By now, most people are familiar with Iron Chef, the campy Japanese cooking show, since adapted to American television, which pits two master chefs in battle where each has one hour to create a series of dishes using a single secret ingredient. Earlier this week, we had our own version of Iron Chef: Battle Fennel.

Yes, I’ve already spoken previously of my love for fennel, and this battle showcases two more of our favorite uses for it. Why the battle? Why such hostilities in an otherwise peaceful Carpenter kitchen? Was The Lovely Suse (henceforth known as TLS) trying to put me in my place? Well, it’s a lot simpler than that. The main star of the evening was a lovely grilled pork tenderloin, and with two whole fennel bulbs crowding the veggie crisper in the fridge, we knew what would be accompanying it. That’s where the agreement stopped however. TLS was in the mood for something light, crisp, cool, and crunchy: a shaved fennel salad. I wasn’t really feeling it, I wanted something a little more substantial and bold, and after all of the rain that we’ve been getting, I wanted to spend a little more quality time with the grill. A grilled fennel salad would do the trick.

So off we went, each to our own corner of the kitchen to whip up what we each thought would win over the celebrity judges. I cut my fennel into 1/4 inch lengthwise slices, seasoned them with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then hit the grill. After a quick high-heat grilling on each side so that nice grill marks appeared, I moved the lot of them over to a corner of the grill where they could finish cooking through. This also allowed them to get that sweet, caramelized, but still crunchy flavor and texture. Back in the kitchen, I sliced them up into matchstick sized pieces, tossed them with scallions, parsley, lemon, olives, and more olive oil and salt and pepper. Amazingly, we had never done this with grilled fennel. Usually we just grill it and eat it as-is. I was in uncharted territory here.

Meanwhile, TLS broke out what is possibly our favorite secret kitchen tool, the Japanese plastic mandoline slicer. All of those perfect little julienne that you see in our photos? All of those perfectly thinly sliced vegetables? They are all thanks to this slicer. No kitchen should be without one. Just watch your hand. We’ve both bloodied ourselves on it, so we never use it without our trusty cut-proof glove. Trust me, use it. She thinly shaves the fennel, tosses it with fresh herbs, fennel fronds, garlic, lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper (and maybe a few other secret ingredients when I wasn’t looking).

It was judgement time. The celebrity judges (um, us) too their places around the table and sampled a bit of each. As promised, the TLS’s shaved fennel salad was as crisp and light and refreshing as always. It’s a perfect accompaniment to a piece of grilled fish, chicken, or in this case, pork. During blood orange season, segments of them will also appear and take it to a whole other level (not to mention turn the whole thing pink). The grilled fennel salad was also a hit. The sweetness and smokiness from the grill, along with the strong flavors of the scallions and olives made it a new part of our rotation.

So who was the winner? I believe it was a tie, although I hear that promises of dessert may have nudged mine adead slightly in the voting. Luckily, the judges weren’t swayed by TLS’s fancy bowl. In any case, both were enjoyed by all, and we can look forward to the next battle in kitchen stadium.

Ok, back to more stories of eating whole creatures from the sea. For some reason, I love “trash” fish. Historically poor people’s food, things like squid, octopus, anchovies, and sardines (at various points in history, oysters and lobsters fell into this category as well) hold a special place in my stomach. Maybe it’s the ways that people have learned to cook these seemingly unappetizing sea-dwellers into delicious treats, but anytime a menu item includes of them, I can’te hlp but order it.

One of the tougher to find but possibly my favorite of them all is baby octopus. These aren’t the giant submarine-sucking, ink-spouting monsters of the movies, but little baby eight-legged morsels of fun. I’ve occassionally seen them at Whole Foods, and they will special order them if you ask them to, but I always have luck at Super 88 or other Asian markets. They’re incredibly cheap, about $3/lb., and even I have to admit that they’re not the prettiest things to look at. Or smell for that matter. They are however incredibly easy to cook and the murky skanky smell disappears from the finished product (although it tends to linger in your house for a while).

The first step is to simmer them in boiling water for a good 25-30 minutes. The only thing you need to add to the pot is a cork. I have no idea why, but Mario tells us to, claiming that Italian grandmas think that it helps tenderize the octopus. Hell, who am I to argue? I just do it. If I don’t have one around, I just skip it, or I use it as an excuse to open (and finish) a new bottle. They should be tender and should easily be able to be cut with a fork when they’re done.

At this point, you could simply squeeze some lemon over them, drizzle them with olive oil, salt, and pepper and enjoy, but my favorite thing to do is marinate them and then grill them. Drop them into a bowl with lemon juice, olive oil, finely diced chilis, fresh parsley and mint, garlic, salt and pepper, and marinate for an hour or two. Fire up the grill, get the marinated octopus on the fire, and let them get all charred and crispy around the edges. Don’t overcook them as they’ll completely dry out and burn. About 5 minutes total should do it. Remember that they’re already fully cooked, so the grilling is just for the charred flavor and texture. Sprinkle some more fresh herbs and squeeze some fresh lemon over the top and you’re done.

We served these up with some charred eggplant puree (grill eggplant slowly until soft, scoop out the flesh, puree with lemon, olive oil, parsley, mint, salt, and pepper), and some amazing arugula from the Farmer’s Market for what is thus far, my favorite meal of the summer. It’s still early though, so there’s plenty of time for me to find more weird stuff to grill up. Stay tuned.

• The digging is (almost) done, and the pavers and sand and stone will be delivered this week. The plan is to have the patio done next weekend, weather permitting. Then, watch me get electrocuted installing the lighting!
• it was actually a project-free weekend due to another crappy weather weekend. really. and we actually spent the entire weekend relaxing and not running around like crazy. a very rare occurance.
• we’re planning on getting a puppy in a month. i’ve already laid down a few rules: no bows in the hair, no silly outfits or boots, no cute bag to carry him around in, no pink collar. i’m pulling for the skull and crossbones black leather collar to keep him a manly dog. i mean, the thing is going to weigh 8 pounds fully grown, so i have to do something to keep it from looking too girlie.
• my pizza has gotten the thumbs-up from a real Italian. He said it was better than his wife’s pizza, although we’re not allowed to tell her that.
• after five years, i finally replaced my gray and purple rickety old computer case with a sleek, quiet, black one. So i think at this point, every single part of the computer has been replaced over the past 2 years.
• the belmont farmer’s market is so achingly sweet and picture perfect that it’s hard to believe that it’s for real. all sorts of local farms, little kids running around, people with dogs and strollers, little kids hopping behind the stands helping out, and amazing local produce. I picked up some incredible local strawberries, arugula, cucumbers, and greenhouse tomatoes. we’ll be visiting every thursday for the rest of the summer and fall.
• does anyone have any recommendations for summer tv shows? our tivo is hurting in a major way.
• we’ve got our first zucchini flowers of the season from our new plants. you may recall that last year at our old place, pumpkin plants accidentally took over the yard, and there were flowers everywhere. we would snatch a bunch of them and fry them up for a tasty treat. i’m going to have to restrain myself from picking them all before the zucchini actually grow. actually, i didn’t even plant them for the zucchini. i just wanted the flowers.

I think to a lot of people, there’s something creepy about eating a whole entire animal. Most are so used to seeing their meat and fish lined up nicely in the butcher or seafood case or prewrapped under plastic that they forget where that steak or filet came from. Every once in a while, just to keep things real, you just have to eat the whole damn thing.

Twice this week, we’ve eaten whole creatures from the sea. Ok, so it’s not a whole cow or pig or something, but seafood has feelings too. We started out with a whole fish. For those of you who are fishermen, this is not anything unusual, but for the majority of us, we don’t often deal with the whole creature. I get mine from the friendly fish guys at Super 88. While it may be a bit intimidating, and they don’t exactly speak english, you get to pick exactly which fish you want, often still swimming. The fish should have nice clear eyes, red gills, and shouldn’t smell all fishy. It should smell like the ocean. They’ll clean it and scale it for you, so most of the dirty work is done. The fishy you see here is a black sea bass, but striped bass, red snapper, and a whole bunch of others would work equally as well.

As far as the cooking goes, I love to grill them whole. It’s as simple as stuffing the cavity with fresh herbs (I used cilatro and scallions here) and lemons or limes so that they fragrance the entire thing, cutting them with a few slashes on each side to shorten the cooking time, rubbing them with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then tossing it on a hot grill. The trickiest part is the flipping, so use two spatulas to carefully slide under the fish and gently flip it over. The skin will tend to stick a bit, so don’t worry about it. Oiling the grill up beforehand will make it a little easier. It will take about 7 or 8 minutes per side, and with the slashes cut, you’ll be able to tell when it’s done. Maybe. Mine was actually a little underdone, so it had to go back on after I started cutting it up. Not so pretty.

When it finally comes off the grill, the next challenge is getting the filet off the bones. If cooked properly, you should be able to use a fork to gently separate one side of the filet from the bones, sort of scraping it from the top of the fish to the bottom. Once one side is off, you should be able to lift the entire tail and bones out leaving the entire other filet intact. The fish will be moist and flavorful, getting tons of extra goodness from the bones and loads of fragrance from the herbs and limes. And don’t forget the head! Some of the tastiest morsels are hidden in there, so give those cheeks a try. I still can’t be convinced to try the eyeballs though. I don’t mind it staring at my as I eat it, but actually eating those is another matter entirely.

Here’s a little known fact: During the majority of 2000 and 2001, I ate soup for lunch at work almost every single day. I guess this was before the days of bringing leftovers for lunch every day, I was working at a different office location, and their cafeteria was just terrible. I wouldn’t even trust a sandwich or the salad bar for fear of catching malaria or conjunctivitis or herpes. However, there was one shiny glimmer of salvation in the middle of that slophouse: the soup. Every day, they had two different soups, one of them always being vegetarian. For some unknown reason (with the exception of a particular tomato soup that must have been made using raw sewage instead of water), the soups were all really good. I would pay $1.50 for a big container of the stuff, and that would be my lunch.

I’ve always had a fondness for soup, and they’ve become a staple in our house over the years. Butternut squash, lentil, thai chicken and coconut, matzah ball, minestrone, and a particular vietnamese mushroom and shrimp variety that has since been banned after one too many stomach-churning gastric episodes. I eat soup year round, but when the summer comes around, who wants to be sitting over a steaming bowl of soup while sweat drips down from your face into your meal? That’s where gazpacho comes in. The cold Spanish tomato based soup that is not only refreshing and cooling, but really easy to make and requires no actual cooking.

The recipe comes from my latest food man-crush, Tyler Florence. His show, Tyler’s Ultimate, is one of the few decent shows left on the Food Network, and is currently one of my favorites. He picks pretty basic foods like burgers or chicken or pork chops and makes really kick-ass versions of them, giving great, practical tips along the way. I get tons of good ideas from it. I love this slightly chunky and tangy version of the soup, and adding the extra garnishes on at the end keeps if from being just a boring puree of raw vegetables. Some grilled shrimp on top add a nice heat and texture contrast as well. Happy summer, and happy soup.

• we made it down to NYC for the first time in over a year for brett and kelly’s wedding. I got to bust out my tux, which I love to do since it’s the nicest suit that I own, and I try to wear it as much as possible. I should just start wearing it around the house, doing laundry and stuff. This happened to be the fanciest wedding I’ve ever been to, packing the room at Cirpiani. It was one of those events that felt like you were living in a movie or something, and my dance moves ripped up the floor as always.
• famous person sightings over the weekend: Keanu Reeves walking on the upper west side, and Steve Buscemi filming a movie outside of Grand Central. I’m sure they were very excited to see me as well.
• aly’s claim that there’s a substance in book bindings that makes you poop. you know, the browsing poops.
• we hit up one of our favorite spots, ‘ino for lunch on friday. This is pretty much the perfect place for us, and it also happens to be one of the sites of “The Greatest Date of All Time”, so it holds a special place in our heart. I highly recommend any of the panini and a new one for us, the ‘ino antipasto, loaded with assorted salumi, cheese, spreads, slow-roasted and caramelized veggies and such, and toasts to scoop it all up with. That along with a peroni made for an excellent lunch. It also happens to be the tiniest restaurant I’ve ever seen.
• I know it’s one of those “scenes” and is practically a cliche at this point, but Pastis is just a fun spot for a meal without dropping a ton of cash, and it’s one of those only in New York (or Paris, i suppose) sort of spots They due the French brasserie thing perfectly, the food is great, the house wine by the caraffe is relatively inexpensive, and the frites are pretty damn perfect. Ok, so that’s really the reason that we go, and everything else is just extra. It was packed on Friday night, and I think they managed to get us in and out of there in under an hour. Although I could sit there all night and people watch.
• The final stop on our eating tour of NYC brings us to ‘wichcraft, a quickly growing sandwich empire. It certainly isn’t cheap, but the sandwiches and salad ingredients are top-notch and they’re well-assembled. You know I love a great sandwich, and the sicilian tuna with fennel, black olives, and lemon on baguette was pretty damn outstanding. They had us at “white anchovies”.
• Yes, the list of weird seafoods was long this weekend: white anchovies, squid, grilled sardines, grilled octopus. That was in addition to the more normal stuff like lobster, seabass, and sushi. Oh, and I had beef carpaccio (raw, shaved beef) for the first time. mmmmmmmmm.
• the digging for the patio has begun. pictures to follow.

The sad look on the Lovely Suse’s face says it all. Just to let you all know that, yes, I screw things up too, here is evidence of a greasefire fueled disaster that was supposed to be one of our favorites, fish tacos. The picture doesn’t quite do it justice, but those fish fillets are coated with a nice layer of black soot. After preheating the grill and throwing the fish on, I went inside to finish up some dinner prep. Leaving the grill open it usually a safe bet in these cases, but I guess the built-up grease from lots of grilling and rotisserieing over the past weeks took its toll. I went out a few minutes later to see black smoke pouring from the grill and the entire bottom tray in flames. It had just started, so I was able to get the fish off before it turned completely black, but the damage had already been done.

To add insult to injury, the tortillas that I grilled after the flames died down decided to stick to the grill, leaving them a torn mess. We were able to salvage enough of the fish to still eat dinner, and it wasn’t completely terrible. It just had that burnt flavor that we associate with poor grilling. It wasn’t worth trying to salvage any more for leftovers for lunch, so while I should be eating delicious fish tacos right now, I’ll probably be eating some crappy salad or sandwich. Booooooooo me.

I can’t remember when my love affair with fennel began. Maybe it was the fennel and bottarga pizza at Otto, or the raw chunks of fennel eaten from a North End vegetable store, or maybe it was the first of countless shaved raw fennel salads. I probably didn’t even know what fennel was about seven years ago, but I think I can say that over time, it has become my favorite vegetable in the world. Sauteed, braised, grilled, shaved or diced and eaten raw; At this point, I’ve eaten it or cooked it pretty much every way possible other than fried (and don’t think that I won’t try that now). With every different way that it’s prepared, it takes on completely different flavors and textures.

I thought I had seen everything that can be done with it until some recent visits to Craigie Street Bistrot. In two completely different savory dishes, Chef Tony Maws uses the otherwise unused stalks of the vegetable and candies them! Fennel has an inherent sweetness, freshness, and crunchiness to it, but it never occured to me to use it like this. The fennel flavor is subtle, but the sweetness and crunch add a really cool element to the dishes. Of course, I had to try to make it myself. But what could I do with it? Make ice cream of course.

Now candied fennel ice cream may sound all fancy-pants and high falutin’, but it couldn’t be easier to make and it’s crazy tasty. Candy-ing the fennel is easy-peasey. Slice the thick stalks of the fennel into thin rounds, and slowly boil them in a simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar, about a cup each) until they’ve slightly opaque and cooked (about 15 minutes). Remove them with a slotted spoon and lay them on parchment paper (they’ll stick to anything they’re placed on once the syrup cools), saving the now fennel-flavored syrup for the ice cream.

The ice cream base (or in our case, frozen yogurt, which is just a poor rationalization for us eating it every night) is 1 cup of milk (anything but skim), 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of vanilla yogurt (after exhaustive experiments, we found that Columbo lowfat vanilla works the best), and 1 cup of heavy cream which yields about 1.5 quarts. In this case, we substitue half of the sugar for 1/2 cup of the fennel syrup. Dump it all into your ice cream maker (you do have an ice cream maker, right? if not, go get one!

At long last, my food diary for the week of June 5 to June 11. I know you’ve all been waiting with baited breath. First, a few observations.

• i’m a very predictable and very regimented eater during the week. I generally eat the same sorts of things at the same time every day. I don’t think that it’s because I’m always hungry at the same time every day, but it’s more of a way to mark points in the day. That’s probably not a good thing.
• I drink a lot of water during the workday, but not nearly enough on the weekends or at night. It just doesn’t occur to me that I’m thirsty for some reason. Again, probably not ideal.
• I don’t eat much packaged foods. I think with the exception of my breakfast cereal, Clif Bars, tortillas and tortilla chips, and occassional Jelly Bellys, I can tell you what went into pretty much everything that I ate. I like that.
• We’ve been on a big Mexican kick as of late. Maybe it’s the (sort of) warm weather, but we’ve just been craving food from south of the border. Lots of tacos and enchiladas and avocados and spice-rubbed grilled things and limes and cilantro will be making their way into our bellys. I”m definitely ok with that. Ole!
• We rarely eat rice, but this past week, we ate rice a whopping 4 times. Mexican rice, sushi rice, dirty rice, and stuck-pot rice. What’s up with that?
• I think I tend to indulge a little more on the weekends, as you would expect. I don’t think it’s intentional, rather we just have more time to cook more elaborate meals or try new things.
• I ate meat twice (I don’t count poultry as meat. Only beef, pork, lamb, etc.). The salami on our pizza and the burnt ends sandwich, which was a new one for us. Very small quantities for both, which is typical of the way that I eat it nowadays. Meat is tasty.
• This food diary thing is hard. I’m sure I missed a few things along the way, and I’m sure I forgot some Mentos here and there. More or less, I’d say this is a pretty good representation of how I eat. I think we do a pretty good job of balancing things, although I’m sure people may accuse me of being obsessive or unrealistic about eating like this. It is what it is. I feel healthy, I look forward to what I eat every day, and frankly, I like the way I eat. I never feel like I deny myself anything. As they say, everything in moderation.

  I’ll have to do this again sometime in the future to see how my eating habits have changed over time. It should be interesting…

  And now, the diary!

  Monday:
  Home: 5:45AM: Bottle of Water
  6:15: Bottle of Water
  6:45: Bowl of cereal (frosted mini wheats and rainsin bran) with soy milk. Glass of Orange Juice.
  Work:
  8:00: Start 32 oz. bottle of Water
  9:00: Handful of Kashi TLC crackers.
  9:30: Piece of Clif Bar
  10:00: Finish Water
  10:30: More Clif Bar
  12:00: Leftover roasted chicken. Half of breast and thigh. Panzanella salad (grilled bread, tomatoes, cukes, red onion, fresh mutz, basil). Water
  1:00: Nectarine
  2:00: Finish Clif Bar
  2:30: About 10 Jelly Belly jelly beans. Finish 2nd 32 oz. bottle of water.
  3:30: banana. water.
  Home:
  8:00 turkey and bean enchilada, water.
  9:30: about 1/3 cup homemade mint chocolate chip frozen yogurt

  Tuesday:
  Home: 5:45AM: Bottle of Water
  6:15: Bottle of Water
  6:45: Bowl of cereal (frosted mini wheats and honey nut cheerios)with soy milk. Glass of Orange Juice.
  Work:
  8:00: Start 32 oz. bottle of Water
  9:00: Handful of Kashi TLC crackers.
  9:30: Piece of Clif Bar
  10:00: Finish Water
  10:30: More Clif Bar
  12:00: Leftover turkey and bean enchilada. water. nectarine.
  1:00: Handful of grapes
  2:00: Finish clif bar. water
  3:30: banana. water
  7:00: Worcester Academy: 1 heineken, 1 corona, tortilla chips and salsa. mexican rice, chopped salad, sauteed chicken. bowl of fresh fruit.

  Wednesday:
  Home: 5:45AM: Bottle of Water
  6:15: Bottle of Water
  6:45: Bowl of cereal (frosted mini wheats and rainsin bran) with soy milk. Glass of Orange Juice.
  Work:
  8:00: Start 32 oz. bottle of Water
  9:00: Handful of Kashi TLC crackers.
  9:30: Piece of Clif Bar
  10:00: Finish Water
  10:30: Handful of grapes.
  12:00: Salad greens with tuna, tabouli, chickpeas, feta, cukes, and grilled zucchini. balsamic vinegar. water.
  12:46: 5 jelly bellys.
  1:50: Finished Clif bar. water.
  2:20: banana
  5:00: 2 Mentos
  7:00: seared spce-crusted mahi mahi. watermelon, feta, red onion salad
  9:00: homemade candied fennel frogurt.

  Thursday:
  Home: 5:45AM: Bottle of Water
  6:15: Bottle of Water
  6:45: Bowl of cereal (frosted mini wheats and golden grahams) with soy milk. Glass of Orange Juice.
  Work:
  8:00: Start 32 oz. bottle of Water
  9:00: Handful of Kashi TLC crackers.
  9:30: Piece of Clif Bar
  10:30: More Clif Bar
  12:00: Leftover mahi mahi and watermelon, feta salad. water
  1:00: peach
  1:48: more Clif Bar
  1:50: Start third 32 oz. water of the day.
  3:00: Banana
  4:00: 5 Jelly Bellys
  5:15: handfull of peanuts
  7:30: Pasta Puttanesca, water.
  9:30: homemade mint chocolate chip frogurt

  Friday:
  Home: 5:45AM: Bottle of Water
  6:15: Bottle of Water
  6:45: Bowl of cereal (frosted mini wheats and life cereal) with soy milk. Glass of Orange Juice.
  Work:
  8:00: Start 32 oz. bottle of Water
  9:00: Handful of Kashi TLC crackers.
  9:30: Piece of Clif Bar
  10:30: More Clif Bar
  12:00: leftover pasta puttanesca. water
  1:00: grapes
  2:00: 5 jelly bellys
  2:30: start third bottle of water.
  6:30: 1 saranac summer ale.
  7:30: Sushi. 16 pieces. tuna, salmon, eel, yellowtail. spice tuna roll, yellowtail and scallion roll, salmon, avocado and cucumber roll. seaweed salad.

  Saturday:
  9:00: bowl of cereal (frosted mini wheats and honey nut cheerios) with soy milk. glass of orange juice.
  1:00: Blue Ribon BBQ. half of burnt ends sandwich, dirty rice, cole slaw. half bowl of chicken and white bean chili. water
  5:00: 4 samples of cheese from formaggio kitchen.
  8:00: pizza. 2 slices salami and olive. 2 slices shaved fennel and pecorino. 2 saranac beers.
  9:00: half of a small gelatto from Angelato. Half hazelnut, half chocolate.

  Sunday:
  8:30: bowl of cereal (frosted mini wheats and life cereal). orange juice.
  12:00: samples of granola, yogurt-covered ginger, oatmeal raisin cookie, sheep’s milk cheese at whole foods.
  1:00: leftover pizza.2 slices of salami and olive. 1 slice of shaved fennel and pecorino. boylan’s ginger ale.
  7:30: rotisserie-grilled thai chicken, stuck pot rice, green papaya salad. slice of chcolate pound cake with vanilla bean ice cream and strawberries. 1 beer. 1 glass of red wine.

• rachel and alex finally came home last week. during our first visit to them they were perfect little angels, sleeping the whole time and not crying at all. it looks like this whole twins thing is a piece of cake.
• it was finally sunny for a weekend day, so we got to do some yard work. i attempted to put together my wheelbarrow, but halfway through discovered that it was missing one of the main bolts that holds it together. so much for starting digging.
• after weeks and weeks of rainy days, we’re starting to come up with new projects to keep ourselves occupied indoors. i almost started ripping the ugly black tile backsplash off the wall in order to retile it with something nicer and lighter. if it keeps on raining, it’ll happen sooner rather than later.
• i started playing a little call of duty 2 last week. the lovely suse thinks i’m going to turn into a big computer gaming tool, but i swear that it won’t happen. I have a really short attention span, so i’ll tire of it in a week.
• i’m very excited for the new season of entourage. as crazy as it sounds, i think i get more excited to watch this show than the sopranos. otherwise, our tivo is having a very quiet summer.
• we had dinner with our neighbors who live across the street and it turns out that their house is almost an exact mirror image of ours, down to the trim and funny nooks. although fortunately, our backyard does not contain a giant batting cage.
• the little girl we saw at russo’s, maybe 3 years old, already an expert at the art of parent manipulation. earlier, we saw her baloon accidentally pop, scaring the bejeezus out of anyone within 30 feet. about 5 minutes later, after she had stopped crying, we hear her say “mommy, i’m still scared. but some gummy bears would make me feel a lot better.” pure genius. that little girl is going places.
• after being cut off while merging onto the highway, i speed up to give the offender a dirty look and possibly a dirty finger. she had the dirty finger taken care of as we pulled up alongside to see her wrist-deep digging for a big giant booger. that was all the appology we needed. priceless.

It was recently brought to my attention by Mark that I’m a complete hypocrite:

“Let’s consider pizza and quesadillas. Each one a very simple dish with the
potential to be extremely trashy/dirty (Frozen dough and Hunt’s canned pizza
sauce anyone? Or maybe just an Ellio’s to keep it simple) or something very
special. It’s all about the time and care you put into the ingredients and
a small bit of technique.

I’m left with the impression that you see pizza as a divine dish that is all
too often not treated with the respect it deserves. While a quesadilla is
at best a guilty pleasure and at worst a culinary charity case which you
deign to lift up into respectability. But I don’t see a hell of a lot of
difference between the two.”

He is, of course, correct. I completely agree with him. I suppose I put it into
a different category just based on how it’s treated in this country. While pizza has always been considered an inexpensive working-class sort of food, it’s traditionally been handled with respect and care. The oldest pizzerias in the country are still among the best because they’ve kept doing things the way they’ve always done, without bastardizing the product. The popularity has obviously spawned the mostly sad commercial pizza we see today, but it’s still respected in many places as a culinary classic.

Mexican food, unfortunately, has never really seen the same sort of
idea of preserving the tradition in mainstream America. Most mexican food that Americans eat is an Americanized version of it (um, Taco Bell? Chili’s?) that
doesn’t give the food the respect that it deserves. Some one like Rick Bayless is a perfect example of some one who is trying to change that perception, and based upon a meal there last year, God, I hope he’s successful in his mission.

I think I associate a lot of those Americanized versions (nachos for example) as
what people consider Mexican food, and for some reason, I put quesadillas in the same sort of category. When I think of quesadillas, the first image to pop into my head it my colllege roomate drew making them in a skillet with just tortillas and either mozzarella or cheddar cheese. i don’t think he can even spell quesadilla, yet he knew what they were. I almost feel like they’ve become more American than Mexican at this point. But I also remember watching a Tony Bourdain
show where he was in a Mexican market and had a quesadilla with made with freshly pressed tortillas, queso fresco, and squash blossoms cooked on an old cast iron griddle that looked like the most delicious thing in the world. It certainly isn’t a trash food, but unfortunately, that’s what it’s become in this country. It, and all Mexican food in general, deserves a hell of a lot more respect that we give it.

And of course, Mark must now be killed.

This is another one of our summertime favorites. It’s cool, it’s crisp, it’s a little sweet, a little salty, and a whole lotta tasty. Watermelon for dinner sounds a little wacky, but the feta and red onion keep it from being too sweet, and it works nicely as a foil to a piece of grilled fish, chicken, or meat.

The recipe couldn’t be easier. Cut a hunk of seedless watermelon into bite-sized or smaller chunks, add half of a thinly sliced red onion, about half a pound of feta cheese also cut or broken into chunks, a handful of fresh mint, a finely diced half of a red chili, the zest and juice of a lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper. Mix it all up, and you’re good to go.

I’ve seen a bunch of different variations of this over the past few years, but this one went well with our particular dinner theme, which was more in the middle-easern direction: Seared mahi mahi crusted with za’atar, allepo pepper, wild oregano, brown sugar, and garlic. You could easily substitute lime juice and add some scallions and cilantro to make in more Asian-y or South-of-the-Border direction. Either way, it’ll quickly become a favorite. Still, don’t feel the need to skip dessert.

Photo Courtesy of the Lovely Suse

I just stumbled upon this article that was in an issue of New York Magazine last summer. It has five different people write down exactly what they ate and when they ate it for a full week. A few things struck me:

1. People, for the most part, eat like crap. They eat lots of junk, big portions, not a lot of vegetables or fruit, and apparently, have no regularity with how or what they eat.

2. Is this NYC that people are like this? Obviously, no one is cooking at home, which is typical in the city. Or are people like this everywhere? Does anyone eat 3 square meals (or 6 small meals) anymore?

3. Most people don’t exercise regularly.

4. Am I a complete anomaly for eating the way I do? I realize that the majority of people don’t cook on a daily basis like we do, but in terms of the amount of good fresh food, vegetables, fruits, unprocessed foods, and “normal-sized” portions, have we become total freaks?

I, of course, have started making a list starting with Monday morning, of everything that I eat this week. I would say that this is a pretty typical one, so let’s see how it goes. I expect to see that I drink a lot of water, eat pretty much the same way every day, eat lots of fresh produce, sensible portions, and minimal packaged or processed food. People always ask me with all of the cooking and eating that I do, why I don’t weigh 500 pounds. Maybe this experiment, along with the fact that I get about an hour of exercise 5-6 days a week, will explain that.

By the way, the above image is from a google image search for “glutton”.

I don’t know why I feel a little trashy making quesadillas. Maybe they feel a little too American-Mexican to me, sort of like nachos, even though I know they’re not some made-up culinary mess. Still, whenever I make them, I feel the need to fancy them up. Make them a little more special so I don’t feel so dirty.

Quesadillas are at their most basic two tortillas with some melted cheese stuck between them. You can pretty much jam any other sorts of fillings in there along with the cheese, and people have tried everything at this point: Beef, chicken, duck, veggies, pork, etc. They’re the easiest thing in the world to make, but of course, I have to go and make it a little more complicated, for fun’s sake, right? For these, I went with some caramelized onions, grilled shrimp, and cilantro. Instead of the usual cooking them in a hot pan to crisp up the tortillas and melt the cheese, I grilled them. Oooh, fancy, huh?

Let’s get down to the recipe. I took a large yellow onion and sauteed it over low heat with a little olive oil and butter. Doing it slowly for about 25 minutes gets the onions all nice and sweet and soft and melty. The shrimp is marinated quickly in lime juice, olive oil, some cayenne and chili powder, and then grilled until just cooked through. They could also just as easily be sauteed, but you already have the grill going, so save yourself some pan washing and just use it. To make assembly easier and to make the quesadillas a little flatter (and to make the shrimp go further), I split them in half lengthwise.

Now it’s time for assembly. Brush the bottoms of the bottom tortilla (I used the larger “fajita sized” tortillas) with some olive oil and put it oiled side down. Spread some of the onion on top, add some of the shrimp, layer on some shreaded cheese (Monterey Jack is my standard, although in extreme snooty cases, I’ve gone with slices of a soft cow’s-milk cheese like brie or camembert), and a few pinches of fresh, chopped cilantro. Season with salt and pepper (you want it to taste good, right?), and then add the top tortilla. Brush it with oil, and repeat for as many as you want to make. Setting up a little assembly line will make it go faster.

The grill should be at about a medium heat as you need time for the cheese to melt before the tortillas get too charred and crisp. It will take about 3 minutes per side, and the trickiest part is the flip. I like to use my big fat cookie spatula, which works perfectly. You want nice grill marks, crispy tortillas, and melted cheese. Watch out, because these bad boys can burn in a hurry. When they’re done, cut them into quarters (you should hear that crunch when you cut them), stack ‘em up, and serve them with your favorite (or homemade) salsa, and some freshly made guac. They may be trashy, but they sure are tasty. People will eat them in a hurry, so be ready to make more.

• it was a pretty quiet week.the rain kept us from having to do anything in the yard, and i didn’t feel like doing anything indoors. that makes for a pretty unproductive weekend,and i loved it. sometimes, even we get a little tired of being crazy all the time.
• a happy early birthday to mike. his surprise party went off without a hitch and he didn’t have a clue. also, a belated congrats to he and his lady getting engaged. i forgot to put that on last week’s top ten. sorry ladies!
• tom managed to run the 26.2 miles of the san diego marathon without falling on his face. i think. and he managed to finish in excellent time. now he can officially go back to being a lazy slug. just kidding tommy.
• with the increased humidity last week, our knife strip unceremoniously came crashing to the counter, not once, but twice last week. i guess the mounting tape can’t do it on its own. so it was back to trying to drill holes in the tile, and maybe the new drill would have better luck. well, sort of. it took me 2 more glass/tile bits to do it, which i think brought the total to 4 drill bits to drill 2 holes. at $5 a pop, that adds up to $10 per hole. and then i realized that i really couldn’t drive screws into them, so there are now 2 screws sort of screwed in, sort of holding it up, with lots and lots of mounting tape holding it to the wall. well, it hasn’t fallen down yet.
• the return of ramsay’s kitchen nightmares, one of my favorite shows on BBC America. celeb chef gordon ramsay goes into a failing brit restaurant and whips it into shape, kicking ass all over the place. and a much more realistic representation of the man than fox’s hell’s kitchen, which will have a second season this summer. i love how the photos on his website try to make him look all nice and friendly.
• i finally got a new video card for my computer. which means that with the exception of the CDROM drive and case, every single part has been replaced since i first built it about 5 years ago. new motherboard, processor, memory, hard drive, power supply, and now video card. i should just bite the bullet and buy a DVD burner and trash the old CD burner. when that thing spins up, it sounds like a jet engine taking off.
• i love that whenever i have pizza questions, i can just email peter reinhart directly, and he always emails me back within an hour or two. he’s the man.

Growing up in a Jewish household, there wasn’t a lot of pork lying around. It’s not that my mom kept kosher, and there were always plenty of spareribs and pork strips to go around when we went out for chinese food, but for some reason, making a big hunk of pork just didn’t happen. There was the occassional piece of bacon (for some reason, cooked in the microwave), there were ham sandwiches, and I seem to remember once or twice having a dried out pork chop for dinner. I think the idea of a pork roast or a big fat ham or a whole pig roast in the backyard just seemed sacriligious or something.

Luckily, that doesn’t hold true in our household. We’re not big meat eaters, and for a long time, I didn’t eat any red meat or pork at all. In fact, I had a 2 and a half year stretch where I didn’t eat a single bite of beef or pork or lamb or any other four-legged creature. I guess it started out as a health thing, and then due to my stubbornness, it became a badge of honor and something to tell girls at parties. As if not eating meat was going to show the ladies how sensitive and concerned and healthy and sexy I was. Yeah, I don’t think that worked. A slice of proscuitto di Parma later, I was done. Bring on the pig. And the lamb. And occassionally, the cow.

It was time to learn how to cook meat. I don’t think I had even seen a pork tenderloin until well into my 20’s, and that was probably just on tv. Once I figured out how easy it was to cook and how tasty, and yes, lean, it was, it’s become part of our weekday dinner arsenal. A little prep-work is needed, however, as anyone who’s tasted store-bought pork lately can tell you.

Pork ain’t what it used to be apparently. Farming and production methods have pretty much stripped the once fat pig of a good amount of its fat, and therefore, most of its flavor. For those of us who don’t have a local supplier of berkshire pork, we have to figure out a way to add back that flavor. The best way is to brine it. Adding equal amounts of sugar and salt to water (i use about 3/4 cup of each to about a gallon of water) and then submerging the pork in the brine for a few hours or overnight adds back both moisture and flavor and the difference in the end result is pretty amazing.

After removing it from the brine and drying it off, a nice rub or marinade will add even more flavor and a nice crust once it hits the grill. For this one, i marinated the pork in lime juice, crushed coriander seed, ground cumin, fresh cilantro, olive oil, salt, and pepper. A good soak in the marinade for a few hours will do the trick, and then it’s time for the grill.

Your only job now is to not overcook the damn thing. Yes, the fear of catching some flesh-eating parasite that makes your ears fall off from eating undercooked pork is a thing of the past.Trichinosis is no longer an issue in the U.S., so don’t be afraid to cook it on the medium side so it’s a little pink in the middle. Once it goes past medium, it pretty much dries out to shoe leather. Get a nice char on it on all sides and then finish it over low heat. It will take about 20 minutes for a whole tenderloin, and will still have a little give when you push on it when it’s done. Keep checking on it, because it will go from perfect to overcooked in a hurry. Let it rest for 10 minutes before slicing so all of those juices that you spent so much time adding back in don’t go running out. We served this with a tomato, grilled avocado,and grilled corn salad dressed with lime juice, cilantro, scallions, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I also grilled some limes to squeeze over the meat when finished. That’s some good eats. Now go cook some pig!