My New Boyfriend!

Last Friday, I went to dinner with some friends. And this was no ordinary dinner. I had been looking forward to this since September when Ross and Maggie first told me about their amazing experience at Bryan Zupon's Z Kitchen. If you don't know about Bryan, you can read about him in this NY Times article. Read it. After some rescheduling and more rescheduling, we were finally able to get over to his dorm room for dinner on Friday night.

Our courses included:

Scallop, avocado mosaic, olive oil-poached grapefruit, tomato-cumin chutney, mustard, Sichuan peppercorn, Old Bay



Red snapper, fennel, raisins, candied olive, pomegranate


And then there was the course that changed my life. The course that made me feel like I had died and gone to heaven. It was BACON-WRAPPED BACON!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Bacon-wrapped pork belly) Oh. My. God. I fell in love. See that picture below? That is my boyfriend. My boyfriend is BACON!

Seattle Meets New York – Bacon Wrapped Bacon Buns: Pork belly, Nueske’s bacon, miso-butterscotch, snow peas

Bryan said that this dish might be his "greatest achievement and contribution to humanity at large." I agree. It was so delicious.

To see some of our other dishes, go here. I even licked my dessert plate!!!

After the meal, I went home and cried. Never has a meal moved me to tears before. But this one did. I love bacon. Bacon loves me. Maybe I should write a song for my new boyfriend on the ukulele. Woot!

I Miss Cooking

As I've been sitting here confined to my polka-dotted chair, I've been watching the magazines pile up. I don't know how I accumulated so many magazine subscriptions. I don't even read all of them. For instance, I receive the Duke alumni magazine which I only sometimes open. Boo Duke!! The New Yorker is so chock full of information that I feel overwhelmed and usually end up reading one article a month if I am lucky. Then there is the local Sun magazine of which I usually just browse the Readers Write section. I have two music magazine subscriptions, which is too much, but I think that one was a gift.

Today, Saveur came in the mail. This and Cooks Illustrated are my favorite magazines which is somewhat ironic since I have never cooked until very recently. And and it's going to be awhile before I return to my culinary explorations. On Saveur's cover is the tastiest looking salad ever. It's a spinach salad with shallots and bacon, much like the one that I made for Elizabeth & Noah a couple months ago. It looks so tasty. My diet of the past couple weeks has been lacking adequate leafy foods. I am dying for some greens. Especially greens with bacon. My diet is extremely limited these days.

As I was flipping through Saveur this evening, I saw various articles about elaborate kitchens and places that I cannot afford to visit. But then, I came across this one photograph and my jaw dropped and I immediately started salivating. It was a picture of chocolate. It was porn. Chocolate porn. Handmade corn tortilla filled with melted chocolate. Delicious. The recipe looks easy enough, but it calls for four cups of masa harina. There are enough Latino groceries in Lakewood that I am sure that I can find it around here.

The more recipes I read, the more I realize I have no clue what goes into the food I eat or how it is prepared. Maybe once I am better I'll try to continue teaching myself how to cook and learning where to find certain ingredients in the grocery. Until then, I think I'll set the goal of getting well enough to go out to eat supper at Lantern one night in the next couple weeks. Rossi still owes me dinner.

I Heart Mark Bittman

I first have to say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who has recommended the Mark Bittman cookbook to me. I have been cooking sporadically over the past few weeks and some of my attempts have been flops. But tonight, I chose a recipe from Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything and I totally scored. I made stir-fried chicken with spinach. But since I am still very much a novice, I have to add one hour to his cooking time estimate. Despite the time it took to prepare, the dish was divine. This recipe rocks. I could've added a little bit more ginger to the recipe, but the chicken came out tender and the flavoring was perfectly subtle, and delicious. All the chopping and grating really wore thin... but just like the banjo uke, it is all about practice, I guess.

A week or two ago, I decided that I wanted to make a pasta dish using some of the ingredients that I had in the fridge. I skimmed through the Mark Bittman cookbook and was able to modify a couple recipes to come up with my own creation of tomatoes and capers and onions! I did it all by myself. This is a major accomplishment for me since a pasta dish in the past has consisted of ragu + noodles. I think it is safe to say that I will never purchase store-bought pasta sauce ever again.

Tonight, I cooked while listening to a mix cd that I am in the process of creating, which was fun, too. Unfortunately, the meal was much better than the mix. I gotta keep working on the mix CD because right now it is BORING. But while cooking and listening to music, I have discovered that I am on a Ray Charles kick. I think I could put him on every mix that I ever make. And I also discovered that I love cooking chicken dishes.

Golly, working all the time really sucks considering all the other fun things that I could be doing. I love cooking to music and making mix CDs. I need to make more time for these sorts of activities.

Pesto With Gene and Maria

Wow. Wow. Wow. This evening was so amazing. First, I decided to continue on my cooking spree and I made pesto! It was really tasty... I mixed it in with some pasta. This whole weekend was a cooking extravaganza! In addition to the pesto today, over the weekend, I made: vegetarian chili, meat chili, baconfat salad, and fig & anchovy paste. I was definitely inspired being with Lee and Ewald in Brooklyn. And Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything is a huge help, too. I love to cook!

Anyway, after I finished my pesto, I decided to see what the DVR had picked up. I watched a Colbert Report and then I remembered that IT IS GENE KELLY MONDAY!!! So, I turned to TCM and watched some of Singin' In the Rain. Debbie Reynolds is hot. Donald O'Conner is hot. Gene Kelly is EXTREMELY hot. And when they sing "Good Morning" all together, it is sheer bliss. I have this movie on DVD, but it is always exciting to stumble upon one of your favorites airing on TV... it is a special treat.

After that, I ventured out to Local 506 to catch Erie Choir and Maria Taylor. Ms. Taylor blew me away again. She played all my favorites from her album 11:11 but then she did the best cover ever. Just imagine hearing one of your all-time favorite songs sung by one of your all-time favorite voices. Maria Taylor covered "At Last" which was popularized by the great Etta James. This version was stripped down to just Taylor's whispery, delicate voice and her brother playing bass. It was dreamy and chilling and beautiful. It was so moving that I got tears on my shirt. I get chills just thinking about it. Holy cow.

I hope the rest of my evenings this week go as well as tonight. I have some other Gene Kelly movies on the DVR and I have this recipe for sesame noodles with peanut sauce and tofu that I want to try...

Security Blanket CD

Tonight, although I should be packing for a whirlwind weekend in Miami, I am procrastinating. So here I am writing and not packing. I keep thinking about how proud I am that I cooked the other night and I didn't even have to play my comfort, security blanket CD! Anytime I feel sad or anxious or I can't sleep, I play this particular CD. I think that it is my all-time favorite. It is not titled Security Blanket CD. It is actually nameless which is unusual for me since I usually give titles to all my mixes. I know this mix of songs like the back of my hand. I know each segue. I know that the Tift Merritt track is way louder than the rest of the songs. I have played this mix probably a hundred times or more. And, I definitely I remember making it. It was December 2001 and I was really really sad: it was Christmastime, I was sad over a boy, my house was really cold and a pipe burst, and I just come home from eye surgery. I was depressed. This is what I felt:

Beatles - I Will
Percy Sledge - Come Softly to Me
Blossom Dearie - Tea for Two
Azure Ray - Displaced
Velvet Underground - Sunday Morning
Rufus Wainwright - Rebel Prince
Aretha Franklin - Skylark
Nick Drake - Northern Sky
Magnetic Fields - Book of Love
Red House Painters - Song for Blue Guitar
Tift Merritt - Trouble Over Me
Elliott Smith - Between the Bars
Al Green - How Can You Mend a Broken Heart
Radiohead - No Surprises
Big Star - Thirteen
East River Pipe - My Little Rainbow
Ryan Adams - La Cienega Just Smiled
Dump - some prince cover
Rose Melberg - My Heaven, My Sky
Hope Sandoval - Suzanne

A couple friends have told me that it is their favorite mix CD. (Wow. What a compliment!) My friend, Lightnin', liked it so much that he sent me a copy of his own security blanket mix CD. I still have my mix CD somewhere, but I haven't needed it lately. I have been sleeping better than I have in probably 10 years and I don't know why. Maybe it's the blogging. Maybe it is the cooking. Or maybe it is my rekindled obsession with music. Or maybe it my steering away from depressing mix CDs from December 2001. It's time to pack away the security blanket and be a big kid.

I Can Cook! I Can Cook!

I have always been embarrassed about my kitchen skills and as a result I have developed a severe case of cooking phobia. It seems that all my friends know how to cook extremely well and invite me over for exquisite dinners and I have never invited anyone over for a meal that I cooked. But all that is about to change! I want to learn how to cook!!!

I have always hated the thought of cooking... I want everything to be exact and cooking instructions have always seemed vague to me. What the hell do these things mean: "medium heat," "golden brown," "until done," "pinch." It drives me nuts. Is it medium heat over the big burner or the little burner? What hue of golden brown I am supposed to be looking for? What's a pinch?

Up until yesterday, I have only known how to cook three things and I only do it when I absolutely have to. My three dishes are: vegetarian chili, deviled eggs, and pound cake. That's it, folks. I tried cooking something new one time a few years ago. It was a roasted butternut squash soup and it was a disaster. Even with my comfort, security-blanket mix CD playing, it was a horrible experience in which everything ended up in the trash and I ended up on the floor in tears.

Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting at work and I found myself thinking that I want to cook myself dinner!!! Now, over the past few months, I have had some crazy ideas, but nothing like this. But after reading Elizabeth's post yesterday about her swank meal, I was inspired. I want to invite friends over for dinner!

So, yesterday when I felt this urge to cook, I decided somewhat randomly on chicken chili. I googled "chicken chili" and printed out the first recipe that I could find. It didn't look too difficult... but it involved alot of chopping which I dread. After I got home from Whole Foods Paycheck with the ingredients and a six-pack, I opened a beer, put on a Devendra Barnhart CD and began cooking. I got all the ingredients chopped and measured beforehand... and I think that helped easy my anxiety. The beer and Devendra Barnhart didn’t hurt either.

I was supposed to pick Sara up to go to the Federal at 7:30, but I ended up calling her to INVITE HER TO DINNER AT MY HOUSE! I was in tears when I was on the phone with her. I have never ever in my entire life called anyone to have dinner at my house that I COOKED ALL BY MYSELF. The chicken chili was amazing considering that I have never cooked meat before in my life. It was actually pretty tasty. The chicken was a teeny bit overdone, but overall, I was extremely pleased with the results. I kept saying “Wow! Wow! Wow! I cooked and it’s good!”

Sara and I ended up skipping the Federal completely and stayed at home and watched AV Geeks DVDs until 2am. We were both too stuffed to make it out of the house! [I was going to post a picture of the chili in progress, but the pictures that I had looked pretty gross... semi-raw chicken doesn't make a pretty picture. So, here is a picture in my cute little apron instead.]

Now, I am ready to try more things. I want to cook dinner for people. I want to use my dining room! Last night, I felt so good. Send me your recipes!!!

Music of Your Ex-Boyfriend

On Friday when I was pulling music for my radio show, I came across the Beth Orton CD in the library called Central Reservation. I've never played anything off this record because an ex-boyfriend of mine used to like that record and he put the song "Love Like Laughter" on a mix CD for me. If I played something off that record, I felt like it would just stir up old memories that I would rather keep unstirred. But I played the song on Friday after YEARS and it was a very beautiful song... and it did not stir up any unpleasant feelings for me.

There are other CDs that I have avoided at particular times in my life because of old boyfriend memories. Some are:
Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Mazzy Star - So Tonight That I Might See
The Cure - Disintegration
The Reindeer Section - Son of Evil Reindeer
The Sea and Cake - The Fawn
That Lloyd Cole record with "No Blue Skies" on it
Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend
Brian Eno - Another Green World

It's crazy that I gave up these recordings for sometimes years at a time because they brought back memories of ex-boyfriends. Thankfully, I can now play any of these without any pangs of heartache or sad memories, except I still finding myself skipping over Brian Eno's Another Green World on my Ipod. Oh, and anything from the Jam.

And I never ever go back and listen to mix CDs or tapes from ex-boyfriends (with one exception which I'll write about another day). There aren't that many mixes from ex's in my collection. It seems that in my past, I was the one who ended up making mixes as a wooing device. My track record goes to show that the way to a man's heart is *not* through his ear.

Maybe I need to learn to cook.