recent cooking

Happy Saturday!  I have banana bread in the oven and an easy afternoon ahead.  Hey, why not cast our minds back to past weekends and see what was cooking.

Two of my ASU classmates, Melissa and Patty, came over a couple of weeks ago.  First time seeing them in a few years.  Good to see them and catch up in person.  I went with an old restaurant favourite of mine for that dinner:  South Miami Cuban stew. 

A Paul Prudhomme recipe.  Authentic to Miami?  No idea.  I have always liked it, though.  A meaty stew with which I served a salad and some bread and a scoop of rice.  The leftovers came in handy in days after that, too.  Dessert was a nice one, too:  a rhubarb upside down cake. 

Oh, I love upside down cakes!  This one is lightly flavoured with anise seed, and although rhubarb is a rare (and expensive!) find in SoCal, it's worth it.

The next weekend was dinner for Geoff

and Kent. 

They have now been in the south of France for several days where they hope to fully relocate to.  It's quite the move, having sold their desert home.  We wish them best - and we hope to visit!  In the meantime, though, I cooked up the most enormous lamb shanks I have ever encountered and served them with a parsnip puree. 

I also made a lemon and blueberry trifle

that was a little better the next day and the day after, to be honest.  The cake gets to be more custardy that way.

Some recent cooking, then.  Not bad cooking either.  Tonight will be a simple pasta with some meatballs, a simple dinner.  Now to check on those banana bread loaves....

first NOLA dinner of the trip

Alright, alright.  I admit it.  I get a little annoyed that NOLA (the city as an anthropomorphized entity and the people in various media who are from it or promote it) seems to think that it's the best of all, that its food is so much better than everywhere else in the US.  Oh, come on.  As if New York or Chicago or Los Angeles or even Seattle or DC or Philadelphia and more don't have amazing food and a rich food culture.  My eyes, they roll.

But yes, there is fine food here.  Plenty of it.  So no, I am NOT disparaging the food here in the slightest.  I just want it to get off its metaphoric high horse.

Friday night was a good dinner out with my friends Andrew and Ed and their wives.  No photos of them all, sorry.  But photos of food!  And worthwhile.  Ed had booked us at La Petite Grocery

(and man, does that make me think about French as a language), and he was so right.  I loved what I saw of the menu beforehand, and the reality came through.  Good cocktails.  I didn't get a shot of the blue crab (sorry east coast and Gulf coast people, but your crab is fine and Dungeness is so much better - I will not be convinced otherwise) beignets that we shared, but yum!  I had rabbit for dinner,

and oh, it's been so long since I had that.  Satisfying.  I loved the dessert as well, a rice pudding cake of sorts with orange in a few guises.

First night in New Orleans, and yep, dining very well.

dinner at The Arbour

We have favourites.  Oh yes, we do.  There is our trinity:  Maestro, Mama M, and Amara.  But we're happy to wander over to Union, Perle, or Agnes.  And that's just the Pasadena places.

Dinner tonight was at another: 

The Arbour.  I am embarrassed to say it's been a while, and I can't remember offhand the last time we wandered over there, likely with Natasha.  Van had never gone there, though, and with his sister Cathy in town, we thought it was prime time.

It's a great location - not close to us exactly - not too far to walk, but we don't always want to walk that far.  I like the bar and the cozy interior.  We find the food reliable and the cocktails good.  I was happy that we could finally get Van there.

It was, in fact, tasty food.  I enjoyed my cocktail - The Impressionist, a martini flavoured with a chamomile tea and lavender - a goodly bit, though I had wine with dinner.  The salads were fine.  My sea bass?  Lovely!  Nicely seasoned, well cooked.  I did steal some crispy rice cake from Conrad, though, and I preferred it to the polenta cake on my plate.  Deserts were fine - I went with a dark chocolate mousse as a concession to sharing with Conrad.  The savoury courses were the highlights, though.

Service lagged.  I won't lie.  It felt like ages just to get water then to get drinks ordered (it was ages - about a half hour).  The place was busy, and I was happy to see that.  And it's not like we weren't enjoying each other's company.  We all noticed the lag, but I think we would all be happy to be back again before too long nonetheless.