Saying yes...

Pssst, Pinko...

When Tastes Collide

As I was just telling Pinko Punko... Dr. DoD...

I have a bazillion tomatoes and tons of basil so I am trying to use them every way I can. I put tomato, basil, Asiago cheese and a drizzle of olive oil on toast. It was really good, but the aftertaste tasted like liver sausage! The best I can tell, the basil and the Asiago melding together on the back of my tongue are the culprits… I like liver sausage so it wasn’t a bad thing… just very unexpected. I had a veggie sandwich so was surprised when my tongue was telling me I had liver sausage.

Pinko suggested that possibly the oil had gone bad. I don't think that's it. All items tasted fine on their own. I think it was merely the spicyness of the fresh basil, combining with the salty, earthy-umami-ness of the Asiago that combined to remind me of liver sausage spices and meatiness.

Who's willing to try it and tell me if they've experienced the same thing?? Also, as far as the liver sausage goes, I'm talking American liver sausage... the squishy Oscar Mayer kind that is almost more of a spread... not a true braunschweiger.

And no... I was not experimenting with the previous post before I had lunch!

Summer Blogging in One Post!

Garden. Garden. Flower. Butterfly. Fucking rain! Dog. Dog. Dog. Lake. Grizzled. Garden. Lamblet. Lamblet. Lamblet. Driver's Ed. AHHHHHHH! Lamblet. Hot! Too chilly! Wet! Where's the rain?!?! FUN!!! Woo-HOO!! Grrrr! WTF?? Still can't access any of ZRM's many blogs... 3B's! What contest?! Garden. Garden. Painting. Painting. Grrrr. Life is good. WTF??? Dick joke. Dick joke. Thought-provoking post. Dick joke. Garden. Animules. Painting! Grrrr... painting!!@!1 FRUSTRATION! In the zone. Fireflies!! Ah, summer smell. Butterflies! Orbs!!! Orbflies!! Thundra. Von. LOL! Garden. Dogs. Frustration. Satisfaction. Good. Bad. Love everyone. Hate everyone. Weeds. WEEDS! BG!! Lake. Reading. Thinking. Anniversary. Snag. Birthday. Cicadas. School? Already?

Torn

Grizzled purchased a 1/4 of a cow (well, not a cow... a steer... or whatever) from an organic farming friend... I had one stipulation about this beef coming into our home. I did not want to know the name.We had been given a bit of "taste test" beef before, but I knew the name. Larry. :( I hated every bit of it, no matter how good it was.

While not a vegetarian, if someone told me I could never eat meat again, I'd be ok with that. Still, I don't mind a good piece of meat, and I do my best to ignore that it's from a once living creature.

The silly thing is... this creature had a better life than most. It was cared for on a lovely farm, was allowed to grow as it should, without being fed crap and being injected with god knows what, but that makes me want to eat it even less... even if it will taste better and be better for us.

This evening, I'm making a pot roast... the first piece of this animal that I have used. It's amazing how much darker it is... how much denser. It was also amazing at how fast the dogs ran to the kitchen when I unwrapped it. Ears were perky, nostrils were flaring and working overtime. This was no factory animal. This was an animal that lived... and then died, for us slackers. Sometimes I hate the food chain.

2011: Onward

It's going to be good. It's already good.

The Bait and Switch

I was shopping at a new grocery store in our area yesterday when I realized they had Grizzled's favorite ice cream... Black Cherry. It's not as easy to find as you would think. A lot of ice creams have cherry or maraschino cherry, but not black cherry.. I bought him some. It wasn't until I got home that I realized it was "Lite", which is fine, it will probably be fine, ice cream manufacturing has come a long way, but for a moment I had flashbacks of ice milk... ice milk made the pre-ice cream manufacturing technological advancements era.

I then had a flashback to the worst of all grandparent desserts... Black Walnut Ice Milk!

GACK!

Nothing was worse! And it was made doubly disappointing by the fact that Grandma and Grandpa usually lured you in with the promise of ice CREAM. Not frozen milk! No, Ice CREAM that usually came in flavors like  chocolate, or strawberry, or wonderful Blue Moon... it came in a flavor that didn't taste like mildew.

To this day there is only one item I can eat that has black walnuts in it and it's Peppernuts. My grandmother's recipe makes 600-700 cookies... that recipe for 600-700 cookies contains only 6 ounces of black walnuts. You do the math. I made them once and left out the heinous black walnuts, only to realize they do have value in this world... in an old Germanic cookie. They belong in nothing else and certainly not anything called ice cream or candy. Yes, Grandma and Grandpa occasionally lured us to try that "treat". I might as well have just gnawed on a mildewy baseboard... which reminds me... now I know why my basement reminds me of my grandparents...

What scary things did your grandparents try to pass off as dessert??

--In defense of my grandparents... I know they served many wonderful desserts that were actually desserts, but the fear of the bait and switch... the fear of being offered something tantalizing and then getting Black Walnut Ice Milk has obviously left a scar. Fool me once...

Confession

I made a duck for dinner one evening last week.  Roasting a duck, however, leaves one with a lot of rendered duck fat. I made fried green tomatoes using it. They were delicious.

I Get Email: blinding me with produce pron edition

HDB not only sent me an image of those saucy little donut peaches... but they're surrounded by lots of other alluring produce. I wish this photo were scratch and sniff, or scratch and taste, but come to think of it... it doesn't need to be. I can smell it.  I can taste it... it will haunt me in my dreams...

I bought my donut ("flat") peaches at a less than first rate produce store and they were still marvelous. I can only imagine what these must have tasted like.

HDB pointed out that this photo was taken in 2008, two years before my encounter. Hmf.

It just dawned on me... HDB was surely using a LENS to photograph this!! I wonder if he used a  Tongariro icicle lens. Dear. Gawd. He could have turned the entire stand into compote!

The Apple of My Eye

I had started a post weeks ago, but it never made it up. I've got a lot of those... would write and then say, wtf, and into the draft bin it would go. But this morning, this morning I was cutting up the most amazing fruit salad, with raspberries from out back, and the watermelon sang to me with its aroma, and the colors were so vibrant, and it all tasted so damn good... it made me think of the donut peaches and how much I love fruit.

Fast question... if anyone has the answer... why do watermelons and cucumbers smell like summer year-round, but tomatoes?? Tomatoes don't smell like summer unless it is summer and they've ripened on the vine.

And now... salvaged from the draft bin....

I bought donut peaches today. I hadn't planned on it, but was at the store, ogling the celery, when a mystical aroma overtook me and led me to a stand of stone fruit. This smell, while kind of nectariney, kind of peachy, could not be attributed to those. It was too early in the season for any of those to smell that good, that enticing... so I circled, until I saw these funky, squat peaches that smelled like heaven. They almost smelled fake... like someone trying to make a new flavor for Smarties.

I picked one up... it was ripe. It held promise. As I was taking it in, trying to locate the name and the price- although at this point, I would have purchased them had they been $10 each - the produce man was walking towards me. He explained and offered me a sample, but I was chewing minty gum and knew any fruit, no matter how wonderful, would be ruined. I said thanks, but I'm buying anyhow.

I love fruit... always have. I like most produce... veggie or fruit, but fruit is somehow more playful, more fun. It's that natural sweetness combined with these wonderful textures and outrageous colors. When I was young, and Santa still came to leave me goodies, there was always some crazed kind of produce in my stocking... I loved it more than the other stuff. I'll never forget my first star fruit, my first Ugli, my first stick of sugar cane. Ok... it's not fruit, but it's still in the magical stocking category for me. I also have fond memories of eating guaba (fruit, not the spider!). Not sure if it's technically a fruit, but it's magical damn it, whatever it is.

And a perfect Asian Pear stands all alone. What is it about those things?? They seem like they're going to have the mealiness of an overly ripe or out of season pear, but they don't. They're incredibly crunchy and yet have this abundant juice that comes out of nowhere... a juice that all at once tastes like butter rum Life Savers and concord grapes with some pear thrown in as an afterthought. I think there's a nut flavor going on in them as well, but can't quite put my finger on it. I often imagine a dehydrated person happening upon the first Asian pear, feeling it and thinking, well this mealy piece of crap isn't going to do me much good, and then BLAMMO!!! Asian pear magic happens and the person is saved! All praise the Asian pear!

As I grew older, I became more particular about my fruit. I had my favorites and those had to be just right... the disappointment from a late winter apple did not make eating the apple worthwhile, and no matter how often Chiquita Banana told us bananas should be flecked with spots, a banana that was flecked with spots was too far gone for me. Bananas should still have some green and shouldn't be too ripe, same for pears and apples. Peaches, berries, and other delicate items were best right off of the bush or tree. There is no way you can ever pick that stuff still unripe enough to hold up to shipping and still guarantee the flavor/texture at the other end. While people may have thought they've had a good blueberries or peaches from the store, they probably haven't.

My lamblets probably had their best peaches when they were in their early single digits. We went to a friend's old orchard... one that used to be commercial, but had been left to its own devices. Chemicals had not been used in years so eating right off the tree was ok. We visited right during peak peach season... a week later and the peaches would have been rotting in the sun or destroyed by insects. They were so ready to be eaten. Picking was about all these peaches could handle. Shipping would have turned them to fragrant mush. We ate endless peaches that day, and then brought home a bunch for pies. Those were the best peaches and best peach pie I've ever had. I can cross that produce conquest off of my list. I have truly experienced the best a peach has to offer. Everything else will pale in comparison.

But the donut peach was close. And it was cute. And it smelled kind of like a natural Smartie. And I got to taste something for the first time again. Yes, I've had peaches, but never a donut peach. Yes, it felt kind of magical.

Are you a lover or a hater?

Personally, I can't get enough of this herb in certain dishes and just smelling it wakes me up and puts a smile on my face. I can't say I'd say the same about eating soap... smelling soap? Maybe, but not eating it.