The first time I ever had a kumquat, I was a young girl and all I remember was popping into my mouth and then almost hurling. I pretty much stayed far away from that point on.
Monthly Archives: April 2008
 Another wonderful challenge with the gang over at Tuesdays with Dorie. I am so glad that I got a chance to make this cake and enjoy it before getting hit with the flu – due to that, I will keep this short and sweet. This cake is wonderful – very moist, slightly sweet, lots of wonderful aromas (Figs, Meyer Lemons, Honey) and a wonderful texture, thanks to the polenta.
 Our friends Andy and Jeff love to entertain as much as we do. We have been talking about picking a theme and spending the day cooking for a couple months now. Now this was only going to be Jeff and I cooking, Andy and Lenny were to stay out of the kitchen, this was our baby! Lenny had no problem sticking to this, after all, he is happiest eating it! Andy, was pretty good as well, I assume it was somewhat hard as he loves to bake; but, we put him in charge of the special cocktail for the evening and helping with the decorating. So, we picked a date and picked the theme …. French Bistro cooking was going to be it. Jeff has cooked the French Laundry style of food a couple months back and Lenny and I eat a lot of French inspired food at home so I was feeling very confident about this venture. Jeff and I spent the first half of the morning drinking coffee and working our way through the market. Was fun shopping with him – I loved telling him, we need 72 ounces of chicken broth, 4 dozen eggs, 32 ounces of cream …. his mouth dropped to the floor every time and the word, “WHAT?” fell out just as fast! We spent most of the day cooking, baking, straining, chopping and laughing! By 5pm the food was finished, our feet and backs were tired and all that was left was to set the table, get the bar ready, change and then let the fun begin! I have to say, everyone was pretty floored. The food was fantastic! The ohs and ahs were great! We really out did ourselves! (more photos here, eye treats!) If you want the recipes, email us and I can send the PDF version to you!
 I pan seared these chunky little morsels with olive oil, salt and pepper and then drizzled them with some truffle oil and topped with these killer Korean red pepper threads (part of the Boston part 2 series). Don’t they look so pretty? Well, I do not have much to say about them – I thought they sucked; but, Lenny loved them and that is not saying much as this guy EATS just about anything!!
We discovered this wonderful site Holy Basil, a couple weeks ago. Not only does it wet your appetite visually; but, now we can say that the recipes, literally do as well. I am always looking for some new things to try out in the kitchen, ones that are easy for weekday cooking and do not involve pasta! Christine is doing this wonderful series, the “weekly salad” and all of them look wonderful. She seems to be switching off weekly between “French” and “Asian”. We decided to go with something completely different from what we usually cook, the Spicy Calamari Salad. The recipe is very simple, the most work involved is prepping the veggies. The Calamari cook up within a minute and then you have a complete meal. I could not find the Thai peppers so I did substitute with a jalapeno pepper; which, gave it a lot of kick and bite. The lime juice cooled the spiciness down and the sugar rounded it into a really great sweet and savory flavor, that lingered for the right amount of time on your tongue. You will not be bored with this salad as there is a lot going on with it; crispiness of the veggies, coolness of the cilantro and the calamari was not chewy at all due to the quick cooking.
to Elle, over at Feeding My Enthusiams for nominating us for this award. We are honored, thrilled and so very surprised to receive it. We had no intentions of really keeping up this blog, when we started it; but, we soon realized how much fun we were having as well we were equally pleased to hear from people who also enjoyed it, so we kept it up and now here we are – accepting this ever so kind award from Elle! Elle writes a delightful blog about her culinary escapades in Northern California, she even grows her own quince – which amazed me the first time I read about that! If you have not read her blog, you really should! |
Okay, I do have to say, the meal was not totally a disaster, I was estatic last week when I saw my FAVORITE strawberries in our neighborhood 
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