she craves

Summer Food for Emotional Eaters: Spicy Crab Linguine

Certain recipes are versatile in that they adapt themselves to life. Mood dictates everything. At least for me, it influences my cravings and what I choose to tinker with in the kitchen. These recipes aren't long, sordid affairs. On the contrary, it's usually a flash of activity to clear the mind or work out the latest bout of angst.

The motions of chopping, pounding, sauteeing, stirring help; but it's also the scents working up your nose and the prospect of seeing something through to the end, at which point, it's time to feed yourself something good. The fruits of your labor also serve as the consolation prize or a friendly offering to a lover, friends and guests.

This is such a recipe.

Crab Linguine with a Bite

Certain recipes are versatile in that they adapt themselves to life. Mood dictates everything. At least for me, it influences my cravings and what I choose to tinker with in the kitchen. These recipes aren't long, sordid affairs. On the contrary, it's usually a flash of activity to clear the mind or work out the latest bout of angst.

The motions of chopping, pounding, sauteeing, stirring help; but it's also the scents working up your nose and the prospect of seeing something through to the end, at which point, it's time to feed yourself something good. The fruits of your labor also serve as the consolation prize or a friendly offering to a lover, friends and guests.

This is such a recipe.

Simple, Whole Roasted Fish

I know more than a few folks who get queasy when their meal stares back at them. Whether it's with glassy (as it should be the case at the fishmonger's) or cloudy (sizzling straight out of the oven) eyes, fish especially freaks people out. They much prefer a more anonymous filet-type of relationship.

But I can only think of a handful of things more satisfying than buying, cooking and eating a whole fish, face and all. Especially now when time is as scarce as cheap gasoline and there's a prevailing pressure in the kitchen to go over the top with holiday decadence.

There's a meditative virtue to navigating between the needle-bones with a pair of chopsticks for morsels of flaky meat; the pride and showmanship of fileting a whole fish in front of your friends like a career French waiter. Oh, and the cheeks. You have to eat savor those tender, tender cheeks.

Before...

Such enjoyment is simple. Simpler than finding a Christmas goose or peeling mounds of potatoes. Sure, there's a dramatic rock salt crust, requiring the eater to excavate to an exquisite dinner. But the simplest being a matter of taking your whole fish already gutted and cleaned (thank you, Cody and C.J., my hams of fishmongers), making sure they fit into a decent roasting pan and adding a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, a scattering of woody, fresh herbs (the tender ones go in after the cooking with just enough heat to coax the aromas out onto the flesh), sea salt, and a squeeze of lemon juice. If it's a party, might as well get the fish as soused as the guests with a splash of white wine. Place this into the dry heat of a 400-degree oven and forget about it until the eyes turn opaque and cloudy and a fin can be easily pulled out from the flesh.

After.

You could get fancy and make a persillade (a sauce of chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt, and olive oil) to dip in the steam chunks of fish. But I like mine dipped into the juices still sizzling at the bottom of my favorite roasting dish.

Only a mother could love ...

Especially the cheeks.

Other ideas for a whole fish:
Fresh lime leaves and rice vinegar in place of other aromatics and lemon juice * Plain with sea salt and olive oil * A quick dipping sauce of soy, chopped ginger, chopped green onion, and Korean chile powder * Peeled and pounded stalks of lemon grass for an herb, a bit of fish sauce, soy, palm sugar, chopped chiles, and grated ginger for a fresh dipping sauce ...

So ... how do you go about handling your whole fish?

Here's To Feeding Your Inner Nerd: Dungeness Crab Noodles

Somehwere between Kalyn's fragrant curried chicken, pilaf, and asparagus, and Erin's vanilla spiked marscapone with berries, I made an epiphany that I've made made many times. I am a food nerd.

I should tell you all that as cliche as it sounds, most of my memories revolve around food. Scents, flavors, textures, full meals. Anyone who has had a prolonged conversation with me knows that I have to interject at some point with some food observation or useless bit of food trivia (Thank you, Larousse Gastronomique), if the topic isn't outright about food anyway. I totally believe that if my physics classes involved food, I would've aced every painful course in my lifetime and perhaps maybe even made it into medical school. Meh, maybe not.

But I take trips just to eat. And when I share anecdotes about those trips I know that my friends, as much as they claim to love me, roll their eyes. As if me saying "This one time at The Slanted Door, I had this incredible Dungeness crab with cellophane noodle dish..." is tantamount to Michelle Flaherty blabbing for the thousandth time "This one time at band camp..."

3 Out of 4 Things In This Photo Came Out of My Dishwasher

Plate. Fork. And...salmon?

I have an odd relationship with my dishwasher. I know it's good for my life. But, god help me, I hate filling it. The mere idea of doing dishes triggers a massive bout of procrastination that'll leave me with a mountain of pots, pans, silverware, and dishes. It isn't only until I have nothing left to cook my food in or put my food on that I actually roll up the proverbial sleeve and just do a load.

So when my friend Nick sent me a link to a recipe for Dishwasher Salmon, I was intrigued. No longer would I have to be burdened with the cooking and wretched cleaning. In one go, I could do both. What a brilliant concept. That is, in theory. Doing it is another matter.