6/29/15

Hamburgers and potato salad. I used up the onion relish on my burger and it was great. A very versatile condiment. The potato salad had asparagus, spinach, zucchini, kale and scallions; it will double as my lunch the rest of the week (which is good because no one else is enthused by it. The boys would prefer tater tots and who can blame them?).

6/28/15

Dinner with Jennie and David. I made an ersatz strawberry shortcake from the Times, which used a brown butter cake in lieu of the biscuits. Delicious, but I don't think I would bother with cooking the strawberries again.

6/27/15

Dinner with my parents. Gumbo again (since everyone felt shortchanged last time). This version had andouille, scallops, shrimp and swordfish. Fantastic, and I shook my mom down for the recipe. We'll see how mine turns out...
We brought this strawberry version of Martha Stewart's rustic cherry tart:
We picked strawberries in the afternoon and it seemed like a good idea to use them right away.

6/26/15

An impromptu overnight trip to Brattleboro to hang out with Jeff and Sue. After a lot of fruitless wandering around town we ended up at a hipster burger place called Brattle Burger (ironic, considering we were having dinner with vegetarians...). It was good; the salted caramel milkshake and the onion rings were my favorite parts.

6/25/15

Pasta with fresh ricotta and zucchini (from NYT). I played around a bit with the recipe (added some white wine, subbed in rosemary for basil) and it was very good. Even Carter really liked it, and he is normally not a fan of zucchini. I made my own ricotta and I think that adds to the dish, but who knows?

6/24/15

Jason made pizza; yay!

There was also a pie with eggplant, jalapenos, salami and provolone that was excellent. I am loving his new, thicker crust.

6/23/15

First night of SULA, so dinner on the fly. Deli sandwiches and chips. For me the best part was the sweet red onion relish I made to go on them. Must remember that recipe:

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 4 small red onions, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup plain rice vinegar or champagne vinegar ( I used a mixture of plain red and white)
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt

6/22/15

Carter helped me remember to take a picture of dinner, but it didn't happen until we were halfway through. He staged his plate for me:

Kielbasa and coconut rice with peas (NYT). Despite coconut oil, milk, and flakes, the rice wasn't as coconut-y as I hoped. It was still good, although I undersalted it. I still don't love kielbasa.

6/21/15

Late dinner, as it unexpectedly turned into a beautiful pool afternoon. Made a pinto/black bean salad with cumin-lime vinaigrette, and fish cakes adapted slightly from the NYT. I subbed in sour cream for mayonnaise,  omitted the potatoes altogether, and forgot that the mixture was supposed to chill for 3 hours. So, the mixture chilled for about 20 minutes and they were still great. I used tilapia from Big y and served it with a spicy sour cream-lime sauce. I liked these just as much I remembered.

6/20/15

Dinner with Jennie and David. Bread, rhubarb upside-down cake, ice cream, rhubarb syrup. I did not care for the cake, actually, even though it looked nice:
We used the rhubarb syrup to make delicious gin cocktails. A worthy use for rhubarb. As for desserts, I'll stick to the cobbler from PW. The ice cream (plain vanilla) was a nice addition.

6/19/15

Family Relaxation Night! Chickpeas with a korma sauce (from my recipe book. I started with dried chickpeas which was fine but I would pre-cook them next time), cauliflower with cumin seed and jalapenos, homemade naan (from Saveur). Oh, and some tamarind chutney that really complimented the chickpeas.
For dessert we had madeines, which are truly best right out of the oven. So that is how we did it.

6/18/15

Fan favorite eggplant parm tonight, plus a salad. I was worried because I ran out of panko and had to sub in some homemade breadcrumbs I had in the fridge, but they worked just fine. No complaints from anyone so I call that a win.

6/17/15

Dinner at my parents: red beans and rice, pulled pork, biscuits AND cornbread, corn and watermelon. So good! Lucky Carter got leftover beans and rice for lunch. I made a citrus custard for dessert that was
a. super easy (you make the custard mix a couple of days before to let the flavors intensify)
b. really creamy and delicious.
So,  great dinner overall.

6/16/15

Vegetarian Mapo Tofu from the NYT. True to form, Jason loved it Carter was neutral. I dialed back some of the heat, and omitted fermented black beans (because I didn't have any). I would make this again, perhaps as a non-vegetarian dish with the traditional ground pork. And thick noodles instead of rice.

6/15/15

Dinner with Jason's parents (hamburgers, potato salad). we brought (yet another) strawberry pie:

Artfully decorated by Jason

Everyone seemed to like it. The trick to the crust is adding more butter than seems advisable, sadly.

6/14/15

Dinner at Jen and John's. Pizza again, but this time I made S'More Pie (NYT) which was great. I thought it could have used a bit more marshmallow topping and may double it next time. We also had rhubarb margaritas with some rhubarb syrup I made. Hello summer!

6/13/15

Lunch at my parent's with Maggie (& sons) and Kevin and Sarena to remember Dana. Red beans and rice, pulled pork, grilled chicken, cornbread. We brought the crazy sampita, since I had been wanting Corrina to try it. Still weird and delicious,
Dinner was nachos and leftover cake. Corrina and I also tried "Not Your Father's Root Beer", which is a beer that tastes exactly like....root beer. The verdict is that one is pleasant but two is too sweet, maybe?

Then we moved around the furniture and watched TV, so I call that a good day.

6/12/15

Dinner at Jennie and David's. Kalyani and her friend rolled sushi rolls for everyone

They made more, luckily

We brought bread, angel food cake and fudge sauce. Still have a lot of egg whites, though.

6/11/15

Caesar-ish salad with hearts of palm and roasted red peppers. Jason made a loaf of bread, and I grilled some chicken to round it out. Note: I brined rather than marinated the chicken and it made a big difference. Much juicier.

6/10/15

Dinner at my mom's (yay for mothers who feed you when you haven't had time to grocery shop). Chciken and dumplings, carrots and watermelon. Delicious!

6/9/15

Breakfast at Eataly---cream filled cornetti and cappucinos---just like in Italy. Then over the river for our riverboat architecture tour. My favorite tour of the trip---super informative and amazing views of the city.
I wanted something fun to do before we headed out to the airport, so we had a final fancy lunch at a steakhouse near the hotel (David Burke).
Pickle board to start (kind of odd: kim chee, shiitake mushrooms, radishes and very spicy peppers), steak frites for Jessica, petite filet and house made potato chips for me. I regret having dessert (donut holes to be filled with pastry cream) as it was good but nothing special and I was really full. Also, we wished we had tried the caesar salad, which they make tableside. Next time!

No dinner, as I was on the plane. Then home.

Bye Chicago!

6/8/15

Bus tour of Chicago neighborhoods  (interesting to look at, but a poor PA system and less than informative docent were not great), followed by lunch (cheese and charcuterie) from Le Pain Quotidien.
Dinner was the Girl and the Goat--a real highlight. We were seated at a countertop spot that directly faced the kitchen:

Peter the cook and cocktails

We had: 

roasted cauliflower with pine nuts, mint and pickled peppers

green garlic pierogies with rhubarb chimichurri (so good!) and ramp sauce

chickpea fritters with garam masala, tamarind and green mango

pan roasted halibut with almonds and blueberry nuac cham

brioche-type bread with miso butter and some kind of blueberry compote

zabuton tartar with popiah (kind of like chips), ramp oil and yellow lime

Yikes! Very filling.

Dessert was butterscotch-miso budino for Jessica, sticky toffee pudding with montamore(a kind of cheese) gelato and more blueberry for me.

A great meal, and very different than Alinea. Loud and casual but excellent food.

6/7/15

Jessica, Celeste and I had breakfast nearby at a place called Yolk which was supposed to be good but didn't impress me. The menu was certainly large, though (scrambled eggs and a cinnamon roll, for the record).
We did some shopping and walking, and grabbed burgers and shakes at a nearby chain called Epic Burger. The burgers were good but the surroundings were meh at best.
Dinner was the big event: Alinea. There is a lot to say about it and I don't think I can remember all 16 (!) courses. Even arriving is dramatic: no sign, someone is waiting outside to let you in; you walk into a dark deserted corridor where at the end a sliding door opens and lets you into the restaurant proper, where more people are there to lead you to your table. The rooms are plain and slightly dark (but not gloomy) and everyone is super-friendly and attentive. We had glasses of champagne to start, and then the dishes started rolling out.  I don't think I can describe them all, and I was loath to take pictures, but some highlights were a little composed plate with a well in the center with a clam soup, and little tasty things around the edges; a small charcoal fire served with hamachi and shishito peppers, that later turned out to be cooking parsnips and pork belly; fried monkfish jawbone served like fish and chips, rabbit 3 ways (I was scared of this course but ended up liking it). There was a skate wing with brown butter that you ate with your fingers, a crazy balloon made of apple that was helium filled (you popped it with your mouth and ate it, string and all), a tiny

These aren't even worth it, but I had to try!

potato and parmesan course that you ate in one shot like an oyster, and more. The culmination was Grant Achatz himself coming out to your table (after they put down a special mat), and creating this abstract art of dessert, with smears of mango, allspice, rum, meringue, little candies (flavored with kaffir lime, caramelized banana, and watermelon) and little chocolate wafers. It was beautiful and fun, not to mention surprising to see the chef himself right at your table!
The only quibbles were that seeing other tables nearby getting their course ruined the surprise a tiny bit, and it was over before we knew it. The service was amazing; when I looked cold I was offered a pashmina! The walked us right out to the waiting cab and everyone we saw thanked us and wished us a great evening. It is  a surprisingly fun, unstuffy experience. And the food is certainly a bit outlandish, but also interesting and flavorful. I would definitely come back
I wasn't ready to end the evening, so we went to the Terrace at the Trump (on the 26th floor). Amazing views of Chicago, expensive, so-so drinks, drunk businessmen. Also, super windy! But the views made it worthwhile. We didn't stay long, but I am glad we went.

6/6/15

Worst breakfast today, as we were in a hurry (bagels from Einstein's. ugh). Then we had to have a second, slightly better breakfast in Hyde Part after touring the Robie House. Lunch followed a similar pattern---a small snack (hummus)  at a brewery that Celeste wanted to try, then a more substantial lunch at a place called "Hello Tacos". I had a pulled pork tamale and a chicken mole taco and both were excellent.

Dinner was Neapolitan pizza from a place called Coalfire. Really good margherita and one with spicy salami and honey. Plus some tasty but odd cupcakes. Then we walked around Eataly for a while, admiring the pricy dry goods and wine.

The honey made this very messy

6/5/15

 Frank Lloyd Wright house tour in the morning, lunch at a food court (banh mi and donuts!). It was hard to decide what to have because there were many, many delicious smelling and looking stalls. Interestingly, there was a food author that I really like (Simon Majumdar) just finishing up a thing at the market, so I briefly spoke to him and he was really nice.

Dinner was the 5 course cocktail tasting at the Aviary. The drinks were too complicated to remember, but the snacks included salt & vinegar crispy pork rinds,  shishito peppers w/ puffed rice and parmesan, "fish and chips" (the tastiest by a landslide),  mushroom fries w/ truffle mayo, and a little strawberry dessert with thin, thin brown sugar wafers and milk ice cream. It was really fun and the drinks were amazing and inventive.

Sadly, though, we were still a bit hungry so we popped back to Little Goat Diner and had some nachos (masa chips, pulled pork, pickled onions) and macaroni and cheese.

It was really too dark for pictures in there

6/4/15

Pizza tour for dinner: it was a very small group (only 3 of us, plus the tour guide, Kevin); luckily the other woman was very nice. We went to 4 places; the first offered tavern style pizza (the one with gardiniera was really good). The second was a Neapolitan and was my favorite, and the final 2 featured deep dish/pan pizza. Turns out I don't love that kind. As a bonus, we were chauffeured around in a little van and got to see some beautiful views.
For lunch we tried to be sensible and just had salad from Whole Foods.

Beautiful skyline view from the pizza van!

6/3/15

Dinner at Topolobambo. It was not as good as we hoped, which was disappointing. The highlight was my sopa azteca (so, so good; really just delicious tortilla soup). Dessert was nice, too (crepes with cajeta ice cream for me, pistachio cake with meyer lemon for Jessica), but overall not our favorite. Empellon (in NYC) is doing something similar with much better results).
We did sneak in a quick snack at Shake Shack which was delicious and actually worth it since there were no lines. Didn't know that they had fried shallots!

Fancy margaritas!

6/2/15

Another Jason-suggested dinner: grilled cheese, old school ---cheddar, store-bought white bread. Plus cream of asparagus soup (my nod to our need for vegetables). The soup turned out really well (despite the name, no actual cream in it), and the grilled cheeses were, thanks to patience, perfectly cooked. Itried one variation: spread one of the sandwiched with mayo instead of butter. Jason was the guinea pig and he liked it. I should have tried it in the name of science but stuck to butter. More sundaes for dessert, because that was quite a  large batch of hot fudge.

6/1/15

Sundae Monday:

Carter opted for pizza

Butterscotch sauce, hot fudge, whipped cream, pretzels, m&m's, bananas. This was one of Jason's dinner ideas; we won't be repeating it for a while. Too sweet, even though we ate potato chips after.