We eat on the floor

A light lunch served picnic-style. Ham chunks, homemade bread, radishes from the farm (perfect when dipped in butter, btw), a couple of cheeses, some salami (that moldy thing at the bottom of the plate). Yeah, that's dijon mustard. You got a problem with that?

Who wouldn't love a loquat?

As occasional urban foragers, we get the chance to play with some fun ingredients from time to time. One of the most successful of these was our discovery of a local loquat tree.

After a couple of days of munching on the often-overlooked plum/pear-like fruits, we came up with a plan for them: sorbet!

G went to go fetch loquats, and ended up w/ about 4 pounds total (the seeds are huge, so we expected a lot of loss).

After cleaning and seeding our free fruit, we simmered them in a simple syrup. We added lemon zest, lime (homegrown and from right down the street! thanks, guys), a touch of Cointreau, and a little bit of fresh mint.



Once the loquats were tender, a quick stick-blendering got us ready to go. Liquid was strained for skins:



Then into the ice-cream machine:



Though this picture doesn't do the final product much justice, the sorbet itself was a smash in the house and a frequent dessert for guests.

Whoopie!

Pumpkin whoopie pies from the Baked cookbook. We took these to a Superbowl party, and they were a huge hit. Easy to make, fun to feed to friends, and apparently, the dessert of the hour. And to think: we already had all the ingredients in the house!

Good bites - Parkside

Bar food with a nice upscale twist, Parkside on downtown 6th was the latest adventure.

A few highlights:





Oysters. I don't recall which of the several varieties we settled on. We forgot to take a picture before we had sucked them all down.





Roasted marrow bones and toast w/ a wilted herb salad. 'Nuff said.





Another appetizer. Sweetbreads with apple pickles on top. Surprisingly delicate.

Burger day

Because the simple things are best.

Good bites - Lamberts

"Fancy barbecue" joint Lamberts. Here are dinner highlights:





Above: brisket, ribs (bite of hanger steak in the corner of the plate), fried blackberry pie.

Gah! Apartment Grill Woes

Tonight's good bite was to be salads, steaks, and mashed. By no fault of our own, the steaks ended up with a distinctive A-1 taste - the flavor of cloves gave it away for us. Why, anonymous apartment griller, why?

Everything else was great. We ate the steaks anyway.