The first meal.

To get the full context for this post, please read both Grant’s post and Ellen’s post over at the blog One Hundred Meals. The meal described in those posts and below was prompted by this project Ellen and Grant have launched. To get the fullest context, you really should read the full blog archives which, as of today’s post, are only six posts deep―and that’s including the two I linked to above. Maybe you won’t do all that now, but I hope by the end of my post, you’ll be convinced to do so.

This isn’t a widely read blog. I’m terrible at paying attention to analytics, so if I had to guess, I would guess I have no more than ten regular readers. Most, maybe all, who read this blog regularly know me personally.… 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 →

[105] + [106] French Toast

How to Cook Everything, Revised Edition by Mark Bittman

Cover of How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, by Mark Bittman

French toast is my breakfast enemy.

I like to eat good french toast. Most people and places, myself included, do not make good french toast. I really do not like to eat bad french toast. Most people and places, myself included, not only do not make good french toast, they make bad french toast.

That’s right. There is no “meh” in french toast. There’s only “good” and “bad”. I suppose there can be “excellent” and “horrible” as well, but there’s no “meh”. It’s that simple.

This french toast, amazingly, was in the “good, but could be excellent” camp. I’m astounded. I never thought I could make french toast that was even in the “good” category, much less in the “could be excellent” on as well.

Why did I feel I couldn’t aspire to such heights?… Continue reading →

[46] Pasta Carbonara

How to Cook Everything, Revised Edition by Mark Bittman

You’ll notice this recipe looks a touch out of order. Specifically, you might be wondering, “Where is recipe #45?” Well, I didn’t get any response on whether “Everyday Pancakes” out of “How to Cook Everything” and “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian” were multiple recipes or a single recipe. So, for the moment, I’m counting them as separate recipes, but not giving a post to something you’ve already heard about unless something truly interesting happens, or I figure out a very good new technique or something. That’s boring. So, let’s move on to more interesting topics.

I picked last night’s dinner idea mostly out of my brain, assuming one of my cookbooks would have a recipe. Actually, to be honest, I assumed more than one would. I was wrong, and so we ended up with yet another Bittman recipe.… Continue reading →

[30] Vegetable Frittata

I’m pretty sure this book is available at “Amazon.com”:http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2F&tag=metaco-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=390957, but it’s not immediately obvious. I guess that, despite it clearly being nationally published and such, it’s still one of the more obscure books in our collection. And we have two from this “collection”. I would link directly to the suspected book, but there’s NO information about it there, so I don’t see the point. Please let me know in the comments if you disagree.

Anyway, this is the book that first introduced me to the frittata. As mentioned in our “About”, I went on to make a lot of them. This recipe makes it clear that they’re very easy, and can be quite healthy. Also, amazingly, tasty!

Unless you’re my good friend, Maria-Sea. She’s just going to skip straight over this recipe, since she thinks the taste of eggs is gross.… Continue reading →