A Chorus Line
So they’re not Christmas-related exactly, but I thought these goofy Lucha Libre figurines would make excellent ornaments when I found them at Mighty Goods. Just had to take this picture first — I especially love that the guy in front appears to have chest hair. When’s the last time you saw a hirsute toy?
For all Advent Calendar posts, click here.
recipe after the jump
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Cheese is philosophically interesting as a food whose qualities depend on the action of bacteria — it is, as James Joyce remarked, “the corpse of milk.” Dead milk, live bacteria. A similar process of controlled spoilage is apparent in the process of hanging game, where some degree of rotting helps to make the meat tender and flavorsome — even if one no longer entirely subscribes to the nineteenth-century dictum that a hung pheasant is only ready for eating when the first maggot drops onto the larder floor. With meat and game, the bacterial action is a desideratum rather than a necessity, which it is in the case of cheese — a point grasped even in Old Testament times, as Job reveals in his interrogation of the Lord: “Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?” The process of ripening in cheese is a little like the human acquisition of wisdom and maturity: both processes involve a recognition, or incorporation, of the fact that life is an incurable disease with a hundred percent mortality rate — a slow variety of death.
– from The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester
For once, bad weather in the area screwed up everyone else’s commute and didn’t affect mine at all. Hurrah! Between the uneventful trip and RESTORED AIR CONDITIONING at my office, I was feeling very fortunate, indeed. But it was still pretty darned hot out there and I didn’t want to heat up the kitchen when I got home, so the only thing I cooked indoors was a small pot of quinoa to use as the base of a Greek-inspired summer salad.
There’s no real recipe, as I just threw in handfuls of whatever we had in the fridge. That amounted to sun-dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, baby spinach, green onions, kalamata olives, and copious amounts of oregano, thyme, and parsley. To complete the dish, I grilled asparagus and lemon-and-garlic marinated shrimp, then tossed the everything with a garlicky lemon vinaigrette.
It was very tasty and pretty easy to assemble, but I think my favorite part of the meal was the side — grilled feta. If you’re a cheese lover and haven’t tried this yet, you really should. Just cut a block of feta in half lengthwise, brush both sides with olive oil, and sprinkle with oregano, thyme, and black pepper (or the seasonings of your choice). Wrap the whole thing in foil and grill for a few minutes on each side, open the package (carefully!), spritz with lemon juice, and serve.
Food & Wine pulls me back in! After discovering that their automatic subscription renewal plan didn’t work again for the second year in a row, I decided to let my subscription lapse. It’s not like we don’t get our fair share of magazines each month, so I didn’t think I’d miss this one.
Then I got the most recent issue — the issue which happens to be All About Italy. Sigh. As I read through it for the third time this week, I realized there wasn’t a spread that didn’t contain something I wanted to try, so try something I did yesterday afternoon (after securing another AC-related early release from work). All of the tomato-based recipes looked outstanding and I was especially lusting over the pappa al pomodoro, but our local grocery had a pitiful stash of tomatoes, so I went for the next best thing: creamy sun-dried tomato soup!
It was scrumptious, with a silky texture and complexity of flavor that belied the simplicity of the dish. The basil moustache was my own addition, but otherwise, I made the soup as written. This one is going in the file for those nights when a full-fledged meal is out, but I want something more than picnic food.
Now to renew that subscription…
recipe after the jump
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