The Week in Food

I probably need to take a course in food photography, or perhaps a culinary course in plating, because most of the photos I take of our dinners do not do justice to the food. Setting asside the issue of why I fetishize food to the degree of blogging about everything I eat, I should mention a couple of recent successes in the kitchen. It all goes back to the Frug.

The Frugal Gourmet was the first cooking show I watched regularly on PBS and he was one of the first celebrity chefs to celebrate what he called "peasant food." The simple stuff is always the best. Unfortunately, it turned out The Frug was a major perv, and soon his show and books were no longer available. I have to scavenge for them in used book stores now. If you like food and you have never heard of him, do yourself a favor and pick up the next book you see. It is all excellent!

Pictured above is my take on a dish from "The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines: China, Greece, and Rome." This is listed as "Beef Roman Jewish Style" and reputedly orginated in the Jewish ghetto of Rome, Citta Eterna. The Frug calls for two lbs of beef stew meat, three cloves of garlic, one quarter cup of beef broth, one quarter cup of red wine, and one quarter cup of marinara. Brown the beef, add the garlic, dump the liquids and simmer for about two hours. Season, of course. You knew that. Add water if it starts to dry. It is incredibly rich and flavorful. We like to serve it over polenta and garnish with parsley. One of the all-time greats. This time we substituted chicken (skinned and cut up) for beef, but otherwise followed the same instructions.

We have also learned to make a fool-proof and delicious roast chicken. Ina Garten's roast chicken. The trick is to cook it HOT. Here is a photo of that. Doesn't it look golden brown and delicious? We modified this too, by shoving several sprigs of rosemary, a lemon, and some garlic you know where. Happy chicken. Ina Garten is another cookbook author who must test her recipes relentlesly, beacuse they always turn out perfect as long as the directions are followed.

The real suprise was the ricotta and honey torta. It was made with ricotta cheese, honey, pine nuts, vanilla extract, raisins, rum, and beaten egg whites. It was described as a cheesecake, but that wasn't terribly accurate. It was quite light and fluffy with the beaten egg whites folden in. No crust. Yummy. We snatched that recipe from an Italian coffee table book and I don't remember the details at the moment. If you really want to know, email and I'll look it up. Next time we might try it with orange zest and Cointreau. Cheers and happy eating! As The Frug used to say, "I bid you peace!"