Category Archives: Food

Musings on Well-Stocked Freezers and Pantries.

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  • Friday, January 18, 2013
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This is a photograph of my freezer from late October.

This is a photograph of my freezer from this morning.

Not much has changed. It’s very full, in both photos. And it’s not my only freezer, though I have fewer freezers than I used to.

Yesterday morning, I’m not quite sure why[1], I realized that while I have a very fully-stocked pantry and freezers, I don’t really have well-stocked anything. I don’t think I’ve given it much thought before, as usually I associate “well-stocked” with “full (and thus you won’t starve).”

But, in truth, starving is just not something I’m reasonably facing. Sure, there’s the possibility I’ll be stranded in my house for awhile, but I do wonder how likely it is that I’ll be stranded, but with electricity and gas…

I got to thinking.… Continue reading →

So, you want to give a coffee gift…

Hi there, all. Bill here. I don’t have much to say on the blog these days, but Tasha asked me to make this post. I’ve had a few people ask me recently about gifting coffee stuff to people in their lives, and I wrote a pretty long email to one of them recently that contained my thoughts. Here’s an edited version thereof.

So, a couple of caveats before I start: I assume the person you’re purchasing for is into schmancy coffee to some degree. Someone who just likes a basic cup of coffee may not appreciate a bunch of this, but who knows? You might just start them onto a new hobby and some better coffee to drink. Also, I have no idea what your budget is: I’ll mention roughly how expensive things are, but that’s all you get.… Continue reading →

This Must Be Why Professional Food Critics Go Twice.

As I type this, I’m eating my leftovers from last night’s dinner at Girl and the Goat. I’m glad we finally made it there. We’ve been interested in trying this restaurant since they opened about two years ago but, until last night, we hadn’t ever managed. Bill almost had the chance to go once (and on the company dime, no less!), but someone else scuttled that. He’s always been a touch grumpy about that.

I can’t say I blame him. But I’d’ve envied the hell out of him if he had gone.

Yesterday morning, he was looking at their online reservation form and found early dinner reservations. After confirming we had no dinner plans, he snapped up those reservations and told me he’d meet me at home to head out at 5:15pm.… Continue reading →

No One Got Sick at Our Thanksgiving! Win!

Thanksgiving at our house turned out far, far better than it had any right to be. We’re a very lucky couple.

As we have the last two years, we decided to throw open our Thanksgiving to anyone who didn’t have any place else to go (or didn’t want to go the where they did have, I suppose). The net effect of this is that we never quite know how many people we’re going to have until Black Friday. This year, we were settled for a good long time on two guests, so I ordered a turkey that was a little big for four people, just in case one or two more people decided to join us at the last minute.

A bit more than one or two more guests later, I decided to go looking for a bigger turkey.… Continue reading →

Redo Two!

Okay, we’ve probably actually redone this particular recipe, the White Bean and Spinach Soup from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, seven or eight times.

However, I think this is only the second time I’ve posted about a replication. The first time, found here, is about the garnishes Katzen calls for (and how they were no good). This time, I want to discuss freezing the soup.

Basically, it doesn’t freeze well. Most of it does, but the greens do not. I’m not really sure why they don’t, since I expected it to freeze well. However, the freeze and reheat cycle leaves them disintegrating and not terribly palatable. I’m sure this isn’t a microwave issue, simply because reheating the following day is fine.

This makes a pretty sizable recipe, though, so I’ve been considering ways in which it could be changed to freeze better.… Continue reading →