October 2010 – FoodNerd!

cook’s treat

I have been making pots of chicken soup for tallasiandude, who is feeling poorly this week. And since I have been buying whole chickens for that, I have had access to small amounts of chicken liver.

Normally what I do is just fry it up and glaze it with a little balsamic vinegar, which is lovely. But this time, since I’d just done that YESTERDAY (tallasiandude eats a LOT of soup when he’s sick), I decided I’d make some chopped liver, Jewish-deli-style.

So I fried some finely diced onion in a tablespoon of butter, put in 3 pieces of chicken liver once it was starting to brown, sprinkled in salt, and fried it till the onion was just about to burn, at which point I tipped in a little bit of sherry and let it cook till the liver was done and the liquid was syrupy. Then I put it into a bowl, ground on a little black pepper, and smushed it into a paste.

I just put some of that on a cracker just now, and it is HEAVEN.

home improvement

I just started a pot of red beans on the stove before settling down to work (Cook’s Illustrated’s Cajun Red Beans and Rice recipe, if you’re interested, which is super easy and exceedingly delicious), and the house smells absolutely gorgeous. Who needs air freshener when you have garlic, paprika and bacon?

catastrophe! bacon backlog

How do I know I am drastically overbooked? Because today the latest Bacon-of-the-Month-Club shipment arrived, and I have not yet partaken of the last one. *swoon* THE HORROR!

The only appropriate response to this is to acquire the last red ripe tomatoes of the season and have a leisurely BLT this weekend, but there is no time. I have to be on the road by 10:30am, which is barely time to get the tomatoes from the farmer’s market. And Sunday I have a similar wake up and go schedule. Bah humbug.

I think I have to find a weeknight this week to have a few people over for BLT dinner party. Not sure how, but I think it has to happen. A girl must have correct priorities.

eating in montreal

We were in Montreal for a dance weekend, and between the sleep deprivation and the language barrier, we were not going too far afield. Happily the dance venue was smack in the middle of what appeared to be Little Saigon, so we ate pho and banh mi the whole time. The banh mi were particularly good, on skinny crunchy baguettes with a schmear of pate and mayo on each, plus the grilled pork or cold cuts and daikon, carrots and wee hot peppers.

Then finally last night we had a bit of time so I asked one of the Montreal dancers where the really good poutine was to be had. He sent us to La Banquise, and he was not wrong. Yum.

Really delicious, crisp fries as a base, with good gravy and squeaky cheese curds on top, and then you can go nuts with variations. T got his with hamburger meat and sauteed onion, which was the best. It’s basically a burger and fries all smushed up together on the plate — can’t go wrong. I had smoked meat which was not as good as you’d hope, and tallasiandude got merguez sausage but what came wasn’t nothing but a hot dog as far as I could tell. So I guess stick with simple toppings and stay away from cured meats. Anyway, absolutely the best possible meal with a beer after two solid days of dancing. Open 24 hrs, too, doing a brisk business in cheesy gravy fries. Hell to the yes.

why I hate most people

Apparently the new compostable packaging for Sun Chips — a GENIUS idea — has cost them a significant number of customers… because the bag crackles too loudly. So the company is returning to its standard packaging, in deference to this mind-boggling idiocy.

Really? Really, America? You can’t stand a crackling bag impinging on your salt-and-fat-laden snack experience in order to keep a little bit of trash out of landfills? Seriously?

I’m appalled. You have got to be kidding. We are doomed as a nation, and as a species, if we can’t do a little better than this.

Penny Cluse Cafe, Burlington VT: Best Sammich Evar

Or pretty darn close anyway. Ham Randy: thick cut smoked ham, cheddar cheese, fresh red tomato, lightly spicy jalapeno mayo, on grilled sourdough. DAYUM. Available at Penny Cluse Cafe in Burlington VT, where we are visiting pals.

Comes with delicious bread and butter pickle slices and some cilantro-cabbage slaw. We also got a side of excellent mac-and-cheese, and a broccoli-cheese-cherry pepper relish grilled sandwich, and a side of bucket-o-spuds (homefries with cheese, pico de gallo and sour cream). All excellent, but eclipsed by the glory of the Ham Randy.