Lake Neuron

Herb greenhouse

Originally uploaded by jicarney.

I was at the Co-op today taking photos for an advertising supplement, and while waiting for the person I needed to deal with, I saw these little herb greenhouses. I couldn’t decide between basil / chives / curly parsley and basil / oregano / flat parsley, so I bought both.

Since the kits included full envelopes of seeds, and only told you to put 4-6 seeds in each pot, I had plenty of extra. In fact, I planted all flat leaf parsley (I want it for cooking, not garnish) and didn’t even open the curly-leaf parsley. And I got all of my basil seeds from one envelope, with plenty to spare. (On closer inspection, I now see that one envelope was for “sweet” basil and the other for “genovese” basil. I used the “sweet” basil.) I may see if my parents want any extra seeds.

I am not known for my green thumb, so we’ll see if we can keep this going long enough to get any usable herbs.

Anthony Bourdain will be on Letterman tonight.

That is all.

bagback

Originally uploaded by jicarney.

Read these directions carefully (click on the image if you need it in a larger size). I was delighted to read that I was, in fact, allowed to take the cover off while turning the potatoes. Otherwise, I would have had to use my telekinetic powers to turn them, and that always ruins my appetite.

My sister-in-law sent me this wonderful LA Times story, and I think I gained five pounds just reading about the steaks:

Finally, the big moment arrives. Those monumental steaks, which have been sitting on the counter for five hours, have warmed nearly to room temperature. “You have to get the cold out of the meat for the fibers to relax,” Cecchini says. Ideally, he’d have given them 12 hours.

Without seasoning or oiling the steaks, Cecchini lays them on the grill, and they sizzle happily. Five minutes on one side, then five minutes on the other. The fire is hot enough that it sears a nice crust on the outside but moderate enough to allow the thick steaks to cook through without burning.

If you have the DVD of “Ratatouille” — and if you don’t, turn off the computer and go get it immediately — don’t miss the little featurette featuring director Brad Bird and the film’s culinary advisor, Thomas Keller. I just watched it for the first time, and it’s great — 15 minutes well-spent. The packaging makes it seem like Bird and Keller are going to be conversing, but that’s not the case at all. Each one is interviewed separately about his craft, and the two interviews are skillfully intercut, with supporting footage, to draw comparisons between what Bird does in the suites of Pixar and what Keller does in the kitchen. Common themes include the importance of having a mentor, the importance of being a mentor, collaboration and what have you. Really nice, and inspirational without being ham-handed.

Of course, I think Brad Bird is a genius anyway, so I guess I’m predisposed to like it.

Laura at Fixin’ Supper had a link to this really useful recipe.

I am watching the latest episode of “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations”, which I think premiered last week.

It’s a lot of fun — but completely atypical. Instead of the normal travelogue format, in this episode Bourdain goes home. You see, he hasn’t worked regularly as a chef in several years, since he became an author, TV host and president of the Rachael Ray Fan Club (that last item may have been just a wee bit sarcastic). But tonight, as premise for an episode, he goes back and works his old shift at Les Halles, a New York restaurant. It’s a wonderful, revealing episode about what makes a restaurant kitchen work and how that peculiar chemistry can be altered by the introduction of a new element — say, an older and out-of-practice chef trailing a TV crew.

Here, by the way, is Bourdain’s blog entry about the experience.

Ellie Krieger on the Food Network was extolling the nutritional virtues of crab meat this morning, and when I stopped by Food Lion for some groceries after work, darned if crabmeat wasn’t on sale. I mixed it with mayonnaise (there goes the healthy aspect; sorry, Ellie), horseradish and some seasonings and am enjoying some of it on toast, topped with slices of avocado. As it happens, Ellie had also paired her crab with avocado this morning, and I had an avocado in my cart even before I noticed the sale crab meat.

Pretty yummy, if I do say so myself.

Well, I posted a couple of weeks ago about Fizzies, an updated version of an effervescent fruit drink that was all the rage during my childhood. (One correction to that earlier post — I said that the last revival of Fizzies was five years ago; it was actually longer than that, with the company stopping production about 2000 or 2001.)

The latest company to produce the product does not sell retail quantities on-line, but they do refer you to retailers or online merchants. A friend of mine who runs a gift shop in Monteagle is looking at carrying the product, and I’ll certainly buy some from her if she does, but I couldn’t wait and ended up ordering some from Old Time Candy. This company, which I’d seen profiled on Food Network in the past, is a mail order house specializing in candy with nostalgia appeal — candies which might have been all the rage when you were a child, and which are still in production somewhere, but which are hard to find wherever you are these days. They can put together nostalgia-related gift packs and party favor bags, and have appropriate nostalgia booklets for various decades.

It’s a fun site just to noodle around — I had completely forgotten about Zotz, for example.

If you’re a fan of Mario Batali — and even if you aren’t, but enjoy cooking — you will want to go here and download a free, 32-page cookbook from the makers of Barilla pasta, with Mario as one of the editors. You have to give them your name and e-mail, and they encourage you to sign up for their promotional e-mail list, but for every cookbook downloaded Barilla will donate $1 to Second Harvest Food Bank, a worthy cause if there ever was one.

I like the fact that they have two different PDF versions available and that they give you tips for saving ink if you don’t need glorious full-color photography. For cookbooks, however, I kind of like glorious full-color photography. And my new Kodak printer is ink-stingy anyway, so I may go for it.

Hat tip to Claudia at Music City Bloggers.

Speaking of Mario, this Village Voice article lifts the veil of “Iron Chef America” and shows that the actual competition differs somewhat from what you see on TV. Some of this was old news to me, going back to the original Japanese version of the show, but some of it wasn’t, or at least went even further (if the Voice writer is to be believed) that I had heard. Don’t read it if you don’t want the illusion spoiled.

Hat tip to Edible TV.

I had three chicken wings and some leftover homemade chicken stock left over from last weekend’s two batches of Buffalo wings. I boiled the wings in the stock, took the wings out, and then cooked some egg noodles in the stock. This cold has me feeling miserable, but some hot, homemade chicken noodle soup is a wonderful tonic.

This past week, Alton Brown made buffalo wings on “Good Eats,” and I had to try Alton’s method of steaming the wings before baking them. I did, and they turned out well.

I’d bought a big family-size pack of wings, so I had plenty left over, and decided to make them as my Super Bowl evening supper tonight. I went ahead and steamed the wings earlier so that they could be cooling off and drying off in the fridge; I will bake them later.

I’d bought the whole wings, not the pre-cut variety, and so I had wing tips left over from both of my recent batches. Wing tips aren’t good for eating, but they’re great for making stock; they’re almost all bones and connective tissue. I decided to use them, and so now I have a big old pot of stock simmering in my Kitchen Kettle. I may have put in more herbs and spices than absolutely necessary, and the apartment smells absolutely fantastic. The stock will cook for a very long time, so that we can liberate as much of the gelatin as possible from the wing tips.

There’s a photo of a seared tuna salad in this post that makes my mouth water.

I am making Alton Brown’s beef stew recipe, which is delicious. I don’t know whether I’ll try to finish it tonight and eat a late supper or whether I’ll hold the short ribs in the fridge overnight and finish the stew tomorrow (which is what I did the first time around).

I may not be able to wait.

I got an about-to-expire discount (which I don’t mind at all, especially for a dish like this) on the short ribs.

Because I come in at 6 a.m., I tend to have lunch early. Here is what I am enjoying right now: original Krystals (cheese, in this context, it tantamount to heresy) and a bowl of Krystal chili.

I don’t think you can name me a better lunch for a cold, wet January day.