Cold call

Spaghetti rigata carbonara. The spaghetti is ribbed for oral pleasure. I warmed the bowl by using it as a lid for the boiling pasta water. Who wants to turn on the oven or buy an expensive warming drawer to keep one single cold bowl from seizing up the carbonara sauce? This works just as well.



Theoretically worked as well. I had to take a conference call right in the middle of the mixing process. And I wound up curdling the carbonara AND it promptly seized up minutes later because the conference call ran 25 minutes long. Seriously, people should know enough not to call me during meal times.



I've always wanted to bake a fish in salt crust ever since I saw it on the original Iron Chef show 8 years ago. I had to work very quickly in forming the salt crust due to nasty paper cut. Salt and sliced lemons. Ouch! And to make matters even worse, I get ANOTHER conference call mid-smooshing salt around. What IS it with these conference calls today? Stop the madness, a man's got to eat!



Deliciously sautéed swiss chard with pine nuts. I would have used fewer pine nuts for sake of aesthetics if I was cooking for others. But it's just lonely old me tonight. And I love buttery pine nuts. And I'm going to eat the entire thing. And try to fill the gaping hole in my empty lonely heart. I fill my empty lonely heart with cholesterol and saturated fats.



Fishie done after half an hour. I'm on the edge the rest of the night when I'm around food. I just KNOW those conference calls know when I'm eating.



The fun is in liberating the trout from the crust. The salt crust technique is pretty forgiving, and the fish can be kept quite moist. But now I remember why I don't ever buy trout. There were lots of great herbal flavors from the chervil and savory stuffed in the belly, texture was moist and not overcooked. But the trout itself was kind of muddy tasting. This technique would be so much better with a fattier ocean fish. Preferably something endangered and over-fished.



Anyway, working late tonight, so onto dinner #2. Tonight's second dinner is Spanish tapas inspired. Sweet baby peppers stuffed with a mix of tuna, capers, chard stems, breadcrumbs, and brie. Is it still tapas if you eat a dozen of these at a time?