I absolutely hate the word “blog”

Q: What the heck do you use to muddle sliced fruit into a giant pitcher of sangría, whose surface area is too large for any standard mojito muddler?
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A bunch of my coworkers have been sick lately, and I started to feel like I was coming down with something last Thursday and Friday. I was very determined not to let myself fall ill yet again this year, as I had had quite enough illness with that bout of mono that caused me to temporarily lose my job, thankyouverymuch. So I went on an Immunity Quest.

I had Grant buy me FOUR shots of wheatgrass juice from Jamba Juice on Friday afternoon, and then I got myself another four shots on Saturday and another four shots again today. And guess what? No sicky!

So I suppose our kitty is not the only wheatgrass fanatic in our household, after all. Maybe we’ll fight over it.

Found this recipe card on my fridge this weekend, written in Jen’s handwriting. Very mysterious. Copied verbatim.

Recipe #1

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Stir for 2 minutes and move to blender. Blend on high for 2-3 minutes, and serve to whoever will eat it.

I’ve never been a huge fig person before — not because I don’t like them, per se, but more because I have no idea whether I like them or not. I guess they don’t seem to have a particularly distinctive flavor, at least according to my palate. I know they’re all the rage with foodies, though, and I was feeling hungry, bored and adventurous. And Grant was off at some football thing, so I was left to myself to figure out dinner plans.

Enter Pagliacci. Their current seasonal offering is the Prosciutto Fig Primo, and it made my mouth water when I heard the description over the phone (text doesn’t do it justice):

PROSCIUTTO FIG PRIMO 
The thought of a sweet fruit on a pizza is often considered a foreign concept. We pushed the boundaries of pizza making with our Pear Primo and thanks to its continued popularity, we knew figs could be a hit too. We combine figs with prosciutto, basil and fresh mozzarella on an olive oil base for the perfect balance of lightly sweet and salty flavor.

Our usual standard is their Parma Primo, which has prosciutto plus basil, tomato, olive oil, mushrooms, fontina, mozzarella and goat cheese on an olive oil base. So this was close to home while still being adventurous and fun. And I actually think there’s a higher ratio of prosciutto to other stuff with this special.

At the end of the day, the fig primo had definitely won me over, even though it was a bit pricier than our usual (extremely expensive) favorite. The only improvement I would make is to add some tomatoes.  It was so very sweet that it seemed like it could use something tangy to balance it all out.  Still, it turns out that a) I like figs in some contexts, and b) I’m not yet over the fruity pizza trend.  Mmm mmm!

So my most recent Costco run yielded a box of chanterelles, of all things.  (I think of Costco as more of a bulk mouthwash and paper towels kinda place, but hey… they were cheap, fresh, wild-harvested, local, and bright orange with gills, so how could I refuse?)

I’d never cooked anything with chanterelles before, so I decided to just sautée them in a bit of butter and chicken broth, and let their natural flavor shine. Ahem, that was LET THEIR NATURAL FLAVOR SHINE.  (They didn’t hear me.)

Turns out chanterelles don’t really *have* much of a natural flavor.  In fact, I had to drizzle a bit of white truffle oil on them just to make them fun enough to eat!

Lesson learned: while the name may sound all French and elegant compared to, say, oyster mushrooms, the latter is actually much tastier.  Now I know!

Trumpet, like most cats, can be a bit of a picky eater. But I have been wanting for ages to try and switch him to a more natural brand.

A couple years later, I’m *actually* getting around to doing something about it. I got him using Wellness brand dry food that’s well-geared for his particular needs (he’s UTI-prone). But I tried giving him wet food from that same company, and it was a no-go — he only likes stuff with a sliced/chunky texture, and not that godawful horrifying pastey mixture that most wet cat foods possess. (And I totally sympathize. We don’t want to have to open cans of that shit for him, either.)

Thankfully, I’d bought those cans at a small, locally owned pet food store in Whitecenter, near my old work. They guarantee all their foods, so they reimbursed me even for the cans that we had opened up and rinsed out — no hard feelings! Given that I figured it would take a few more tries before I found a natural wet food that Trumpet would touch, I was bummed that this refund-friendly place was no longer convenient for me.

I popped into a local Mud Bay Granary just to see if they could be of any help, and they very much were! They lay out all their cat food brands and the reasoning behind them on their site, which is very helpful.  And they gave me three free BIG cans of wet food for free, just to see if he liked them.  And they said if he didn’t, I could come back in and get three more free cans.  And then they gave me free salmon treats to try out on him.  And they have a zillion convenient locations all over western Washington.

Have I mentioned that Mud Bay is awesome?

Grant and I wound up having to hit the Sub Pop 20th Anniversary Comedy Show without dinner in our stomachs last night, so we used my precious iPhone to locate some late-night grub. (By the way, the Citysearch Web app for the iPhone is pretty darn handy, if not 100% accurate.) We stumbled into the Virginia Inn (aka “My Inn”) fifteen minutes before the kitchen was going to close, and the staff were all super-nice and accommodating.

We recalled that the VA Inn had been closed for a while since they were expanding their kitchen, so we were hoping they’d have a decent selection of actual food, and not just bar fare. And it turns out, we were right!

I ordered the “Steak Frites” and requested it medium rare, thinking I might get a dried-out slab of charred flat-iron and some blah fries. But what I got was a thick, small but hefty, perfectly Pittsburghed (charred on the outside, rare-but-not-chilly on the inside) filet mignon chop, and some of the most superbly prepared potato strips I’ve ever tasted — for a total of $22.

Oh, how I wish my iPhone battery hadn’t died, so I could post a photo! For greasy pub food, I had a meal that rivaled the stuff one could get from The Met for three times the price. I was blown away. I’m definitely mentally re-bookmarking my inn as a place to head back to. I’m so glad they’ve re-opened!

They say there are two types of cooks — bakers and chefs. Bakers are generally thought to be methodical and rule-abiding, and they deal mainly in chemistry. Chefs are innovators and risk-takers, and they deal more in physics. I had always thought myself to be more of a chef than a baker (as evidenced by my complete inability to follow a recipe exactly) — but I believe one can learn to bake even if one’s heart sings a main-course song.

I’ve received lots of compliments and inquiries about my baked goods, and I think I’ve managed to put my finger on the specific chef-like risks that I’ve incorporated into my baking practices with great success. (This is not to say I haven’t had MANY failures — I just don’t blog about those!) So here’s a list of some of the specific tweaks I tend to apply to most baking recipes.

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My dad turned 75 this year, and he specifically requested a German chocolate cake to celebrate. I kinda ho-hummed at the thought, but of course I was game to make my dad a special organic treat from scratch, even though I didn’t care for it myself… or so I thought.

Turns out I only hate crappy fake-ass German chocolate cake. The thing that really grossed me out as a kid was the frosting, but I think I had only ever tried the hydrogenated-tastic Betty Crocker type before. REAL German chocolate cake is essentially frosted with a mixture of homemade caramel, toasted pecans and toasted coconut — and it is AMAZING.

I found this recipe online which was clearly written by a German woman, as evidenced by some of her adorable grammar quirks. But another quirk was that she didn’t lay out all the steps ahead of time like most American recipes do — things like greasing the pans, preheating the ovens, and roasting the pecans were all interspersed with the other information. So it took a good couple reads to get organized.

Plus, as always, I added some of my own twists. Amongst other alterations, I used chocolate ganache to stick between the three layers, since I needed some anyway for the decoration. And I think it helped glue it all together better, plus it added an extra kick. And I toasted the coconut and pecans more exactly than the recipe called for, just to bring out their flavor.

And it was EXCELLENT. Man, am I excited to have a new cake recipe to enjoy! It’s not a *pretty* cake, by any means, but what it lacks in glamor, it makes up for in flavor.

I started trying out duck eggs a couple years ago, since my favorite farmers’ market stand would always sell out of chicken eggs by 8:30 AM. At first I was freaked out (largely because I can’t stand goats’ milk, so I’ve been paranoid to switch animals all willy-nilly!) but I soon discovered that duck eggs are delicious. And they’re also more nutritious in many ways, and they hold up better in baked goods.

So I was extra-thrilled to find out that Madison Market sells duck eggs — I thought I had to get myself to the farmers’ market to enjoy them. Sure, they’re kinda misshapen and weirdly colored, and they don’t even come close to fitting in those cardboard egg trays. But that’s part of their charm!

I think hard-boiled duck eggs are much more flavorful than chicken eggs. (Initially I was worried because the lying, mean Internet made me think they would change color. But, as you’ll note from my photo, hard-boiled duck eggs are just as white and yellow as ever.) And for some reason, chicken egg yolks sometimes gross me out, but duck egg yolks are creamy and rich and wonderful. I also think duck eggs work better in dishes like potato salad.

I’m thrilled that the ducks are back in action — I can finally start incorporating duck eggs into my cooking again! I just enjoyed a lovely snack of a hard-boiled duck egg with Barrique Chardonnay finishing salt — delish!