another vegetarian dinner

Second week in a row that Conrad and I found ourselves on a Friday night in our kitchen, entertaining a friend, sipping much wine, and dining on a vegetarian meal. It happens.

We had Brad over some time back - over time we've come to realize that not only do we have our swim team in common, but all three of us quite like wine. We'd been meaning to share some BC wine with him since he'd never tried it, so we planned a casual Friday together. It actually timed out nicely - I had taken a half day sick leave for a dental appointment, and that left me home early in the afternoon and able to start cooking.

I made dessert first. Whole Foods had some very good looking rhubarb in its produce section this week. Ah, the signs of spring at Whole Foods: ramps (I didn't buy any), the masses of mangoes as their season crests. Now if only they'd have fiddleheads. Anyway, I picked up the rhubarb and, recollecting a previous attempt at an upside down cake that turned out decently,

opting for that instead of a more typical crisp or pie. Besides which, it may be the Swede in Conrad or the Briton in my background, but rhubarb is something we both rather like.

The cake turned out nicely, and with that done, I did prep for the entree and set up things for us in the kitchen. By the time Brad got here, we had a bottle of Champagne chilled and an assortment of nuts, caper berries, olives, and asparagus spears (blanched and cooled) to nibble at.

Dinner was risotto. It's funny - like last week, I went a route that I seldom go thanks to our not-entirely successful efforts to reduce Conrad's carbs intake. I haven't made risotto in some time, and to be honest, it was a little thicker and stodgier than it should have been. But it tasted good, and while the two of them sat and sipped and chatted, I was nearby stirring my pot. One funny moment was near plating when I asked Conrad to grate some romano cheese for me without specifying how much. When I turned to his counter, there was a massive pile and a rind ready to discard. Whoops. A reminder on the rare occasion that I let him in my kitchen to be very precise in what I tell him to do.

The risotto was tasty, though. I had flavoured vegetable broth with dried porcini mushrooms that I subsequently chopped and stirred into the risotto. The risotto had a generous amount of leek in it (and frizzled leek atop each serving), and at the end I stirred in fava beans I'd blanched and peeled earlier.

Perhaps it didn't spread on the plate the way it should according to Top Chef, but it was nourishing.

We had a small bit of leafy greens, then on to dessert. By that point we'd finished not only the Champagne but also a BC Pinot Noir (not as good as we'd wanted - not at all bad, but perhaps not the best representation of the wines we love from back home) and were on to a Cab that Brad had brought. Being in the kitchen meant that I had a bit less than the others, I think - I felt fine this morning on my 12-mile run, though it helped that I drank as much water as wine last night. Conversation, meanwhile, flowed through team gossip, books, wines and food, travel, and elsewhere. Brad was once again fine company.

Dessert was nice. It's not a showstopper, but then, I don't make showstoppers. I make desserts I can dish up easily and not fuss with. I can feel at least one pair of eyes rolling at me as I write that, but it's true. A big dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream along side a piece of cake,

and we were sated. I sent Brad home with a bunch of risotto, a few pieces of cake, and even four servings of a quick rhubarb crisp I'd thrown together with the extra stalks. May he enjoy them through this weekend!

every so often I cook for myself

It's been a while. Conrad has been traveling a lot, I've been traveling some, sushi is so very easy to order in. I so seldom cook anything anymore, let alone something I need to look up a recipe for.

I think it was while I was back west with Conrad last weekend (or perhaps before then, I'm not sure) that I saw a pupuseria. It's been ages since I've had a pupusa. Or two. I've never actually had one in a restaurant, let alone an El Salvadorean one. All I've ever known are what we made in the restaurant back home years ago. And with recent inspiration, I thought I'd try them again. A recipe from Roger Hayot's Dinner at the Authentic Cafe (is that place still in existence? if so, I'd love to get there on a future LA trip) was my guide.

Some shrimp, some roasted poblano, some provolone (no, not Mexican, but it was on hand). A filling! The dough was tasty in and of itself. Garlicky, spicy. No sauce, no beans or whatever may be traditional sides. What are traditional sides? Ah well. I made some red cabbage slaw and some guacamole. And now, friends, I'm sated.

Good to do something a bit out of the ordinary. And now let's hope the leftovers will heat nicely tomorrow for dinner.

splurge dinner (Spiaggia)

It's not for lack of time that I haven't posted about last week's dinner. I'll be honest: I've felt a little ambivalent about the whole meal.

I'll state this now: it was a fine meal in a gorgeous restaurant. Per person, it was also one of the most expensive meals I've ever had (I think only the ten courses with wine pairing at Michael Richard Citronelle beats it). And, sadly, the sticker shock has kind of held me back for the past week. A good meal, and yet I've been curiously embarrassed to have eaten it.

I'll forge onward, though. Conrad and I had a rare date night this month (he has A LOT of travel in March), and that is the important thing. Our friend Bob had given us a couple of gift cards for Spiaggia, and though we'd dined at the more casual Cafe Spiaggia, we'd not yet tried Spiaggia. What made it all the more special was that Bob, who knows so many people in the restaurants around the city, had contacted the host and let him know we were coming. The result? Essentially the best table in the restaurant with a fine view and extra food and wine brought our way.

Enough of this, let's keep this fun.

First off, we got to dress up. Conrad looks so very handsome in his newest suit, shirt, and tie. I think I clean up well enough, too. A cab ride down to the Magnificent Mile on a fine evening - no coats needed. We were shown to a table in the middle of the window looking out toward the lake,
and soon decided on a cocktail each. I think Spiaggia has convinced us that Manhattans are good. Their negroni was quite fine, too. Starting off with cocktails was perhaps an unwise choice given the wine that followed, but in the moment, it was the right thing to do.

An amuse to start with. Of course. Zucchini somehow, I was still a little dazzled at this point. It was fine. I rather liked the bread service.

Neither of us opted for the special tasting menu featuring black truffles. There were some good sounding items on it, truly, but there was plenty on the a la carte menu to entrance us. At the recommendation of our excellent server we enjoyed a bottle of Sfursat (slowly - this was not a wine to guzzle) and the following dishes (forgive the all-caps - I'm copying and pasting the names of the dishes from the restaurant Web site):

Conrad's PROSCIUTTO IBERICO DE BELLOTAS CON RICOTTA FATTO IN CASA (Hand cut acorn finished Iberico ham with housemade ricotta and Soave poached pears).

My UOVO FRITTO CON VERDURE AL FORNO, POLENTA CROCANTE E FONDUTA (Wood roasted winter vegetables and trumpet royale mushrooms with fried Yuppie Hill Farm egg, crispy Spin Rosso polenta and Bagoss de Malga fonduta). This was my favourite of my three courses.

We each had the same second course, a pasta dish not listed on their site but consisting of spaghetti with crab and coconut. I thought the sweetness of the crab and the coconut were amazingly harmonious, and I was really delighted with this dish.

Conrad's TAGLIATA DI MANZO CON CODA DI BUE E CAVOLO (Wood grilled prime strip loin with savoy cabbage wrapped oxtail, creamy buckwheat polenta, winter squash mostarda, fontina and Amarone). Conrad's favourite dish, though he thought the oxtail was guilding the lily some.

My TROTA AL FORNO CON LUMACHE E FUNGHI (Wood roasted Quinault River steelhead trout with abalone mushrooms, basil fed snails, creamy white polenta, fresh herbs and bottarga). This was fine, but oddly unmemorable compared to the previous two courses.

As is our habit, we ordered a dessert to share and a small cheese selection. The dessert came first. Along with more dessert. And wine to pair with it. Conrad and I kind of gave each other an "Uh oh, this could be dangerous" look and dug in. We'd ordered the ricotta mousse with blood orange sorbet (another item that is not on the Web site, sorry, though a similar dessert is up there). The use of blood orange was quite tasty, the mousse made for a blank pallet behind it. We also received a selection of sorbetti and gelatti: mango, lemon-lime, raspberry, chocolate, salted caramel. All were excellent, the citrus one intensely so. Oh, and a dessert amuse, if you will: a date filled with (I think) mascarpone.

And we still had cheese to go. Happily, we'd only ordered three. I can't recall the names of all of them, but there was the La Tur and I believe the Erborinato di Pecora among them. If I have that latter one right, it was our favourite, tasting something like a blue, that tanginess that we appreciated.

We still had a few sips of wine left, though it wasn't as good after the cheese (alas). I gave mine to Conrad in the end and switched to some decaf. Some time about 2.5 or so hours after we arrived, we wandered out to Michigan Avenue and caught a cab home. Full from the dinner, happy with our date.

And yet the price. The price. Ah well. It's done and paid for and that's that. A splurge. A big splurge. One I hope to repeat because it all was so good. One I'm not sure I want to repeat again.

sated

You know, there are evenings where I think, "No, I'm really not making it to the gym tomorrow morning." Tonight is one of those.

Forgive me. I'm 41, I can't rage hard all night like I could when I was 26 (and even then I couldn't do it all that successfully). I've had a very very very enjoyable evening of conversation, food, wine, and cocktails with the infamous and laudable John Chrastka and his wife, Deanna. I won't even tell you how long it is taking me to type this in the post-dinner state I'm in.

Look, here's the deal: Conrad is my husband, and I love him fully and unconditionally. But there are a few rare men I meet who are just, well, awesome in the truest sense of the word. John is one. The ALA gays adore him (count me among them), he gets thing done, and best of all, he came to Yoshi's! Our usual Sunday hang-out plus a terrific and handsome foodie library guy? With his lovely and genuinely charming wife? Oh yes, the night was a success.

I have no food photos, sorry. I do have photos of John and Deanna, at least. Conrad was super for soldiering on through dinner (quite enjoyably, he told me when I got home- the week he just endured had him drained, but he hopes for the company again) after an exhausting weekend up north and a 6-hour drive home. We ate well, drank even better, and as snow falls gently on a late winter night, I'm glad for a good dinner with friends at one of our regular places.

Now then. we'll have to stock up on some fine scotch and wine for dinner together at home some time this spring...

dinner for 1

Conrad comes home today - hooray!!

But in the meantime, I have to eat, right? At the end of a week in which I had a cold and resorted all too often to re-heating some chicken tortilla soup I'd made and frozen in batches some time back (served up this week without tortillas), I wanted something a bit better to dine on Saturday evening. And good as the cookies I made were, I can't subsist on cookie dough either.

(but goodness knows I try)

Between the soup and a store-bought roasted chicken that were the mainstays of my week of dining, I was heartily tired of poultry. Fish instead, and how nice to see Arctic char on sale at Whole Foods after brunch with the team yesterday. I knew I had kale in the fridge at home, so that covered one side. A parsnip and a big shallot later, and I had bought the main ingredients for dinner.

I spent the late afternoon baking the peanut crisps, then it was on to the main meal. I caramelized the parsnips and shallots somewhat, then braised that in chicken broth to tenderness. The kale I simply steamed. The fish went into some browned butter to crisp up the skin before I flipped it over briefly. Three components, and that was my meal.



Well that and some cava. I wanted a bit of wine last night, and I knew that the remnants would go untouched until midweek at best. We had a couple of bottles of cava that we'd bought for a party in the past, so I chilled one of them. No, I didn't drink it all. It was about $7 for a bottle, so though it was wasteful to pour so much down the sink, I also didn't think too much about the ultimate cost.

And so I sat, sipped, ate. And yes, I had a couple of cookies for dessert before retiring to continue on my book.

a quick word before I leave the country

So yes, we're at O'Hare, awaiting a flight to Vancouver. A few fun-filled days there of buying new furniture and redecorating the condo. No, I mean that. I'm altogether excited over it all.

A few quick things to catch all four of you readers up on things...

There was baking to be had this weekend: three batches of scones in all, plus individual Black Magic Chocolate Cakes. The former were tasty, the latter, even better than that.



Four of the cakes went with us to Rachel's for Saturday dinner. I tell you, that Rachel can put together a fine meal, thanks in part to Peachy, her consultant, and Vikram Vij, cookbook author. A rare treat to have someone cook for us, and we had an exceptional time of it.



And then we made it two meals in a row with breakfast at Nancy's. A working breakfast, you know - that Aruba presentation isn't going to write itself!

Frank lives! Gone from the Smelts for far too long, and we've not seen him since the morning after the wedding. But there he was on Sunday at Yoshi's, enjoying a VERY packed bar with us. Too packed for me to comfortably take photos until the crowds thinned in time for dessert.

Alright, a quick check-in as promised. Internet access in Vancouver will be spotty in among the work starting to put the condo together. But you four are used to my long silences by now, I know. And thank you for that.

so... that was Dallas...

I've been to Texas a handful of times before. San Antonio for Midwinter years back, Austin (and area) a few times more recently with Conrad (he's a UT alum). I liked San Antonio. I LOVED Austin. This time around it was Dallas. Not a vacation, however. No, this was conference travel, ALA Midwinter 2012.

I don't comment on work on this blog. I just won't do it. I will say before anything else, however, that no matter what I feel about my workplace (good or ill), I absolutely love my involvement with the American Library Association. I mean, seriously, there are so many good and interesting people I've met and continue to get to know. I find conferences rewarding on so many levels: content, networking, committee work, friends, dining, sightseeing. So let me point you to the report I posted in an official capacity and move on from there.

I would normally start off this post with talk of TK, my best friend. Assuredly, he will appear. But Midwinter in Dallas marked a milestone: ten years of knowing Martin. We met at the GLBTRT all-committees meeting in New Orleans in 2002 and started rooming together the next year in Philadelphia. Over the years we've become good friends. I cannot tell you enough how very much I like and respect this man (and do please vote for him as ALA Councilor-at-Large!). He puts up with all my high maintenance drama in the hotel room, and he has gotten me into some really terrific receptions and other social events. And we've killed many hours late at night talking about the Association and many other assorted bits of gossip. Dallas was the latest chance we had to spend time together, and I'm grateful for that. Did I mention that you should vote for him?

Added to that mix: TK. Yes, yes, I just saw him a handful of days before the conference when Conrad and I were in Baltimore. I don't care. I will happily take any opportunity to spend time with TK, and if it means that we can add in the library gossip to boot, then great! Plus, as lovely as it is to have our husbands added to the mix with us, the conference rooming together means that he and I can rattle off names and concepts without worrying about leaving them out of the conversation. TK had a very prestigious awards committee appointment that culminated in Monday's Youth Media Awards, and it was genuinely thrilling to see how bubbly he was over the whole thing. I couldn't wait to hear about it all after the award was announced and he could finally talk about it. I'm so very proud of the work he did.

I didn't dine out especially well in Dallas, I have to admit. In part it was because I had a working dinner one night, catered in to the hotel room of the ALA President-Elect. Another night I had three receptions all on different floors of the Dallas Public Library,

so that took care of dinner there. Lunches were usually pretty casual as well - assuming I even had lunch. I did manage pizza one day with my friend Peter, though. Other than that? Some mixed experiences.

A Thursday dinner with TK at Wild Salsa.


Reportedly, the librarians almost drank the whole place out of tequila on Saturday. I'm unsure why we're supposed to be so proud of ourselves for consuming booze. Big deal. Ah well. We had tasty food there, and it was a very good price. A belated celebration planned for TK's birthday. There was a Saturday dinner with TK, Martin, and CG at Dream Cafe. That took a hotel shuttle to get to, and it was a curiously quiet restaurant. Nonetheless, we had a good meal, again not too pricey. Enjoyable! On the Monday night, TK, Martin, and I headed to Samar.
I liked a few of the shared small plates, but the table we had near the bar was awful, there were a few not-so-great dishes (the whipped walnut oil on one was kind of disgusting), and by the time we left, I was in a foul mood.

Happily, there was a little place near our hotel that had just opened very late last year. More of a bar than anything, but they had a small and decent menu. It's called The Chesterfield, and if you want to have fun with cocktails, then check it out some time. In two days I managed to get there four times. ;-)



I didn't see much else of the city. It was hotel ---> conference centre ---> hotel. Repeat. I got to swim once with Liz over at an amazing fitness centre at the Baylor Medical Campus, but that was the farthest afield I got. On the other hand, the conference centre did have good coffee at the Starbucks, and it was convenient for meeting friends (like David). And as the days went on, I found myself busy at Council and happily engaged.

I don't know that I'm keen to get back to Dallas, but that's quite unfair given how little of the city I saw. It would be good to see Liz and Peter again, and get back to Chesterfield. And maybe dine at some new and better places. Ah well. The conference was fine, however, and now I just await Conrad's return from his own work travel.

More photos in the Flickr set, and do check out the photos others posted from the conference.