Come to the Table

Inspirations

I have enjoyed reading food bloggers' year-end reflections on their favorite posts from 2005.  Since I recently started this blog, I don't have enough ingredients for that kind of list  But the annual wrap-up got me thinking about what inspired me to try taking a seat at the  food blogging table. 

Here are some of the posts that influenced me and encouraged me to participate. 

Nic of bakingsheet's essay, "Blogging  About Food."

Clotilde's great news about her cookbook project and her thoughts and questions about the writing process, "Book Update, Part I."

Adam's do's and don'ts for food blogging, "My 1000th Post: How to Start a Food Blog"

Jennifer's gracious invitation to the Is My Blog Burning – Sugar High Friday Cookie-swap Party and the wonderful wrap-up of the entries.

Derrick's clever idea for Wine Blogging Wednesday and the wrap-up of wine labels that followed.

David's humor and recipes throughout his blog.  Particularly inspiring are his posts like "An Open Apology." It offers a unique combination of food, stationary supplies, travel, and confession!

I am looking forward to more inspirations in reading, writing, and cooking in 2006!  Happy New Year!

Beer & Beef

What could possibly be better than drinking a good beer?  Cooking with a good beer!

Recently I made one of my few tried-and-true slow cooker recipes.  (I am always hoping to increase my Crock Pot repertoire!)  It's called Spicy Brisket and it makes a tender and flavorful roast with hardly any effort.

The beer I used this time is our seasonal favorite, Frederick Brewing Company's Wild Goose SnowGoose from Frederick, Maryland.  It's wonderful for drinking and cooking.  We hadn't been able to find SnowGoose for the past couple of years, so we were delighted to rediscover it in time for the holidays.

Merry Christmas!

While I love to bake, at Christmastime it's wonderful to receive many baked gifts as well.  Eric and I are blessed to receive lots of yummy food gifts at this time of year such as the plate of cookies, candy and hot cocoa mix shown above. 

Thank you for coming to my table and being part of my new blogging adventures! 

I wish everyone a very sweet Christmas and a delicious New Year!

Cookies and Colors

We had some neighbors over for dinner recently, and the one assigned dessert brought some intriguing, light pink sugar cookies.  It turned out that there was a secret ingredient: Jell-o!

Jell-o is one of those foods that people seem to have strong opinions about.  I mean, some people love to have wobbly green "salad" filled with gelatin, cottage cheese, and shredded cucumbers.  Some people don't.  But it's likely that you can please either camp with these cookies. 

People who love Jell-o will enjoy knowing that their favorite ingredient is what gives the cookies some of their sweetness and what makes the sparkly pastel sheen on top.  People who don't normally put Jell-o on their top 10 list will simply enjoy the cookies and will likely reach for a second one.

Espresso Thumbprint Cookies

Our local newspaper featured a cookie exchange recently, and Espresso Thumbprint Cookies caught my eye.  A chocolate cookie topped with espresso-flavored ganache sounded too good to pass up.

Plus, a couple of months ago I bought a jar of instant espresso coffee after a long search.  The original idea was to use the espresso powder in a waffle recipe, but I still haven't tried it.  So the espresso was opened for these cookies.

The cookie recipe includes 3 tablespoons baking cocoa.  I used Hershey's special dark cocoa, which was almost black in color.  When you bite into it, there is no question that it is a chocolate cookie. The rest of the ingredients are so simple (sugar, butter, flour, egg, vanilla, salt) that the chocolate comes through.  The filling recipe calls for 1 cup milk chocolate chips, but I substituted 5 squares (1 ounce each) of semi-sweet baking chocolate.  I wanted a deeper chocolate in the filling to go with the dark chocolate cocoa in the cookies.  I didn't have any coffee liqueur on hand, so I didn't include it. The coffee flavor was satisfying with the espresso powder alone.

The assembly wasn't hard.  You form the dough into balls and press your thumb into the center of each cookie to make a spot for the filling.  You can re-form the indentation after they come out of the oven (I did this with the back of a small spoon).  The filling is easy to put together and then you just spoon it onto each cookie.  I topped a few of the cookies with a dark-chocolate covered espresso bean for effect, but that isn't necessary.  The cookie and filling are delicious enough by themselves.  This recipe is definitely a "keeper" in our house for Christmas or any time of year.

New York: Day Three

On our last whirlwind day in New York City, Eric almost got run over by a grocery cart. 

After enjoying a lunch of a cheese blintz with strawberry rhubarb sauce and crab asparagus soup (me), spinach & feta croissant and chicken noodle soup (Eric) at Zabar's Cafe, we ventured next door.  It was around 1:00 p.m. and the specialty food store was chock-full of ladies of a certain age with fur coats.  One of them sighted Eric and charged at him with her cart at full speed.  For no apparent reason.  I guess she could tell that we were not native to her store.  We ducked out of the way and headed over to the coffee bean section where things were a bit calmer.  But we kept moving since we didn't know what other determined grocery cart drivers were lurking around the corner waiting to strike.  We came away with Demerara sugar (which I could not find in Baltimore), a "Dagoba" dark chocolate bar, and a new tea ball.  (Ever since reading Chez Pim's "For the love of tea!" post, I'd been on the lookout for a larger mesh tea ball.  Zabar's upstairs kitchen shop seemed a good place to get one.)

We left Zabar's with our kneecaps intact, and headed for the Museum of Modern Art, again, and this time it was open and teeming with people.

New York: Day Two

We started our second day in New York City with food for the mind.  While having Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's house, Eric happened to notice an ad they'd cut out and put on the fridge for the New York Public Library's special exhibit, "The Splendor of the Word."  The exhibit offered 100 of the library's illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

The artwork and calligraphy were beautiful.  It's hard to imagine holding something that elegant in your hands and reading from it, whether it was a Bible, prayer book, or science text.  We peered into the cases with the manuscripts for over two hours, listening to the audio guide and soaking it all in.  If you like medieval or Renaissance art or calligraphy or the history of the book in general, I highly recommend the exhibit.

We certainly deserved some lunch after our morning of history and culture.  We headed for Grand Central Station and ate calzones at "Two Boots," a Louisiana-style pizza place.  My andouille calzone was hot, cheesy, and hearty which was exactly what I needed.  We explored the Station and then walked up Madison Avenue toward the Museum of Modern Art.  There we were greeted by the friendly yet firm notice: "MoMA is closed today and every Tuesday."  Oops.  Should have checked the guidebook.  Oh well.  The lobby was open so we warmed up a bit and made a new plan.

New York: Day One

Some people say that going to New York City is overwhelming.  I say that telling your friends who love New York that you're traveling there is overwhelming!  In a good way, of course. 

In the past few months, as Eric and I have asked for recommendations about places to go and things to eat in New York, we have collected a list that will keep us going for many trips to come.  Add to that the amazing amount of suggestions about New York that one can find in food bloggerland and you're set for life.

Before I describe our trip and our eating adventures, many thanks to Clotilde for her "Edible Guide to NYC," a compilation of her reader's recommendations, on Chocolate & Zucchini.  (Clotilde's own travels inspired two bakery trips for us that I'll write more about when I recap Day Two and Day Three.  Her delectable accounts can be found here.)   Also, thanks to Manhattan User's Guide for some neat holiday shopping ideas.  After we returned from the trip, I found this wonderful series of reports on bakeries in New York on Lovescool-For the Love of Dessert.  Since Eric said he was fairly "bakeried out" by the end of our 3-day trip, it's probably a good thing that we'll have to save Lovescool's recommendations for next time.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recently our newspaper had a feature on Christmas cookies from readers.  Like the blogging world's cookie swap, people submitted their favorite recipes to share with other cookie lovers.  This inspired me to start baking, but instead of branching out with new flavors, I turned to the reason that cookies were invented in the first place: chocolate chips. 

Now, I've enjoyed reading many accounts of quests for the ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe (for example, here and here.)  It's one of my duties in life to personally taste as many different chocolate chip cookies as possible, at whatever bakeries I happen to visit.  (Soon I will be reporting on what may be the ultimate bakery-made chocolate chip cookie experience, so stay tuned for that post.) 

Back to my kitchen.  So after reading about so many different kinds of cookies in the newspaper, I pulled out the flour, butter, eggs, and sugar to make some at home.  Even though I already have a favorite "chocolate chunk cookie" recipe from Barefoot Contessa Parties, and a favorite "chocolate chip bar" recipe from Chocolate on the Brain, I wanted to try yet another version, a local one, in fact, that I call "Hanna's Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies."  What makes them famous?  Not one, but TWO bags of chocolate chips in a recipe that makes 3-4 dozen cookies.  It's like having a little bit of cookie with your chocolate chips.

Wine Blogging Wednesday 16: four emus

Just look at the alert red eyes on those four emus.  Don't they make you want to grab a bottle of their wine from the shelf of your favorite beverage store?

I browsed some wine labels looking for a good one to share for Wine Blogging Wednesday 16. When I saw these emus, I was sold.  Their indigo blue label not only featured their four fuzzy heads, it also promised a 2003 cabernet sauvignon shiraz merlot from Western Australia.

The tag that came with the $8.99  bottle promised (with Australian spelling), "Aromas of red currant, and raspberry with hints of cinnamon, liquorice and vanilla.  Soft, ripe flavours of red currant spicy cherry." 

To our novice palates, Eric and I thought the wine started out tasting like berries with mostly a "sharp" feel but a little bit of sweetness, too.  It had texture and seemed almost rough (maybe the cabernet sauvingnon fighting for attention with the shiraz and merlot?).  Over the meal, it got "juicier" and a little more mellow.