Summer Cooking

I was going to name this post something really stupid like "Hot Tips for Summer Cooking" but decided to spare us all.

I'm sure this is getting linked to all over the universe, as it's the #1 most emailed post on the New York Times website, but it's really worth it. 101 great ideas.

Eating to Oblivion

The Gateaux and I have just returned from our annual vacation to Vancouver, where we did little other than eat everything in sight. Without going into excruciating detail right this minute, I will say that we covered the gamut from dim sum to sushi to a seven course tasting menu to Greek to Mexican to family dinner at home.

I will note that Vancouver has incredibly good food, but the dining trends seem to run a few years behind New York and L.A., and when they fall for a trend, they really commit. So it's gotten easy to find Japanese "tapas" with things like foie gras nigiri, tempura "fish and chips" and mango-spicy tuna rolls (all delicious, by the way), it's getting harder and harder to find nice traditional sushi. And our formerly cheap vacation has been rather undermined by the decline of the U.S. dollar, so you're paying top price for those bits of rice and fish. Even the local bars tend to tart things up in a foodie sort of way. Not that it's bad that there's all this attention to good eating, but it did make me long a bit for a plain old burger or steak.

Green beans

Isn't it sad to see how those beautiful purple beans turn ordinary green after cooking? Oh well, I squeezed some lemon over them, opened a can of the good Italian tuna, put a little more lemon and some sundried tomatoes from a jar, a bit of sea salt, and call it an impromptu salade nicoise.

The Great Indoors

On Friday, I went out and bought a bag of marshmallows, a box of graham crackers, and a bar of Hershey's Milk Chocolate, since A CERTAIN PERSON was going to make s'mores with me, but THAT CERTAIN PERSON had to run to get her train, leaving the s'mores unmade. So I took this opportunity to experiment with two types of indoor s'mores.

For the first s'more, I placed a marshmallow on one half of a graham cracker, put a block of the chocolate on top, and put the other half of the graham cracker on top. I then placed the whole shebang in the toaster oven, set at 300 degrees, and baked for around three minutes. I must say, the result was no fun at all -- the chocolate melted and made a gooey mess; the graham cracker burned my fingers; and worst of all, the marshmallow didn't melt, but rather just got a wee bit soft. In sum: totally unsatisfactory.

For the next s'more, I put the marshmallow on a long fork, turned on the stove burner, and toasted the marshmallow. (I have a gas stove, but I used to toast marshmallows over my parents' electric range when I was a kid.) The only problem was that toasting a marshmallow over a gas stove makes the marshmallow hotter than when you toast it over a bonfire, presumably because the marshmallow is closer to the flame, so that the marshmallow kept bursting into flames. But all was well, as I quickly lapsed into the old Girl Scout trick of blowing the marshmallow out. Once the marshmallow was toasted to a nice black/brown, I put it between the graham crackers with the chocolate. Mmmmmmm -- nearly perfect s'morey goodness.

The verdict: the stove method wins, no contest.

Just picked

Just picked from my garden, purple string beans! Later in the summer we're hoping for red carrots and yellow cucumbers.

Things Learned at a Birthday Party

On Sunday, Baby Gateau and I had our first joint birthday celebration. He turned one and I turned, well, something older than that. We had a bunch of friends and family over for a backyard barbecue, kept pretty simple with hamburgers, hot dogs, pasta salad, fruit, and cake. This being my house, I also set out a well-edited cocktail bar with fixings for margaritas and gin & tonics, but I also happened to have quite a lot of the limoncello I'd made two Christmases ago.


So the first thing I learned: you can make a really nice cocktail with limoncello. To wit: a big glug of limoncello, over ice, topped off with lemon-lime seltzer (I guess you could use Sprite if you want something sweeter), lemon wedges, and a sprig of mint.

Second, I didn't want to fuss around with making dips and such, so I bought a big container of spinach dip at Costco. It's really good, at least as good as the one you make with frozen spinach, sour cream, and a packet of that Knorr vegetable soup mix. So go ahead, save yourself the hassle and just buy some. It's really good with Stacey's "Simply Naked" pita chips.

I become obsessed with the fruits of the season

For days I have been thinking about blueberries. The only thing that crossed my mind when I thought about our family's upcoming trip to Vancouver is that we'll be there a little early for the best blueberries. And I'm not even all that crazy about blueberries, actually. I mean, they're fine, but they can't hold a candle to, say, a nice ripe mango or some perfect cherries or a Honeycrisp apple. Yet: blueberries. On my mind.

At the supermarket, where I dashed in to buy an ice cream cake for Young Master Gateau's last day of preschool, I noticed pints of blueberries, 2 for $3. So I grabbed two. They're not special blueberries in any way (not organic, a little mushy) but had good flavor and decent snap and I've now consumed an entire carton (along with the dregs of a bag of wasabi peas) before dinner.

Help.