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Category: Food

The internet is my hive mind

Seriously – memory is outdated. So I was talking with my ex about fondue (she’s trying to convince me to visit Chicago, and the most recent motivation was the recent proliferation of fondue restaurants), and I came up with the first time I ever had fondue was on my trip to Switzerland in 1987… and it was in some town with a lovely painted wooden bridge, with buskers, that had since burned down. Fondue wasn’t the only thing on the menu, but it was exciting (this was the hot oil kind of fondue where you skewer a raw chunk of meat and boil it in oil before dipping it in a variety of tasty sauces) and there were occasional breaks for dancing and possibly yodeling.

That’s really not the kinds of details I thought I’d need to pinpoint a city through google. So, instead, I asked my mother. And she said, “Ah, that was Locano.”

So I googled it – found I was spelling it incorrectly – and then hopped over to the wikipedia page, found a picture of a bridge – only one bridge – and while I had seen that on the trip, it wasn’t the right bridge. Just in case it hadn’t made it onto the webpage, I popped over to the official city webpage, but that was in Italian, and I had gotten the vague impression (maybe from the yodeling) that the fondue had been in a city from the German-er bits of Switzerland.

Luckily, however, one of the sites on Locarno had been a tourist site for all of Switzerland with a list of the major cities. So I scrolled along looking for ones that both sounded familiar and not so familiar that I could exclude them.

I came to Lucerne and that webpage wasn’t much use, but I had a hunch – so I popped back over to google… and wasn’t convinced. For one thing, it said there were only two major bridges and the main one pictured was a lot longer than the one I remembered. I was thinking 20 feet or so… But it had been burned down in 1993, which would have been around the right time…

So I went back to the tourist page and a few other menu pages for restaurants in Lucerne and concluded that the one we went to is still there – Stadtkeller. And that I probably would never have chosen to go there as an adult with my current touristing sensibilities (I tend to suspect that places with entertainment are putting more effort into that then the food) – but nevertheless, I remember it first as a restaurant with tasty food and only secondly as one with quirky entertainment that was rather charming.

BLITEOW – Brains

Just making more food lists.

Yesterday I had salad.

Today, though, I am feeling a bit sluggish and it’s hard to get the motivation to cook anything.

What I really want is brains. Jellied, chilled brains. Maybe with some cayenne pepper.

So if any of you have some good summertime recipes that don’t require too much cooking time. Hmmm… brains soup…

braaaiiiinnnssss

ETA: My mother actually came up with a recipe from her childhood –

First you soak the brains in milk.

Then you soak the brains in ice water. After an hour, remove any stringy/membrane-y bits

Beat together about 5 eggs.

Dice the brains and mix them in with the eggs.

Scramble in a large frying pan.

Serve with toast.

ETAA: Majorcan Brains
Indonesian Brains
Nibbly brains appetizer
Spicy Chinese brains
Brains & Sweetbreads
French brains & black olives
Marinata di Cervello alla Villeroy – OMG, so rich!
Another recipe for Brains & Eggs – from a congressman! (also canned brains, but you can get fresh – they are on sale today)
Toscano Brains
Moroccan brains
Brains with Teacup Hollandaise
Not brains
Chiles Rellenos con Cerebros

Greens abound

Yes, food again. Be glad – I saved you from a very smug post about how the slow art of making soup is so much better than a restaurant or cooking school could ever manage because the process takes *days*. It was a very smug post – you are very lucky.

Nope – this is about how I am starting to have a decent amount of food, but am not in an eating mood, so I need to organize things so that food doesn’t go to waste.

First of all, I have daisy greens. I had no idea what to do with them when I bought them, but I could not resist the little old man trying to sell a few things at the farmers’ market for the first time with every sign full of unfortunate misspellings. The one for the daisy greens had me grabbing his sharpie so that he was no longer charging $1.50 per bowel. Really, with a sign like that, how could I resist? But now the greens have been languishing and I only have a vague notion that they are still good – I might end up with a clever plan for them just in time to chuck them into the compost. Perhaps that’s dinner tonight – fried noodles, greens, carrots, ginger, and peppers. Now if only I had bean sprouts.

Next, I have a few languishing bits of lettuce. (albeit sexy lettuce) Possibly, these are also going to end up in the compost. To avoid that, we’re looking at salad Wednesday night. I’ve been trying to work in a salad for about a week, and I haven’t felt motivated. Salads are a lot of assembly and putting bits together. I like a bit hot food in the salad, too, to wilt the lettuce and gooey the cheese. Well I now have cooked chicken bits. And I have cheese. And I just need to get together the enthusiasm to assemble a salad after getting home at 9pm.

And I have collard greens. These are fairly new and versatile, so I’m not worried… but I just made stock and have vague urges toward making soup – in summer, because I’m insane – and most of the soup/collard green pairings I ship are thick hearty things. I told my mother this, and she’s rooting for me to get some butternut squash so I can make this bisque-ish soup, and that sounds totally wrong in the warm months… but I do have a pod of roasted garlic (I was using the oven, so I roasted it – no plans for what to do with it), so that’s like the soup is halfway made already, right?

What else do I have randomly running around? pod of roasted garlic, cream cheese with roasted yellow pepper and roasted garlic (enough for breakfast tomorrow), chicken stock…

Okay! I think I am good for going to the produce truck tomorrow. I think I want to get more bell peppers and roast them. I have a pie crust – maybe I’ll make a roasted veggie quiche.

Soup Pondering

I think I am going to make soup tonight – maybe something vaguely ministrone-ish, but without white beans and I’m still waffling on the inclusion of pasta product.

I have stock, yellow squash, zucchini, canned tomatoes, roasted garlic, and greens. (ETA: onions, a couple baby carrots, and some seasonings.)

Is there anything else that would be really spiffy in the soup that I should run over to the farmer’s market across the street to buy before I go home?

Hmmm… I also have carrots. Is this a carrot kind of soup?

Comments – the only suggestions from those wise asses was celery

Pineapple

I picked out a wonderfully promising pineapple that smelled just right and the leaves at the top were just the right kind of loose (like it was ripe rather than like fifty people before me had been tugging at those leaves, too).

Only it wasn’t sweet, and now I am sad.

So instead of just gorging myself on plain fruit, I’ll put it with meat, I suppose.

Does anyone have a favorite pineapple salsa or chutney recipe?

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In other news, the first ripe tomato will be ready to pick by tomorrow.

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Comments included: Pineapple tomato salsa; rubbing them with Jamaican jerk paste and grilling them on skewers