Finishing up my lunch & am too stunned (from a most fabulous and unexpected early birthday present that was just delivered to my new office) to plow back into my work just yet.  So, here:  chef Nancy Oakes’ recipe for the almond red-pepper sauce that San Francisco’s Boulevard restaurant serves with its salumi, as printed in the November 2007 ish of Bon Appetit.

• 1 garlic clove, peeled
• 1/4 cup salted roasted almonds
• 1/2 cup drained roasted red peppers from jar
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 6 fresh basil leaves
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

With machine running, drop garlic into mini processor; process until finely chopped.  Add nuts and process until finely chopped.  Add all remaining ingredients and process until mixture is smooth.  Transfer to small bowl.  Season with salt and pepper.  Cover and chill at least 30 minutes and up to 1 day.

I broke in the Cuisinart that Annie sent me (holla!) and purchased all the fresh ingredients at Essex Market.  I must say that this sauce is fabulous and I may have to triple the recipe in order to have enough of it on hand for me to bathe fresh veggies and chunks of bread in.

And, although my first year of Bon Appetit was free thanks to a purchase I’d made at Sur La Table, I have to say I love the tone of the magazine (friendly and excited).  Thanks to my first post-college-gig, I read a ton of magazines for free, but this one I might even pay for.

Back to being delighted by my newest desk accoutrement.  I’ve held off on burying my nose into one.  Dang open floor plan.

Just noticed that I originally typed almong as my title, because these flowers have my brain all mongo. 

The first time I used this recipe, I learned why you shouldn’t mix baked goods too well before cooking. When I was a kid, I used to make home-made paste by mixing flour + water. Uhm, mixing baked goods too well = creating paste = creating rock-hard muffins. Lesson learned!

Ingredients

• 1 c all-purpose flour
• 1/2 c whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
• 1 c Grape-nuts
• 1 c milk
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 1/2 c applesauce
• 1/2 firmly packed brown sugar
• 2 T melted butter or oil
• 1/2 c fresh cranberries, chopped OR raisins (neither fresh nor chopped)

Directions

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Mix all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg in a large bowl.

Mix cereal and milk in another bowl; let stand 4 minutes. Stir in egg, applesauce, sugar and butter.

Don’t soften your brown sugar in the microwave with a plastic measuring cup. (pic 1, pic 2)

Add to the flour mixture; stir until just moistened.

Don’t stir until you have paste!

Stir in cranberries.

Or, raisins.

Spoon batter into muffin pan sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, filling each cup about 2/3 full. (pic 1; pic 2)

I used flour when I was out of Pam. (pic)

Bake for 20 minutes.

I like toasting mine in the a.m., patting with butter, and enjoying with a cuppa joe. The muffins are yummy and easy, and I learned some good things in the process of trying this recipe out. (pic of finished cranberry muffalumps)

Originally submitted by The Honorable Bob Wise from the state of West Virginia to the marketing folks @ A&W.

Two months ago, milady at Ye Olde Stovey hooked me up with an entire cake upon which to feast with my brother and his lady. I took a pic of her astoundingly tasty creation and finally uploaded it tonight.

Mmm, I can still taste the frosting and the crunch of the almonds and the tarty goodness of the raspberries.

That damned blog of hers made me trot out to fetch some three milk da-ho-nuts at Doughnut Plant, which I was dismayed to discover is a short two blocks from my future crib.

Living in the City better increase my walking; otherwise it’s next stop:  chubby thigh-ville.

(Word to the wise:  pass on the hoisin sauce & Bacos atop hot white rice.  You may think you’re doing good by cleaning out the condiments in your fridge, but seriously, that’s got bad idea sprinkled all over it.)

I have been on the express train to chubsville since Saturday.  Maybe because Sandeman is in town?  Maybe because I am stressed out?  Is there something going on with the planets???

Anyone else on autopilot when it comes to stuffing food into their mouths?

My weight has increased 3% in four days.  At this rate, I totally will have the right to be friends with the NYC Babz.

The night I stayed at The Oceania, I ate at Restaurant Ugarit in the 15th. I’d wanted to eat at Restaurant l’Oasis around the corner, but they were booked and Ugarit accepted AmEx. I had their fixed price tastiness for 18 euros / $25.

A snippet from the journal while I sat there:

And what of this young boy at the next table, reading his colorful book about Sparta and Greeks!  He must be 7 or 8, about the same age of my little brother when he had a crush on Jeanine the babysitter.  I wonder if he looks at me — else why the bashful smile into his hands, and then the peek back spilling into a grin?  What do these experiences shape — a future preference for dark-eyed girls?  I read articles about early experiences informing entire careers — a memory of a movie encouraging someone to be a linguist — and what of these indelible footprints that we leave on tomorrow?  What role am I playing in the tomorrow of the young ones I come in contact with?

See also:  we are all cells in the brain of God, the universe is super-duper connected, something about (evil) butterflies flapping their wings in Beijing, yaddi yadz 

I’ve got a lot on my mind, and there simply aren’t enough timer ticks to share it all coherently.

I was listening to Krista Tippett’s interview with Barbara Kingsolver (author of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) this morning on my iPod, and I got to thinking how I’ve 180′d on my food procurement habits since Paris.

Now, Kingsolver’s book apparently recounts her and her family’s journey spending a year eating only locally. If they couldn’t grow it or get it from a local farmer, they weren’t going to eat it.

Looking into the history, turns out this is how most humans have eaten for most of time. Lettuce in the Midwest at a winter meal in 1975 was a luxury (see also: casseroles). You couldn’t grow it then, and these vast distribution systems n’existe pas. Local, organic, farmers’ market foods are now considered the luxury of the elite; back in the day it was the norm.

Never before has man been so alienated from his foodstuffs. Food is now a product, not a process.

This makes me think of a lot of things:

• I used to bike to the locally owned grocery, Wilcox’s, in order to buy a gallon of milk
• Wilcox’s went out of business in, I believe, the mid-90s
• Everybody unloaded their excess cucumbers, blackberries, green beans, you name it, onto everyone else in town. Growing up we had a huge plate of salad first, and then the rest of the meal.
• Everyone now drives twenty or so miles to South Bend to buy from a brightly-lit, 24-hour supermarket

When I was in Paris I did a lot of nibbling. I’d pick up some food whenever I was hungry and consume it right then. This is what happens when you don’t have, say, a fridge on hand.

But I got to thinking. Why not do the same thing once I get back to the States? Why I gotta load up the car with shit from Fairway — especially since something usually goes bad before I can get to it? Why not just pick up stuff from Whole Foods on my way home from the office each day?

So I’ve been doing that, in baby steps. Don’t remember when I last did a Fairway run (four months ago?). Have been hitting up the FortGreenemarket on the regular for scallops and turkey sausage and freshly cut flowers, oh my. And I’ve been dropping into Whole Foods, grabbing some food that I can carry with my own two hands (no basket or cart for me, thanks) and heading home to dangerously flirt with fruits-over-meats.

And it’s oh so nourishing, to use these two hands to love myself via food. To not feel entirely disconnected from the process. To de-product-ify foods.

My Aunt Suki’s brother is a farmer in Northern California that got a lot of shit from his family for not doing the expected Korean thing of doctor - engineer - whatever. “But, this!” he would exclaim, plucking a perfect apple from his orchard — “this is a gift from God!”

Look, I’m not about to wax religious , but there is something nice about remembering the integrated-ness of the universe, about not rendering all these other forms of life that surround us into dumb symbols and widgets and UPC codes.

So, the marketing angle in all of this?

How about putting the face of a farmer that grew whatever foodstuff sits under the automated sprayers and blinding lights in the supermarket? How about giving the shoppers a chance to trick themselves into feeling more connected to another human?

We’ve done such great work to atomize, Taylorize, routinize. And I know I’m on a I-wanna-see-your-face kick, but damn. I may be human, but I’m also animal. And I want to feel connected, no matter how tangentially, to the rest of you anonymous animals out there.

Come to think of it, perhaps that’s why I blog.

I don’t know why, but my caramelized catfish recipe post isn’t showing up.  So this is my attempt to make it show up.

I tried this from a recipe in BUST magazine and was surprised at how easy it was. In my next round, I’ll take it easy on fish sauce and amp up the brown sugar.

I served this over white rice and made an easy side dish of nuked asparagus & seedless red grapes (yes, heat the grapes with the asparagus).

From BUST:

… cut 1 bunch of green onions into 2″ long matchstick and place in a shallow bowl with 1 medium-size catfish cut into 1″ fillets.  Add 5 tablespoons of fish sauce (any Vietnamese or Thai fish sauce will do), and a dash of black pepper, and marinate for 1 hour or more in the refrigerator.  When ready to begin cooking, heat a frying pan for a minute, then add 2 tablespoons vegetable oil and 2 cloves of garlic, chopped.  When the garlic lightly browns, add 3 tablespoons brown sugar and stir gently with a chopstick as the sugar caramelizes.  Then pour the catfish, onions, and fish sauce into the pan.  Let cook for 10 minutes on one side until bottom begins to brown.  Add more fish sauce or brown sugar as needed.  Turn fish over and continue cooking for another 8 - 10 minutes.  Serve with rice.

– Maggie Tam Clark

 Yum.  R.  Lee.

My Icelandic friend Siggi was baffled when I asked him about hot dogs sprinkled with bacon.

“What? We don’t have that,” he replied, in his oddly charming Icelandic clip.

“What do you mean? Of course do you. It’s called pillss … something. I bought a few on the main shopping drag.” I couldn’t remember the name of the main shopping drag (which is slightly reminiscent of Muncie’s ‘Village’) and I didn’t want to admit that I’d have eaten one morning noon and night if I’d been in 101 a full morning, noon, and night.

“Those are roasted onions!”

Whatever. Icelandic hot dogs are tasty, and now I’ve started putting bacon bits on my hot dogs. Git yours at Alafoss ehf, Laugavegi 1, 101 Reykjavik for ~ $3.50.

I was also tipped off by culinary goddess Jenn to hit Siggi Hall, a tasteful and austere restaurant attached to a hotel that I nearly missed (so tasteful and austere it was). Its exterior seemed apropos for the nice part of a New Hampshire port town. (Wait, does New Hampshire have a port? Whatever, it reminded me of Keane.)

I snarfed the chef’s ridiculously nice tasting menu as served by an attractive older dude with salt and pepper hair and crinkly eyes under nice wire rims. Think Sylvester Stallone with a graduate degree.

(“I love a woman in eyewear.” - Random Aruban to Rachel)

The coup de gras coup d’etat fin de siecle was some lovely lemon pamplemousse in an eggshell. I don’t know about you, but chopping up an eggshell and plopping in some fluffy lemony goodness is a fait accompli an accomplished feat.

Odinsveum, Porsgotu 1, 101 Reyk: Gourmet meal 6,500 kr / $104; Cafe Latte 300 kr / $5

After blissing out at the Blue Lagoon — and you will be blissed out, think Pez injected into your temples — be sure to suck down some Icelandic yogurt.

& when you return to the States, you can always find my friend Siggi’s skyr in a pinch!

Or, another reason that Foodums.com / RecipeFilter.com is a good idea!