Fryconoclast

New Ideas for Recipe Design

2011-02-15T11:42:00.000-08:00

Check out this amazing contest from the folks over at GOOD Magazine:

http://www.good.is/post/project-redesign-the-recipe

They want recipes designed in a new, graphic format, submitted only as a .jpg! I'm working on mine right now, inspired by Carl Kleiner and his beautiful photos for the Ikea Cookbook. Here, I'll throw you a bone:

Carl Kleiner/ Ikea / Styling Evelina Bratell / Vaniljhorn

Say It With Me: "Broo-SKATE-ta"

2011-02-14T07:48:00.000-08:00

As overdone as bruschetta is, it's still one of the best and cheapest go-to dinners del mundo, especially if you eliminate tomato and basil from the equation. In this version, I opted for:

Seared Beef + Blood Orange Sour Cream + Dill

My method for searing beef requires a powerful exhaust fan and a resistance to teasing ("my eyes are burning, are you cooking again?"). First of all, you'll need a sheet of plastic wrap and a heavy object. Place each piece of steak on the plastic wrap, fold to cover, and smack the living hell out of it in the name of tenderization. Get a cast iron skillet, turn that sucker up to full whack on the stove, let it get HOT, add a bit of oil and throw the pounded steak pieces on in. I'm talking 30 seconds per side at most. Let it rest for a good 10 minutes, then slice on the diagonal.

Mix some sour cream with the juice and zest of 2 blood oranges, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. If you've got fresh nutmeg, grate a tiny bit in as well, it will give you some complexity. Make sure to add enough salt so that it doesn't taste like dessert.

Take your excellent loaf of french bread and slice it. Grease it up and toast it in the oven for about 5 minutes. Slather on some sour cream, then the beef and the dill. I've taken naps that required more effort.

Weeknight Kid Bait

2011-02-13T19:25:00.000-08:00

So 5 year-old Ms. Thang says she would like chicken 'n' dumplins for dinner.

I check the kitchen. I am confident I can oblige, not with the typical Southern-style flat-dough-noodle-clear-broth kid bait that worked me over as a child (sorry, Gramommy), but with a new spontaneously iron-cheffed version based around the limited stock involved in my Tuesday night fridge situation.

In said fridge I find...

+ 3 skinless chicken thighs + self-rising flour + half a bunch of dill + eggs + 2% milk + whipped cream cheese + 1 Spanish onion

I decide to work up something I've never tried before, which is my own version of a knedlach, just like the ones I was completely obsessed over when I studied in Vienna. Quicker than my G-mommy's flat dough noodles but less time consuming and equally impressive.

First I chop the onion and fry it up in some olive oil in a smallish stock pot. I add the chicken thighs, salt and pepper and give'em 5 minutes to brown before adding water to cover, bringing it to the boil and then lowering the heat to poach the chicken and develop a broth.

4 cups of the self-rising flour go into a large mixing bowl with a healthy shaking of sea salt and white pepper in addition to the finely chopped half bunch of fresh dill. I heat 1.5 cups of milk and the small tub of whipped cream cheese on the stove until melted, then I stir the hot mixture into the flour. At this point it should still be a bit dry. Beat 2 eggs very well with a fork and then add them to the dough and stir a bit to combine. Turn the dough onto a floured board and work it a teensy bit but NOT TOO MUCH. I rolled dough chunks into long "snakes" and then cut the "snakes" into equal pieces. There ya go. Boil the dumplins (knedumps? dumplachs?) in salted water and drain.

By now those chicken thighs should be broken down and the broth should have luscious schmaltz pooling on its surface. Try and spear a whole thigh, break it up into pieces in a bowl, throw out the bone and add some dumplins. Ladle some of the broth on top. Kids will run from down the street to accost you and steal your dinner.

Technique: The Mushroom Fry-Up

2011-02-13T18:08:00.000-08:00

The most essential part of a mushroom fry-up in my book is the combination of lard and a rich deglazing agent with a lot of depth. One in particular that I've been futzing about with lately is

A combo of 3 parts soy sauce, 1 part fish sauce

First fry your chosen mushrooms in lard and keep yourself from adding salt by whatever means necessary. Once your mushrooms have a beautiful mahogany crust, douse them in the aforementioned ratio of soy and fish sauce. Give them a toss and wait for all the liquid to evaporate. Uuuuumami.

This Magical Genie Sandwich Will Get You a Raise/Date/Better Rate on Your Mortgage

2011-01-13T22:13:00.000-08:00

This sandwich is certifiably insane. Consider using it instead of a ring to propose to your significant other.

You will need:

+2 strips of good thick bacon, fried until crispy +1 TB of the bacon drippings mixed with the juice of 1 lemon and 3 TB of mayonaise with salt and pepper to taste + 1 beefsteak or heirloom tomato, sliced and dressed with a bit of lemon juice, salt and pepper +1 croissant

Spread the bacon/lemon mayo on both halves of the croissant. Lay on the tomato and bacon. Get anything you want from any living person.

Oxtail Dumplings for Non-Chinese New Year

2011-01-02T15:09:00.000-08:00

As a life-long student of China and a former 4-year resident of Beijing, I like dumplings for New Year, both Western and lunar. We know them here on the menus as "boiled dumplings", but what I'm really talking about are jiaozi (饺子), which, if I'm not mistaken, translates to English as "lengthy, drawn-out pain in the ass."

I decided to exacerbate the lengthiness of the dumpling-making process by making my own dough and filling them with braised oxtail, a 9-hour process in and of itself. Ambition seems so much less daunting when it's basically inconsequential. Funny that.

Here's the oxtail filling recipe, to be made 2 DAYS before you mean to serve the jiaozi:

Braised Oxtail

+ 2 lbs oxtail + salt and pepper + coconut oil + 2 onions, preferably one red and one spanish, roughly chopped + 10 cloves of garlic, peeled and halfed + half a pint cherry or grape tomatoes + 1 TB tomato paste + 2 TB soy sauce + 1 tp fish sauce + 8 oz good wine, type unimportant + 6 oz ketchup + 16 oz/2 cups whole milk

Now's the time to break out your heaviest dutch oven. Big ol' pot. Start by seasoning your oxtail with salt and pepper and then searing it on high heat in the coconut oil; make sure to get a nice brown crust on each piece. Set the pieces aside.

Add a bit more coconut oil to the pan and keep the heat high. Toss in the onions and the tomatoes and let them fry up and brown for about 5 minutes. Throw in the tomato paste, soy sauce and fish sauce; allow all the liquid to evaporate. Once the liquid is gone and the vegetables are nicely glazed, do the same with the wine. Once the liquid in the pan is viscous and syrupy, add the garlic, ketchup and milk and more salt and pepper. Now, the pieces of oxtail go back into the pot and enough water needs to be added to cover the meat. Bring the liquid to a boil, then turn the heat from high to low and put on the cover.

5 hours later, lift the lid and survey the scene. You should be easily able to fish out the bones by this point, but if not, simply let it cook a bit longer until you can. Once you have fished out the bones, let the tail cook uncovered until the liquid is thickened and no longer covering the meat, about another hour or 2. Taste it, check the seasoning then adjust accordingly. Then off with the heat, on with the lid and shove it into the fridge until you're ready to make the dumplings.

Jiaozi Dough

Now we're gonna have to discuss the difference in Asian cooking between hot water dough and cold water dough. Generally dough made from cold water, thereby having less of an effect on the flour particles and holding up better to more aggressive cooking methods such as boiling, is used to make jiaozi. However, I chose to make a hot water dough for these jiaozi because it is a little easier to work with and I find it holds up just fine to the boiling process. I used a recipe from Chowhound that I found here that worked like a charm.

As an aside, here's a pretty good PDF that discusses the specifics of various flours and the effects of protein and starch content on water absorption when making dough.

Assembling the Dumplings

After the dough is made and rested properly, get yourself set up on a nice big work surface with lots of room to spread out and to put your dumplings once you're finished wrapping them.

Bust that oxtail out of the fridge and behold all that solidified fatty tastiness. I didn't really stir it before I started in on the process so that each dumpling would have its own unique concentration of elements.

Dust your work surface and your rolling pin with flour. Take a chunk of the dough, roll it into a "snake" and cut that snake into equal pieces sized according to how big you would like your finished dumplings to be. Chances are you'll probably have to experiment a bit before you settle on the perfect size.

Roll each piece of the "snake" into a flat disk. When you think it's thin enough, roll it a bit thinner, then place a small spoonful of the oxtail in the center. Dontchya dare overfill that little %$#$! You DO NOT want that savory beef fat leaking out into the boiling water and negating your entire previous day of cooking. Fortunately I learned this from experience.

I choose simplicity when it comes to the folding part. I simply fold the disk in half and seal. Voilà. I know my limits.

Now the real trick to this is recruiting every last person in your house/apartment/neighborhood/tri-state area to assist in the wrapping. I ended up losing the support of my 5 year-old daughter to Dora and her wiles and was not finished prepping my little babies until (very literally) 6 hours later. Work it.

Once you start boiling, taste-test them to find the perfect boiling time for your dumplings. Should be around 5-6 minutes. Serve'em right away on big platters in the middle of the table. I leave the dipping sauce to you.

Cranberry Sauce au Caramel

2010-11-27T12:24:00.000-08:00

So this Thanksgiving I got the job of whipping up the cranberry sauce, and all I knew is that I wanted it to be both solid and gelatinous above all, because, for whatever reason, cranberry sauce is the only canned product that I consider superior in its mass-manufactured state.

A bag of whole, unsweetened cranberries in my left hand, I browsed the pantry greedily with my right, happening fortuitously upon a bag of turbinado sugar and a bottle of Myer's Rum. I suddenly had a vision of myself in the very near future pouring the bag of cranberries into a dark caramel, and that's precisely what I did. Check it:

Dark Rum Caramel Cranberry Sauce

+ 24 oz/4 cups whole cranberries + 16 oz/2 cups dark brown sugar + 8 oz/1 cup water + 4 oz/.5 cup dark rum + 1 tp allspice + 1 tp ground clove + the juice of 2 limes + pinch of sea salt

You'll need a good caramel pan, unlined copper is preferable. Wipe the pan out with a lemon and make sure it is completely clean before you begin. Have a brush and a small cup of water ready to wash down any sugar crystals that form on the sides of the pan.

Throw the

water
sugar
rum
allspice
clove

into the pan, turn the flame to medium, give it one good stir then DO NOT touch it. Keep a close eye on it and wash the sides of the pan with the water and brush if you see any crystals forming. (David Lebowitz offers some great tips for making caramel here.) It will take about 15 minutes to turn a dark amber color and reach the proper viscosity. THEN throw in the cranberries, lime juice and the pinch of salt, give it a bit of a stir, and basically allow it to cook on medium heat for another 20 minutes. It will smell like heaven and the cranberries will burst and you'll wanna jump right in there.

Pour the cranberry sauce into a heatproof container with a lid and refrigerate it for a couple hours before you serve it if you really want that jellified canned texture. Otherwise serve it warm for a less traditional and more dramatic presentation.

Japanese Egg Shapers: Mothering Made Easy

2010-04-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

So I was browsing greedily at Sunrise Mart on the LES and I came upon a stroke of pure genius: Hard-boiled egg shapers! You take your hot hard-boiled egg, peel it, shove it into one of these handy heart/bunny/star/chick/car shapers, throw it in the fridge or a bowl of ice water for 10 minutes e voilà. My daughter stopped begging me for peeps long enough to eat actual nutrition, holy %$#@.

From Japan With Love has quite a few for sale.

Gourmet Magazine's "Diary of a Foodie"

2010-01-02T08:40:00.000-08:00

Lame name? Oh sure. But Gourmet Mag's Diary of a Foodie, a TV series dedicated to the art and science of food and produced for public television, is actually crammed full of interesting stories and information. For instance, I never knew that Fergus Henderson (the guy who roasts pig heads at St. John in London) is actually afflicted by Parkinson's disease and until recently finding a successful treatment to control his own movements was unable to work in the kitchen at all. There's also quite a creepy segment in which Harold McGee cooks mushrooms with this hippy-dippy natural perfumer and the two of them giggle like Japanese school girls at the fact that said mushrooms smell like "manure" (both of them are decidedly squeamish about the word "dung" or "crap") until they are heated to a certain temperature. Anywho, after they cook these shit mushrooms they both then are then obliged to taste them, and they close their eyes and moan with each savory bite in the most uncomfortable fashion...Hilarious if you can manage to get a handle on your gag reflex.

I'm currently downloading all of the full-length episodes from iTunes (there are quite a few!) so I can watch them on my train commute. I can only imagine what kind of facial expressions I shall share with my fellow commuters when the mushrooms start a' fryin'.

David Chang's Leftovers

2009-12-14T20:28:00.000-08:00

While on break at work a few weeks ago I decided to flip through the November 2009 issue of Food & Wine while elbow-deep in my cold beef salad from Chelsea Thai. Lo and behold David Chang and Christina Tosi from empire Momofuku were being challenged to take a mass of Thanksgiving leftovers and create day-after dishes with some measure of panache. Here's the article.

I was particularly intrigued by the Mashed Potato Spring Rolls, in which David Chang rolls out white bread after cutting of the crusts, fills it with mashed potatoes and throws it in the deep fryer. Now I fully admit to having a lifelong shiksa fascination with knishes, and it was that very fascination that was awakened by this rolled-white-bread-as-dumpling-wrapper idea. I felt a deep need to incorporate this idea into my Christmas menu, which ironically enough was to be cooked in tandem with my Jewish neighbors.

I decided to make a few changes to the recipe. Instead of doing a spring roll, I would fold the white bread in half and make triangles. I omitted the green been entirely and made the filling with potato flakes, into which I microplaned half of a red onion and added olive oil and chopped fresh herbs. It's particularly important with the white bread to seal each "knish" edge evenly with the egg wash in every nook and cranny possible. I fried them in vegetable oil at 375°, but I would recommend getting the oil a bit hotter (say to 400°) so that the "knishes" won't absorb as much oil.

They were a hit at dinner with Jews and Gentiles alike and rolled white bread is definitely a welcomed new addition to my deep-fried goodie repertoire...

Iceland Heats Up | Food & Wine

2009-12-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

Iceland Heats Up | Food & Wine

Try This Cheese

2009-12-12T17:31:00.000-08:00

Despite the fact that I happen to work in a lovely cheese shop with beautiful artisan specimens from all over the US, I'm no cheese snob. To be perfectly honest, I'm not all that fond of cheese as a subgroup of food, unless it's very acidic, like a nice fresh chèvre, or in the service of enhancing a finished dish, like the "cheddar" weaving it's grated magic on my Taco Bell chalupa. So imagine me standing in this shop all day giving my sad, fake spiel to customer after customer about how "sublime" or "subtly nutty" all the cheeses are that I happen to personally dislike on a somewhat deep level...except for one! It's called "Frère Fumant" and it's a smoked raw "Basque style" sheepsmilk cheese from 3 Corner Field Farm in Shushan, NY. Meaty, hickory smoked, snappy and rich...it's as if you accidentally dropped your Lebanon bologna into a smoking hot hickory fire while camping one crisp autumn night and then ate it anyway, 'cept it's a cheese. Normally I find anything that combines smokiness with cream to be repugnant, but Frère Fumant puts its wagging finger in the face of my pickiness and tells it to &%$# off like a guest on Jerry Springer.

More Info 'bout 3 Corner Field Farm and Frère Fumant:

The Strong Buzz

Cheese By Hand

And, as an aside, here's enough good cheese reading to procrastinate an entire afternoon away:

New York Times Topics: Cheese

Grate Your Marcona Almonds Like José Andres

2009-12-09T16:18:00.000-08:00

I had the inkling last week to begin marathon viewing sessions of Molto Mario and José Andres on hulu.com. After honestly becoming a bit bored with the window deep into the Italian soul, I began my session with José. He was visiting his home province of Asturias and using the famous apples and Cabrales cheese there to make a salad, which while looking delicious, did not stand out as anything particularly earth-shattering. Until...he grated a Marcona almond with an upside down microplane zester and tapped the resulting almond powder onto the salad. My eyes were wide as saucers. Behold.

Put Salt in Your Coffee Maker Immediately.

2009-12-08T18:38:00.000-08:00

In these difficult economic times (blah blah blah) I've been attempting to go cheaper and cheaper with my morning coffee...When I was working at Dean & Deluca, I could acquire relatively good coffee at a discount (5-finger or otherwise), but now I've been forced to pretend that Folgers is what yanks my crank. I decided last week that this-"The Folgers Trials"as I have deemed it, not so unlike "The Nuremburg Trials"-would require more than a pinch of ingenuity and maybe even some organic chemistry.

I began with Hervé This's book Molecular Gastronomy, and was particularly fascinated by chapter 24, "How Salt Affects Taste". Mr. Man discusses therein the recent and peculiar discovery that salt can be more effective than sugar at masking bitterness. Well I'll be damned. So Monsieur goes on to describe an experiment in which scientists compared three separate aqueous solutions, one containing bitter urea, one with sucrose (aka table sugar) and one with sodium acetate. He continues:

There were reasons for choosing these three: Sucrose added to urea softens its bitterness, and sodium acetate contributes sodium ions without imparting too salty a taste. Ten subjects were asked to evalate the intensity of bitter, sweet and other sapid sensations produced by combinations of urea, sugar and salt in different concentrations (three for urea and salt, four for sugar). As predicted, sodium acetate reduced the bitterness of urea. What gastronomic empiricism did not predict however was that salt masked the bitterness much more effectively than sugar.

This is a pretty revolutionary discovery in my eyes, but I feel like it's something that grandmas and moms and other cooking geniuses have known forever and I'm the last to catch on. Hervé continues:

Moreover, in strong sugar concentrations, the sweet character was increased by the addition of sodium acetate, probably because salt offsets the weakening of the sweet intensity caused by the bitterness of urea. Consistent with the hypothesis , the addition of sodium acetate by itself to sugar, in the absence of urea, did not increase the intensity of the sweet taste.

After reading this, naturally I was beside myself with excitement to use this new knowledge to improve my cheap-ass coffee. The next morning I practically leapt out of bed and flew to my drip coffee maker.

After spooning my standard 5 heaping TBs of coffee in the filter for an 8-cup pot, I spooned one half teaspoon of the only salt I had (very fine Japanese sea salt, also from Dean & Deluca oddly enough) over the top of the grounds, trying to cover as much surface area as possible. Pushing the "on" button was nearly more than I could bear. I tried to be patient with the drips, but enough about my social life...

I poured myself a cup and drank it black for full objectivity. Hervé wasn't kidding! It was a new substance altogether. I knew it was only the salt tricking my brain but I was loving every minute of it. The bitterness of standard coffee to which we've all grown begrudgingly accustomed had vanished like someone turning down the stereo. What I tasted as I drank was...well, for lack of a better term, pure chocolate. It was nearly overpoweringly chocolatey, until the nuttiness from what I assumed to be the roasting process came through. It was as if the salt grains were the judges of a talent show eliminating all the bad singers and two-bit magicians until only the stars were left onstage...I added a bit of milk and a couple of splenda packets and it became like a dessert thanks to the Elizabeth Taylor lens that is salt. Folgers. Yes!

PLEASE try this at home and comment on this post about your results. I've added salt to the filter each morning for the last 3 mornings with similar success, but I want to hear how it works with other coffees and types of salt.

Thanksgiving Continued: SEASON Your Pie Crust!

2009-12-02T08:26:00.000-08:00

After the impromptu Mexican-ish Thanksgiving dinner mentioned in the previous post, I decided at the capricious bidding of my 4 year-old (to be henceforth known as 'Inge') to whip up 2 pies, one pumpkin and one apple, from scratch. I took the opportunity to experiment, as there was no expectation of pie from anyone other than Inge and if I totally screwed them up I could simply attribute the smell to the inquisitor's own delusions. Wink wink.

My experiment wasn't a terribly revolutionary one, but a simple question of how much 'seasoning' one could add to a pâte brisée before altering the state of an ideal crust. The basic pâte brisée recipe I used was as follows:

2.5 cups of all-purpose flour * 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter * 1 tp sea salt * 1 tp superfine sugar * .25-.5 cups of ice water

I pulsed the flour, salt and sugar in the food processor, then added the cubed, cold butter and pulsed until it got crumby, then turned the machine to 'on' and dribbled in a .25 cup of ice water and waited a few dozen seconds until the dough formed a ball. I then divided the dough in half, plastic wrapped each flattened half and refrigerated them for an hour before touching them again.

So that's the basic pâte brisée recipe I set about to alter. I began my experiment with the apple pie...

5 granny smith apples, halved and sliced lengthwise * .5 cup of light cream * .25 cup of turbinado sugar * the juice of 1 lime * 2 TB good white wine * equal parts cinnamon, ground cloves, allspice, black pepper and ground ginger, to taste

I want to note that the combination of lime juice and white wine with any spiced fruit mixture always seems to work. It is absolutely delicious and I tend to abuse the crap out of it as a cooking tactic.

Now, as for the seasoning of the crust for this apple pie, I wanted to echo the flavors I added to the apples and then take it a step further, and because I made one batch of pâte brisée for 2 different pies, I added the accoutrements during the rolling process. So after I took one of the discs out of the fridge and divided in half (one half for the top crust and one for the bottom) I began to roll out the bottom crust. I decided that the bottom crust would be seasoned with very finely chopped dried apples, ground ginger and ground cinnamon, as well as a sprinkling of big fat decorative sugar. I mixed the above together, making sure it was still quite a dry mixture, and distributed it through dough as I rolled it out. I laid it gently into the pie dish and decided not to blind bake it, but it wouldn't have been a terrible idea I reckon. Either way, it's up to you.

For the top crust, I decided on a simple mixture of the zest of about 4 oranges and a few turns of the black pepper mill on the coursest setting, mixed into the rolled top crust in the same manner as mentioned above. I chose to simply add a smattering of radial steam vents to the top crust of the assembled pie and a generous sprinkling of fat white decorative sugar.

Now for the Pumpkin Pie...

1 27oz can of pumpkin * 4 whole large eggs, beaten for a near eternity (or about 10 min) * .6 cup light cream * 2 TB good white wine * the juice of 1 lime * equal parts ground cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg and ground ginger, to taste

I'll note again the use of the aforementioned lime juice/white wine combo. Try it yesterday.

Now for the pumpkin pie I decided to use only a bottom crust, which I seasoned with ground ginger, ground cinnamon and get this: the zest of 6 limes. Before baking, I sprinkled the top of the filled pie with very finely chopped crystallized ginger and a little more lime zest.

Both pies were a big hit, due as much to my shrewd management of expectation as to their added complexity. Inge and I beseech you to SEASON your pie crust!

Impromptu Thanksgiving Menu 11/09

2009-12-01T17:34:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving this year was a right psychology experiment. The night before I had decided loosely on a Mexican theme for our small 'n' casual 4-person dinner, made a very basic grocery list for the morning and felt comfortable with my expectation of a small and relatively effortless bout of cooking for yours truly. Then what did I go and do? I put the lack of pressure to good use by cooking for 7 hours straight and improvising the following:

Starters

Thai Peanut Hummus Yes, terribly Mexican of me.

I threw 2 cans of Goya chick peas into the Cuisinart with 2 TB of natural peanut butter, olive oil, a good bit of chili oil (I believe in red oil), one jalapeño chili cut into a few rather oddly shaped chunks, a rather serious amount of lime juice, lime zest and a dash each of soy sauce and fish sauce. Pretty authentic flavor considering it's probably something that's bound to pop up on Rachel Ray's show any minute now...super duper!!! <---irony.

Main Course

Braised Chicken Thighs with warm corn tortillas

I promised myself I would NOT allow myself to rip open any of my beloved Goya seasoning packets (¡Sazón!) to braise my dark meat on holidays. I thwarted my addictive tendencies by first searing the chicken thighs to a crisp in my big enameled stew pot (her name is "Bigg'n") then setting them aside while I fried the living hell out of a small red onion, 8 whole garlic cloves, one finely diced red chile, a splash of lime juice, 4 whole PEELED tomatoes (I detest nothing more than those bullshit little rolled up tomato skins in my finished dish. Abhorrent.), about a TB of butter and a healthy 1/4 cup of a nice pungent olive oil. Ah, and salt and pepper of course. After I fried the above together adequately, I placed the thighs back into the pot, poured in just enough chicken stock to cover them, then popped on the lid and let the stank develop for upwards of 90 minutes. Then I turned the heat up with the lid off and evaporated the excess liquid to concentrate the flavor and make it a bit more taco-friendly.

The corn tortillas were artisanal and simply warmed for a spell in a 350º oven.

Black Bean Salsa with a little red oil. I believe in red oil.

Yeah, as a matter of fact I am aware how hackneyed black bean salsa is. I know what you're thinking, "Sandra Dee is probably semi-homemaking this on her next 'cooking' show". It's just damn good. The secret I think is that after you chop the onion, pepper, tomato and herbs to mix in with the black beans, you whisk up some lime juice, big salt and red chili oil until you get a nice vinaigrette going. I drank a little of it after I made it, I won't lie to you.

Sliced Avocado with a squeeze o' lime and big, fat salt

Sour Cream with grapefruit

You simply mix together a decent brand of full-fat sour cream with both the fresh juice of a grapefruit and the zest.

Dinner itself went quite well, particularly when I made the executive decision to accompany it with tequila, lime and ginger ale mixed in very large glasses with lots of ice and big, fat multicolored sugar on the rim. Family conflict? Really? More on the proceeding scratch desserts in the next post...