It was the event that almost wasn’t. The event that re-emerged from the abyss, from the long lost annals of Gastroblogian history, stifled by photographic traumas, by the death cries of a computer far past its prime, and by the evils of a creature known only by the minacious name Blogger BETA.

No. We refuse to believe it. And why? Because this meal was just too damned good.

It’s true, I confess it. We haven’t finished unpacking our kitchen. We’ve got reasons, many of which I’ll explain another day, but in brief, we’re still using our picnic basket plasticware, and we’ve no idea where we put our favorite can opener. Not that this will stop us.

It’s also true: Our camera is broken, my computer’s throwing tantrums (Lappy jealousy, I’m certain of it), and we’ve yet to figure out where we can set up a reasonable spot for food (or for that matter, craft) photos. Not that we’re deterred by this either, dang it all.

Nope. We’re determined. We’ve been away from our favorite food blogging event far too long. We’ve had too many months without proper kitchen access at all.

And so, Paper Chef Weekend, we took to the store, and subsequently armed with a bag of cranberries, a bottle of sweet vermouth, and a glug of cheap champagne, we embarked upon our search for something wild. And cheap. Cheap is good. We’re on a scary budget these days. And with that in mind, first stop: the freezer and that chunk of wild Alaskan salmon we snagged from the in-laws while we were house sitting.

Second stop? The yard. Yard? Wild? Come again?

Trust me on this. The yard is wild. At least we haven’t had anything to do with it for our two years away, and since then? We chopped a few branches off the fig tree so the satellite dish would (ostensibly) work, but yes, the yard is wild. Weeds gone wild, herbs gone wild, and most of all, apple tree gone wild. As in, it’s been two years plus since it met a pair of pruning shears.

Result? Rosemary, sage, and thyme to gather by the bunch, and apples, apples, everywhere. Most of our apples hit the ground before we could get to them, but even so, we managed a partial harvest — enough for several treats, including this Paper Chef’s dessert.

A note about the apples. I believe they’re Granny Smiths, but in all honesty, I haven’t a clue. All I know is this: they are green, they are sour, they are crisp and they are damn good.

Here’s our makeshift studio. It’s a tiny end table atop a coffee table, with a TV tray table to the side to hold the desk lamp. Both desk lamp and the bridge lamp above have full-spectrum daylight bulbs to help with the color balance, and behind the setup, I’ve got an old curtain rod and one of our freshly unpacked curtains, which I think might belong on a window around here somewhere. I’ll figure that one out someday soon.

After we’re settled in (ha ha, in our distant future), I’ll build my first true photo set-up. See, up on the island, we had a luxury — a luxury in summer at least — of an enormous bank of west-facing windows. We were in daylight heaven. Here, well… we’re in a bungalow, a tiny bungalow with tiny windows and tall trees. (My S.A.D. is sad, I tell you.) Photos in natural light will be a rare occurrence this time of year. Or, I should rephrase, considering the current condition of the camera: photos will be a rare occurrence this time of year.

But enough of that. On with the food!

For dinner: Butter and herb poached salmon with yellow pepper and sweet vermouth coulis, fried, beer-simmered polenta, and cranberried sugar snap peas.

For dessert: Apple champagne gelée, and cranberry gelée parfait with sweet vermouth caramel.

A few short tasting notes:

Here’s the thing about butter poached salmon: It is moist. Scrumptiously, perfectly moist. So moist, that it falls off your fork, and in the end, you’ve got a coulis-slopped plate with flaky, tender bits of salmon all over it (this after you’ve devoured everything else) and you do what makes perfect sense: You roll up the lettuce that was, at the start, intended to be more a decorative bed than a necessary dinner element, and you scoop every last scrap of salmon up, creating one mighty fine salmon salad roll in the process.

And here’s the thing about our rosemary polenta points: I can’t quite explain it, but the rosemary bush in the backyard is beyond this world. This is not your everyday rosemary. This is the most phenomenal, fragrant, tasty rosemary I’ve ever encountered. This is the beluga caviar of rosemary. To kidnap a phrase from a favorite FBI boss of mine, someday I’m going to write an epic poem about this gorgeous rosemary. (But first, I’m going to propagate it!)

And the gelée? A funny thing happened on the way back from the island. We left our crappy old juicer behind because we thought we’d never use it again. So, Chopper didn’t quite have the right tools for the job, and he wasn’t able to get quite enough of the pulp out of the apple juice for the gelée to gel. It was still refreshing, even if the overall effect was unbalanced, and Chopper more than made up for it with his garnish. Yes, what is that crazy thing, anyway?

Why, it’s a boing!

I had a small challenge tracking this puppy down. Google "boing" and "caramel" and you get all sorts of Boing Boing posts and references to "the blogosphere’s yummy, caramel-filled core." (Cool! It’s caramel-filled, like a Cadbury Egg! I never knew!) Add an "s" to the boing’s end, and ah, there it is: Caramel Boings from chef Gale Grand. No pictures though, so we’ll just have to assume that Chopper’s boing is up to boingy par.

A final note, this time having to do with wine: Somewhere around halfway through the preparation, or perhaps it was after we’d tasted the first bit of rosemary and polenta, Chopper asked about wine. Now here’s the thing. Back in early October, we took a trip up to Washington wine country (an unblogged trip, I should add, due to a misbehaving digital camera and a collection of 35mm film rolls not yet sent to the processor) and we accumulated a modest but adventurous collection of wine. Six bottles, I think, and I’d been so resistant to drinking them all up, I’d consistently say "no, maybe later" every time Chopper asked.

Not this time. How about the Pasek Passion Fruit wine, he said. Oh, hell yes. I mean, I’m a sucker for a good sweet wine anyway, but this was genius. By the way, Pasek bills this one as a delicious summer sipper, but who are they kidding? Here’s a secret: tropical wine and tart cranberries? An unexpected match made in heaven.

And as for the curse? Well, it took quite a while to get this post done – we’re down to one fully functioning computer between the two of us – and the evil Blogger BETA is still mucking with our Paper Chef founder and host’s blogging efforts, but we hope Christmas will come just a wee bit early and all will be resolved soon. And Owen, give us a holler if you need a non-Blogger hand. Viva le Chef Papier! Oh, yikes. I spoke French.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 16th, 2006 at 2:16 am and is filed under food blogging events, in the garden, paper chef, recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.