Cooking And Eating....“Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es”

  As though it were not hot enough, today........how about some Hannibal Chili with fava beans, chopped tomatoes, minced garlic, every chopped herb in the kitchen, rasam powder, sweet chili sauce, pad Thai sauce, oyster sauce, ground peppercorns, Cajun seasoning, dehydrated chopped onions, golden raisins, Scotch bonnet peppers and, of course, chili powder....lots of it ....and 'topped' with molten Mexican cheeses..... consumed from/with crunchy sweet yam tortilla chips........a 'side' of cole slaw mollifies the 'heat'....... breakfast variation on 'leftovers'.......halved thin-skin yellow potato, microwaved, smashed, then pan 'browned' in avocado oil, then sprinkled with herbs and ground pepper, piled high with Hannibal chili and crowned with a puree of tomatoes, sweet  mango salsa, garlic and hot peppers...

                                  Project "Make a Dish that resembles a 17thC Flemish painting"   

I seldom 'dine out' ....especially on Atlanta's 'crowded everyplace' weekends.......nevertheless, last night I relented and accompanied a far more 'social' friend to a packed Thai restaurant for some delicious food and potent mixed drinks.........other than having to wipe all that fancy salt from the rim of a couple of potent margaritas, [which I estimated...had 4,500 milligrams of sodium and lots of nasty sugar syrup].....that I drank anyway, because I was being "treated to drinks", I was in the 3rd tier of Food Heaven.......but 'salt licks' and 'simple sugar syrup' are for cows and hyper-active pre-diabetic teenagers with high blood pressure.......Soy sauce, salad dressings, sauces, dips, ketchup, mustard and relish all contain sodium......lots of sodium.......A good 'rule'....avoid restaurants that put 'salt shakers' on their tables, while serving already overly salted food on their menus! and remember....

  I can't keep away from the kitchen today........5 hours to make a few 'appetizers'......this is the 3rd 'course', of 6........Greek lemon eggdrop soup; seafood 'salad' of crab/lobster/shrimp/flounder on a bed of spicy mixed greens and super-thin sliced shitake mushrooms with shaved orange beets and roquefort cheese; 'mojo' panko encrusted marinated Cuban steak, pickled beets, asparagus in sesame oil and ground orange and red peppercorns, wild carrots cooked in rosemary, thyme and sourwood honey; vegetable 'plate' of assorted ugli tomatoes, see-through thin purple carrot slices on quinoa, Indonesian style, field green salad with chopped cilantro stems, pickled orange rinds, walnuts and toasted pine nuts and Gorgonzola cheese crumbles......and, of course, Dessert! Apricot and dark, bitter chocolate truffle with salty macadamia nuts and candied ginger along with homemade mango iced heavy cream, sweetened with orange and tangerine liquors...

 

a day before watching 'Yes, Chef'......I practiced some old Julia Child-style cooking....chicken, heavily seasoned with rosemary, then cooked in olive oil with blueberries, garlic, tumeric, chervil, white wine and strawberry preserves.......served up with red potatoes, cooked in the pan fond, deglazed with wine....this will end up on a platter of mixed wild salad greens with as yet still undetermined dressing.......likely, a balsamic vinaigrette with pureed blackberrys and crushed fennel seeds.....