28 Feb 2015
by scolgin
in Recipes, The Pantry
Tags: cheese, chicharrones, Mexican cooking, Mexico, queso cotija, recipes, Saul Garcia construction, tacos
My friend, Saul, who grew up one of nearly a dozen children without electricity or running water on a farm some 45 minutes from the nearest village in Mexico, once brought me back from a visit with his parents a chunk of cheese his mother had made. Of course it was raw, of course it was artisanal — not in the self-congratulatory way of the contemporary foodie, but in the “what other way is there?” way of the peasant farmer.
“Mr. Chicharron, we’re ready for your close up.”
Not only was it a thoughtful and generous gift — it was delicious, with a grassy freshness pairing with a slightly tart complexity reminiscent of bufala mozzarella, a characteristic more often more evident in raw cheeses. More
20 Feb 2015
by scolgin
in Recipes
Tags: bloody mary, caviar, Don Schneider, Mexican cuisine, Rick Bayless, tamalada, tamales, Vallarta Market
We were sitting around on New Year’s Day drinking bloody marys, when my pal Don showed up with caviar, creme fraiche and blinis.
New Years Day in the Colgin kitchen
His timing was impeccable — it was late morning, we’d eaten nothing yet, the drinks were beginning to take away the edge of nausea, and we had nothing planned. The only thing on my agenda for the day was culinary — I was going to make tamales. More
19 Dec 2014
by scolgin
in Recipes, Video
Tags: ciriole di farro, farro, food, heirloom tomatoes, Italian cooking, pasta, quick cooking tips, recipes
I was making lunch for my wife and myself the other day, and had settled on a simple pasta. I had a nice heirloom pineapple tomato I needed to use, and would go from there.
Ciriole di farro pasta with heirloom tomato
In the cupboard, I found an open box of ciriole di farro noodles (farro, for the uninitiated, is an ancient Roman grain related to barley) that would work beautifully as a canvas. More
21 Nov 2014
by scolgin
in Recipes, Starlets
Tags: cod, Daniel Nevins, Donegal, Gaelic, Guinness, Ireland, Irish fish soup, Kerrygold Irish butter, soup
‘Twas a cold and drizzly Southern California autumn day. As the mercury plunged into the mid-60s and I watched the fog crawling around in the canyon, my mind turned to soup.
I descended into the even more frigid depths of my freezer, looking for inspiration. Then, like an ice fisherman lifting a catch from a hole in a frozen lake, I pulled up a rock-hard filet of Atlantic cod. And the soup was on! More
04 Nov 2014
by scolgin
in Pork, Recipes, Video
Tags: Dia de los Muertos, holidays, James Joyce, Loteria, Mexican cooking, Mexico, mole, Oaxaca, Pork, The Dead
“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.” —James Joyce, “The Dead”
As I’ve confessed to in the past, I like holidays — particularly other people’s holidays. Our neighbors to the south, Mexico, for example.
More
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