Life in Cowtown

Our October weather went to pot, and I got bit by a cooking bug. It’s something I take advantage of when it strikes, since it does not strike that often. But something about the first chill in the air, the first snowflakes on the ground and yard chore avoidance collided in a perfect symphony of cooking up a storm. Some recipes I made were old favorites, like the aromatic and garlicky adobo from the Philippines, and others required no recipe, like a basic steak. But variety is the spice of life, so every so often I take down one of the many cookbooks littering my shelves and browse for inspiration. Like many cooks I keep a running list in my head of recipes I’d like to actually make, not just read about.  A good third of them are Jeffrey Steingarten’s. I browse through both of his books regularly and even though many recipes involve heroic shopping efforts and epic cooking sessions, something about his writing style implies success before you even begin.

Much of his recipe seduction comes from meticulous instructions. The details of each step are so well explained that one feels like he’s hovering over your shoulder, pre-empting any shortcuts you may attempt and explaining how he’d really like things done.  There is no ambiguity in the explanations of each step, which is very nice given that many recipes he provides are so time consuming that you would cry if they met with failure. But not every recipe he published has been a culinary Everest (like the home made Turducken, or boudin noir), and there are a few that are not only feasible to try at home, but actually look simple. One of them was potatoes au gratin.

After a wonderful discourse on the merits of potatoes au gratin and the plebeian tendencies of many recipes to smother the potatoes with cheese, he goes on to provide his own recipe which he accidentally stumbled upon all by himself. The recipe requires few ingredients, namely butter, milk, potatoes and cream, and does not take much more than a mandoline and an oven, so I bravely ventured forth to try it out. What appealed to me in the recipe is the lack of cheese. I live with a guy ready to smother breakfast cereal with cheese, while I like to use a smaller amount of sharp cheese, and find a large melting blanket of cheese oily and gross.

I heated the milk with garlic, salt, pepper and nutmeg:

I sliced the potatoes without killing myself:

I poured cream on the potatoes, dotted with butter (forgive me treadmill), and baked the gratin:

And the result – utterly delicious. The cream cooks down into a rich clotty sauce, faintly scented with garlic  and nutmeg, (next time I’m tripling the garlic), and they were universally proclaimed by the cheese eater and his father an excellent recipe. So if you’re willing to take the caloric hit, but have a stellar side dish, then embrace the fall and make these potatoes. And contrary to Jeffrey’s instructions, they taste fantastic lukewarm out of the pan an hour after dinner. Not that I would know anything about that.

Recipe here.

I’ve been too lazy to haunt the farmers markets for the last two weekends, which is rather inexcusable since fall is coming oh so soon, but I have not been too lazy to eat. Since my lazyness perfectly dovetailed with another Serious Eats Weekend Cook And Tell: Too Hot edition, I gleefully participated.

Many people suggested all sorts of delicious sounding recipes that don’t require a stove, like salads and gazpacho, but when true laziness strikes one cannot be bothered with chopping, washing, plating and all that other mundane stuff called cooking. Instead I went with my ultimate fall-back technique – shopping. I’m a champion shopper, and did not disappoint myself, by traveling to the wonders of Blush and indulging myself.

Blush Lane is a wonderful addition to the Calgary food scene, taking care to source local and organic foods that are reasonably priced as well as delicious. I’ve shopped at their farmer’s market stand before and was overjoyed when their store opened. To date I’ve seen small baskets of Hotchkiss tomatoes that were pure heaven and a source of local pride, organic apples that tasted like honey, summer and freshness all in one bite, and rainbow carrots that were so delicious we ate half before we had a chance to cook them.

But serious efforts require serious sustenance, so this foray included:

The best, sweetest, most tomatoey tomatoes I’ve ever had:

A wedge of perfectly ripe Brie:

Incredible dried beef Salami:

And people, I totally popped over to A Ladybug Café next door, for a loaf of rye bread:

And the single greatest lemon tart in the whole world:

When I got home, all I had to do was slice up a tomato, and artfully arrange a beautiful still life that makes for one of my favorite things to eat – a composed plate. Washed down with some red wine it was a wonderful repast – dried, spicy salami with an intense beefy flavor, perfectly smooth brie, incredible tomatoes and a dark, earthy rye.  Nothing could be easier or more satisfying.

James recently went out for a quick mid-week drive to visit his parents in BC, and returned bearing gifts. Seemed fitting to me, since I had to stay here and work and feed the starving hordes cats and all. He returned bearing the single largest squash I’ve ever seen (larger than my cat), and some wonderful, fantastic, frozen salmon caught by my father-in-law.

Here’s a photo of the squash:

I know that mature squash are supposed to be less tender than baby squashes, but James assures me that this is not the case. Apparently if hollowed, stuffed with chopped flesh, garlic and herbs and barbecued, it becomes an amazing treat. I’m adding some bread crumbs to test that theory. But the salmon sang to us with its rosy perfection, and was cooked that very night, served on a simple bed of rice.

With fish that good, you hardly have to do anything to it – a light sprinkle of salt, some slivered garlic, a julienned hot pepper, and some lemon juice was all we did, and really it was gilding the lily.

It was quite thick too

Baked for about twenty minutes it was  fragrant, warm silky perfection. We didn’t take a photo of the finished shot as we were busy drooling and dishing the rice.

It was awesome.