Sheesh Kabobs made with Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers- Mmmm.
Would you eat a bug? 80 percent of the world’s population already does but here in the Western world, we have a big yuck factor with regard to insects. We would rather swat, smush or step on them than ingest them, but could things be changing? Insect connoisseur, David George Gordon has penned Eat-A-Bug as a testament to the merits of including bugs in our diet. His recipes are those pictured here. Apparently, bugs are plenty nutritious and a good alternative to beef for both environmental and health reasons and unlike other resources on our planet, they are a-plenty.
But honestly- fried green tomato hornworms? Maybe Anthony Bourdain would dig this, but do you really think Americans are going to go for it, no matter how pretty the presentation? It’s a stretch. Not so though, says Laetitia Giroud. She is betting the farm, her bug farm in fact, on the coming Bug Revolution. Giroud has set up shop in Spain raising beetles, crickets and flies with the hopes of changing the Western world’s perspective. For those less inclined to eat a whole insect, she has cooked up a cricket powder that she says is killer in a chocolate chip cookie. Ok, I would try that. Hey, I would actually eat a cricket, a beetle- maybe, a worm- I just don’t know.
Deep fried tarantulas- now we may have gone too far. What say you?
Oh Jack, you are so cool. This Vanity Fair photo is kind of the perfect way to kick off the weekend, with a wink and a smile. Thanks Jack.
I hope you’re all off to a fabulous weekend. This link love roundup is a wee tad smaller than usual as I am busy prepping for a shoot this Monday with Anthology Magazine. I will be hosting a Virginia wine pairing dinner party for my family at a local Virginia vineyard for the story, so I’m busy planning menus and tasting through lots of VA. wine. So fun. If you all have any suggestions for me, please send them along. We are doing sort of a picnic chic theme. Lots of yummy French inspired food centered around what’s in season, so lots of ripe fruit and produce. Fun. I hope you all have a great weekend.
Just a little link love:
This article speaks volumes about the state of our society with regard to technology. Thank you for writing it, Mr. Wilson and shame, Apple.
If you have any wine geeks in your life, this is sure to put a big smile on their faces at the end of your next dinner party. Any self respecting wino knows that Riesling rocks. It rocks so much that wine impresario Paul Grieco devotes an entire Summer of Riesling at his infamous Terroir wine bars in NYC. If you’re in the city this month and you love your Riesling, be sure to attend one of their classes.
Back to this dish at hand. From the Aussie cook and photographer over at From the Kitchen comes this ingenious dish. Simple and delicious, here’s the recipe:
What You Need:
500ml Riesling
2 cups water
1 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean
1 cinnamon stick
peel from one lemon
8 Bosc pears
300ml softly whipped cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp icing sugar
What You Do:
1. Put all ingredients except the pears in a big wide pot and bring to a boil stirring for a few minutes to dissolve sugar, then reduce to a simmer.
2. In the meantime carefully peel your pears then put all together into the simmering liquid, if they are not fully covered add equal quantities of water and wine to cover them. Leave to cook for about 10 minutes if you have ripe pears, 20 minutes for almost ripe pears and 35 minutes for rock hard.
3. Test for doneness by piercing one (make it yours for later) pear to ensure the point of a knife pierces easily into just soft but not mushy pear flesh.
4. Once the pears are cooked, remove carefully with a slotted spoon and put in a container, standing upright.
5. Next boil the poaching liquid for 30-40 minutes until it is reduced to an aromatic syrup. the good thing about this dessert is that it is equally nice in winter or summer as you can serve the pears warm, room temperature or cold with whipped vanilla cream (add 1 tsp vanilla paste and 1 tbsp icing sugar to 300ml softly whipped cream) and/or vanilla bean ice -cream.
I’m currently sipping a lip-smacking Pinot Gris from:
Their Pinot Gris is a great summertime wine, honestly it’s good year round as it has a tangy effervescence that gives it a little kick and a soft floral quality that rounds it out quite nicely. It’s acidity and .4% residual sugar make it an awesome food wine. This Northwest wine craves spice and would be great with some Vietnamese food doctored with a generous amount of Sriracha sauce. Salt and crunch do right by this wine too, I had it with fried oysters- heaven. At around $12, it’s double heaven. Thank you Washington State.
I make stuff all the time, but usually it doesn’t quite work out the way I thought it would. Let’s face it, I’m not the world’s greatest cook and I’ve been known to get a tad frazzled in the kitchen. I am inspired though and when armed with a great recipe and ingredients, I can kick ass.
This one is worth the public recommendation- C and I were both big fans of the results. If you like scallops and are a fan of fennel, you will dig this. Easy, if not a bit time consuming just due to the tedious chopping and dicing, but honestly not too bad. My prep took me about 25 minutes and the cooking about the same. If you find yourself with enough energy to muster up something special at the end of the day (which happens about once a month for me), this one is worth that precious hour.
Here’s the recipe from Sunset Magazine.
I dropped one clove of garlic (I can’t handle the taste of garlic in my mouth for days after a dish, so I only used one), and left out the onion (only because I didn’t have one) and cumin (not the biggest fan)- it was perfect to my taste.
My ingredients:
I picked a Jura Chard to pair with this dish- a ’10 Tissot “En Barberon” Jura- absolutely perfect. Weighty enough to match the sear of the scallop and meatiness of the tomatoes and mineral and acidic enough to match the fennel. Heaven. I love a Jura Chard, it’s hard to go wrong with a good one. Get it here.
Doesn’t this look just like summer! I’m not usually a spritzer kind of girl but this looks delicious. Thanks Joy the Baker!
It’s been a crazy week. DOMA is repealed- hooray (this is a kind of funny 2 -word response), Brazil’s in an uproar, Wow Wendy Davis, and George Zimmerman’s lawyer is telling knock knock jokes- what is happening. Stephen Colbert’s mother passed away and he gave a loving tribute to her on his show. This is a Colbert we have not seen, so sweet.
In light of a big week, I hope you are all off to a big and fun-filled weekend. My momma is coming into town- double hooray- so we’ll head out to North Beach with the kiddos and check out the so-called “Jewel of Chesapeake Bay”. It’s only 45 minutes from our place so I’m crossing my fingers that it’s awesome- there’s nothing like a nearby beach on a hot summer day.
I’ve also started reading again. I know, I know- alert the media, right. It is kind of a biggie for me as I have been a little sleep deprived with work, travel and the bebes and I haven’t really read anything in months. I’m listening to Andre Agassi’s Open on audiobook- so well written- I know I’m a little late to the game (no pun intended) on this one, but it’s awesome. I just downloaded Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s Mo Meta Blues- so looking forward to that. Google Books review says, “You have to bear in mind that [Questlove] is one of the smartest motherfuckers on the planet. His musical knowledge, for all practical purposes, is limitless.” Nice. Anyone who references the episode of The Cosby Show where guest star Stevie Wonder samples the Cosby family’s voices in the recording studio as inspiration for 90s hip hop artists, is pretty much a must read for me. I’m also reading this book on parenting that my sister in law recently gave me (she’s an inspired preschool teacher so I basically read everything she tells me to). It’s great and really revealing. If you like a psych study, you’ll really enjoy this. And for all of us that believe constantly telling our kids that they’re smart is a good thing, this may change your mind.
A little link love:
1. Dora Maar’s house in Menerbes- Peter Mayle land. Love that town, love her and love this house. I would love this little setup in my backyard- throw up a sting of lights and voila- nirvana.
2. What to do with your bebes when you don’t have a backyard. This is so simple, it’s really a duh. I’m trying this today.
3. A girl after my own heart- just another reason to travel with your kiddos. How Anne Postic feels like a change of scenery improves her kids’ palates. Yes.
4. Add a little dash of Rome to your hot summer day. Espresso granitas with whipped cream- grazie mille Smitten Kitchen.
5. Another cool map- I do love a map. This one needs your help to get produced. Visit the Kickstarter campaign here if you feel we need this in the world.
A few summertime things.
A few to covet and a couple must haves:
1. Some Honest stuff. Sunblock, bug spray (that actually smells good) & swim diapers for the kiddos. All fabulous, all non-toxic. Thank you Jessica Alba. I douse the bebes in bug spray every day as I do live in a swamp after all.
I forgot how much I love Montauk- it’s this magical beachy place that conjures up images of Robert Shaw-like fisherman, summertime regulars exchanging hellos at the local grocer, and lobster rolls at the local seafood stand just off Hwy. 27. It also stirs up a kind of quiet solitude. You feel like you’re standing at the edge of the world on the tip of that Island. It is markedly more chic than I remember as my last visit was back in ’06, but despite the house music at the latest 60s motel-turned-hipster haunt and the city’s latest eatery and shop offerings, Montauk manages to maintain its salt-of-the-earth sensibility and rustic charm.
Our friends graciously invited us (and 5 other couples with kiddos in tow) out to their sweet Montauk beach pad. We had a ball, there were 12 adults and 14 kiddos. We joked that it should have been a shit show but it was completely and totally awesome. These are my best girls from college and now that we’ve run out of weddings to attend (we’re all hitched), we have to come up with ways to get together. It happens about once every 2 years and it’s always amazingly memory filled. It was a weekend filled with rosé, lobster rolls (the mayo-less kind from Red Hook Lobster Co.- yum!), beach days, pool time, shingled homes, blooming flowers and the world famous Star Island Yacht Club Shark Tournament.
Ok, let’s talk about this shark tournament. I honestly could not believe I had never been to this before. I am such a Jaws fanatic, this tournament was surreal. Boats were lined up to come in to the harbor where the docked in front of the crowd while the fisherman hooked their catch to the pulley. The sharks were lifted up and weighed next to the fiberglass 3500 lb. Great White that was caught in ’86 while the crowd waited to hear what type of shark and how it weighed in. Most were Makos, Blues and Threshers and the winner this year was a 360 pound Thresher brought in just under the gun at exactly 5 o’clock, when the tournament ended. No doubt those proud fisherman were circling the harbor, waiting to come in at the last minute and make a splash with their Thresher. I was completely in my element, mouth open and wide eyed as the weighed the sharks, cut them open, gutted and filleted them inches from my flip flops. They severed their heads and nonchalantly threw the sharks’ parts in dumpsters that soon hauled them off. Seriously, the whole thing was so surreal. There was a marine biologist on hand to cut out important organs for science and research so that did put one’s mind at ease a bit that this was not entirely all for show. Every part of the shark’s meat is donated to local charities, churches and nursing homes, so that helps too. Honestly, it was pretty crazy town.
If you love sharks and are not offended by a fishing tournament or grossed out by a close up gut, you have to go.
How great is this photo- I love it so much. Happy Weekend to all, I hope you have some fun stuff lined up for the weekend. We’re in NYC with family- fun times. Enjoy and Cin Cin.
A little link love:
Coasters and Keychains and Cacti Oh My!
1. How cute are these little butterflies via the sweet little French vintage shop, Trendy Little. Love. My Gigi would eat them at this point but maybe when she’s older.
2. Felt Confetti Coasters via one of my new favorite Etsy shops, Cotton and Flax- I love their graphic pillows too.
3. No Sleep Til Brooklyn- Mike D’s Brooklyn Brownstone that is. Pretty Phat. Everyone needs a swoonful ocean print above their bed- I’m in love with this one.
4. A sensible cacti garden- I love a succulent. Those A Beautiful Mess girls are truly DIY Gods.
5. Old school keychains from another fun mom and pop shop find- Three Potato Four. These remind me of summer vacations and camp. I never went to camp, but I always wanted to.
6. I absolutely loved this Travel & Leisure article about a family’s trip to Italy’s Ligurian seashore- a tale full of missteps and mishaps with toddlers in tow, eventually leading to a memorable and killer vacay. That’s totally the way I roll, it made me laugh.
P.S.: Travel & Leisure’s twitter feed is totally rocking my world lately- great articles and tips, like this one for affordable Italian agriturismos and this one on how to get that last minute rezy in NYC.
We were lucky enough to be invited to dinner a couple of weekends ago in lovely Delaplane, Virginia. We dined on cucumber soup, fresh trout and homemade coconut sorbet at the lovely estate of Ashley Farms in the company of politicians, playwrights, dancers, doctors and dentists. It was an awesome mix and a night to remember with its setting the stuff of dreams.
Delaplane came to my attention about a year ago when we made the day trip out to do some tasting. Both RDV and Linden are close by, both recently lauded by wine expert extraordinaire, Jancis Robinson. She describes RDV’s wines as “sweet and seductive. Monumental and enormous”. Wowzers Virginia- makes me proud to call this state my new(ish) home. She also stated that RDV wines “stand a good chance of putting the state on the world wine map”. Double Wowzers. Another added bump for these VA. wines- the wine director at Bryan Voltaggio’s Volt recently told me that RDV was his favorite Virginia wine and good enough to play with the old world big boys.
RDV- yes, this is really what it looks like. What!?
But back to our dinner at hand. Only about an hour’s drive from DC, once we got about halfway out to Delapane, our shoulders literally dropped. Surrounded by emerald green rolling hills and horses galloping freely across the Virginia grass, it’s kind of unbelievable beauty. A few images from the stately estate:
If you’re headed to DC anytime soon, put a day in Delaplane with tastings at RDV and Linden on your hit list. Stay overnight and dine at The Ashby Inn in Paris, VA. (don’t you love that!)- a destination restaurant with its chef, Tarver King, on the short list for a James Beard nom. It’s the new Inn at Little Washington- go now before it gets bonkers.
Former showgirl, forever travel junkie, sometime sommelier, and mom to twin bebes. This little blog is a mixed bag of tasting notes, travels, tales of motherhood, and current musings. Thank you for stopping by. Cin Cin! (photo by Amy Dickerson for Anthology Magazine)
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