Dinner with the Dear Leader

11 Nov 2011 10 Comments

by scolgin in Recipes, Video Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Something happens to me when there are Korean short ribs around. I don’t like the man I become.

The Dear Leader, upset to find no short ribs

Our friend Pirco is from Berlin, his wife Jean is Korean. Every summer they have a party for Pirco’s birthday, and Jean makes short ribs — “kalbi”, in Korean. This year, Pirco was manning the grill. I bet he’s dynamite with a steamed bratwurst. But when it came to the short ribs, he looked in over his head. “Sean, do you think these coals look correct?” he asked. I was giving him tips, and next thing I knew it was I who was manning the grill. Which I could not have planned better — I was now in control of the short ribs. More

Jon

14 Oct 2011 7 Comments

by scolgin in Cooking Tips, Observations, Recipes Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

When I was in my 20s, I wrote a cookbook called “The Single Guy’s Cookbook & Guide to Entertaining.” My friend Mark (you may remember him as “Sidekick Mark” from previous posts) and I were at sushi one night talking about how impressive and economical it was to cook dinner for a date. Recite to her a little poetry you’d written with a glass of wine by the fire afterward, and she was yours. The recipes were simple and good, the advice intuitive… a book that was basically a guide for all those guys who burn toast or ruin a salad.

Jon's dinner

So it is with our friend Jon. Recently separated from his wife, he’s the guy who invites us over for dinner, and then asks what we’re having. He’s the guy who sends me pictures of what he’s preparing for dinner so I’ll feel sorry for him and invite him to our house instead. When his parents are in town visiting, he invites them to our house. He’s one of our favorite people and we love his kids, so we don’t mind. But I feel an almost philanthropic instinct to feed him. More

One Man’s Burger Odyssey, Pt. III — the Skinny Girls Burger

13 Sep 2011 1 Comment

by scolgin in Observations, Video, World's Best Sandwiches Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

So here I am back in the Skinny Girls kitchen — my “burger lab.” Eating so many different burgers, thinking and writing about burgers, got me wondering what I’d learned in my odyssey — besides where to go for a good burger, which I mostly already knew. How would what I had discovered, exposited on, praised the virtues of or extolled upon the deficiencies of ultimately affect my own approach to burger making? Had there been an “aha” moment?

The Skinny Girl Burger

Curiously, the two biggest takeaways came from thinking about Umami Burger, which was one of my least favorite of the places I wrote about (less because of their burgers than my reflexive aversion to anything trendy). More

Let Them Eat Flowers

26 Aug 2011 Leave a comment

by scolgin in Recipes, Video Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

We stopped by our friend Heather’s house the other evening for a visit. On the counter were two enormous zucchini.

“Did someone leave those on your porch?” I asked.

“My client gave them to me,” she replied.

How generous of them, I thought to myself.

“They’re too big to eat, right?”

“Well,” I pondered, “you could make a parmagiana kind of thing with them. I’ve got a good recipe for Greek zucchini balls. But those would make about 400.”

Zucchini blossoms

I’m always wary of the food-giving generosity of friends, neighbors, loved ones, strangers and clients. More

A Phoenix from the Flames

09 Aug 2011 12 Comments

by scolgin in Recipes, Video Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Among the world’s barbecue meats, next to regal rib-eyes and blissful racks of pork baby backs, chicken is the ugly red-headed stepchild.

More often than not, as I’m sure you’ve experienced at your share of backyard feasts, chicken is ruined on the grill. Rubbery thighs emerge black and blistered. Breasts languish on blazing grates while the host chats and tends to other things, turning them six or eight times over the course of an hour or so and eventually asking, “Do you think they’re done?” (Is it possible to successfully cook a chicken breast on the barbecue? Yes. Is it likely you will encounter it this summer? No.) More

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