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

Holding off having lunch, because my friend Hobie had made arrangements for he and I to go 'out' for lunch today......He forgot and was munching on some leftovers when I called to get our 'act' together.......so.....to the kitchen, to experiment with lunch for myself.... Chicken with walnuts pine nuts, jalapeno peppers, scallions, orange honey pepper sauce and nutty brown rice ....with a 'smear' of blazing hot "Pain is Good" sauce with drops of palliative G.T.F. sweet and tart tamarind concentrate......

flatbeans, around a pile of shitake rissoto, crowned with a cube of spicy tofu, crowned with a single pea, wearing a topknot drop of excruciatingly hot sriracha chili sauce, siphoning makhani gravy...... I added tiny cocktail straws to the beans....to 'butterfly feed' the pungent sauce to the tongue-tip, bypassing sensitive lips being blistered...

exercise in 'portion control'.......course #4 of 10........ a lone prawn on a pile of asiago cheese risotto, cooked in lobster boullion and butter......for my 'fantasy luncheon' with Newland Archer.....

while the rain chatters on the roof.....I'll just keep on cooking.......a new 'dish', sorta 'Chops'ish..... beet puree and oyster mushroom soup with sour Egyptian wood sorrel with a 'ball' of chipotle lentil and apple hummus on a sweet potato tortilla chip..... This was the first experiment of two......preparing foods with 'extreme' tastes....like the super-sour Egyptian wood sorrel.....the 'other' was preparing strozzapreti with spinach and preserved lemon, which is hyper-salty........Neither were anywhere near the 'top' of my favorite foods' list......The 'Issue' was that of 'extremes'......I was able to temper the sorrel with sourwood honey and a mixture of earthy herbs.......but, as not much of a salt lover, the preserved lemons are another kind of challenge.......after which, I must have downed a quart of blueberry/cranberry juice.....so, I thought....why not throwing some blueberries and cranberries into t

Fall and Winter, here soon..... this morning, I 'worked on' Griddle Cakes...like the ones that I remember from an old 'cowboy movie'........Buckwheat flour, sour blueberry yoghurt, dessicated coconut, grated pumpkin, nutmeg, ginger and pecan/almond meal.....cooked in butter in an iron skillet.....then, 'syruped' with black strap molasses.......I'm certain that my urban cowboy cake is more epicurean than the water 'n' grits with salt and 'log cabin' flapjacks that Tex Ritter 'fried up' on his mesquite wood campfire....in a 1957 comic book about 'survival in the desert'.... . Having just watched the BBC Interview with David Attenborough, wherein he was asked what his 'advice to the World' would be....David replied, 'Don't waste.....anything!'.....Minutes later, I cleared some items from my fridge.....the last of a box of fresh blueberries; a banana (with a couple of 'dark' spots); some toasted almond

after all of last week's raw calves' heart, sheep's pancreas', and liver pate'......it's time for a 'clean out'..... grated, aged hard blue cheese, atop raw cabbages in a jalapeno/avocado/horseradish mayonnaise; carrots; spicy, dessicated corn; green 'yard' onions; toasted pine nuts and sunflower kernels; and sliced tomatoes, marinated in dill and Prelibato white balsamic vinegar........

staying on course......steamed rice with sliced spicy vegan 'sausage', thin-sliced brussels sprouts, snow peas, carrots, bok choy, pine nuts, toasted sunflower kernels, sliced candied ginger, coconut flakes and roquefort cheese... wok-sauteed with sriracha hot chilis, broccoli florets, sake, garlic, tumeric, coarse ground peppers and Indian super-spicy-hot Kara Boondi, gram dhal, pulverized curry leaves and Poha.........a little of this goes a long way, as it is hot as blazes! served with lots of iced sassafras and ginger root tea, sweetened with sourwood honey...... Baby's on Fire!

Most of us have that 'most loved' food....usually, a version or replica of a childhood memory......Mine is a plateful of thin, crunchy baking powder biscuits, split...while hot....then spread with apple butter and 'filled' with a scramble of eggs, red bell peppers, sliced scallions, diced herbs, 2 of three kinds of grated cheeses, chopped cilantro and parsley, and fresh spinach & shitake mushrooms...sauteed in herbed butter.........When I was five, breakfasting with 5 cousins, 5 aunts and uncles, my grandparents and a couple of their friends that usually stopped by on Sunday mornings for some of my Grandmother's delicious cooking......I 'had' only one...and, usually, wished that someone 'wouldn't show up' and I'd have 'another'....and that was still problematic, since my ravenously hungry cousins were 'hawk-eyed' on the platter of biscuits, also..... Since "EVERYONE' wanted the 'extra' biscuit, but were ta

Ritual green curry with flat beans; enormous raisins; sweet/sharp/bitter onions; savory date chutney; short-grained basmanti rice, cooked in plum juice and rasam in boiled quail's head stock; portabello mushroom slices, sauteed in clarified butter & hot madras curry powder; bamboo shoots and artichoke paste....in homage to Brian Cook and Luc Besson.....Wake up, lads!...Tongues will tell! .......Beverage, extra! Peel me a grape, for a 'palate cleanser'....and, don't eat the brooch!....it's just ornamental, like those red berries that even cardinals are wary  of...........

heavily herbed chicken cooked in ghee, then crusted with picante-asiago cheese and topped with super-spicy piquillo pepper and quinoa and red pepper sauce over mixed field greens with walnut oil, Rochefort cheese, sunflower seeds, walnuts and prelibato white balsamic vinegar......just what I wanted....exactly! The pan-fried oatmeal, ginger cookies were not so successful, and are being re-processed into something sweet, but still undetermined.....

quick as a flash lunch.....leftover spicy curried chicken thigh slices in well-drained home made tomato linguine, tossed in cold pad Thai sauce with shredded asiago cheese, which quickly melted. I raced to have this on a plate before the "Chopped" contestants finished their red caviar, cotton candy and chicken gizzard challenge.........the asiago with Pad wasn't as challenging as the pink cotton candy and gizzards, however....but a tasty reward for 8 minutes of kitchen time....