Ina Gets Fishy

Barefoot Contessa with Ina Garten

Good Catch
Parker's Fish and Chips
Tartar Sauce
Chopped Pickles
Summer Fruit Crostata

To get the recipes:
Click here

I finally caught up with The Barefoot Contessa from last weekend. TR* has invited Ina for dinner on his dock. He'll be catching the fish and she'll be cooking it. Why does this plan sound a little iffy? Maybe because TR has NEVER fished before. But, never mind, Ina gets to work on the dessert, an open fruit tart, which they'll have fish or no fish.

She combines the ingredients for the crust in the food processor. First the flour, salt and sugar get pulsed. Then she adds the butter and pulses it until it's "the size of small peas." She adds 3 oz. of ICE water with the machine running. She pulses it until it just becomes a ball. She presses it into a disc and cuts it in half. One half she's going to freeze for later. The other half gets refrigerated for 30 minutes.

I like to work with my dough immediately. I hate having to fight with it when it comes out of the refrigerator. I put it in between two big pieces of plastic wrap, roll it out and THEN refrigerate it. You don't need to add any additional flour and it's much easier to work with.

There's gorgeous TR on the dock, confessing to his fishing failings.

Ina's making tartar sauce, which she finds "so much fresher and brighter" than store-bought. She slices pickles (using the little cornichons-type ones) and puts them in a mini-food processor with 1/2 cup mayonnaise, white wine vinegar, capers, coarse mustard and salt and pepper. She blends it by pulsing. Done.

Back to a struggling TR. What EVER will they be eating with their tartar sauce?

To serve with the fish, Ina wants to "hot rod" something she's bought. She jazzes up dill pickles by slicing them up and adding some white wine vinegar and lots of fresh dill. I wouldn't mind a garlic clove or two.

For the crostada, Ina rolls out her dough into an 11 inch circle. She lays it on a sheet pan. She cuts peeled peaches (peeled by dropping into boiling water for 1 minutes, then plunging into ice water) into big thick slices. She wedges up plums and mixes them in with blueberries, a bit of flour, sugar, orange zest and orange juice. They get tossed together and placed in the middle of the pastry. The Barefooted One leaves a half inch border around the edge. She wonders out loud about TR's fishing abilities,"I have to say, I've known him since he was 15, (ooh, do tell, Ina) I can't say I've ever seen him fish."

Ina moves on to the crumb topping. She mixes flour, sugar and butter, until it's crumbly. She sprinkles it on top of the fruit. Ina finishes it off by folding up the edges of the pastry. leaving the center exposed. She bakes it at 450 deg. F for 25 to 30 minutes.

For her fish batter (although we haven't actually seen any fish), she mixes together 1/2 cup flour, baking powder, lemon zest (interesting), cayenne, salt and pepper. She whisks in water and 1 egg. The mixture should be like a thin pancake batter. She packs it up to take to TR's.

TR gets desperate and we find him at the fish store, where he picks up some beautiful fish.

For her last dish, Ina cuts up big Idaho potatoes into long wedges. They go into a bowl with olive oil, salt and pepper, garlic and rosemary. "This is really the time for fresh rosemary. There are just a few really nice flavors and dried rosemary just won't do." She minces it finely and mixes everything together. She'll cook them at TR's.

Ina arrives at her buddy's. "Welcome to the fish shack." He shows her the fish nervously. "I don't know, TR...That looks suspiciously like you caught it at the seafood shop."

As TR cuts up his catch, Ina puts the potatoes in a 400 deg F. oven for 30 minutes. Then she'll turn them and bake them for another 20 minutes.

They drink wine on the dock. She returns to the kitchen to fry the fish. She heats a 1/2 inch of oil to 360 degrees. Use a thermometer to check the temp, she tells us. Ina dips the fish in the batter (it's quite thin) and then in the hot oil. She cooks the pieces about 5 minutes total and then drains them on paper towels.

I have a "greener" way to do that. Instead of using masses of paper towels, just put one or two on top of some folded sheets of newspaper. The oil gets absorbed and you don't waste your paper towels.

Ina takes out the "chips". They look good. She makes cones with newspaper and lines them with parchment paper. The fish and chips go in. (I like the way they eat French fries in Amsterdam...with tons of mayonnaise. Yum.) They sit on the dock, eating companionably.

Dessert is served. They eat it right off the baking sheet. I do think the informality of the occasion could have been maintained with each of them having a separate plate and fork. But the obvious affection between the two of them is heartwarming. Ina shows again that, not only can she be counted on for a good dinner, she's a pretty great friend as well.

*(who knew?)

Not Only Can Ingrid Not Cook, But She Doesn't Paint Either

Simply Delicioso with Ingrid Hoffman

Paint Party
Arroz con Pollo
Churrisimos
Plantain Chips and Avocado Aji
Raspberry Lemon Margarita

To get the recipes:
Click here

HEY!!! YOU’RE HERE!!! Yeah, don't get so excited, Ingrid. I'm not sure for how long. What becomes evident pretty immediately is that, not only does Ingrid not know how to cook, she apparently doesn't paint either. She lets her friends do it for her, while she's in the kitchen "cooking." She freezes the action, while she runs to get the meal ready.

She’s making Arroz con Pollo. She puts oil in a skillet. (Actually it’s a sauté pan.) And it’s almost as if she heard us talking about her. Her hair is back, there’s a special board for the chicken, and hand washing after handling chicken is highlighted.

She begins to brown the chicken, skin side down for 5 minutes. “I need my thongs again.” “I have a thong problem”. At first, I had no idea what she was talking about. She's trying to turn the chicken with a “thong”. That would be some trick, chica.

She chops garlic and QUARTERS an onion. Yeah, why bother chopping it, when you can have these lumpy pieces? She adds adobo, which, she tells us, is a blend of spices. 1 cup of chicken broth goes in and she adds a beer after taking a swig. Are you allowed to drink alcohol on television? I thought that was verboten.

“I love cooking with alcohol.” She probably isn’t aware that the actual alcohol burns off in the cooking. She adds Worcestershireshireshire sauce (as usual). Then she throws UNCHOPPED cilantro on top, as if it were a pot of garbage…Oh wait… She’s going to cook the chicken for 30 to 35 minutes.

Ingrid's making a sweet, which she has the nerve to call Churrisimos, a spin on Churros. This is a heavenly confection of fried dough served all over Latin America. In Spain, it's served with a thick pudding-like hot chocolate. It's truly decadent and so delicious that I can barely stand to see Ingrid make this bastardization using puff pastry.

To try to make us feel better about it, though, she does say that she's putting extra TLC into it. Yeah, will make a big difference as I'm longing for my beloved Chocolate and Churros at the counter of a small cafeteria in an old Madrilèno neighborhood.

Ingrid covers the surface with cinnamon and sugar to prevent sticking, before she "plays" with her puff pastry. She opens the "babies" up and brushes the sheets with WATER (?!#%@&*%) and then sprinkles on cinnamon sugar. Have you EVER heard of brushing puff pastry with water? Way to go to get soggy pastry!

I must take a moment here to expand on the heinousness of this act. There are two times that water may touch unbaked puff pastry dough. The first is when you sprinkle water onto the baking sheet before the puff pastry goes on. It creates steam in the hot oven (puff pastry is always baked hot) and helps the pastry to rise.

The second instance is when you're brushing the edges of the unbaked puff pastry with water before placing a second layer over…as in a Vol au Vent shell. The water glues the two pieces together.

BUT YOU WOULD NOT BRUSH PUFF PASTRY WITH WATER BEFORE SPRINKLING SUGAR OVER. The dough has such a high percentage of butter, for goodness sake, that sugar has no trouble sticking right to it.

Believe me, I'd be happy to hear if I'm wrong about this. (Of course, I’d be happier to hear pastry chefs tell me I’m RIGHT.) I have no problem admitting when I'm completely off the mark, but this, I know is completely wrong.

Back to the action, after sugaring up her sopping dough (okay, that might be a bit overboard) she cuts them into strips and twists them - I must say rather attractively - but that doesn’t make up for her huge culinary lapse. She places them on her baking sheet and bakes them at 375 degrees F for 20 minutes. I’m not sure why I bother, but, really, puff pastry should be baked at least at 400 deg .F.

Ingrid’s next dish is from Colombia, she says. She’s using a store-bought Pico de Gallo, which, at first, I was unhappy with. THEN I saw her recipe for making it from scratch. OMG, it has three quarters of a cup of liquid in it. The liquid is supposed to come from the tomatoes and SOME lime juice, not from an excess of white vinegar and WATER. What is it with Ingrid and her inappropriate water use?

She adds chopped avocados to her Pico de Gallo and then cuts hard-boiled eggs in wedges. Then she adds ¼ cup of water and ¼ white vinegar. OH, so I guess she’s adding that, whether or not she’s using ready-made Pico de Gallo. She adds salt, pepper and Tabasco. Why in the world is she adding so much liquid?

She adds her wedged eggs, which, incidentally, are about 4 times the size of any other ingredient. “It’s going to taste better than it looks.” Did you mean to say that out loud, Ingrid?

She removes the chicken from the pot. Then she brings a bright red toolbox into the kitchen. Oh, goodness. She lines it with paper and pours in her plantain chips. Her nasty egg sauce thing goes in next (in a container – she didn’t just pour it in.)

That entire dish is poorly conceived. Who doesn’t love eggs with a salsa type thing? But she’s made a runny strange mixture into which she mixed egg wedges. The yolks will separate from the whites, the liquid (of which there was far too much) will become sludgy from the yolks and the whites will get torn apart by mixing the whole thing together. Do I really want to eat that on a plantain chip?

She takes the “churros” from the oven. “They taste even better than they look.” She hasn't tasted one bite.

Now, this is a bit strange…the way she does her Arroz Con Pollo. Why am I surprised? She has removed the chicken and poured out the broth to measure it. Well, she hasn’t actually done that, but the recipe says to do it. It says to make up to four cups with water. She uses stock, which is the right thing to do.

Here’s where it gets strange. She has her liquid ready (just pretend she measured it) and she adds the rice to the pan and brings it to the boil. Meantime, she starts a sofrito in a SEPARATE pan with onions and peppers. She cooks them in butter, which just feels wrong, but, wait, it gets worse.

She adds KETCHUP to her sofrito. And she puts the garbage from her sofrito's green pepper into the rice pot. She covers the rice and cooks it all by its lonesome. Then she shreds the chicken and sets that aside.

There are lots of variations of Arroz Con Pollo, but there is one constant in the 500 recipes I looked at (Okay, it WAS actually over 25, though.) The rice is cooked WITH the chicken. That’s kind of the point. The rice benefits from sopping up all the flavor and juices in the pan – the chicken, the onions, the sofrito. Why doesn't Ingrid just cook her chicken a little longer and THEN add the rice. And why doesn't she do the sofrito in the pan at the beginning, so it flavors the entire dish?

Ingrid has one more addition to the dish – Frozen Vegetables. Oh, wait, one more thing. She adds HUGE olives, which she didn’t chop up, but, thankfully, she does take out the green pepper scraps.

She stirs in all the bits and pieces that should have been cooked with the rice in the first place – the shredded chicken, that’s now cold, the frozen veggies (she did defrost them in the microwave), the mammoth hunk of onions, and don’t forget the sofrito ruined with ketchup, and those colossal olives.

Ingrid’s getting ready to serve it. Oh, my, she’s serving it in a PAINT TRAY. She says, “How else are you going to get your friends to come to a paint party?” Maybe tell them the food is from KFC.

One last thing to serve. The tequila. Today it's mixed with lemonade, frozen raspberries and club soda. That goes into a blender and “blends away, baby.”

She serves the stuff, and it looks like Ingrid hasn't done any painting at all. Frankly, I think her friends got the raw end of the deal.

I Don't Think Nigella Has Anything To Worry About

The (London) Times Online website is reporting that the raven-haired British cooking beauty feels that Martha Stewart has been spending too much time admiring HER - Nigella's - husband, Charles Saatchi.

In an interview with Britain's Radio Times magazine, Nigella says she has suffered a diss or two from Martha. Nigella feels it has to do with Martha having "a soft spot" for her husband. Well, who wouldn't want a fabulously wealthy man, who appreciates art and, perhaps, good food, as well. But Martha has her own billionaire, so I think they can both rest easy.

That's some choice though. Gorgeous great cook with 2 youngish kids from a good family versus a VERY VERY VERY wealthy do-it-yourselfer with a grown daughter and many homes, (oh, and a criminal record too, but I think that was unfair).

Paula Does Rachael

What does it say when Rachael Ray conducted a better interview of Paula Deen than Larry King did? To be fair, she had only a few minutes of a sit-down with the Southern diva, on a show airing originally last May. But she got to the heart of the story, or rather Paula did, much more than Larry did in an hour during his disastrous interview.

Paula (who looked beautiful, by the way), said she wanted people to learn from the mistakes of her past, which included 20 years of much unhappiness and bad choices. I think her message is a hopeful one - that even desperate people can recover to live worthwhile productive lives. You can move on from bad decisions of the past. Paula certainly seems to have a fully rewarding life, nowadays, on so many levels.

Things went downhill, though, when RR and Paula went into the kitchen. Paula's obvious expertise dwarfed Rachael's by leaps and bounds. Paula is making a cake and she makes it look so easy that even Rachael could make it (and that's saying a lot). But no, RR begs her for the cake to take to her mother. By the end of the show, Paula wants to dig into the cake and Rachael wants to take it home. Paula, slightly exasperated, finally says, "Listen, go to the bakery and buy your mother a cake, for goodness sake."

They move on from the cake to dinner that Rachael is making for Mother's Day. She sprays chicken breasts with cooking spray (on only one side) and puts them in a bag with a bunch of spices and smooshes them around. At every step, Paula is cleaning up after her. Paula disappears to the back of the kitchen. What's she doing? Cleaning up around the sink and making things tidy. She goes back to the workstation and, while Rachael is saying something, she's moving things around to wipe off the counter. It's very funny.

Rachael grills the chicken and asks Paula if she ever talks to her food. "Sometimes I do...As long as it doesn't answer me back", it's fine.

Rachael has Paula cook a box of seasoned rice pilaf. Her recipe says to throw out the seasoning pack...why can't you use real rice then? RR says her mom always used to cook that Near East brand.

That doesn't make it right. My mom used to use squeezable margarine, for goodness sake, but that doesn't mean I have to. No kidding, Minute Rice and liquid marg aside, my mother WAS a wonderful cook.

Paula does look a bit askance, but she does what she's told. Rach says "I schuzz it up." Paula kind of mocks her in a funny way,"Oh, what do you schuzz it up with?"

She does compliment Rachael on her beautiful pot. "Isn't it nice?," she says, "It's cute. It's bright and fun. I like orange." Paula mimics her pronunciation, repeating it as OY-nsch. That IS kind of like the pot calling kettle black, but it's still amusing. Rachael decides to ignore her. Then Paula tastes the fake rice dish and, I'm not kidding, she looks completely surprised and says "Hey, Rach, that's ACTUALLY good." (Okay, she didn't say "actually, but it was implied.)

By the end of the show, it seemed as if Rachael was avoiding Paula. Of course, her website has a clip of them dancing together during the commercial. But that's Paula Deen for you, just getting on by getting along with whomever she has to.

The Talented Men Of The Food Network - Part Two: Bobby Flay

Boy Gets Grill with Bobby Flay

Finger Foods on the Grill (100th Episode)
Grilled Flatbread with Asparagus Pesto and Fontina
Grilled Shrimp with Asian Style "Cocktail" Sauce
Grilled Lamb Chops with Rosemary, Salt, and Tapanade Aioli
Grilled Banana and Nutella Panini

To get the recipes:
Click here

Wow, it’s Bobby 100th episode of “Boy Meets Grill”! He says the number one question he gets asked is, “Is that really your house?” The answer. “Absolutely not.”

He’s doing elegant finger foods and, today, as it’s a special show, his assistant is Stephanie March, his lovely wife. I like them together. She’s a Texan who appreciates good food.

They start with a flavoring for lamb chops, which involves fresh rosemary. Bobby says, “Pulling rosemary off is like petting your cat the wrong way.” That is so true. They get the rosemary off successfully and he processes it with salt. She remarks on its smoothness. I could say the same about Bobby.

Bobby moves on to the Black Olive Vinaigrette. “We’re using Niçoise olives from France.” Bobby, seeing the amusement in his wife’s eyes at his pronunciation, adds, “That’s my French for the day.”

Interspersed on this special 100th episode are clips from previous shows, so they show poor Bobby using the same line over and over. Sometimes, though, it’s “That’s my Italian for the day.” or “That’s my Spanish for the day.” I love that he doesn’t take himself seriously, even though he is superb at what he does.

The pitted Niçoise olives go in the blender with red wine vinegar, pepper and chile de arbol (this IS the spicy, enticing Bobby Flay after all). He pours in the olive oil gradually and adds a bit of honey “to take the edge off.”

On to the meat, “Rack of lamb is really one of the jewels of meat.” He takes out an enormous rack of lamb and cuts in between the bones to make individual chops. He likes cooking them as single chops, so that each piece “gets a crust.”

Stephanie brushes each one with canola oil and Bobby sprinkles them with the rosemary salt. They make a nice team. (So do Bobby and Stephanie.) He adds black pepper and reminds us to do both sides. Bobby likes that you can pick them up like lollipops.

He puts them on the grill and he has to hold back Stephanie. She wants to get at them with her tongs to move them around. Bobby is firm (ooooh, Bobby) and says she has to wait until they’re crusty on one side. (I love a man who knows when to handle his lamb chops.)

Stephanie, reminiscing, tells him “You’ve had some good moments on this show, like when you made scrambled eggs.” They play that clip. He pours a bowl of scrambled eggs right onto (actually INTO) the grill, as he remarks, “That didn’t work”, closing the grill and laughing. WHAT was he thinking?

In other clips, we see lots of bottles and jars getting dropped and breaking all over the place; Bobby banging a big red cabbage right into the camera lens; Bobby crying from onions; and lots of implements getting dropped, while he’s trying to do fancy flips.

My favorite was when a hamburger hit the ground after he threw it into the air and tried to catch it on his spatula. Oh, plus, we see numerous fires, not flare-ups, FIRES. What an adventurer.

The lamb chops get taken off the grill and asparagus goes on. They’ve been treated with olive oil, salt and pepper.

He starts his pesto, but he needs the help of his assistant, Ms. Jay Brooks, who brings out more basil. I guess they felt the missus shouldn’t be the only one they show on this hallmark episode. He puts a huge bunch of basil in the food processor with pine nuts, garlic, and parmesan - “Actually, honey, it’s pecorino romano” – “Pecorino shmeckorino”, he replies and gives her a smack. (I made that last part up.) He adds the olive oil through the top of the processor.

As Stephanie takes the asparagus off the grill, they remember when her mother and sister were on. He called it “The Big Hair Show.”

He throws the cooked asparagus in with the pesto and processes the mixture until smooth. He spreads the pesto on top of the flatbread, making sure to leave an edge. As he tops it with grated and sliced cheese, Stephanie steals some cheese, revealing, “Bobby hates it when people eat his prep.” “Well, when it’s not done…is the problem. I want people to taste the finished product.” Bobby would get fed up with me in no time. I intentionally prep more ingredients than I need, just to handle off the cuff snacking.

Then he does something clever. He moves all the charcoal to one side and puts the flatbread on the other side of the grill, so it cooks slowly.

He starts on his Asian style cocktail sauce, while we see clips of him being teased by other chefs about his love of grilled lemons. Frankly, I think that’s a brilliant way to treat a lemon. Ketchup and chilies go in and he shows a neat trick for peeling ginger. He takes the skin off with the back with a spoon, so he doesn’t lose a lot of flesh. He grates the ginger on a microplaner followed by a radish. He adds soy and salt and pepper.

“Salt and pepper is a must for everything. It brings out the natural flavors of things. It marries them together.” Steph reminds him that his favorite cooking tip is “Cook it less and season it more.”

He coats the shrimp with a bit of oil and salt and pepper. He puts them, skewered, onto the grill. He tells us to wait to turn them until the shell on the tails turns orange. Her reminds her of the birthday dinner she cooked for him, which was wonderful – some kind of beef plus peach cobbler. You see, guys, as Oprah just said last week, women need to know that they are not only loved, but also appreciated. (Ok, I suppose guys do too.)

He makes a banana panini for dessert. I would have preferred something less sweet and, for me, that’s unusual. Maybe grilled fruit marinated in some liquor-y thing served with a bit of marscapone. (Remember Michael served his fruit tart with marscapone. Totally RICH-i-licious). But this does sound good.

First, though, he plates the shrimp with its sauce. Then, as they try to remember all the “Boy Meets Grill” shows she’s been on, she suggests a spin-off – “Girl Meets Grill”. He’s fine with that. (I have to take a look at Ina’s Girls That Grill.)

For the paninis, he spreads whole wheat bread with Nutella and places diagonally sliced bananas on top. (The recipe say to mash them, I like this way better.) Stephanie then presents him with a commemorative flipper that he’s very pleased with. The sandwiches go into a hot pan with butter. The most interesting part of the recipe is placing a heavy “panini press”’ on top…you can use a heavy lid. (The recipe doesn't say to do this, so you can skip it, but it's fun. Mario has a beautiful panini pan.)

The sandwiches are turned over, and then plated. He sprinkles them with powdered sugar. He serves his bride.

He thanks us all for putting up with him for 100 episodes. Bobby, please, it’s been our pleasure. To 100’s more and let’s hope The Food Network appreciates the mastery and charm they have all rolled into this one boy with his grill.

From The Ridiculous To The Sublime - Ingrid Hoffman to Michael Chiarello

I have to take real exception with the awful, terrible, embarrassingly bad review that Ingrid Hoffman's show got in the New York Times this morning. It's just not true that Giada "is merely a good-looking woman with a mortar and pestle in comparison." Everything else, though, that Ginia Bellafante wrote is pretty darn accurate. (Read it quick, before they yank it off their website.)

She says Ingrid cooks with her entire body. If you're throwing absolutely everything into it, shouldn't the final product reflect massive effort? Bellafante highlights, in particular, her shrimp, ketchup and brandy dish, saying "no two of (these ingredients) I'd ever consider in concert."

She points out that in Ingrid's little world, EVERYTHING is great, every recipe turns out absolutely "yummy'. We know, from watching, that that's a complete untruth. If you grimace as you're watching her put these things together, then there's no way you can taste them without wincing.

Simply Delicioso is simply another example of the dumbing down of The Food Network, which is why we have to hold tight to the quality that's still there.

Speaking of top of the line...a quick aside about Mike...How did I miss this very nice Reuters interview with Michael Chiarello 2 weeks ago? The most interesting part of it is when he is asked how he feels about fusion cuisine (among my most favorite type of restaurants).

Mike says "When you cook food that has a history and a point of view, it lasts with you much, much longer. If you have a fusion dish, it may taste awesome, but I'm likely going to wake up the next morning and forget what I ate. I don't want mung bean in my marinara sauce."

While I don't agree with him, I do like it when a chef has a definite point of view. I think it only helps the overall vision of his food. But...if he ever asks, just tell him you have no clue what I think about fusion food - and that probably I don't like it that much.

Oh, what we do for those we love...

The Talented Men Of The Food Network - Part One: Michael Chiarello

Plus A Note On Dave Lieberman's Razzin'

Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello

Drive-in Movie Night
Brown Butter Fruit Tart
Shrimp Po'Boys with Angry Mayonnaise
Warm Basil Gnocchi Salad with Carpaccio of Tomatoes

To get the recipes:
Click here

It IS rather ridiculous that we have to search around for new shows of Michael Chiarello's and that we find them at 8:00 AM on Sunday's!!! I'm not saying we should feel sorry for MC. He's plenty busy. He's got his Napastyle retail food, furniture and cool stuff enterprise. He's got his family winery. He's got his Fine Living Network show (IF you can find that on your channel line-up. And many of those shows are unwatchable, because he has that thing on his face.) But it's not him, it's OURSELVES that I feel sorry for.

I taped his show and I caught the last few minutes of Dave Lieberman. He's in an even worse time spot than Mike - SEVEN THIRTY AM on Sunday!!! I did not enjoy his show at all, even the little I saw of it. To be fair, perhaps it puts the host at a tremendous disadvantage when you watch only the last few minutes of his or her cooking show. (Having said that, I never feel that way about Ina or Giada or Mike.)

Anyway, I caught Dave just as he was stirring a yogurty type dip. The mixture made, frankly, a very unfortunate sounding noise. Think whoopee cushion meets Blazing Saddles. Okay, not quite that bad, but bad enough for me to notice. That really should have been picked up on.

I know a lot of you out there really like Dave Lieberman. I think he's nice and knowledgeable. I'm sure he would be a great friend to add to one's group, plus he's heads above some recent additions to the FN, but, for me, he has no pop. I also didn't like the way he said "flavel" for "falafel". He WAS lunching with 2 babes, though...

At last, on to Mike. It's Movie Night with MC providing a Drive-In Dinner. Ooooh, I'd like to nibble in the front seat of a convertible with the chef...on the chef...by the chef.

We're in the kitchen with His Chefliness. One hand egg cracking. So casual, so perfect...right into the mixer bowl. He beats it until triple in volume with "nice air in the mix." He shows us how pale yellow and fluffy it is. Sometimes I'm confused about which beater to use with the KitchenAid. He's using the whisk, not the flat beater. I guess it's because he wants to add in so much air.

He adds 3 tablespoons of butter to a hot pan. After it melts, he raises the heat to brown it.

He adds flour and vanilla to the eggs. My gosh, even his asides are valuable. He tells us to make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl to get all the flour, because there's only 1/3 of a cup in there. If you lose the flour on the sides, you'll change the ratio of the recipe. My goodness, that's profound.

I feel as if he's just told us something far more important than a trick for a tart filling. "Don't forget to scrape down the sides of the bowl," feels like a life lesson. Don't forget the little things, don't neglect the details that make stuff turn out better. His wisdom goes far beyond his cooking skills.

Mike finishes browning the butter. He pours it into a glass to cool and then he slowly drizzles it into the egg mixture with the mixer going.

He takes out puff pastry that he's bought from a bakery. He lines a removable bottom tart pan and trims off the edges. Bake the trimmings with sugar and cinnamon for the kids, he tells us. Michael then explains that the steam from the butter creates an area of air between each layer of dough as it bakes. So he pricks the bottom of the pastry, so the steam will be released and the crust won't puff up too much. He weights it with beans and bakes it blind.

Next we see Michael picking lemons off a tree. (The only things I can pick off my trees are gypsy moths and they don't make a very good filling.) He zests the lemons to add to the egg mixture. He tops the shell with berries and spreads over the "buttah battah". He bakes it at 400 deg F for 20 minutes. Wow, I want him, I mean that.

He starts his "Angry Sauce". What an evocative name for a highly spiced sauce! Into 1/2 cup olive oil, he places 12 cloves of thinly sliced garlic. "This is garlic as an ingredient." Whoa, Nellie, that'll be strong. He cooks them until they are light brown.

He slices a Serrano chili. "If you'd rather have mayonnaise maybe just upset, instead of angry, you can back off the chili a little bit." No, Michael, I want to go all the way. He readies basil leaves and zests an orange, not with the microplaner, but with a zester to make LONG strands. (He's thought of everything.) He adds the chilies to the pan, "You get the flavor of the chilies stretched out throughout the oil." He adds the basil and stands back, while the moisture from the leaves makes the oil sizzle. He cooks it until crispy and seasons with salt and pepper.

Michael remarks that Po'Boys are southern sandwiches usually made with fish. His are from the south too...the south of Italy...spiced up with his Arrabbiata Sauce. The orange zest goes into the garlic mixture with fresh lemon juice. After it's cooled a bit, he adds the entire "angry mixture" to 2 cups of mayonnaise.

As he retrieves the shrimp, he tells us to keep our seafood "as cold as possible, as long as possible to keep it as fresh as possible." He explains what 16/20 prawns means. (You get 16 to 20 prawns per pound BEFORE they're peeled.)

He places Wondra flour on a baking sheet, which he describes as "gravy flour". It doesn't lump up or get gummy. He adds salt and pepper and a lot of chili powder - "just something to move the flavor up a little bit."

He throws the shrimp on top and, with tongs, coats them well with the flour. He shallow fries the shrimp in one layer in hot oil, as he tells us that the name "Po'Boys" came from the '20's in New Orleans, when the street car workers were on strike. Various restaurateurs would feed them sandwiches from their back doors, saying, "Here are those "Po'Boys again." After the shrimp are browned (beautifully), he goes tossy toss with them in his large sauté pan (effortlessly).

He moves on to his gnocchi salad, which is basically a pasta salad made more interesting with the addition of gnocchi. He lays out sliced tomatoes, which I thought were going to get roasted, but it's just a way of seasoning them more efficiently. He bangs lemons together to coax more juice from them and uses 5 tablespoons for the dressing. He adds salt to the lemon juice "so it can melt " inside the dressing and whisks in 2/3 cup olive oil. (Of course, I would use my blender here.)

He salts and peppers the tomatoes AND lettuce. Have you ever seen anyone salting lettuce? What a pro. He seasons each layer of ingredient. He spoons the dressing over the tomato and the arugula (I guess he mistakenly identified it the first time. The recipe calls for "salad greens".)

Michael tells us to go the Food Network website (that's a first, isn't it?) to get his gnocchi recipe. Does he know how painful it is to search for anything on their website? Luckily, they're included the entire gnocchi recipe within the recipe for the gnocchi salad, so you don't have to stress.

MC suggests making a full batch of gnocchi and then freezing half. He cooks them for 90 seconds after they come up to the boil. He will be serving them at room temperature. "I do NOT like cold pasta at all, but I do not mind room temperature pasta." Me too, well, not really, but that's what I'll tell him, if he asks. He seasons the gnocchi "I season every component along the way. That's one of those habits from my restaurant life." See, I told you. "That way, every bite you take is seasoned...just perfect."

The dressing goes on the gnocchi. "As (they) cook, they're going to absorb the dressing." He arranges the platter gorgeously. The toms go on the bottom, greens on top and the gnocchi on top of that with a few shaving of ricotta salata. There is nary a frozen ice cube flower in sight.

To assemble the Po'Boys, he likes to hollow out the roll a bit, so the shrimp don't fall out all over the place. Good tip. He spreads the roll with the angry mayonnaise.

Do you think we could let our families and friends know the kind of mood we're in by the mayo we make? Angry Mayo for when there's something wrong, maybe a Curry Mayo when we're in a more mellow mood, an herby one for when we're feeling energized and invigorated.

The tomatoes go over the mayo and then the chiffonade of lettuce, a lot, salt and pepper, then the fried shrimp. "You're gonna be feelin' rich, not poor" after this sandwich.

The movie goers are watching a Mars movie, while eating the gnocchi and Po'Boys. Michael serves slices of the tart with a topping of marscapone mixed with a touch of vanilla as the episode ends.

My review? 3 thumbs up. Marvelous recipes, great leading man, and so much to learn from him.

The Day Google Went Bye Bye

Was I the only one freaking out when I couldn't open my blog? At first, I thought it was something I had done. Then I had the bright idea of trying to open other Google blogs. Nothing...just error messages. My entire blogging life passed in front of my eyes. I restarted my computer multiple times to no avail. Suddenly, another blog did open and then I tried another and another and then...MINE! Blessed relief. Now I'm far too worn out to actually blog about anything. I have to have a stiff drink to settle my nerves or some chocolate at least. See you soon.

Wretched Food, Romance And (Let's Be Honest) UNBELIEVABLE Cleavage With Ingrid Hoffman

Simply Delicioso with Ingrid Hoffman

Romantic Dinner
Brandied Shrimp
Emerald Rice
Broccoli with Infused Butter
Maracuya (Passion Fruit) Mousse

To get the recipes:
Click here

Why do I make the mistake of turning on the television 3 minutes before Simply Delicioso is on? That way, I have just enough time to see the awful food that Rachael Ray has prepared and it puts me in a bad mood for Ingrid. This week was no exception.

Rachael was doing something or other that had to do with Kentucky and she made possibly THE most unattractive rendition of succotash I've ever seen. Now, succotash is not all that beautiful a dish to begin with, but hers was a shade of dull olive green that I haven't seen since my childhood, when my mother used to serve canned petit pois, thinking they were elegant. (We, the children, likened their smell to my father's socks.) Alongside this recipe misadventure was a massive hunk of a hamburger sitting on a pathetically flat, anemic English muffin. You'd need all the bourbon in the great state of Kentucky to wash THAT down.

ANYWAY, Ingrid comes on. She's sitting across from a mystery man, who looks to be about 10 years younger than she is. Bravo for that, chica, but that's about the last thing I approve of in this episode. She freezes him in mid-sip and, quick as a flash, we have to look at her kicking her leg right at us in the opening sequence. As Rosie would say, I don't find that enjoyable at all.

Ingrid is making a romantic meal for her suitor and she starts with a passion fruit mousse. She's using frozen passion fruit purée, which I must say I have never heard of, but I'm willing to search it out if it seems to be a worthwhile recipe. She tells us we can use frozen blueberries instead, but where's the romance in THAT?

"Passion fruit tastes tarty." C'mon, Ingrid, please don't make it SO easy to take potshots. I'm saying nothing.

She measures out her purée and puts a bit in the bottom of 2 martini glasses. She whips a cup of cream, which seemed to tax her cooking prowess to the extreme, but she did get through it. She likes this recipe because it's fast and inexpensive and leaves her plenty of money for shoes. (Maybe she should take some of that loot and get herself a cooking lesson or two or twenty.) Ingrid folds in the passion fruit purée with condensed milk. Her hair is kind of hanging all over the bowl. How will her guy feel about passion fruit mousse studded with "blonde" strands?

She tastes it. She pronounces it "Tarty sweet". No...I promised.

She ladles the mousse into martini glasses. She smooths the tops and makes them look worse than if she had done nothing. She chills them for an hour and then promises us that she's going to add all "the bells and whistles" to them later.

She moves on the broccoli. Broccoli? That is not a vegetable I associate with romance. She cooks two rather large broccoli heads, not even delicate florets, for 3 minutes in boiling salted water. The salt is meant to keep the color, she tells us. Well, not exactly. Actually, the reason to add the salt is to keep the boiling temperature high (salt raises the boiling temperature of water) and THAT keeps the veggies green by cooking them faster.

Next, she reduces 1/2 cup of orange juice by half, boiling for about 5 minutes. Then she announces, "I'M GOING TO THE FRIDGE." I thought maybe there was a big surprise in there. Why else would she proclaim it so loudly? But no...she's just getting a bunch of old rice to use in her next dish. She puts a wet paper towel on top and microwaves it to freshen it up. (Okay, if food needs "freshening", it's probably not that sterling an item to begin with.)

Ingrid gives us a Chica Tip for herbs. She brings them home, trims the stems and puts them in a glass of water to keep them fresh. That's not a bad idea, since I hate to admit that's exactly what I do. She adds butter and lime zest to the rice, which gives it flavor without acidity, she says. (I don't have the energy to fight about EVERYTHING, but can you get any more acidic than lime zest? I suppose she means that the JUICE is EVEN more acidic.)

Lots of chopped parsley and cilantro go into the rice, hence the name of the dish. Meanwhile, she adds butter to the reduced orange juice and adds the giant heads of blanched broccoli. She says she's sautéing them. Well, baby, that's not really sautéing in a pan THAT deep. That's steaming. I have a Chica Tip for you, Ingie, use the correct pan for the job. A sauté pan has LOW sides for a reason.

Ingrid starts on the shrimp. She chops 3 cloves of garlic, while telling us that her father snagged her mother with this dish. Okay, maybe this is promising. She adds butter AND olive oil to the skillet, correctly remarking that the oil will prevent the butter from burning. She adds chopped fresh oregano. (Do NOT hold that up for us to smell...She did.) She adds her shrimp, which she bought peeled and deveined. We leave the kitchen for a moment for her to show us how to choose shrimp. I'll tell you one way not to do it. Don't lean over to smell the shrimp and get your hair all over it. Ewwwww.

Back to the kitchen, she adds 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce, chili sauce and salt and pepper. The recipe calls for ketchup and Tabasco WHICHEVER it is, it's not really a promising way to go. If she were making a barbecue sauce, maybe...but an elegant romantic dinner for two...I don't think so. Oh, this next thing is not good. She adds brandy, hoping it will spontaneously flame. It doesn't. She didn't have the pan hot enough when she added it. She gives us a not completely useless tip for cooking shrimp. She says remember the alphabet (well, two completely unrelated letters anyway) When the shrimp is in the shape of a "C", it means the shrimp is cooked. "O" means it's overdone.

Ingrid returns to the rice and adds some cheese to it. (This is all being done in the baking dish. It would have been a lot easier if she had stirred the herbs, butter, zest and cheese into the rice in a big bowl and then transferred it to a greased baking dish. She doesn't say anything about greasing.) She puts this mixture under the broiler. Exactly what you expect to happen DOES happen. It gets crusty and hard and brown, and that's not really a good thing.

Of course, there ARE some recipes for which you should use previously cooked rice. Fried Rice must be made with day-old rice for the best results. But in this dish, there's simply no reason to use it. The uncooked rice and water (stock gives great flavor) can be assembled and left at the back of the stove. All the other ingredients can be prepped and ready to go. An hour or a bit more before serving, cook the rice and leave it covered and turned off on the stove. It can sit for up to an hour. Just before serving, stir in all the other stuff and you have a lovely, freshly cooked dish. There's no reason to do it Ingrid's way.

Now it's time to set the mood. She floats red rosebuds around a candle, or some such thing. Then she wraps a red garland-thingie around a candle. It looks a bit bordello-like. She goes to change. OMG. Seriously, her boobs look like they'll be the first course. If she hadn't
"garnished" them with a large necklace hanging prominently in her cleavage (and luckily blocking a bit of the view), we could probably do a breast exam from our living rooms.

Ingrid takes the burned looking rice from the broiler. She uses an over-large spoon to serve it. Overcooked broccoli, that hasn't been cut into florets, goes on the plate, then the shrimp. After she's already served it, she tastes the shrimp.

Her date arrives. Clever way they've shot him. We never actually see him or hear him.

She returns to the kitchen for the promised exciting garnish of the passion fruit mousse. She drizzles a bit of the passion fruit purée over and then puts tiny leaves of mint on the top. That's the "bell and whistles"? That's it? What a gyp! Kind of like the entire meal. Kind of like the entire series.

Giada Goes Greek

Everyday Italian with Giada De Laurentiis

Greek Fusion

Greek Caponata
Orzo Stuffed Peppers
Simple Baklava
Crispy Smoked Mozzarella with Honey and Figs

To get the recipes:
Click here

Giada looks just stunning against the Greek backdrop of a white-washed building set against brilliant sunshine. Of course, she'd look beautiful in a dusty old shed in the middle of a hailstorm.

She tells us that "the flavors of Greece and Italy complement each other in some surprising ways." Why is that surprising? When you think that the Romans have been borrowing from the Greeks (sorry, Giada), since they took Zeus and turned him into Jupiter, and Aphrodite and Ares became Venus and Mars, you'd think there would have been even more intermingling of the 2 cultures, not to mention cuisines. But I guess that when you have two proud peoples, they like to keep certain aspects of their heritages separate.

(According to some olive oil producing Spanish friends, Italians do like to pass off Greek olive oil as their own. I'm staying out of that feud. I like to use Spanish olive oil, sent to me by these same friends. It is awesome.)

Anyway, in the spirit of neighborliness, Giada is borrowing from both cultures to make her dishes today. She gets beautiful orange and red peppers ready for stuffing. She cooks 1 1/2 cups of orzo in 4 cups of chicken stock, just for 5 minutes, because it's going to cook longer in the oven.

She breaks up canned whole tomatoes with scissors, reminiscing about when she was a child and she and her siblings used to squoosh the tomatoes through their fingers. Ah, the memories of a fine Italian kitchen. (Sometimes, my mother let me measure the Minute Rice. Just kidding. Well, not completely. My mother WAS a fine cook, but she did avail herself of various anti-fine cuisine shortcuts.)

Giada grates zucchini on a box grater. Ok, if I'm sitting in Tuscany, surrounded by rolling hills and sun-kissed produce, I'll use a box grater. But if I'm home, I'll let it rip in the food processor. She adds the zucchini to the bowl of tomatoes. The orzo gets lifted out of the pot, reserving the stock that's left behind. Giada adds the orzo to the toms and zucc. She also adds some chopped mint. "Mint is to the Greeks as Basil is to the Italians."

Ooh, I love analogies! They don't have those on SAT's anymore, do they? Donkey is to Linux systems what Pacific Ocean is to Tom Arnold. (Okay, WHERE in the world was my mind there?)

Garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil and cheese (an Italian one) gets thrown in too. Giada mixes it all together. Why aren't you using a fork? (The FN should give a seminar to its hosts to explain that grains and pastas get mixed with a FORK.) She fills the peppers all the way to the top, because there is some shrinkage. She pours the reserved chicken stock into the bottom of the dish and covers it with foil "to keep the peppers moist." It goes into a 400 deg F. oven for 45 minutes and then she sprinkles more pecorino on top and it goes back in, uncovered, for 15 minutes.

How do I feel about this dish? To be honest, I don't think ANYONE really likes the PEPPER part of stuffed peppers. Why not just have the stuffing part? I know they make attractive vessels for food, but it's such a waste of a good pepper. What you're really doing is virtually steaming them, which is what happens when they're baked under foil. It's just not the best to cook them. I'd rather slice them into strips and sauté them quickly in olive oil, garlic and salt. (Throw in a red onion for added punch.)

She starts on her Greek Caponata. She tells us how the Greeks and Italians have been influencing each other for centuries and then begins to prepare a JAPANESE eggplant! She explains they have smaller seeds and are less bitter. I prefer them myself. To the eggplant she adds zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes, garlic and A POTATO. Really? That's odd, isn't it? She finishes off the mixture with extra virgin, olive oil, salt and pepper, oh, and dried oregano - Oregano is to the Greeks as ___ is to the Italians?*

She adds a can of tomatoes to the bottom of a baking dish. She spreads her veggies over and covers with foil. She bakes them for 400 deg. F for 20 minutes then uncovered for 30 to 40 minutes.

To serve with the caponata, Giada is grilling plain bread. She places that on a platter and the caponata goes next to it. See? It's being served on bread. I'm not getting why she added a potato to the mixture.

For her quick version of Baklava, Giada DOES use the food processor. She mixes together walnuts, almonds, dried apricots, sugar, cinnamon, cloves and a secret ingredient she learned from a fine Greek baker - fine breadcrumbs. Then she mixes in honey and melted butter. (I think honey is one of those ingredients where you get what you pay for. If you try a finer honey just once, you'll be hooked. It's more delicate and not quite a syrupy sweet as the standard brand.)

Giada is using phyllo dough for the next recipe. She covers it with a damp cloth to keep from drying out. She stacks up 6 pieces, brushing melted butter between each one. She cuts the stack into 12 equal pieces. She presses each rectangle into a mini muffin cup. A spoonful of filling goes into each one and then she presses the top edges closed. They look like adorable little pouches. She bakes them at 350 deg F. for 20 minutes.

To top off her next dish, Giada heats up some honey and adds dried figs to it to rehydrate them. She places a sheet of phyllo on work surface and cuts smoked mozzarella into 1 inch slices. She wraps each slice of mozzarella in a phyllo sheet like a burrito. She gets her oil ready. "Who doesn't like fried cheese?" I'm with you, G.

WOW!!! They look brown and melty and crispy and good! She plates them and spoons over the honeyed figs. (That's a great serving idea for a slab of bleu cheese, too.) The final touch is a sprinkle of black sesame seeds. She tastes it. It should get the gold.

Merging Greek and Italian elements isn't hard, when you take the best from both worlds. And when you have Giada putting them together, she's bound to make the gods, Greek OR Roman, happy.

*Parsley, Says Giada.

Did I LIKE Ingrid Hoffman This Week? I Wouldn't Go Quite That Far

Simply Delicioso with Ingrid Hoffman

Orange Crush
Rum Chica Rum Chicken
Golden Sunshine Quinoa Salad
Orange Granita

To get the recipes:
Click here

Hey! You Made It! Ingrid yells, as she accosts us at the beginning of the show. I don't know about you, but I prefer a not so heavy-handed approach to being greeted.

Today's menu – yes, she freezes the action again as she leaves for the kitchen – is a barbecue. Maybe they know something we don’t about what’s coming up.

She starts with an Orange Granita by making a sugar syrup. Pretty basic, stir ¼ cup of sugar into ½ cup water, bring it to the boil and cook it until the sugar dissolves. Even Ingrid doesn’t have a problem with that.

She's going to serve the granita in hollowed out orange skins, so she begins to prepare them. This should be good…She slices the top off an orange and just a smidgen from the bottom. She scoops out the orange "with a little bit of patience and love", being careful not to perforate the edges. She puts it in a muffin pan to hold it securely and goes on to another one.

Hey! What's going on here? (But I'm not yelling like she does.) Ingrid is actually showing us something useful and a reasonable way to do it. She continues to scoop out oranges, putting the flesh in a sieve over a bowl. "It's play with your food time." My goodness, that's actually a good line. WHAT is happening? She squeezes as much juice out of the pulp as she can.

She begins the marinade for the chicken, which she mixes in a ziplock bag. 6 cloves of garlic go in with Worcestershire sauce (I’m not even going into the “whole Wooshie sauce” thing), brown sugar and the ingredient that “is going to create the whole sunshine”: Meyers Dark Rum.

“Let’s get the chicken drunk.” I must be really tired or worse, because I find that image rather amusing. She also adds orange juice and chopped ginger. Ingrid retrieved her ginger from the freezer, which I’m sorry, folks, happens to be a great idea. (I DO peel mine first, though). After adding some chopped cilantro, her favorite, she adds boneless chicken breasts and smooshes them around in the marinade. Okay, I hate boneless chicken breasts, but the marinade could be good.

She might be veering into objectionable territory, now, when she places fresh cut flowers (no stems) into ice cube trays and pours water over and freezes them into flower cubes. She’s going to decorate her drink cooler with that. That might be a bit tablescapesque.

For the granita, she mixes 1 cup of orange juice, ½ cup simple syrup and ½ cup Cointreau. That goes into a shallow dish in the freezer. Ingrid says we have to “babysit” it every half hour by scraping it with a fork to make slush. Again, good choice of word. I guess her English is better than she pretends or she has someone who actually knows something writing her script.

She begins her Quinoa Salad telling us about its super protein powers and how it has 8 amino acids. I loathe quinoa, but I’m willing to concede that the one time I made it, the recipe sucked and I should give it another chance. (I feel bad for people when they feel insecure about pronouncing it. It’s Keen-Wah. Nobody should have to lose their self-esteem for simply asking where something is in a grocery store.)

She rinses 2 cups of quinoa under water and adds it to 2½ cups of chicken stock. She brings it to the boil and cooks it on low heat, leaving it alone for 20 to 25 minutes. Sorry, Ingrid-bashers (I include myself here), there’s nothing bad to comment on here. She chops scallions and an English cucumber, which gives the salad a “crunchtastic” taste. Watch it Ingrid, you’re doing well so far, don’t get kitschy on me now.

She chops 2 handfuls of golden raisins - that’s more pointless than criminal – and zests an orange. She mentions having this quinoa salad at the 100th birthday party of her Great Aunt Titi (from Bolivia). Oh, so she has at least a little bit of real Latin blood. Ingrid washes her hands. Wow, things really are looking up.

She scrapes her Orange Granita one more time, before finishing the Quinoa Salad. She adds ¼ teaspoon of cumin to the salad, telling us that cumin is very important in Latin cooking. Well, if it’s so important, why wouldn’t you add enough so that we can actually taste it?

She adds ONE TEASPOON of olive oil to the bowl. That seems a bit ridiculous too. And then she ANNOUNCES that she’s adding the quinoa. JUST DO IT, as they say. She is using a big wooden thing to stir with. WRONG. Stir grains with a big fork, so you don’t mash them. (The recipe says to use a fork.)

“We’re going to have a wedding right in this bowl.” Ok, she’s verging on dumb now. She adds parsley, telling us how heavy-handed she is…(not with the cumin you ain’t, baby.)

Hey, (not yelling) I just noticed someone must have told her to knock it off calling every last thing and person “baby”. Not one time has she used it this week. (Did I miss it?)

THEN she says something odd. She says she's known for being heavy-handed with certain ingredients, "BUT I can cook,”…almost as if she’s trying to convince herself of the fact. Interesting.

She scrapes the Orange Granita one last time and fills the oranges. The ice cubes come out. They look nice…IF YOU’RE NINETY YEARS OLD. Not that there’s anything wrong with being 90, I hope to be that one day, but you know what I mean.

Off to a commercial break. “Wanna cook like Rachael Ray? Then get these knives…” Thank you so much for alerting me to exactly the knives I WON’T be getting.

Ingrid sprays the grill with Pam, when the grill is on. DON’T DO THAT…EVER. You should oil THE FOOD, not the grill, unless you’re seasoning the grill using oil. Pam will cook on funny and destroy the finish of the grates. (There is a new Pam just for the grill, designed to work with really high temperatures, but it still gets the grates icky.)

Now this is strange. She actually blots off the marinade from the chicken. I understand it can burn, but then you should just sort of let it drip off, not actually remove it. She grills it 5 minutes on the first side, without moving it around. Well, that’s right at least. She turns it over. To test if it’s done, she says to poke it with tongs. If it’s springy, it’s done. She cuts one open to be sure. She garnishes the plate with oranges and cilantro.

She serves her snapped-back-to-life friends dinner. They are pleased. Then she places each frozen Orange Granita on a sunflower and uses those as plates. ¿Cómo se dice "TACKY" en español?

Que rico, Ingrid purrs, as the sun sets on another episode.

I have to be honest here. Simply Delicioso, this week, wasn’t quite as Simply Awful as usual. It must be an improvement when I didn’t want to hurl a can of coconut cream at the screen. That’s something.

But when I watch Ina, I want to climb into the television and cook right there along with her. Giada? I’d love share recipes with her over a meal in her garden. Michael and Tyler, well, I have other ideas for them…but Ingrid? She’s definitely not on the same level, and I’m not really interested in her becoming a part of my life, but this week, at least, I didn’t want to banish her to the rain forest.

Meatloaf And Blog Etiquette

I was leaving Steen, over at Side Order Of Ham, a comment, a really long comment, and then it went bye bye...never to reappear. AAARRRGGGHHH!!! It occurred to me that someone was trying to tell me something and that it might be sorta rude to pontificate in such large doses on someone else's blog.

So here's the post I was writing about and here's my comment...in my own space:

I agree about writing down recipes. I now write in my cookbooks when I make changes to a recipe (which is almost always), or if I think I should change it next time.

Too bad about the phantom meatloaf. He was probably just making it up.

The best meatloaf ever is The Italian Meatloaf from the second Silver Palate Cookbook. You make your meat mixture, pat it out into a rectangle and cover it with sun-dried tomatoes, fresh basil leaves and smoked mozzarella. THEN YOU ROLL IT UP and place it on a baking sheet or roasting pan and bake it. OMG. It is the truly awesome. And as you cut it, you get these gorgeous spirals of delicious things studded into each slice.

When I make just a normal run of the mill meatloaf – 1 grated carrot, 1 grated zucchini, 2 or 3 slices of whole wheat bread zapped into crumby submission, a bunch of meat, a big squirt of ketchup and one egg - I form it into a loaf and…if you tell anyone I said this, I’ll deny it…I spread a half can of condensed tomato soup on the top and bake it. It’s really good and I don’t normally condone condensed soup under any circumstances.

Now, now...don't be scared of baking. The key is practice, practice, practice. And if you could bake next to someone who knew something that would help too. What's the worst thing that could happen anyway? You have a lot of mess to clean up. Plus baking bread IS hard. There are so many variables.

I love mushrooms too and subscribe to Michael Chiarello’s philosophy. Cook them hot and don’t touch them after they’ve been turned in the oil until they're browned and crusty. THEN turn them. Yum. Gotta go and get me some.

Ina Is So Fabulous That Even When You Don't Follow Her Recipe, It's Fantastic

More about that later...

The Barefoot Contessa with Ina Garten
The Cat's Away

Roasted Asparagus with Scrambled Eggs
Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread
Mexican Chicken Soup
Pineapple Margarita
Chocolate Orange Fondue

To get the recipes:
Click here

Ina, dear Ina...I've been away and I've missed you. It seems that's Jeffrey's going away and Ina is using his trip as an excuse for a little get-together to pass the hours until his return. Go get 'em Contessa. Party Hardy!!!

The alleged reason for this gathering is bridge, but you and I know it's just a pretext for yummy food and a big pitcher, a GREAT big pitcher, of cocktails.

Before Jeffrey leaves, Ina makes him a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs and roasted asparagus. She breaks off the asparagus where the woody stems begin. If they're super thick, she likes to peel them. She thinks the thicker ones have more flavor than the really skinny ones. She coats them (really well) with olive oil and salt and places them on a baking sheet. Don't use a roasting pan or baking dish, because they'll steam. They go into a 400 deg F. oven for 15 minutes.

If you're trying to limit your fat a bit, try this. Immerse the asparagus spears in water to which you've added 1 tablespoon of oil. Remove them from the water and place on a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt. It's amazing how well they get coated with that little bit of oil. And if you put them into a hot oven, the water doesn't seems to make them steam.

For her scrambled eggs, Ina mixes 6 eggs (for TWO of them!) with 3 tablespoonfuls of half and half. She tells us that, over the years, she's learned that the LESS liquid you add, the fluffier the eggs. I guess the rule is 1 tablespoon of liquid for every 2 eggs.

Back to the asparagus for a second. She sprinkles grated Parmesan cheese over the spears halfway through the cooking time. Gosh, they look good already...so browned and glistening.

For the scrambled eggs, Ina melts a bit of butter in a pan. (I have a French friend, who swears that the best way to cook oeufs brouillés is over a double boiler, super super slowly, and that they taste amazingly rich and tender and luscious... Excuse me while I go crack few eggs.) Ina says the key is to cook them on a low heat and LISTEN HERE, she just said that the French cook them in a double boiler. Well, thank you, I must be a mind reader...She finishes up the eggs.

She places the cooked asparagus on each plate and the scrambled eggs go over. She adds a thick piece of whole wheat bread to each plate. As Jeffrey is served, he gets a bit suspicious about the excellent breakfast, so she admits she'll be entertaining gentlemen friends later.

They say goodbye with the heat of Rhett and Scarlet or maybe Liz and Dick. Really. And I don't want to hear any dissent. They are so genuinely warm and cuddly together that I want to skip out of the kitchen and grab him myself...or her.

Sorry, back to the show. He leaves and she winks "The coast is clear." Into the kitchen she goes...to start on her vat of cocktails.

Triple Sec and Tequila (A LOT) go into a pitcher. Then she adds fresh lime juice. She must have juiced 10 limes! She adds 2 1/2 cups of pineapple juice to make 4 giant cocktails. She's not kidding. There must be a pint for each person in there.

For her cornbread, Ina places flour and cornmeal in a bowl. She prefers to use medium ground. She adds 1/4 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons of baking powder and 2 teaspoons of salt, which sounds like a lot to me, but she says it's important. She melts 2 sticks of butter and whisks with 3 eggs and 2 cups of milk.

She pours the wet ingredients into a well in the middle of the dry. Stir just enough to mix. She lets the batter sit for 15 to 20 minutes. I thought that defeated the purpose of the using double acting baking powder. (You know the drill - first rise comes with adding the liquid, second with the heat of the oven.) She says to let it sit so that the cornmeal absorbs the liquid...I don't get that myself, but SHE'S the Contessa....She stirs in cheese and scallions (reserving a bit) and minced jalapenos and leaves it to sit out.

For the Mexican Chicken Soup, she roasts breasts with the bone AND skin on. She rubs them with olive oil, salt and lots of black pepper. We've seen her prepare chicken this way many times and it is wonderful. It's at the other end of the taste spectrum from a boneless, skinless chicken breast. (Unfortunately, it's also at the other end of the fat and sodium spectrum, but never mind. Just don't wolf down the whole thing.) The chicken is roasted at 350 deg F for 35 to 40 minutes.

Ina pours her cornbread batter into a greased 9" by 13" dish and smooths over the top. She sprinkles the reserved cheese and scallions on top and bakes it at 350 deg F for 30 to 35 minutes.

For the soup itself, Ina chops BIG onions, 2 cups worth, and carrots and celery. They get cooked in a large pot with 3 tablespoons of olive oil. She adds garlic, gives it one stir and then adds chicken stock, tomatoes, cumin, coriander, salt and pepper. I would rearrange the entry into the pot of those ingredients. I would add the salt when I was cooking the vegetables to encourage them to sweat. After they were nice and soft, I would add the spices and do my usual thing - cook them on low heat for 3 minutes. THEN I would add the stock and tomatoes.

However they get into the pot, Ina then thickens the soup interestingly. She adds strips of white corn tortillas, which kind of melt into it and give the soup a nice corn flavor.

It wouldn't be Ina without something extra to go on top, so she prepares toppings for the soup. (It's true the total fat count hasn't reached the luxury level yet.) She readies really good sharp cheddar cheese (grated), sour cream and avocado, plus taco chips. Then she makes shreds out of her GORGEOUS chicken and adds that to the soup. This soup is getting as opulent as a lobster bisque.

The guys arrive. They enjoy their gigantic cocktails and then soup and cornbread. They play a bit of cards, but then, c'mon, let's get real. They're really only interested in eating some more. They are at Ina's house, after all.

She goes to the kitchen to prepare dessert, a splendid chocolate orange fondue. She melts chocolate and cream in a double boiler and adds orange zest and orange liqueur with 1/2 tsp of coffee granules. (She always likes to add that with chocolate.) This is what she serves to dip into the fondue:
Strawberries, huge ones with long stems
Pound cake
Bananas
DOUGHNUTS (what a GREAT idea!)
AND pretzel sticks, not little skinny mingy ones, but long, thick pretzel RODS

There are enough dipping items for 20 people. There are 5 of them. The cards get cleared away. Who are they fooling anyway?

Ina remarks that the fondue reminds her of the 60's without the "you know what". And with that, one of the boys brings out the hookah and they really get rolling...KIDDING...But I really had to think. For a minute, I thought she was talking about the other thing that the sixties were famous for.

I'm guessing our Contessa was referring to a special "herb", often added to particularly potent batches of brownies. "If Jeffrey asks", she tells the boys, "I was home alone." Don't worry, I won't say a word...

NOTE: I respectfully submit that these changes to Ina's cornbread recipe make it even better:

Use half flour and half cornmeal
Double the sugar
And if you halve the recipe, just use 2 regular eggs instead 1 1/2 extra large eggs and bake in a square 8" dish. (You know the old egg size problem with Ina's recipes.) If you're making the whole recipe, you can get away with just 3 large eggs.

Ingrid Hoffman - One Week Late, But, Really, She's Lucky I Watched At All

Simply Delicioso with Ingrid Hoffman
Sunset Dinner

Tamarind Glazed Baby Back Ribs
Mango and Red Cabbage Slaw
Hot Corn with Chimichurri Butter
Tequila Sunrise Punch

To get the recipes:
Click here

I finally got around to watching last weekend's Simply Delicioso. But I had a bit of a bonus (and not in a good way), before I even began. On the tape was the last 3 minutes of Rachael's Chicken Under A Brick show. And, believe me that was all I needed to see.

Rachael wiped her dirty pan with bread and called it dinner (along with 3 of the biggest platters of chicken I’ve ever seen.) Then she told us that you can thin down any fruit spread, jam or jelly with vinegar and some EVOO and salt and pepper for a salad dressing. And “you’re good to go”. She was using orange marmalade, which admittedly I do hate, but the concept is still horrible. How about just using the “EVOO” (you know…quote unquote with your fingers) and skipping the fruit spread, jam or jelly altogether? (Can’t you just see her using grape jelly on a salad?)

Oh, gosh, I’m getting my blood pressure up and we haven’t even had the opening seconds of La Chica Loca y Mala Cocinerita. (If Ingrid can ruin food, then I can abominate Spanish.)

“HEY! You’re Here!!!” Ingrid practically screams as she beckons us onto her blanket. She’s making baby back ribs with a tamarind glaze. Wait a sec! This is only the 4th time I’ve ever even laid eyes on Ingrid Hoffman, and I’ve already seen this recipe. Where was it? Oh, yeah, The Early Show on CBS. Come ON! You’ve only been on American television for a month and you’re already repeating recipes? That’s not reassuring.

Now, Ingrid’s doing that snapping fingers thing, where she pretends to go back in time. She leaves her buddy on the blanket, grinning strangely. I guess she had tasted all the food and knew what we were in for.

She talks about Aji Panca. This time I understood her (unlike on CBS), because they spelled it out on the screen. She pours boiling water over to hydrate them. “Later, they’ll be nice and plumpy.” Before she starts the glaze, she’s going to “Flip those babies (the meat) into the oven.”

WAIT. Alert the media. Ingrid says, “we’re going to wash our hands.” OMG. It’s as if she heard the hue and cry about a previous show. She continues, “as you can see, we’re not going to cross-contaminate the rest of what’s there.” Hurray, we don’t have to worry about that now and can concentrate on how annoying she is. Wow, they’re even spending time showing her soaping up her hands.

The meat goes in for 30 minutes at 300 deg. Fahrenheit. To make the barbecue sauce, Ingrid pours the juice of an orange and 2 lemons into the blender and then adds “ Wooshter Sauce.” “Anyway, by now you should know I don’t know how to say this word.” Why does that irritate me? Why don’t think it’s cute? Oh, yeah, cuz it’s stupid. She spends more time MISpronouncing the word than it would take to just learn how to say in the first place.

She adds brown sugar to the blender and throws salt over both shoulders. Didn’t the Food Network inform her that RR already has the franchise on that salt thing? Oh, look, she throws it into the camera too. Is that a Latin thing? Probably not, since nothing else is.

She adds tamarind paste to the blender. I could have sworn I saw some tamarind seeds in the blender with the tamarind paste. (They’re big, almost like plum pits.) Her tamarind paste does look good - rich and gooey. I get mine from Indian stores and it’s usually much drier, but I’m pretty sure I remember having to remove the seeds, which are imbedded in the paste. She does no such thing.

Ingrid tastes the barbecue sauce after it’s all blended and pronounces it “tarty”. Hmmmmm.

She makes a big production of dividing the marinade into 2 bowls. One is to go on the meat and the other is to serve separately to avoid cross contamination issues. I really think someone had a talk with her about kitchen hygiene. She’s certainly going out of her way to mention it.

Now she starts a “Latin twist version” of coleslaw. She struggles with the cabbage a bit and calls it "baby" multiple time. She slices it. Is it possible that she left the core in. (Don’t do that.) She salts it with “tons” of salt and lets it sit for 20 minutes, then she’ll drain it. Oh goodie - salty, soggy cabbage – just the way I like it.

She takes the ribs out of the oven and coats them with more glaze. They go back in the oven for 30 minutes. At least, I think they do. This is what she says: "I’m gonna TAKE THEM IN for another 30 minutes, BRING THEM BACK OUT, smother some more on and TAKE THEM BACK IN.” I suppose she means PUT them back in, but honestly, it’s not all that clear. Now please don’t misunderstand. I am not making fun of Ingrid’s English. I’m making fun of her pseudo-Latinisms when her English is perfect 99% of the time. Just to sound exotic, she throws in these inanities.

She continues with the cole slaw. “Time to tango with the mango.” She does this weird thing with the mango. Okay, it’s true that Nigella also has an interesting way with a mango, but, at least, her accent is 100% legitimate. Ingrid peels the skin off the mango. She cuts all the way down on one side of the pit and down the other side and chops the mango into small pieces. She leaves an enormous amount of flesh still on the mango. She chops cilantro, explaining that she loves it so much that she could have it on ice cream. After adding a few more ingredients to the cole slaw - apple cider vinegar, lime juice, sugar and pepper - she puts it in the fridge.

She goes on to a Chimichurri Sauce to add to butter. She says the hallmarks (she doesn’t use that word, of course) of this sauce are oregano and parsley. They get processed with sherry vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper, lemon juice and red pepper flakes. Then she adds 2 sticks of room temperature butter and mixes the entire thing together. She places it on plastic wrap and makes a roll of it. And puts it in the fridge for an hour.

“I get so excited when it comes to ribs, I like to get down and dirty.” Come on now, folks. Giada has a huge male college audience and SHE doesn’t resort to that kind of pandering.

Ingrid removes the ribs and "TAKES THEM IN" or maybe it’s "PULLS THEM BACK". At this point, I just don’t know anymore.

She turns her attention to the corn and she going to turn her “corns” into little gifts. I don’t know about you, but if someone offered me “corns” at the dinner table, I’d probably show them my bunions in return. She pulls the husks down most of the way and removes the little strings. She ties up the husks to make a kind of long handle for each one. (Don’t worry if you don’t get the idea…don’t bother.) She boils the corn with 2 tablespoons of sugar and a bit of salt. I’m going to be really witchy here and say that if you need to add that much sugar to your “corns”, they must be really bad.

For her Tequila drink, she cuts grapefruit into pieces, slices oranges so big they’ll never fit in a glass, and chunks up a lime. She puts them all in a pitcher and pours in Italian lime soda, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. It's that bottled stuff you can get at Whole Foods. Ingrid adds 1 cup of tequila, stirs and pours herself a generous glass. She tells us excitedly that she’s going to use beer bottles as vases. Remember to drink the beer first, Ingrid.

“My ribs are sizzling.” Are they, now?

She takes out the ribs. They look burned. She cuts them up and adds a bit more barbecue sauce, covering up the charred pieces as she goes.

She’s using baking sheets as “tray plates”. I didn’t like that on her CBS appearance and I don’t like it now. It doesn’t look charming. It looks pointless.

She’s slicing her butter into “a nice wedge”. I was trying to figure out how she was going to get a wedge out of a long circular stick of butter. She doesn’t. She’s slicing the butter into rounds and just calling it a wedge.

The baking sheets are over-large for the food on it. She tells us, “If I can do it, you can do it.” I sure hope not. AND if I ever DO do it like Ingrid, would you please kick me.