The sauce with the mojo

We're on vacation at the beach, just relaxing in a rental house and doing a lot of grilling. We brought some pantry essentials with us (olive oil, balsamic vinegar, worcestershire, A-1, red curry paste, maple syrup, dijon mustard) so that we wouldn't have to buy new bottles of things we had in plenty at home, but did hit the supermarket for groceries. We had brought some frozen boneless chicken breasts with us, and at the supermarket I stumbled across the perfect solution to the quick summer meal: Goya brand Mojo marinade. We've tried a number of these, of various brands, and generally despaired that they all seemed to contain a lot of junky ingredients, but the Goya, which ranks among the most ubiquitous and least expensive, actually had the best ingredients list, with minimal additives. It's got a great citrus and cumin flavor, too, and I'm looking forward to using it up so that I can try the bitter orange flavor too. Extra bonus: the kids loved it.

Summer's Lease

We're packing up the little gateaux and heading out on Long Island for a week of relaxing at the beach, which has me in a lather about what to bring for the kitchen. The house we're renting is actively used by the owners, but I don't know how they stock their pantry, and I don't want to spend my first day running around buying items I have plenty of at home and will only use a little of. So I'm planning to stick a box of essentials in the back of the minivan. The list so far:

• olive oil
• balsamic and wine vinegar
• soy sauce
• fish sauce
• red curry paste
• worcestershire sauce
• A-1 steak sauce

I figure out I can flavor up practically anything with that stuff. But any other suggestions?

Hooray! Bittman strikes again!

My favorite NYT food feature has a new edition -- this time Mark Bittman provides us with capsule recipes for 101 seasonal salads. He's become an increasingly passionate advocate for a plant-dominated diet, so I look forward to these mostly-vegan and vegetarian recipes with health and good taste in mind.

Endangered Tomatoes!

This does not bode well for the tomato crop this summer. I have been fussing over my tomato plants for weeks now, and some seem to be doing well, but all it takes, apparently, is for one to go down with the blight, and then the rest may follow rapidly. Farmers are plowing crops under. This may be the time to go buy a case or two of whole peeled canned tomatoes given how prices may jump later. Maybe I will start a tomato hedge fund.

Question of the Day

Why is it that I am constitutionally unable to stop eating Good 'N' Plenty once I start?

Where the elite meet to eat

Because I am a terrible blogger, I failed to pull the photos together and post this anything like timely. However, I'm cleaning house, so here is the report on our very first "Gourmet Club" dinner from June 28. A little touch of summer on a winter-like October day.

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So we did it, we kicked off the so-called "Gourmet Club" last night with a foray into the cuisine of Morocco, and everything went brilliantly.

First, the weather was kind enough to stop pissing down rain long enough for us to have a beautiful evening. I was too nervous to haul a table out onto the back deck Just In Case, but we were able to serve drinks/appetizers and later dessert/tea on the deck, but had the main meal in the dining room.

We started with Fanatic Foodie's pomegranate-rose-basil mojitos, which were such a big hit that a second pitcher needed to be thrown together. We also discovered that the lime-basil-pom-rose combination is excellent, topped up with soda, as a non-alcoholic alternative. For starters, we had tomato jam with pita, finger sandwiches filled with goat cheese, marinated carrots, and green olive tapenade, plus assorted marinated olives.

When we thought we might be able to tolerate more food, we moved inside and served the main course -- grated carrot salad, chicken and chickpea stew, couscous with vegetables, chicken with olives and preserved lemon, and lamb stew with chestnuts and cinnamon. With this was harissa, wine, and more wine.

We rolled ourselves away from the heaps of food still on the table (note to self: in future, a recipe that says it serves 6 is just fine, as it will certainly be part of a giant repast and does not need to be doubled) and went back outside, where we had sweet mint tea, haroset balls with dates, cinnamon cookies, and the piece de resistance, rose petal cake.

Our next meal is planned for September, when we will take on Italian. Not sure yet which region we'll focus on, but I hear cannoli and gelato are already being planned.

We also came up with a name for our group. Because we're interested in food of many nations, fine dining, and refined conversation, of course we picked a name that might as well be a middle school soccer team.

Confidential to the group: click here.

Cocktail report

Googling around for a rosewater-including cocktail, preferably with something pomegranate in it, I came across this excellent recipe on the fabulous Diary of a Fanatic Foodie blog. Not only does she have excellent, creative ideas and great photography, she is also a cooking and food loving attorney.

This has moved up to the top of my list for the house cocktail to offer at Saturday's Moroccan dinner. Unless I get lazy and do a rosewater-soaked sugarcube with rose champagne cocktail instead. But will report back in full, and meanwhile will keep reading about the Fanatic Foodie's exploits.