Souper Fennel

Sunday and Monday were a little hectic. As I worked late both nights Jen was in charge of putting together dinner. On Saturday we decided to make fish tacos to accompany a corn tomalito to use up all the farm share corn we'd gotten. However, lack of time prevailed and we simply had the tacos with some salad.



Jen put together the fixings for fish tacos which we assembled with sour cream, avocado, red cabbage, tomato, and queso fresco.



We enjoyed the tacos with some Mania wine spritzers. Jen is embarrassed about how much she loves wine spritzers but she just does. Deal with it!



Tonight Jen made fennel and potato soup with dill served with fresh bread. Well, bread that was fresh yesterday.

Tomorrow another week of produce arrives. With it, I'm hoping they deliver a few pints of free time which I can use to actually do some cooking this week.

Who am I kidding? If I get any free time I will probably use it to actually play some Spore. Tribal stage, here I come!

Korma Chameleon

Today we woke up at a regular time to go downtown and have lunch at the irregular hour of 11:00AM. We ended up having lunch in Union Square at The Coffee Shop with Jen's friend, Katherine, who was visiting from London.

After lunch we wandered around the Union Square farmer's market for a while trying to determine what we'd get to make dinner. The problem with farmer's markets are that they are populated largely by farmers. The problem with that is that farmers grow fruits and vegetables and we have an abundance of such items at home in our home. What we needed were the non-produce items to combine with our produce at home and create a normal dinner.

We went to a supermarket in Chelsea where we stocked up on some staples and some items to make dinner tonight.

We found out, upon returning home, that the Yankees game from last night had been rescheduled for tonight. Having already puchased a great deal of food for dinner we debated for a while then decided to skip the game. Besides, I don't think my stomach could deal with a repeat of last night's dinner.

It's worth noting that finding out about the game being rescheduled was no thanks to the Yankees terrible website that has no useful information on it. It was only after doing an exhaustive Google search and calling up a Craigslist post from someone selling tickets.



Dinner was quite easy to make. We purchased some Korma sauce from a local New York Indian food place called Maya Kaimal. I sauteed some onion, pepper, eggplant, zucchini and potato in a little butter and canola oil (my makeshift ghee) then simply added the sauce and simmered. Meanwhile Jen defied all culinary logic and made some rice by adding it to boiling water, not by starting it in cold water and bringing it to a boil like I was specifically trained never to do while in culinary school. The most infuriating part was that it turned out exactly the same.



Jen also made a coriander chutney with cilantro, garlic, jalapeno, sugar, salt and lemon juice. We added a touch of honey and olive oil at the end which rounded it out quite nicely.

We enjoyed the chutney on some store-bought naan bread which Jen heated in a pan. So we didn't do a heck of a lot of cooking from scratch this evening. It was quick, easy and delicious.

The evening is now rounding out quite nicely. Our TiVo inexplicably recorded five new episodes of Psych that we hadn't seen before! Much like our old favorite detective show, Monk, Psych is broadcast at a geriatric-friendly time slot on Friday nights. Most of the advertisements are for things like Rascal Scooters or diabetes medicine. I would estimate that at least 45% of the commercials feature either Wilfred Brimley or Sam Waterston, talking at the camera in front of an alternating solid white background or a sterile-looking bookshelf.

I really don't get it. Psych is a great show and features an incredibly smarmy Gen-Xer in James Roday. Why is it that this show is marketed so heavily to people at least twice our age? It seems like a slam dunk for thirty-somethings.

Regardless of the marketing strategy behind Psych we have just enough left to watch for the remaining 58 minutes until Spore is done downloading.

This could possibly be the best Saturday night ever.

Rain Delay

About six months ago I purchased Yankees tickets from a coworker. They were cheap and it was an opportunity to visit Yankee Stadium during one of its last games.

This morning it began raining so I kept a close eye on the weather all day, assuming that the game would be canceled. As the day went on and on the Yankee Stadium Lousy Weather Update Site kept displaying the words: The gates are scheduled to open on time.



When we arrived at Yankee Stadium the rain was coming down harder than it had been all day. We made our way to our seats to observe a stadium that did not look particularly game ready.



At the stadium we waited in line while some teenage jokester made us our disgusting dinner. $27.50 later we were standing off to the side on a ramp choking down the greasy mess that was our dinner.



After our dining experience we went out and sat in our seats, in the rain, for the next hour. From there we were treated to an incredibly long documentary about Babe Ruth where they listed some facts about Babe Ruth including how he was sent from above to help baseball. Also they talked about how the baseball gods were involved. I decided to pass the time by making up my own facts about Babe Ruth:

• Babe Ruth was the first American to taste an avocado.
  
• Babe Ruth did not believe in Eskimos.
  
• Babe Ruth had a mole on his back in the shape of Thomas Jefferson.
  
• Babe Ruth created his own language that he used to communicate with cats.
  
• Babe Ruth once had a toothache that he enjoyed.
  
• Babe Ruth was the only person who was unimpressed when he visited the Alamo.
  

So after over an hour of this we decided to leave Yankee Stadium and go home. We were pretty well soaked and had learned all we could about Babe Ruth. When we got home we finally received word that the game had just been called off. Why they couldn't have made that determination several hours earlier is still a mystery. The Yankee Stadium Lousy Weather Update Site still said: The gates are scheduled to open on time.

Thanks, Yankee Stadium. If we got nothing else from this night we at least learned this: Babe Ruth's body could not produce the enzyme needed to properly digest strawberries.

Fenneltastic Pizza

Ah, sweet day off. Ten years ago I may have used a day off to pack up my Dodge Omni with recording gear, drive up to Boston, play music all night in a crummy club, have a footrace down Beacon Street with a friend, attend some random stupid college party and then drive to Cape Cod at 4 o'clock in the morning.

That was then and this is now. Today I stayed at home, did the laundry, cleaned up around the house, did some diagnostic work on my father's computer, had three cups of tea, and made dinner. Not only did I enjoy my day immensely but I had been looking forward to this day all week and I'm now sad that it's over. I was looking forward to this day knowing that that would be exactly what I would do.

Jen was scheduled to work very late this evening then IMed me to say she'd be home at a normal time. Reading that, I quickly snapped into action to get dinner ready and start to work through the vegetables which have been backing up in our fridge lately.



I used the white carrots (as well as some older normal-style orange carrots) to make a carrot ginger soup. I didn't put much else in it other than garlic and onion. It came out pretty good but way too strong on the ginger. I think I'd use half as much next time. I guess we won't have to worry about our blood pressure after tonight's meal.



The lettuce has been getting meager in supply. The past few weeks we've been lucky to make two average sized salads out of what we've been getting. Tonight we used the green leaf we got along with the grape tomatoes, goat cheese, chives, avocado, olive oil, salt and pepper.



One of our classic meals is pizza with shaved fennel and mozzarella cheese. We started using a pizza stone after I got one for Jen a couple years back for Christmas. If you make pizza at home more than once a year, this is well worth the small investment. Crusts are incredible when cooked on the stone. The pizza is simple: any pizza dough (store bought or homemade), any pizza sauce you'd like, mozzarella (preferably fresh), shaved fennel and a light sprinkling of salt and pepper. Bake on preheated stove at 450 degrees for 12-13 minutes. Grate Parmesan on pizza after it comes out of the oven.



As a pairing: Gravity Hills 2003 Syrah. Why this Syrah? Because my favorite Smoking Loon Shiraz was out of stock at the local wine shop I purchased this bottle which cost twice as much and tasted 85% as good.



For dessert we were going to have one of these amazing cookie sandwiches from The Cookie Sandwich Company that Jen got from work. We ended up having more peaches and yogurt. How do I know the cookie sandwiches are delicious? Because I had one for lunch and it was the best thing that has happened to me in a while.

There is another waiting in the fridge. I just may pay it a visit before bed.

A Case for Lateness

Since Nate is rocking the Jersey route these days, it was I who ran out of work at 6pm to try and make the farm share pickup on time. For the CSA allows you to pick up your bounty from 4:30 to 7:30 and from 4:30 to 7:30 only -- and if the two times I've been there near 7 have been any indication, that 7:30pm timeframe might be purely theoretical. Last time I went to pick up near the witching hour, I was punished with getting no fruit -- it had all run out, and they were offering a double share the next week (when we were in France, bummer!) But this time, I feel my late arrival was richly rewarded. For example, they were out of snap beans and arugula, of which we were to take 2 lbs and 1/2 lb, respectively. But since they were out, in their place I got an additional fennel (score!) and a bunch of chives (also score!) -- both of which I like better than the original share allotment. Advantage: us.



This is what we took home this week: 5 giant ears of corn, 1 lb of potatoes, 1 head of lettuce, 3 zucchini, 2 bulbs of fennel, 1 pint of cherry tomatoes, 1 orange pepper, 1 green pepper, 1 bunch of chives, 1 bunch of dill.



We also got an eggplant that, viewed from a certain angle, looks like the face of the man in the moon.

Unfortunately, the old Tuesday dilemma is/was in full effect: what to make at 7:30pm? The double jeopardy was that Nate's campaign to rid our freezer, shelves and fridge of hangers-on meant that the cupboards were bare, devoid of any meats, pastas, main dishes of any kinds.

Hey, y'all! It's Nate comin' at ya! Jen told me to write about the salad because I made (read: assembled) it. Well, merely took what we had lying around and combined it. That's about it! We had some green zebra tomato left so I put that on some of the Satur Farms greens, some Coach Farms goat cheese, slivered almonds, some of the dill and avocado.

Now back to our cheatin' ways . . .

So we ordered a rotisserie chicken. And baked beans. And cornbread. I sauteed some garlic and then steamed the green beans left over from last week's share with said garlic. We served that with the delivery and a baked potato (again, last week's share), and, all in all, it was delicious.



For dessert, we had a redux of the brilliant brownie, peach and ice cream combo. Delish. Then we looked at car insurance quotes online. It was a rad night.