Float

I've been having a rough week.

Okay, it's been several weeks, really, of exhaustive job searching, financial freak outs, not enough fresh air, not enough fruits and veggies, and a lot of couch-grown negativity. But this week, it kind of came to a head, and I have been acting just a little (read: a lot) like a person in need of some serious pharmaceutical help and a lot of talk therapy. There's been crying. Totally irrational, red in the face crying. I think everyone is allowed a little bit of this every now and then, but I am becoming increasingly aware that I am nearing my quota for the year.

Meanwhile in the midst of one of my semi-normal spells earlier this week, I passingly mentioned to Mr. Gastro that I had stumbled upon a food blog out there in the great big blogosphere on the topic of foods from our childhood, specifically root beer floats. And I thought this blogger had a pretty good point. I mean, when was the last time that you, as an adult, had a root beer float? If you had to take more than 7 seconds to think about it it's been too long. Anyway, it was one of those random sentences that sometimes flies out of my mouth, and having said it, I promptly forgot about it and returned to wailing uncontrollably or gnashing my teeth, or whatever it was I had been doing before my synapses randomly misfired and prompted me to want to talk about root beer floats.

And is anybody surprised that the very next day, on a disgustingly hot night, Mr. Gastro came home from work carrying a bottle of A&W root beer and a gallon of vanilla ice cream? Maybe not you, but he surprised the hell out of me. I swear to God, I jumped up and down like a little kid, scaring the crap out of the cat and probably out of Mr. Gastro. I was so stupid happy at the prospect of root beer. And ice cream. TOGETHER.

Later that night while watching District 9 and drinking ridiculously huge root beer floats, I thank Mr. Gastro for thinking of it, and he blushes, saying, "I mean...I know it was silly, but..." and without even thinking about it, I cut him off, and shouted, "It's not silly, THIS IS THE HAPPIEST I'VE BEEN ALL WEEK!"

There was all kinds of stuff wrong with that statement. Like the fact that it was true. And the fact that something that was so bad for me could make me feel so much better. Is that wrong? Probably. I was mortified as soon as I said it. And then I just stopped. Because my own personal dietary health aside, when you're feeling that low, it doesn't really matter what it is that brings you out of it, as long as you get out of it one way or another. For me it was a root beer float. But I maintain that if I had gone down to the store myself, bought the root beer and the ice cream and had a root beer float all by myself, I would have ended up feeling even crappier than I had started. It was Mr. Gastro who picked me up, pumped me full of high fructose corn syrup and made me feel all better, something I'm not certain I could have done for myself, regardless of how much sugar I had thrown at it.

So here is my assignment for all of my fellow Gastro-Junkies out there tonight: If you have somebody you love, and who loves you back, make them a root beer float. They probably haven't had one in a while. And while you're at it, make one for yourself.

Drink

Drink.

You see the sign as you're coming down the stairs into Barbara Lynch's cocktail heaven, and it seems more a command than a simple piece of entryway signage. The smell hits you, fruit, real sugar, booze, and something else you can't quite put your finger on, and you are more than happy to obey.

People see different things when they first enter Drink. I saw the pots of fresh herbs on the island and the old fashioned juicers, and I saw a particularly trendy and spacious home kitchen, with a laid back cocktail party going in full swing. Mr. Gastro noted the exposed bulbs, the bare brick walls, the eyedroppers and mysterious glass beakers and bottles with hand written labels, and he saw a laboratory. The one thing people generally don't see when they first walk into this place, or at least don't think they see, is a bar. It took me a couple minutes the first time I came here to figure out why, and then it hit me; No bottles. You won't see the ubiquitous lineup behind the bar, Skyy, Captain's, Absolute, Stoli, Jim, Jack and Jose. Everything is kept hidden away. They do this for a very good reason. Don't go to Drink expecting to order your old standby Captain and coke. Here's the way it works: You tell them what you're into, a certain ingredient you've got on the brain, a mood, and then they work their magic. My first time was very early in the springtime, when you could just start to smell the green getting ready to pop out. I told my very friendly bartender to make me something to celebrate the Spring, and he brought me a concoction that tasted just like sweet, cut grass. Amazing. A few other phrases I've used here to start off the evening included, "I'm feeling...ginger," (Gin Gin Mule, with homemade ginger beer) "Clean and crisp and not too sweet!" (Aviation, invented in honor of the Wright brothers first flight, with gin and lemon, and bitters), Mr. Gastro's challenge of "Can you do anything with Sake?" (Of course they could, and provided a Strawberry Sake Sour,) and my favorite, "That was incredible. Make me something totally different!" (Slumdog Millionaire, featuring Indian rum, fruit, cinnamon and spices.) On one occasion Mr. Gastro and I decided to challenge our bartender and said simply, "You know best! We are in your hands." She took two steps back from us, looked us both over for what felt like an eternity, fingers jumping like a sleight of hand artist, then finally nodded once like she'd come to a decision about us and set to work. Once she was out of earshot Mr. Gastro leaned over and whispered, "Christ! Did you see her face? She's got a Rolodex up there of every drink that's ever existed, and she's flipping through it to see what fits." I've seen them whip up their signature Fort Point cocktail (a local twist on the Manahttan, using Rye whiskey) the time I brought my dad with me, as if they were reading my mind and his. And when I brought along a couple of friends from out of town who were in the mood for a little rowdy fun, our bartender whipped up the now infamous Green blazer, a chartreuse cocktail set on fire and spilled in a flaming waterfall over and over again between two mixers, before being set into a vintage glass, still flaming, given a twist of citrus oil that sparked into the drink, and then finally snuffed and served to my totally tickled pal. Applause ensued. I relay all of this because I cannot stress how important this is; Go with an open mind. Tell them anything you want about yourself, except what cocktail you want them to make you. You let them handle that.

These were the exact instructions I laid on my friends who met me in Fort Point last week for my birthday celebration, and we were not disappointed. I requested a "happy birthday drink" (exact words) and was rewarded with a Bees Knees, a delicious cocktail of gin, honey, and lavender. When I my next words were, "God that's good, give me something like that, but different!" I was issued a lavender gimlet, which quickly replaced the Bees Knees as my favorite cocktail. Plus I got to watch the look on Masha's face as our bartender Joe picked a delicate piece of fresh lavender off of the potted plant sitting behind the bar and used it to garnish my drink. A lemon verbena gimlet was to follow, and I never thought you could get so much mileage out of one family of drinks. Masha for her part included in her instructions, "I'm from Russia if that helps!" and received a Moscow Mule in the appropriate vintage copper mug with mint garnish on top. (This is a point at Drink, correct glassware to match the vintage cocktails. No detail overlooked.) I finished off my evening with a crowd pleaser, the Ramos Gin fizz, which I had tasted before, and got everyone's attention when the bartender placed a whole fresh egg on the counter next to the workstation, ("No...they couldn't possibly.") and then dropped the raw white into my drink. ("Oh my God they did!") Everyone was horrified, but it's a visually gorgeous drink when it's done right, the walls of creamy white foam expanding and rising above the rim of the glass, defying gravity and physics. And once everyone had had a taste, we all agreed that it tasted a lot like an orange creamsicle, and smacked much more of fresh cream than of raw egg.

And lets talk about the food, for a moment. This being a Barbara Lynch establishment, you would think they'd serve up something better than your standard bar fare, and you would be right. We must have ordered a dozen plates of gougeres, (and at $2 a plate, who wouldn't?) the little pastries that kick you in the teeth with pure cheese before evaporating in your mouth, leaving nothing but a surprised look on your face and the need to eat another one right away. Bacon wrapped dates were a perfect balancing act, combining the dates' candy sweetness, the smoke and salt of the bacon, the funky gorgonzola fondu, and finally the hard little reality check of the almond in the middle, bringing you back down to earth. Even french fries are elevated to a whole new level here, cut thick and served alongside a tangy, totally addictive aioli--ketchup will never be good enough again.

Do yourself a favor when coming to Drink and show up at odd hours. Mid afternoon on a weekend or late on a weeknight (after the post-work crowd peters out) seems to work nicely. The key is to get belly up to the bar instead of relegated to some corner, and on a first name basis with your bartender. Get there at the wrong time and you'll find yourself standing in the far reaches of the bar, stuck behind the crowd, sucking on well crafted but familiar cocktails and wondering what all the fuss was about. Get there at the right time and it will completely change your notion of what it means to go get a drink.

Birthday Brownies

"Okay," Masha says, "so we will meet you at the bar at 7, right? What are your big exciting birthday plans before tonight? You going out?"

And with just a little too much enthusiasm I shout, "Mr. Gastro and I are making brownies! From scratch!!"

Masha chooses not to take the opportunity to point out how totally dorky this might actually sound when said out loud, perhaps a small act of kindness in honor of my birthday. But it seems pretty clear to me as soon as the words come spilling out of my mouth that not everyone considers spending a morning at the grocery store, and the afternoon stuck in a cramped windowless kitchen to be thrilling birthday plans. Then again, not everyone feels the need to blog about nearly every morsel of food that passes through their life, so the brownie thing should come as a surprise to no one.

But I digress.

Brownies were the project du jour on Tuesday, before Mr. Gastro and a rotating cast of characters met me at Barbara Lynch's Drink in Fort Point for fancy cocktails. (Review of the evening's festivities forthcoming in the next blog.) I briefly considered baking a cake in honor of my big 25, but the prospect of baking my own birthday cake just seemed too sad for words. Brownies, on the other hand, seemed simply delicious. And consider for a moment if you will, the birthday cake:

I am one of those people who pretty much only eats cake for the frosting. Yes. It's true. I am a child. But it could be worse. Here is one of my favorite quotes from my mother on the subject: "Seriously, bourbon is the only way I can stomach cake... Yeah, I said it." (A true Southern girl at heart). But really, even if you're not a disgusting, sticky fingered frosting eater like myself, nobody ever bakes a cake and leaves the frosting off. I mean really, you guys who turn up your noses at our blue icing stained lips and sugar palsied hands, the ones who say, "Yeah, I just don't like frosting that much," (Lies.) You would never dream of baking a birthday cake and not frosting it. Because cake needs frosting. It's nothing without it.

Brownies on the other hand...

Seriously, ask yourself, what would you rather have? A dry, unfrosted birthday cake, or a big fudgy tray of homemade brownies? (Which need no frosting at all, as brownies are clearly a superior birthday treat to cake. Obviously.) Yeah, that's what I thought.

Anyway, my lack of enthusiasm for cake aside, these were some excellent brownies, and I am beginning to see that there is no cookbook in the world that can beat my America's Test Kitchen Best Recipe Cookbook. This recipe was easy and totally tasty. Moist and fudgy in the center (Even when eaten the next day. For breakfast.) And with just a little bit of that perfect shiny, papery top. Mmm. Now any normal person would ask me why on earth I wouldn't just buy a boxed brownie mix for like, $3 instead of going to the trouble of making them from scratch, and to that person I say, A) "Um, I'm sorry, how do I know you again?" and B) We're not having fun until you have to break out the double boiler. Seriously. Melting satiny dark chocolate and creamy butter on the stove-top. whisking in that velvety dusting of pure cocoa. Flour in the air, chocolate on your sleeves, risking salmonella just to lick the spoon, even though your mother told you never to lick the spoon when the batter has raw eggs in it. You know you love it.

This project was exactly what I needed on this particular birthday as I'm realizing, no, I'm not a kid, I'm a quarter of a damn century old (As my mother so delicately reminded me. Thanks Mom), but dammit, I can still get flour all over the kitchen, I can still sneak bits of chocolate for myself before they go into the mix, and I can still lick the spoon. And the bowl. And the other spoon.

And if nothing else, this project provided the absolutely hysterical picture of Mr. Gastro caught in the act, seen above. I'd say he's a team brownie guy as well.

It's a texture thing

You can't win 'em all.

I would really love it if every single dish I made was pure gastro-magic. I really would. But everybody makes mistakes in the kitchen, sometimes really dreadful ones. I made one this afternoon resulting in a slimy brown bowl of soy protein,and one cranky, hungry, gastro-junkie.

Imagine a marinade based in agave nectar (left over from my previous adventure with Lucky Shrimp. An auspicious start I thought). I'm going for a sweet and sour Asian thing today, so I mix it with some soy sauce (Cheap soy sauce from the convenience store downstairs. Second ingredient corn syrup. Mistake number 1). Then I add fresh grated ginger, ground Szechuan peppercorns, a little cayenne. So far we're doing okay, aside from my questionable taste in soy sauce. I drain and dry a block of tofu and cut it up into cubes, and toss it with the marinade. Now some would argue that using tofu at all was my second mistake, and after the resulting mass of grossness, I might be inclined to agree with you. This whole thing might have gone a lot better had I opted for spareribs over soy, but I had the tofu on hand, and according to every vegetarian I've ever met TOFU IS DELICIOUS! (Liars. Sauce is delicious. Peanuts and chiles and garlic are delicious. Tofu is packing material.)

Anyway, I don't marinade the tofu long enough, because, hey, I'm hungry now. So hungry in fact that I drop some Canola oil in a pan, let it heat up for all of about 7 seconds (Mmm, lukewarm Canola oil...) and I drop in the tofu, cold marinade and all. Now instead of sizzling and caramelizing and crisping up on the outside, my tofu is swimming in a bath of warm Canola oil and cheap soy sauce. It's not sizzling. It's just sitting there, and I'm beginning to believe this was a bad idea, but I continue. I turn the tofu until it's picked up a bit of dark caramel color on all sides, and sprinkle the whole mess with black sesame seeds (Another mistake. Contributes nothing flavor wise and looks like bugs). I drop it in a bowl WITH THE OIL (Why???) and dig in.

Ugh.

The tofu's not crispy. It's slimy, unctuous, just warm enough to be extra special gross. This dish reminds me instantly of all the people I've ridiculed over the years for turning up their noses at some new dish, citing, "I have this thing about texture." (A lame excuse for not trying something new if ever I've heard one, but with this sluggish pile of brown tofu in front of me, I'm beginning to understand). The marinade, treated with any care at all would have been perfectly edible, but as it is, it's clumsy, sticky, salty. I've done a terrible thing. This is really, really bad.

I almost didn't write about this particular culinary adventure. I figured I could go on portraying myself as queen of the kitchen, a wooden spoon in one hand and a perfectly ripe heirloom tomato in the other. But the potential for self-deprecating humor proved too much, and this dish was just too bad to let it go without comment, and so I am sharing. We all make missteps in the kitchen, some worse than others. The key is to recover as best you can, and if you happen to be cooking for company, and the mistake is particularly foul, have your local pizzeria on speed dial and an extra bottle of wine on hand. This lunch was particularly bad, (although only for me, thank God) to the point that it has done a number on my culinary confidence, at least for the day, and my adventurous dinner plans might find themselves toned down in favor of some comforting old standard recipe, something I know I can't screw up. Something heavy.

After all. I did skip lunch.

Lucky Shrimp

I'm a pretty improvisational cook. No rules, no measurements, dozens of ingredients, kitchens destroyed, hours spent on a single dish because, hey, why not? But sometimes we all need some rules to keep us honest. Are we really cooking skillfully here, or are we just piling on enough stuff that we can't help but find something to like?

I was recently issued a cooking challenge for a job interview, one I have yet to find out the final verdict on. The challenge:

One recipe

To be served at room temperature

Must be transportable

No more than six ingredients

Must feature pineapple

Pineapple? SIX ingredients? Palpitations, folks. I haven't cooked with pineapple...well ever basically. And I might be able to pull something off if I could go for baked goods or maybe bake a whole ham. But neither of those options was going to fly, and so I bit the bullet, dealt with the parameters of the assignment, and re-learned very quickly something I should have remembered from high school art class--putting rules and limitations on yourself is sometimes a great way of finding out just how creative you can be. The result of this little experiment was something I've taken to calling Lucky Shrimp, in the hopes that if I say it enough times, it will actually bring me luck (and the job I want). So here it is, without further preamble, my recipe for Lucky Shrimp:

1/2 pound shelled, de-veined shrimp

2 limes

Blue agave nectar, amber (Can also substitute honey.)

Chipotle peppers

Cilantro

Fresh, whole pineapple

Salt and pepper (Do not count as ingredients! I'm not a cheater!)

Fire up the grill, or set your kitchen contact grill to 350.

Rinse and dry shrimp thoroughly and set aside in the refrigerator.

With a sharp knife, open two chipotle peppers to expose the seeds and ribs. Remove these and discard, leaving only the leathery skins. Grind the peppers in a coffee grinder until fine. Set aside.

Finely chop 1 cup fresh cilantro, and combine in a bowl with the juice of 2 limes, and 1/2 -1 cup of blue agave nectar. Add ground chipotle, salt and pepper. Set aside a small amount of the marinade, aproximately 1/4 cup. Take the rest and pour over the cleaned shrimp, and leave to marinade in the refrigerator for about an hour.

Cut the pineapple into chunks, discarding core and taking care to remove all traces of rind. Place chunks on bamboo skewers, alternating with the marinaded shrimp. With a basting brush, brush the pineapple slices with the reserved marinade, making sure that each piece of pineapple gets some smoky chipotle flecks before hitting the grill.

Grill skewers on both sides, about 4 minutes each side, or until the shrimp turn pink and your pineapple chunks are sporting attractive, caramel colored grill marks. Can be enjoyed at room temperature, but when eaten hot off the grill--magic.

My interview panel made many yummy noises while enjoying my Lucky Shrimp, as did Mr. Gastro when I came home later that night and made a fresh batch for dinner using what I had left over. The results are unexpectedly smoky, sweet, savory and spicy, and whatever the results of my interview, I know I will be coming back to this dish many times over the course of the summer. Why? Because it's only got six ingredients, it can be enjoyed hot or at room temperature, and it has pineapple, which is my new favorite ingredient.

Stone Soup

The chicken in my freezer was starting to guilt trip me.

"Pasta? You're having pasta tonight. Sure, pasta seems awfully heavy, but then what do I know, I'm only a chicken."

"Oh no, don't mind me, I'll be fine all by myself, here in the freezer. In the dark. With the half empty bag of frozen peas."

"You know, it's always so nice when you drop by, even if it's only to refill the ice trays. Oh, you're leaving? OH... ::sigh:: Well goodbye."

And then I realized I was anthropomorphizing a roaster, and that it was time to put both of us out of our misery. So I carted my chicken out to Cambridge, along with a couple of potatoes, some onions, and a bag of carrots, and made an old fashioned dinner for myself and a couple of friends. Roast chicken is a neat trick. You spend all of 15 minutes actually working. Toss the carrots and potatoes in the bottom of the pan. Clean up the bird and stuff it with onions and apples. Give it a little TLC with some butter and some salt and pepper. Then you stick it in the oven for an hour and forget about it. Drink some beer and spend the better part of the evening telling dirty jokes and hilariously racy anecdotes, which is exactly what I did until dinner was done cooking itself. (And I found that if you cook the chicken at a relatively low temperature and then crank the oven to about 450 for the last 15 or 20 minutes, the meat stays juicy and tender, while the skin browns and crisps up beautifully. Tasty and gorgeous.) The whole shebang looks very impressive when it comes out of the oven--starch, meat, and veggies all sitting pretty in one pretty little package. It gets great reaction, but the fact of the matter is, it takes significantly less effort than most of the simple pasta dishes I count as a part of my regular repertoire.

But the best part is the leftovers. No, not the cold chicken sandwiches you make up for lunch the next day (And lets be real, the boys and I picked that chicken to the bone with our bare fingers, and there are no sandwich fixings to be found here). No, I'm talking about the sad, meatless carcass that I carted home on the train at 11:00 at night in a lunch box. And yes I am aware that carrying what is essentially food garbage with me while riding public transportation might make me a crazy person. But I was on a mission. Stock.

This afternoon I dropped that scrawny, naked chicken carcass in a stock pot, along with some sautéed onions, celery and carrots, and a handful of herbs, and I waited. I really love this process. I love that it takes all afternoon. I love that it feels a little bit like stone soup--how out of some bones, and whatever else you've got lying around you somehow create magic. It's like alchemy. And I especially love that out of the supposedly inedible remnants of one very nice meal with friends, I have suddenly created the basis for dozens of others. I spend the whole afternoon fantasizing about the dishes I'll make. Next weekend, Parmesan risotto. Maybe I can try my hand at Ratatouille, and then watch the movie with Mr. Gastro while we eat it. And in the fall, when the first chill rolls in, I can pull the last of the stock out of the depths of my freezer and make chicken soup from scratch, a project I pass up more often than not exactly because I don't have any chicken stock already in the house. Now I'll have no excuse. Now, every time I open my freezer I'll see nothing but endless opportunities to create exciting new dishes, sitting there waiting, right next to the frozen peas.

Medium Rare

Mr. Gastro came home from work today with two white plastic Adirondack chairs and a flimsy little table, and I nearly fell over squealing with glee. We've been talking about getting some cheap patio furniture so we can eat out on our balcony ever since we moved into this apartment a year ago, but up until today the only thing taking up space on that patio was the dead remains of last years blight riddles tomatoes in a couple of rubbermaid tubs. (Must. Throw. Away.) Anyway, the arrival of the new patio furniture could not have been timed better.

I was making burgers.

We're on day three of Aquapocalypse here in Boston (Or as I've taken to calling it, Javapocalypse. Nobody is really dropping dead from dehydration around here, but everybody was pretty pissed off on this Monday morning that regardless of how many Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks exist in this city, there was nary a cup of coffee to be found. That's what I call priorities.) Saturday morning the weather felt like classic Springtime in Boston, that is, appropriately cool. But wouldn't you know that no sooner does that water main break than the temperature shoots up and the humidity along with it so it feels more like July or August than the early days of May in New England. Somehow these two events going hand in hand feels all too appropriate. After all, what good is a water crisis without some unseasonable heat to go along with it?

Anyway, the heat dropped this afternoon to just about Nirvana levels, like the most perfect Summer evening you've ever seen, and I decided we were going to celebrate our temporarily perfect weather and the arrival of our new patio furniture with some burgers and corn on the cob. I took a couple of tips from a repeat I recently saw of the No Reservations "Techniques" special, where Tony and Friends review all of the cooking basics any self respecting American home cook cannot go without, and made, I'm sorry, SOME REALLY AWESOME BURGERS.

Looking at tonight's Burgers in comparison to those I've made in the past on the grill, I will say now that a flat cooking surface is definitely preferable. On a grill all of the fat (read: flavor) is able to run off, giving you a leaner, but not nearly as tasty burger. On a flat top (Or in our case, the pancake griddle side of our reversible contact grill) all of that greasy, flavorful goodness has nowhere to go but right back up into the meat, and I can tell you without a doubt, that you can absolutely taste the difference. The other great tip that I stole from Tony was the real winner though, and I will never again make a burger without doing this one thing--brush both sides of the burger with melted butter before throwing it on the heat. I know, I know, it's like cooking with Caligula, the excess is almost too much to handle, but I am telling you--the butter crisps up and creates a beautifully browned exterior, while the inside gets sealed up with its own fat and juices, making, I swear to god, one of the most awesome burgers I've had in a really long time. Or to quote one of my mother's favorite phrases:

"I don't know whether to eat it or shove it down my pants."

A couple of other quick to tips I've found helpful when doing burgers at home:

*Let the meat come to room temperature before cooking it. It will cook much more quickly and much more evenly, and you will have better control all around.

*Fat is your friend. With burgers, you want to choose a ground beef with a higher fat content. It feels so wrong, but it tastes so right. 85% lean has always worked for me.

*Less is more. Don't do anything clever to your burgers. You don't need spices. You don't need bread crumbs. You don't need to stuff the burger with anything. Ground beef. Lots of salt, pepper, and butter on both sides. Done. Step away from the burger.

*Toast the buns. Drop them face down on the cooking surface around the same time you flip the burgers, preferably in a smear of burger juice. The bread will be warm, crispy, and just a little meaty. Mmmm. Meaty.

Now for the toppings: We forgot until about halfway through the cooking process that we hadn't picked up any cheese, but get this--we dropped some ripe avocado on top instead, and the result was cosmic. Creamy, fatty, all the things you love in a cheeseburger, but somehow, more awesome. A little red onion, some fresh tomato, and I ground up some chipotle peppers in my coffee grinder and mixed them with the ketchup to give it a smokey kick, to very nice effect. The final product is everything you want in a burger, but your civilized, PC brain tells you is wrong and evil. These burgers are big, and when you bite into them, you suddenly find that your hands (and face) are dripping with grease and butter and chipotle ketchup. You're a mess. A hot mess. And maybe on some other night you would feel self conscious about that, but tonight, the weather is perfect, the beer is cold, it's dark and maybe (just maybe) nobody can see that you're wearing your dinner, but you don't really care. You lick your fingers, sigh a fat, happy sigh, and lean back to nurse your beer and enjoy the rest of this balmy, greasy, gorgeous evening.

They say pizza is like sex...

...When it's good, it's great. And when it's bad...well it's still pretty good.

But more on pizza in a moment.

The plan for today was going to be making chicken stock. I recently read Ruth Reichl's latest blog post, talking about her mother, her birthday, and chicken stock. And it occurred to me that I have never made chicken stock, and that I really ought to. I figured I could freeze it, and then it would always be there, ready for a last minute risotto if company came over on the spur of the moment, or a chicken soup if Mr. Gastro happens to catch a cold. I was feeling ambitious.

But then I see on Twitter and Facebook that the whole city is in a tizzy over the fact that the tap water for all of Boston has been contaminated by a broken water main. And as much as I know that the whole question of contaminated water could probably be solved with a quick boil to kill off any icky microbes, the mood is somehow gone. Who wants to make chicken stock, meant to be saved and consumed at various points throughout the upcoming seasons, that may or may not have harmful bacteria hanging out in it? I know, I know. You boil the water. The stock was going to end up frozen anyway. Still.

On a happier note, last night's flat bread pizza seemed to be a hit at the potluck dinner Mr. Gastro and I attended. I was planning on making only one, but then I got to the store and got carried away, like I do, and I ended up making three, because I couldn't decide which type to make. And to keep all of my fellow Gastro-Junkies happy, here's a lovely vid of my pretty pizzas, pre-baking. I was going to make an after video as well, but...well we ate them instead. Sorry.

Anyway, the pizzas were very pretty indeed, but unfortunately they had to do a little travelling and a lot of waiting before they could be eaten, and therefore I couldn't get a really clear idea of their success or failure. (They're never the same if it's not fresh out of the oven. The whole "cheese can't re-melt" thing.) Guess I'll just have to take that leftover dough and make more pizzas later on this week... ::Sigh:: Oh the sacrifices I make in the name of culinary research. ;P