Food (Literal and for My Soul) Links

March is a very hard month for me, typically speaking. Bad enough that I am genuinely superstitious about it. I just expect, at this point, things to suck in March. Not everything, for sure. One of my delightful nieces was born in March. My father was born in March. Angelique was born in March. I made some cool-ass friends two days ago (which was already March!).

But, generally, I dream of skipping to the end of March. Maybe to just a couple of days before all those birthdays I mentioned (because, seriously, they’re all at the end of March; I think their mothers were trying to spare them March birthdays, but just couldn’t quite do it). It never happens, but I dream of it. I hate March enough that I really could have sworn I had a “fucking March” tag on this blog, but I do not.… Continue reading →

Updates!

So, here it is the middle of December and I didn’t even tell you all what happened in November. My apologies. Basically, after going so freaking hard in November I crashed, hard, in December.

I’m only just resurfacing, frankly. The shortened days always do a number on me, and it’s been a bit of an odd year overall. But I’m starting to come back up and I realized I should give you all the updates I can think of.

First, I did complete/”win” NaNoWriMo. The goal being 50,000 words in 30 days and I got a bit over 53,000 words. Unfortunately or fortunately, I’m not sure which, this wasn’t in any way the end of the story. So, I kept writing into December a few days, until the aforementioned crash.… Continue reading →

Meadow Haven Farm Visit – Chickens

I missed writing this up Saturday & Sunday. I didn’t realize how busy the days would be. But I’m thrilled to be writing now. Well, for some value of “writing”, as today’s post is going to mostly be photographs. I think.

I think most folks know this, but it bears repeating that the seeds for this hog purchase were initially planted in February 2011, when I asked Jeremy of “Meadow Haven”:http://www.meadowhavenfarm.com/index.html what it would take to get a pound or two of bacon that wasn’t previously frozen. I knew it was illegal for him to sell it to me at the market, but I also knew that Bill & I eat as much bacon as we make, and we tended to make as much as we thawed.… Continue reading →

Vincent

Yesterday, Bill & I had brunch at a small Andersonville restaurant called “Vincent.”:http://vincentchicago.com/ Until Tuesday, we’d never known it existed. Tuesday, though, the folks behind the “Restaurant Intelligence Agency (RIA)”:http://hq.restaurantintelligenceagency.com/ ran a contest on Twitter for “a basket of dutch goodies” from Chrissy Camba, the Chef de Cuisine at Vincent.

Here’s how I think it works: every Tuesday, they feature a chef who is registered with them (or, at least, I think that’s a requirement), interview them over the course of the day, and then run a contest involving that chef. That’s certainly how it worked this time. In my case, they asked us to guess which celebrity would Chrissy Camba most like to cook for, with the hint of this celebrity is the nephew of a legendary film director.… Continue reading →

[73] Coq Au Vin

Cover of Cooking for Two

I can’t remember why I decided to make this recipe. The sane and reasonable reason would have been, “Because I didn’t want any leftovers before Thanksgiving” and that may have played a small role. However, probably not as large a role as you might expect. I think the biggest reason was wanting something that wasn’t out of How to Cook Everything. Basically, I wanted to cook out of a cookbook we haven’t used in awhile.

On top of that, a very sane Thanksgiving reason also encroached. Not only did I not want leftovers before the big food day, I knew I wanted more freezer space as I cooked beforehand and for leftovers afterward. So I did a lot of digging through my freezer to see what I could use.… Continue reading →