No, we’re not done with the pig’s blood just yet.

In fact, I’ve a feeling there could be 38 different dishes you can cook with Black Pudding. Thirty-eight at the very least.

Not that I plan on naming them all here.

In fact, I’ll just mention two or three.

First off: Chopper’s Lancashire Hotpot. He made this one on the Saturday after the black pudding was done and served it to unsuspecting guests. The guests were quite pleased and went back to the kitchen for seconds.

That Sunday morning, Chopper made a scramble with spinach, onion, more bits of black pudding, and the last remaining smidge of Lancashire Hotpot. It too was quite tasty, though it could have used something sweet to temper the spinach/onion/pig’s blood nexus.

Enter, apples. Inspired by denzylle’s comment on our Happy Entrails to You post, Chopper created a frittata wherein the black pudding mixed it up with tasty, crunchy bits of Granny Smith apple and the whole thing was topped with grated kasseri.

We declared it tasty and wolfed it down, thus ending Black Pudding Days at casa Belly Timber after only three dishes.

Only three? Surely there must be more!

Now, I’d offer up a challenge to see who can come up with the largest number of black pudding variations, but to be perfectly honest, after writing this post up I think I’m quite ready to move on from pig’s blood for at least a short while. So instead, because we’re never completely done with All Things British in these parts, and because we believe in extending all birthday celebrations at least a week and a half, your challenge (with a hat tip to Riba Rambles for the meme) is this:

Grab a pencil and paper and without looking at any resources, see if you can list all 38 (most commonly agreed upon) Shakespeare plays. And don’t give me any of that silly Francis Bacon really wrote them twaddle.

Mmm…. bacon.
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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!

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Most people recoil in horror when they are told what the primary ingredient is in the classic Mexican breakfast dish menudo. No, it’s not Ricky Martin…

The first time I ever tried menudo was at a tiny Mexican cafe in San Diego back in the mid-nineties. My friends told me it was good, and having never heard of it before — I was rather young — I ordered it. Little did I know I was about to have a “Mikey” moment, where my friends were just seeing if I’d eat it. Well, I did, and I really liked it, especially the little tender chewy bits.

“What was that?” I asked my friends as they were about to burst into laughter…

That’s right, beef tripe. Stomach of cow. The funny part for me was that I didn’t mind.

Now, I’ve always been up for a good experiment, so why not try my hand at this culinary gem?

I think I did it justice. It was spicy the way I like it, and the texture was just like I remember. It was good enough for Mrs. D to give it a try. In her words…

Chopper sez: So, I’ll consider this experiment in Chopper’s lab a success. What’s next, you may ask… Just wait and see.

MizD sez: Braaaains, I tell you. Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiins. (Hey, what can I say? We’re only seven and a half weeks from Halloween.)

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.

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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.

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(In our so-tardy-it-shouldn’t-count second entry for Paper Chef, we stick close to home for our tale of Independence. How close to home? Oh, about 400 yards up the road. And as for that tardy thing — what was it the late, great Douglas Adams once said? Oh yes: “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” Words to live by.)

So, Independence Day, yet again.

You probably thought we Yanks were done with those pesky Brits back in 1776. Wrong. ‘Round these parts, sovereignty didn’t get settled till almost a hundred years later. We blame the pig.

The roots of our story can be traced back to Article III of the Treaty of 1818: the joint occupation of Oregon Country by the United States and Great Britain. How the treaty signers thought two countries vying for land claims and navigation rights would resolve any boundary issues is anyone’s guess, but nevertheless, the increasingly tumultuous Oregon Country free-for-all continued for 28 years, until, in 1846, the two sides determined they’d had enough. They signed the Oregon Treaty on June 15th, set the border between the US and Canada at the 49th Parallel (excepting lower Vancouver Island), and that was that.

Or so they thought.

Trouble is, the folks signing the treaty were, to put it bluntly, cartographically inept. The border between Canada’s Vancouver Island and the US mainland, they said, should lie down the middle of the “major channel” through the islands. Easy to say if there’s one major channel.

Not so easy if there are two.

And not at all easy if both Yanks and Brits are enjoying the resources of the group of islands that lie in the middle.

And so, while politicians squabbled over maps and over which strait was “major” — Haro to the west or Rosario to the east — settlers arrived from other parts of the continent and soon American “squatters” (as the British preferred to call them), had laid claim to land just a stone’s throw from the sheep runs of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Belle Vue Farm at the southern end of San Juan Island.

And for the most part, the sheep ran along their runs, and the handful of Americans eked out a living on their tiny parcels of land (which the British insisted were most decidedly not theirs), and all was, if not calm, at least not explosively tense.

Until the pig entered the picture.

For sheep will trot right past a farmer’s potato patch, even if there’s nothing much for fencing in their way, but pigs, or more specifically Berkshire boars? They’re born for rooting, and when they sense potatoes, they have at it.

And having at it was just what one particular Hudson’s Bay Company pig was doing in Lyman Cutlar’s potato patch on the morning of June 15th, 1859. And Cutlar had had enough. He grabbed his rifle and shot it.

Charles Griffin, Belle Vue Farm’s manager, was not pleased in the least. He demanded exorbitant compensation. Cutlar, being an obstinate sort, refused. Griffin, being equally obstinate, demanded Cutlar’s arrest. A blink of an eye later, the American settlers on San Juan Island (all 18 of them or so) had armed themselves and were demanding military protection.

In July, the first American soldiers arrived. In August, British war ships. By the end of the summer, the count was Americans: 461, British 2,140, and — most happily for all involved — not a single casualty of war.

Except, of course, for the pig.

This peaceful standoff — so peaceful that troops from both sides celebrated holidays together and held sporting events on the prairie at American Camp — continued for 13 years. In November of 1872, the Royal Marines withdrew from English Camp at the north end of the island, not because they’d been defeated in battle, or even because the Crown had called it quits. No, in fact, the American and British governments did what governments do so well in border disputes such as this: they passed the buck. They turned to Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany and said, excuse me, could you figure this one out for us?

And, after a year of meetings by his three-man commission in Geneva, Kaiser Wilhelm did just that, and ruled in favor of the United States.

These days, the Pig War is serious business. We’ve got our two National Parks, the 4th of July Pig War Barbecue, the Pig War Museum, Encampment, over a dozen books about the subject, and no doubt a good forty other things I’ve forgotten. Truly, there’s a bit of a porcine glut in these parts.

Even so, when it came time to commemorate Independence Day (or rather the San Juan Island version with all its local piggy trappings) we couldn’t resist adding our own culinary homage to the mix. And, because we are (as I mentioned in the intro) only 400 yards from where this all happened, I took said homage on a field trip.

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So, because we’re contrary sorts, we’ve got two entries into this month’s Paper Chef and neither of them have anything to do with July 4th.

Oh sure, we had a billion Independence Day ideas: Grit Cakes with Boston Harbor Tea (pre-dumping, of course), Firecracker Popcorn, The Most Frightening Apple Pie Ever, Pine Nut and Coriander Encrusted Corn Dogs, but truthfully, I think the onslaught of holiday tourists to our tiny island was just too much for us to bear, and by midweek we were ready to step out into the middle of Spring Street with a bull horn and direct all traffic off the docks and into the harbor.

In short, we are over the whole 4th of July celebration thing. So very, very over it.

So, for our first entry, we declare ourselves Citizens of the World (or at least of North America), and as such we are celebrating El Grito de Independencia, Mexican Independence Day.

Which is not, some may be surprised to learn, Cinco de Mayo!

El Grito de Independencia (the cry of independence) is a festival that begins on the night of September 16th with a reenactment by Mexico’s current president of the famous Grito de Dolores of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the priest who, in 1810, changed the course of Mexican history with a ring of his village church bell and a cry to his countrymen to rise up against Spanish rule. And though Hildalgo himself was captured and executed in 1811, the fight for independence continued and was eventually won in February of 1821.

Now, Chopper’s the lucky one. He’s been to Mexico, eaten the fabulous food (and no doubt consumed more tequila than he’d care to tell me). Someday soon, he hopes to return and bring me with him and we’ll take the tour, Rick Bayless style.

Meanwhile, for our El Grito de Independencia Paper Chef entry, we’ve got a list of Mexican ingredients a mile long, all worthy of the number 4 spot on our Paper Chef ingredient list, but in the spirit of competition, I’m going to pick the one that makes this Chopper invention unique: Nopales — prickly pear cactus pads.

What I love most about Chopper’s exploration of Mexican cuisine is the closer and closer he gets to the authentic, the further and further he moves from the horrid, cheese-laden Americanized crap we find at so many poor excuses for Mexican restaurants in these parts. Not that he ever cooked horrid, cheese-laden crap, mind you. I think of it more as an ongoing discovery on my part of just how good Mexican food can be. And, I should add, how good it can be for my poor, lactose-intolerant digestion! Swap out the quesa fresca with a little goat cheese and I’m set. Can’t get that sort of goodness at Chevy’s!

(In just a bit, I’ll post our second contribution to this month’s Paper Chef. It is, I promise, quite scholarly and historical in nature and entirely lacking in silly content involving a meal dressed as a pig. Okay, I lied about that last part.)

Paper Chef19

As most of you are aware, it was Mrs D’s and my two year anniversary back on Monday, and both she and I had work-related problems with celebrating on the actual date. We did however get a plethora of great suggestions on what to do with our special day (well, except for the whole maid outfit thing).

I decided that I needed to do something very special on Wednesday to make up for our lack of ability to celebrate on the proper date. First, I knew that I had to get Mrs D to the beach, and second, I absolutely had to cook a knock-her-socks-off meal.

These things came together beautifully when I remembered that we had brought up our propane-fueled camp stove and our wonderfully decked-out picnic basket. Soon the ideas for the food started to emerge. I needed at least three courses, and I knew that Mrs D absolutely adores fish, or more appropriately, anything that lives in and/or breathes water. First I thought about halibut, but then I remembered that we had a gorgeous chunk of salmon brought to us by our good friend, Farhad (long time readers might remember him from our post about the potlatch last year). I found it right where I left it in the freezer.

Then I did some more scouring of the fridge and came up with a half-gallon of home-made brown chicken stock, half a bottle of cheap white wine, a log of herb and roasted garlic compound butter, half a Walla Walla sweet onion, some Roma tomatoes, and the piece de resistance, three perfectly ripe mangoes. Next, it was off to the pantry where I found our customary jasmine rice as well as a small bag of wild rice, a bottle of sherry vinegar (left from our very first post… a paper chef entry), a couple heads of garlic, and one last shallot.

The idea solidified, and while Mrs. D was off at work, I went into action.

I drove out to Wescott Bay Sea Farms and picked up a mixed bag of their world famous mussels and clams. Then I was off to our local market to get the last few things: some organic mixed baby greens, a loaf of artisan bread, one bunch of cilantro, a bunch of scallions, and a small pack of sliced almonds.

And what did I come up with?

A lovely three course dinner served in the picturesque environs of San Juan Island’s South Beach.

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Our tiny kitchen in this home away from home of ours is rife with tragedies (don’t get me started on this week’s flood), but during the hottest of summer days, perhaps our greatest sadness comes not from the kitchen itself but from our lack of an ice cream maker. True, ice cream with actual cream in it is an evil that must be avoided by Mrs D’s tummy at all costs, but what of sorbets? Soy gelatos? Frozen yogurts? Must I debase myself by buying hideous supermarket products, laden with high fructose corn syrup? No! I won’t have it!

And so, because I long for the real thing, and because Chopper makes it so well, I must sneak off to his place of work every so often and sample his latest concoction.

Last time (back on Chopper Day) it was rum raisin ice cream and my tummy only allowed me the tiniest of bites.

But this time… ah, this time: Sorbet! And not just any sorbet, but the perfect holiday weekend treat of Vodka Watermelon Sorbet in a tuile cup! Oh, hell yum. There’s nothing… nothing at all like homemade sorbet with real fruit, not to mention a good top shelf vodka. It’s not sticky. It’s not cloyingly sweet. It’s just the perfect frozen cocktail refreshment for a warm summer evening.

I dropped by Chopper’s work last night to snag a few photos (and devour this tasty treat) just in time for the Canada Day Ice Cream Event over at sweet pleasure : plaisir sucré.

(Okay, so Sam at sweet pleasure : plaisir sucré didn’t actually call it a Canada Day event, but since he’s from Canada and since I am always happy to proudly wave my maple leaf of dual citizenship, I say it’s a Canada Day event! (Which probably means Chopper should have made something strictly Canadian for his sorbet, eh? Ah well, watermelon vodka will have to do. And do quite nicely, thank you very much!)

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Not so long ago, I ducked back into our archives to take a peek at the very first comments left on our infant blog, just over a year ago. Turns out, comment #1 was left by Jen of Life Begins at 30, comment #2 by Kevin of Seriously Good, and comment #3 by Owen of Tomatilla!.

How appropriate is that?

See, here we are, launching into the first Paper Chef since our one year Blogiversary, and not only is Kevin hosting (while Owen takes a much-deserved break), but this month’s theme includes local ingredients, in solidarity with the Eat Local Challenge, organized by Jen! It’s The Circle of Knife Life, Paper Chef style!

Now, some of our more observant readers (okay, okay, everyone) will notice that we haven’t been posting much lately. It’s spring fever, I tell you. It’s going around. The garden calls my name, the pooch begs for serious ball time; who am I to ditch that in favor of slouching at the computer?

But, when Chopper read this month’s ingredients and went on an immediate culinary brainstorm binge, I knew my time away had to end. Chopper cooks and I must blog.

And boy oh boy did he cook this time. Seriously. This food is so damn tasty, I want to head to the kitchen for seconds, thirds, and fourths before I type up another paragraph.

Hang on. Just a sec…

Okay, back.

(Dusts crumbs off keyboard.)

Now, where was I?

Ah yes, the ingredients. For this month, Kevin used his fine scientific skills in Haberdasherdivination to produce these pleasing results:

Lavender
Miso
Chickpeas
Something local

And Chopper, because he loves this style of food (and no, not because we’re trendy, dammit! We’re NOT trendy!), immediately announced his decision to produce a four course tapas extravaganza, with a different local ingredient for each course.

For our local ingredients, we hit three places: the Farmers’ Market, Westcott Bay Sea Farms, and, er, our freezer.

Now, here’s the thing about eating local on the island in May: There’s not a heck of a lot available. The San Juan Island Farmers’ Market (in its weekly, outdoor incarnation) has only been running two weeks now, and at last Saturday’s visit, I counted a grand total of 15 stalls, only three of which were actually selling produce. This time of year, local produce means greens, greens, and more greens, with the occasional baby root vegetable thrown in. Lucky for us, greens at the Farmers’ Market are surprisingly cheap — especially compared to later season vegetables (and to the scary-expensive $6.99/lb bucket of “organic mixed greens” at the grocer’s).

In our short jaunt along the thoroughfare (I’d say main thoroughfare, but at this market, there’s only one thoroughfare), we scored green garlic from Blue Moon Produce, and sorrel and a lovely bunch of baby turnips with greens attached from Thousand Flower Farm. (Total cost for the three bunches: $5.50) Both of these farms are located on Waldron Island, a remote island northwest of Orcas that’s known for its amazing produce. (For a great chapter on the farmers of Waldron, I highly recommend Greg Atkinson’s book In Season: Culinary Adventures of a San Juan Chef.)

Next, it was off to Westcott Bay Sea Farms for clams, because as far as Chopper is concerned a tapas spread just isn’t a tapas spread without clams.

Lastly, we took a trip to our freezer where, among all the other oddities that deny us room for ice cubes, Chopper had stashed a pair of lamb’s kidneys. Yes, local lamb’s kidneys. These particular kidneys came from last year’s farmer’s market and from Local Island Meats, a stand run by the fine folks at Z Lazy J Farm & Feed, which is located just a few miles up the road from us. Chopper had been saving them for steak and kidney pie, but this weekend, they just screamed empanada filling.

Now, how close to home did we find these goodies?

Well, inspired by Tana’s Chefs & Farms map over at Small Farms, I’ve launched Island Local, a map for San Juan County growers and producers of culinary products. So far, I’ve just marked the locations listed above, but I’ll be adding more in the weeks to come. (Now, if I can just get Platial to recognize all these wacky island addresses…)

In case you’re wondering, Casa Belly Timber is just south of the map’s visible area, right below the ©2006.

A quick word about our other ingredients:

We discovered, though it wasn’t much of a shock, that neither of the two grocers on the island carry dried chickpeas, so all of our dishes were made with the canned variety. The miso was from a container of shiro miso paste already in our fridge, lucky for us.

Our attempt to use local lavender in addition to our other local ingredients was thwarted by two things: our own tiny lavender plant that’s not even close to blooming, and the exorbitant price the local lavender farm charges for their culinary lavender. Don’t get me wrong, there are many things I love about the lavender farm, especially in mid-July when the fields are all in bloom, but nine bucks for a container the size of a tin of shoe polish? That’s not one of ‘em. So, our lavender came from an herb and spice distributor and I haven’t the foggiest idea where it’s grown.

Chopper made all four of these dishes at once so we could have a true tapas spread (and I could go a little nuts with the photography). I garnished everything with herbs from our garden, quickly snapped away, and then we dug in. And oh, was it good.

(more…)

“Of course! Lager! The only thing that can kill a Vindaloo!”
– Dave Lister, Red Dwarf

We can’t help it. Someone mentions Indian food, and soon enough someone mentions vindaloo, and the next thing you know, we’re off on tangents involving curry monsters from outer space. Silly DNA modifiers, acting up again.

But, where the vindaloo mutations on board the good ship Red Dwarf are quite dangerous and must be dealt with (Leopard Lager into the beast’s maw generally does the trick), here on Earth, and at Casa Belly Timber, we find the notion of vindaloo mutations quite intriguing and potentially delicious.

And so, even though we’ve been horrifically busy of late, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to join this month’s From my Rasoi event over at Meena’s Hooked on Heat, and create a bit of Indian fusion of our own.

This month’s theme: Pick a favorite international dish and give it an Indian flavor. Now we mulled this over a bit, pondering pasta, contemplating enchiladas, but in the end we agreed that there was nothing we wanted to do more than tame a wild vindaloo and turn it into the perfect Red Dwarf party food, because if a bunch of scifi geeks like us are going to get together to watch episodes of our favorite British science fiction comedy, the last thing we should do is order our pizza from Domino’s.

That’s right, pizza! Delicious, steeped in the flavors of India, lamb vindaloo pizza. Or, as Chopper calls it, because he just can’t help himself…

(more…)

Now don’t get me wrong, we love our local pub. They brew great beer, their Manhattan chowder is a godsend for my tragically lactose intolerant tummy, and on St. Paddy’s day, they served Chopper one hell of a mean steak and kidney pie.

But, sometimes we long for the Horse Brass, that brilliant British pub on Portland’s eastside. It’s not the darts we miss so much, or that crazy Randall hopper they’ve got hooked up like a hooka at the bar.

It’s not even the bangers and mash.

No, it’s the most horrific, fattening, demonic temptation on the menu we miss: the Scotch egg.

Imagine if you will, a hard boiled egg (and already you’ve got some dietician’s voice in your ear, yammering away about bad cholesterol).

Now imagine covering the egg in a layer of deep fried sausage.

Yes, Scotch eggs are that evil.

And they’re that tasty.

So tasty, that Chopper figured out how to make ‘em at home. Now all we need is a dart board, about thirty beers on tap, a way to keep out the zombies, and we’d never leave the house.

Bonus link: Still confused about the Scotch egg? Ricky Gervais from the BBC comedy The Office explains it all to you.

So it’s gettin’ near lunch — time to make some burritos.
Let’s put in something weird!
Like a big bag of Cheetos?
That’s gross!
Yeah I know – hey this’ll satisfy your wishes: Mr. Pibb + Pork = Crazy Delicious!

Yes we know. There is a special place in hell reserved for us for this post.

Never mind that until the execs at NBC got pissy about it, Lonely Island’s Lazy Sunday clip was in heavy rotation on my YouTube favorites (along with Hasselhoff’s Hooked on a Feeling, so now you really know I’m going to burn in hell), truth be told, Mr Pibb and pork do indeed make a burrito Crazy Delicious.

What, you ask? Soft drinks in food? Are you insane? Oh, if only I could find photographic evidence of Iron Chef Chen’s Cola stewed piglet…

I mean, holy crap, someone even wrote an entire book about it. Look: Classic Cooking with Coca-Cola, it’s called, and yes, I’ll admit, it frightens me. Almost as much as this recipe for Dr. Pepper Chocolate Cake frightens me, but here’s the thing: Sometimes really frightening food combinations taste good.

The trick is to just not tell your snobby food friends that you dumped a can of Coke into your stew, right Chen? (Hey, don’t knock it; he won that episode.)

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We taunted you back on Valentine’s Day with this shot of Chopper’s scrumptious Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake. Recipe to be posted later, we said.

Well, guess what! It’s later!

I can see it now: Belly Timber readers shaking their fists in our general direction. “Later? You call this Later? Later is all about hours, not days or — harrumph — weeks! Shame on you, depriving us for so long!”

Yes, we’re evil that way.

Or distracted.

Or frightfully busy.

You decide.

(If I weren’t so A. evil, B. distracted, or C. frightfully busy, I’d create a poll wherein you could all vote.)

Three notes regarding Sin, Quantified:

1. You need a 9-inch springform pan to do this. Use of any other pan would be folly. Parchment is also a must.
2. Chopper makes this cake at work. Patrons weep tears of joy over it. I, however, can eat no more than one tiny bite per sitting due to the ultimate evil known as “heavy cream.” If you make this cake and love it, please weep for me.
3.This is a three-part recipe. Needless to say, you should proceed in the proper order, otherwise you’ll end up with a very strange cake. I’m sure it’ll still taste good, though.

I wanted to spend the weekend making cheese sandwiches. Trouble is, every time Chopper sees the ingredient list for Paper Chef, his eyes light up like a puppy in a butcher shop. And this time? Beets, lime, pears, and aphrodisiacs, and us a couple blogging together? Ahem. How could we resist?

So, we hit the books. Or rather, the Google, and discovered all sorts of nifty lists and references to dozens of aphrodisiac foods, from the obvious (caviar) to the unexpected (coriander).

Now, I have a personal favorite aphrodisiac. It’s a combination of dark chocolate and Barry White. Gets me every time. But Chopper had other plans (or maybe he’s saving the dark chocolate and Barry White for later). See, he’d recently received a $25 gift certificate to our local grocery, and now he’d found the perfect excuse for some sensuous splurging.

So, to completely knock us out of contention for Paper Chef’s Super Saver category, we picked up three lusty participants for our lusty trio:

Caviar (Okay, black lumpfish roe, close enough for our purposes. Ah, mystical fish eggs, symbol of fertility…)
Truffles (They’re musky. Need we say more?)
Snails (I’m told it has something to do with their shape. What? It’s suggestive?)

Marcus Licinius Crassus: Do you eat oysters?
Antoninus: When I have them, master.
Marcus Licinius Crassus: Do you eat snails?
Antoninus: No, master.
Marcus Licinius Crassus: Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral?
Antoninus: No, master.
Marcus Licinius Crassus: Of course not. It is all a matter of taste, isn’t it?
Antoninus: Yes, master.
Marcus Licinius Crassus: And taste is not the same as appetite, and therefore not a question of morals.
Antoninus: It could be argued so, master.
Marcus Licinius Crassus: My robe, Antoninus. My taste includes both snails and oysters.

– Sparticus, 1960, Lawrence Olivier as Marcus Licinius Crassius; Tony Curtis as Antonius

Ahem. So, where was I?

Oh, yes, we weren’t done yet. Chopper had other ingredients in mind for our Lusty Trio, and surprisingly, we found that several of them were also included on various lists of aphrodisiacs. Here are six more:

Vanilla (Its powerful scent evokes strong and sensuous emotions.)
White wine (In moderation, of course, or the hot date ends badly.)
Wasabi (Nature’s Cialis, rumor has it.)
Red chiles (Hot, hot, hot.)
Coriander (According to The Arabian Nights, a coriander concoction once saved a merchant from 40 years of infertility!)
Agave nectar (Not fermented agave, like tequila or pulque, but still…)

In Aztec times, pulque was the highly esteemed drink of the elders, priests and warriors, a nectar that according to myth oozed from the 400 breasts of the goddess Mayahuel.
–source: Sign on San Diego

Four hundred???

Okay, I think that should do it for aphrodisiacs. Time for some recipes.

Now, I should note that I neglected to include smoked salmon on my list of nine (nine!) aphrodisiacs, above, but whether documented or not, as far as I’m concerned, in my book the combo of smoked salmon and Peter Gabriel is right up there next to dark chocolate and Barry White. (Follow all that up with a glass of port and Alan Rickman, and I’m done.)

Oh, I could go on, but never mind that. Our Lusty Trio turned out quite delicious and so rich that just the smallest helping did me in for the evening. In fact, the both of us have been in recovery for three days, so it’s a wonder we’ve gotten any blogging done at all!

Tagged with: Paper Chef

This past weekend I was strolling the aisles of our local supermarket. Because we live on an island, it sometimes gets difficult to find quality foods at decent prices, but Saturday was a glorious exception.

First, I found one of my favorite main items in the meat case — oxtail — cheap! $1.49 a pound, and it was the good stuff too — from Misty Isle Farms, near Seattle — so I got two packs. Total so far: $6.50

Then I remembered that I also had a pound of dried fava beans in my pantry at home that I had purchased at a farmer’s market during a previous trip off island. I also remembered that we had onions, carrots, and garlic left unused from another meal preparation.

At this point, my brain gears began to turn and I bolted off to the produce section. I was in luck. A major sale on produce items was happening that day. I found asparagus for $1.09 a pound, and red bell peppers at 2 for 88 cents. Top it all off with rutabagas at 69 cents a pound and I was set for veggies.

The only other thing I needed was a “flavorful liquid,” and to my surprise I found quart containers of my favorite brand of stock, also on sale at $1.99 each

Total for the day: $11.35.

Total for the entire meal, not including a $10 bottle of wine (on sale), but estimating the cost of items already on hand: ~$16.00

Which leads me to this…

Mrs D sez:

We snagged the Israeli Zahtar at World Merchants spice, herb, and tea shop just below Pike Place Market in Seattle. Zahtar’s a spice blend that’s used in Middle Eastern and North African cooking. It’s got multitudes of variations, but this particular blend is made with toasted sesame seeds, Syrian sumac, and Moroccan thyme. It’s subtle and herbaceous, but even the light touch of it in the sautéed veggies gave this part of our meal a distinct and delicious Middle Eastern flavor.

Babies? What were you people thinking?

Oh, wait. That was us.

Seriously, we’re utterly gobsmacked by the quality and quantity of Paper Chef entries this time, and it’s going to be a full day’s adventure going through them all, just for the round-up, never mind the judging! You people are all insane. And we mean that in a loving, join usssss, be one of ussss way.

In the meantime, we’ve got our own N.E.E. (Non-Entry-Entry) to post. Now, since we’re non-competitors, we’ve allowed ourselves a wee bit of laziness. We didn’t come up with brilliant takes on “baby” ingredients, nor were any actual babies baked into our dish. Instead, we simply snagged two of the ingredients we’d featured in our Paper Chef Announcement Baby Food Photo Set: Baby Food and Baby Ruth bars.

Ahem, make that baby bok choy, and baby Yukon gold potatoes.

Chopper, always one to find ways to envelop seafood in a crust, zipped to the market for a few salmon fillets and produced this tasty dinner treat: Quinoa crusted salmon with baby bok choy, baby Yukon gold potatoes, and chipotle yogurt sauce.

Some notes on our curious dish:

The crust was crumbly, very crumby, which meant we had a limited number of plating options. Salmon medallions were out of the question, as was slicing the fillet lengthwise and standing one half up against the other. So, after various ill-fated architectural endeavors, we opted for the simple, upright, halved fillet.

Hmm… Something almost mythic about that stark statue of salmon. What is it?

Ah, yes. Now I see it:

Now, the sauce. A word about the sauce. It’s hot. I mean really hot. Yosemite Sam biscuits-are-burnin’ hot. You might want to tone it down with more yog(H)urt. Or a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Meanwhile, we’re reviewing this month’s record number of Paper Chef entries and we promise a round-up tomorrow or Friday, with judging and awards to follow soon after. (And, let me tell you, this is not going to be easy! I mean… can I trade places with an Oscar voter? Please? Please?)

For me, New Year’s Day has always been the one day a year specifically dedicated toward complete and utter laziness. All other holidays have activities — hell, even Saint Paddy’s Day involves the technicalities of green food coloring — but New Year’s Day?

Wake up late. Make leisurely breakfast. Watch TV. Veg out. Watch movie. Go to bed. End of day.

That’s it.

Of course, sometimes we cook. A few years back, down in Portland, we had friends over and made a killer spread of dim sum we devoured during the Food Network’s Iron Chef marathon.

This year we kept things simple. Chopper’d worked late the night before (no holiday rest for employees of the hotel industry), and we hadn’t had time to pick up more than a few essentials at the grocery store, so for our New Year’s Day?

Football, and the perfect lazy breakfast utility food: the tortilla española.

For our version, Chopper included:*

And you know what? I’m still in lazy New Year’s Day mode, so I’m not even going to post the procedure. (And I call myself a food blogger. Hah.) Just go over here and read all about these simple-to-make, tasty puppies.

Oh, do I dare point out that I’m writing about New Year’s Day a day late? How much more lazy can I get?

Well…

I’ve got one of those ubiquitous end-of-year, looking back/looking ahead posts half-finished and lazing about in Word.

I totally blew off cat, dog, and herb blogging this last weekend — though I did entertain the brief notion of throwing both pets into the rosemary bush, snapping a quick pic, and covering all three activities at once.

Oh, and hey, because I’m a bum, a lazy bum (if just for one more day, I promise), I’m going to send everyone elsewhere for yet another activity: Paper Chef Ingredient Nominations, now open over at Tomatilla!

We’ll be back in gear shortly, if only because Kitty Kaga’s eying us from her favorite pillow and sharpening her claws.

I’ve got a secret to tell you: There’s a UFO hidden in my best friend’s barn.

Actually, that’s not my secret, it’s Vernon Dunham’s secret and I’ll get to Vernon in just a moment. My secret is this: When I’m not doing the food blogging thing, I’m doing the genre fiction thing. I’m either writing it, or reading it, or discussing it, or playing silly games of “Which Fantasy/SciFi Character Are You?” (Answer: no lie, I’m Kirk.)

Now what’s this have to do with food blogging? Well, just this:

I’ve met some fine authors in my genre fiction travels and when I catch them swapping recipes or proclaiming their latest Copyedits Complete Commemorative Homecooked Cobbler, my ears perk up. I think: Hey! Authors + recipes = cool new content for Belly Timber!

So, allow me to introduce Cook ‘n Books: An occasional series of book reviews, excerpts, and miscellaneous fictions, each accompanied by a recipe from the featured author.

For our inaugural edition, we’ve got fantastically tasty cookies (I just wolfed one down a moment ago), and Mrs D’s review of the spiffy new novel Rocket Science by Jay Lake.

Jay Lake is the 2004 John W. Campbell Award winner for Best New Writer. He’s been a Hugo nominee for his short fiction, and a World Fantasy Award nominee for his editing. Just a few of his many projects include the critically-acclaimed Polyphony anthology series (co-edited with Deborah Layne), All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories (co-edited with David Moles) and two short story collections, Greetings from Lake Wu and American Sorrows.

Jay is a fiercely imaginative and prolific writer, and someone Chopper and I are proud to call a good friend, in no small part due to his willingness to wear shockingly bright colors and his wicked sense of humor. Also, he writes kick-ass stories, but you’ve probably guessed that already.

For this post, Jay offers us Ginger Chocolate Chip Cookies. He’s taken a classic recipe and given it a twist, which is, I have to say, a perfect match for Rocket Science and what’s lurking in Vernon Dunham’s best friend’s barn…

And now… cookies!

Don’t forget: It’s Annual Food Blog Award Nomination Time! Head on over to The Accidental Hedonist and keep those nominations coming!

I’m not sure what’s gotten into him, but Chopper’s been chomping at the Paper Chef bit extra hard for days. Usually, when the time grows nigh, he gets notions. “Whatever the ingredients are,” he says, days before they’re announced, “I’m gonna use _____.” And then he proceeds to name some exotic item in our pantry or our freezer that quite possibly won’t go with anything on the final Paper Chef ingredient list.

And so, on Friday afternoon, when we checked the list, it was no surprise that thoughts of the freezer item du jour fled out the window and instead we began the required pondering of item number four.

Ingredient 1: Rice
Ingredient 2: Carrots
Ingredient 3: Anchovies
Ingredient 4: Something from the other side of the world that helps make this dish a celebration for you.

Hmmm… Something from the other side of the world, we contemplate, conveniently forgetting the whole “celebration” bit because just finding something from the other side of the world around these parts can be quite the challenge.

Immediately, Chopper starts talking Asian food because, well, the ingredients rather scream Asian, but I interrupt and say, “hey, let’s figure out where exactly the other side of the world is. Who knows. It could be nowhere near Asia, geographically speaking.”

So, after several minutes of semi-fruitless longitude, latitude, and antipode googling, we pull out our trusty National Geographic Atlas of the World and do the math.

Ahah. Page 168, 48S, 57E give or take a few degrees, and there we are. In the middle of the Indian Ocean.

But wait! There’s land nearby! Maybe they’ve got a national cuisine!

Right. The nearest land to our antipode, as it happens, is a tiny little island called ÃŽle de l’Est, the (appropriately named) Eastern most member of the Crozet Islands.

Hey! They’re a French Colony — we can cook something French! Wait a sec. France still has colonies?

Well, an interesting thought, but probably not exactly what Owen, our illustrious Paper Chef host, had in mind. No, let’s check out the local flora and fauna… No trees, not much growing on the ground that looks edible… a few imported species that, for the most part, have vanished… Ah, here we go:

Whoa. Okay, okay, we’re not really going to cook penguin. They’re too cute and fluffy, and honestly where is one supposed to find penguin meat on this short notice?

(By the way when searching (unsuccessfully) for nearby penguin vendors, we happened upon a place in Seattle that sells kangaroo! Note for future reference…)

So then, no food from the antipode, sad to say.

We stare at the map a while longer.

“Well,” I offer, “it’s kinda close to Africa.”

(And no, we are not googling that scary place in the Midwest that sells lion meat.)

So, Chopper dives into a bit of quick spice research and comes up with tamarind, a tasty fruit native to tropical Africa. He jumps in the car, heads out to the store and… comes back empty-handed. Tamarind is not to be found on our island.

Back to the spice research.

Ahah! Fenugreek, indigenous to Northern Africa through the Mediterranean and into Asia, this herb is extremely common in African cuisine, so that could count, right? You know fenugreek was used by ancient Egyptians to embalm mummies? How cool is that?

Okay, that’s one… close to our antipode, though rather far to the north. So, we fudge a little.

Meanwhile, there’s that whole “celebration” thing we’ve forgotten about. We ponder a bit further, and unable to settle on a single ingredient number four, decide to celebrate the following cool, far-from-home items we’ve located on recent culinary expeditions, first to our local favorite shop The Gourmet’s Galley, and then to Uwajimaya in Seattle.

1) Szechwan peppercorns. I spotted a bag of these at Gourmet’s Galley a short while back and sent Chopper into paroxysms of joy. These babies aren’t easy to find. For a while, the FDA had a complete ban on their importation because they carried a citrus canker, but this past spring that ban was lifted after it was discovered that heating the peppercorns to 160F killed the canker bacteria. Now, they’re simply heated before importation. (And there was much rejoicing!)

2) From Uwajimaya, dried shitake mushrooms. Yeah, they’re not that hard to find — unless you live on an island, and then the come in tiny, “gourmet” packages that cost an arm and two kidneys. So, we got the nice big bag at Uwajimaya, and again, there was much rejoicing!

3) Last, because it’s on the list already, the piece de resistance for our festive dish: anchovies. Not anchovies in a tin, or anchovies in a jar, but dried anchovies from Japan. The ones that still look like cute little fishies, so much so that if you glued strings to them and hung them from the ceiling under a blue light you’d have quite a lovely little aquatic mobile (not to mention one hell of a great Christmas present for the cat). Yes, those anchovies, because there’s nothing that says Insane Belly Timber Paper Chef Entry quite like dried fish leaping out of shitake mushroom cap siu mai.

(Okay, we admit, the rice isn’t so much in the dishes as under the dishes, but we’ll just plead “dim sum” as an excuse and suggest that one does not ever eat dim sum without copious amounts of steamed rice.)

Now, for this month’s Paper Chef, previous winner Noodle Cook (and yes this is, happily, all our fault!) has created categories! And there are prizes! (I now officially feel like a complete slacker.)

So, without further ado, here are Noodle’s categories and our self-nomination within each appropriate one.

Paper Chef Personality – creative, clever or witty writer. ::cough:: Um, penguin meat and fishie mobiles. Do you need to ask?

Paper Chef Super Saver – budget meals or crowd pleaser specialist. We’re probably not suited to this one because, frankly, I’m too lazy to do the math. I will say that the only items that cost more than a buck or two were the shrimp and the pork spare rib meat, and even all of that was pretty darned cheap. Hell, if dim sum’s not cheap, it’s not doing its job and should be sacked immediately.

Paper Chef Prestige – food styling, presentation or plating up expert. Styling? Hahahahahahahah. Sorry. Do leaping fishies count?

Paper Chef Nutrition Genie – magician for getting fussy diners to eat veggies, less salt, less fat. Usually, Chopper Dave and the phrase “eat veggies, less salt, less fat” do not belong in the same kitchen, but with Asian food he makes an exception. On the Chopper Health Scale, I’d give these dishes a solid 8.5.

Paper Chef Supreme – the champion for Paper Chef #13. Well, one would assume that if we’re here at all, we’re here for the big prize, eh?

So then, clear as mud.

But wait, there’s more! Didn’t Noodle say something about bonus points?

Oh crap! We forgot the festive atmosphere! Quick! Scramble for the camera and –didn’t Noodle Cook say something about — what was it — beer? Incense?

Ah, here we are:

Hey, don’t bogart that siu mai, man.

What does one do after a crazy/busy week full of deadlines and dilemmas? Why one jaunts off to Seattle for the day!

We’re off bright and early tomorrow morning, and our goal is to cram in as much great food-related shopping as possible in our tiny window of time. (I say tiny because we’ll also be meeting up with friends, prepping for an evening party, and hauling the infamous poochie around with us everywhere we go.)

So, if any of Seattle’s denizens have food shopping recommendations… speak up! On the list so far, Uwajimaya and World Spice Merchants — but that’s only because we know about those places. Tell us about all those cool and super cheap places no one knows about.

Oh, wait. Then everyone would know.

It’s okay. Whisper a name or two in my ear. Mum’s the word.

Meanwhile, here’s a simple Irish style stew for another rainy weekend.

How to spend your gloomy Sunday afternoon:

1) Stare out the windows at the rain and think wistful thoughts about summer and puppy excursions to the beach.

2) Promise the puppy a walk. Soon. When it stops raining.

3) Take a nice big yellow onion (the one you’ve been saving for spaghetti sauce) and slice it into rings.

4) Mix up some batter:

       2 cups of AP flour or tempura batter mix
       2 cups of beer. (Damn, now you’ve broken the symmetry of the six pack. Guess it’s time to drink the rest.)
       2 Tbl lemon pepper
       1 1/2 tsp sea salt

5) Heat up a wok full of vegetable oil to about 350 to 375 F and have a wire rack on a cookie sheet and a warm oven standing by.

6) Pour some flour into a bowl.

7) Dredge a ring of onion in the flour, shake off the excess, then dunk it in batter. Drop the battered ring into the hot oil and let it fry up nice and golden. Remove and place on the wire rack. Repeat until you’ve got a good assemblage of rings, then stick them in the oven to keep them warm till you’re done with the frying and ready to chow.

8) Serve with ketchup or barbecue sauce or whatever other condiments you have in your fridge, and — of course — with any left over beer.

9) Turn on the TV and watch the Seahawks stomp the Rams.

10) Notice the fading daylight and make it up to the puppy by playing chase around the living room furniture. Be sure you’ve consumed all the onion rings and all of the beer so that nothing is wasted, even though the puppy would really like her share.

Why we thought we’d have time and energy to actually make a Paper Chef dish (and write it up) along with our judgment and round-up duties is anyone’s guess, but here we are, and here’s our dish. Before I get into the details, let me just say that my admiration for food blog event hosts has gone through the roof this past week. Talk about ass-busting work. Wow.

So, about those four ingredients… The tricky thing with Paper Chef is that it’s global so it can’t ever be truly seasonal. The best we can ever hope for is to have a list of ingredients that anyone anywhere can approximate. And since we went random for three of them this time, we ran the risk of drawing one that was so seasonal, people on half the globe would be S.O.L. Even so, I will admit that I was surprised that some folks had trouble finding fresh basil (it’s easy to think “well, if I can get it here on this tiny island…”), but I’m pleased to see the fascinating substitutions folks came up with for their entries this month. We’ve been guilty of griping about ingredient accessibility in the past ourselves, and it wasn’t until serving as hosts that we came to realize how tough this whole process is.

And now, on with the dish. Since we’re hosting and not feeling compelled to do anything mind-bendingly creative, we opted for the first thing that sprung to mind, moments after selecting our list of basil, fish sauce, oranges, and lamb: a Thai curry dish.

For this particular dish, Chopper chose Mussaman (also called Massaman) curry. Mussaman is a Thai transliteration of “Muslim” and this curry originates with Muslim immigrants and the spices they brought to Southern Thailand many years ago. It’s a mild curry compared to most other Thai curries, and works well with lamb and with the subtle shifts of flavor brought on by the addition of orange and basil.

Chopper says: Mmmm mmmm, I love Thai curry!

Mrs D. says: I think I died and went to Thai curry heaven. Seriously, this one rocked our little culinary world. We loved it so much, Chopper made it twice. (And I will force him to make it again, and again, and again…)

And now… stay tuned…. Paper Chef Round-Up coming right up!

Pizza. This crusty Italian pie has become one of the most popular foods in the world. And, everywhere pizza is made a different approach is taken. From the crispy, thin crusted, simply topped, New York style, to the hearty, cheesy, thick crusted pan style pizza of Chicago, to the “specialty gourmet” pizzas that originated on the west coast, and infinite others, pizza is one of the most diverse food offerings to share a single name.

Pizza’s humble beginnings can be dated all the way back to the 6th century B.C., when Persian soldiers baked a simple flat bread on their shields which were placed over top of camp fires, topping the bread with cheese and dates. In the following centuries this simple, easy to prepare food became popular in Rome, and evidence of shops that bear a striking resemblance to more contemporary pizzerias has been found in the unearthed ruins of Pompeii which date back to the year 79 A.D.

Pizza didn’t reach the U.S., though, until the early 20th century, when an Italian immigrant, Gennaro Lombardi, is widely known to have opened the first Pizzeria in New York City in 1905.

Pizza later spread to the “second city.” In 1943, Chicago-style deep-dish pizza was created by Ike Sewell at his now well-known establishment called Pizzeria Uno (which later became a nation-wide chain).

In 1945, American soldiers that had been stationed in Italy during World War II returned, bringing a taste for the savory pie with them — so much so, that a mere three years later, in 1948, a niche was found, and the first “kit” was produced that allowed pizza to be made at home, called “Roman Pizza Mix.”

The popularity of pizza in the U.S. really took off in the 1950s, however. Americans really started noticing pizza when Italian-American celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Durante, Jerry Colonna, and Joe DiMaggio all could be seen enjoying pizza. Then, in 1957 frozen pizzas were introduced by the Celentano Brothers, and could be found in local grocery stores. Soon afterward, pizza became the most popular of all frozen foods.

Pizza has had a long and, for the most part, illustrious history. From its obscure beginnings as a simple food for soldiers on the march, to its modern incarnations where just about anything goes, pizza will continue to be enjoyed the world over.

Now, after that long-winded overview of my favorite pie, here’s my version!

There, that’s all the components. Though, you may want to add some vegetables to your pie as well.

Now, I really like Chicago style, deep dish pizza. And the best part of making it is that you don’t really need a pizza stone (though having one would still be nice). All you really need is a good cast iron pan.

Preheat your oven to its highest possible setting (most just say “broil” which is fine, but if yours goes up to 550 F, you’re good to go).

By now your dough should be well rested, and about twice its previous size. Turn it out of the bowl, and “punch” it down to get rid of any oversized air pockets. This should be enough dough to make two or three ten inch pizzas.

For that size you’ll need 10 oz of dough, rolled thin enough to line your pan from edge to edge, and all the way up the sides as well.

Then ladle in your sauce and spread evenly, make sure not to add too much, or your crust will be soggy.

Now, here comes the first layer of cheese. Since Mrs. D is lactose intolerant, we scoured the cheese aisle at our local market to find something we could use, and we did! There’s a wonderful Greek sheep/goat cheese called Kasseri, “the melting cheese of Greece.” Mrs. D was jubilant. Anyway, layer on about 1/2 a pound over the sauce, then add your condiments, in this case split meatballs, mushrooms, black olives, and red onions, and fresh roma tomatoes.

Place your panned creation in your oven and cook for 15 minutes, or until the crust turns a deep brown. And, there you have it. Pizza a ‘la Chopper!

I used to be a dork.* A big ol’ American dork who thought all cool ethnic foods like chutneys and curry pastes came straight from jars which came straight from factories because who the heck would ever make this stuff from scratch, right? I mean nobody but chefs and people with tons of time ever did that.

At my house it was never about tons of time. It was about throwing some Kikkoman Teriyaki sauce on a bowl of Top Ramen, calling it “ethnic” (hah!), and then chowing it down in five minutes flat before rushing off to an evening’s rehearsal of The Pigeon by Some Guy Who Thinks He’s Anton Chekhov But Clearly Isn’t.

Yes, I lived a life of culinary… well, to be honest, the word culinary didn’t enter into it. (That is, except for those late nights at the theater bar with too many oyster shooters… but I digress…)

Then, wonder of wonders, I met a chef. Okay, he wasn’t exactly a chef when I met him, but point is, he knew things. Wondrous things. Like: You can make curry paste at home! Really! You can!

In fact, about this time last year, we made quite a batch of Thai red curry paste, and it was scrumptious. Hot as a freakin’ sun spot, but scrumptious.

The thing I adore about home made curry paste is that it’s so much more aromatic than the store bought kind, and you can tweak it into a hundred different varieties. It lasts a nice long time, too. Cook up this stuff, use just a spoonful or two (or a cup if you’re feeling bold) and freeze the rest. Curry paste for months!

Here’s Chopper’s recipe for Thai red curry paste. Check back in a jiff and I’ll have posted about the time I assisted Chopper in the making of Thai red curry paste. It was — how shall I put it — a memorable experience. One I shall treasure forever. Right along side that time I took my hiking lunch break atop a 4′ ant hill. Not that this should stop you from…

Home made Thai Red Curry Paste

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound dried red chiles
• 10 black peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon fenugreek
• 4 stalks lemongrass
• 1 tablespoon minced cilantro
• 1 teaspoon minced galangal
• 1 teaspoon minced lime zest
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon shrimp paste
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method

1. Have a large mortar and pestle ready. I know, not everyone has one of the primitive tools, but it works best, and they’re not as expensive as one might think if they know where to look. We got ours at an Asian market in Portland for $22. But, a food processor can work as well.
2. First, stem and seed the chiles. Then soak them for 20-30 minutes, or until they are hydrated enough to peel. Then remove the skins.
3. Put a small sauté pan on medium high heat, no oil. When the pan is hot add the peppercorns and shake them around in the pan until you begin to detect their aroma. Then add the coriander, wait again for the aroma. Then add the cumin, repeat, and also with the fenugreek.
4. When all the spices are toasted, place them in the mortar and pestle, and allow them to cool.
5. While the spices are cooling, take the lemongrass and bash it with the flat side of your knife until it’s bruised and frayed. Then slice only the white parts and mince.
6. Pound spices and salt into a powder, then add cilantro, lemongrass, galangal, lime zest, garlic, and shrimp paste. Pound down to a thick paste, then add chiles. Keep pounding until the paste has the desired consistency.

This method is not fast or easy. It is long, and difficult. But your toil will be rewarded with enough paste to make fine curries for weeks.

–Chopper Dave

(*Actually, I still am a dork. “Used to be” is only to suit the purposes of this post and to illustrate that sometimes I do indeed learn things.)

Ah, fall, my third favorite season.

To salute the equinox with this month’s edition of Paper Chef, Stephen of Stephen Cooks offers us a tasty list of ingredients.

• Duck
• Ginger
• Nut Butter
• Pears

Now, as to the first ingredient, I was apprehensive at first (I even commented on Stephen’s blog about it), but as I lay in bed that night I remembered that I had a large amount of duck bones hiding in the back of my freezer. YES! I thought. Finally a chance to put them to use!

The next day I set about making those (usually discarded) portions of our favorite water fowl into a rich stock.

(Note: the following is a rather wordy version of most stock recipes you can find in nearly any cook book.)

I began by removing the bones from the freezer (duh… and yes I weighed them: almost 10 lbs) and placing them in a roasting pan. I recommend that you try to break some of the larger bones before roasting. Next, I preheated my oven to 375 F. When the oven came to heat, the bones were just thawed enough for my purposes. I placed the pan in the oven and roasted the bones to a beautiful golden brown. Then I dropped them in my 16 quart stock pot and added enough water to cover. I then placed the roasting pan on one of my two still-functioning burners, and caramelized one pound of chopped onion, 1/2 pound of chopped carrot, and 1/2 pound of chopped celery (also known as 2 lbs of mirepoix to the French). I deglazed the pan with red wine (does it really matter that it was Carlo Rossi “Burgundy”? I didn’t think so) and added that to the pot as well. After bringing the whole thing to a boil, I then added a tablespoon of black peppercorns, two tablespoons of dried thyme leaves, five medium sized bay leaves, and a small handful of Italian parsley. I then reduced it to a very, VERY low simmer (about four bubbles a second), and allowed it to cook overnight.

Duck’s Head Soup (stock): View at your own risk!

The next day I strained the amazingly flavorful brown liquid and put it back to the heat. After a number of hours on the stove reducing, I was able to extract more than 80% of the water from the stock, leaving an immensely flavorful glace (that’s pronounced “gloss”).

Now the next thing was to make a “nut butter.” I didn’t want to just buy something; that seemed to me to be a cop out. (Though I’m not disparaging anyone who did. I just knew that I had the tool — i.e. my food processor — to do something homemade.) So, I chose pistachios, because I LOVE them.

My pistachio butter goes as follows:

Mmm, mmm.

At this point I began to think of the best way to bring the remaining chosen ingredients and my two variations, together. The first thing that came to mind was Italian, and how better to incorporate these ingredients Italian style than in ravioli with a sauce?

To that end, I grabbed about four ounces of gorgonzola cheese and a couple of “starcrimson” pears. After peeling and coring the pears, I brushed them with melted butter, and placed them in a 400 F oven, allowing them to come to a nice golden brown.

Then I pureed them and combined then with the cheese, which I crumbled by hand. After that, I added two teaspoons of the glace, thus making the perfect filling for Fall.

Next was the dough. I took a page from The Pasta Bible by Christian Teubner, Silvio Rizzi, and Tan Lee Leng, and, again turning to my trusty food processor — this time with its “dough blade” — I spun up pasta dough. Then we broke out our pasta roller.

This was the point when we (Mrs. D and I) thought: “How can we make this dish even more fancy?” When we spotted the oregano growing in our yard, the idea came. We took our pasta dough and rolled it out almost as thin as filo, thus allowing one to see things through it. We then made creative patterns on the dough with oregano leaves and folded the dough back on itself, sealing the leaves between the two layers. This created a most flavorful, and at the same time decorative, ravioli, which we filled heartily, and cut using a tartlet pan, meaning that they were BIG.

Before cooking, I felt the need to attend to a sauce. And, there were still two ingredients to use to make this Paper Chef worthy! So, I took a tablespoon of my pistachio butter and a tablespoon of grated ginger and placed them in a saucepan along with 2/3 of a cup of white wine, whisked them all together and allowed them to reduce. When the mixture was reduced by about 3/4 I took it off the heat. When it stopped bubbling I added 4 tablespoons of butter, and swirled it vigorously to create an emulsion. Then I strained it, leaving a wonderful green-tinted sauce that went perfectly with the raviolis and left the oregano decorations in the pasta easy to see.

And now I present:

Ravioli dell’autunno with Sliced Anna Kiwi

After that I found that I still had large amounts of my ingredients left. So, I decided to plug on! The next thing I made was a soup. Rather than regale you with the process of this one, I’ll give you the recipe:

After the soup, I STILL had some of the ingredients left and another thought jumped to mind: Risotto!!

Here’s another recipe for you…

Phew! That was fun! Good ingredients. What’s next? Bring it on!

–Chopper Dave

Here’s another one from the Mom’s Secret Stash files: Irish Soda Bread.

I couldn’t find the old recipe card this time, but as with the not-so-Hungarian Goulash, I did locate the source: Page 132 of Ann Rogers’ A Cookbook for Poor Poets (and others).

This book is a Mom Favorite and I’m convinced it’s not just because of the simple, rustic recipes inside, but because of the title. Trust me, in our house growing up, it was all about being Poor Poets. (Or poor writers, or poor anthropologists for that matter. You get the picture. Everyone did the follow-your-bliss thing. Too bad bliss didn’t come with nice salaries.)

I don’t remember much else from the book aside from Poor Poet’s Chicken (p. 113), and a dish I never cared for called Hog and Hominy (p.76). I am grateful Mom never attempted the dish in the introduction on page 10: Cats’lleatit. “Cat’slleatit,” the author says, “is manufactured from equal parts of heart, liver, tongue, kidney, sweetbreads, and/or brains (eater’s choice) along with a handful each of dried salt pork and sliced onions. And a clove or two of garlic for those who like it.”

Sorry, but a vat of dark chocolate, for those who like it, won’t get me near that one.

But, back to the bread.

(Important note: this is an old book, and therefore has a peculiar type face that tends to make threes look like fives at smaller resolutions. It may not look it, but that does indeed say “bake for about 45 minutes at 350°”)

If I’d been thinking clearly when I wrote up my childhood memories post, Irish Soda Bread would have been near the top of the list. Those crisp fall days when I came home from school to the smell of freshly-baked bread in the kitchen were the best ever. Tea time was a mandatory occurrence at our house and I’d even give up a stack of soda crackers and a rerun of Gilligan’s Island if I could sit at the table with my parents and eat Irish Soda Bread so fresh that the butter melted on contact. (Yes, this bread is meant to be devoured warm and if you’re hungry enough, it’ll be gone before it hits room temperature!)

Now, I don’t make this often, and since we’ve a rather small and (say it with me now) Messy Kitchen, there’s not much room for actual baking. So, I have to improvise. On days when I’m thinking straight, I’ll move the bread board over to the dining room table and work there. It’s a little low for counter-work, but it gives me the space I need to get messy. And I do get messy.

See, I like to make this stuff the old-fashioned way. Or maybe it’s just the bizarre Mrs. D way, who knows, but when the recipe calls for just combining all ingredients and working on a board, I do just that, starting with all the dry ingredients in a big mound. I then turn my lovely flour mountain into something more resembling Crater Lake, and pour the mixed-up wet stuff into the middle. At this point, with extra flour close at hand, I work it all together until the sticky mess becomes a nice round lump of dough.

That is, if I remember to move the bread board to the table and set out the extra flour.

Last time, I didn’t.

The tragic results were as follows:

First, I misjudged the amount of wet stuff to pour into the middle, and Crater Lake sprouted Crater Creek, which soon turned into Crater Falls right off the edge of the counter and onto Crater Swamp.

Second, since the “additional 3/4 cup of flour” was still in the flour bag, my dam-building attempts were less than successful, and I ended up jostling the bread board around on the counter, thus resulting in this woeful casualty of war:

Oh, beloved pepper grinder, we hardly knew ye.

Third. Well there wasn’t exactly a third, except I had to holler at Mom (across the room) to come over and dump some flour onto the board because otherwise this was going to be one big colossal waste of ingredients.

Amazingly, after all the chaos, I ended up with this:

And it tasted good. And we ate almost all of it before it reached room temperature.

I am so glad no one tagged me for the cookbook meme. Thing is, I don’t have a shelf of favorite cookbooks. Around here, it’s always been more about making it up on the fly then it’s ever been about following a recipe. Even in baking, we twist and tweak till half the time we’re not even sure where we started. And I have to confess I can’t remember the last time I googled a recipe online and actually followed it.

That’s not to say we don’t have cookbooks around here — we do — it’s just that our cookbooks come in three odd varieties:

1) The texts from Chopper’s culinary school.

2) The occasional book someone’s given us as a gift. (We’ve probably got, all-told, about five of these.)

3) Cookbooks that have been in my family forever, and I mean eons.

Like this one:

Only my junior high copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula is more trashed than this, and I read that baby six times.

And catch that price: 35 cents. NEW. Do I even dare ask what fashions were popular the year Mom bought it?

Now, here’s what I didn’t realize until a recent browse though The Round-the- — Cookbook: This cookbook contains recipes that I grew up believing were family recipes. All this time I thought family recipes originated on index cards in Mom’s handwriting with multitudes of grease, butter, oil, vanilla, and tomato sauce stains. But no. Now, all I can think is: Hey! Mom! You cheated!

Right. Like no one else’s family recipes have ever come out of a book.

I’m sure some of ours didn’t either — in fact, we’ve got a cake recipe that I’m pretty certain originated with my grandma on Dad’s side — but at the moment, it’s looking like I’ve discovered the secret stash: Mom’s ancient cookbook collection, and point of origin for many a favorite childhood dish.

Let’s take a peek inside and see what we find.

First up, from the tattered tome pictured above: Hungarian Goulash. And here, in one of its more recent incarnations, is the family recipe card:

Now, I’ve made this recipe several times, and here’s the thing: I’ve always thought that it was Mom who was really vague about writing down the ingredients. I mean: “1 Can tomato sauce.” What sized can? Regular or honkin’ big? And what about the noodles? Shouldn’t I know if I need one bag of noodles or two?

Turns out, the original recipe is pretty vague too. Then again, maybe tomato sauce only came in one size way back when.

No worries though, because here’s the thing: with a recipe like this, it doesn’t matter. So long as you have lots of everything on hand, you just add more of whatever you need till it looks like you’ve got enough of everything.

Like paprika. Last time I made this we started off with four pounds of beef instead of three, so needless to say, the paprika mix ran out before the beef did. Good thing we had three containers of paprika in the spice drawer because it’s all about mixing more, and more, and still more — what ever it takes till the beef cubes are coated.

Next step. Four pounds of beef seem like too much? Fine. Add a second can of tomato sauce. But not a honkin’ big can, because then you’d have to go back to the store for more beef. Unless you’ve got more in the fridge, and then I say, why not? Go for broke.

Then what? Simmer that baby. Covered, uncovered, it’s no big deal, just let it cook for a nice long time till you’ve got this big pan full of chunky paprika tomato stew. When you’ve got the noodle water boiling and dinner’s just around the corner, add the sour cream. How much sour cream? Lots. Or rather, enough. Enough till it’s thick and creamy and bright paprika red. Could be a pint. Could be two pints. Just have enough, just in case.

Then, it’s noodle time. One bag or two? Well, that’s when you gotta ask yourself a question:

Do I feel hungry? Well, do ya, punk?
How big an army’s showing up for dinner, and how much space do I have in the fridge?

If the dinner squad’s small and so’s the room in the fridge, then stick with a single bag. Store the rest of the goulash sans noodles and cook more noodles up next time. If you’ve got a hungry battalion at the gates, then, hell, go for three bags. You don’t need to stir them all into the goulash pot at once. Save a portion for the end of the meal when someone asks for fourths.

Oh, and last but not least, if you’ve got a hungry brood of seven and a love of leftovers like some moms I know: Definitely go for broke. Six pounds of beef and about those tomato sauce cans? Honkin’ HUGE.

I have custard issues. It’s not that I dislike it horribly (though it can, on occasion develop a bit of a skin that screams I am bad! I defy you to eat me and not get a tummy ache!), it’s that it brings back memories. Memories of my own personal actor’s nightmare.

See, I was doing this production of The Actor’s Nightmare, go figure, when custard reared its ugly head. Let me explain: For those who don’t know the Christopher Durang play, it’s like this. A man with the unlikely name of George Spelvin is thrust on stage, sans script, sans costume, sans any notion whatsoever of where he is and is told he’s “going on” in a short number of minutes. Going on to what, George wonders, and soon finds out that he’s Hamlet and it’s opening night. Or maybe it’s Noel Coward’s Private Lives and he’s Elyot, or it’s Beckett’s Endgame, and he has to act while sitting in a garbage can. No matter, because soon enough it’s on to the execution scene in A Man For All Seasons, and George (as Sir Thomas More) has his head on the chopping block.

Now in the script, George’s fellow actors have gathered around him, all save for Dame Ellen Terry, who is still in Endgame mode, eyes out front, up to her neck in a garbage can. The actress now playing Thomas’ mother enters, carrying a custard, uttering the line “I’ve brought you a custard, Thomas.” Thomas thanks his mother (or some such) and she stands there, holding custard and spoon, until the moment the executioner swings his axe and the lights go out.

In my own personal actor’s nightmare, it goes more like this:

Thomas’ mother enters: “I’ve brought you a custard,” she says and stumbles slightly causing the custard to fly up into the air and land, face down on the stage in front of the gathered cast. She gasps, then giggles. Fellow cast members attempt to say their lines, then giggle. Then laugh. Then, along with the audience, guffaw most horribly.

All except me. Why? No sense of humor? Nah. It’s because I’m Ellen freaking Terry, stuck in the garbage can out front and I don’t see a damned thing.

So here I am – attempting to be the best straight man the Theater of the Absurd has to offer – in character even, eyes out front, never a glance behind to see what the hell is going on, uttering my lines with the straightest face I can muster, and in a garbage can no less – and just upstage of me we’ve got the entire Roman Legion from the Bigus Dickus scene in Life of Brian, all because of a CUSTARD.

Is it any wonder I am scarred for life?

Now, Chopper assures me that my playing the straight man probably generated even more laughter from the audience. Not that this is any consolation. In fact, it could provoke me to shun custard all the more. But, because this is Sugar High Friday, and the theme is indeed custard, I will allow him to play. Provided he does it away from home.

Fortunately, on that score, we’re in luck. Chopper’s been patisserie guy at the restaurant for a while now, and today is the perfect day for him to make another rendition of his successful dessert special, Bread and Butter Pudding. And this isn’t just any bread and butter pudding. It’s a brandy-soaked concoction with home (or rather restaurant) made brioche. The recipes for pudding and brioche are Chopper’s adaptations from recipes in Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen (4th edition). And because this is for a restaurant, it’s a big recipe. We’re talking 18 by 34 by 4 inch hotel pan here, and enough tasty goodness for eighteen rather sizable portions.

For many more custards, check out the Sugar High Friday Round-up!

We’ve been at a loss for words. I think we still are, to some extent, numb from the horrific events of this past week and not quite able to sit ourselves down and just write about food without thinking of the outrage of so many going without for so long. (Lord knows I’ve tried posting every day; tried and failed.)

But this month’s Paper Chef, with its New Orleans theme, has finally pulled us back to our neglected blog and reminded us that life can (and must) go on.

Chopper and I have never been to New Orleans and in fact just two weeks ago or less we were brainstorming a potential trip around the country and naming our must-see cities. New Orleans was at the top of my list. I still want to go, though I know it’ll be a while yet. I want to see the New Orleans that once was and will be again. I want to fall in love with her as so many of my friends have.

But that must wait, and in the meantime, we’ll give the city and her neighbors to the east as best a culinary tribute as we can muster, improvised with our own Northwest flair.

Paper Chef’s four required ingredients as selected by Owen of Tomatilla were sausage, beer, tomatoes, and shrimp. Owen’s further suggestion for this month’s competition: “participate in the Paper Chef this weekend specifically INSTEAD of going out to dinner one night” and then donate the money we would have spent to hurricane disaster relief.

Since we don’t dine out much (or spend much when we do) we decided instead to choose simple ingredients, raid the panty (or the freezer) if we could, and cook enough for several meals. It seemed most fitting: Jambalaya and biscuits and gravy; hearty meals we wish we could cook for Katrina’s refugees if we weren’t two thousand miles away. Dishes designed to fill us up on the cheap so our money could go where it mattered so much more. All told, we spent no more than $25 and our Paper Chef results fed three people for three lunches and four dinners.

And here’s where I have to stop and consider for a moment. It’s easy to congratulate ourselves: Seven meals and for only twenty-five bucks? Good going! As if there weren’t thousands upon countless thousands in this country alone who’d gladly take twenty-five bucks to feed a family of five for a week. If there’s one thing that’s shocked me even more than the gross incompetence of our government in this disaster, it’s the gross and willful ignorance of so many who truly believe that everyone who stayed in New Orleans stayed out of choice; who truly do not get what poverty means. Couldn’t they have walked, they ask. Why don’t they have cars? If they all had 40-hour-a-week jobs and weren’t so lazy, they could have been prepared. I am numb with fury over such thoughts, and I lack the eloquence to put into words how much it breaks my heart to know that a disaster of this magnitude isn’t enough to smack a little empathy into the damaged souls of the selfish.

Instead, I’d like to direct readers to these links. First, from writer John Scalzi on Being Poor. If you’ve been there, it’ll bring back memories. If you haven’t, it’ll open eyes. Second, this most excellent post and its follow-up from novelist Cherie Priest. Just go, read, you’ll be glad you did.

Last, closer to our virtual home, Amy of Beauty Joy Food is hosting a fundraiser. She asks participants (and you don’t need a food blog to join in) to write about New Orleans — food, memories, music, whatever — and then add this banner and fundraising link to your post:

We’ve no memories to share, but for this post, we’ve food. Good, hearty Southern food, Belly Timber style. Enjoy, share, live, and most of all, give.