Magazine Week commences with some low-hanging fruit

I realize that Cookbook #48: The Best of Bon Appétit (Bon Appétit, 1979) really belongs in the History Week series and probably deserves at least a month of me trying to recreate all of the amazing pictures in it, but I'm going to be lazy and use it to kick off Magazine Week instead.

...as of 1979.

Provenance: The same library sale that provided my Cooking Light book, though this one is a much better get, historical-artifact-wise. You know how I'm always complaining about the lack of nice color pictures in these things? Well, good news! My wish has been granted, albeit by one of those evil fairy tale genies.

I think those are pickles.

I just registered for a cauldron at Crate and Barrel.

This one isn't too appealing, everyone knows I don't really like shrimp.

WAIT A MINUTE.

(Shivers.)

Recipe: Steak with Onion, Green Pepper, and Tomatoes. I think I've discussed the fact that steak-cooking is one of my weak areas, so I'm always looking for guidance on the subject. I figured this BA collection was a little dated, but it might still help me with basic technique.

Hrm.

Here's where I admit how little regard I have for 1979 cuisine: my first thought wasn't "That's probably a typo meaning oven-broiled, although that still doesn't help me," but rather "Of course they want it OVER-broiled, that demonfish appetizer has placed a curse on their tastebuds."

I regular-broiled it.

I also made swiss chard with walnuts, but there was nothing distressing about it.

Verdict: this book is awesome, clearly. You have no idea how close I came to making Meatloaf With A Golden Halo. And now you really want to know what that entails. Yeah, I'm afraid I might come back to this one.


The girls enjoyed some ice cream this week.

And Ivy finally got her chance to commune with weird blue cow.

Girl's Derby de Mayo Week

I found myself feeling a little over-themed again this past weekend, so I decided the best way to deal with that was to throw a Girl's Night Out on top of the rest of it.

(Clink!)

Emily and I started off at CRÚ: A Wine Bar (their weird capitalization and subtitle, not mine). We decided to have some fondue because...there was fondue on the menu, so obviously.

When you run out of things to dip, the waitress will try to sell you on more tomatoes and you'll be all "How about potatoes?" And she'll say "Might have to charge extra for more potatoes" and you'll think "I'm pretty sure tomatoes are more expensive than potatoes, but okay" and you'll get the potatoes and not even notice if you were charged extra, because: worth it. If she refuses to restock your potatoes, just ask for a soup spoon.

Then we went to Jasper's and had this blue-cheese-potato-chip pile of nonsense.

Note that at this point we have basically eaten queso and nachos, but fancy.

I also had shrimp and it wasn't even gross! So that's fun.

Girl's Night is full of possibilities.

Spent the rest of the night with chocolate, wine, and very outdated gossip magazines. GIRL THINGS ACHIEVED. Theme motivation restored.

Just in time, too, since the next day was Derby Day and this year was my first attempt at a Kentucky Hot Brown. I'm sure you'll be surprised to hear that white bread, bacon, turkey, and cheesy gravy are a pretty solid combination.

Responsibility Broccoli lurks.

A word of warning, however: before you dive into some leftovers for breakfast, you'll want to be pretty confident about the strength of your physical constitution. Wouldn't hurt to check the family tree in search of actual Kentucky heritage, I say.

Anyway, onward to Cinco de Mayo, an Americans-love-drinking-regional-alcohol-iday second only to St. Pat's, and way more fun to cook for. I started in the morning with Cookbook #45: The Essential Cuisines of Mexico (Diana Kennedy, 2000). Provenance: Mom. Previous recipes on this blog: Enchiladas de Fresnillo. Proof of this volume's gravitas: it lives on the fancy shelf. Recipe: Huevos en Rabo de Mestiza. Hey Erica, why did you make soup for breakfast: EGGS.

I also feel like my friend Alex would be interested to know that there was a very large amount of queso fresco involved.

Of course I loved this dish, as I have loved every egg poached in every tomato-based sauce since the beginning of time. The guacamole recipe was no slouch either.

Not that it's hard to make avocados taste good. How can you not like the only fruit comprised entirely of fat?

Verdict: I should stop being intimidated by this book and use it more often. Oh, well. See you in September, legit Mexican food!

Next up was Cookbook #46: Mr. Food Easy Tex Mex (Art Ginsburg, 1997). Provenance: Mom. Previous recipes on this blog: none. Literally judging a book by its cover: tempting. Good thing I didn't, though, since this Mojo Chicken made everyone eating it say "This is good" in a surprised-enough manner as to be vaguely insulting to previous things I have made.

It really is, though.

Verdict: this seems most useful as an introduction to Tex Mex basics, but a few things like the Mojo Chicken sneak in to liven it up. An unexpected success. He still doesn't get to live on the fancy shelf, though. (I'm not judging by the cover, I'm just taking it into consideration.)

Finally, Cookbook #47: The Hispanic Cookbook (Nilda Luz Rexach, 2000). Provenance: Mom. Previous recipes on this blog: none. Confirming that "Linguini with Tuna Fish" sounds less gross in Spanish: priceless. I know many of these recipes aren't Mexican, which is why I waited until Seis de Mayo to make Piñon Boricua.

"Plantains and meat." Seriously.

Verdict: this was fine, if pretty greasy. It was also one of the only appealing recipes I could find. I'm going to let you look up Sesos Empanados and Lengua Mechada and decide for yourself.

Ivy has been spending most of her time trying to figure out whether I'm more freaked out by climbing:

Or disappearing:

Who needs toys?

Bistro Week, sort of

Patronizing almost every restaurant in the DFW area last weekend made me think: why don't I just look at some menus and try to recreate what I would have ordered there? It's kind of like a cookbook, but chancier. I vowed to buy nice flowers for the table and put on some mellow music and pretend like all of our dinners were still restaurant dinners, ignoring of course the presence of small children (the benefit of being at home, of course, being that you can lock said children on the back porch carry on with dinner without disturbing other patrons).

A couple of things went awry with my plan, obviously. For one thing, the nicest flowers that $4 can buy at HEB actually take a few days to bloom, so that ambiance is just going to have to wait. For another, when the first song on my Genius playlist was this, the third song was this. (When the first was this, the third was this. So I guess everything does fall apart, right around song three.)

Nevertheless. First up was a recreation of Pecan Lodge's Hot Mess.

So much greener than I remember it.

Recipe: 1) Have your father spend three hours smoking chicken. 

This might be my favorite of all the things my dad is good at. Sorry "entertaining grandchildren" and "discussing college football"!

2) Abscond with some of it. 3) Throw it in a baked sweet potato with green onions and inexplicably still-thriving chard from your garden. 4) Realize how widely your reinterpretation has veered from the original. Eat anyway.

Next: Fancy grilled cheese! Recipe: 1) Buy fancy cheese. 2) Grill it.

3) Applaud yourself for being a genius.

Third: Hummus wraps. Recipe: 1) Get a tortilla. 2) Put hummus and and bunch of other stuff that you think will taste good together inside of it. 3) Watch your toddler show interest in the cucumber slices alone.

4) Dip in ranch.

We're pretty ready for the weekend around here.

Some more cautiously ready than others.

Weekend escape to...Texas

Dan and I went a-travelin' this weekend, which can only mean one thing: an inadvisable amount of food, and an inexcusable amount of pictures thereof. First stop was the Pecan Lodge at the Dallas Farmer's Market.

Pretty sure this is what heaven tastes like for people who worship fire.

This is called a Hot Mess, which I intuited to mean I should dive in face-first.

 Quick evening pit-stop at a known quantity.

They served me one very good drink and one very bad drink. I ordered the same thing twice, from the same bartender. Exciting!

Still pretty full the next day, so teensy tinsy breakfasts at Buzzbrews.

At least mine had vegetables in it.

And then on to Cowtown! Hard for pictures to do justice to Tex-Mex, but La Familia didn't disappoint in the least. They also have an admirable penchant for setting things on fire, though I was too slow on the draw to get a picture.

Imagine all this, but also your margarita is EN FUEGO.

We also managed to sneak in a European-hours dinner (read: 10 pm) at Nonna Tata, but the pictures just look like "pasta in the dark." It was juuuuuust cool and inaccessible enough to make me 100% determined to return. I WILL EAT MORE OF YOU, DARK PASTAS.

Anyway, the Fort Worth bed and breakfast we stayed in was very charming, although I could not for the life of me remember what state we were in.

Probably a ghost in this picture if you squint real hard. And drink some whiskey.

THIS ONE IS A BOOT SCRAPE.

 Guessing somewhere in the south...west?

Brands That Slipped Through The Cracks Week

I don't want to alarm you, but I think my seemingly foolproof theme-gathering method of glancing across the cookbook shelf for about 15 seconds is starting to fail me. Believe it or not, I have found two more brand-oriented cookbooks lurking within the collection. So, deep breath, here we go, Brand Week Part Three: The Sneakers.

I believe Cookbook #43: Betty Crocker's New Cookbook (Betty Crocker (NOT A REAL PERSON), 1996) escaped my attention because B.C. is so ubiquitous as to not even seem like a brand somehow? But it is! It is a brand. It makes Fruit Gushers. Anyway. Provenance: Mom. Previous recipes on this blog: none. Tagline: Everything You Need To Know To Cook. Unspoken end of tagline: Is That Food Tastes Better If You Apply Salt And Heat To It.

The recipe I picked was for gyros. And it wasn't bad! But it took me a while to find something that seemed appealing. This is really a book of basics.

Not sure how the crazy exoticism of Greek food snuck in there.

Verdict: I guess if you are really starting from zero on the cooking-knowledge scale, this would be pretty helpful. Or if you're curious about what "American" Grilled Cheese entails. (It's cheese.)

I know exactly why Cookbook #44: The Recipes of the Five Brothers (Leah Rosch and Rosemary Smallberg, 1998) gave me the slip: it looks like an actual fancy cookbook and also I have never heard of this brand and am not certain that it exists anymore. Provenance: Mom. Previous recipes on this blog: none. Only evidence of this brand on the internet: a 16-year-old commercial on YouTube.

Actually, it seems like Bertolli bought them at some point and then just...stopped...using the name? I certainly couldn't find any in my extensive search of one HEB pasta aisle. Anyway, I threw together some Tuscan White Bean Soup and Garden Crostini. The white bean soup was pretty standard. You know--white beans, cauliflower, ENTIRE JAR OF ALFREDO SAUCE.

Take it down a notch, Tuscans.

The garden crostini was good. It was better the next day with eggs on top of it.

True of everything I have ever cooked.

Verdict: I mean...it's a cookbook built around a mysterious and possibly defunct brand of pasta sauces. But also it's kind of fancy and good? This one was a real enigma.

Anyway, I've gotta go, I'm at my parents' house and they made hamburgers and are taking the girls off our hands for a couple of days and also bought me treats.

TREEEEEEEEATS.

It's going to be tough to leave the girls, though. They don't seem to like it here very much.