Flo-rida

This Eat More Nutmeg dispatch comes to you from the Sunshine State, where I am visiting my cousin.

Food-wise, this trip to Florida is a little disappointing: I fear it's too warm to eat oysters without worrying about my gastrointestinal health, and Dish appears to be gone.

But while I was able to restrain myself from doing the Northerner-in-the-South thing and demand a trip to Sonic for the sweet treats that damn fool couple in all the commercials rave about, instead we went to Chick-Fil-A. I had heard about Chick-Fil-A but never ate there before, despite repeated trips to the South and a love of all things chickeney and fried.

Chick-Fil-A, where have you been all my life? And when are you going to expand to the area between New Jersey and Boston? (And I don't mean the Weinstein Food Court at NYU. That one doesn't count.) I promise, I'll never go to McDonald's again. Promise.

Mac and cheese for grownups

Mmm ... risotto.

I know what you're thinking, "risotto," oh puh-leeze. But I'm not just being snooty, I'm getting in touch with my heritage. When my grandmother was a little girl in Italy she went to work with her mother in the rice fields. I've seen photos.

So anyway, it's now one of my favorite foods and one which I'm proud to be able to make. I think I must have inherited my forebears' hardy spoon-mixing wrists, so if you're prone to carpal tunnel disease, kids, don't try this at home. But if you'd like the comfort-foodiness of some Kraft Cheese and Macaroni but want the agony and ecstasy of standing at a hot stove for 40 minutes to prepare a meal that people think is "hard," have at it:

"More Risotto and Cheese, Please!"
6 tsp olive oil
2 cups Arborio rice
1 cup white wine
One box and a can or two of chicken broth
1/2 to 1 cup parmesan cheese (adjust to your taste and lactose tolerance)
4 tbsp butter
a little bit of parsley, for color
salt & pepper to taste *

Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan (I like using my new cast iron dutch oven, but if I halve it I use a regular old Farberware saucepan). Heat the chicken broth in a separate saucepan. Add rice to the oil saucepan and cook, stirring (I use a wooden spoon), for 5 minutes or so; until the rice starts to--for real--sound like glass beads clicking together. Carefully add the wine and stir. When the wine looks like it's all absorbed, start adding hot broth to the rice a ladleful or two at a time. When the spoon leaves a trail in the rice, add more broth. Keep doing this and keep stirring until the rice is all done, about 25 minutes or so. Keep stirring. Add butter, parsley and cheese, salt & pepper to taste. Stir it up a little more. Serve hot all lumped up in a bowl.
Calories: a lot
Servings: a lot


* you may note there are no onions. Often these dishes will start off with onions. I dislike onions.

"That's so last month"

Here are the things I debuted as "my latest focuses" for the past month or so since I started this blog. This item, along the right margin of the blog, is a listing of all the things I'm enjoying, food-wise, at the present time.

I'm soooo over crushing garlic with the side of a big knife.

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2008:
- Fish on Fridays during Lent
-"This Fig Walks Into A Bar" bars from Trader Joe's (they're like big Fig Newtons!)
-crushing garlic with the side of a big knife
-decaffeinated Lady Grey tea
-my new aqua cast iron pot
-sauvignon blanc wine from New Zealand and Chile

Happy Easter

We like obnoxious food, apparently

A lot of these are about food:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/full-list-of-stuff-white-people-like/

Good local oysters

While on a recent visit to the Ocean State, I ate at this cute restaurant, Scales & Shells, on Thames Street in Newport and treated myself on a cold, cold March evening to some oysters. I was told they were Matunuck oysters, and as such, I assume they came from the Matunuck Oyster Farm in Peace Dale, R.I.

Anyway, these oysters were super tasty and fresh and I just wanted to give them a little shout-out because I think it's awesome that someone semi-locally is farming shellfish that I will presumably be able to eat lots more of.

Oysters aren't just awesome to eat, though. They do a pretty damn good job of cleaning water. For instance, they can help take care of excess nitrogen in wastewater, something that many municipalities spend millions to remove. Not that you'd want to eat the oysters that have done that, but still ... Read more (login required): In City Waters, Beds (and a Job) for Oysters, from the New York Times, Feb. 24.

I'm Lovin It

When a girl who's 1/16 Irish is deciding what to eat for dinner on St. Patrick's Day, what does she choose?

Why, a Shamrock Shake from McDonald's, of course!

I have loved these things since I was a little kid. One year, when I was probably 10, I poured Shamrock Shake into Dixie cups and froze them to savor out of season. It worked. So awesome.



Back in June, I had a minty-chocolate shake at McDonald's. An entry in Wikipedia tells me this was called the "Minty Mudbath" shake and was a promotion in conjunction with the movie "Shrek the Third." (uh, because it's green, I guess. No word on whether Shrek actually tastes minty or chocolatey.) It was merely OK.

A couple of years ago, though, while licking Vanilla Mint ChapStick off of my lips, I figured out that Shamrock Shakes were really just vanilla milkshakes with green dye and mint flavor added. It was kind of disappointing, but also really liberating. It almost makes me not want to freeze some.

The Wikipedia entry also says that Shamrock Shakes are available year-round in Ireland, but I am not sure if this is bad reporting based on a 1997 report: "Sinn Fein Leaders Demand Year-Round Shamrock Shake Availability."

Another Irish food with a beverage in the title

Best Irish soda bread recipe? Ina Garten's.

'tis the season ...

... for the annual Making of the Bailey's Cake.

Those who have known me for a while probably have eaten my Bailey's Irish Cream Cake. By "my," I mean, a cake that was made by me, not a cake that was invented by me. I can lay no such claim to this recipe, but I can attest to the fact that it is universally acclaimed by all who taste it.

Except, presumably, by vegans.

That there are eggs in the cake seem to be no big problem to overcome; The Vegans have figured out many such ways to imitate their binding qualities. But the Irish cream presents another quandary altogether. So when I brought a cake to a gathering this weekend a vegan friend, who partook in the cake in her pre-vegan days and was an enthusiastic distributor of this recipe throughout the Midwest, said the next recipe she was going to Veganize was this one. (Expect a full report here when the mission is accomplished.)

Here is the recipe in its loves-me-some-animal-products form. While I might like to keep it a secret, alas, since it came to me through the good grace of others, I too shall pass it along.

Irish Cream Cake
for the cake:
1 box yellow cake mix
1/4 cup vodka
3/4 cup veg oil
4 eggs
1/8 cup water
1 box chocolate instant pudding
3/8 cup Bailey’s Irish Cream

for the glaze:
more Bailey’s
confectioner’s sugar

Mix all the ingredients together. Grease or spray the bundt pan thoroughly with Pam for Baking. Dump the cake in. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees F. To make the glaze, mix about a cup of confectioner’s sugar with some Bailey’s until it makes a smooth, very thick glaze. Drizzle it all over the top of the cooled cake. Enjoy!

Screw-top wines: Not just for breakfast anymore

Funny story. At a birthday dinner with three of my dearest friends, we ordered a bottle of New Zealand sauvignon blanc. The waiter brings it out and asks who wants to taste it. I say "Me, but it's not like it's going to be corked or anything, ha ha."

Get it? Because New Zealand wines are generally screw-topped? Ha ha ha!

Of course, he didn't know that I know about the Screwcap Initiative. He thought I was just making a comment like "ha, screw tops are only for the cheap, crappy stuff."

So, for those of you who think screw tops are only for Boone's Farm, think again. As I like to say (and I really have said this, to the embarrassment of my companion): Why do we rely on 13th-century technology when it comes to sealing our wine?