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Coalition of the Wagging

Is it me, or does it seem like we're starting to get desperate for contributors to the Coalition?

We have a roof!

House construction continues apace. We stopped by Friday on our way out of the state to find that we already have a roof. We're going to try and stop by on our way home Sunday and check it out inside.

Pollo con Carciofi di Dovah

Last night's dinner was improvised based upon what I had on-hand: A couple scallopine chicken breasts, a lemon, parsley, sage, capers, shallots, garlic, artichoke hearts, half a can of chicken broth... but what to deglaze with? We're headed away for the weekend so I really don't want to open a bottle of wine just to use a cup of it for cooking. Inspiration struck while watching Rachel Ray on 30-Minute Meals: Vermouth! I haven't tried cooking with that yet, but I always have some on-hand.

Recipe: I breaded the chicken breasts, sauteed them, and put them in a low oven. I then sauteed the shallots and garlic, deglazed the pan with about a half cup of vermouth, added in the chicken broth, artichoke hearts, and capers, let it all simmer for a few minutes, then added the parsley and sage and thickened the sauce with a little butter and flour. I served the whole thing over linguine, and it was ready just about when my wife walked in the door (at 10pm, but still). We were both happy with how well it turned out.

Balsamic-Sage Pork Chops

This was actually a recipe for veal chops from Cooking Light, but they said pork chops could be substituted. This was the second time I've tried it; the first was when the in-laws were visiting a few weeks back. I'm not crazy about the flavor so don't think I'll try this one again. The marinade and sauce is more lemon than balsamic flavor, it's very thin, and its hard to get the pork cooked all the way through without scorching it or drying it out. [The photo is a little weird - there was a smudge on the lens.]

Chicken with Apricot

Last night I attempted to make something similar to the Chicken with Apricot at Café Mediterraneo. The sauce consists of leeks, dried apricots, golden raisins, cinnamon and sherry. On the side were snap peas and mushroom orzo. My wife liked it, and I thought it was good but not really like the flavor at Cafe Med. I don't think I am going to bother trying it again -- I not a big enough fan of the fruity sauce with chicken, plus keeping leeks in the fridge takes up too much room. I improvised on the mushroom orzo and was happy with the results, but the mushroom flavor was not a good accompaniment to the sweet cinnamon-apricot flavor. Note: By popular demand, the photo features a different plate, which I had to sneak by the wife who is in charge of tableware.

Food, Folks and Fun

My mother and step-father are visiting for a couple nights on their way back to the Cape after a long weekend in Maine. This is a major event as they don't get off the Cape very much. The last time they were in the vicinity was our wedding about two years ago. Sunday we showed them the model house and checked out the building site, and then had them for dinner at our place. It was nice to have the opportunity to do this, because they both are good cooks and often make dinner for us when we are on the Cape, but I don't think I had ever cooked for them.

We started with artichokes. Yes, again, two nights in a row. My mother loves artichokes (hereditary) and they had a really good batch at the store so I went for it. For dinner we had Pinwheel Steaks (steak rolled with pesto and roasted red pepper) and Onion-Thyme Roasted Red Potatoes with a tossed salad of red-leaf lettuce, red and orange tomatoes, red pepper, cucumber and avocado. The theme here was: colorful. My Mom is big on colorful dinners. For wine we had our absolute favorite wine: Sentus Douro 1997. You can't buy this anymore (in NH at least) but you can get it at the Crescent City Bistro. I'd highly suggest it.

We have a first floor!

Construction on the house came to a standstill after the foundation went in. No progress for several weeks. This weekend we took my parents over to see the site and we were surprised to find that the first floor was framed (well, exterior walls at least). We technically also have a second floor, but no walls up there. For those keeping score at home, our estimated closing date is now December 25th! In addition to the photo of the garage shown at the right, here's a photo of the the back side (showing from left to right the kitchen window, the opening that will lead to the sun-room, and the living room window) and a view into the living room where my step-father is inspecting the workmanship.

Enoteca di Broadway

This Saturday we had another couple of friends over for dinner. We made the usual menu that we seem to always serve guests the first time we have them over: Artichokes, Strip Steak with Madeira Mushroom Sauce and Sundried Tomato Summer Squash & Zucchini Ragout. I couldn't get a picture of dinner, but you can marvel at what a beautiful table my wife can set -- and look at all those spoons! (Try to ignore the laser printer in the background). By the way, we're going with the Italian "enoteca" designation now rather than the French "bistro" or "chez" given the current political climate. I've heard "enoteca" means "wine bar" and denotes a casual restaurant, although if you ask Google you'll get a whole slew of different translations, and Bablefish says "wine cellar".

For a soup we went with the Creamy Mushroom Soup with Tarragon that I made a few nights ago. This batch came out a little too peppery. The recipe calls for cracked black pepper but last time I used fresh ground. This time I used the cracked, and it was too much, so next time I think I'll cut back on the pepper. I also stirred in a few tablespoons of Manzanilla sherry. Unfortunately, this was the worst Madeira Mushroom sauce yet, which was particularly disappointing given that the last time I thought was the best ever. I made a couple dumb mistakes that I caught right away having to do with the sequence of adding ingredients, but the damage was done. It was still edible and all -- it wasn't awful tasting -- it just wasn't very flavorful. Kind of blah. And of course, one of our guests is in cooking school. On the bright side of things, we had some great wine. Our guests brought a Ravenswood Teldeschi Vineyard Zinfandel 1998, which we followed with one of our favorites, Montes Reserve Malbec 2001. For dessert, we had ice cream with fresh raspberries and raspberry chocolate sauce, which went great with the Four Vines Zinfandel Port which we really love. This port just goes so well with chocolaty raspberry or cherry desserts. We actually followed that up with some other Australian dessert wine (Campbells Rutherglen Muscat) which I'm sorry to say we did not like at all -- syrupy sweet like medicine with a thick raisin flavor. Oh well, it was worth a try. Oh, and the fun fact of the night: Don't make fresh pesto and then leave it on your counter at room temperature or it could develop botulism and kill you. I forget the exact details but that's enough info for me... always refrigerate the pesto.

Radici for dinner

The wife took a friend and I to dinner at Radici tonight. I had the Pork Medallions: "Fresh pork sautéed with Calabrian figs & roasted shallots served over roasted potatoes finished with a port wine demi-glace." I could have done without the figs, but the roasted shallots and the sauce were great. This is definitely one to try at home... I haven't done any sauces with port yet. My wife and friend had pasta with Carbonara which was good but very rich. I've been thinking about trying it at home after seeing an episode of $40 a Day where they showed a chef in Rome preparing it who made it look pretty easy (here's the recipe -- Radici's version also included peas and mushrooms). We followed dinner with some dessert at Breaking New Grounds, where they "closed the bathrooms for the night" at 9:30. What's the deal with that? It's certainly no way to sell more coffee.

Pick up a history book!

You know, I wondered if this was really a good idea: Turkish Leader Dismisses Iraqi Objections: On Wednesday, Iraq's Governing Council told the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, that Iraqis oppose Turkish peacekeepers. Iraq was ruled by the Turks as part of the Ottoman Empire for something like 400 years, and especially toward the end, the Turks were not particularly well liked by the Arabs (see Lawrence of Arabia). It's true that Turkey is really an entirely different country now, but really... did we think the Iraqis would be happy to see Turkish troops? Are we going to follow them up with Israeli peacekeepers? Maybe some Iranians?

Chicken Saltimbocca

For dinner last night I made Chicken Saltimbocca, Cheesy Orzo and steamed broccoli. I spent a lot of time comparing various Saltimbocca recipes on the web. They all involve sage and prosciutto, but from there they tend to diverge significantly. I settled on one from Mario Batali on Food Network's web site which included a sauce of mushrooms and Marsala wine. (It also included some deep-fried sage leaves, but I skipped that.) For those not familiar with saltimbocca (which I think in Italian means something like "jump into your mouth"), the chicken is pounded very thin, covered with fresh sage leaves plus a thin slice of prosciutto, folded in half, secured with toothpicks and then sautéed. I was very happy with how this turned out. The sweet Marsala sauce was the prefect complement to the sage flavor. The Cheesy Orzo was fine, but it tasted a little too much like a thick alfredo sauce. Next time I will use much much less cheese, or just try a different orzo recipe like maybe Orzo with Parsley with Lemon Zest.

Marsala fun facts!The fortified wine is named for the city of Marsala at the Western tip of Sicily. The name came from the Saracen Arab name for the city: "Marsa el Allah" ("Port of God"). In 1796, an Englishman who had previously developed Port in Portugal developed the fortified Marsala wine. At the time Sicily was occupied by thousands of British troops arrayed against Napolean who had control of mainland Italy. [Source: BestofSicily.com ]

Six Degrees of Enron

In six steps or less everyone in the world can be connected to the Enron scandal (except Kevin Bacon -- through some weird anomaly he's 12 steps away). Take this article which states rather ominously:

Speaking of embarrassing, check out what a California citizens group found. The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights dug through all the memos and came up with a meeting between Enron's top man, and gubernatorial front runner, Arnold Schwarzenneger. That's in the middle of the energy crisis that could cost California's current governor his current job.

Ooooooo. Sounds sinister and scandalous, right? Arnold must have been conspiring way back then to topple Gray Davis. If you take the time to download the PDF document that they are referring to, you will find that Arnold was only a guest at some sort of road show Enron was putting on for a long list of California CEOs, no doubt trying to drum up business. Being on the receiving end of a sales pitch is hardly what I would consider a "meeting".

Insert your own clever Terminator/Governor pun here

Only in America could a recent immigrant (naturalized citizen in 1983) with a thick accent be elected the leader of the 5th largest economy in the world. I'm not saying the recall was a good thing, or that he was a good choice (I don't have much of an opinion since I'm not a CA resident), but I think it's a pretty admirable quality of this country that he can get elected.

Die Comment Spam, Die!

For like the last two weeks I have woken up every morning to a piece of comment spam on my blog. ["Comment spammers" are people that come and leave advertisements in your blog comments with links to their spammy web sites. Putting these links in blogs helps them get higher Google rankings.] Last night I did a little research on ways to prevent it. Jay Allen has an article on how to stop it, which I started to implement, but then I realized his solution only prevents the spammy comments from showing -- they can still leave them. I don't even want them to be able to submit them to my database. So, I made this little hack to the source code with a few changes: I test the body as well as the URL field, and I am currently matching on 'zipcode', 'discount-life-insurance' and 'penis', which seem to be my most frequent spammers (what have they heard???). If my spam problem gets worse, then maybe I'll expand it to automatically pull in the various blacklists out there and match against those. I also followed the this suggestion to rename the mt-comments.cgi so that automatic comment spamming robots would not be able to easily find me. That solution is probably most effective for right now, but it's only a matter of time until the robots figure out how to parse your main page and deduce the name of your comments CGI from the links.

Chicken and Polenta with Tomato-Shiitake Sauce

Dinner tonight started with Creamy Mushroom Soup with Tarragon from the latest issue of Cooking Light. We had it with a little glass of Amontillado sherry which the magazine suggested. The soup was good but needed to be a little thicker -- surprising since I put in a half cup less water than the recipe called for. I also left out dried porcinis since I could not find them.

Soup was followed by sautéed chicken breasts and Polenta with Tomato-Shiitake Sauce. The polenta was another attempt at a vegetarian recipe -- thumbs down on this one. I think it's safe to say my wife and I have decided we don't like polenta. We were also disappointed in the topping: she found it too spicy and I just didn't think the canned tomatoes and dried herbs mixed very well. Luckily we had plenty of soup.

Pork Scaloppine Perugina

Last night I tried Pork Scaloppine Perugina. The recipe is from Mario Batali, but I found it in the latest issue of Cooking Light. It consists of boneless pork chops pounded thin (into "scallopines"), sautéed and simmered in a sauce of white wine, lemon, capers, sage and prosciutto, all served over fettuccine. Cooking Light does not have the recipe on their web site, but there is a version here that has the same basic ingredients although the method is a little different. It was pretty good dish, although I expected more flavor from it. In the future I might try a little more sage, although I don't know if I will try it again anytime soon. The recipe sounds quick but it took me about an hour start to finish. I was happy I got to use my new pasta pot though! Update: Cooking Light now has the recipe on their web site: Pork Scaloppine Perugina.

The weekend in brief

Friday: Beer night, followed by dinner at Crescent City Bistro with Mr. and Mrs. Kreblog. Bananas Foster prepared table-side for dessert (yes, two Fridays in a row). Mmmm.

Saturday night: Memphis, a world premiere musical at the North Shore Music Theatre. It was pretty good, but had some rough spots. It will be interesting to see if it makes it to Broadway.

Sunday: Trip to The Viking House in Concord to check out their sale on Denby tableware. We got some ramekins, tea cups, and one of those cool pasta pots with the integrated colander. We were a little disappointed that most of downtown Concord was closed on Sunday--including the fancy cafés--not a cappuccino to be found! Apart from the Viking House, we visited: The Capital Grille (for lunch, not as nice as we expected), BagelWorks (for coffee), Bookland, a furniture store and Foodee's (for a post-shopping snack). Finished off the day with a big grocery trip, and I tried Rachel Ray's no-mystery meat marinade on steak with oven steak fries (plus some green beans). The steak was nothing special, but I really liked the fries.

A Night Out

We went to Café Mediterraneo for dinner last night. I was anxious to try the Chicken with Apricot again to study the sherry sauce. That was good as expected, but the real standout of the night was my wife's entrée off the specials menu: It was a pork chop topped with sauteed slivers of portabello mushrooms, melted mozzarella, and covered in a brandy peppercorn sauce. It was terrific! I have to figure this one out -- except there is that pesky highly-flammable brandy again. I suppose its also worth mentioning that contrary to normal, the service was extremely slow. The waitresses were really working very hard, staying friendly even in the face of a lot of very cranky customers, but something was wrong -- they were either severely understaffed or something was up in the kitchen. I left a little extra tip because I felt badly that these women who were working so hard were undoubtedly going to get screwed on tips.

From the left side of the bookshelf

I've recently read Stupid White Men by Michael Moore and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken. Now before you get any ideas, let me disabuse you of any thoughts that I am a die-hard liberal... or conservative... I don't know what I am... maybe I should join the Free Staters and move to... oh wait.

Anyway, I didn't much care for Michael Moore. I find him mostly long on complaints and short on solutions. I probably would not have even tried this book, except it was a gift. He seems to have little appreciation for how massively complex the problems of the world are. He actually starts the chapter on Israel/Palestine saying something like, "Now I don't want to get all caught up in the historical details..." Oh, well, this sounds like a well-informed opinion I'm about to get. He goes on to explain that the whole thing could be solved if the US cut all funding to Israel and Arafat acted like Gandhi. Riiiiiight.

Al Franken on the other hand, I think can be very funny and also make some valid points. He seems to clearly catch some right-wing media personalities in pretty blatant lies -- not just cases of mistakes or creative use of statistics -- out and out lies. It's disturbing that they seem to get away with it over and over again without resigning in disgrace (like that recent NY Times reporter). He also includes several examples of how they distort the truth and quote out of context. Now, of course, I immediately think, "Well, of course, Al is probably doing the same thing to them to make his point in this book." So I Googled five or six of the things he mentioned that seemed particularly incredulous. For instance, he quotes Ann Coulter as saying after September 11, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." That has to be out of context. She must have been being ironic. Nope, take a look. That said, Franken is at his best in this book when he is exposing lies and telling humorous antecdotes about his encounters with right-wingers. A few of the chapters did nothing for me, like the comic book chapter "Supply Side Jesus" and the chapter where he casts current conservative personalties into a story about how they would have behaved in the Vietnam war under John Kerry's command. I ended up skipping both about half-way through. They were like so many SNL skits -- funny premise, but not funny.

Quote of the Night

The Daily Show's Lewis Black, remarking on how quickly Congress passed do-not-call list legislation after the court said the FTC was not empowered to enforce it: "Congress you just made a huge mistake. Now we know you can actually do stuff quickly if you want to."

Chicken for Almodovar

Last night's dinner was Chicken for Almodovar from 30-Minute Meals. It's basically chicken topped with garlic, onions, green olives, pimentos, golden raisins and toasted almonds, served over saffron rice. These are not ingredients that appeal to me, but I thought it was worth a try and my wife -- who I was sure would not like it -- was not going to be home for dinner so it seemed like a good time to try it out. I was very pleasantly surprised. Everything mixed into a flavor I really liked with no one flavor jumping out. And it really was quick to make. About the name: This is Rachel Ray's take on a Spanish dish, and so-named because this is what she would serve to her "dream dinner guest" director Pedro Almodóvar. My dream dinner guest would probably be David Bowie (he seems great on talk shows) or, if my wife my wasn't going to be home, Catherine Zeta-Jones (hey, she's on my laminated list) and she looks Spanish so she'd match the dish (I know, she's Welsh).

Chicken Scallopini with a Sherry Mushroom Cream Sauce

I improvised on last night's dinner and came up with this. I think it came out pretty well. I've mostly made pan sauces based on white wine (and the occasional Madeira or Marsala) but I really wanted to try some other flavors. I've been paying attention to the sauces on restaurant menus to see what else they use. Brandy seems like a popular one, but as I mentioned, I'm iffy on that one since it catches on fire (here are enough blazing tables stories to deter me for a while, at least until my brother the chef visits and gives me a lesson).

In any case, I was checking out the menu at Café Mediterraneo which I think has some very interesting chicken entrées and noticed their "Sauteed chicken breast with apricots, raisins, and cinnamon in a sherry wine sauce". I've had this and liked it, but I don't think I'm ready to try exactly that mix until I eat there again, but it got me thinking... I have sherry at home. I checked the bottle: 14% alcohol -- great! less than Madeira which has never flamed up on me. I wasn't up to trying the apricots, but I know from making soup that sherry, mushrooms and cream seem to be a common mix. So here's what I did along with some notes to myself for next time...

Season two chicken breasts (previously pounded thin) with salt, pepper, and Italian Seasoning. Dredge in flour and saute in olive oil until browned on either side. [My first side came out much better than the second. I think the second side the pan was either too hot or there was too little oil.] Remove the chicken and set aside but keep warm [maybe put it in a low oven]. Let the pan cool. Chop up a medium shallot and large clove of garlic. Return the pan to medium heat and add a little more olive oil to the pan and a little butter and saute the shallots and garlic. When they have softened [3-4 mins?], add sliced mushrooms. Season with salt, pepper and a pinch [maybe about a half tsp] of dried crushed thyme. Saute mushrooms until they release their water, then add one cup of sherry to deglaze the pan and reduce it almost completely. [There are several types of sherry. I used Manzanilla. Next I might use more like 1.5 cups for little stronger sherry flavor.] Add about 1.5 cups of chicken broth and reduce by half. Cut about 2 Tbs of butter into small pieces and coat them heavily with flour, and whisk into sauce. Let it simmer another couple minutes, then stir in about 4-oz of heavy cream. Simmer until it reaches desired consistency. Mix in a handful of fresh chopped parsley just before serving.

A Pole, an Englishman, and a Yankee overthrow an evil dictator's regime...

No, no, not the one you're thinking of. (I already wrote about that.) I mean Hitler. I picked up an interesting book, A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II, after hearing about it on NPR. I haven't read it yet, but it sounds like an interesting story... The Kosciuszko Squadron was an exceptional squadron of Polish pilots attached to the Royal Air Force in World War II. Did you know the Polish were the 4th largest contributor of troops to the Allies in WWII -- 200,000 troops! Most of the military escaped Poland after Hitler invaded and made it to Britain to keep fighting.

I find the history amazing: The squadron was named after Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a Brigadier General under George Washington. Kosciuszko, like many Poles, came from Poland to volunteer in the Revolutionary War. He was a good friend of Thomas Jefferson. After WWI, when Poland was threatened by Russia, American volunteers returned the favor by traveling to Poland to help establish an air force, which they called the "Kosciuszko Squadron" in honor of the Revolutionary general. This squadron became instrumental in winning the Battle of Britain during WWII. But the story has a sad ending: After WWII the Allies abandoned Poland to Stalin.