Red!

Villa Pillo Borgoforte 2006:

Let this be its tasting note:  I poured a glass and said, "Wow!  Look at that color red!"  A little bit later, I took a sip with my Italian sausage and said, "It tastes as good as it looks."

I-95

After the Georgia Pig (meh!), we didn't really have the heart to keep trying places, but here is my nascent Yelp list for roadfood along I-95.  It will be supplemented next summer, and possibly earlier too.

Quote of the Day

The one thing I crave almost every day is a good burger.

That is David Lebovitz.  I am still not sure whether the best burger I have ever had was at Ray's Hell Burger or Capital Grille.  It sure wasn't in San Francisco or Paris!

Menus

Wednesday:

Flank Steak with assorted sauces (jerk sauce, passionfruit pepper sauce, steak sauce)
Twice-baked potatoes with ricotta and pesto
Canteloupe

Thursday:

Roast Pork shoulder (barbeque sauce on the side)
Cornbread
Coleslaw

Friday:

Risotto with saffron and pancetta
Salad with pear, pecan, and blue cheese
Roasted tomatoes and corn

Saturday:

Italian Sausages
Roasted garlic mashed potatoes
Baguette

More on Italian Stir-Fry

"It has always intrigued me to note that of all of the cuisines of the world the Italian has far less in common with those of its Latin neighbors Spain and France than it does with that of China.  Both Italy and China make pasta, for example, to cite one of the most obvious parallels.  But their culinary paths draw close in so many other ways: in their direct handling of ingredients, in the many quick-cooked dishes, in the integration of vegetables with meat or fish, in pairing sweet with sour.  When I first saw strips with broccoli stems and carrots cut into thin sticks in this dish I wondered who the Chinese cook was in the kitchen . . . ."

That is from the introduction to "Pork Strips with Broccoli and Carrots" in Marcella Hazan, Marcella Cucina 327 (1997).  Here is the previous post.

Mock Barbeque

In our quest for good barbeque near I-95, we never did manage to stop anyplace for good South Carolina barbeque, and yet it is one of my wife's favorite kinds.  So this weekend I decided to take a shot at recreating some of the flavors in a home kitchen, with the help of a number of Lee Bros. recipes, modified and spliced together.  There's no real woodsmoke involved, so this really is barbeque sacrilege, but it was still darn tasty. (This makes a recipe that is fairly light on sauce, all-told.  You could as much as double the sauce proportions if you like.)

Ingredients:

One 3-pound boneless pork shoulder
1 cup dijon mustard
1 Tbsp olive oil
4 Tbsp cider vinegar
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp black pepper
1 Tbsp oregano
1 Tsp salt

Recipe:

Combine everything but the pork in a bowl and whisk it together.  Then score the pork shoulder (to make sure the marinade gets everywhere) and dump everything in a ziploc bag.  Refrigerate for a while-- at least half a day and preferably much more.  (Ours took about three days, I think.)  

When you are ready to proceed, preheat the oven to 325.  Take the pork shoulder out of the marinade, letting as much of the marinade as you can drip back into the bag.  Brown on both sides for about 3-5 minutes each.  Pour all of the marinade over the shoulder, cover, and place it in the oven for about 3.5 hours, checking on it and basting it occasionally.  (The parts that are covered in liquid will become much more tender, so try to keep the whole thing covered in sauce.)

Once it is tender and done, take it out of the oven.  Take the marinade and drippings that have accumulated in the pan, place them in a saucepan on the stovetop.  Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for about 5 minutes.  Chop up the pork, and pour the sauce over it.  Eat, especially with cornbread and pickled cucumbers or coleslaw.

For West is where we all plan to go some day . . .

Boulder Beer Company Hazed & Infused:

Citrus and hops.  Citrus and hops.  Citrus and hops.  That's all I could taste, but that was fine by me.  A simple but remarkably tasty microbrew--it reminded me why I like Western microbrews so much.  And made me eager to see what else was in my Boulder Beer Company sampler.

Snack

Have I mentioned yet that I am addicted to vegetables?  In the mood for an excuse to eat carrots, radishes, and celery last week, but deciding to make them slightly more interesting, I whipped up a small quantity of simply blue-cheese dip.  Proportions are extremely approximate, because I didn't measure anything, but the recipe is adapted out of my vague memories of something similar in How to Cook Everything.

Ingredients:

About 1/4 cup blue cheese
About 1/4 cup Greek yogurt (mine was Fage 2%)
Juice from one lemon
Lots of ground black pepper (or to taste)
Favorite raw vegetables (e.g., carrots, celery, radishes)

Recipe:

Chop vegetables into edible pieces. Combine other ingredients in bowl.  Use a fork to break the blue cheese up and blend it with the yogurt.  Once it has become as smooth as you want it, dip the vegetables and dig in.  (You may need to add a dash of salt, depending on how salty your cheese is.)

30 Minutes Too Long

Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA:

Apparently Esquire called it "perhaps the best IPA in America."  I would look at the other half of the glass and say perhaps not.  Too fruity, and not nearly as delicious as the 60-minute version.  And to add expense to inadequacy, it was far more expensive.  I've had much worse, but I've had much better.  [My wife deemed it "not too bad," but wouldn't call it good either.]