Come On in My Kitchen

I have been a cooking fool. During the past 30 hours, I have made:

-Spanish rice (so-so; took forever to cook, even for brown rice)
-Chicken with chili sauce (started in a skillet, ended in a slow cooker; turned out pretty good but my slow cooker gets too hard and always ends up charring a bit of the sauce)
–Pad Thai-Style Rice Salad (Mark Bittman is my kitchen buddy, but I wasn’t too thrilled with his Japanese-Style Rice Salad or the Citrus Rice Salad with Parmesan.  This came out excellent, though I’ll probably add some sriracha for spice)
-Asparagus Salad (see below)
-Iced tea (never made this before [!], but I used some loose English Breakfast tea – quite tasty)
-Mint simple syrup (to go with the tea – just what it needed)
-Cherry clafoutis (used this recipe, but subbed cherries for the plums. I’ve been craving this for a while and am not disappointed)

So why the sudden surge of kitchen activity? Mainly because I’m about to move back to Baton Rouge (temporarily, I hope) and am trying to get rid of as much food as possible, especially out of my freezer.  I haven’t bought meat all summer, as I’ve been cooking mostly vegetarian lately. But now that I’m down to the wire, it’s time to cook up all the frozen chicken.

So while my cooking spree is partially based in practicality, part of it is also because I know this is my last chance to cook in my own kitchen.  Sure, I’ll probably cook a couple of times a week while at my mom’s, but kitchens are personal spaces and I’ll miss having my own.  Because I won’t just be cooking for me, I’ll also be less likely to take chances and be creative – like with the asparagus salad I made tonight that turned out AWESOME.  I mean, I like asparagus, but this was more delicious than I could ever dream asparagus could be.  And to think, I just needed a way to use up 1/2 bunch of asparagus and some feta from the 101 Cookbooks Orzo Super Salad that I made last week:

Asparagus Salad
1/2 bunch asparagus, chopped into 1/2-inch bits and blanched
1/2 cup(ish?) chopped red onion
1/4 cup crumbled feta
Juice of one lemon
~1 Tablespoon chopped basil
Kosher salt to taste

Mix it all together. So simple, so tasty.  I was hoping to get 4 servings out of this as a side for the rice salad, but I could honestly eat this whole recipe as a main.  Pretty sure I’ll make plenty more next week – I still have 1/2 cup of feta to go through.

Even more than my kitchen, though, I’ll be missing all the Austin fun.  Thursday night I went to my last Austin show – Spoon, appropriately enough.  Friday I went to brunch at the Alamo Lamar (Public Enemies) and Sunday to a Rolling Road Show (Breaking Away).  Being unemployed, I had been keeping track of every penny I spent this summer through an elaborate system of book-keeping.  Now, with less than two weeks left in Austin, it’s time to spend while I still can – even if my broken-down car means that I’ll have to take the bus to Hey Cupcake.

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The Bacon Man Lives in a Bacon House!

Bacon.  Truckers love it. Hipsters love it. And if Top Chef is anything to go by, it’s foodies’ second-favorite pork product, after pork belly (which is more or less bacon, or at least adjacent to it).  Although bacon has long been part of this complete breakfast, its popularity has recently lept out of the frying pan and into the even larger frying pan.  From Baconnaise and chocolate-covered bacon to bacon bandages and bacon-scented air fresheners, there’s few areas of American culture where this humble yet mighty meatstuff has yet to venture.  Which explains why I had the privilege of laying down $50 to attend the packed “More Bacon, All the Time” cooking class at the North Lamar Central Market on Saturday.  “More Bacon” because the class had been so popular when it was first taught that students clamored for another round.  “All the Time” because from salad to entree to dessert, every course was distinctively porcine in character.  Only the two glasses of red wine I imbibed were bacon-free, and even then I’m a little suspicious.  The menu, taught by Central Market chef Cindy Haenel, included the following recipes:

Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing
Bacon-Wrapped Fillet Mignon and Scallop Skewers
Chicken Cordon Bleu with Proscuitto
Macaroni and Cheese with Pancetta Crisps
Bacon Baklava

Now for my odd confession: despite my general willingness to mange most tout*, I have an unexplained aversion to meat-on-meat action.  This includes chili cheeseburgers, club sandwiches and bacon-wrapped anything.  It just seems unnatural and overly decadent. While I won’t go out of my way to avoid mixed-meat concoctions, I virtually never order or make them myself.  (However, food like meatballs or gyros are OK; these are cases where two meats unite to create a newer, better meat product. Jambalaya and gumbo are also acceptable, perhaps because the rice/broth act as a neutral matrix that keeps the meats from coming into intimate contact.) Yet, despite my eccentricity, I found myself enjoying (indeed, salivating over) everything on the menu.  The rich, chewy scallop in particular benefited from the bacon’s potent jolt of flavor.  Even the infamous bacon baklava had just enough bacon to make it smoky without tasting like some unfortunate breakfast-dessert collision.  Although by the time the final course came about, I had probably eaten more (pork) bacon in the previous two hours than I had in the year prior.  For, you see, I am one of the sorry souls who actually buys those spongy pinkish strips known as turkey bacon.  Not as a question of taste, of course, but of health.  But given that I’ve had the same package of “bacon” in the freezer for the past three months, perhaps I should stick to the genuine article.  Because if there’s one thing “More Bacon, All the Time” taught me, it’s that there’s no food that can’t be improved with a little streaky, greasy, artery-hardening slice of America.

*If I can’t be pretentious when talking about gourmet food, then when can I?

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