The Hungry Engineer

No, there’s no recipe for wolf. In How to Cook a Wolf by MFK Fisher, the metaphorical wolf is knocking at the World War II-era door as wartime shortages and financial hardship swept the country. This book is Ms. Fisher’s answer to handling the rationing and lack of money and general malaise of a country at war with not just economy, but also grace.

The bacon brownies from last November were fantastic, and now that we’re curing our own bacon, I thought I would take another stab at using bacon as a dessert ingredient. I decided to go a different route this time. A very simple recipe for blondies can be found at the Smitten Kitchen site along with a laundry list of suggestions for flavorful additions to the base recipe. Two additions popped immediately to mind: bacon and bourbon.

As mentioned previously, I no longer have much interest in store-bought bacon, so naturally when the bacon supply in my freezer dwindled, it was time to buy another pork belly and start the curing process. Last time, I smoked the cured belly on our little Weber kettle grill and sliced it with a chef’s knife. This time, I got to try out more purpose-built tools for the job.

When we heard about Terra Burger and Elevation Burger opening in the area, we were excited (well, half of us were anyway). Finally maybe there would be a couple tastier, healthier, more conscientious alternatives to our regular fast food burger chains. After an utterly wretched experience at Terra Burger (leathery fries, tasteless meat – I actually threw most of it away, and I abhor wasting food), I was hopeful but apprehensive about trying Elevation Burger.

I bought Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1 last year after reading My Life in France and falling in love with Julia Child. I’ve confessed it before and I’ll do so again – before that, I paid very little attention to her. As a food blogger, I probably shouldn’t admit that, but it’s true nonetheless. Reading her incredible story prompted me to finally purchase the cookbook that by rights probably belongs on any serious home cook’s bookshelf. And then I proceeded to cook almost nothing from it. Silly me! With the Julie and Julia movie out and with family coming to visit, we decided to cook up a swank French feast from her cookbook and then go watch the movie.

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. These seven simple words are the first paragraph of In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan. By elaborating on those words, he aims to “help us reclaim our health and happiness as eaters.”

I have never liked creamed spinach. In fact, I’ve never had much use for cooked spinach at all, preferring instead to eat it fresh. I started to bridge the gap when Sean’s parents introduced me to wilted spinach. Then I had lightly sauteed spinach a few times and thought that was pretty good. But it wasn’t until I started visiting the Indian restaurants around town that I fully made my peace with cooked spinach. It was in visiting these restaurants that I discovered perhaps my favorite spinach dish: saag paneer.

In another case of (incorrectly) judging a book by its cover, I had watched as Cover 3 was built over by my beloved Alamo Drafthouse. As it developed into the very large, seemingly misplaced sports bar that I presumed it to be, I learned to simply not see it anymore as we drove past it to watch movies and drink beer. Recently, we were invited to experience Cover 3’s food. And I humbly admit, it’s some of the best food I’ve had the pleasure to eat recently.

We’ve eaten a variety of delicious Indian food all over town, but every time I’ve tried to prepare it at home, it’s been an unqualified failure. Imagine my delight at being invited to a trial-run Indian cooking class at the lovely home of Chaya Rao. That evening’s class ended with some of the best Indian food I’ve ever eaten. And now that I’ve had a few weeks now to try the recipes myself, I have to say, thanks to Chaya, I’ve come closer than ever before to producing acceptable Indian fare at home.

Last weekend, I went to the Sunset Valley Farmers Market. I both love and hate going to the farmers markets in summer time. I love them because the variety of wonderful produce available is amazing. I hate them because they’re outdoors and it’s hot. I know. I’m a whiner. At any rate, one of my favorite finds at the market this weekend were ripe, fragrant, sweet freestone peaches. And the ones that made it past the eating-out-of-hand gauntlet were turned into a very simple, delicious peach galette.