Flavors 518

Ms. Garlic and I never go out for Valentine's Day, which even if you can get into your restaurant of choice tends to involve prix fixe specials that are inferior but substantially more expensive than the restaurant's typical menu.  And a restaurant meal budget can get you some very fancy ingredients for a home meal, so we prefer that. Back in February, I made rack of lamb for the anniversary.  I use Thomas Keller's recipe , which reminds me of our honeymoon (we spent part of it in Northern California, and while Keller's most famous restaurant is far beyond our means we did eat at the much more affordable and still excellent bistro Bouchon .)    I pretty much follow the recipe as is, although as with most restaurant recipes about half the butter in the rub works fine.  You combine anchovy, garlic and butter with a mortar and pestle (or food processor -- we did the former, thanks Ms. Garlic for the mortaring and pestling!), add bread crumbs and herbs.  S...

A couple years ago I read Rules of Civility by Amor Towles over the holidays and somehow got this idea that New Year's Eve meant trolling through a Jazz Bar in a seedy corner of 1930s Manhattan about to make so many different choices that will profoundly effect one's life for all the years to come, preferably wearing pearls and silk and drinking champagne. Well, there times in life when your choices are made gradually and flow like a river into other choices, and sometimes there are no choices to be made at all, except always the choice to continue on one's set path or to alter it ever so slightly in ways you don't even notice yourself until much later. Also, what is actually wrong with pajama pants New Year's Eve? To which I bring you to old and married New Year's Eve. Old and Married New Year's Eve includes the delicious Love Boat dish pictured above.  We went to Tomo in Slingerlands. Its a great place in general, and the staff is always efficie...

We didn't travel anywhere for the holidays this year, and so far it has been really relaxing. I was wondering why people make the holidays into such a crazy thing, but then I thought of my favorite holiday things in the past. In 1990, my grandmother gave me a dollhouse she had made that had real electricity, actual newspapers and magazines, bacon and eggs cooking on the stove and a whole family complete with a dog and a pet turtle. It was awesome, and I am sure it was probably stressful for her to make that whole thing herself in addition to all that she did for all the other people in her life. The fact that I remember this fabulous dollhouse and that Christmas in general 22 years later must point to the fact that it is all worth the stress - at least maybe for relatives of small children. But for me now, let's hear it for the least stressful holidays ever. Brought to you by: French press coffee (so, so delicious). I got the Bodum 8 cup Brazil French Press for Chris...

Holidays can be stressful , but I am determined not to feel that way this year. Instead of traveling, going broke, and feeling overwhelmed, how about we remake the holiday season into being all about cookies, television, and pajamas? There is no reason to get worked up about the commercials with the big bow on the Lexus in the driveway. What I like best about the holidays is someone walking up to me and handing me a jar of homemade granola - simple, thoughtful, not expensive. Check out my post about homemade Christmas gifts last year . I also like cookies - lots of cookies. Check out my Edward Hopper cookies I made last year (am I the only person who Googles "art history inspired holiday cookies"? the search results are not impressive). Also, check out my post about the cookie exchange I organized last year at my former workplace . But - enough about last year! We received a Miro sculpture on loan at my new job, and there is something about it I really love. I coul...

Our Thanksgiving festivities really started on Tuesday night when I drove up to Oscar's Adirondack Smokehouse in Warrensburg to pick up our boneless half ham. It easily fed five adults and two kids with plenty leftover. It was an easy drive from Saratoga where I am now working, and the shop was very cool to visit. They have all kinds of cured meats, cheeses, and sauces. I also picked up some summer sausage that we added to our charcuterie plate (filled with other goodies from The Cheese Traveler ). My new coworkers seemed to find my ham errand very funny and referred to me as a courier (as one is to valuable paintings that travel from an art museum). They also asked me if I put a seat belt around the ham, which wouldn't have been that crazy considering how great their products are. It was a really delicious ham, and totally worth the trip up there (you can also purchase Oscar's products at Roma Foods and Cardona's ). Rounding out our Thanksgiving table ( what no tu...

What do you do with a holiday in the middle of the work week? It seemed weird, and yet who is going to argue with any day off in the year, really? We went to the Tailored Tea for lunch because I am in love with it. I went in Hobby Lobby for the first time. I thought it was a cool store. It was huge. The merchandise seemed of good quality and reasonably priced. They have party decorations, cake decorating supplies, nice picture frames, and even some furniture items. I liked the selection a lot better than the Michael's across the street. For dinner, Scott made a delicious salad. He cooked up some flank steak in a cast iron skillet, made a dressing with shallots, lemon, and Sierra Nevada mustard , and threw in some olives and giardiniera. It is one of my favorite summer dishes because it is light and refreshing, but still satisfying for dinner. Check it out. Then, I did an art project. Last time, at the From Scratch Club food swap I literally got off the train from Michi...

I'm no good at waiting for gifts, and Scott's present would have been a lot more expensive to arrive on Valentine's Day. What is funny is that I talked about heart shaped whoopie pies in this post and that seemed to have given a hint. Before I get into all that, let me just say I love this blog, and check out her Valentine's jello mold . Here are some ideas from some museums that are and are not that great . And here are some other artsy, and pretty good ideas (suggesting  macarons and Macallan shows a good current understanding of the tastes of different genders, or at least in this couple). Without further ado, when I woke up this morning I was making coffee and Scott pretended to have to go get the recycling bin to put magazines in (he did say he was going to clean up the living room this weekend). He came back with a huge box. What could that be I wondered? They were featured in the New York Times . Martha Stewart said "These are the best who...

Now, I love me some Valentine's Day . I love the Dollar Tree . I really enjoy the Just a Buck series on HelloGiggles . Hilarious. So tonight after we had some delicious Shalimar , I could not resist a stroll through the dollar store. Check out these beauties: I just wish we would have had these in time for our wedding! I bought the pink ones too to enjoy on Valentine's Day.

I love Valentine's Day. Are you one of those people who hates Valentine's Day and thinks it is just for marketing purposes and making single people feel bad? If I bake you a red velvet heart shaped whoopie pie will you shut up about it? I am a subscriber to Martha Stewart Living magazine, and while the December holiday issue makes me feel anxious every year, the February Valentine's issue always gets me excited. The cards! The amazing desserts! The cheesy little presents you can make for your love! I know Caitlin Flanagan is weirdly against date night for couples in relationships, but some people who are in long-term relationships or married actually do enjoy their partner's company - imagine that! Now, I am a person who likes to stay home for New Year's Eve ,  but I always, always like to go out on Valentine's Day. And by this I do not mean actually on Valentine's Day - that would be too crowded, no doubt. I mean the 13th or the 15th, when it is eas...

This year I decided to take on a part-time job during the weekends throughout the holidays to make some extra cash (because weddings , no matter how much you try not to spend a lot of money and make everything yourself are freakin' expensive). Back when I was an unpaid intern at the American Museum of Natural History , the archivist told me as I was taking on tons of debt to basically hope to be like her one day, that it would be a long while until I made a lot of money. Of course, it is also really satisfying work, and I knew what I was getting into. One main reason that I went to graduate school was so that I didn't have to be a waitress anymore . So when I came up with the idea of working weekends during the holidays, I really didn't want to go back to that. So I showed up at a craft store, let's call it Mary Jo's Crafts, which is next to Emperor's Wine and Spirits . To their credit they hired me, since most places like that see that you have a Master...

I thought that our New Year's Eve party turned out to be a fabulous time, if I may say so myself. I have a few tips that I can share. As with all entertaining (especially events where alcohol is involved), I think it is important to have lots of water available to drink. People may not think to ask for it, but they are likely to drink it if it is there, and they should drink it.  There is some formula that can probably be worked out in terms of the cost of buying disposable items, and the labor involved in cleaning up items you already own. I think paper plates and plastic cups fit into the first category, but actually that silverware falls into the second category. There are attractive disposable options for forks, but they get up to the price point where it is not worth it. The ones that cost $2 (at Party City ) look cheap. We have a whole bunch of old forks in a box in the basement so I brought those up to use. Normally, I try really hard to serve only finger foods, bu...

My memories growing up of New Year's Eve were usually spent at home watching Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve, drinking sparkling cider, and always eating some kind of cheeseball and crackers, which was our idea of "appetizers" and seemed fancy. The only way this could possibly be considered fancy could be that we had several different kinds of crackers, but to an 8 year old it seemed fancy. There were some times I remember being babysat at my grandparents house and my parents coming back late with my grandma who was always wearing something impossibly sparkly and some silly hat. I think when I was about 12 years old I imagined growing up and attending a long string of fancy holiday parties. I think I even bought a velvet dress and leather skirt for the day when these fancy parties would come into reality. Little did my 12 year old self know that grown ups typically go to office parties which are attended in a white button up shirt and black pencil skirt, family parties w...

The winter holidays obviously can cause a whole range of emotions in people - they are weighed down with memories of past Christmases, especially if people or things are now gone. Also, places that mean one thing on other days of the year can have other connotations on Christmas. They are weighed down with expectations, pressures, and comparisons. The sentence "But its Christmas!" seems so much of a stronger thing to say than "But it is President's Day!" It seems a bit like weddings - what other thing has such strong expectations attached to it because it happens to be a certain day on the calender? That being said, most other Christmas breaks I have had I have traveled farther than this year. The college where I work does a campus shut down during this week to save money with energy costs. It is the sort of thing where you don't want to know what day it is, because you don't want to know how fast it is going by ( like our honeymoon ). It makes me thin...

I heard on NPR today that the average person this year is expected to spend around $700 on Christmas. If you don't have a lot of extra money or you aren't able to travel to your home town, Christmas can seem like something you might rather just skip over . But one thing I have realized this year is that you don't have to spend a lot of money to make things festive or enjoy a bit of the holiday spirit. The cookie exchange , for example, was a great cheap way to do something a little bit special that brought people together. Today my coworkers and I went out for lunch, and tomorrow we are having a pizza party. Even though our employer said there wasn't any extra money for holiday parties we've found ways to have fun anyway. Same with presents - you really don't need to spend a lot of money just to let people know you are thinking of them. Somehow I went from wanting to skip the whole thing to going a little overboard in terms of my gift assembly line. To start w...