Flavors 518

I have been a huge fan of Saratoga Spice and Salsa Company for years (or as we call it, the hot sauce store in Saratoga). Recently I mentioned it to Deanna of Silly Goose Farm, and it was a shame that she didn't know what I was talking about. It is an awesome little store in the middle of town with more kinds of hot sauce than you might even know existed. They have a tasting booth set up, and in the past when we weren't able to decide which one to get, we were able to try all of the hot sauces and get a sense of it before making a commitment (as a sly marketing move they also sell bottles of water now). Here are some things we've tried and really enjoyed from there:   Marie Sharp's Hot Habanero sauce because it has carrots in it, which sweetly complement the heat just a bit.  Their own salsas are very good including the Tequila Lime, and regular medium level heat salsa. I am pretty sure we once tried a red wine salsa they made, but I don't see it listed on ...

It has been a long running joke between Scott and me that we have too much pasta. He ate pasta a lot more as a bachelor, and I have always felt like we had pasta coming out of our ears, pasta falling out of every cabinet, pasta taking over our lives. So I put it all in airtight containers and mason jars, and then he said he didn't know how long to cook all of it because they weren't in their boxes anymore, so now we just have tons of pasta we don't use. He used to love Raffetto's in NYC , and never stopped talking about how he could not find a place to buy fresh pasta in Albany. So partially as a pasta joke, and partially for practically reasons, I bought him a class at Different Drummer's Kitchen for Christmas to learn how to make fresh pasta . Then, we had a coupon to Different Drummer's that we got from having our wedding registry there, and with that we purchased a pasta making machine . Pasta making turns out to be the most fun ever. I used Mario Battali...

Now I am a big fan of the Cook's Illustrated Pizza Margherita recipe, as discussed here . But I recently tried Mark Bittman's pizza dough recipe from the New York Times Essential Cookbook, and that is very good too. I like the idea of mixing half wheat flour and half white flour in a lot of bread recipes because I feel you get some of the health benefits of the wheat flour, and some of the texture benefits of the white. I think it is a good mix, so I've been doing this in my pizza dough too. I went to Wild Oats Market in Williamstown, MA ( as discussed here ) earlier in the week and got some Maplebrook mozzarella and no joke - the best pepperoni I have ever had in my life. It is from Vermont Smoke and Cure and oh my goodness was this good. I cannot wait to try all of their other products like summer sausage, ham, bacon, and sausages. So delicious it was unreal. The same day I bought these products earlier in the week I had one mishap after another - through bad plannin...

So I have mentioned that I am dogsitting in a house that has a kitchen that is equipped for cooking with mixes and not from scratch. The dogs' owners come home from Florida tomorrow, so I decided to make myself one of these mixes to test out how they are (and because I feel celebratory because it is almost time for me to go home). It is usually my feeling that mixes are more expensive than cooking from scratch, and also may have other unwanted ingredients included like preservatives. It is also usually my feeling that all a mix really does is give you the dry ingredients already mixed together (which takes about two minutes to stir together yourself). I guess it also saves you having to look up a recipe. I always doubted if they tasted very good. Well, here I am to tell you that actually the Duncan Hines Devil's Food cake mix is not bad. It is just about as good as a homemade cake as bread made from a bread machine mix is as good as bread made from scratch. You get a lot of ...

So I am out here dogsitting , where the kitchen is mostly supplied for making things out of mixes . I've eaten a lot of salads from the salad bar at the local Stop & Shop (there should be more salad bars in the world - in offices, and schools), but I really miss my kitchen, I gotta say. I've eaten things this week I wouldn't normally buy or eat (my friend once told me that bad food doesn't count if you didn't actually buy it yourself). I don't think of myself as a snob . I'm also not crazy about calories or anything but I usually think you can have anything you want if you make it yourself. Like ice cream - it takes a while to make it yourself and you don't want to eat it all at once because it took a lot of effort to make. I do feel like some people my age wouldn't normally eat junk food or low brow foods, but if you change one thing like make the hot dogs out of Wagyu beef all of a sudden it is gourmet and acceptable to eat . One thing I th...

This week I am dogsitting in North Adams, MA. ( Last time I was dogsitting I took myself out to breakfast at the Blue Benn in VT. )  I love the Berkshires, and it is not just because three different museums out here have employed me, compared to none in Albany. I love the Berkshires for a lot of the same reasons I love the Napa Valley . Sure it is very rural, and you often feel like you are in the middle of nowhere, but it is still relatively culturally sophisticated. James Taylor lives here. What is often ranked as the number one liberal arts school in the country is here . Emily Dickinson, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Herman Melville are all from western Massachusetts. The scenery is incredibly beautiful, and yet the one movie playing in town is likely the same artsy movie you saw at the Spectrum last week. Our friends who live in Seattle and Boston talk about how they want to go to MassMoca . People who hear about me having an hour commute always feel really bad for me, but it is ver...

I love coffee. I've always loved it. My parents drink it black with no sugar all day, and I pretty much adapted that too. I feel about coffee the way I feel about baked goods in that the freshness of it is very important. There should not be very much time elapsed at all between the time it was roasted and delivered to you, and definitely not much time elapsed between when it was ground and brewed. That is why Uncommon Grounds is so good - they have a roaster right in the store. I really love Caribou Coffee, whose stores I basically lived in as an undergraduate (with comfy leather chairs and thick, heavy duty wooden tables that are great for studying). I still make sure to pick up their beans when I am in MI or at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport on a layover. Their coffee is never, ever burnt, and always bright tasting and delicious. Zoka Coffee from WA is amazing . Scott bought the Ethiopian brand when he was in Seattle at a conference, and it is complex, fresh, and ha...

I've previously discussed how fun it is to go to the Whistling Kettle in Ballston Spa for lunch. But I was appreciating again the other day really how good their teas are . When we first moved here, we used to shop at Teavana at Crossgates, which was fine. We got some really great brewing accessories from there, and I still can't walk by through the mall without admiring their cast iron tea pots . But once you discover the local place, it seems much better to support them. Once we bought tea from Little Buddha on Lark Street , which was fine except they didn't label any of them and we bought like 8 kinds. It takes a little of the fun out of it to not know what you are having, and then if you like it you won't know which one to purchase next time. We haven't finished them because we can't be sure they'll be something we'd be in the mood for. So my friend was over, and I was looking through the tea from the Whistling Kettle that we have, and here a...

One good thing about living in Albany is the proximity to so many other great places to visit like NYC, the Berkshires, Cooperstown, Montreal, and Boston. About a year and a half ago some of my Study Abroad companions and I reunited for a weekend filled with cultural activities. I brought British themed snacks. We had a Mad Men inspired fashion show. We visited the Boston Public Library and a great vintage travel poster show. We went to a great Italian restaurant in the North End. And we visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Café . Unfortunately, it looks like the café is closed right at this moment for renovations, but when we were there it was open. I love that museum. It is so eclectic, so intimate, so personal. It is not formal or stuffy. Also there is the mystery of the stolen paintings , that I (as a person who works in museums) find completely fascinating. I find the subject so fascinating that I read books meant for teenagers about the su...

I have heard of cookbook addicts who have a problem - that is people who constantly buy cookbooks and never use them. These individuals seem to get fed up with themselves and say things like "I am going to cook my way through that entire cookbook all in subsequent days". Who have you ever known (besides Julie Powell) who has actually done that? My approach is more balanced. I don't buy a crazy amount of them, and what I do have I actually use. We keep them on a shelf in the dining room so we can never forget which ones we have. Also, sometimes if I have nothing to do for an evening I might browse through one I had never looked at very closely before. You can always revisit them, and some times we go through phases where we revisit cookbooks we've had for a long time. This browsing through them turns out to be useful when one random night you really wish you knew what to do with some leftover chicken, and you remember some interesting quesadilla recipe you read fr...

My coworker was really excited a few months ago when she heard The Meat House was coming to Stuyvesant Plaza. They had one up in Clifton Park, and her husband loved all the different marinades. Her excitement rubbed off on me, and when this one opened up I was pretty psyched for it. I'll start by saying the workers don't seem to want to let you browse. The fact that they market it "For the Foodie", well they think they have to tell you what a "foodie" would eat. The first worker at least let us kind of describe what we wanted, but then was really pushy about their house marinated steak tips. We cooked them up in a cast iron skillet and put them in a salad with a roasted shallot vinaigrette. It was pretty good, but Scott sort of felt like the mustard flavor was really strong, which would be ok if it was top quality mustard (which it wasn't). It was alright though. She should have backed off and let us decide on our own. The second time I went in there ...

I have tried a few of the spirits available from the Berkshire Mountain Distillers , and they are all very delicious.The rum, corn whiskey, and Greylock gin are all very good, but my personal favorite is the Ethereal gin . It is very complex in flavor. It is heavy on the botanicals, and has such a full, complex interesting smell you really want  to take in the bouquet before you drink it. I don't even mix it with anything usually - it is that delicious. They also make them in small batches, and the label color changes to let you know it is a new batch and may taste slightly different. Before discovering the Berkshire Mountain Distillers I was almost always a Hendrick's woman (I love cucumber), but this stuff is great and I love that I am supporting a local company. I hope one day they will offer distillery tours.  Undergrads have taken over college campuses everywhere wearing tights as pants, and everyone is spending their weekends going doughnut picking - so that mean...

I am married to someone who has a nut allergy. And I could just do whatever I wanted, and think it was fine if there weren't nuts actually in his food, but the truth is it is not that nice to have things that bother your loved ones in the air, in crevices on the counter, or on pans they eat off of no matter how hard you try to clean things. I also once heard a story of a guy who ate a peanut butter sandwich for lunch and than came home and kissed his wife who died from the reaction to the peanut particles still in his mouth. Not very nice. I, however, do enjoy the flavors of nuts and once in a while do eat some while I am at work. Somehow not being able to eat certain foods makes them very exciting. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Which is why when my coworker was complaining that the daycare facility that her toddler goes to does not allow peanut butter because some kids are allergic, and instead allows only fake peanut butter , I said "what is this fake peanut butter?...

I bought this quiche from the Troy Farmer's Market last week. It was carrot curry with feta cheese. I love the way curry and carrot go together, especially because of the little bit of sweetness that carrots have.The crust was crispy, buttery and flaky. The filling was extremely flavorful and fluffy. Totally delicious. The previous week I also purchased the spinach and feta one, but I haven't tried it yet. They also sell gazpacho and salsas, which I'm sure will be equally as delicious. 

Caribou Coffee . I could not have gotten through my undergrad in MI without it. Coffee is smooth and non-acidic. Mixed drinks are actually half way healthy sometimes. The white chocolate is so amazing you can have them put it in everything from the smoothies to the regular coffee. Mmmm, big leather chairs fake-Alaska vibe, love it. For now, I'll just have to settle for a tasty drink on layovers at MSP Airport, and buying enough to stock up the freezer. Au Bon Pain - Coffee is ok, but anyone who has ever tried the crème de fleur knows what I am talking about. (On second thought maybe it is good we don't have that). Trader Joe's I'm not really the hugest fan but it was really useful in NYC where you had to shop at 4 different places anyway to find affordable but still quality ingredients for something as simple as a Greek salad. There were some things that were pretty good though, and I am actually surprised there isn't one. Anthropologie What the hell? Reason to...

Over Christmas I had a bridal shower thrown for me in Calgary, AB and I pooled all my cash gifts together for this . Funny enough, I also have a friend who just got engaged, and her parents immediately sent her a food processor because apparently that is what one recieves when one is getting married these days. The idea that you never needed to eat before getting engaged, and the fact that most people live on their own for years before marrying in contemporary society, are things I won't argue with since it is such a superb product. I had originally read a product review in Cook's Illustrated which stated  that the Kitchen Aid model was the way to go. We were at Different Drummer's kitchen , and  the extremely helpful salesperson said that the Cuisinart model had recently been improved with a few features. These included that the top snaps in and releases really easily with a quick release button (Easy On/Off Locking System with Push-Button Release), and the seal tight g...

In some ways, food and music have a lot in common. Too many harsh notes can overwhelm more delicate notes. Timing matters in both as there can be an initial impression, the central substance, and then finally the lingering aftertaste. Also, food has a way of bringing one back to a moment in time or a circumstance or a whole other period of life the way a song does. It can transport you entirely, and sometimes the memory of a food can inform the experience so much that it is the memory one enjoys as much as the actual eating. When I lived by myself in NYC for years between college and grad school, I went to museums, the opera, plays, read Russian novels and historical biographies that were over a thousand pages. I was a Midwestern suburban girl in a crazy city I didn't belong in, and looking back I don't now who I'd be without that experience. That studio apartment in Queens with barely any furniture (what there was I had gotten for free from the hallway of my building ), ...

With my gift cards from my bridal shower I purchased a milk frother . I really underestimated how much I would really grow to love this item. I have consumed black coffee with nothing in it since I was 16 years old. My parents drink black coffee. My grandma drank black coffee. I worked at a coffee shop for years and never once put anything in the coffee. Somehow I thought this might be nice. You heat up some milk in a saucepan, pump the frother 20 times, and it takes ordinary to extraordinary in seconds. Put half coffee, half the frothed milk, top with cocoa powder or cinnamon, and it really starts to feel like a weekend. It makes the moment on a Sunday morning where you are hanging out reading the paper all that more enjoyable. And all for the reasonable rate of $30, I'd say being able to turn "I'm running out and really would just like to be woken up as fast as possible" into "Wow, life is pretty good and I am grateful to have this moment", it is total...

With as much joy we take in the planning and executing of dinners at our house, for me it is not the case with the weekday breakfast. Sure I really love steel cut oats on the weekend, and have been fatasizing for months about making this recipe from the Silver Spoon cookbook where you carve out tomatoes and roast them with olive oil and cook an egg inside the tomato, and snip some herbs on top at the end, but with weekdays it is so much more about finding the cheapest/healthiest/easiest way to not make my stomach noticeably growl during my 11am staff meeting. I get up at 6am, commute from Albany to the Berkshires, and am just lucky if I can get some combination of boots/tights/pencil skirt/sweater to look good together and have eyeliner in place, so forget about anything that takes any time or effort. I will mention that the best breakfast is leftover cold pizza (preferably from Lou-Bea's ), but I know pizza is not an acceptable breakfast food and that is ridiculous. So here ar...