2006

Seattle Meet-Up Reminder

Just a reminder to Seattle readers: we’re meeting on New Year’s Day, January 1st, at 3:30 PM at Victrola Coffee. Everyone else, I’ll be back in a week. Happy New Year!

Three Meals To Eat While I’m Gone

Ok, honey, mommy’s leaving tomorrow morning at 6:30 am for an early flight to Seattle. Oh stop your crying! You know Nanny Hitchens will take good care of you: that whip she carries around is just for show. She’s a lovely woman, though even I wonder sometimes why she wears a leather mask.

The numbers are on the fridge but they’re just a random assortment of numbers, they don’t correspond to anything. Nanny Hitchens requested we put a lock on the outside of your door, so we obliged while you were sleeping. But don’t worry, honey, mommy has three meals for you to cook while I’m gone! (Nanny Hitchens says you better have these ready by 6 pm sharp each night or she’ll cut off your oxygen! But she’s just teasing, she doesn’t know how to work your tank.)

Yum, I know you’re allergic to shellfish, sweetheart, but Nanny Hitchens loves clams! And this is one of the best clam dishes mommy’s ever made: it comes from Mario Batali’s “Simple Italian Food.” Mommy doesn’t have time to write out the recipe, but here’s the idea: you take garlic, minced red onion, and 4 oz of chopped pancetta and you cook on medium heat with olive oil for about ten minutes. Then you add white wine, red chile flakes, 4 Tbs butter, and two dozen clams. Cook until the clams open up and then add linguine which you’ve cooked in boiling water (duh!) Let the linguine finish cooking in the broth, but don’t worry if this is soupy–it’s supposed to be. Serve with lots of bread, because Nanny Hitchens likes to mop up the sauce. Delicioso!

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Now baby, I know you’re a vegetarian but Nanny Hitchens LOVES chicken. So why not use Grant Achatz’s chicken from last month’s Food and Wine? Here’s the link. Mommy made the bold choice of roasting potatoes beneath the chicken to catch the chicken juices. This was a very good choice and mommy’s sorry she didn’t share but you are a vegetarian! Oh what do you mean I starve you, you’re such an exaggerator Ms. 2 inch waist!

Why don’t you wipe your tears on a pancake?

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I know you’re allergic to gluten and borderline diabetic, but Nanny Hitchens isn’t. She loves pancakes and expects them every morning. (“Delivered to my bed promptly at 7,” she insists. “And bring a nail file so you can work on my corns.”)

The recipe’s right here at Epicurious. The trick is you separate the eggs and whip the egg whites until they’re stiff so the pancakes are light and fluffy. As you can see mommy made three small ones and one big one, just like the bruises I found on your back after my last trip away. What a strange pattern! Sort of like a paw-print. (Oh, Nanny Hitchens is bringing her Grizzly Bear again: prepare the cage, sweetheart.)

Hope you have a good week while I’m gone and mommy doesn’t necessarily love you, but she has strong feelings for you. Kisses!

Tomato + Domino = Madness

I blame Jason Kottke for this post which led me to DOMINO PRESSURE. (Warning: Do not click link if you love your life or getting work done because you will grow obsessed with squashing tomatoes and clicking the perfect domino to squash the tomato and then you will play and play and set a goal to get to Level 20 and then you’ll get to Level 20 and you’ll keep playing and playing and playing….) (Query: what are those high scores at the end? How do you know your score?) (Query #2: Do the shadows really tell you anything? I mean I often feel they’re telling me which way the domino’s going to fall but then I click it and sometimes it’ll squash the tomato instead of knocking over another domino and all the voices in my head begin to cackle… STOP LAUGHING STOP LAUGHING)

Ed Levine on GMA

In case you missed this on the other blogs, Ed Levine’s going to be on Good Morning America tomorrow. Set your Tivos now!

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Congratulations to Pim and all the other participating food bloggers: Menu For Hope III has been a triumph in every way. Thanks to everyone who contributed; especially those of you who picked my prizes! Can’t wait to put them together…

Seattle Meet-Up (What Are You Doing New Year’s Day?)

After the overwhelming response to my Seattle Party post, I’ve decided to have a meet-up! You’ll get to meet Craig, his sister and friends and maybe even a famous blogger or two. You’ll also have the opportunity to sober up after a wild night of New Year’s revelry because we’re meeting for coffee at Victrola:

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So here are the details…

What: Amateur Gourmet Seattle Meet-Up

When: January 1st, New Year’s Day at 3:30 PM.

Where: Victrola Coffee (here’s the info.)

Why: Because it’ll be fun!

Can’t wait to see you there, Seattle.

Pot Party

This is the last party in our tour of five parties and you may think that after visiting so many parties, we want to kick back and do illegal drugs–but that’s not what this party’s about! This party is about a different type of pot: pot d’creme. Over the past two weeks I’ve made two different recipes for pot d’creme. The first was a chocolate pot d’creme from a cookbook that I’m blanking on now. But look how sexy it came out:

It’s such a basic recipe that you can find a recipe like it anywhere. Butter, sugar, eggs, chocolate whisked together and then placed in ramekins or, in my case, coffee mugs. Placed in a water bath and baked at a low temperature they should set after 35 minutes. These, however, didn’t set until the next day after spending 24 hours in the fridge. But when they were set, they were absolutely divine. “Divine!” said everyone who tried them. But they weren’t as divine as the pots d’creme I made a few days later…

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