Posts
Health Nut Vegan Chili
4 days ago
1/22/08
a recent find.
Rob had the idea to find a cool vintage poster for above the mantel. A trip to the Jack Wood Gallery here in town turned up this lovely route map for Air France, created by Lucien Boucher in 1962. The printing is really gorgeous, with some gold metallic ink among the many colors. I love how the white circle in the upper middle of the image (the north pole, I suppose) just grabs your eye. It's due to arrive within the next week or so.
1/20/08
food fit for the weather.
[A rare double-post day]
OK, so here's the backstory: We invited Mom, Bill, Grandma and Hans for a Christmas visit, the centerpiece of which was to be a leisurely, multi-course dinner. I was just thrilled at the thought of having my loved-ones at our dinner table, so I started menu-planning early. Because Bill had prepared a killer beef tenderloin at Mom's over Thanksgiving weekend, I wanted to do something different.
Cue MarthaStewart.com, where I found a recipe for a roasted pork shoulder. We ordered one from Eckerlin, picked it up a few days before Christmas and ...
When we got it home, Rob realized the thing was less than $2 a pound. Hm. He looked at me and said, "I don't want to freak you out, but ... how confident are we in this recipe?" Learning that the cut was cheap, and deciding that it didn't even look like what was pictured in the recipe, I answered, "Not very." So we went to the grocery and picked up a lovely pork tenderloin roast, and the meal was terrific.
Which left us with a 4 pound pork shoulder in the freezer.
Fast forward to today: At Bill's instruction, we rubbed the thing with a mix of coriander, cumin, paprika and S&P, browned it, and then slow-cooked it in the Dutch oven under a mess of pureed roasted peppers, garlic, onion, tomato and jalapeno. It smells amazing.
That, a good red wine and the Packers game are our evening plans.
OK, so here's the backstory: We invited Mom, Bill, Grandma and Hans for a Christmas visit, the centerpiece of which was to be a leisurely, multi-course dinner. I was just thrilled at the thought of having my loved-ones at our dinner table, so I started menu-planning early. Because Bill had prepared a killer beef tenderloin at Mom's over Thanksgiving weekend, I wanted to do something different.
Cue MarthaStewart.com, where I found a recipe for a roasted pork shoulder. We ordered one from Eckerlin, picked it up a few days before Christmas and ...
When we got it home, Rob realized the thing was less than $2 a pound. Hm. He looked at me and said, "I don't want to freak you out, but ... how confident are we in this recipe?" Learning that the cut was cheap, and deciding that it didn't even look like what was pictured in the recipe, I answered, "Not very." So we went to the grocery and picked up a lovely pork tenderloin roast, and the meal was terrific.
Which left us with a 4 pound pork shoulder in the freezer.
Fast forward to today: At Bill's instruction, we rubbed the thing with a mix of coriander, cumin, paprika and S&P, browned it, and then slow-cooked it in the Dutch oven under a mess of pureed roasted peppers, garlic, onion, tomato and jalapeno. It smells amazing.
That, a good red wine and the Packers game are our evening plans.
a sip of scotch.
After more than a month (during which time, I kept thinking of posts I wanted to write, about our fantastic Christmas Day and day-after meals and that kind of thing), here we go.
Dad called late in the day yesterday to let us know that Granddad had passed away. He went to sleep and just didn't wake up. Which is how you want to go, I suppose. Grandmother passed earlier this summer and it seems that Granddad, for all the fractiousness in their decades-long relationship, was lost without her. He was 90. My most recent visit with him was when Dad and I spent several days in L.A. about 3 years ago; I felt sad that we didn't see more of G&G, but distance made that difficult. And really, I wanted to preserve my impressions of them—Granddad in particular—as vibrant, lively people. I always thought he was neat. I can trace my love of boats and the water directly through Dad to him, much as I can trace my green thumb straight to Grandma. I will forever associate Brach's butterscotch candies with him, and I think we have him to thank for exposing me to the concept of happy hour—I remember peanuts and, for the grownups, cocktails or cold beers around 5:00 on the boat trips we took with him. I took a certain amount of pride growing up that my grandfather spent his early retirement years in Florida windsurfing with men half his age. He notoriously broke his ankle—shattered it, actually—while skateboarding downhill on our street, a ride that ended in a collision with a mailbox.
I have very fond memories of my grandparents individually; as a couple, their bickering could make them difficult to be around. They were both hugely present in my childhood; we'd often have dinner at their home before they moved to Florida during my teen years, and I spent summer Saturdays with Grandmother, who was a costumed interpreter at Conner Prairie (I loved my little pioneer girl dress). After they moved south, we spent spring breaks with them, and they'd make too-long visits in the summer. And then, as they got too old and infirm to live on their own in Florida, they went to California—and we became less a part of each others' lives. Still, I know they're both important parts of my make-up. I'll sip a Scotch to their memories.
Dad called late in the day yesterday to let us know that Granddad had passed away. He went to sleep and just didn't wake up. Which is how you want to go, I suppose. Grandmother passed earlier this summer and it seems that Granddad, for all the fractiousness in their decades-long relationship, was lost without her. He was 90. My most recent visit with him was when Dad and I spent several days in L.A. about 3 years ago; I felt sad that we didn't see more of G&G, but distance made that difficult. And really, I wanted to preserve my impressions of them—Granddad in particular—as vibrant, lively people. I always thought he was neat. I can trace my love of boats and the water directly through Dad to him, much as I can trace my green thumb straight to Grandma. I will forever associate Brach's butterscotch candies with him, and I think we have him to thank for exposing me to the concept of happy hour—I remember peanuts and, for the grownups, cocktails or cold beers around 5:00 on the boat trips we took with him. I took a certain amount of pride growing up that my grandfather spent his early retirement years in Florida windsurfing with men half his age. He notoriously broke his ankle—shattered it, actually—while skateboarding downhill on our street, a ride that ended in a collision with a mailbox.
I have very fond memories of my grandparents individually; as a couple, their bickering could make them difficult to be around. They were both hugely present in my childhood; we'd often have dinner at their home before they moved to Florida during my teen years, and I spent summer Saturdays with Grandmother, who was a costumed interpreter at Conner Prairie (I loved my little pioneer girl dress). After they moved south, we spent spring breaks with them, and they'd make too-long visits in the summer. And then, as they got too old and infirm to live on their own in Florida, they went to California—and we became less a part of each others' lives. Still, I know they're both important parts of my make-up. I'll sip a Scotch to their memories.
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