Endless Simmer - A Food Blog

This post is so long overdue that I’m a little embarrassed to even blog it. Way back when, I bought lavender flower as a random splurge purchase, and asked you all what the eff I could do with this stuff. You gave me a ton of good ideas, and I was all gung-ho to make lavender pork rubs and lavender chicken and lavender chocolate cream pie. For my first step, I said I would make lavender shortbread cookies, since that sounded like the easiest.

I don’t know why I thought that sounded the easiest, considering I know eff all about baking. Even gansie called me out on that one.

gansie:  WHOA!

youre going to bake?

Well, four months later I finally put down the sautee pan and got around to it. Let me tell you, even though it involves baking and sugar and flowers and other sweet things, this is not a pretty story. Follow me after the jump. It’s gonna get ugly.

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Brit here, your one and only source into the scandalous lives of the food blogosphere’s elite.

Gastro-grub and canapés? Must be another Monday night on network television. That’s right ES readers, this Monday is the event of the season week, to which you have just been invited. The season 2 premiere of Gossip Girl. Friends of ES, whether you dine at Citronelle in DC, Gilt in NYC or brunch at IHOP (j/k, we know you wouldn’t be caught dead there), these Gossip Girl menu ideas are sure to be a hit with your innermost circle of friends.

Season one of Gossip Girl saw many a fine dish served, more often than not with champagne. Here are a few simple ideas for you to throw together for your very own premiere party:

Have you heard Upper ES-siders? Grilled cheese is all the rage. Try this $50 Truffle Grilled Cheese Sandwich courtesy of Chuck Bass. OK, so $50 for a grilled cheese is a little much even for me. I’ll be doing my own more affordable take on this and will let you know about it next week.

If you dare, take a jump for more delectable food ideas.

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After all of the yolk craziness (check almost any post I’ve written in the past few weeks) I decided to try my hand at an omelet. I know that it has an art of its own and that the way I beat my eggs, swirl them around the pan and dollop ingredients on the egg, is probably all wrong. But I find them delicious nonetheless.

Besides egg dishes being totally luscious, I think they’re great fridge-cleansers as well. 80P and I are away this weekend for yet another wedding (love you Jules!) so I needed to use up some bits and pieces from around the apartment. Of course eggs were to be found, as well as a few other key ingredients, most importantly - Quark.

I bought Quark from the same dairy producer, Keswick Creamery, where I bought the yogurt for the smoothie:

Quark: German – style cream cheese. Smooth and tangy. Products are made with fresh, pasteurized Jersey milk.

And yes, it’s very tangy, and yes, it’s creamy and thick just like cream cheese. Do I think it’s much better than regular cream cheese, eh, not that different. Is their yogurt that much better than the high fructose corn syrup, artificially flavored supermarket yogurt - yes. But I digress.

Post jump - my fridge clearing omelet and some hidden agendas.

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Shh…this is pasta sauce from a jar

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Amid the maze of Paultards, PUMAs, and peaceniks protesting outside the Democratic Convention this week, So Good points us towards the one sign-waver who is actually doing something worthwhile: Demanding the return of Crystal Pepsi!

Believe it or not, there’s actually a petition with more than 7,000 signatures demanding that Pepsico ditch the brown stuff and bring back that delicious 90s fad version with its inspiring Van Halen commercials. Yet the candidates have yet to speak on this crystal clear issue. Let’s take a minute, shall we, to remember how great those simple times were.

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As mentioned earlier, it’s back-to-school day here at Endless Simmer (how’s the studying going, 80p?) I have sure come a long way since my college eating days (microwaved bacon…raw ramen noodles…congealed leftover pizza…shudder), and so I feel it is my duty to let the next generation of college students know that it doesn’t have to be that way. Especially for those of you in New York, there are plenty of ways to upgrade your college eating experience, without having to call mom and dad for a credit upgrade (I swear). Here’s the ES guide to Microwave-free College Eating in New York, replacing each college standard with a much less embarrassing option. Those of you elsewhere, feel free to chime in on what I missed in the outer boroughs, D.C., etc…

Dorm Fare: Easy Mac


Photo: Bucklava

You know you’re a college student if you’ve ever referred to the “fancy kind of mac-n-cheese” and meant the box of Kraft stuff that is cooked on the stovetop instead of in the microwave. Easy Mac is, well, unbelievably easy. Just add water to this little packet, microwave it for two minutes, and suddenly you’ve got gooey, cheese-y deliciousness. But the ingredient list in the “cheese sauce mix” is enough to make any sane person think twice: It’s made up entirely of hydrogenated this, modified that… trust me, none of these things is actually cheese.

Upgrade: S’MAC

Photo: S’MAC

Put down the packet and head to S’MAC, where you can get a huge cast iron skillet full of piping hot mac ‘n’ cheese, made with real certifiable cheese, and no powder. Starting at a meager $4.25, the offerings range from the kid-friendly classic (loaded with gobs of American and cheddar) to fancier versions for us “grown-up” folks, made with yummy stuff like Kalamata olives and goat cheese.
345 East 12th Street, 212.358.7912

More upgrade recs after the jump…

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(Crabs scuttle in the sand)

Editors Note: Maybe it’s not so bad going back to school. As a teacher that is. ES friend jakeSG teaches DC youth from September to June and then takes a rock star trip in the summer. I’d KILL for a summer vaca. Regardless, jakeSG went back to Costa Rica this year (here’s his take on last year) to lead teens through the hills and farms and lakes of this gorgeous land. You can see the rest of his beautiful pics here and below jakeSG details his fresh from the farm meal.

by: jakeSG

I eat well in Costa Rica, but nothing prepared me for the cooking of Ana Cerdas Rodriguez. The thirty-five year old mother of three spends days jotting down recipes in a handwritten cookbook, some of which she learns from the occasional cooking show on one of the three channels the family gets in Guadalupe de Rivas. Most of the food I get in these homes is terrific, but they all lack the presentation that Anaisa labors to achieve.

She outdoes even the nicest Tico restaurant I’ve been to, framing her gallo pinto (beans and rice for breakfast) in a glass to achieve that perfect shape. Her maduros (slowly sauteed green bananas) are delicate and sweet, never burned.

The Fresh Meal took place on Dia de la Madre, a day in which she shouldn’t have been cooking, but she still intended to show us what it meant to use what you have around. I’ve been reading a lot about food lately (Michael Pollan and Russ Parsons) and the underlying, constant theme is: fresh food is better. Period.

The Meal

The trout was bred by Miguel in his man-made backyard pond; there are over 30 fish swimming there. The twins went about to take out 13 of the biggest fish (I succeeded in catching one puny one), although I did manage to stay dry — something that can’t be said for a cousin of theirs who got a much closer look after slipping on a wet rock.

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I count 337 blackberries. You?

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We must be nearing the end of summer, because the food co-op just got in their first batch of beautiful golden heirloom tomatoes. I won’t insert myself into the whole debate about what makes something an heirloom or not, but I clearly had to grab one of these lovely yellow guys, even though it wasn’t quite ripe yet.

I got home and sliced it open, and as I expected, it was nice and sweet but still a little too tart. So I decided to take a stab at breading and frying it up, a la fried green tomatoes, which brought out even more sweetness and made it, well, deliciously breaded and fried, of course.

Egged on by gansie’s constant stream of runny yolk porn, I put together this simple summer dinner. Details after the jump.

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