she craves

Where Necessity and Un-necessity Meet.

Oh. My. God. Why didn't anyone think of this sooner?

[Thanks to EatMeDaily for the heads up and eventual loss of money...]

 

The Fleeting Good Times of Favas and Such

"How thin do you want this pasta?" My friends stood next to the flour-dusted pasta crank, holding up fresh sheets of precariously long pasta. It looked as if they were going to hang up a "Happy Birthday" or "Welcome Home" banner.

"Not too thin," I dictated quickly. The pasta was in capable hands and by now, there were sheets and sheets of stretched out dough, generously dusted with flour and ready to be cut. All the messy effort was for what I was attending to in the pan -- deeply fragrant gems of crisping guanciale -- cured pig jowl -- favas, peas, shallots and ... who knows what else we decided to throw into the pot.

Emboldened by a few glasses of wine and the coaxing of good friends, anything is possible. Take recipes. Most people are slaves to them. They plan. They organize. They worry and fret. But inebriation and hunger are prime motivators to toss the whole regimented lot in favor of some past knowledge, intuition and most importantly, bacon.

Breakfast for Lunch

Try as I might, I am not a morning person. I am known to abuse the alarm, both verbally and physically. My brain doesn't quite work so making a decision such as which fiber-loaded rational cereal should I have for breakfast is on par with should I choose the blue pill or the red one? For the first few minutes of being awake, the coffeemaker is my only friend in the world.

Still, I am a fan of large breakfasts. Starch. Protein. More starch. Cups of coffee. Hard to achieve when you've got a late start and loads of work to do. Even harder when you've procrastinated in your workout clothes, determined (half-assed) to do the next series of weight training and plyometrics.

Solution: Breakfast for lunch.

Lamb Ragu

Ground meat often gets a bad wrap. Often associated with meatloaf, forgotten rather than rhapsodized about, or those unassuming grey burgers of school lunches, we tend to forget it's often the basis of the most comforting, filling and easy recipes. Most of its life, it lives in the dark cold of the freezer. Case in point: Lamb Ragu. I know. I cheated. But that's part of the deal when you're on a budget: you forage into the icy crevasses of the freezer and in the dark corners of the cabinet to figure out what else to transform into your next restorative. In my case, it was a couple of nests of fresh pasta, delicately frozen, and a block of good, organic, grass-fed lamb.

Who knows what would've happened to that lamb had I never been hit by this economic wake-up call? It could've remained untapped, like a wooly mammoth under yards of ice, undisturbed until something cataclysmic finally revealed its priceless remains. Perhaps I'm being dramatic about the emotional effects of the freelance life, but at times, it sure as hell feels like the earth beneath your feet is giving way. When that feeling kicks in, it's time for ragu AKA bolognese.

FLASHBACK: Kabocha Squash Risotto

I hadn't quite realized how long I've been writing the blog -- since 2005, or the commencement of what's become known as the quarter-life crisis. No one wonder I sound so dour. So, now you know. I bitch. I cook. I eat.

But this recipe is a staple in my kitchen, especially now when hard squash our coming out of our ears and things like risotto are precisely what we need. Below is the recipe. For a complete flashback you can read the original post here. Otherwise, enjoy my version of a time machine.

Honeydew, Scallop & Bacon Salad

The craving: A quick meal. Spare moments are as rare a good apricot around here. Has to be something cool and light. The air is heavy enough with heat, I don't need a lead weight in my belly to feel satisfied. But something substantial enough that I'm not starving in the heat an hour later.

The solution: Greens, ubiquitous as they are, need a bit of fun. Dill fronds for some flavor and an edible rose petal or two because I've just thumbed through Claudia Roden's rose petal preserve recipe. Not enough petals for jam but plenty for salad in a frivolous (and optional) way. Thick-cut smoky bacon (as much as you'd like) still sizzling from the pan add substance. As do a few sea scallops sauteed in the bacon drippings. The shellfish is just as sweet and tender as the cubes of honeydew, heady and sweet with summer ripeness. No salt. No acid. Just a built-in vinaigrette from the warm bacon fat and cool, sweet honeydew juice.

Breakfast of Champions with a Friend

On the menu: Lemon-Ricotta pancakes * Tomato-Bacon Hash * Chicken-Apple Sausages * Fruit Salad

Nine a.m. Okay, maybe 10. We've established that I'm not a morning person. A groggy Sunday morning and the luxury of lingering in bed. It lasts as long as a rumble in the belly. Hunger sets in and comes the proverbial Sunday morning question: what to eat for brunch? It nags me once a week like clockwork. And it nags my friends, too. We're champion brunch-goers. We've been to pretty much every venue in town that offers scrambled eggs of various quality, stacks of pancakes gluey or perfect, and coffee weak as dishwater or thick as mud. Our options were close to up and the idea of waiting in a crowded front room and fighting for a bitchy waiters' attention wasn't as good as staying in bed. In fact, "staying in" sounded perfect.

But what would I eat? That would be up to me, the kitchen, and my friend, Amber.