We just returned from a week in the Caribbean and are in high detox mode. This week's plan: no drinks at lunch. Not too hard, right? As of today, Day Two, we haven't fallen off the wagon yet.
About midway through our week on the island, I got sick of piña coladas. I know, poor me. So I asked Oxford, the friendly fellow behind the bar if he wouldn't mind swapping out the pineapple for mango.
No problem, mon. He hung a wedge of pineapple off the side, just for nostalgia.
For the apartment or house dweller without room or desire to compost, there is an alternative to tossing your kitchen scraps: grow them.
I've done a potato, who hasn't? I've done a mango pit, which grew on the window sill of my upper-Broadway apartment for almost a year, then mysteriously died. And I've plunked celery in water (sometimes colored) and watched it suck up the nutrients while sprouting an up-do.
But sesame? Persimmon? Figs?
You asked for it. Well, not really. (Most of you seemed "grossed out" by my post about Cooking with Colostrum.) But I'm giving it to you anyway: the recipe for Colostrum Raw Milk Ricotta.
Just as we were in the midst of the Kitchn's inaugural Kitchn Cure (eight fun-filled weeks of kitchen cleaning, organizing, stocking, cooking, ending with a big bang of a party in May), a book called Things Cooks Love: Implements. Ingredients. Recipes. (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $35) landed on my desk.
Faced with a pint of raw cow's colostrum at the farmers' market last week in Santa Monica, I found it hard to not to say yes. So there I was with this pricey elixir and no idea what to do with it.
Colostrwhat? Colustrum is the first milk of a lactating being. In this case, a cow. It is packed with nutrients and antibodies. The only colustrum I'd seen before was my own, and believe me, I didn't cook with it.
Strolling the farmers' markets in Los Angeles, I'm seeing these contraptions everywhere, much more than in New York. Oddly, they're often hanging with plastic bags. Is that the point?
When in LA, apparently you gotta have wheels. The above quilt of market trollies and other modes of transport for farmers' market finds was shot two days ago at the Santa Monica Farmers' Market in Santa Monica, CA. Can you guess which one is ours?
Greetings from Los Angeles! Yesterday we went to the Santa Monica Farmers' Market to shop for dinner and walked the aisles fighting off a nasty case of Santa Monica envy. Along the way, we came across a handsome young farmer selling this stuff.
Any guesses? Click through for more photos.
We have just a tiny handful of our special edition Kitch(e)n market bags left. We're sad to see these go, since one may not be enough for each of us here on the team, but we want to offer up the rest to you one more time.
They're beautiful, very sturdy, and fit nicely over the shoulder. We're selling them for $15 (which includes shipping and handling.) Get them while you still can by emailing us with "Kitchn Market Bag" in the subject. We'll email you back with PayPal info.
More on the bag and its backstory below...
This weekend we were treated to a special dirty martini from our favorite pickle joint in town, Rick's Picks. Just in time. In an effort to get you ready for summer, we're going to kick off a week of original cocktail recipes, and we begin with a bang: it's Pickletini time.
Our Cure has come to an end. Eight glorious weeks of scrubbing and culling cupboards, learning new culinary skills, shopping for fresh foods and stocking the pantry. All with an eye on planning a dinner to celebrate.
A huge congratulations to all of you who completed the Cure. And for those who didn't participate this time, or those who didn't make it all the way through, you'll have another chance this fall when we begin again.
Please take our survey. In the comments below, let us know how the party-planning is going, and be sure to post your photos (with captions!) to the Flickr pool.
Our Cure is winding down. Cure-takers are planning their dinner parties and enjoying the spaciousness and freshness that now defines their kitchens.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Many of you asked for tips on planning a party and dealing with the challenge of cooking and entertaining in a small space. That post will go up later today - so look for it.
Let us know in the comments below if there's anything else you'd like answered. We're here to help you make a knock-your-socks-off dinner.
It's gardening month, so it would be really exciting to be able to tell you that I'm munching on peas from my garden right now, but look above: that's how far along my babies are.
We're looking at late June for peas. In the meantime, I'm ready to admit that, yes, I am munching on peas, but first, I had to defrost them.
This weekend is Mothers' Day, and mothers, for some reason, like poached eggs. I am no exception. My man Maxwell doesn't quite have the touch, nor the time to get it, for poaching eggs the hard way, so we decided to try out an egg poacher made by Calphalon.
These days, if you walk out of the market with plastic bags in your grip, you're risking sneers from eco-chic shoppers toting re-usable bags.
Time for a Kitchn market bag.
They're beautiful, very sturdy, and fit nicely over the shoulder. We're selling them for $15 (which includes shipping & handling.) Get them while you still can, by emailing us with "Kitchn Market Bag" in the subject. We'll email you back with paypal info.
Read on for why these bags are so special...
Gift: Five copies of The Veggie Gardener's Answer Book by Barbara W. Ellis
Shop: Available from Amazon for $10.17
I keep one book in my gardening tote, Barbara Damrosch's The Garden Primer, and have done so for many years (this bible of gardening wisdom came out 20 years ago). But now there's a new kid on the block, and I might have to make room for it.
The Veggie Gardener's Answer Book (Storey, 2008) by Barbara W. Ellis, is a compact volume of answers to commonly asked questions about vegetable gardening, even questions that fairly seasoned gardeners like myself secretly harbor.
It's Week Eight of the 8 Step Spring Kitchen Cure, and that means you're just about done. This last week you learned a new basic culinary skill. Many people wanted to learn a basic sauce, so we posted an easy Basic Tomato Sauce. Some made pie, others worked on their meat skills. Then, you also planned a full meal, using your new skill.
Then I encouraged you to drink some wine, to get comfortable (if you aren't already) with the process of selecting wines and talking to your local wine shop. And then... drumrolll... put a date on the calendar for your dinner party. You're graduating! Celebrate!
This week you are going to plan your party. Even if your date in the future (heather lauren is having a sangria party on June 28th - yum, can we be invited?), you can start planning now. There's plenty to do.
Last weekend, I planted some French Breakfast radishes, and, coincidentally, so did Faith. Radishes are a great way to kick off the season: they are easy to grow (pre-schoolers across the world do it!), they mature quickly (in as few as 3 weeks), their season is short (you can move on in June), and they don't take up much room. Even if you're just gardening in a small window box, you can have a crop of dozens of radishes this year. I look forward to munching on them with butter and fleur de sel in a few short weeks.
Rah, rah, rah! Week Seven is almost done, in fact, the whole sha-bang is almost over. Cure-takers are powering ahead and fulfilling this week's assignment to learn a new skill and dip into wine.
How is the wine shopping and drinking going? STLcolleen says "I absolutely agree with the recommendation of going to a local wine shop to get advice and taste many new things. There is a level of service you will get there that will blow away the (perceived) convenience or thrift from buying at a grocery store..." Just about every town in the country has a decent wine shop, and if you live in a large city like New York, you probably see one every few blocks. Here is our list of recommended wine shops. Where is your favorite place to buy wine?
For the sauce-hungry crowd, here is a basic tomato sauce, with some lemony and spicy elements for adding an optional zing. It's easy, quick, and isn't a boring old sauce. Basic sauces were one of the requested items from Cure-takers. This week's assignment was to add a new skill to your cooking arsenal. So if you're looking for a new sauce and don't want to fuss with any complicated, slow-cooked recipes, here is a great way to have tomato sauce on your pasta in less than 30 minutes.
The first step in getting a garden ready for a new season is ordering supplies. I try to save seeds where possible from previous year's plants, and I have a pretty good collection of tools and such, but there are always new seed varieties to try and gardening toys to tempt. So when the Peaceful Valley Farm catalog arrives in those dark days of winter, it kicks off a few weeks of dreaming that, with good planning, culminate with just one e-commerce transaction. By now, my seeds have arrived, and some are already going in the ground.
This does not mean you're too late if you have no idea what I'm talking about. But don't order a catalog and wait for it to arrive - just check out their website. There are seeds you can try this spring that are still available. And there are other gardening goodies, too.
Maybe I jumped the gun a bit, but a few weekends ago, I grilled pizza up on a bluff. We served it right there, in the damp April evening. It was only about fifty degrees, but green things are emerging from the ground, I thought. Let's celebrate. It's normal spring behavior for me.
It's Week Seven of the 8 Step Spring Kitchen Cure, and we're getting close to the end. This last week you stocked your pantry and planned a whole meal. Were our lists for savory pantry and sweet pantry items helpful?
The idea is to make sure you're prepared to cook by inspiration, and not to always rely on cookbooks and recipes websites. But, even if you do lean on recipes for your cooking, having a well-stocked pantry will be immensely helpful. Like any craftsperson, you need the right supplies to craft something magnificent.
As we head in for a landing, let's take a moment and check in.
We just posted a great video about Hush Puppies, along with a similar story by Nathalie Dupree, known as the originator of the New Southern Cooking movement. Here, she shares her recipe for these little tasty tidbits of friend cornmeal.
Get your oil vat hot!
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While touring a cemetery in New Orleans a few weeks ago, I overheard Ray Reiker, a wine auctioneer from Alabama and a real southern gentleman, telling our tour guide the origin of the Hush Puppy. At our next stop, I pulled Ray aside and got him to tell us the story on film.
Nathalie Dupree, a highly-decorated grand dame of southern cooking, has a soft-spot for Hush Puppies. She told me that fried fish and hush puppies were a central part of her wedding supper on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. "I still think them a magical combination." On the next page, you can read her version of a Hush Puppy memoir, and then try her own recipe for the snack that keeps the dawgs quiet.
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There are two ways to poach an egg: the hard way, by dropping the egg into boiling water and magically making it come out in one piece, and the easy way, by using an egg poacher. The hard way actually is easy, you just have to have the touch, and to get the touch you need a lot of practice and a lot of eggs.
