morsels & sauces

For many of you out there, the thought of turning on the oven makes you almost swoon. In fact, some of you are already swooning because of the heat. If this is you, bookmark this recipe and come back to it this fall when the eggplants are beginning to shrivel on the plant but are still quite good and when the kale is a little wilty but still edible. Or better yet, defy the heat and make this tonight: but put it inside a Campfire Foil Pack  and toss this on the grill (or even better yet, a campfire). However, in the Bay Area, we are getting the August fog, that wall of cool, wet weather that makes me almost shiver, not from the cold, but in delight. In fact, tonight as we were driving (to Target for cat litter and Kleenex if you must know the boring details of my daily life), the wall of fog was firmly planted just on the edge of the Bay at the Oakland border. It will creep in, not on little cat's feet as Carl Sandburg suggested , but in puffs ...

My affinity for bookclub is strong. These three other women and one man are truly fabulous people, and I am not just saying that because one of them is related to me (Hi, Father-in-Law!).  No, I am saying that because they are smart readers who push me, after two hours of snacking and drinking very good wine, to reconsider whatever bogus theory I have had about a book, and who push me to see far more deeply into books. Even if I haven't finished reading them. But I swear, I actually finished this one. So, when bookclub rolled around this July, I mixed up this perfect grain salad. And it's a delightful summer salad. It is nutty and savory and a perfect mate for all of the morsels and sauces that inevitably--and delightfully--make up the bookclub table fare. From pakoras to olives, cheeses to almonds, our table boasts eclectic and inclusive food--much like the eclectic and and inclusive members of the book club, given th...

Risotto is such a delightful dish. Comforting, creamy, simple, stable.   And I am a huge fan . As in, I will make me a risotto any chance I get, with any sort of ingredient you can imagine. It doesn't matter--any season.  Spring--lemon and peas;  Summer--tomato and parmesan;  Fall--mushroom;  Winter--butternut squash and pancetta.  If it's in your fridge, you can put it in this Northern Italian rice dish. However, you will want a very specific kind of rice--a high starch, medium- or short-grain rice--in order separate this delicacy from any other rice dish. The high starch means that as you cook it, it releases its starch, making that requisite creamy smoothness to risotto. The most popular risotto rice in the United States is, hands down, Arborio rice. This short-grained rice isn't as starchy as some of its popular Italian counterparts, but it is the most easily procured. However, a...

Sometimes you just need a snack. A canape. A tapa. A morsel.  And sometimes the husband makes a request that said snack include blood sausage.  He's like that.  And when someone makes a special request that I make a blood sausage tapa, I pretend that I selflessly do this for said someone. But we all know, I have just been waiting for an excuse. You see, blood sausage is not something frequently in our dinner rotation, and for good reason. While protein and iron are high, so is fat ; thus, blood sausage appears only on special occasions. We were invited to an Oscars Night dinner at the in-laws and instructed to bring appetizers. Enter blood sausage request. I couldn't, however, serve only the blood sausage canapes, as they are not to everyone's liking--plus I have an ill-placed anxiety about showing up without enough food. So in a gesture of good will, I coupled this hearty bread-forward tapa with a lighter, solely vegetable one. (For the recor...

I am going to admit this right here and now:  I made this over the summer. But then I went and forgot to post about it. Now eggplant is woefully out of season. What's a food blogger to do? I guess that I have opted to entice you with all the glories of hobo pack so that you can make this easy packet of grilled vegetables next summer when eggplant is back at its peak, or you can just substitute other veggies. (Even autumn fruits and veggies-- The New York Times  has a tasty looking recipe for a sweet potato and apple hobo pack. And a mixed mushroom hobo pack is kindly featured over at Martha Stewart.) Sure, sure, the hobo pack has all the sophistication of the Boy Scouts, where legions of children have tucked meat and veggies inside a packet of tin foil and thrown them onto the open flame. And sure, it's hit or miss as to whether or not what you create is haute cuisine. There are burnt ends and charred knobs and mushy pieces. However, the charm of the whole ent...