japanese parsnips, a loaf of multi-grain bread, golden beets, 2 pounds of kielbasa, some breakfast sausage, and a pound of....chicken livers. Not pictured is a baguette and chicken pot pie. That's because there are other pictures with them in it.

That's a salad with all those greens. I've never had baby red kale before. It was great. It looks exactly like arugula, yet tastes like kale, but without the chewiness of adult kale. The whole thing was terrific.

The next day I made a batch of baked beans. I didn't want meaty bacon beans, so there's no meat. Except I used Campbell's pork and beans, but whatever. I mixed 3 cans of beans with an onion and green pepper, sauteed. Heated through, then added dinosaur bbq sauce, brown sugar, white vinegar, and dijon mustard. And baked for 2 hours at 325. These were really good. I don't have a picture of them on a plate, but is that a bad thing, really?

 

Ciao!