Food | Gourmandistan

A somewhat painful endorsement of canned fruit (pear, ginger & walnut muffins)

March 21, 2012 by Steve

Steve has given up on fresh pears and their fickle ripening. The stage between crisp-and-tasteless and mushy-and-black is infinitesimal, and always happens when he isn’t around to enjoy it. While fresh pears have been declared fructus non grata in Gourmandistan, Michelle recently snuck in some canned pears under the guise of “muffin-making supplies.” (Usually vigilant as to the house fruit stores, Steve may have been distracted by the unearthing of a cache of last season’s blueberries in the freezer.) Michelle […]

Categories: Breakfast, Cooking, Food, Muffins & quick breads, Pears, Recipes, Vegetarian

Oatcakes and the origin of species

March 15, 2012 by Steve

St. Patrick’s Day is upon us, which means some small part of Michelle’s DNA demands recognition. Exactly which part is unclear, since her Kentucky lineage includes all sorts of pale folk from various areas of both Ierne and Albion who spent the past few centuries emigrating, intermixing and occasionally dallying with Native Americans for an extra bit of “flava.” Nonetheless, like many Americans, Michelle feels obligated to act Irish in mid-March—even though she disdains whiskey, seldom fights and is mostly […]

Categories: Appetizers, Cooking, Crackers, Family, Food, Grains, Ireland, Recipes, St. Patrick's Day, Vegetarian

Thai veg curry and the vagaries of culling

March 12, 2012 by Steve

As a hedge against hoarding, Michelle’s cookbook space in Gourmandistan has been limited to specific spaces, mostly in the kitchen, though there have been slight containment breaches reported along a few isolated shelves elsewhere in the house and frequently around Michelle’s side of the bed. This means that every so often Michelle must purge her beloved panoply of chefs, cuisines and countries, assuring Steve he won’t face a future trapped under a collapsed column of cookbooks, and at the same […]

Categories: Coconut, Cooking, Food, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Thailand, Tofu, Vegetables, Vegetarian

Camille Glenn, coconut custard, chickens and coyotes

March 3, 2012 by Steve

Camille Glenn is a name instantly recognized by most food-inclined Kentuckians and even by some Yankees. The caterer, cooking teacher and food writer was, as noted in the Village Voice when she died at the age of 100 a couple of years ago, an “avid promoter of local, seasonal produce long before it became fashionable.” Glenn’s The Heritage of Southern Cooking has been one of our most-used volumes and most-given wedding gifts for decades. Michelle recently came upon a copy […]

Categories: Chicken keeping, Coconut, Cooking, Custards & Puddings, Food, Jams & Preserves, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Rooting for Spring (celery root & potato soup)

February 26, 2012 by Steve

We have had little to complain about this Winter. There’s been plenty of moisture with little flooding and virtually no snow, and Steve has enjoyed an entire season without having to chuck ice chunks out of the creek in order to let cars through. Still, while we promised not to whine, we’re becoming a bit impatient for Spring. Michelle spent this weekend cleaning our pantry and refrigerator, and decided to use some aging potatoes and a bit of celery root […]

Categories: Celery root, Cooking, Food, Potatoes, Recipes, Soups & Stews, Vegetarian

Pro-cress-ive Dinner

February 21, 2012 by Steve

As we creep towards our true Spring, while our local farmers tantalizingly talk of tender shoots, we rely on trips to Whole Foods for anything approximating a green vegetable. Fortunately WF has been stocking some local hydroponic watercress, allowing us to make one of our favorite salads—something Michelle created via a series of inspirations and ideas. The path to this salad began a decade ago at Fish La Boissonnerie, a lovely little bistro on Rue de Seine in Paris. Featuring baby […]

Categories: Cooking, Dates, Food, Nuts, Orange, Recipes, Salad, Vegetarian, Watercress

Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Carbon Copy

February 17, 2012 by Michelle

We could say we shared ideas with Alice Medrich at one of her famed Bay Area Cocolat stores back in the Seventies or Eighties. We would be lying. We could say we “tweaked” this recipe for Apricot Lemon Bars from Medrich’s latest cookbook, Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies. We could tell you how our tweak made it so much better. Again, this would be an untruth. We did substitute walnuts for hazelnuts—only because, while Steve usually has enough nuts […]

Categories: Apricots, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Lemon, Recipes, Vegetarian

Rabe and Pizzage

February 10, 2012 by Steve

While desperately awaiting the arrival of local spring greens, we’ve been buying broccoli rabe at our Whole Foods because Michelle can no longer tolerate the taste of the usual bland broccoli flown in all winter from god knows where. The stuff comes in giant bunches, and we were faced with a pile perilously close to becoming chicken food. Thinking about the rabe’s bitter green flavor and seeking a simpler way to get the potato-like taste she got from Jerusalem artichokes […]

Categories: Broccoli rabe, Cooking, Food, Jerusalem artichokes, Pizza, Recipes, Vegetarian

Hulk Hogan, Sorghum and Sweet Potato Pancakes

January 29, 2012 by Steve

A Real American Breakfast, a cookbook borrowed from her mom’s collection, put Michelle in mind of this morning’s meal, and Steve in mind of Hulk Hogan. As Steve (or assorted Hulkamaniacs) can tell you, Hulk was once the “Real American.” Born from humble beginnings, pumped up in the steroid-fueld ’80s to fight the cartoonish Iron Sheik, he now spends his time on social media and reality TV and defending rumors that he’s less the man than he claims to be. […]

Categories: Breakfast, Cooking, Food, Recipes, Sorghum, Sweet potatoes, Vegetarian