The Dog Doesn’t Die

I am a huge fan of the TV show Top Chef, and I was really torn between wanting Stephanie Izard and Richard Blais* to win Season 4, which ended last night. Stephanie claimed the title, and the only thing wrong with that was that Richard didn’t win as well. (Too bad he didn’t compete in Season 2, he would have blown those clowns away.) So congrats to Stephanie, and may she and Richard have successful careers making beautiful food for the rest of us. I look forward to buying their cookbooks someday, and maybe dining at their restaurants.

For a bit more info on Richard, see the comments below. And I have been misspelling his last name, which is Blais, not Blaise. Oops. I did get a lot of hits from people who made the same misspelling, so I’m keeping the tag for the benefit of the misspellers. Fellow misspellers, if you Google “Richard Blais”, you will get the info you seek. Here is the link to his website.

And the first Top Chef cookbook is out! It’s really half cookbook, half show chronicle. I recommend it to one and all.

Away from the television and my fantasies of making television food, I have discovered a new Ethiopian restaurant. If you are unfamiliar with Ethiopian food, here’s what you need to know: it’s different. It tends to be spicy, often but not always hot, and there are no utensils. You eat it by tearing off bits of ”injera”, a spongy pancake, and using the injera to pick up bits of food. Anyway, Meaza has won great praise as an “authentic” Ethiopian restaurant in the Washington DC suburbs. Dave and I were there for about an hour and 15 minutes the other night, and for the first 45 minutes everyone else in the place appeared to be Ethiopian immigrants. The food was exceptional, especially the lamb tibs, which we will definitely order again. With two beers, one salad, and two entrees, we paid about $40 plus tip, so it was also reasonably priced. I can’t wait to go back!

The daughter of an American mother and a Jordanian immigrant, Diana Abu-Jaber writes movingly about the joys and frustrations of growing up as the eldest of three daughters. There are hardly any reverences to animals, but there is one horrifying scene that animal lovers will want to skip. Fortunately, it’s brief and really adds nothing to the overall story, so you miss nothing by avoiding the entire anecdote. Therefore, I am declaring the book Safe, but ONLY if you skip pages 12-19. That will keep you from reading anything about the bad incident. If you don’t want to skip that much, at least avoid pages 16-19. If you do that, I will recommend this book.

More below in the first comment.

I believe in cooking for one. I have never understood people who short-change themselves because they’re alone for dinner. If I am by myself, I deserve a good meal as much as if Dave is here or I have a house full of people. It takes a different kind of planning, but it’s not rocket science.

When Dave and I were weathered in, I doubled up meals I normally make for myself. Scrambled eggs with Monterey jack cheese for breakfast? That’s a no-brainer. For lunch, I made the Buffalo Chicken Cornbread I mentioned in a previous post. That recipe originated with Cast Iron Cooking for Dummies, which I still check before heading into the kitchen. But I’ve made that one my own already.

For dinner, I made gnudi. I can’t find a link to the recipe I use, but this one sounds good http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/236878 and I may try it next time. I love gnudi, and I was somewhat disappointed that cooking a “double” batch  from my usual single serving seemed to not work as well. It may have been a matter of an overcrowded pot. In any case, the gnudi weren’t as firm as usual. But they were still good.

I broke out a bottle of prosecco, an Italian sparkling wine (not champagne, if you go along with the French on that). It wasn’t as interesting as champagne or California sparkling wines, but it was pleasant enough. What was interesting was that we didn’t feel as if we’d had much to drink at all, yet the prosecco had an alcohol content of 11%.

I just added the link for WEAA radio, which I listen to online a fair amount. WEAA is a public radio station sponsored by Morgan State University in Baltimore, which I knew nothing about prior to discovering the station. But I love the jazz they play, and they’ve broadened my horizons considerably.

For the wine and food part of this entry, see the first comment.

Because I am a writer and one never knows where things might lead, I’m not going to name the magazine that included the bad recipe. Suffice it to say that if you see a recipe calling for ground turkey, a cup of scallions, and rotini pasta, you have likely come across something that I recommend against. (I think those three ingredients should offer sufficient clues.) The scallions did not save it from being too bland, IMHO.

 As for the good books, see below.

I think I said something in my first post here about including recipes. My pasta sauce recipe is truly mine, although I can trace the ideas behind some ingredients. Anyway, I made this at my parents’ home over the holidays, and it was a big hit. Check the first comment for the recipe itself. It’s annotated, too.