Chronicles of a Stomach Grumble

A New Year of Stuffing Cheese Into Other Things

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:24:00 +0000

Oh, hey guys. I started out the year so serious on you. So... let's probably talk about olives now?

Most of you probably do not think of olives as comfort food. Most of you probably did not devote the entirety of your teenaged, after-school snacking to piles of them. It just so happens that I do and I did.

Although the universe is trying to trick us into thinking it's going to be spring outside any time now, it isn't. We really are hunkering down for the longest bit of winter here, and it is for that reason that I am trying to dive head-long back into cooking a whole book of antiquated hors d'oeuvres. Remember this project? I haven't forgotten it. Those of you forced into eating these things every time you come to my apartment probably haven't forgotten it either. So, without further ado, more pastry bags and creamy cheese:

One of the things I've been enjoying most about cooking this book is the creative license it gives you when it tells you to stuff one of your favorite foods with "spiced cheese." In this case, I used goat, a soft crumbly chèvre, spiced with sherry vinegar and smoky pimentón. I stuffed this mixture into huge Castelvetranos - a gigantic, meaty, Sicilian olive - for maximum cheese-to-other-stuff ratio.

I brought these to a legitimately rocking New Year's Eve dance party. They were great finger food, easy to grab between songs and everyone knows you need to focus on your hydration and your salt levels when you sweat that much. This was a perfect recipe to both close out a year full of stuffing cheese into other things, and to begin a new year of certainly doing the same.

Olives Stuffed with Spiced Cheese
Select mammoth olives both green and black*, remove stones and stuff with spiced cheese. The easiest way to fill these is to use a bag and small tube to force the mixture into the olive.

*Yes, I cheated and only used green. I can't be made to obey rules!

Strain Your Damned Tomato Soup

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:13:00 +0000

We all reach a point where we think we know best. My guess is that every single one of us occasionally skims a recipe and thinks “I already know how to do that.” Usually, when I get here, I use the recipe for inspiration and go on my merry way, cooking as I would normally cook. This is both good and bad. Cooking with your own brain is one of the most important skills any cook can possess. You decide how much salt seems right. You decide how much oil you want to fry in. This makes us confident, makes us take risks and leads to delicious discoveries. But sometimes, you guys, you need to strain your damned tomato soup whether you want to or not. And sometimes, following recipe steps that seem finicky or unnecessary give you smooth, creamy tomato soup that makes you really happy.

This brings us to the recipe in question, from the America’s Family Recipes iPad app.

I have to confess to you all, I approached this set of recipes with a bit of a chip on my shoulder. This interactive cookbook contains recipes for classics that we all know and love: tomato soup, chicken and dumplings, creamed spinach. These are recipes that each family mythologizes. Someone always has the best one. When I decided to test this book, I wanted to be as true to it as possible. I did no editorializing, no extra garlic or butter (please take this time to note how hard that is for me), I completed these recipes to the letter. When it came time to strain the tomato soup above, I will admit that I rolled my eyes. I will admit that I almost did not do it. In the end, I did, and my cream of tomato soup was velvety and clean-tasting because of it.

To be fair, this book is marketed to a person and a cook who is decidedly different from me. The homey motifs, scalloped edges and other details that scream LOOK HOW FOLKSY WE ARE almost made me close this app without cooking anything from it. Initially, I thought this would probably be a great app for someone looking to really work on their basics. If you like to cook, and want to cook things that everyone knows and loves, but need some direction, this is a really great tool.

It also brought me back to my basics, however. Reminding me that sometimes I should just follow directions. It was careful direction-following that allowed me to make the most successful chicken and dumplings of my life from a recipe in this book. The dumplings (which are pretty much like baking, so made me characteristically nervous) came out fluffy and tender in the middle, not like solid rocks. I have no idea how baking powder and baking soda work, but DAMN, put them in your dumplings!

The layout is simple enough. A page for introduction, a page for ingredients, a page of instructions. I do wish there was a way to show the ingredients list and the steps of the recipe concurrently, as switching back and forth when your hands are covered in food is a bit irritating. But the steps are easy to follow, the recipe proportions all seem to be correct. In future updates, I do hope they’ll give you an estimated time for the full recipe from the get-go. Initially, I thought the list of recipes was a bit limited, but did notice that there are further recipe packs you can add on with an additional purchase. The bottom line: this is a $0.99 cookbook. You’d be hard-pressed to find that anywhere else.

This book also happens to do something that I love: it takes those gloopy, terrible casseroles that some of us have special feelings for from long ago and tells you how to make them with real food. Not condensed soups. Not flavor packets. That’s something that the home cooks of America could probably really benefit from.

Cream of Tomato Soup

from America's Family Recipes: Best of Home Cooking

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 medium sweet onion, coarsely chopped

1 clove garlic, halved

1 (28oz) can whole, peeled, Italian plum tomatoes

2 cups chicken broth

1/2 cup water

1 teaspoon sugar

1 bay leaf

1/2 cup heavy cream, divided

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 tablespoon freshly sliced chives

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion with a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 to 12 minutes until the onion is soft and golden. Add tomatoes (do not drain) to the saucepan and use a wooden spoon, or potato masher to break into large chunks. Add the garlic, sugar, bay leaf, chicken broth, and water; bring up to a simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Remove from heat, and take out the bay leaf. Carefully puree the soup in small batches in a blender until very smooth*. Strain the soup back into the saucepan; place over medium-low heat, and bring back to a simmer. Add the cream, reserving 2 to 3 tablespoons for the garnish, and stir to combine. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Place the remaining heavy cream in a small mixing bowl and whisk vigorously for 1 minute or until slightly thickened and frothy. Ladle the hot soup into bowls, and drizzle over some of the whipped cream.

Garnish with chives and serve immediately.

* I did take one liberty with this recipe. Instead of transferring to a traditional blender, I used my immersion blender in the same pot. This is what they were INVENTED for, people.

On Our Patients, Our Remedies and Our Failures

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:47:00 +0000

"INVALID COOKERY - In preparing food for an invalid, one should bear in mind that it is of the utmost importance that the appetite of the patient be tempted. Large quantities of food should never be served to an invalid. The most attractive dishes procurable should be used, and the linen should be immaculate. A fresh flower adds color and daintiness to the tray. Hot dishes should be served very hot and cold dishes thoroughly chilled. Never ask a patient what he would like for a meal but find out from the doctor what he may have; then surprise the invalid by serving something unexpected, nourishing and dainty." - The Wise Encyclopedia of Cookery, 1948

Last July, I had the unfortunate task of rushing my Sidekick to the ER with extreme pain from a herniated disc. After six hours, a few morphine shots, and many neighbors in various states of duress, a kind-looking volunteer with an apologetic eye made his way to us.

“Er, would you like dinner?”

He extended a white, cardboard take-out box to me, which I took gratefully. I didn’t know they fed you in the ER. It turns out, there is a reason that people don’t talk about it. A room-temperature carton of 2% milk, a plastic container of canned peaches and a tuna sandwich, the filling of which had turned the color of cement.

Correct me if I’m wrong; these people in the hospital, we’re trying to heal them, no?

I was convinced that this kind of thing was isolated to the desperate and frenetic confines of the Emergency Room and that things would be better when my Sidekick was eventually admitted for more tests and taken upstairs into his own room.

But when breakfast arrived the next morning, I knew things were worse than I could have imagined. One thing before we continue: I realize that the point of a hospital is not to feed you. And certainly not to feed you luxurious or gourmet meals. You go to a hospital for care, help and medicine. I am not trying to be glib. I wasn’t expecting it to be vacation. But I also wasn’t expecting it to be quite like this.

Western Egg-Bake with Homefries

Breakfast was a yellow, reconstituted egg brick with not-terrible looking homefries, a plastic container of Cheerios, the blackest, scariest coffee I’ve ever seen, non-dairy creamer, a carton of milk that had seen better days and a packet of Mrs. Dash.

If you look closely, you'll probably see a few planets sucked into this thing.

Breakfast, while not really edible, certainly didn’t worry me for the patients’ safety like the ER meal. I began to think that I was over-reacting, although the milk did look like it had been run over by a truck.

Oh, milk? Just throw that anywhere.

But then lunch came.

Beef Stew with Mashed Potatoes

Let's momentarily put aside the fact that this was the dead of summer and I honestly can not imagine anyone wanting to eat beef stew when it's ninety degrees out, much less anyone who is in a hospital. This is a pile of canned vegetables with some beef thrown in, instant mashed potatoes and the saddest parsley garnish I’ve ever seen. I mean, why are you garnishing this? Is someone eating this parsley as part of their meal? If the function of hospital food is to be totally utilitarian, why are you dropping an upended piece of curly parsley on the side of the plate as if you care? This is essentially soup that you couldn't even be bothered to put in a bowl.

Lunch was served with an oxidizing iceberg salad in a cup and a packet of Italian dressing, a major ingredient of which was high fructose corn syrup. Synthetic sugar. Soybean oil. Propylene glycol alginate. This is what we're asking our sickest people to eat on the road to their recovery.

Oh, and dessert. With lunch.

It claimed to be banana pudding. When I turned it upside-down with a look of exasperation on my face, it remained stoically in its container, its cratered surface a terrain never to be explored by my Sidekick on my watch.

I am an expert on neither the nuances of hospital funding nor on American medical food policy. I can tell however, even as a layperson on every side of this issue, that something has gone terribly wrong. I know that serving thousands of people with a kaleidoscope of ailments on a daily basis cannot be easy. But why can't we give them real food? Take the beef stew, for example: a good beef stew is one of the simplest, easiest things in the world. You brown meat, thicken with flour, throw in vegetables and stock and simmer basically forever. You can forget about it on the stove. What then emerges is, arguably, one of the most comforting things on the planet.

Maybe this is just how I'm wired. I'm a Jewish girl with two very good cooks for parents. To me, food is medicine. When something goes wrong, we always ask what we can bring you to eat. It seems like the most basic principle in the world to me: our bodies need fuel, when we are sick or hurt, that fuel needs to be of the highest grade.

I will cop to one thing: I can not report on the flavor of this food. Neither my Sidekick nor I tasted a single morsel. I made many journeys to neighboring areas for good meals for both he and I to eat. What about those with no one to run out for them? I can't imagine myself or someone I love being in that position. My heart truly goes out to those people. It's made me sick to my stomach ever since.

The quotation that heads this post is from a recently inherited food encyclopedia from the late 1940s. Use of the word invalid notwithstanding, it has some pretty tender and elegant ideas about how we should treat the infirm. When my grandmother gave me this encyclopedia, she told me a story about a friend of hers whose mother had back surgery around the same time of its publishing: she had to be in a full-body cast in the hospital for nine months.

When my Sidekick subsequently returned to the hospital for surgery on his back, he was lucky enough to be discharged and home the very same day. Our medical technology has made incredible leaps in those sixty-odd years. The priority of feeding our patients, by comparison, seems to have taken a backseat. Or to have been thrown out the window of a moving car, much like the carton of milk served at breakfast.

Sometimes I think that maybe I'm a little too high on this particular soapbox. Then I remember dinner.

This is supposed to be grilled chicken, in case you were wondering.

This is Really Mac and Cheese

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:31:00 +0000

We haven't really talked about this yet.

This is what it should look like.

There are few reasons for this:

1) Tom Scocca has already written the definitive article on mac and cheese. This is it, you guys. There should be no further questions. If you haven't already read this, do not punch yourself in the face first, because after you've read it, you will feel like you've been punched in the face with the truth.

2) Because after you've read Tom's Fundamentalist Macaroni and Cheese you will see how stupid easy this is and never feel the need to say anything about it ever again. From that point forward, you will speak only through the power of your macaroni and cheese. Without fail, at any family gathering, this is what people request that I make. Not to overestimate myself, but I'm pretty competent in the kitchen - they basically want me to make something that I could train their dog to make. So clearly, truth bombs on the matter of mac and cheese still need to be dispersed.

I know that most people writing about food will obey the rules this week. We are not supposed to be talking about mac and cheese. We are supposed to be talking about juice cleanses and garlic broths. Anti-inflammatory, detoxifying goji berry and kombucha smoothies. (I'm sorry, that made me throw up too.)

Here at Chronicles of a Stomach Grumble, we say fuck you to all that. You're going to be so sick of that shit by next week. And frankly, if you don't know how to saute up some kale, you're probably not reading this thing. So eat your kale, drink your smoothies. And when your body inevitably shouts, "GIVE ME THE CHEESE BACK," read Tom's article and get to work.

Prepare yourself a stick with which to slap away your family's fingers.

Fundamentalist Macaroni and Cheese (with Rules Broken)
I know. You're like, "all that talk about following Tom's guidance to the letter and you're already screwing with it?" Have you people ever known me to be different? Make it Tom's way, like, five times. Then do whatever you want.

I was seriously tempted to not even include a recipe because I really just want you to read Tom's, but since recipes (and not me cursing all the time) are what half of you are here for, I guess we'll do one.

1lb elbow macaroni
At least 1lb cheddar, probably a little more
Some butter
Some milk
Salt
Cayenne pepper

Preheat your oven to 350. Boil water in a big pasta pot. Salt the water (seriously, I hope you know this already).

Grate all the cheese. You will second-guess how much cheese you are grating - then just keep going. Grate it all.

When your water is boiling, cook your elbows in it. PASTA elbows, not your arms, idiot. Take into account that you are basically going to keep cooking them for an hour in the oven, so undercook them just a little. To quote Tom, "Do not overcook it, just because you are making American food. Macaroni is half the dish here, and it should be treated with respect." Drain your pasta and throw some butter into the colander with it.

Throw some more butter into the pot and swirl it around so it coats the sides. Then put your pasta back in the same damned pot. Add your cheese gradually, saving some to put on the very top.

Okay, here is where I start acting like a petulant little brat: Put some other shit in it if you want! I've taken to tossing in a spoonful of mustard here and there. If there's creme fraiche in your fridge put some of that in there for creaminess. Here is the only improvement upon Tom's recipe that I can fully sponsor: put a tablespoon or so of cayenne pepper into the mix. Just do it. A little goes a long way, but just do it.

Cover the top with the remaining cheese. Sprinkle some coarse salt on there, a little more cayenne pepper and black pepper, if you want it. Then pour milk over the top. How much milk? You didn't even look at Tom's article, did you? Scocca:

"Pour a big slug of milk over the macaroni and the cheese. How much? Tip the pot from side to side. The milk should just peep into view, down there at the edge of the macaroni."

Okay? Dude, I know it's not a measurement. This is how you cook when you cook with your own brain and not someone else's. Just FIGURE OUT HOW MUCH. Dot this monster with butter and put the whole pot in the oven for about 45 minutes. When it's brown on top and you can't see any more milk when you tip it around, it's done. Let it sit for 10 minutes so no one sues you.

This is it, guys. This is really mac and cheese.

The Nerdist: Round One

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:48:00 +0000

A quick round-up of the things I nerded out over this week.

Brussels Sprouts and Grapes via Poor Man's Feast

Elissa Altman of Poor Man's Feast makes me drool over an unlikely combination and uses the word 'counterintuitive' to describe a recipe. <3

Joy Zhang gives us a hot toddy recipe I'm likely to repeat roughly twelve thousand times this winter on Honest Cooking.

Caroline at Whipped makes me feel tender, familial things for bananas while also making kind of a dark effing joke.

Food Republic supplies some bicep curls for your food-nerd brain on the Huffington Post.

Eatocracy makes us all aspire to be more like the Ginsburgs, both in the kitchen and in our relationships.

EAT

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:58:00 +0000

If you can watch this and not:

a) get really hungry
b) kind of feel like we live during the most amazing time on the most amazing planet in the most amazing universe
c) really want to hug him when he gets surprised by the champagne

... then we probably don't hang out very often. If you feel a, b, c or some combination thereof and we also don't hang out very often, let's fix that and probably get something to eat.

EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Now go eat lunch! Quickly, before you die of jealousy.

Something I Really Like About Winter

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:24:00 +0000

I have really great news for everyone. Ruth's making another list.

via Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks

For those of you who don't remember, last December Ruth Reichl put together a holiday list of the best things to buy for your food-obsessed friends and family. I followed it mildly religiously. It resulted in my Sidekick and I acquiring a bottle of French plum brandy that is very hard to find and tastes like wrapping yourself up in a blanket made of drunk angel's wings.

This year's list begins with Benton Hams. Day two was devoted to vintage cookbooks (giving special mention to the amazing Bonnie Slotnick, whose shop is a wonderland for nerds - my Sidekick let me loose in there as an anniversary present because he is so romantic). If days three and four were devoted to whiskey and pickles, I just wouldn't be surprised.

The especially great thing about Ruth's list is that it complies with a goal my Sidekick and I have created for our holiday shopping: it will all be direct from the seller. Either via Etsy, vintage stores, flea markets, we're keeping our money away from the middle man and away from big box stores. If you're hoping to do the same, follow along. Ruth is sure to have some gems for you.

From the Vault: Ben's Chili Bowl

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:30:00 +0000

Walking into Ben's, even on a night crowded with tourists, a line wrapping around the counter and winding its way through the restaurant, you get a warm feeling like walking into a family friend's house. The hip hop bumps, bass rumbling throughout the conversation and laughter that flows from customers to cooks. In an era in a city where kindness is a premium, Ben's is overflowing.

via TriViews

The cooks dance behind the line, taking pictures of college kids at the counter who know, just like we all do, that we are in a truly special place.

During the riots after MLK's assassination, Ben's was declared the only safe-house on U Street. Although no physical riots rage outside, Ben's remains a safe-house from all that ails us in the world. A place to smile, lube up your arteries and feel truly, epically comfortable.

Amazingly, they don't really tout their incredible history. The impact they've had on the community and the world is only displayed by the photos of other Ben's disciples, famous and not, on the walls. Ben's was the site of Barack Obama's first meal as President of the United States. But, they recount with glee on a computer print-out behind the counter, "He paid."

I will probably come here any time I'm in DC for the rest of my natural life, and I haven't even tasted the chili yet.

2.28.09

via U Street Girl

How to Horrify Your Dinner Guests

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:30:00 +0000

Because of my upbringing, I take Halloween very seriously.

When I say "my upbringing", what I mean is this: my childhood house turned into a crypt for the entire month of October and part of November because my mother takes Halloween very seriously. Our front yard was a cemetery. Our windows were blockaded with ghosts and warning signs. Navigating the spider webs in the hallways became an important skill. There was a fountain of blood in our dining room. Doorknobs turned into monster hands. Am I painting enough of a picture for you? Every year my parents threw a balls-out, lavish, enormous Halloween party for 100 of their closest friends. I've decided it's my responsibility to uphold this tradition, albeit on a slightly smaller scale in my adult life. In that spirit: a little Halloween party food porn:

We had Rotten Eggs, which were a riff on this excellent Food & Wine recipe, in which I bumped up the wasabi by about double and zipped up some chive oil to make the yolks brightly, disgustingly green. These were super salty and a huge hit.

Then there was a brain made of pimento cheese. We had 'goat eyes', made from goat cheese and a green olive sliced in half. And then, there were the real brains and eyeballs:

Timmy (we've discussed him and his love of Buffalo sauce before), my brother-in-law and sous chef at The Good Fork, very kindly offered a hook-up to his butcher who provided us a with a fresh lamb's head, split straight down the middle for roasting. Which we did, with a lot of lemon, oregano and olive oil. We tucked a few onions underneath, bathed the whole thing in stock and roasted it in the oven until the brains puffed up and the tongue was tender. Here's a trick, when you serve something with toast points and roasted onions, even people who are afraid of eating lamb brains will tuck in. If you are one of those people, come over and I will make this for you because WOW, it was so good.

And then, to bring our journey full-circle, we had some mother effing cream cheese.

Um, yes, I got a bit creative with the presentation. It was Halloween. What other time of year can I get away with sculpting a face made of prosciutto and roasted red peppers? I have to take opportunities to be weird where I can get them, you guys. The focus here, however, is on the little skewered cream cheese balls. Technically these are supposed to be covered in caviar. BUT TIMES ARE TOUGH, dudes, so I went with the alternative preparation. Maybe someday we'll try the real deal. Until then, I do not recommend serving them quite this way on other days of the year, unless I am your dinner guest and then sculpt away, I am totally into it.

Caviar Blackberries
Season cream cheese with lemon juice and cayenne, make oval shapes like berries, then roll them in well-drained caviar until they look like blackberries. A touch of parsley or cress at the top will add to the appearance. This idea may be carried out with high seasoning for the cheese and chopped ripe olives for the covering.*

*The lemon juice makes the cream cheese extremely soft, which is great for rolling in caviar or olives, but not so great for putting on a toothpick and getting into your mouth in one piece. Chill these babies until they're firm and serve them cold.

Pork Plucks and Kindred Nerd Spirits

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:04:00 +0000

Big thanks to my wonderful friend JSuh for alerting me to what's happening on Four Pounds Flour this week.

I can frame this, right?

What's happening is some pretty significant digging into the New York Historical Society's culinary collection and the resulting nerdery. JSuh pointed me to the final post of the series, Unusual Meats, and now I am obviously hooked and will read everything Sarah has ever written on Four Pounds Flour, because clearly we are the same kind of nerd.Go check it out!

A National Day to Get Behind

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:44:00 +0000

I don't remember the first pickle I ever ate. But I do remember the first pickle I ever asked for more of.

1st Pickle Festival in NYC

They were hamburger dill chips and they accompanied the grilled cheese sandwich of my dreams.

I was probably six or seven. My dad worked in an office plaza that was catered to by a lunch counter run by a German woman named Lori. I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich with no crust and extra pickles every single day that I was allowed to accompany my dad to work. It started with three pickle chips nestled next to the grilled cheese. Then it was a small plastic condiment container jammed with pickles. Eventually, Lori brought me behind the counter and showed me how to cook a grilled cheese on a flat-top, and handed me a dixie cup filled with pickles. It was one of the best days of my life and just thinking about Lori's grilled cheese makes me blind with hunger.

My Dad and I, Carnegie Deli, 2007

Those definitely weren't the best pickles I would ever eat, but you can see how they left an impression on me. Today is National Pickle Day and it's gotten me thinking (more than normal) about these briney characters that have taken over my life.

Our Wedding Pickles - Photo by Marc Balgavy

A pickle is greater than the sum of its parts. A pickle is food transformed by other food. Sometimes a fermentation, sometimes a brining, that makes a cucumber or a green tomato or a spare bunch of carrots into something special that will last an extra long time. Pickles, like a lot of great other things, were born out of necessity - the need to preserve. There is a great story in one of my pickling books about a grandmother swearing that she staved off wrinkles by splashing a bit of her pickle brine on her face each morning. With any luck, I will be wrinkle-free well into old age by this method. And if not, at least I'll smell delicious.

In honor of National Pickle Day, here's a round-up of anything pickle-related to ever be chronicled here. Happy pickle day!

Pickled Ramps
Pickled Fiddleheads
Annual Pickle Day
Pickle Impatience
Basil Pickles
Pickle Pinwheels
Pickled Okra
Drink Gibsons!

An Ugly Limbo

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:30:00 +0000

I will never claim to be the kind of person who does not complain about the weather. I hope you guys can forgive me. There is something about this particular transition of fall to immediate winter that really seems to throw me and the ones I love into a funk. I'm envisioning the next six months of bitter cold, slush on the ground and decreased sunlight, but am not quite to the point where I anticipate cozy nights with hot toddies and braised meats. It's an ugly limbo, October.

Fried Pickles with Vanderbilt Ranch Dressing

One freak snowstorm later, November is here with its closed windows, boots and early sunsets. I am glad to say that I spent one of our final bonus days of summer a few weekends ago sitting in the window of The Vanderbilt, sipping a cocktail of tequila and grapefruit juice, acting like I will never stop wearing flip flops and sun dresses.

This is a place I'd like to recommend that you all get to. While our days of open-window-sitting may have come to an abrupt close for the year, the days of cuddling up by a closed window with a whiskey drink are now upon us. And the things that you want to snack on during times like these are inevitably comforting. The Vanderbilt, no matter where you come from or what you are hungry for when you need comfort, will probably have you covered. Their fried pickles do not suffer from this weird idea people seem to have that beer batter belongs on pickles. Pickles are inherently juicy on the inside and when you fry them, that juice comes out and makes beer batter soggy. These pickles are fried in cornmeal, like one of the other greatest fried things in the world: green tomatoes. They stay crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside and are cooled down with homemade ranch dressing.

Then there are shishito peppers with pimentón salt and lemon. These looked suspiciously like padron peppers when we had them, but the idea is the same and they were so delicious we ordered a second plate after we polished off the first.

Brussels sprouts glazed in honey and Sriracha came next. These bordered on almost too sweet for me, but the crispy edges from (obviously) being dropped in the deep fryer proved to be too much for my fragile willpower and somehow the whole dish disappeared. There was also an incredibly creamy, shockingly green bowl of broccoli soup with cheese crumbs. It was sort of like they cooked down a big old cheese skirt and crumbled it on top. I mean, if that does not sound comforting, then I think we need to have a sit-down about what comfort means to you. I'm sorry that there is no picture of that, I consumed it rather enthusiastically.

The space itself is deceptively large, which means you can bring lots of friends to commiserate about the cold with. The cocktails were not overwhelmingly exciting, but were classic and simple, with a few including their house bitters. This is the kind of place that makes Flynn exclaim, "What are you doing at my bar??" when I go without her. If you know her, that should be enough for you. If you don't, I will say that "my bar" is a title she rarely bandies about. It is worth it, their happy hour is cheap, the summer was cool there and I can only expect that the winter will be warm. Since this is what we're all looking for, I'll see you there. And I'm especially sorry for what it looks like when I eat that broccoli soup. I will try to lick the bowl more discreetly next time.

The Vanderbilt
570 Vanderbilt Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11238

(718) 623-0570

Breakfast of Fall Champions

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:23:00 +0000

My Sidekick is desperate for me to love fall. And to be truthful about it, I do. I love fall. What I hate is winter. And in New York, as in pretty much any other place I've lived, fall lasts about two weeks. Then, what happened today happens. The temperature drops twenty degrees overnight, winter is here early, all of our hearts die a little bit and we put our winter coats on to trudge through the next six months of slush.

I am deeply sorry for being this hyperbolic. Why am I even telling you this? Because I want you to stay inside tomorrow and make breakfast.
Last weekend something rare happened: my Sidekick was extremely hungover and I was not. This is rare because we usually indulge at about the same velocity and spend the next day rock-paper-scissoring for who will go get egg sandwiches from the deli downstairs. For some reason, the late night slice of pizza and the bottle of water I chugged on the train home from the Holiday Cocktail Lounge saved me from my Sidekick's state that morning. So, I made some coffee and juiced some oranges. The only way I know how to fix a loved one who is sick or broken is to feed them a meal: this one was breakfast.

We had an odd assortment of things in the fridge. There are always eggs. There are usually mushrooms. I never go for long stretches with no cheddar in the house. Benevolently, prosciutto was in the meat drawer! There were also a few straggly bits of onion, green pepper and a sad looking stalk of weeks-neglected Brussels sprouts kicking around. Somehow, from this isle of misfit fridge toys, breakfast got made. And, in one of those-few-and-far-between accidental miracle moments, it was really good.

Baked Eggs with Prosciutto and Brussels-Sprout-Potato Hash
I like to use a big, two burner griddle for this because I can keep the hash on to get nice and brown while cooking the ingredients that hide under the eggs at the same time. It should be obvious, but just in case it isn't, you can basically hide any ingredients under baked eggs and they will come out tasting delicious.

2 eggs
4 slices proscuitto
half a green pepper, diced
handful of mushrooms (I had shiitakes, so that's what I used), diced
about 1/2 cup coarsely grated cheddar
1 onion, chopped
1 potato, peeled and diced
all the Brussels sprouts you can salvage from the weeks-neglected stalk in the fridge
milk or cream
butter for greasing cocottes, sauteeing veggies and cooking hash and griddling muffins
English muffins

Heat oven to 350°. Take your eggs out of the fridge to come to room temperature.

Put your diced potatoes in a pot and just cover with cold, salted water. Bring to a boil for a few minutes, just to get them a bit tender. Start sweating half your onion in a bit of butter and salt on the griddle pan. Halve your small Brussels, quarter or dice larger ones, and add them to the onions. Once the Brussels have started to brown, add the drained potatoes and form into a tight cake. Press down, turn the heat down to low and let it sit while you prep your eggs. I mean, obviously, if you smell burning, flip it. If not, JUST LEAVE IT so it gets a nice, brown crust on it.

In the meantime, sautee the other half of the chopped onion, green pepper and mushrooms in a bit of butter. Season with salt and pepper. When they're soft and browning, remove them from the heat. Butter two cocottes, ramekins, or other small, oven-proof vessel with butter. Sprinkle some cheddar on the bottom. Add a slice of prosciutto. Divide the green pepper, onion and mushroom mixture between the two cocottes. Add another layer of prosciutto. Crack one egg (or two if you're feeling particularly burly and starving) into each cocotte. Pour a spoonful of milk or cream over the egg, season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

You should probably check your hash now to make sure you are not burning the shit out of it. If it's dry, add some more butter. This is also a great time to start griddling your English muffins in butter.

Put your cocottes in a wide, deep skillet or baking dish and fill with hot water halfway up their sides. (This is called a water bath and being scared of it is stupid because otherwise your eggs will never cook evenly and your hungry loved ones will be disappointed in you.) Put this pan in the preheated oven and bake until the whites are set, but the yolks are still runny. Sometimes it takes fifteen minutes. Sometimes it takes twenty. Sometimes you think it will never happen and then two seconds later, your eggs are perfect like magic. What I'm saying is, just pay attention to them. That's all they want. Turn the pan once in the middle because your oven probably does not cook evenly because we do not live in a perfect world.

That's all. Assemble on a plate. I hope you are not a heathen and found some way to make coffee during all this. Hungry, hungover loved ones need coffee.

Happy Accidents with Vinegar

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Oh, it's me, pickle-crazy again. Remember when I pickled everything in my apartment? Remember when some pickled okra left a crazy amount of extra brine? I poured it over these to make my favorite cocktail garnish to date.

Let’s talk Gibsons for a moment. A Gibson is basically a classic gin martini, garnished with a pickled onion instead of an olive. The perk? No one ever asks if you want that Gibson made with vodka or with gin. They just KNOW. If you're asking for a cocktail garnished with a pickled onion, people generally assume you're not afraid of flavor. Vodka drinkers: I'M SORRY. I just don't get you people.

To date, a caperberry (although I realize not authentic to the recipe) has been my favorite garnish for this cocktail. Sort of falls somewhere between a cocktail onion and an olive. Here’s why this started happening: aside from a few notable exceptions (Odin’s Onions being one, but they are still a bit hard to find), the pickled cocktail onions on the market taste like a rain boot and salt. They’re awful. They don’t deserve to be in your cocktail. They don’t deserve to LOOK at your cocktail. The Gibson is so simple and perfect, it requires a hell of a garnish to stand up to it.

Here’s what I want you to do: add 2 1/4 oz. gin (I love Beefeater, but in something like this where the gin is the star, Hendrick’s would be lovely) and 3/4 oz. dry vermouth to a cocktail shaker filled with ice and STIR, babies, stir. Do not shake. Strain into a cocktail glass, and add a tomato and an onion from the following recipe. You are so welcome.

Pickled Pearl Onions and Cherry Tomatoes
Enough cherry tomatoes and peeled pearl onions to fill a pint jar
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs tarragon
8-10 pink peppercorns
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup water
1/2 tbsp pickling salt

Put bay leaf, tarragon and peppercorns into a pint jar. Gently pack in onions and tomatoes. In a saucepan, bring to boil the vinegar, water and salt, stirring to dissolve the salt. (Or, if you made the pickled okra and have the extra brine like I did, just reheat to a boil.) Pour the hot brine over the onions and tomatoes and store in the fridge for about two weeks.

On Pickles and Panic

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:30:00 +0000

I opened the fridge. All our homemade pickles had been consumed. I panicked. And then I pickled every single comestible in sight.

I love okra. I have long been absolutely obsessed with it pickled, fried and stewed. But, I’ll admit, I’ve never worked with it in my own kitchen. It seems tricky, too easy to make slimy and unappealing. When I saw a little box at the farmer’s market a few weeks ago, I decided it was time to give it a try. I think I pickled eight vegetables in one day. I fell into a groove, mixing brine after brine, jars cooling all over the apartment. It smelled like vinegar in here for days. So, basically, I was a happy camper.

Yes, I really put that much garlic in there.

The recipe I was working with was for four pints. I split that in two to pickle a quart. Somehow, there was so much extra brine leftover, that there was enough for a whole extra pint. With that, I made my favorite new cocktail garnish that I will tell you all about next, so don’t throw it out!

Okra Pickles
Adapted from Linda Ziedrich’s The Joy of Pickling

The most wonderful discovery while making these: okra is the PERFECT shape to pack into a mason jar for pickling. It doesn’t fight you, just slides perfectly in next to its friends for its vinegar bath.

2 large garlic cloves, sliced
1 or 2 small dried or fresh chile peppers
1 tsp dill seeds
1 quart (about 1 pound) fresh small okra pods, stems trimmed
2 cups cider vinegar
2 cups water
1 tbsp pickling salt

Put garlic, chiles and dill seeds into your quart jar. Pack the okra into the jars. In a saucepan, bring to a boil the vinegar, water and salt, stirring to dissolve the salt. Ladle the hot liquid over the okra, leaving 1/2 inch head-space, but making sure the okra is fully submerged. Store the jars in the fridge for at least three weeks.

Grumpiness, Meat and Gratitude

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 00:57:00 +0000

Sometimes you have bad days. Sometimes, you have bad days that follow other bad days, that have probably been piggy-backed by other bad days. Sometimes you are in a funk cloud that you can't get out of. If you are lucky, from this final, funky, cloudy, grumpy, bad day, you come home like a ravenous monster to your husband (or Sidekick) standing over this.

And then you feel pretty insanely lucky. Lucky to have him. Lucky to have the giant porterhouse he brought home searing in the cast iron skillet. Lucky to have two Manhattans waiting. Lucky to have a tried and true old MacBook in the background to write on, especially upon hearing the news about Steve Jobs. Lucky to been have brought up as a Mac nerd from the get-go. Just lucky, all around. So, from one lucky jerk to another, go do something awesome. And maybe eat a fucking steak. It will definitely make you feel better.

Jerry Orbach's Trifle

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:44:00 +0000

Just wanted to share the most amazing, nerdy food thing I've read about today. The Dead Celebrity Cookbook is for sale on Amazon as we speak, and I think I'd really like you guys to buy it. Also, please be on the lookout for my new punk-soul band, Jerry Orbach's Trifle. I am not kidding about this. This is really going to be the name of my (imaginary) band. I created our first album cover for our (imaginary) forthcoming, self-titled EP.

Have I mentioned that a seasonal change makes me a little weird? You're welcome.

Gloomy Outside, Gloomy Inside

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:24:00 +0000

Oh boy. Don't look outside. Seriously, don't. We're all just kind of dealing with the change of season pretty badly today. None of us want to write anything. Some of us might not even want to eat anything. We're grumpy. And I get why. Earth is messing with us. Here are a few things that might cheer you up:

Also, in case you ever want to send me a picture of your lunch, I'll probably put it up here: Lunch Time is the Right Time.

Hang in there, you guys. Eat some soup. Drink some whiskey. We'll get through it!

Punch Drunk

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:30:00 +0000

The Fred Swayze/Shivery McPickles union turned one year old last month. To celebrate, we were supposed to be in Spain for our honeymoon. Unfortunately, as you all definitely know, my Sidekick had to get - well - re-stacked this summer, so we've postponed. To soothe the burn of having to reschedule our ham and txakoli-oriented trip, we threw a bitchin' party centered around a giant bowl of punch.

If that looks like the sun rising over the horizon to you, it's no coincidence. This mother holds three gallons.

My Sidekick was in charge of the punch. A no-nonsense hell-broth of bourbon, citrus, maraschino, orgeat, bitters and sparkling wine that tasted like juice, went down like water and made everyone's cheeks especially rosy. I was in charge of the snacks.

What can you really make to stand up to a few gallons of booze? I resorted to a few old tricks. Both old in the sense that they are pretty tried and true party-pleasers for me, and old in the sense that they are just OLD. Old-school. Old-fashioned. You get where I'm going with this. I made an entire pie dish full of spinach artichoke dip with enough crudité to build a bed out of. There was a cast-iron skillet filled with cocktail meatballs (to dip into Marcela Hazan tomato sauce - I CAN'T STOP). I heaped a rectangular plate high with pickled delights. There were little cucumber canapes, a riff on a cucumber sandwich with enough horseradish to blow your face off. And then there were these.

Famous Paquette Pickle Pinwheels. Our friend Jamie Paquette, one of the first people we ever met in Brooklyn, brought these to our first Thanksgiving here with all of our new friends.

"What. Are. Those." I asked, pretty certain that I knew sort of what they were. "Old family recipe," Jamie replied. I don't know what else happened because I ate 10 or 12 of them without taking a breath. These are so simple that they almost seem strange. If you make them, be sure you have enough, because party guests hopped up on punch go absolutely bat-shit for them.

Famous Paquette Pickle Pinwheels
Oh, this isn't really a recipe as much as a guide to assembly. Major thanks to my friend Jamie Paquette for bringing these into my life.

sour dill pickles
cream cheese (totally softened)
thinly sliced ham

Drain pickles very well and pat them dry with paper towel. Lay a slice of ham on your cutting board and spread a thin, even layer of cream cheese over the whole thing, being as careful as you can to not tear the ham. Roll the pickle up tightly.

Wrap the roll tightly in plastic wrap (think sushi-roll-tight) and refrigerate for an hour or so to make slicing easier. Slice into 1/2 inch thick coins and try to keep up with demand. They'll go fast.

*I've mixed chopped chives, salt and pepper, lots of different things into the cream cheese before spreading. You can, if you'd like, but the Paquettes probably wouldn't approve. And the original version is so good, it almost doesn't make sense to mess with it.

Let's Have Some Frills

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 15:12:00 +0000

We have begun the Stuffed Eggs section of A Book of Hors d'Oeuvre and I couldn't be happier.

We all know that I love to make deviled eggs. A little bite of filling receptive to any spice you mix it with, held preciously in an edible boat? Uh, yeah. What's not to like? I am, however, relatively set in my ways when it comes to deviling eggs. I have a certain set of ingredients that rotate around each other that are usually on-hand because this keeps my life simple and simplicity is important to me.

I’m a no-frills kind of woman. I’d rather be in jeans and a t-shirt than Chanel, flip flops than heels, a pub than a five-star restaurant. My favorite meals, both to eat and to prepare, are honest and straightforward. That being said, there is a time to pick up a pastry bag and fancify the shit out of some deviled eggs.

That time feels nigh, especially considering the cavalcade of natural disasters that have rolled through the east coast during the last month. And now, post-near-apocalypse, the dust has settled and it feels an awful lot like fall. If you, like I, need a little brightness in your life on these rainy, dreary days, try these little bursts of sunshine with a few friends and a few beers. You can have the end of summer when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Cress Eggs
3 hard-boiled eggs
5 tablespoons finely chopped cress*
3/4 teaspoon curry
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
Tabasco and salt
Pimiento

Cut the eggs in halves lengthwise, remove the yolks and force through a sieve. Mix well with the cress and seasonings and fill the whites. Arrange over the top of each a trellislike garnish of finely cut strips of pimiento. Place a tip of cress at one end.

* I used mizuna, because that is what my market had. I think arugula or any other spicy, lemony green would work in place of watercress if you have trouble finding it.

A Renewed Enthusiasm

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:30:00 +0000

With all the injuries, moving apartments, crazy heat waves and other life-craziness, A Book of Hors d'Oeuvres and I took a little hiatus from each other. However, the weather has already begun to cool down - although my heart will not let me totally admit that it is already happening - and my stomach has begun to agree to let me put more than gazpacho and Mexican beer in it. Which brings us back, as ever, to where we started: more cream cheese.

The recipe for Cheesehill Wafers does something that most of my favorite recipes in this book do. It gives you an idiotic amount of creative license. The first instruction is "season cream cheese". At first, that means salt and pepper. But then, it could also mean lemon zest. And, if you are me, which is a condition that generally lends itself to ingredient enthusiasm, it also means pimentón, cayenne and chives.

This creates a happy accident. It tinges your cream cheese just slightly pinky-orange, in a way that makes this ingredient-happy Labrador quite nostalgic for EZ-Cheese. Yeah, you guys. Fancy EZ-Cheese. That is what we're talking about here. This also forms a mildly Spanish, lemony, velvet pillow for half an olive to ride on its way into your mouth.

Welcome back, cream cheese. You look pretty fly after summer vacation.

Cheesehill Wafers
Season cream cheese, moisten slightly with cream* and force through pastry bag and star tube on round, thin wafers. Press half of a small pimiento-stuffed olive into the center of each mound of cheese. One may vary this wafer by using a small round of watermelon pickle instead of the olive.

*I used buttermilk instead of cream, because that is a thing I often do.

Hog Wild

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:30:00 +0000

Let's talk briefly about Kirby psychosis. This is something that takes over my brain each summer around the time these little pickling cucumbers hit the market. Let it suffice to say; shit gets real.

A good friend of mine recently tweeted, “I don’t use the term “hog wild” lightly. Let’s just say there were Kirbys at the farmers market and leave it at that.”

This particular friend is a bit of a master pickler. Someone I am always striving to catch up to. Once, he made pickles that were so delicious, yet so spicy, that we all sat around crying as we ate them by the handful and essentially pepper-sprayed ourselves at the same time. A few weeks ago, the pickling cucumbers at the farmers market were so crisp, so petite and so lovely, that I have to admit to going a bit hog wild myself. I raced home and pickled them that very hour.

I had every intention of making garlicky dill pickles, probably with a few big chunks of jalapeño for spice (though not nearly as much as the Death Pickles mentioned above). Unfortunately, as my brine came to a boil on the stove I realized I didn’t have any dill. And so, like some kind of hell-possessed contrarian, I turned to the ridiculous amount of basil I’d brought home from the market. It was a long-shot. I’d never heard of putting basil in pickles before and worried it might go limp and brown in the bottom of the jar as the cucumbers soaked up their vinegar bath. As it turns out, the basil lends a lovely, floral, mildly licoricey flavor to these little guys, proving once again that enough vinegar and salt will fix any mistake.

Basil Pickles
1.5 pounds pickling cucumbers
8 peppercorns
1 large garlic clove, peeled, smashed and cut into a few chunks
1 jalapeño, cut into thick slices
2 stalks basil
1 cup distilled white vinegar*
1 cup water
3 tsp pickling salt

Gently scrub the cucumbers, halve or quarter them lengthwise. Add the peppercorns, chile and garlic to the bottom of a 1 quart mason jar. Pack basil and cucumbers into the jar tightly (pouring the brine in will loosen things up). In a non-reactive saucepan, bring the vinegar, water and salt to a boil, stirring to dissolve the salt. Pour the liquid over the cucumbers, leaving 1/2 inch headspace, but making sure all the cucumbers fit under the brine. Store the pickles in the fridge for at least 3 weeks before eating.

*Guys, I’m terrible at math. It’s a wonder I can balance a checkbook (just kidding, I can’t). I used just shy of 1 cup of vinegar for this recipe. The recipe I was using as a guide calls for 2 3/4 cups of vinegar for 3 quarts of pickles. I tried to divide that by three, panicked and eyeballed it. It worked out just fine. If you like pickles to be REALLY vinegary, use the whole cup.

The Rhythm of Lunch

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 20:23:00 +0000

I often find myself having the conversation about how hard it is to make adult friends. No one is ever totally sure why it feels creepy to ask someone out on a friend-date for the first time, but everyone is sure that it does. I have a few theories, the most sentient one so far being that as a kid and a teenager, you are unburdened by self-consciousness and only have to know that you like the same things as that person likes. There's no question of how your overture will be received or if the resulting friend-date will be awkward as hell. When you are kids, if someone doesn't want to be friends with you, they will probably either not talk to you in the first place or just throw rocks at you when you walk down the street. Our carefully cultivated ability to smile-and-nod, something we work on to set others at ease even when we are not, ultimately serves only to foster doubt about whether or not a potential new friend is genuinely interested in getting to know us.

via Flickr

Sometimes I'm afraid I'm the only one who thinks things like this. I suspect, however, that I am not alone. Luckily, we've found the salve: meals. And when the adult friends in question also happen to be co-workers, the salve, more specifically, is lunch.

Lunch buddies, in a world of uncertainty and smiling-and-nodding, are a priceless commodity. I can't speak for all of us, but for me, if I choose to eat with you, it means I really like you. It means that I want to welcome you into the part of my day I like the most. It means that I think we have things to talk about besides who left all their shit on the printer for three days or who eats chips really fucking loudly at their desk all the time (even if we end up talking about those things a lot). Sometimes you find a few lunch buddies that become indispensable to you when considering lunch plans.

Usually when this happens, something else really special happens, you fall into a particular rhythm of lunch. Sometimes, you'll all decide independently that you want to go to the same place. Sometimes, you'll all bring your lunch to the office on the same day and have a picnic in someone's office. Then one day, you're sitting at lunch with your lunch buddies and you start to notice that you already know who will order first, who will pour the tea for everyone at the table, who will get the same thing they always get, who will invariably spill something on their shirt and who will always insist they owe more on the tab than they actually do.

Why am I telling you all this? It has come to light that one of our lunch buddies is moving on to a new office. A sparkling, shiny, wonderful new opportunity full of new people to smile-and-nod at and, without question, more lunch buddies to be made. Maybe one of them will even be a vegetarian and a bean-lover, like you. Of course, there will still be lunches with the same combination of buddies in the future, but they will be undoubtedly fewer and farther between. The great thing about lunch is that it starts to seep into the rest of your life.

So, dear, departing lunch buddy - I wish you all the luck in the world, although I suspect you will not need it all. And I look forward to the fact that you will now be a dinner party buddy, a Settlers of Catan buddy (nerd alert) and, in the most genuine of terms, just a buddy.

Also, we're going to go to Churrascaria Plataforma and eat SO MUCH MEAT while you're gone.

And Then Sometimes Corn Makes You Laugh

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:14:00 +0000

via Eatocracy

I can't say with any kind of certainty that any first line of an article about growing your own corn has ever, or will ever again, make me laugh this hard.

"This morning, I stood on my roof deck and made my African Guinea Flint corn have sex with itself."

I am clearly the target audience for this kind of joke, and for the thoughtful, nicely written article that follows. Corn really gets a bad rap in my brain, based on its sheer saturation of our daily diet. To hear someone talk lovingly about raising heritage kernels from the ground up is a nice change of pace. And to see a corn-banging joke on Eatocracy sort of makes my heart swell up with pride. Way to go, ladies. Click over here to read it!

On Treading Water and Bulgarian Feta

noreply@blogger.com (Shivery McPickles) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:30:00 +0000

A few quick notes.

1) Moving is crazy.

2) Do not get sick or hurt, ever.

So, we're treading water a bit. Having just recovered from an apartment move and with my Sidekick on the mend from a herniated disc, the food we've been putting in our faces has relied largely on the two following principles: how quickly can I do this, and with how little heat?

Which is where Bulgarian feta comes into the picture.

Bulgarian feta (like Bulgarians, frankly) is mysterious in composition. It is gently salty like the best Greek feta, but, like the best French feta, doesn't really crumble as much as it... envelops? There is a restaurant near my office called Kashkaval, well known for their fondue, but most frequented by me for a spinach tapa, drizzled with lemon juice and olive oil, heavily seasoned with dill, with the softest, creamiest feta folded throughout. I've been trying to recreate this recipe for over a year. Bulgarian feta brought me the closest I've been. There will be more tries, I can promise you that.

Spinach with Dill, Lemon and Bulgarian Feta
1 bunch spinach, rough chopped as for a salad
1 bunch fresh dill
1 bunch scallions, chopped into 1/2 inch lengths
1 bunch breakfast radishes
1/4lb Bulgarian feta, crumbled (although it won't really crumble, it will sort of... smoosh)
juice of one lemon
olive oil
salt
pepper

Combine all ingredients and let marinate in the fridge for as long as you can stand before digging in.

(I've now convinced myself that the genius behind Kashkaval's variation of this is that they saute the spinach briefly before chilling. I'll report back once I've actually tried it.)