Simply red

Trying to cook simply, so we makes a basic beet ravioli with brown butter sauce tonight. Though I probably hurled any notion of "simple" out the window when I made my own pasta sheets. The sage was flowering today, so I threw some of the flowers in there too.

There were a few bursticated beet ravioli, so I recycled them back into the pasta dough to make Hello Kitty pink parpedelle.

So my attempt to cook simply tonight gets completely fo'cocked when I remembered it's day 2 of Yule Log 2008. I'm veering off the recipe completely when it comes to assembly and decorating the yule log. The yule log recipe writers have obviously snorted way too much cocoa powder and have never seen a fallen log in real life. Their bark is all wrong, and the branches would never grow that way in nature. If you're going to be inspired by a fallen log, you need to either do an artistic impressionist interpretation, or go for realism. None of this half-assed melted elephant poo lump that Cooks Illustrated showed in the book. So me, being me, I'm going to make anatomically correct yule logs.

Davy 1. Cook's Illustrated 0. Take that Cook's Illustrated beeyotches!

Happy Birthday Doug

Cheap greens, shiitake, and bamboo fungus. Brown sauce. In the pan, the ingredients were beautifully fanned out in concentric circles. But then I realized I don't own a serving platter large enough to serve in. Aie-ya! Food styling be damned, we scoop and plop cafeteria style. I will make a large serving platter the next time I'm in the clay studio.

Hellfire and brimstone in Southern California means I lose my view of the mountains. It also means itchy eyes, hacking coughs, and sooty boogies for a week.

For supper #1, we serve gnocchi with gorgonzola shimeji cream sauce. Luscious unctuous heart attack on a plate. This would instantly kill my dairy avoiding lactose intolerant kin. The fat content would kill my dairy loving friends a day later. If I served this to guests, would this be pre-meditated murder?

For supper #2, we crank up the fat knob to 11 and make pork belly two ways. First, pork belly braised in tamarind habanero cilantro jus. Big pieces of pork belly shrunken into soft porky jiggly jello cubes.

And salt cured pork belly roasted with plum vinegar. With a crispy cap.

Tamarind habanero braised pork belly with hibiscus reduction. You can't eat just one.

And sliced roasted pork belly. These would be awesome in sammiches- perhaps in a baguette. Or Korean style wrapped in a lettuce leaf with shiso and kochujang chili paste. A bit crunchy, a bit soft and squooshy, a bit chewy, and a bit tender. Pork heaven in a bite.

I'm setting myself up for failure by attempting to bake birthday coconut cake. Distracted by eating delicious pork, I've over baked the coconut layer cake and burned the shredded coconut. And I would probably ruin the coconut buttercream tomorrow. I am such a horrible horrible horrible baker. Why do I even try? Perhaps if I tried to make a pork cake, I will have success. We WILL have meat cake in the future! Meat cake!

Hi Mi Mi

Baby Naomi Faith is Hannah's new little sister.

Uncle celebrates with panna cotta, strawberries, and black pepper.

Packing the rear

It's time for the twice annual Tijuana volunteer house building trip. Costco has colonized my refrigerator with Sunday breakfast for 30. Fitting all this into the back of the car may prove to be a challenge. My Tetris skills are a bit rusty these days.

The Posada at La Gloria Mexico sports an orange and purple color scheme this year. I'm glad I brought my matching hat.

Sing songs of quince

Oh how I love the quince. It fills the air with delicious fragrance when warmed by the morning sun. I want to carry quinces in my pockets just so I can smell like quinces all day. I want cologne that smells like quinces so I don't have to walk around in public with strange bulges in my pockets. As a bonus, nobody knows what to do with quinces, so they're only $1.50/lb vs $2.50/lb for apples at the farmer's market.


New England clam chowder. Fresh clams, bacon, cream, and potatoes. What's not to like? Instead of raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, Julie Andrews needs to sing about Littleneck clams and hickory smoked bacon. Now those are a few of my favorite things.