Scones for Smelts

I seem to have a program underway of feeding some of my teammates each Saturday. I rise well before practice and get one or two batches of scones in the oven, and come 8:45 outside the pool, I am disbursing baggies filled with two or three fresh baked goods.

I think it's a popular program thus far.

This morning it was up and out the door by 6:20, getting buttermilk from Jewel. Once home, I was to work. First batch: milk chocolate, toasted almond, and orange zest. The second batch, not shown, were studded with currants.

Despite an overcrowded pool that forced me to stay on deck coaching, it's been a lovely start to the day. A stroll early in the morning, baking, brunch at the Center on Halsted with teammates, and now a glorious sunny day. We'll do what we can to whip this mess of an apartment into shape.

Wednesday: lamb

The second of two midweek dinners, and this one was a little more involved. Daniel and Steve came over, and I had high hopes for a fine meal. While their company certainly was terrific, I think I fell down a little on the food. Not bad, but not my best. Ah well. Let's debrief:

Steve was over earlier than Daniel, and Conrad and I offered him a Moscow Mule. We'd had them at Jim and Dan's before, and I should have asked for the recipe. Ours weren't nearly so good, and we ended up switching to martinis before dinner before opening wine with dinner. Disappointing, and all the more so because Dave, in Palm Springs, had sent us this incredible gift of the most fragrant limes you can imagine. When they arrived, we had barely opened the package when the perfume started teasing us, insistently. Wow. Beautiful. And we used a bunch for juice in the cocktails. Now I feel like we wasted the gift a little. Next time we'll get our recipe right.

Anyway, cocktail crisis over, we moved on through some snacks before I brought dinner to the table. Lamb shanks, braised in the oven with dried porcini mushrooms, served with a parsnip and leek puree, mustard-sauced Brussels sprouts, and a reduction of the braising liquid. And you know what? It was fine, but not special. I'm a harsh critic of my own food, perhaps, but I ate it thinking what I should have done differently.

Ah well.

I was a little happier with dessert. Daniel doesn't care for chocolate, and I didn't want to make a cake or cookies. I did have a few mangoes that needed using, however, so I called on an old restaurant standby and, with the addition of some pistachios, turned the (not as sweet/juicy as I'd like) fruit into a brown butter mango tart.
And it was fine, too. Not superlative, but I was happier with it than the meal.

And with that, my week of entertaining is done, I think. Simple dinners for us at home the rest of the week, and thank goodness. The team banquet on Sunday night will be another large dining experience, I'm sure!

red curry mussels

While the handsome other guy handles the dishes (not too many, so no sympathy for him!), a quick Friday night note. We've been having a nice dinner:

• gin martinis
• salted mixed nuts
• mussels steamed in a red curry sauce
• Oregon Pinot Blanc
• brown butter mango tart

You know, I really do cook well once in a while. The mussels were wonderful. The only improvement would have been a bit of bread or white rice. Yum Good stuff.



A short post - we're cracking ourselves up with season 2 of Big Bang Theory. Night!

Tuesday: hen

Two small dinner parties on back to back midweek evenings this week has me utterly knackered. The night after the second of those dinners, I put a bunch of veg with some chicken sausage into a parchment and foil package and baked it until it was fragrant. No mess to deal with after. Easy.

But guests deserve far better, and I hope I delivered. Tuesday night was dinner with CG in the kitchen, and through a bottle of a sparkling rose and a couple of bottles of Pinot Noir, we had ourselves a lovely evening catching up with her.

I had been able to work at home Tuesday, which gave me an opportunity to start a key part of dinner prep early: brining the Cornish game hens. It's a good technique for birds, though I've learned to reduce the salt in the brine recipe considerably (by half). A nice long while in the oven, basted at intervals with butter, and we had ourselves a tasty plate each.



Of course, we had to play with iPhone cameras before dining...

autumn? really?

Chicago defies my expectations this year. A summer that was hardly a summer (I think my hometown in northern Canada recorded a hotter spell this year than Chicago did) and now an autumn that isn't exactly autumnal.

When I think autumn, I think crisp days when I can wear all the sweaters I love. Well, not all of them at once, but you get the idea. In any case, last Saturday, the weather, if anything improved on the already mild weeks we'd had. Temperatures in the mid-teens. I'm surprised we didn't see many flowers fooled into blooming again. We couldn't resist, therefore, hopping out of the cab down to the Art Institute a little short of our destination and instead wandering through Millennium Park, taking photos of the park and the city around.














Oh, look, autumn colours. Well, THAT settles it.

Things got gloomier later, admittedly. Not terribly cooler, no, just gloomy. We had wandered north on Michigan Avenue after lunch, and when we made our way out of Nordstrom with back in hand, we noted that it threatened rain. We made it home dry, no worries, and the gloom that had settled in didn't bring us down from the wonderful day it had been. But really, Chicago, might we see a frost soon at least?

Terzo Piano

Conrad and I can be rather limited in dining out. Yoshi's. The Center on Halsted. Thai food ordered in from Ping Pong. Given our rather narrow tastes, it's something of a special treat to dine out some place new to us. And with the added excuse of a friend visiting from out of town, well, quite a treat indeed.

Holly had been in Chicago for a few days, attending a conference. We managed to catch up with her before she headed back Texas-ward. The three of us met up in Terzo Piano, the restaurant in the Modern Wing of the Art Institute. Mostly, it's open for lunch with Thursday dinners also available. Big open space, full of light. We had a table not far from the entrance, which gave me a view of the buzz of activity as people came in and gave Conrad and Holly a view of a dining room that filled up while we had a leisurely time of it.

A few things struck me early on in our time at the restaurant:

• They loved cheese. Good sign - a cart with a number of handsome options. Yay.
• The wine list does you favours if you order by the bottle, not so much by the glass. Funky cocktail list, too.
• The menu is not cheap for lunch, but it promised a lot of fun.
• The service was sweet and friendly - I think our server was named Jessica, and we were impressed (and grateful) that she thought to ask us about food allergies.

I'm sorry I didn't photograph the antipasti plate we had. Different items of charcuterie, a bit of cheese, some huge olives, pickled vegetables, a salty-spicy celery dish. We shared a modest but fine Italian white wine, and happily grabbed items from the platter.

Lunch: Holly and I each opted for the same thing, sesame-crusted whitefish with eggplant and a charmoula dressing. We both liked it a good deal, and I think it was a good match for the wine. Conrad, meanwhile, decided on a healthier course of things and chose a salad with avocado and chicken breast. Darn him. It did look good.

If we weren't with Holly, we might have had cheese (they looked so good, parked near us). Instead, I had a dessert while Holly had a cocktail and Conrad had a coffee. Five dessert selections to pick from, and four of them had "keywords", those ingredients you see listed and they just pique your interest something fierce. I went for the dessert that hit multiple keywords:

• pomegranate
• maple
• beignet

Maple-cream filled sweet potato beignets with a pomegranate sorbet.
The beignets were light, not too sweet, and the sorbet was a jewel - taste and colour both.

So then, I think Conrad and I will be back. After all, as a member of the Art Institute, I get a 10% discount. Good reason to go and have a nice lunch right there, as if the food, wine, setting, and collections downstairs weren't enticement enough!

skate

I think I want to head offline and not close my evening on the laptop as I so often do. So then, let me say good night, and leave you with a photo from last Sunday's dinner at Yoshi's: skate wing.



Very good, and all the more so with the bottle of Sancerre we had to drink (and a glass of a Cab to cap the evening). Cheers!

all we need is a partridge

I was heading over to Starbucks a couple of days ago, and as I passed a courtyard building in the neighbourhood, this caught my eye.



Poor, forlorn, unpicked pears. I hate to see fruit left on trees (and I rather doubt the pears were being left to be bletted). On the other hand, the impending holiday season did spring to mind...

back in my kitchen

Truly, friends (all two of you who read this), it is good to be home. My own kitchen. Everything in its place. Happiness.

I didn't want to do a big production tonight, so that meant something easy like pork tenderloin. I have lamb stew in mind for tomorrow, mind you, but today it was quick and simple:

Pork tenderloin, rubbed with seasonings and oil, seared, roasted.

Broccoli rabe, chopped and sauteed gently with shallots.

Parsnips glazed with balsamic vinegar (why do I almost cringe writing those two cliched words?) and soy sauce.

Plated, served with a Stone Paddock Pinot Noir. A nice evening in for sitting in the living room and catching up after a week apart. And a good way to return to my kitchen.

Yes, I am still alive out her in Blogger Land

I'm just horribly lazy.

Or something.

No, not lazy. A week in Vancouver (almost) taken up mostly with a conference and related activities. I've had a few good meals, rest assured, but not much inclination to photograph everything obsessively. Plus, I've been fighting a cold.

So this is just the latest in the wave of postings about why I'm not posting, and the latest promise to post more.

After all, you all do need to hear about the glories of deep-fried Mars Bars whenever possible.

The vainest man you'll ever meet

But seriously, though, that is a sharp tie on me, right? A Rixon Groove purchase. If only the iPhone took photos of better resolution.







Sorry, though, Conrad has me all sewn up. Try to get over your disappointment.

;-)

celebration dinner: Topolobampo

Two nights ago we celebrated. Conrad and I took Bob, my former department head, to a restaurant we all rather like to celebrate my achievement of tenure this year and to give Bob special thanks for his good mentorship and guidance. Plus, he's just plain good company over food and wine.

Topolobampo was our choice. Bob has long been a regular in Frontera Grill with forays over to the fine dining room, so it's a nice kick to see him interact so well with so many of the folks there. Topolobampo is a handsome, warm room, and we had an great table tucked in a corner near the kitchen with views of all the other diners. Well, Bob had the views, as guest of honour. Conrad had some, too. Me? I got to look in at the remarkably small kitchen, something I enjoyed very greatly.

A caveat here: we decided we didn't want to photograph the meal (a decision we nullified by the end). We wanted to enjoy dinner. We did. Rest assured, we did.

We started out with a cocktail each while deliberating at length over the menu. Eventually we had another cocktail, which is unusual and ambitious for us. Mine were these seasonal apple cocktails - not at all sweet, in fact. The little twist was a hint of cinnamon salt to kick up the flavour. Really good.

Anyway, we talked over the food with our waitress and with Jill, the sommelier (we love her, I can't say it enough - we had a bottle of wine for her we brought back from BC because it's fun to share these things along). Ultimately, we decided we would each have an item from the raw bar (seafood), an appetizer, and an entree. I took control of the wine and ordered a half bottle of Champagne to start with, then a New Zealand red for after that. so, a half bottle of wine each, if you think of it. On top of the cocktails. Still with me?

Anyway, Conrad asked for a specific raw bar item, and a specific entree, and every other choice we left up to staff. Surprise us, make it go with the wine. And that was that. Fun to do - they liked the challenge of it.

Jill brought the Champagne. The food began.

Conrad had a trio of ceviche: Ceviche Fronterizo (lime-marinated Hawaiian blue marlin with tomatoes, olives, cilantro, jcama and green chile); Ceviche Yucateco (steamed organic shrimp and calamari tossed with lime, orange, habanero, avocado, jcama and cilantro); Ceviche de Atun "Chamoy" (sashimi-quality Hawaiian ahi tuna tossed with crunchy jicama and tangy, fruity, spicy red chile-apricot chamoy salsa; almond crunch).

Bob ended up with smoked trout (I wish I had a better description, sorry).

I had "Tostadas" de Atun y Erizo – Hawaiian ahi tuna carpaccio and fresh Maine sea urchin with crispy tortillas, fresh lime and roasted garlic mojo. Fried leeks, avocado, sungold tomato.

Next course was a surprise to us all. Jill gifted us with a glass of wine paired with each - a different wine for each of us. Lovely. So add to the tally of wine! The food:

I had Tacos de Huitlacoche, Caldo de Jitomate – Crispy rolled tacos filled with Three Sister's Garden huitlacoche (corn mushroom). Roasted tomato broth, crunchy pickled vegetables, avocado, Bayless Garden microgreens.

Bob had Atun de Mole Negro – seared Hawaiian ahi tuna in Oaxacan black mole with plantain-filled tamal, grilled nopal salad, roasted knob onions, three nut crunch.

Conrad had Mollejas de Ternera, Mole Verde – "Popcorn" sweetbreads with green pumpkinseed mole. Roasted local turnip, fried plantain, Bayless Garden microgreens.

For dinner we had the bottle of the Black Ridge Pinot Noir, a Central Otago wine (really super). The food:

Conrad had scallops, a dish I cannot find a full description of - my apologies again.

Bob had Mole de Olla – Rich, red chile-and-epazote broth with 72-hour-braised Tallgrass short rib. Corn masa dumplings (chochoyotes), xoconostle (sour prickly pear) green peas, chayote.

I had Cochinita Pibil – overnight-braised Maple Creek Farm suckling pig "pibil" with crispy pig's foot, sour orange jellies, habanero-pickled onions, sunchoke pudding.

I came back from the bathroom after dinner and saw that we had three glasses of a dessert wine at the table, followed by a special dessert platter. These were compliments of Jill as well. She later came and sat and chatted a bit with us while Bob had a liqueur and I had a decaf cafe de olla.

4 hours all told. Lots of wine and food. We were treated so very well, is it any wonder we love going there? The surprises were surprising - really, so many things on that menu appealed to me, but it was good that I got things I might not have thought to order (the tuna to start, the tacos). The others agreed.

Favourites? I liked my cocktails a lot. I loved my tuna carpaccio - it left a real burn in my mouth in a good way. I liked my tacos, definitely, but thought Bob's black mole was even better and thought that Conrad's sweetbreads were swoon-worthy. Loved them immensely. My pork was awesome. The pork and the sauce went soooooo well with the wine, and the serving was a good size.

I wish I could remember the dessert details exactly - there were three on the platter, and I had had a comfortable amount to drink by that point. What sticks with me was the coconut sorbet - I think it was coconut. It tasted (and I mean this in a very good way, bizarre as it sounds) like white jelly beans.

So, a great night, and small wonder I didn't have breakfast the next morning!

Thanks, then, to Bob for his good mentorship, and to Jill and Jessica and everyone at Topolobampo who created yet another very fine evening for us.