Chicago

Xoco- Rick Bayless

Nightwood- farmy

Gilt Bar


Big Star

Edzo's Burger Shop

Takashi

Urban Belly

Gene's Sausage Shop at Delicatessen Meyer

Floriole Cafe & Bakery


Franks 'n' Dawgs

New Wish List Items!

I have the sugar bowl. It only makes sense to have this too, right? In turquoise, though.

Get it here.

I hate popcorn. Why do I want this?

Cookbooks I Want

Fried Chicken Restaurants

Huckleberry, Santa Monica

Big Jones, Chicago

Trina's Starlite Lounge, Somerville, MA

Pies N' Thighs, Brooklyn

Bar Symon, Avon Lake, OH

Pine State Biscuits, Portland

Resurrection Ale House, Philadelphia- Beer too!

Fearing's, Dallas

Kartell Serving Trays

http://www.allmodern.com/Kartell-12XX-XX-Dune-Tray-KTL1366.html

Desmond Month 11

Desmond Month 11

Miscellaneous Things Worth Making from Last Week: a Smoothie, a Torte, and a Happy Kitchen

This is one of my favorite views of the new kitchen. Sunlight pours into the back windows in the afternoons. The flowers are yellow now, the cake stand filled with the remains of an Easter Root Beer Bundt Cake. The mood perseveres. I love to sit in a clean kitchen with a cup of tea while the baby takes his afternoon nap.

Last week, two recipes worth noting fell through the cracks. One is a simple, but nice breakfast smoothie. (I would make smoothies for breakfast far more often if it didn't bother so much to leave the blender out.) The other is an apple torte that is flourless and kosher (if you don't use regular port like I did)- my first attempt at either and quite good.

           
                      Banana Breakfast Smoothie


Recipe By: Vegetarian Times March 2009

-= Ingredients =-
2 Frozen bananas ; broken into 1 inch chunks
1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup Frozen blueberries
1/4 cup Granola
1 tablespoon Honey

-= Instructions =-
Place all ingredients in blender and process until completely smooth. Thin to desired consistency with 1/2 to 1 cup water.

                     Flourless Apple-Pecan Torte

Recipe By: Martha Stewart Living March 2010

-= Ingredients =-
2 Sweet red apples (6 ounces each) ; peeled, cored, and sliced 1/8 inch thick
1 tablespoon Fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon Unsalted butter
3/4 cup Granulated sugar
1 teaspoon Ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons Sweet kosher wine
Vegetable oil cooking spray ; for pan
6 large Eggs ; room temperature, separated
1 1/4 Toasted pecans ; finely ground
1/4 cup Matzo cake meal
1/2 teaspoon Salt
Confectioners Sugar ; for garnish

-= Instructions =-
1. Toss apples with lemon juice. Melt butter in a skillet over medium high heat. Add apples, 1/4 cup granulated suger, and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon; toss. Cook until softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add wine. Cook until almost absorbed and apples are syrupy, about 3 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 350. Coat a 9 inch springform pan with cooking spray. Whisk together  yolks and 1/4  cup sugar with a mixer on medium high speed until pale and thick, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl; fold in apples, pecans, matzo cake meal, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.
3. Whisk egg whites, salt, and remaining 1/4 cup granulated suger in a clean bowl of a mixer until stiff, glossy peaks form. Working in 3 batches, gently fold whites into batter. Pour into pan. Bake until top is brown and a toothpick comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Let cool.
4. Run a knife or a spatula around edge  of torte. Remove from pan. Garnish with confectioner's sugar.

Hearty Minestrone Soup

Apparently, spring in north Florida as well as south means hot, not warm. The windows are closed; the air is on. It's just as well because that final week with the windows open left a yellow dusting of pollen on the new (and long needed) kitchen table and my desk. But the days are sunny, the light is long, birds are everywhere, and there are trees here- real, glorious trees!

It's a wonderful thing to sit down at our new table, the three of us, and eat a lovely soup in the evening while the light is still strong. This is a soup full of vegetables and life, of spring and heat, with a bacony underbite that stops it just short of too healthy.

Desmond has declared, in not so many words, that beans are his absolute favorite food. He couldn't get these down fast enough. I worried that the crushed red pepper would burn his little mouth, but he kept opening it up for more without complaint, proving yet again that he truly is my child.

While not difficult, this soup takes a long-ass time to make. Is it worth it? Yes, but if chopping is not your thing, look elsewhere. The beans take time too- overnight soaking and their own cook time separate from the soup. Once past the hurdles of beans and chopping, everything comes together fairly quickly and simmers quietly, creating delicious smells, waiting to be eaten.

                
                        Hearty Minestrone Soup

Recipe By: Food & Wine March 2009

-= Ingredients =-
1 1/4 cups Dried white beans ; soaked overnight and drained
3 tablespoon Extra virgin olive oil
2 ounces pancetta ; finely diced
2 medium Shallots ; finely diced
2 large Celery ribs ; finely diced
1 medium Carrot ; finely diced
1/2 Fennel bulb ; cored and diced
4 cloves Garlic ; minced
1/2 teaspoon Crushed red pepper
2 Bay leaves
2 tablespoon Tomato paste
1 14 ounce can plum tomatoes ; chopped
1 quart Chicken broth
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 cup Baby arugula
1/2 cup Flat leaf parsley leaves
1 tablespoon Fresh lemon juice

-= Instructions =-
1. In a pot, cover the beans with 2 inches water and bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat until tender, about 2 hours; add water to keep the beans covered. Drain the beans and reserve the cooking liquid.
2. Meanwhile, in another pot, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil. Add the pancetta and cook over moderate heat until crisp, 4 minutes. Add the shallots, celery, onion, carrot and fennel, and cook until softened. Add the garlic, bay leaves and crushed pepper and cook until fragrant. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, 2 minutes. Stir in the tomato and broth; bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat for 1 hour. Add the beans and enough cooking liquid to thin out the soup. Discard the bay leaves; season with salt and pepper.
3. In a bowl, toss the arugula and parsley with lemon juice and remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Season with salt and pepper. Serve the soup in bowls; toss with the salad.

Balsamic-and-Rosemary Marinated Florentine Steak

"Cari Weilhammer is a total dullard," is something you could say that would not be untrue. Cooking rule #1 (if you cook by the rules): READ THE RECIPE. Blast. What we ate more closely resembled pot roast than steak. Baffling. Until I read the recipe and noticed that it calls for a 4" thick porterhouse. O-oh! I see now.

In a way, I'm glad I don't have access to that kind of meat because I would most certainly buy it and it is undoubtedly insanely expensive. But, also, why don't I have a good butcher?!?!

If I remember my reading Food & Wine correctly (we've established that my reading retention is questionable, so it's entirely possible that I do not), this recipe is part of a special profile of chefs cooking in a Florentine vacation home? Some of the other recipes in the article were just a little too... something to really appeal to me. This one stood out and I can see why, because despite the 1", overcooked, porterhouses that I was working with, this recipe was good.  I think it's a forgiving cut of meat and the balsamic and rosemary marinade makes it even more tender and flavorful. I did manage to marinate properly and overnight, despite my cursory reading.

If you can get your hands on a 4" steak, please make this now, with no adjustments necessary. It will be fantastic. If, like me, you cannot, I would adjust the roasting time- perhaps even eliminate it. Test the meat with a quick-read thermometer after it comes off of the grill pan. I would guess that no more than 5 minutes in the oven would have produced a nice medium-rare for my steaks.

With the steak I roasted some onions. I had half a baguette in the freezer so I sliced it and threw the slices on the grill pan with the steak juices and oil. Also, as almost always, salad. I just like that salad picture, so I'm including it.

 Balsamic-and-Rosemary-Marinated Florentine Steak

Recipe By: Food &Wine March 2009

-= Ingredients =-
1 cup Balsamic Vinegar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons Extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup Finely chopped rosemary
3 pound porterhouse steak ; 4 inches thick
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
2 teaspoons Coarsely ground black pepper

-= Instructions =-
1. In a sturdy resealable plastic bag, combine the vinegar with 1/2 cup of the olive oil and the rosemary. Add the steak, seal the bag and refrigerate overnight, turning the bag several times.
2. Preheat the oven to 425 and bring the steak to room temperature. Heat a grill pan. Remove the steak from the marinade and season with the salt and pepper. Rub the sides with the remaining two tablespoons olive oil. Grill over moderately high heat until nicely charred on the top and bottom, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer the steak to a rimmed baking sheet and roast for about 30 minutes, until  an instant read thermometer inserted into the tenderloin registers 125.

Spicy Asian Stir-Fry with Whole Wheat Linguine

I did everything right. All went according to plan. Things browned nicely. Nothing burned. Still...

Eh.

I've had hits and misses with Vegetarian Times and this falls pretty solidly in the miss category. Everything sounds good. Pasta. Veggies. Chile-Garlic Sauce. But really, with vegetarian dishes like this, the sauce has to have a lot of flavor. Hoisin and chile-garlic should provide that, but when you add the rest of the liquid the effect is watered-down.

Also? Where is the salt? What kind of recipe does not call for salt?

I added salt, which helped. I was still not even a little bit whelmed.

That said, it's not terrible and it is fast and easy and healthy, so, you know if that's what you're looking for...

check out Vegetarian Times March 2009

I thought I had the recipe. Alas, I deemed it not good enough to keep and threw it away. (Instead, I have posted a fantastic recipe from VT in September that you should definitely make instead.) Some highlights:

How cute is baby bok choy?

Mango-Avocado Rolls

Recipe By: Vegetarian Times September 2009
Serving Size: 4

-= Ingredients =-
2/3 cup Diced avocado
2 tablespoon Lime Juice
2 teaspoon Grated lime zest
2/3 cup Finely chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup Cream cheese ; softened
1/3 cup Thinly sliced green onions
1/3 cup Chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon Chile sauce ; such as sriracha
8 8 1/2 inch Vietnamese rice paper wrappers
2 cups Alfalfa sprouts
1 1/2 cups Thinly sliced fresh mango

-= Instructions =-
1. Comine avocado, lime juice, and lime zest in small bowl. Stir in bell pepper, cream cheese, green onions, cilantro, and chile sauce; set aside.
2. Fill large bowl ( 9 in. in diameter) with warm water. Submerge 1 rice paper wrapper 10 seconds in water, or just until it becomes soft. Remove wrapper to flat work surface, and let rest 30 seconds; it will become more pliable.
3.Spoon scant 1/4 cup avocado mixture just below middle of rice paper wrapper, leaving 1-inch border on either side. Top with 1/4 cup alfalfa sprouts and 2 to 3 mango slices. Fold bottom of rice paper wrapper up over filling, pressing filling as you go. Fold both sides of rice paper inward. Gently press to seal. Roll up wrapper to top edge. Brush water on top edge if necessary to seal. Reppeat with remaining wrappers, avocado, sprouts, and mango.

Desmond is moving!

Going forward, Desmond's letters and all non-food-related topics will be on http://cariweilhammer.blogspot.com/
Check it out!


Someday I might even figure out to transfer the old posts over there.

Desmond 9 & 10

Goodbye fox. Goodbye stream. We are in our own (rented) house that is not nearly as good as our now lost potential house and I could. not. be. more. grateful. I feel like I've been holding my breath for eight weeks.

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Susan and Mike for saving us at the last second there.

This new house is ugly. All the fixtures are gold or brass or brass-y and from 1990. ( The house was built in '95, but I'm guessing this stuff was out of date even then.) The tile is peach. Peach! The walls are pink. Pink! The realtor tried to get away with beige, but we all knew he was grasping at straws.

It's not actually nearly as ugly as all of those sentences strung together make it sound. The point is, though, that I do not give a goodgoddamn. I want to take this bloody ugly house with its kitchen and its space and its multiple rooms and welcome it into my marriage as a sister wife or brother husband or gender-ambiguous third spouse who makes people feel awkward when having to choose pronouns. We'll call it Sam.

I cannot even express to you the pure joy of sleeping in a bed that does not contain you, of opening windows and letting light into rooms, of not tripping over piles of things that have no other place to be.

Finally, a return to normalcy.

I missed a month. A month! I feel as if I actually missed a real live month. Of your life and mine. These past weeks have been among the hardest I can remember. I think I went a little wacko there for a little while. At least I now know that I am easily felled by seasonal affective disorder (among other things). No moving to Alaska for us.

I'm not going to say anything more about that, except that I wish people weren't so frequently exactly what I expect them to be. Somehow, though expected, it's always disappointing. You and your father are the one bright spot of the past two months. I could never get by without you.

You.

You are such a happy little monkey. And I mean monkey. You climb. Holy crap, you can get halfway up a baby gate. You do not like being caged. You have a face that you make when you're angry or when you think it might make people laugh (see above). You scrunch up your nose and eyes and purse your lips and breathe like a bull getting ready to charge. Classic.

You're eating pretty much anything, which is good because it slightly assuages my guilt about not making your food anymore when we moved. It's too hard to manage in a foreign kitchen. I have to be careful now not to fall into the kid food trap of chicken fingers and grilled cheese- you would eat nothing but Gerber veggie puffs if I let you. Those things are not a far cry at all from cheese doodles- even if the package DOES say vitamin-fortified.

At the Dermatologist's office on Monday- let me just take a second to declare that my warts (gross!) are officially vanquished!- Dr. Pascoe asked as he left the room, "Does yours really seem more like a toddler now?" He'd been moping all day, the nurse explained, because it was his son's first birthday and the man wanted his baby back. Time to have another one, I said, and then realized with horror that we are only two months away from that point.

No, you do not seem more like a toddler than a baby now, but what will the next two months bring? Will you be talking? Walking? Will my uterus start letting me know once again that's it's always ready to incubate? I hope not. It needs to wait about two more years for everyone else to be ready too. I fear that you've given it a taste of how good the results can be and now it won't ever stop. I'll end up like my mother- 50, incontinent from all the birthing, and wishing I weren't too old for more of it.

Speaking of grandma, today you are wearing an outfit that she gave you six months ago saying, "It'll be a long long time before this fits him." And here we are. Fuck. Hold on to babyhood just a little bit longer little one. Two months will go by very very fast.

Love,
Mom

Not Blogging

Moving. Going crazy. Catching up.

Desmond 8 Months

Oh Rufus, look what you're doing to us. I don't even know how to begin to explain the feelings that have been plaguing my body for the last few weeks. And I mean that pretty literally. I am physically exhausted from managing of the stress and excitement and frustration and love. Rufus, dear infuriating Rufus, has not been the cause of nearly all of those feelings. The totality of the blame can certainly not be placed on his shoulders. Besides, look at that sweet face!

The question that comes up in response to every proposed solution, however, is, "But what do we do with Rufus?" Do we give him up? Yes, he's too wild around the baby and will hurt him someday. No, we love him and he's part of our family. Do we board him long term? Hmmm, $$$$. Do we know someone who can keep him for a while? No! That dog is crazy! We can't ask someone to take on that kind of insanity, at least not if we want to still be on speaking terms when it's over. But Grandpa Weilhammer wants him. Well, at this point we aren't going to say no to anyone who's offering, but I hope they will let us know the second they can't take it anymore.

Rufus must go because we are moving in with Uncle Nick and Aunt Twyla on January 30th 2010. Will you ever sleep again? Will I? I am ridiculously grateful that we have family so willing to help us without a second thought. It's going to be rough, though- probably on everyone. I'm pretty sure you will cry at night for quite some time, since your crib will now be in our room. You have to sleep at some point, but you are a stubborn little bastard and I have personally seen you perform some amazing feats of wakefulness. And that was in your early days.

We have a house. A beautiful house with ugly carpet and a stream that runs through the backyard with foxes frolicking about. We cannot actually have our house until we sell the Palm Bay house. This stupid house that we once loved is now the source of all of our misery and most of my recent tears of late, which have been many. It will sell someday, probably for much less than we paid for it.

Your father keeps telling me that we have it good. No one is dying. Everyone is healthy and loved (especially you). Money problems are good problems to have. I know he's right. I know that the terrible, horrible, heart-wrenching events in Haiti should give me some perspective on our current situation. I guess I'm self-centered or egotistical or some other synonym of those words, but I tend to let my own problems affect me and I don't think that's unreasonable. I hate it when people tell me to think of all the people who are worse off. You lost your leg in a car accident? Think of the people who lost both legs, wouldn't that be awful? People's problems are their problems and they have a right to worry about them.

He IS right, though. We are lucky. We have you. And each other. And people who love us. Ultimately, that is all we need in the world. I just wish I didn't like money so damn much.

You are going to be sorely missed here in Southeast Florida. I have massive feelings of guilt about taking you away. You aren't really doing anything new at the moment. Maybe you're too preoccupied with exploration to focus on skill acquisition. Or maybe you're holding it all in until we get to Tallahassee to play some cruel joke on Grandma and Grandpa when they miss out.

I don't know, but you're a funny little thing. You make ridiculous noises and you laugh when you see me or your father enter a room. Slapping things is one of your favorite hobbies- table tops, chairs, faces, chests, dogs. Anything but drums, really. You waved yesterday!!!!!! How did I forget that? You waved bye-bye to KK and PaPa. New. New. New. New as of last night. I am a terrible mother.

You are appallingly good in restaurants. We take you with us everywhere. As long as you have Cheerios and can chew on the edge of the table, you're a little angel. We have probably left behind us a wake of bitter busboys who had to try to get Cheerio dust out of carpet.

I left you for (good god!) 8 hours last weekend to go to a wedding. Grandma says you were perfectly content. You took a bottle for the first time! You don't need me at all! This is a completely depressing new development. I missed you so much!

Grandma is on her way over so I'm gonna end this. I know everything will be ok. Although, by the time all this is over you might just have to call your aunt and uncle Saint Twyla and Saint Nick. Or perhaps Duke and Duchess....

Hot Chocolate Layer Cake with Homemade Marshmallows

I wish I could have gotten better pictures, but guests were arriving and I had to click fast. This cake is ridiculous. I think it's rich and I hate it when people say things like that. I couldn't finish my piece!

I know it's January 7th. It took me until now to work up the motivation to type a recipe of this caliber. I promise it doesn't disappoint. Plus- homemade marshmallows?- what! what!

Here it is:
Hot Chocolate Layer Cake with Homemade Marshmallows

Ingredients For the cake: 3/4 cup Unsalted butter more for the pans 3 cups Unbleached alll-purpose flour more for the pans 3/4 cup Canola oil 4 1/2 ounces Bittersweet chocolate finely chopped 3 cups Granulated sugar 2 1/4 ounces Natural unsweetened cocoa powder 3 large Eggs at room temperature 2 tablespoon pure vanilla extract 2 1/2 teaspoon Baking soda 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt For the Frosting: 2 1/2 cups Heavy cream 3 ounces Unsalted butter 1 Vanilla bean split lengthwise and seeds scraped out 6 ounce Bittersweet chocolate finely chopped 2 cups Granulated sugar 6 ounces Natural unsweetened cocoa powder more for dusting 1/2 cup Lyle's Golden Syrup 1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt For the Marshmallows: 3 1/4 ounce envelopes Unflavored powdered gelatin 2 cups Granulated sugar 1 cup Light corn syrup 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 1 cup plus 2 Tbs Confectioners Sugar more as needed

Instructions
Make the Cake
Position racks in the bottom and top thirds of the oven and heat the oven to 350.

Butter three 9x2-inch round cake pans and line each with a parchment round. Butter the parchment, then dust with flour and knock out teh excess.

In a 3-quart saucepan, combine the butter, oil, chopped chocolate, and 1 cup water. Heat over medium heat until melted.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, and cocoa powder. Pour the hot chocolate mixture into the sugar mixture and whisk until combined.

Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, then whisk in teh buttermilk, vanilla, baking soda, and salt. Divide teh batter evenly among teh prepared pans.

Set two pans on the top rack and the third on the lower rack. stagger the pans on the oven racks so the no pan is directly over another. Bake, swapping and rotating teh pans' positions after 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of each cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool on racks for 10 minutes. Invert the cakes onto the racks, remove teh parchment, and cool completely.

Make the Frosting
In a 4-quart saucepan over low heat, combine the cream, butter, and vanilla bean and seeds and stir until the butter is melted. Remove the vanilla bean and whisk in teh chopped chocolate until melted. Whisk in the sugar, cocoa powder, syrup, and salt until smooth- be sure the cocoa powder dissolves completely. Pour into a 9x13 inch pan and freeze until firm, about 2 hours, or refrigerate overnight.

Make the Marshmallows
Pour 3/4 cup cold water into the bowl of a stand mixer. Sprinkle the gelatin over teh water. Attach the bowl to the mixer and fiit it with the whisk attachment.

Clip a candt thermometer to a 3-quart saucepan; don't let the tip of the thermometer touch teh bottom of the pan. In teh saucepan, boil teh sugar, corn syrup, salt, and 3/4 cup water over medium heat without stirring until it reaches 234 degrees to 235 degrees, about 10 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, pour the hot sugar mixture into the gelatin in a slow, thin stream.

Add the vanilla, carefully increase the speed to high, and beat until the mixture has thickened and cooled, about 5 minutes (the bottom of the bowl should just be warm to teh touch). Line a 9x13-inch pan with foil, leaving an overhang on 2 sides. Sift 1 Tbs. of the confectioners' sugar into the bottom of the pan, then pour the marshmallow mixture into the pan and sift another 1 Tbs. confectioners' sugar on top. Let sit at room temperature until set, at least two hours.

Assemble the Cake
Remove the frosting from the freezer or refrigerator. Transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes to soften. Change to a whisk attachment and beat at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Put a cake layer on a flat serving platter or a cake stand lined with strips of of waxed paper to keep it clean while icing. Top the layer with 1 1/2 cups of teh frosting, spreading it evenly with an offset spatula to the cake's edge. Repeat with another cake layer and 1 1/2 cups frosting. Top with the last cake layer.

Put 1 1/2 cups of teh frosting in a small bowl. With an offset spatula, spread this frosting in a thin layer over the top and sides of teh cake. Refrigerate the cake until teh frosting firms enough to seal in teh crumbs, 20 to 30 minutes.

Spread the remaining frosting in a smooth layer over the top and sides of the cake. If necessary, you can rewhip the remaining frosting to loosen and lighten it. Remove the waxed paper strips.

Use the foil overhang to lift the marshmallow from the pan. Using a knife that has been dipped in cold water, cut along the edge of teh marshmallow to release it from the foil. Transfer to a cutting board and remove the foil. Put teh remaining 1 cup confectioners' sugar in a bowl. Cut the marshmallow into cubes of different sizes, from 1/4 to 3/4 inch (you will need to continue to dip teh knife in cold water). The marshmallows will be very sticky- dip teh cut edges in confectioners' sugar to make them easier to handle. As you work, toss a few cubes at a time in the sugar to coat, then shake in a strainer to remove teh excess. Mound teh marshmallows on top of teh cake (you'll need only a third to half of them). Sift some cocoa powder over teh marshmallows.

Make Ahead
You can bake, cool, wrap, and store the cake layers at room temperature for up to 1 day or freeze for up to one month. You can refrigerate the frosting for up to 3 days. The assembled cake can be refrigerated for up to 4 hours (refrigerate before serving). Wrapped well, leftover marshmallows keep at room temperature for up to 1 month.

Yields: 16 Servings


Fine Cooking Dec/Jan 2010