21 Aug 2012
by scolgin
in On the Road, Recipes, Video
Tags: cooking, food, India, Maria Blackmer, Mauritian cuisine, Mauritius, Portland, recipes, shrimp creole
“Do you want me to cook Mauritian food tonight?” Maria offered. That is not the sort of offer I turn down.
Maria’s Mauritian shrimp creole
We were staying with our friends, Gary and Maria, in their home along the Tualatin River in an idyllic suburb of Portland, Oregon. Gary is one of my oldest friends from childhood. Maria, whom he met in the Northwest wine industry, hails from Kauai, where we were fortunate enough to be a part of their wedding a few years back. Her father is American, and her mother comes from Mauritius. More
12 Aug 2012
by scolgin
in Recipes
Tags: Andreas Viestad, arctic, blackberries, cloudberries, Multekrem, New Scandinavian Cooking, Norway, Norwegian cuisine, Washington
I have a dour Norwegian pal from the North Pole named, coincidentally, Pål. (Pronounced “Paul”.) He’s about 7 feet tall and I knew him sometime before I ever saw him smile. He’s actually got a good sense of humor, and will laugh heartily when you get him going. But he’s just as likely to get teary telling you about the time back home when they watched a reindeer dying outside the living room window.
I had Pål and his now ex-wife (from Ireland) over for dinner one time. I can’t remember what I cooked — hopefully I didn’t try to be clever and make him Norwegian food (“You ever had lutefisk like that before, Pål!??”) When we have guests for dinner and they ask what they can bring, I’ll often suggest dessert — it’s not my favorite dish to prepare and that’s one less thing I have to think about. I will never forget what Pål brought us for dessert. More
03 Aug 2012
by scolgin
in Recipes
Tags: Campari, cocktails, geishas, japan, Japanese cuisine, Kyoto, limoncello, Pontocho, sake, vodka
Ever since I found a very cool cocktail shaker at a garage sale, I’ve been experimenting with my mixology — often motivated by given culinary circumstances (let us not forget our recent adventure into Campari on a warm night when Italian food was being served). Necessity or at the very least context being the mother of invention, I’ve been inspired to some lofty heights with spirits.
One recent evening, I was making Japanese food. My wife, having a rash that she was convinced was yeast related, was off beer. So the Sapporo that I was drinking got the stiff arm. Furthermore, she had spent much of the afternoon organizing the children’s reams of school artwork and bins of toys, and was in need of something stronger — something much stronger. All of which I took as a gauntlet being laid down. Was I mixologist enough to rise to the challenge? More
27 Jul 2012
by scolgin
in Cooking Tips, Recipes, Video
Tags: butter, Delitia, Escoffier, France, haute cuisine, Land O'Lakes, Nobu, Parma, recipes, sea bass
Did you ever play that Desert Island game — you know, the one where someone asks you what 10 albums you would choose if you were marooned on a desert island? I like to play this game with food. Which 10 ingredients would I want if I was stranded on a desert island? And high upon my list would be that glistening, glorious gold of the dairy case: butter. I could make a palm frond taste good so long as I had butter.
I’d been meaning to put my infatuation for beurre to words for some time now. Sitting here eating my leftover grilled chicken from a few posts back — basted on the barbie with melted butter — I got thinking about just how important this simple, elemental ingredient is. More
20 Jul 2012
by scolgin
in Observations, Recipes
Tags: Campari, cocktails, drinks, Gertrude Stein, Giornataccia, Italian cuisine, Italy, recipes, summer, Venice
“The days were long and the nights were long and the life was good.”
—Gertrude Stein, Fiesole, Italy, Summer 1908
A few weeks ago, drinking and dining with my friends/neighbors/mortal enemies (envy is a terrible thing) Chris and Glennis before they left for a week in Venice, Italy, we got talking about Campari.
Chris was pontificating that Europe had an appreciation for bitter foods and spirits that you don’t see as much in America. That set me to forming theories and pontificating in turn about how bitter as an entire taste realm was absent altogether from American cuisine — we like our sweet (OH, how we like our sweet!) and our salty, we’ll dabble in sour. But bitter is completely unrepresented — replaced, perhaps, by fried. And more salt. More
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