Sunday, February 7, 2010

Birthday Celebration

My mother-in-law has a passion for tomatoes.   She is stick thin and likes food, but is lucky enough to be someone who is not the least bit food-focused.  She enjoys it and a a plesure to cook for, but planning meals is sometimes tricky.  She is not a big meat eater, and her husband, loves meat and is particular about trying new things.  That said, last night's meal to celebrate her birthday was focused on tomatoes.  I was buying dinner for spud the the local gourmet grocery on Friday and saw the most beautiful gourmet tomatoes you ever saw.  Green and Yellow and Orange.  When you cut up the green heirloom tomatoes they were the most beautiful swirl of green and red.   I thought what better thing to make someone who loves tomatoes than a tomato salad?  It was a simple dish, of these georgeous tomatoes with salt, pepper and olive oil. Delicious.
So that was my side dish.

I have blogged about my homemade pasta, but one of the other things I first learned from my mother early on was the art of homemade pizza.   It has taken years of work and gone though many iterations, but I finally found the solution.   A good crust recipe is the start but it's all in the pan.   Good crust recipes I have found are Wolfgang Puck and also the mystery writer Patricia Cornwell.  Particia Cornwell writes alot about food and cooking  around her otherwise somewhat greusome medical examiner mysteries.  She compliled everything she wrote about into a cookbook - Food to Die for - and has many nice recipes.  Pizza is one of her specialies.   So last night I used her crust recipe ( secret is in the honey) and then added olive oil,  prosciutto di parma, a blend of good mozzerella cheeses from my Lisa's deli, caramelized garlic onions and fresh plum tomato.  The Calphlon baking pan makes the crust perfect somehow.  And I found this out by accident when I left my pizza pan at a friends for a year, and needed a substitute pan.   The pizza gets crisp and holds its shape.

I started the meal with baked stuffed tomatoes.  Large beefsteak tomatoes, stuffed with breadcrumbs. olive oil parmesan and basil.  Baked until browned, they just melt in your mouth.

We finished the meal with chocolate pots ( so easy!) and ricotta creme. 
It felt great too cook again, and now I have to go to the task of finishing to clean.

More on my superbowl gathering tonight!

Blog Update

 I have been away from my blog for quite a while.  To any of you who read and know me, you undestand why.  If by some chance I am blessed enough to have anyone read this who doesn't know me personally,  I need to explain.   My sweetheart, Coco was quite ill for sometime, and actually began to decline right around the time I began this blog, although I didn't know it at the time, or at least was in denial about it. He got progressively worse through Thanksgiving, and even though I cooked a full meal and for 8 people for the holiday, my heart just wasn't in the blog to update you.  Coco entered the hospital on December 1 and passed away on January 8.   I haven't cooked much since, and have actually lost 20 pounds through the ordeal because my focus left food.   Amazingly,  food still played  a role through the process.  Friends delivered meals.  Friends and family cooked for Spud and I.  Never did we eat so much chicken! People shopped for us.  Coco only seemed to have the will to eat and we brought him as many of his favorites as we could.  We kept his Christmas Eve traditional meal of crab legs, we brought him Booberry and chocolate ice cream and iced coffee.  Spud and I went out with friends for New Years Eve for Sushi.  Human nature is to feed people through tough times.  I guess it is the one thing we feel we can control.  Foodwas delivered to my home in droves in the days following.  I fed the homeless of hoboken for 2 days and am still eating our way through the freezer full.  

Admittedly , I am having a problem with food now.  Food was a commonality for Coco and me.  It was him I cooked for. We loved to eat out together.  I cook becuase I love it, but also for my ego.  I know I do it well  and like to have it appreciated.  As much as Spud loves food,  his taste is not as discriminating, or maybe too much so, and he is my biggest crtic.   Either way it isn't the same.   I know that whatever people are in my life as I move foward, I need them to appreciate food and help me find the joy in it again.

As I return to this blog, like my life right now, I cannot predict what it will be like, but hopefully those reading this will follow the joruney with me and see where this experiment if self exploration continues to take me.   I have re-entered the kitchen a few times this month and returned to the grocery store yesterday with only Spud, and no other friends or family, and even paid the grocery bill myself for the first time.  I held my head high and got through it like nothing had changed. 

I miss Coco with all my heart, but I am also eager to move along and get back to life, to move on and continue to make him proud of me for being strong especially on the days it is so hard, like today.  

As I write this morning I am remincisent of the Sunday morning in August that I began this blog, which I think is what made me log in to begin with - a lazy Sunday that I am procrastinating the tasks and events at hand.  It is hard to believe that it was almost 6 months ago.   It seems like a blink in so many ways yet everything has changed.  Hopefully food will remain the joyful comforting constant that it has always been for me and I can find others to be proud of me for my passion.

This blog remains dedicated to Coco, who will be forever with me everytime I run out of something in the kitchen mid-recipe.