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Cranberry beans

Unshelled Cranberry Beans, originally uploaded by QuintanaRoo

Cranberry beans are beautiful and so tasty! They were one of my favorite late-summer/early-fall meals last summer, and somehow, I love them even more this year.

I've made them into a shell bean ragout as described in the Lucques cookbook--recipe online at the Amateur Gourmet, as well--and a shell bean risotto, optionally with sea bass with gremolata butter, also from Lucques. They make everything better.

Next up: braised pork belly with shell bean ragout.

Lobster Rolls at Spring

via Serious Eats

These lobster rolls look delicious. They're making me far hungrier than I should be at 11pm in the evening.

Apple Crostata

Free apples became an apple crostata. Very tasty! Recipe via Ina Garten.

Famous (and favorite) drunkards

I have a favorite drunkard. He was an athlete--a professional wrestler in fact--but he was also a gifted entertainer and a true artist. His parents named him Andre Rene Roussimoff, but we knew him as The Eighth Wonder of the World, Andre the Giant.

via www.drunkard.com

I found this article re: Andre the Giant's drunken escapades utterly charming. (Maybe that's bad?)

It reminded me of this Entertainment Weekly article about Rob Reiner that I read (!), which had this quote about M. Roussimoff:

Andre the Giant weighed 500 pounds, so we couldn't figure out how to get him on the horse. So we hooked up a pulley system with wires. Now, this is the day the Beaujolais nouveau has come out, and he starts drinking at 9 a.m. By the end of the day, he's literally drunk 20 bottles of [wine]. I'm finishing shooting in the Fire Swamp. [A crew member] said, 'Governor, do you want to take a look at this rig?' So I go to the other end of the studio. They open the doors of the soundstage, and there's this semi-drunken giant being lowered from the ceiling onto this horse, and he's going, 'Hullo, boss!' And I'm thinking, 'What do I do for a living? What is this job I have?'''

Whiskey

via dailymotion.com

This is wonderful. It makes me want a glass of scotch, and to take a walk in Scotland. Or, even, to drink a glass of scotch while on a walk in Scotland.

I'd say that's an effective ad (maybe even the best ad of the year).

Foodwatching

The glamour of food has made it something of a class leveler in America, a fact that many of these shows implicitly celebrate. Television likes nothing better than to serve up elitism to the masses, paradoxical as that might sound. How wonderful is it that something like arugula can at the same time be a mark of sophistication and be found in almost every salad bar in America? Everybody wins!

via www.nytimes.com

There are tons of quotable bits in Michael Pollan's "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch"; this happened to be one of my favorites, because I really, really like arugula.

Orecchiette with Cauliflower, Bacon, and Breadcrumbs

via www.seriouseats.com

This--orecchiette with cauliflower, bacon, and breadcrumbs--was one of our favorite dishes last winter. And it's really a winter-y dish: hearty and filling and rich.

But so we've now entered into the winter phase of the San Francisco summer, and cauliflower happened to be at the market this past weekend, so I thought, why not? And we ate it tonight, and the cauliflower was caramelized, and the pasta captured all of the breadcrumbs and cheese, and there was bacon fat all over everything, and it was so, so great.

Chipotle Pork Cheeseburger

Chipotle pork cheeseburger, from gourmet.com

This--a chipotle pork cheeseburger--is what I'm going to eat tonight. We have leftover chipotles in adobo, and I bought some ground pork at the farmers market, and I made some mayonnaise, &c. I'm excited about this [1].

Updated 10pm: and it was good.

[1] Less so by the glass of water, though.

Farro salad with roasted beets

Beets, originally uploaded by Ed Yourdon

I love farro, and I love beets. And they make a great combination!

Here's what I did the other night to make a farro salad with roasted beets, arugula, walnuts, and goat cheese.

1. Prepare beets: toss with olive oil and salt, splash of water, cover with foil, roast for 30-40 minutes until done. Then remove skins and slice into wedges.
2. Prepare farro: boil in salted water until tender (but still with a bite).
3. Toast walnuts.
4. Make a vinaigrette: combine diced shallot with red wine vinegar, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, and a little bit of salt. Let sit for 5 minutes. Add olive oil.
5. Toss cooked farro with arugula and some of the vinaigrette.
6. Toss beets with some sliced shallots and some of the vinaigrette.
7. Combine farro, arugula, and beets, and transfer to a platter.
8. Top with toasted walnuts and crumbled goat cheese.

Easy, and delicious!

From scratch

Homemade, from scratch, is in the air.

Ruhlman announces his BLT from Scratch challenge:

From scratch means: You grow your tomato, you grow your lettuce, you cure your own bacon or pancetta, you bake your own bread (wild yeast preferred and gets higher marks but is not required), you make your own mayo. All other embellishments, creative interpretations of the BLT welcome.

And in the June 2009 Gourmet, a burger with homemade everything: homemade buns, ketchup, mustard, and pickle relish, with a burger made from ground skirt steak.