Endless Simmer - A Food Blog

Editors Note: If you’ve ever met me in real life, you know that I’ll eventually start talking about food and the blog. I mean, well, what else is there to talk about. Actually, one time my sister even noted how the conversation remarkably went from well, I don’t remember, and magically back to food. Anyway, it’s no surprise that I’ve gotten my coworkers hooked on ES. Trip J is one of them. And while I usually direct her in the right culinary direction, I may have gotten her off track for this last kitchen adventure.  My bad!  Here’s Trip J’s side of the story.

Gansie is my go-to girl for all date dining emergencies. I think she should be a dating culinary consultant. When I have to plan a spectacular meal that is certain to land me a husband after he eats it, she’s who I ask.  Kidding (about the husband part).  But, I do want the meal to be good and she hasn’t steered me wrong yet.

This time, the date menu plan was tilapia, squash, and potatoes.  So, she pulled a wide range of ES recipes and we checked out other cooking sites – G. Garvin is a favorite of mine.  At any rate, I speed read through the recipes so I could rush home and cook a decadent meal.  And I was on a time crunch because he was arriving late, and then had to leave early to go to work.

Date Night Menu post jump

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I think Friday Fuck Ups should officially be just called Liza Fuck Ups. Yes, I did this. I caught the brie on fire… And yes, I did this twice in one week… I know…So Vio was hosting an appetizer party to go along with watching top chef, and I decided to bring over a round thing of brie, and top it with crushed pecans and brown sugar - YUM RIGHT! I wanted it to be ooey gooey fresh out of the oven, so I brought it over to Vio’s to heat up there.

My directions said to stick it in the broiler for 3-5 minutes, so I stuck it in, went into the living room and chatted, came back into the kitchen opened up the broiler and OMG!! FLAMES!!! MY BRIE WAS ON FIRE!!! I just sort of sat there staring, not sure what to do, then I mildly shouted umm the brie is on fire!  Fire!

Thank GOD Vio came in and dumped flour on it (as you do with a greese fire I learned) and the flames went out immediately! That could have been VERY VERY bad!!! Not only had I ruined the brie but I had completely smelled up my friends house (and then I proceded to spill not 1, but 2 beers on her rug).

6 days later…

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Last week nothing was going right and everything was frustrating me - it was one of those weeks. So what was the the final straw that led to my inevitable breakdown? Stupid fucking dipping sauce for my steamed artichoke.

I didn’t want to go to the store so a mayonnaise dip was out, and I just wasn’t in the mood for butter - I wanted something new, something delicious, something that would bring me out of my terrible funk. So after literally searching for an hour online I found a recipe for Lemon Mustard dip that miraculously included random ingredients in my fridge - corn starch, vegetable broth, garlic, water, pepper, mustard and lemon juice - Easy right?

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I went apple picking a few weeks back and, well, it was okay.  We had to drive over an hour away—into Virginia?!?!— and well, manually pick apples.

The snacking-before-picking was fun though.  Liza and I went to a press dinner at Urbana earlier in the week and as a parting gift got this bad ass mission fig jam, made by the chef using his family recipe.  I’m not usually a jam girl, but paired with goat cheese, spread on a baguette and eating it at an orchard—yea, I can handle a jam like that.  (Would love other suggestions for how to use up this jam.  Also, how long will it last in the fridge?)

After we stuffed ourselves (this is also where the fritattas came in) we used these lacrosse stick looking devices that had a comb thing to pull the apples off of the trees.  But every time I tried to snag one, they’d hit this inner part of the stick and tear a sliver of skin off.  And I’m not going to buy a pierced apple, so I just threw it on the ground.  That happened about 6 times before I gave up and just gossiped with El and Evo Diva (better known for her up-the-butt shenanigans) while another gaggle of girls kept pursuing the forbidden fruit.

Now for the fuck up.

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