Category Archives: Food

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 →

Cherry Almond Butter Cookies

Welcome to the inaugural post of what is guaranteed to be the smallest recipe category of MetaCookbook: “Wedding Recipes”.

It will be the smallest recipe category for two reasons:
# It’s necessarily time limited. The wedding in question is in October, and it’s May now.
# I’m not expecting to cook everything for our wedding. Most of the recipes for what we eat will probably not show up here.

Most of what I’ll post in this category will be cookies. So, I hope you all have a sweet tooth.

Growing up, I can’t remember a time that I didn’t know my father & mother had an “Italian Cookie Cake” as part of their wedding festivities. I even have a very vague recollection of seeing a single photo of their cookie cake.… Continue reading →

Tasha’s (attempt at) Asparagus Risotto

Cover of How to Pick a Peach, by Russ Parsons

One of the first things I wanted to do upon arriving home to Chicago was find some asparagus. I love asparagus utterly, and could probably eat it until I turn into an asparagus spear.

Luckily for me, asparagus season isn’t that long.

“Asparagus season isn’t that long” was actually my biggest fear upon arriving home too. I was terrified that three weeks gone from home, and a couple weeks of not shopping prior to that meant I’d missed out completely. Which would have made me quite sad.

So, of course, it only makes utter sense that we would get in about 8:00 pm on a Friday, and I’d be prepared to go to a Saturday morning farmers’ market. Where, thankfully, I found asparagus. I also found a couple of tomato plants, an amazing tamale (that isn’t New Mexican style at all), and some eggs.… Continue reading →

Dallas coffee

So much for posting every day on this trip. I apologize for that. I simply didn’t anticipate GOING so much that I was only checking my email on my phone, and otherwise not touching a computer.

However, I’ve finally settled down for a bit in Dallas, and I wanted to say something about our previous and current visit here. Namely, about some of the restaurants & little spots we’ve encountered here in the DFW area. This entry will just be about coffee, as I try to formulate my thoughts on the restaurants I wanted to point people to.

So, Bill is suffering. He’s suffering mightily. Just horribly. Bill, you see, is a coffee snob. A weird one, I suspect, because he takes coffee at the brewer’s stated or implied claims.… Continue reading →

Antiques Roadshow: The Heirloom on Your Plate

I went to this workshop because the container gardening workshop was over-full. Like, “Glad they didn’t have a fire marshal walk in” full. “Sardine can” does not even begin to describe it.

The “Antiques Roadshow” workshop was really nice, and kind of low-key. I didn’t expect to learn much, because it claimed to be about why preserving the diversity of farmed plants & animals was important, and I’ve already heard a lot about that.

And, truth be told? I didn’t. I didn’t hear much about the importance of keeping a diverse “genetic bank” for a species due to disease or poor adaptation to a climate. I didn’t hear much about flavors. I heard little on cultural reasons to keep diverse food types (something I expect to learn more about as I read Gary Paul Nabhan and Deborah Madison’s book … Continue reading →