spleen

weird (culinary) science

For those of you who might be (for some bizarre reason) interested in my culinary progress, I'm sorry to report that I have yet to successfully gauge how much bleu cheese is good and how much is way too much. My ex-girlfriend would never touch bleu cheese because it gave her migraines. The meal I just had would have made her head explode.

So this is basically what I'm working on (bear with me if you're not fond of French food, or if you're a vegetarian): grilled chicken breast on a bed of apples braised in wine, covered in a complex and savory gorgonzola-tarragon sauce. I may or may not throw in caramelized onions — haven't decided. It's a one-pan dish; the chicken is dredged through flour and cooked, wine is used to deglaze the pan, the apples are cooked in the wine, and the remaining deglaze is incorporated into the cream, tarragon and gorgonzola. As a result, the sauce has undertones of fruit and wine, and is still creamy and savory. This would be far more excellent if I could stop poisoning myself with cheese.

This dish, when completed, might become the new Chicken Preston. The old Chicken Preston was essentially chicken braised in vermouth, garlic and fresh rosemary (come to think of it, pine nuts would be ideal for that dish). I want to have something wackier and more surprising as my signature dish.

Um, when am I going to write the paper that was due a month ago?

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burp

Dinner tonight: linguini with garlic and oil albruzzese (anchovies and pine nuts — amazingly good) and chicken with gorgonzola and carmelized onions. I am intolerably full, and I have left-overs.

Anchovies are a relatively dull fish in life, but in the can they're amazing. They're such small and innocuous-looking little fillets, but overshoot by an nth of a fillet, and your dish will be unbearably salty. At the just the right amount, though, it's eye-spinningly delicious.

One of my favorite dishes is pasta puttanesca. It's a simple and quick thing, mostly tomatoes, with capers and anchovies. It's very summery and marine-like, with just a hint of savory fish. The funny thing is this — the word 'puttanesca' means prostitute. As the story goes, this is the dish prostitutes used to make between customers. That's why it's so quick and easy. It's hard to imagine that anyone would want to prepare an elaborate dinner right before having sex for money.

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small moments

Now and then you hear on the radio the Flower Duet from Delibes' Lakme, and you must pause in your work and turn the volume up, way up, and stand at the window and watch your fellow strangers wander by in their distant and superlative lives.

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