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For once, I'm using that metaphor for something positive!

After a most delectable Thanksgiving dinner[*], I contemplated the carcass of the bird and said "We can't just throw that out," (You can take the boy out of New England, but you can't take New England out of the boy) "I'll make stock!"

So I gathered up a mirpois, some additional aromatics, and some leftover herbage, and put the bird on to boil.

[Note to future self: wishing either of your 8Q stock pots are large enough to handle 4lbs of carcass doesn't make it so. If you plan to do this again, buy a proper stock pot!]

10 hours of boiling, scumming, and topping off later the bones had given up quite a bit of collagen, but there was still some left. On the other hand, it was 1am and it would take about an hour[**] to cool the stock to the point it could safely be stored in the refrigerator. So I pulled it, strained it through cheese cloth and started the cooling process.

When I finally dealt with it, I found that while it wasn't as gelatinous as it might be, it was most assuredly more than a mere broth! Success![***] I then dutifully broke out the muffin tins and portioned it into 1/2 & 1c amounts, plus a few pints and into the freezer it went.

And now, with Chiara off at a baby shower, I went to the kitchen to contemplate lunch. Once there I was hit with a revelation like a bolt of lightning:

Consommé!

Another mirpois (diced this time), one of my frozen pints, a little salt, a little pepper (ok, a lot of pepper. Probably too much, my nose is still running) and some egg noodles I didn't know we had. (Yes, I threw it all together into the pot at the same time, sue me.) Finished with a squeeze of lemon juice.

In a word, sublime.

[*] I think Chiara's tired of me raving about the carmelized onion & balsamic gravy that she couldn't eat, but really, everything we ate was fantastic. That gravy, however, was a mind-expanding substance.

[**] In the other stock pot, surrounded by ice, with two frozen nalgene bottles full in the middle to speed the process. That's all AB's idea.

[***] Ok,I also found it to be a bit murkier than I might like, probably meaning that I cooked it too high and didn't scum as effectively as I should have. It was also curiously lacking in schmaltz. Oh well, for a first (solo) effort, it wasn't bad.

Two people, both very dear to me, went through hell together. From out of that torment, they formed a bond, and acquired this recipe. Today, I toast them and share it with you:

Jade Monkeys
makes 2

3 oz. Midori
1 ½ oz. Bacardi Limon
6 oz. Pinapple Juice

Fill shaker with ice, add ingredients, shake until well mixed and well chilled. strain into two martini glasses. Enjoy.

Unrelated tidbit: drinking in the middle of the day wearing nothing but a bathrobe can make one feel a bit like Hugh Hefner. This is better than the alternative.

Related tidbit: don't let the froofy girly drink exterior fool you. This will fuck your shit up if given the opportunity. Probably because they taste like candy.

Our kitchen is now permeated by the wonderfully pungent aroma of tamarind, ginger, and chaat masala. There are other scents laced through it, but right now the overpowering aromas are from the cooked portion of the chaat that I'm building for tomorrow. (It's a wonderful balance of pungent, sweet, savory, and hot that I love about Asian cuisines generally, and Indian cuisine in particular.)

Yummy! Now, on to the egg-strudel concoction, and finish by attempting to recreate the "Hair of Fenrisúlfr" Bloody Marys I made years ago. (Damn my drunken experimentation)

I don't mean for this to cause any undue duress. I know there will be some of you for whom this is impossible, and I'm truly sorry for that, but I must ask the rest.

Speaking of Millennium (as I had been), I found out about a great event coming up there:

“Regardless of where they land on the Scoville Scale, chiles of the heirloom variety are ever so tasty, especially when they peak at the end of our Indian Summer. Whether they are fiery red hot, sultry & smoky, or lusciously sweet, Tierra Vegetables grow the best peppers north of the border. Eric, Jason, Anne and fellow kitchen crew (with the help of some floor staff) will hand pick through thousands of these spicy nightshades searching for only the most perfect to land on our menu.

After all that pepper harvesting, the creative culinary geniuses will retreat to the stoves, ovens, dehydrator & smoker, to produce one of the raciest menus we offer all year. How much capsaicin can your palette handle? Don't worry, we thought ahead. Beer pairings from Philly's Monks & Nodding Head & Sonoma's Russian River Breweries will be eagerly standing by to squelch the fire.”

Chiara hates peppers, so I'm on my own on this one. Any interest? Details on their events page. Oh, yeah, it's pricey, but the food there is nothing short of amazing.

...Since they try to lean toward vegan I probably shouldn't rain on their parade and suggest that beer is no better than water for quenching the fire, and the only really effective means is milk.

(I'm more than a little behind, this should have been posted Thursday night, and all the entries that have been rolling around my head will continue to do so)

I could think of no better way to celebrate(/honor?) his birthday than with a dinner at Millennium. Everything I've ever had there was FANTASTIC, and all of it happens to be vegetarian (in fact, most of it is vegan).

[Thursday night]'s meal just kept getting better and better, and dessert was an exquisite confection I would have been too wary to try anywhere else (they're known for bringing together odd tastes that just work in ways that are indescribable!)

I had:

Zucchini Napoleon

layers of corn-orange cauliflower salad & lemon macadamia nut "cheese", basil-garlic oil, sweet pepper "cream"

Blackberry BBQ Tempeh

warm roasted corn, sweet pepper & brown rice salad, orange vinaigrette ginger cucumber pickle, toasted pecans

Terrine of Avocado & Lemon Ice Cream

Pasolivo extra virgin olive oil, red Hawai‘ian sea salt, lemon vanilla bean syrup

Ok, this has to be another sign of the impending apocalypse. It's just wrong on SO MANY LEVELS.

But, as usual, Mike's perspective cracks my shit up.

I have come to the conclusion that there are few problems that cannot be made much better by a sufficient application of Junípero martinis (well, Gibsons really. Pearl onions are yummy!).

Also, I have the bestest sweetie in the entire world. She's smart, and sexy, and she seems to think I'm cool.

And my big, fat, hairy pussy is the cutest thing on four legs. Even if he's a little prick.

I have a new favorite sandwich. It may not qualify as a perfect sandwich, but it has many of those elements, nonetheless.

Giovanni's has done a lot to assuage my homesick desire for real pizza. It's not perfect, but it fills the hole. Similarly, a friend turned me on to House of Bagels, and as long as you avoid the one on Lawrence Expwy, I'll grant you they something better than the round pieces of bread the likes of Noah's tries to pass off as bagels. They're not Schwartz's (Sorry, I know intellectually that H&H are better than Schwartz's but for some reason when I'm jonesing for a bagel fix, I'm daydreaming about the Southside of Pittsburgh.) but they'll do.

The one item I've not yet found: pickles. PDC used to have barrels of them, in a "take as many as you'd like" kind of set up. A friend of mine who was living in Fremont got so bad that he took to having cases of Ba-Tampte Half Sours Fed-Ex'ed from Brooklyn. Unfortunately (for me) he's found his way back to Old New York.

I've been toying with that idea for some time, but it seems excessive. There HAS to be a decent deli around here somewhere (though I suspect I'll have to go north to find it). I recently ran across something intriguing. Trader Joes' Half-Sour Kosher Dills. Once again, in a side-by-side comparison, they'd not stand up to a Ba-Tempte or Guss'. They're not as crunchy as I'd like, though they're better than the flaccid spears most of the sandwich shops around here use. BUT they taste right!, oh, do they taste right. I missed that experience.

I share this experience for two reasons. I suspect I'm not the only one in this predicament, and someone else can benefit from my discovery (incidentally, if you're interested in splitting shipping costs, let me know). Also, if any of you have been keeping a deli to yourself, because you didn't think the philistine Californians would understand, please speak up.

Hmm, I think I'll have one right now. Breakfast of Champions.