Rainbow Dinner

Monday night we had like the most perfect meal of all time. It wasn't fancy, we made it ourselves, we didn't use any recipes, we shot from the hip. The whole thing took about 15 minutes. We split a grilled peppered steak topped with sauteed mushrooms and onions. On the side we had grilled acorn squash and roasted Brussels sprouts, carrots and brocolli. There were so many colors and the flavors were true - everything really tasted like what it was. The vegetables were crisp. Right now I'm all about being healthy and making my body strong, and that's a great thing to share with someone.

Late to the Party: Kale Chips

Some of the 127,000 image results for kale chips

I hate hype. The more something is hyped, the more it annoys me, which causes me to eschew things that might actually be really good ideas just on the grounds of their popularity.

One of the super annoying things that people won't shut up about is kale in general and kale chips in particular. Kale is good for you! And kale chips are surprisingly delicious and so easy to make! Blah, blah, blah. After several months of this, it occurred to me that they were something I would probably actually really like.

And guess what? I was right! I am officially jumping on the kale chip bandwagon and here is my obligatory food blog post about it.

Kale chips basically take my favorite way of cooking kale (which I discovered from Molly Wizenberg in her Bon Appetit column) to the next, crispier, charrier level. They are just kale leaves roasted with oil and salt. Roast just about anything with oil and salt and it will taste really good, but unlike more substantial veggies, which get sweet, tender and starchy when you roast them, kale gets REALLY CRISPY. And I love crispy. Slightly charred kale sometimes takes on a deep herbal/skunky flavor, which I find intriguing even though the skunk is not really my thing. Believe the hype - you will want to eat the whole batch in one sitting. I looked at a couple different recipes online and adapted them into an ultra lazy version. They would also probably be really good with freshly grated parm. Put cheese on just about anything and it will taste really good.

Kale Chips - Recipe

1 bunch dino kale
1 T olive oil
salt, maybe pepper and spices

Cut off the ends of the kale. Cut crosswise twice in equal-ish sections. Toss with oil. Throw them on a cookie sheet in a single layer, sprinkle with salt and whatever, and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, turning once. It might take two batches, they take up a lot of room. Kale chips!

I Love Hash

I normally don't like going out for breakfast because having to wait and deal with crowds when I'm hungry sets the stage for a toddler-style meltdown, which is even less cute in a grown woman. However, there are a couple places I like because they aren't crowded, and you can go in and have someone set a delicious plate of food in front of you relatively quickly, and eat it in relative peace. I am hesitant to talk about these places on my blog because I don't want them to start being crowded and annoying, but on the other hand, I do want them to stay in business so I can keep eating there.

So, OK, one great breakfast place is J&M Cafe on SE Ash, but don't tell anybody. Among other positive attributes, there are large windows that face south and east, letting in bright, warm, happy light. This morning they had corned beef hash on special and it was probably the best thing that happened today. Better even than going to watch the Blazers cream the Spurs, it was that good! Corned beef hash is heaven on a plate. It is everything good, all at once. This one had mushrooms, potatoes, onions, some other stuff, and big juicy chunks of corned beef. Served with a delicious English muffin and runny basted eggs. MMMMM!

Bitter Tequila: the Milano Rita at Victory

In Imbibe's article on agave spirits, the bartenders whom Paul interviewed kept talking about mixing them with bitter ingredients. In my field research, I found a great, straightforward example of this at Victory in their Milano Rita, which pairs tequila with lime, grapefruit and Campari. The Campari and grapefruit blend into one beautiful bitter-citrus flavor, which offsets the tequila perfectly. The bright red drink is also served in a big goofy hurricane glass with multiple fruit garnishes, which is a nice foil to the bar's dark masculinity and makes me want to get sassy and snap my fingers in a Z formation.

Fast, Starchy, Yummy Squash

Deborah Madison has a great explanation on Culinate of why you never actually cook some of the foods you well-intentionedly buy, and royally enticing ideas for to do with big ass winter squash when you finally get around to tackling them (fried squash with butter, blue cheese and pepper? Yes, please). I love this article because I have long considered squash to be a rewarding but laborious ordeal, and tend to avoid cooking it. But as inspiring as Deborah's ideas are, I still have less patience than is required to break down a 12-pound squash. Luckily, I have figured out (with help from a certain Schweitzer) a sort of fast food version. Fast food in that it provides  instant gratification, and also in that it's salty, starchy, oily and sweet in a total late night drunk food kind of way.

Delicata squash is small and relatively tender so it's easy to cut up, and if you slice it thin it cooks up fast. It has this amazingly beautiful, deep flavor that really comes out when you roast it at high heat.

Fast Food Delicata Squash

1. Preheat the oven to 425F or so. Take a delicata squash and halve it the hot dog way. Scoop out the seeds and stringy junk with a spoon. (If you're feeling resourceful, save the seeds to toast.) Take each half and slice it into thin Cs, about 1/4" to 1/2" thick.

2. Oil a pan with any kind of high-heat oil, butter or spray oil. Throw in the squash Cs and drizzle more oil on top of them, or spray with spray oil (recipe has not been tested with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray, but it worked well with Pam). Sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss to coat evenly. Alternately, you can just throw the squash in there with a chunk of butter, which will melt in the oven and then you can toss everything to coat.

3. Stick it in the oven. I'm not sure how long it takes. My general guideline for roasting is to put it in there and forget about it, and then when it starts to smell yummy and you remember there's something in the oven, go give it a toss and leave it in for another few minutes until amply brown. Maybe 10 or 20 minutes total for delicata squash.

4. When it's almost there, you can turn the heat up to broil to get the tops nice and caramelized. This only takes a couple minutes so keep an eye on it. When it looks awesome, remove from the oven and eat immediately. Add a fried egg or two and you have a super bachelor-style but awesome, cheap, healthy dinner.

Vermouth in the O

The Oregonian has a story on local vermouth featuring Neil Kopplin of Imbue and Patrick Taylor of Cana's Feast. It's great to see vermouth - a magical but overlooked category - getting attention.

Two local producers help boost vermouth's revival | OregonLive.com

Presentation Is Everything

OK, maybe not everything, but it's the little details like this that slay me every time. Soup is somehow a million times better when it has parsley flecks on it, even if you can barely taste them. Carrot cake is a whole different thing when the carrots have doggone googly eyes. GOOGLY EYES! How can you not love that? In the realm of good-looking food, I carry the biggest torch for beautiful dessert displays. Rows of colorful, sparkly, good-smelling, tooth-decaying delights just give me a stupid grin - even without eating them. Even just looking at creamy, pastel pictures of them.

Sometimes when I used to work downtown I would go into Whole Foods and gaze at the pastry case on my lunch break. It totally cheered me up no matter what. Tiny, perfect tarts with just enough room for three blueberries on top of each one, cupcakes topped with frosting snowmen and crystal sugar snow, cakes piped with flowers and vines, glossy lemon tarts, all in neat rows. Once a few years ago I was in the mall with my boyfriend, walking past the rainbow columns of jelly beans at the candy kiosk, and he squeezed my arm and murmured wistfully, "You look at that candy the way you look at me."

One of my other favorites is the display at Pambiche, tropical and decadent and whimsical - that is where these happy carrots live, among chocolate cigars, sugar parrots, pineapple upside-down cakes, candy dominos and huge halves of papaya, creamy orange with all their weird black shiny seeds. I imagine the dessert case coming to life at night after everybody leaves. The carrots jump off the cake and dance with the dominos, the cigars roll around and the parrots fly around the room. You would never know from looking at them perfectly still in there during the dinner rush, but if you look closely there are tell-tale crumbs on the stereo.

Photo courtesy of Autumn Peterson