Category: minutiae

I’ve been eating out rather a lot lately. On Friday, the family all got together and went to Left Bank for a very nice meal (read my mom’s review). I am really quite fond of that restaurant. On Saturday, I went out with Rob and Jer to Sue’s Indian Cuisine in Mountain View. On Sunday, I went over to the East Bay to hang out with Lydia. We watched a bunch of Yakitate!!, bought fabric for our Katamari costumes (and Lydia is the sweetest and best person ever because she’s making my dress and gloves for me- can you feel the love?), and ate cheesesteaks of random quality and sushi of better quality. I tried umeboshi for the first time. That’s some very salty stuff. But tasty.

Monday was the traditional Mountain View weekly dinner. Ryan came along with us for the first time, yay! We went to an Italian restaurant called Zucca (and bravo, you have the most annoying Flash intro EVER). I really liked my dinner (hangar steak with mashed potatoes, a red wine reduction, and fried onion strings), but Ryan chose a pizza which, in her words, “sucked.” Also, it’s kind of on the pricey side, so you have to be careful what you choose. Based on that, I’m not sure I actually recommend it, even though my meal was quite good.

The bar at Zucca had some interesting drinks, including an entire menu of “martinis.” And now a time for me to rant on the term “martini.” I’m not a fan of martinis. Gin’s really not my thing. However, nomenclature is my thing. It pisses me off when people attach the word “martini” or the suffix “-tini” for a drink that has no relation to a martini. A martini made with vodka instead of gin? Is NOT a martini. I mean, if the mere act of using an onion instead of an olive changes the name to a Gibson, then changing the other ingredients should also change the name completely. Just because you put it in a martini glass does NOT make it a martini. It’s… some other drink… served in a martini glass.

Argh! Nothing like your stats to tell you that someone’s found your site by searching “browing ground beef in a microwave.” And then searching for “browing” yourself and finding you’ve written it twice. That’s pretty terrible. I need to go edit some posts now.

Spinach Dip with Blue Cheese and Bacon

America’s Test Kitchen

3 oz. bacon (about three pieces), cut into 1/4-inch pieces

1 (10-ounce) box frozen chopped spinach

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup mayonnaise

3 medium scallions, white parts only, sliced thinly

1/2 cup packed fresh parsley leaves

1 clove garlic, minced

1 1/2 oz. blue cheese (about 1/3 cup)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Fry the bacon in a small skillet over medium-high heat until crisp and browned, about 5 minutes; using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate and set aside.

Thaw the spinach in a microwave for 3 minutes at 40 percent power. (The edges should be thawed but not warm; the center should be soft enough to be broken into icy chunks.) Squeeze the partially frozen spinach to remove excess water.

In a food processor, process the spinach, sour cream, mayonnaise, scallions, parsley, garlic, and blue cheese until smooth and creamy, about 30 seconds. Transfer the mixture to a serving bowl, season with salt and pepper to taste, and sprinkle with the bacon; serve.

The dip can be covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 2 days. If making this dip in advance, hold off sprinkling the bacon over the top until just before serving.

I was watching America’s Test Kitchen today. It was a new episode on appetizers. Beef satay, spinach dip with pita chips, and spiced nuts. Now, I think the recipe I use for spiced nuts is excellent. However, this version did look a lot faster and easier. I’m willing, though, to spend the time to make the Zingerman’s version, even though it kills my arm to grind all that pepper.

The spinach dip looked pretty good. So I made it. I’ll post the recipe tomorrow. Spinach gets stuck in between your teeth really easily. That kind of sucks.

So, this recipe is kind of a combination of two or three recipes. I think it turned out pretty well. I bet it’ll taste even better tomorrow. I tried to simplify the recipe a little bit from what I did. I used a combination of chicken stock and the low-sodium chicken broth, and I only used six cups total. Why, you ask? Well, a while back, I prepared a bunch of cannellini and garbanzo beans and froze them. If you make them yourself, you can use the liquid, but the liquid inside the cans is not so good. Also, I don’t have any cans of beans in the pantry right now, so I don’t actually know how many ounces a normal can is- somewhere between fourteen and sixteen. So I used six cups of broth/stock and probably one cup of bean cooking liquid. Tasty, huh? I also used one 28-ounce can of whole tomatoes (one of my precious Muir Glen Fire-Roasteds) plus another part of a can I had in the freezer. I think just using normal chopped tomatoes would be easier. And prettier. The only problem with the Fire-Roasteds is that there are bits that are, well, black. Doesn’t affect the taste in a way that’s not positive, but still, not terribly attractive.

If you want to make it vegetarian, leave out the sausage and use vegetable stock. You could also use just one kind of bean. I felt like mixing it up. I’m a crazy woman.

Bean and Pasta Soup with Sausage

2 14 oz. cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

2 14 oz. cans garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

Olive oil

1/2 lb. hot Italian sausage, with or without casings

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 Tbsp finely minced rosemary

3 14 oz. cans of chopped tomatoes, drained

Salt and pepper, to taste

6 cups low-sodium chicken broth

6 oz. small pasta (anellini, ditalini, orzo, small shells, etc.)

Puree one can each of the cannellini and garbanzo beans in a blender with some of the chicken stock to make a smooth, thick liquid. Set aside.

In a large pot, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Add the sausages and cook, turning occasionally, until browned and cooked through, about ten minutes. (They should be about 160, if you have an instant-read thermometer.) Remove from pot. When cool enough to handle, halve the sausages lengthwise and then cut crosswise into half-circle slices.

Turn the heat down to low, and add another 1 tablespoon of oil to the pan (if you feel that enough fat is remaining, don’t) and add the garlic and rosemary. Keep it moving constantly so it doesn’t burn- there will be a good deal of heat leftover from the sausages. Scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden utensil to loosen any stuck bits of fond. After 2 minutes, add the tomatoes to the pot along with a generous amount of salt and pepper. Cook these for 3 to 4 minutes. Return the heat to medium if it becomes necessary.

Add the chicken broth and pureed bean mixture to the pot and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for five minutes. Add the pasta to the simmering mixture and cook until almost tender (times vary, read the packaging and taste for doneness).

Return the sausage to the pot along with the whole beans and simmer for another 3 to 5 minutes to blend the flavors. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Ladle into bowls and serve.

Saturday night was Jon’s birthday party. I made the chicken liver pate, which now appears to be my “thing,” and focaccia with salt and rosemary. (While the focaccia is baking, wash some rosemary springs and take off a bunch of the leaves. When you go to turn the focaccia after fifteen minutes, sprinkle the rosemary over the top. Bake another eight minutes as directed.) Jon made guacamole and pizzas. Ryan made basil-lime spritzers, mulled wine, and a kick-ass carrot cake. It was SO GOOD.

On Sunday, I went to the White Elephant Preview Sale in Oakland with Ryan and Sara. We bought some excellent things. I got an small, extremely fine-mesh sieve (25¢) , a knife block (50¢), a nicely-turned clay cup that I think I’m going to keep chopsticks in (50¢), the second volume of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking ($10, there were copies for $8 and $6, but it’s a first edition and in quite nice condition), The Best Recipe by Cook’s Illustrated ($10), a 1975 edition of The Joy of Cooking ($4), and a copy of The French Chef (50¢), a recipe book from Julia Child’s first television series. Ryan got a couple of copper molds (a fish and a lobster, she uses them as wall decorations), a clay roaster, a circular marble slab, a magnet, and some books (my brain has stopped there with its remembering). Sara got a lot of fabric for her crazy schemes, Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints, some frightening Nativities, and a religious plate that makes Jesus look, well, unfortunate. (Sara showed it to me and I asked, “Is Jesus making a booty call?” She then decided she had to have it.) Again, my brain has quit on the list. Anyway, an excellent time was had by all.

I was reading through the Going Bridal Confessions this morning, and came across a woman who described her future husband as “so laid back he’s almost comatoast.” Mm, comatoast. I wonder if that’s a coma induced by eating too much toast, or a spontaneous coma brought on by a piece of really excellent toast, or the kind of toast they feed through your IV when you’re in a coma. So many possibilities!

It has begun. The first Katamari Damacy cosplayers have hit the web. There are pictures of the Dashing Prince of All Cosmos here, here, and here. Also, there’s a Kuro, a Katamari Kousin, at the same event (Ohayocon– it’s a pun, get it?). That picture is here. As the King of All Cosmos might say, “It’s okay, but you can do better. Well, since you’re the Prince, you should do much better.” And while it might work in the game, trying to actually make a katamari that collects stuff and gets bigger in real life is tough. Eventually you just look like you’re lugging a pile of garbage around.

Why am I concerned with this? Well, as many of you know, Lydia and I will be attending Fanime in May. Lydia loves the cosplay. She’s quite good at it. She had been trying to get me to cosplay for this event. I refused, because cosplay can scare me. She told me of her plan to be the Dashing Prince. I laughed. Then I started playing Katamari Damacy. Then I was obsessed with the game. And so, I decided to join forces with Lydia and be a Katamari Kousin. Which one? Well, I’m partial to Kuro. Lydia likes Ichigo. Rob likes Jungle. The only annoying thing about Kuro is that his katamari doesn’t match well. I’m struggling to decide whether to make it the colors on the official site, or black, red, and grey, as I think it should be.

I did some calculations based on the game characters and discovered that for the standard cylindrical head, the width is approximately 70% your height. In my case, that’s about four feet. Meaning I’m going to have about 20 inches on either side of my head.

Lydia wants her katamari to have stuff stuck to it. I want mine to be pristine. Actually, what I really want is a katamari purse. Like knit the pattern sort of in the manner of this goofy hat here, attach it to some sorta spherical frame, and keep my stuff in it. Streamlining. I think I may ask Sara if she’d take a commission.

Anyway, I’m certain many more Katamari cosplayers will be popping up with each convention. Stay tuned!