No, seriously, bear with me for a moment.

First of all, it means there’s less than a month left in the year and you’ve got to scramble to get done everything you should have been doing in the last eleven months, and on top of that, organize and participate in holiday activities, and then on top of that you’ve got WINTER WEATHER.

Here in Portland, we were caught in the Worst! Snowstorm! In! Forty! Years! Oh sure, it was nothing compared to what you Midwesterners and New Englanders put up with, but we think you’re all crazy anyway. Besides, have pity. We don’t even own snow shovels.

So yeah, what with all this snow and angst there was something fishy (or was that shrimpy) about this year’s December. All this chaos and on top of that, only four entries for Paper Chef!

Judging just four entries, especially when they all look tasty and are all somewhat similar (what, no crabs? No barnacles? No wood lice?) can be a difficult endeavor. For this outing, it came down to favorite details – an ingredient here, a method there.

The four entries were:

Terry from Taste Adventures with her “blood” orange risotto cake, with “drunken” Mexican white shrimp in a blood orange vinaigrette. We were especially impressed with those lip-smackingly large head-on shrimp.

Lori Ann from Lip Smacking Goodness with her double-entry of Shrimp and Rice Empanadas and Spring rolls. Being big fans of stretching that food dollar, we’re always up for extra ingredients and double entries. Also, that sauce sounds delectable!

Sara from Culturally Confused brought us Shrimp in Brandy Cream Sauce. This looked like a perfect meal for a cold December night, and easily adaptable.

Mike from Spikey Mikeys made Blood Orange & Brandy marinated Prawns with Coconut Rice. We’ll forgive him the minor difficulty with shrimp shells (Chopper always cooks shell-on) and admire the Asian influence and attention to detail within the ingredients of the marinade.

In the end, it was that detail and the elegant presentation that won us over, and so the December Paper Chef winner is…

Mike from Spikey Mikeys!

Congratulations, Mike!

And now, gratuitous Shrimp-related content: Our favorite new NBA T-Mobile commercial. Say it with me because it is the tastiest part: “YAO SAYS EAT THE HEAD!”

It’s Paper Chef time!

Since Chopper and I were the lucky winners of last month’s challenge (thanks, Magnus!), we have been given the great privilege of announcing the ingredient list for the December edition of Paper Chef.

What’s Paper Chef? Think Iron Chef without Kitchen Stadium or without judges that include pop stars and members of parliament. Also, you don’t get to taste everyone’s creation. Sorry. No trout ice cream for you!

All the rules and regulations are on the Paper Chef blog, but here’s our super-short version:

The four ingredients are announced on the first Wednesday of the month.

You must use all four of these ingredients* (plus any others you require) to make a dish and then write about it. You may make more than one dish if you’re feeling inspired.

Your deadline is midday the following Tuesday: For this month, that’s Tuesday, December 9th at noon, Pacific Standard Time.

After that, roundup and judging!

(*reasonable substitutions for food allergies or dietary restrictions are allowed.)

Now, on to the ingredients. Using our high-tech, icosahedronal randomizing device (pictured at right), we selected three ingredients from the Paper Chef nomination list:

Rice
Brandy
Blood Oranges

The fourth ingredient is always judges’ discretion, so for this month we’ve decided to take a dip into the nearest body of water and see what pinches. That’s right:

Crustacean.

And by crustacean, we mean any member of that crusty little subphylum: crab, lobster, crayfish, shrimp, barnacle, woodlice, tongue worm… okay maybe not those last two, but you get the picture!

So, have at it, have fun, and we look forward to see you all at the round up!

(Post links to your Paper Chef entries here, and don’t forget to email a link to your entry to paperchef@gmail.com!)

"This is the best Indian curry I’ve ever made," Chopper announced after devouring several bites in rapid succession. "Of course my specialty is Thai curry, but still…"

"Om nom nom," I said.

"Yes," Chopper agreed, "Om nom nom."

We weren’t certain if we were ever going to make it back. After all, a year is an eternity in Internet Time, and during that year, Belly Timber just sat, gathering dust, taunting us with rapidly aging posts.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, it vanished completely. Internal Server Error, our home page announced. I thought: crap. I need to do something about this, pronto… and proceeded to get excessively busy on six other projects. What finally got the ball rolling was Chopper’s incessant chomping at the bit every time anyone would bring up the name "Paper Chef."

"It’s this weekend," I told him. "The ingredients are turkey, Anaheim peppers, winter squash, and lentils."

Within three nanoseconds he was making a shopping list and planning recipes.

And me? I was battling the dreaded Internal Server Error.

Which kinda sorta explains why this entry is so excessively late. (And why you might be reading this on a generic WordPress Template.)

What follows (now that we’ve finally got this blog working again) are three of Chopper’s creations inspired by this month’s set of four ingredients: Meatloaf, Turkey Galantine, and Indian curry. A galantine is a French dish that’s typically made of boned meat wrapped around forcemeat. It is poached, coated in aspic, and served cold. Surprisingly (for us) we skipped the aspic.

The best part about joining in this month: three of these ingredients are large quantity ingredients by default, so we’ve got delicious leftovers for days!

What did I have for breakfast this morning? Ah, yes! Meatloaf again!

And lookie! Here’s the full round-up of November’s Paper Chef from this month’s host, Magnus!

The happiest recent news in Gastroblogia is that Owen of Tomatilla has revived Paper Chef after a six-month hiatus. Paper Chef was our introduction to the food blogging world, and it’s always been Chopper’s favorite event. He loves the excuse to play.

Now, the irony isn’t lost on us that Owen picked “home” for this month’s theme. Over the past months we’ve rarely ever had time to do much cooking at home. For a while this summer, Chopper was working six days a week with most of those days on shifts that lasted through the dinner hour. “Home” meant “where we crash at the end of a long day” and not much else.

This fall, things are finally looking up in that department, and — quite amazingly — this Paper Chef coincided with two days off wherein we weren’t booked solid with errands and social obligations. Of course those two days were yesterday and Monday so we still ran smack up against (and fell over) today’s deadline. So what else is new?

Given this rare opportunity to play, Chopper gave himself the challenge of creating three dishes: a canapé, a soup, and a main. We picked up a sampling of eggplants and chiles at our favorite Asian market, and for the fish — since smoked swordfish is unheard of in these parts (and I’m not a swordfish fan to begin with) — Chopper found a nice big slab of cod, coated it in spices and threw it on the smoker.

My (ongoing) challenge, in addition to my usual sous chef duties, is to put together a photo post of the day using my old, borrowed camera and Chopper’s computer, which lacks my usual photo editing software. Why that, you ask? Well, remember that computer that needed fixing? Ahhahahah, yup. It’s dead again. Soon as I’m done with this post, I’m constructing a shrine to Saint Isidore.

But first, photos…

Nothing cries home (or rather, messy yard) to us more than sawing up yet another branch of the dead cherry tree to use in the smoker.

Here’s the slab of true cod, freshly spiced.

Stand by for infusion of cherry wood smoke. Mmmmm…

Two and a half hours later, give or take.

Now, to prep some ingredients indoors.

Hey! We can try out that slicer we bought at the neighbors’ yard sale three months ago!

Looking good.

Meanwhile, in a dark corner of the kitchen, Chopper roasts a bell pepper.

Oh, crap. I have to search the yard for our “something from home” ingredients. Nope, those aren’t ready yet.

Hmmm. Tasty, but I’d kind of like to know what it’s going to look like when it grows up.

Ah, there’s herbs somewhere in that mess that used to be a pretty yard.

One herb platter, coming up.

Back in the kitchen, Chopper has peeled and oven-roasted two Chinese eggplants. These are headed for a bowl and an appointment with an immersion blender.

Moments later, the soup is ready, and it’s got a great kick to it. And yes, you can eat the flowers of your rangy, going-to-seed oregano!

Soup before appetizer? Um, we forgot. Probably a good thing as well. These little babies were, well… let’s just say, odd. Very, very odd.

Meanwhile, Chopper has this crazy idea to make his version of a tagine. Trouble is, we don’t own a tagine. Here, back in that dark corner of the kitchen, he forces an earthenware roaster into tagine duty.

Kitchen’s getting messy. Wait a sec. What’s with those hollowed out Indian eggplants? Turns out Chopper’s just thought of a fourth dish, and he’s now tossing ingredients into the food processor.

The ‘tagine’ is ready, and it is delicious. Smoked cod and couscous make a great match.

But… damn. Note for future reference: earthenware roaster + open flame = ex-earthenware roaster. Good thing this was a thrift store find.

One final dish. A simple afterthought. Oven-roasted Indian eggplants filled with a paste made from the extras on hand: bell pepper, garlic, chives, Thai chiles, and more of that delicious cherry-smoked cod. And… wow. This was the best of them all. The paste on top baked to a crust, the eggplant’s innards, baked to mushy goodness, and for the first time, all our featured ingredients perfectly balanced in a single bite.

A simple and exquisite end to a perfect day at home.

Oh. Well, except for that cleaning up the kitchen bit.

(Recipes to follow. Chopper’s at work and my notes are almost as messy as the kitchen.)

One computer overhaul, one banking disaster, one hosting nightmare, and one canine prison-break later… (Phew!)

Is English food a joke?

No! It’s not a joke, it’s an adventure!

I happen to believe one should firmly embrace one’s ancestors’ culinary traditions. Especially when one has ancestors who interbred, had bad teeth, killed one another off on a regular basis, and consumed far too many unnervingly rich, meat-based dishes.

I am, of course, talking about the Plantagenets. We’ve got a chart somewhere around here. On it, I can draw a rather crooked line from me back to Henry II. Not that I particularly want to be related to the king who offed Thomas Becket, but I am happy to claim a few other connections, including the fellow on the right here, who was, despite what those bratty Tudors say, a pretty decent guy.

I bet he ate some damned tasty food before riding off into battle.

Like this crazy thing Chopper’s making.

It looks like a sausage, but he tells me it’s called Black Pudding. I am told it is tasty and not at all dangerous. Not like that Black Pudding that enveloped and digested Timion Vayla, my second level paladin in the Dungeon of Aeras Kinth. Boy, was that a bad night.

No, this Black Pudding is made from tasty things like oatmeal and onions. Oh, and pig’s blood. Lots of pig’s blood. Turns out our local Asian market sells pig’s blood by the pint, and when Chopper made this discovery, I knew we were left with only two choices: Black Pudding or a reenactment of the prom night sequence from Carrie. Since the latter would mean a Chopper impersonation of John Travolta, we opted for the Black Pudding.

Now, I haven’t tasted it yet, so I can’t tell you anything about the results. I can tell you that it’s quite black (the hour and a half plus in the oven congealed the blood quite nicely), and the sausage stuffing procedure was quite messy. So messy, in fact, I may have give up that fantasy I have about CSI Warrick Brown showing up at the door with a spray bottle of Luminol. Far, far too risky.

On the bright side, no prom dresses were ruined in the procedure, and I’d like to think we did my Plantagenet ancestors proud. Especially the ones who preferred a good feast over a good beheading.

(Next: we devour the happy entrails and live to tell the tale.)

Prologue:
At first, I was horrified. Cookiecrumb and Kevin hosting a Mac-n-Cheese event? But I can’t! You don’t understand. I just can’t. I cried to Chopper: Look what they’re doing, I said. How cruel. How evil. Can I ever forgive them? If you make mac-n-cheesy goodness and eat it alone, can I ever forgive you? Chopper merely shrugged and said, hey, it’s me here. I can make it happen. I bit my lip in fear. But… the history, I whimpered… my history…

1.A cheesy childhood.
Oh dear lord did I love mac-n-cheese as a child. It wasn’t just that it was vast and goopy and satisfying beyond all reason, or that it sometimes held the exquisite secret of little salami nuggets, tucked beneath its placid surface. No, it was this: It lacked vegetables. And for a child, especially one in a house wherein vegetables were routinely cooked to oblivion, this was nirvana. I always went back for seconds. Sometimes even thirds or fourths. If the mac-n-cheese pot had been bottomless and my plate accompanied by an equally bottomless glass of Nestle’s Quick, I would never have left the table. Not even for episodes of Star Trek.

2.College in a box
When one is single and one is in college and living in a tiny apartment, one’s episodes of Star Trek are accompanied by a box. The blue kind. You know the one. Gross, eh? I bet Spock’s Plomeek soup never tasted so bad. Perhaps it was just the way I (ineptly) cooked it, but my Kraft mac-n-cheese always came out a little gritty. Not that this stopped me. Nope, not one bit. After all, it was cheap and easy and isn’t college all about cheap and easy? Hey! I’m talking about food, here.

3.Is that a shot put in my gut, or am I just sorry I ate you?
We’re on break from the gaming session, it’s been five weeks and still no one knows my red shirt security goon is really a Romulan spy. I love surgical alteration. Now, if only I could get some surgical alteration on my gut, I could make it through this cheesy meal without feeling like I’ve been injected with an elephant’s dose of cordrazine. What is up with this? I used to love mac-n-cheese and now I can barely touch the stuff. Could it be… no, say not so! It’s true. My gut hates cows.

4.Cold turkey (sandwiches)
Are you coming over for dinner, the in-law says, I’m making mac-n-cheese! I attempt to hide my sour face and fail miserably. Oh, right (now, she remembers), you can’t do cheese. There’s some cold turkey in the fridge! Dave can make you a sandwich! I try very hard not to pout, but I’m just not good at it. Oh, I’ve no doubt the sandwich will be just dandy. Heck, it may even have fancy Dijon mustard on it, but must I watch everyone else eat mac-n-cheese? Can’t I go downstairs to the family room instead? C’mon, Sci Fi Channel’s running a marathon, and I could be communing with Chekov and the space hippies right this very instant! Hey! You think they solved lactose intolerance in the 23rd century?

5.Nirvana, with goat.
So, if I’m going to make it, Chopper says, I’m going to make the creamy kind. Not that crusty stuff that ends up tasting like a rubber waffle. We’ll have to get kasseri, since we know it melts and we know you can eat it, and we’ll need something other than cow’s milk. Um, I say, just a wee bit optimistic for once, would you believe I saw a quart of goat’s milk in the health food section at Fred Meyer? No way! Way! We (boldly) go, we shop, we find. Chopper cooks. He serves me up a small but perfect portion (not too much on my first try in over a decade), and I take a bite. Simple, unadorned with frivolity save for a dash of smoked paprika and a sprig of fresh thyme. Creamy, just like Mom used to make. I am in nirvana. Hey, I think, I should eat this in front of the telly with the boys in gold, red, and blue. But, damn, SciFi channel never shows Trek episodes anymore. Ah well, that’s okay. I get to eat mac-n-cheese.

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.

Saturday morning, we went to the Portland Farmers Market.

And at the Portland Farmers Market, one is generally not lured in by such things as fermented black soy beans and giblets, two of this month’s Paper Chef foursome.

No, indeed. Instead, we heard the siren call of maitake mushrooms, patty pan squash, and glorious, fat leeks for a dollar a piece.

(Okay, so we didn’t exactly hear the call — the market is rather noisy and what with that odd band playing some sort of world beat, syncopated version of the 70′s disco hit “Ring My Bell,” well, the quiet voices of vegetables and fungi were completely drowned out. But boy did they look good!)

So we brought them home, stashed them away near last week’s Moreland Farmers Market purchase of Pale Blue Ewe from the Black Sheep Creamery in Southern Washington, and were promptly distracted by household and family issues.

That is, until tonight when Chopper announced he was going to make goat cheese stuffed patty pans with crispy pan fried leeks and sautéed maitake mushrooms. (And, after a quick and boisterous exclamation of YUM, I scampered to the computer, double-checked the date and the rules and declared: Hey! This is perfect for Festa al Fresco!)

So, to Ivonne and Lis, I hope we’re not too late to join the party! Chopper finished our dish just as the sun lost itself behind the giant elms and maples to the west, but the hazy summer light lingered long enough for me to snap a few shots out on the porch railing of our current, temporary abode. Look! There’s even a tree in the background. Perfect for a picnic!

la festa al fresco

This is our last Paper Chef in this house.

In two and a half weeks, we’ll be moving back to Portland after 20 months of camping out and caregiving on an island we only occasionally called home. I can’t say that we’ll miss this disastrously tiny and ill-equipped kitchen, but we will have fond memories of a few small miracles we were able to pull out of the chaos.

At long last, this Fall, we’ll be back in our own home sweet home and our own kitchen. Sure it’s in serious need of updating — the linoleum floor has divots you could hide a mouse in, the drawer faces have a habit of falling off at inconvenient times, and there’s no dishwasher — but it’s ours, ALL ours, and that’s what counts!

But, because we’re here and because it’s Paper Chef time once again, we had to create just one last bit of chaos before we ramble on, and this time we had a grand bit of help from the annals of Paper Chef history and our bloggy neighbors from Down Under.

This month’s ingredients? Peaches, cherries, something hot & spicy, and a “new herb.” Now, by “new,” our Paper Chef host, Owen (welcome back, Owen!) means something we’ve not tried before. Not an easy command for Chopper to follow, as he’s used just about every herb on the island and then some.

But wait! What about that scrumptious and heady prize we received from Noodle Cook for Paper Chef 13? Aussie herbs and spices, the likes of which we’d never seen before? Perfect!

For this challenge we bent the rules a tiny bit to include spices (though by strict definition, two out of our three selections are ground leaves and should be considered herbs) and chose one for each of Chopper’s dishes. For his Tandoori Style Chicken with Stone Fruit Chutney, Chopper used Mountain Pepper Leaf, for the Chile Rellenos with Stone Fruit Salsa, Lemon Myrtle, and for the Spicy Braised Short Ribs with Dueling Gastriques, Wattle Seed. All three of these spices came from the Oz Tukka “A Taste of Australia” gift pack, part of our wonderful gift from Noodle Cook and his fellow Paper Chef 13 judges.

The gift pack includes five spices (ours has Mountain Pepper Berries and Bush Tomatoes in addition to the three we used for this adventure), and a helpful flyer with spice information on one side and recipes on the other. Not that Chopper used any of those recipes. For him it’s all about sample and invent first, read what others do later.

About the spices:

Mountain Pepper Leaves: This one is the most difficult to describe. It’s a dried leaf, and looks like just about every other ground leaf herb, but the smell and flavor is quite unique. The closest comparison I can make is that it reminds me of a more subtle and slightly lemony version of Israeli Zahtar (a blend of thyme, sumac, and toasted sesame seeds). It’s got a small but noticeable peppery kick to it, which, according to the Oz Tukka write-up reduces with cooking time, so don’t add it too soon. Mountain Pepper Leaf, Oz Tukka says, comes from a small tree that grows in the alpine rainforests of Tasmania.

Lemon Myrtle: The lemon scent of this east coast Australian spice is simply astounding. It’s super-lemony, and not in a cloying way, but in a crisp, fresh way that was absolutely perfect for our cherry and peach salsa. Like the previous spice, our Lemon Myrtle came in the form of dried, ground leaves, and is best added toward the end of a recipe. Uncooked, Oz Tukka says Lemon Myrtle should be left to infuse for a day or two. Unfortunately, we ate all the salsa far too quickly to find out how intense that result would be!

Wattle Seed: The last time Chopper and I were able to spend any time at Pike Place Market, we wandered through World Spice Merchants, inhaling deeply in the direction of every untried spice and blend we could find. And though we found many glorious new things — including the aforementioned Zahtar and a most excellent Kashmiri Curry — nothing came even remotely close to Wattle Seed. Now, if we’d gone to an exotic coffee merchant, on the other hand… Wattle Seed, from the Outback, dried, roasted, and ground, conjures up eccentric nutty coffees, mixed with unsweetened chocolate. It’s a spice that can go sweet or savory, and for our dish, we went both. Savory on the short ribs, and sweet — oh my — the moment of spicy perfection: the chocolate/coffee of Wattle Seed with the sweet cherry gastrique. I don’t think I’ve ever had a cherry cordial near that good.

Chopper Sez: The best part about this entry for me, was that I was able to get all the ingredients I needed for all three recipes (and a soup made from the leftovers, not pictured) for less than $30! I’d also like to give a special shout out to Noodle, for introducing us to the amazing herbs and spices from his corner of the blue marble.

paperchef20

Finally!

For the past three months we’ve had a hankering in the worst way to participate in Barbara’s The Spice is Right over at Tigers and Strawberries, and for the past three months, our cooking schedule (such as it is) has failed us. But not this time! Not when chiles are on the menu and Chopper’s in the kitchen.

This month’s theme, It’s Too Darned Hot, brings to mind a myriad of tongue-burning dishes, but our inspiration comes from the cold waters of the North. Copper River, Alaska, to be exact, and that slab of salmon at the local market that was just too darned good of a deal to pass up.

But what to make with salmon and chiles — especially when the goal is to feature the chiles? Something cold for our hot summer weather, perhaps? Something with an extra chile kick to make cooling off all the better?

Ah, that’s it. Skip the oven altogether and make ceviche.

We had fun with this one, from adding grapefruit to the traditional citrus marinade, to finding just the right serving glass from our ramshackle glass collection, to a bit of kitchen hypothesizing on the origins of ceviche. (Our wild guess: Peruvian fishermen, carrying citrus on their boats to ward off scurvy said, hey, if you squeeze this lemon all over this raw fish and wait a bit, not only will it taste good, but you won’t get sick! Of course, years later, someone figured out the science of that whole acid-cooking thing and now everyone embraces ceviche. Or at least everyone who doesn’t still panic at the sight of seafood that hasn’t touched an oven or a frying pan. Silly people.)

I note in passing that I said “skip the oven” above, and in the recipe below, Chopper refers to rosting chiles under an open flame or a broiler, and we did indeed use the broiler. What I meant to say was “You should skip the oven because your broiler will have a complete meltdown during the chile-roasting process,” but that would be guidelines that only apply to our kitchen. Silly broiler.

And, if you’ve bought big hunk of salmon with skin on like we did, you can dress up your dish with a few fried salmon skin crackers.

Ah, salmon and a chile kick. I think I can survive the summer heat with more meals like this!