in my 2013 year of refining we are cleaning out the ‘storage’ room also known as the third bedroom. In the process I have released a few years worth of hoarded UK and Australian food magazines. I have one small pile to go and I am now keeping it on a shelf in the kitchen until such time as I can bear to let them go. As I flipped through I found a fresh salad recipe that looked perfect for mid-winter. It is so easy you wouldn’t need a recipe, but I’ll include one below. I can’t find a link online and it was a pull out card in the magazine courtesy of my favorite euro-chef Jamie Oliver. Carpaccio of apples with bursts of juicy pomegranate seeds. I will say I tried out the fantastic whacking on the pomegranate with a spoon method and I got so many seeds easily-great life hack. I crunched through far more than made it on to the plate.
Creamy pine nuts are a new favorite. It was a great weeknight salad – easy and good for you. Happy days!
heyyy muffaletta
this fat Tuesday we tried two new incarnations of the muffaletta that weren’t purely sandwiches. A muffaletta is a strictly New Orleans born sandwich of cured meats, cheese and olive salad that can rightly be called big mouth. The friday night before fat Tuesday we dropped in to one of our favorite restaurants, Tibby’s for a hit of dinner. We don’t usually have apps as we really want a beignet after dinner and apps and dessert are just too much. Our server talked us into trying one though – a muffaletta spring roll. Bizarre right? To me, a spring roll is rice paper and may or may not be fried. This came to the table as two large scale wonton wrapped bombs! The standard meats – capicolla, mortadella and ham, provolone cheese and a vinegar hit olive salad wrapped in a pasta wrapper and deep fried. I didn’t actually expect it to be any good at all. They served it with a kind of mayo based creole mustard dipping sauce. They turned out to be tasty in a bar food kind of way. I might order them again but likely not since I’d rather have a beignet and this put me over the top. 
A few days later I shot a skype to Z with a slideshow of Muffaletta inspired foods that included this burger. He thought it sounded pretty good so we added it to the weeks dinner menu. It’s our standard turkey burger but topped with a slightly mod-ed pile of muffaletta toppings – I pan fried the salami to crisp it up, added provolone and a homemade olive salad that include gardiniera I made over the summer, a heaping spoon of capers and red pepper flakes. We didn’t follow the recipe exactly but it tasted perfect.
denver: biker jim’s
while on a mid-winter vacation to see my sister & her family in Denver we ate at an encased meat emporium called Biker Jim‘s. The decor is industrial and the doors were garage doors and although it was mid-January they were rolled up to let in a 65 degree day breeze. Kind of an alternative city crowd in that Denver way. Mid-week and late for lunch it wasn’t too busy so we took our time and perused the menu for a while because it was covered with exotic and far-fetched toppings such as I have not seen on dog types I have not eaten. You start with your protein
, be it elk (Z) or bacon wrapped beef (me) or other options like linguisa, buffalo, duck or vegan and top it as you wish. Z went with harissa roasted cactus, malaysian jam, scallions and onions two ways… for me…wasabi aioli, caramelized apple and shaved irish cheddar. Complicated flavors altogether but very balanced. The apple on mine was a kind of baked dry appley, not gooey sweet but richly so. The cheddar a good counterpoint of salty complexity. It was enjoyable in an ‘I’m eating a hot dog kinda way.’ We shared a side of hand cut potato chips – at the same time thick and very light. At some point in our meal I noticed Xena, Warrior Princess, staring down at us from the balcony-unnerving. Fun thing they had was Boylans instead of Coke or Pepsi in their fountain so I had root beer with my dog which was a perfect complement to the apple. It was a nice wrap up to our Denver trip and memories. Have I said I love hand-held food? I so do.
steamed buns!
yearly we go up to Shands in Gainesville for Z’s checkup on his liver. This isn’t usually all that dramatic. Going to Shands when it isn’t planned is dramatic in that it would then be an emergency. We had our appointment in late January just a week or two shy of his 4th transplantiversary. Nothing new to report there. What I do have to report is that there is now a restaurant in Gainesville that has steamed buns and oh. my. word. they are divine. It is called Yume Ume and they have great things I like-matte silver-dry rough wood-braised meat and steamed buns. I didn’t know I liked them but now I do. Texturally weird with their smooth exterior and chewy bite stuffed with pickled vegetables, braised meat, panko, and all things umami. You should go there and eat them. Z had some kind of rice and meat bowl with some random vegetables that came with fun chips with seaweed that I helped him eat. A friend from Denver was in town so she tagged along and incidentally bought lunch! Thanks! So, divine food, friend, lunch and a good report from the docs. Who could ask for more I say? But one more thing. Trader Joe’s is open on Archer now. I mean, really. How did I get so lucky?
six hours later . . . dinner
that’s right. Six hours later we had dinner. a rack of pork ribs cooked until they are falling off the bone into tomato sauce so sultry and thick it feels like a summer night. Did I just write that? Seriously. Meatballs immersed in that same sauce that has been pulled into the pores of the noodles and drizzled with a splash of olive oil. Heaven for just a moment. Forget it that at hour four I was like, ‘Grrrr. I’m throwing this out – it’s so annoying!’ It was listed as one of the most viewed pages on cookingchanneltv.com in 2012. A recipe by Michael Symon-modern American chef. Most viewed? Probably rightly so. Melting hunks of pork ribs, meatballs, parmesan, ricotta. Anyhow, I didn’t change this recipe, or tweak it or mess around at all. If you have an afternoon to spend-I say do it. You won’t be disappointed.
My Urban Pantry 