Makin' Bacon

The best way to make bacon? Roast it. There is no doubt. Roasting is my favorite way to cook just about everything so it came as no surprise to me to recently discover just how good roasting works for bacon. Even cooking, no curling, no grease spatters on the counter. How bad can that be? Ina Garten, of course, has been saying this for years and anyone that watches her show would know that as she says it just about every time she cooks the stuff. She actually says a lot of stuff over and over again doesn't she? (Still, I love her.) Anyway, put the bacon on a rack over a rimmed cookie sheet and roast at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Lay parchment down under the rack for easier cleanup. Take the rack out of the oven and just let it drip and cool down or transfer to paper towels. Or, if you are serving brunch, just turn the oven off, let cool a minute or two and put the rack back in the oven while you are getting everything else ready.

Interestingly enough, the doyenne of roasting, Barbara Kafka, suggests that the microwave is the best place for bacon. WTF? She might have a point if all you are after is a few pieces but any more than that and you will be doing yourself a huge favor to fire up the oven. I had to cook 18 slices recently and didn't want to deal with the mess so I decided to try out this method. I'm sold. And no, I'm not saying why I needed all that bacon but lets just say I needed it. (If anyone really needs bacon.) Oh, and did you spot the split infinitive in this post? Don't bother writing me to tell me you can't do that. You can.

Q. How Do You Milk an Almond?

Sounds like the setup to a joke but its not. Who knew? Almond milk is a fairly recent discovery of mine and it has found its way into my cooking arsenal lately in all manner of ways. Every now and then I would buy a box of the stuff when I was feeling all 'granola and flax seed oil' while frequenting the health food markets but due to the fact that the boxed almond milk is sweetened and processed (and its container will be in a landfill for at least a century) it never took hold in my regular repertoire. I wasn't looking to drink it straight (if you will excuse the expression) and the sweetening put the kabosh on must usage situations I could think of. That has now changed now that I see how easy it is to make on my own terms. In addition to it being a decent cereal milk substitution it has been ending up in my soups, smoothies and even sorbets around here. (Be sure to check out my nothingspecial broccoli soup recipe below to get an idea of how you can use almond milk in your basic everyday cooking. In a strange way, I think I liked this soup better than had I used real dairy. The veggie taste really comes through the almond milk in a way it wouldn't have with dairy. I think a roasted squash soup would really benefit from this treatment. This morning I used the last of this batch to mix in with oatmeal while it was cooking on the stove. It gave it a real creamy texture and I'm sure it benefited from what ever vitamins and non saturated fats are in it.

I've been buying the raw almonds from the bulk bins at the Sprouts Market just down the street.


Almond Milk

• 1 cup raw almonds
• water to soak & 3 cups water to blend
• cheesecloth
  

Cover almonds in a bowl with water and soak overnight. Drain almonds and rinse thoroughly. Place almonds in a strong blender with 3 cups water. Blend until smooth. Strain the mixture through cheesecloth into a jar that can be covered and refrigerate. Keeps several days in the refrigerator. Milk will separate but a quick shake brings it all back. May be sweetened to taste or add a shake of cinnamon or nutmeg to flavor for straight drinking. Or blend a date or two in with the almonds before straining if you intend to drink it.

Almond Milk Broccoli Soup

• 3 garlic cloves
• 1/2 onion chopped
• 2 T olive oil
• 4 cups broccoli cut into small pieces, including stalks
• 1 cup vegetable stock (or water)
• 1/2 tablespoon oregano
• 1/2 thyme
• 1 cup almond milk
• salt and pepper to taste

Put oil in saucepan and saute the onion and garlic for 2 minutes then add the broccoli and herbs and a pinch of salt. Add stock and water to barely cover. Cook for 15 minutes. Add almond milk and warm. Off heat, cool, and blend with immersion blender. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream with hot fudge (hold the bigotry)

Please bear with me but I am going to try to go somewhere with this ramble. First, just take a look at that ice cream! All I could say while I was stuffing it in my face was "wow, just wow." This dish struggled against all the odds to be born...and the fact that it was bigotry free made my day.

I know enough food bloggers to know a certain truth to the breed. They all keep a backlog of various recipes, post ideas, projects and even actual photos that have yet to find their way to their respective blog pages. This can exist in any given format or for any manner of reason: ideas from blogs we hope to recreate one day, culinary inventions that exist only in our mind waiting for a free afternoon to throw together, photos of earlier creations sitting in the camera waiting for a spare moment to get written about, and much more. I even keep on hand a bunch of pictures from projects that I never actually intend to post about. Its quite easy for something that catches my eye to never see the light of a computer screen. Such was the case with this Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream you see here. This was the post that defied all probability to get featured here today.

To start with the recipe is from a book I received way back at Christmas, Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home To Yours. Yep, a baking book full of amazing pictures of pies, cakes, and cookies. An ice cream recipe without a picture in this particular book isn't really begging to get noticed let alone made and yet this one caught mine. It is a cooked custard recipe (think rich and smooth) which uses good quality bittersweet chocolate made into a creamy ganache before mixing. The somewhat low sugar content had me thinking I should file this one away for when I need another "adult chocolate" tasting desert for certain chocolate-craving family members. To make this, I would also need an ice cream maker since I stupidly gave mine away years ago -- but I could cross that bridge when I got to it if this recipe ever got to the making stage.

Skip ahead then to a couple weeks ago, back when I made my Original Plum Torte. I made this fruity torte, cake, gateau, what-have-you for a small gathering of in-laws to come back to after a night out at the movies. I happened to think it was really something special (and apparently a few blog friends thought so too as they subsequently featured it on their blogs!) but Nephew just turned his nose up it and then turned it down, flat. The reason? It wasn't chocolate! Now he is of the mind that if it is not chocolate it is not "dessert" and while I can allow people their preferences, I thought that saying so was a bit intolerant. Fruit needs to have its day in the sun too and I would never deny fruit its right to the status of "dessert". Variety makes life interesting, n'est-ce pas? Nonetheless, the episode (as I now refer to it) propelled me to run through my recipe lists in search of a chocolate recipe to please Nephew (or to at least taunt him with here.)

I came up with chocolate pies, cookies, puddings, and soufflés, all of which would have done the trick quite nicely but I never remembered the ganache ice cream I had filed away. No ice cream maker after all... Then something happened that all but guaranteed I would not only remember the recipe but actually get my butt off the chair to get an ice cream maker and make this thing. On August 10 the Tuesdays With Dorie crowd selected this recipe for their blog circle. "The Doristas" (as I like to call them collectively) choose an item from Dorie's book each week and all 200 (or so) of them blog about it and share their experiences. Its quite fun to see how one item can be interpreted so many different ways. So, while I was grateful for the reminder and confirmation that this was, indeed, the sinfully chocolate treat I was looking for, once 200 people or so blog about a particular dish, I'd say its pretty done for and I would have nothing else to contribute to the discussion. I'd put my camera down this time. (Since we're talking about them, check out the blog of one of my favorite Doristas, Mike the Ugly Dude. He may be the lone male Dorista and I think he must makes his creations in a dorm kitchen or some other type of small space. I just love the honesty of his posts and the food shots when compared to the other 200 mostly perfection seeking Doristas. (I don't say this to put them down at all as obviously I would be a Dorista of this variety too if I just had the discipline to join their weekly ranks. I always gets a big smile to see everything from Sharpies to dish washing liquid sharing screenspace with his "ugly" Dorie Greenspan creations though. Keep up the good work Mike!)

Anyway, once reminded of this ice cream 200 some odd times (I follow the Doristas religiously) and with multiple submissions of their photos to the "food porn" sites like Tastespotting and Food Gawker, I was completely sold, the recipe went to the top of my to-do list, and I started shopping around for an ice cream maker. LAWD! Was I really going to buy another single use appliance? It was during a previous divestment of such things that I got rid of my previous ice cream maker. Once I decide I need something for a project there is no stopping me. I thought I would just run across the street to Target and quickly pick up an ice cream maker. OOOPPH!

Nope. I'm afraid I couldn't do that. You see, as convenient as it would have been to go just one block from my house to buy an ice cream maker from Target I just couldn't make myself do it. Target recently made a very public political political donation ($150,000!) that was targeted to fund the conservative, supposedly "pro business" campaign of Tom Emmer for Minnesota governor. Corporations are newly able to do this because of the outrageous Supreme Court decision last term that considers corporation the same as people under the Constitution thereby granting them the same 1st Amendment rights. (How many people do you know that can instantly raise vast sums of cash by selling shares of themselves on a stock exchange?)

Target's donation knowingly went right into the hands of a man who is outspoken in his opposition to not only same-sex marriage but all other gay-rights initiatives that have come before Minnesota's legislature. Hearing this really broke my heart because I used to adore meandering the aisles at Target. The company had cultivated a nice, somewhat hip design aesthetic with their products (even their pharmacy prescription bottles are cool) and even seemed to treat their gay employees well as indicated in several HRC employement guides. All of that goes out the window with this donation. "Please work for us so that we can donate money to campaigns that seek to ensure that you are unequal under the law.")

I'm usually not too keen towards boycotts as most of them are misplaced and ineffective. This one just seems so different and many seem to agree with me. I don't care if the boycott and subsequent outrage doesn't change anything...I just can't bring myself to shop there any longer. Frankly, even if you aren't gay but know someone or have a family member who is you should stop shopping there. Its time to take a stand for what is right even if it means driving a bit farther to buy a DVD. Shoot, even Target's own investors are upset with this one (as their stock price tumbles.) You see, gay people have families and friends and with each passing day they just aren't going to be putting up with this shit.

So we'll see what happens. In the meantime I'm not ready to forgive Target's transgressions against our civil rights in order to get a great price on cat litter. "Speech" and participation in the political discourse has its responsibilities and its consequences so I hope other corporations are paying attention. So I'm sorry Target, but you essentially broke up with me first. I'm dating around now. I ended up buying the Kitchen Aid ice cream attachment from Williams Sonoma and it worked just fine. I have choices. What I don't have is any pictures of the custard phase of this recipe as I was too busy stirring. Dorie herself suggested on her blog that this recipe would take well to some home made hot fudge and who was I to argue with the Godess of Bake herself? Both recipes are below and are quite good so you really ought to try them. This whole ice cream project has ruined store-bought for me just as Target's donation has ruined that whole company's reputation for me.

(Oh yeah, check out my new kitchen scale too! Guess where I didn't buy that one?)

Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream

Word for word from Dorie Greenspan "Baking: From My Home to Yours"

• 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
  
• 1 cup whole milk
• 4 large egg yolks
• 1/3 cup sugar

1. Put the chocolate in a 2-quart liquid measuring cup or a large heatproof bowl. Bring ¾ cup of the cream to a boil. Pour the cream over the chocolate and let it sit a minute, then using a rubber spatula and starting in the center of the mixture, slowly stir the cream into the chocolate in ever-widening concentric circles. When the ganache is smooth, set it aside.

2. Bring the milk and the remaining 3/4 cup cream to a boil in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan.

3. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk the yolks and sugar together until well blended and just slightly thickened. Still whisking, drizzle in about one third of the hot liquid—this will temper, or warm, the yolks so they won’t curdle. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remaining liquid. Pour the custard back into the pan and cook over medium heat, stirring without stopping, until the custard thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon; if you run your finger down the bowl of the spoon, the custard should not run into the track. The custard should reach at least 170 degrees F, but no more than 180 degrees F, on an instant-read thermometer. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and slowly and gently stir the custard into the ganache.

4. Refrigerate the custard until well chilled before churning it into ice cream.

5. Scrape the chilled custard into the bowl of an ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Pack the ice cream into a freezer safe container and freeze it for at least 2 hours, until it is firm enough to scoop.

Makes about 1 quart .

Hot Fudge Sauce

• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/3 cup light corn syrup
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 6 ounces semisweet chocolate, very finely chopped
• 3 tablespoons butter, cut into bits
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Bring the cream, corn syrup, sugar, cocoa and salt to a boil over medium heat. Lower the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes. Off heat, stir in the chocolate and butter. Return to a simmer for 1 minute more, then stir in the vanilla. Pour into a heatproof jar and use now or cool, cover tightly, chill and reheat very, very gently before serving.

Hamburgers, Sis Boom Style

Consider the hamburger as I do from time to time. Invariably I will overhear two people engaging in the tiring debate that rages on now and again amongst the genre's so-called connoisseurs: [your favorite local burger chain] vs. [fill in the blank of the new arrival to town]. Which is better? The answer, as any true connoisseur could tell you is always neither. (Duh. What other answer would you expect from a food blog?) Like a M. C. Escher drawing, the subject just goes on and on, without end, toward no particular outcome. Which is not to say that fast food burgers aren't good or can't achieve some merit of distinction in their own right but to inspire such an outpouring of passionate debate is just a bit beyond me. Much like today's political discourse, the debate isn't going to change many minds anyway, right?

The current debate raging here in The O.C. is on the merits of resident champion, In and Out versus those of the newcomer to these here parts, Washington D.C. based Five Guys. Seems Five Guys has just come to town and is leveraging the fond memories of our East Coast transplants in an effort to reclaim their hearts and minds. Once again a plethora of ink is generated comparing every noticeable difference between the two. Not just the different attributes in the burgers themselves but also in, well... everything. One list here even highlights the differences in at which point in the cooking process the cheese is added. My good blog friend Scott has even weighed in over at Foodie in Disguise. Not surprisingly given that he has fond Eastern memories of Five Guys and after driving 35 miles to make his comparison he favored [drum roll] Five Guys!

So why do I care? I think the whole genre is over-rated and doesn't really deserve the loyalty they generate. The former "quick serve" marketing guy in me (not to mention former fast food franchise owner) realizes that these chains have found the holy grail of branding and consumer loyalty and that fascinates me to no end. There is no way to put a value on that kind of brand equity. Get this, that lovely picture of an In and Out Burger up at the top of this post isn't even an authentic In and Out Burger! It is the final result of a rabid fan actually backward engineering the Double Double right down to the sugar content of the sauce! These are the things an MIT graduate does in his spare time in order to satisfy that aforementioned brand loyalty. I guess sometimes a burger isn't really just a burger, is it?

All of this prose is really just a lead-up to me wanting to share with you my own version of the classic burger. You didn't think I was going to take the time to recreate the In and Out recipe here did you? Not likely as if there is anything more silly than the debate itself it would be to cook one at home! Why would you do that? So you can have the generic tasting burger AND clean up the dishes? No way. Besides, one only needs to bite into real home-made hamburger to realize how silly the fast food burger debate really is. I offer up one of my favorite varieties. Its quite easy and best used when you are in the possession of good quality ground beef. The kind that asks to be enhanced, not masked. I would prefer it to leave the mustard and ketchup off the table for this one but there is something unAmerican about that...they are, however, not needed here. This burger is all about the beef. And the onions. They are perfect. No debate.


Sis. Boom. [burgers!]

For the burgers:

• 2lb good quality ground beef, no less fat than 15%
• 6 hamburger buns. (I use the organic whole wheat from Whole Foods.)
• 2 T mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup grated gruyere cheese
  
• 2 T olive oil
• 1 T dijon mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher or truffle salt.
  
• 1 teaspoon pepper

For the onions:

• 2 T olive oil
• 1 T butter
• 2 lbs yellow onions, peeled and sliced
• 1/2 t dried thyme (use fresh if you have it.)
• 2 T sherry vinegar
• 1 T kosher salt
• 1/2 pepper

Prepare the beef by putting it in a bowl with the mustard, oil, truffle salt, and pepper. Mix with a fork and pat into 6 loosely formed patties. These may be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated. Allow to come warm up a bit prior to grilling for a more even cook, however.

Perpare the onions by heat the olive oil and butter in a large shallow pot, add the onions and thyme, and toss with the oil. Place the lid on top and cook over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes to sweat the onions. Remove the lid and continue to cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, for 25 to 30 minutes, until the onions are caramelized and golden brown. If the onions are cooking too fast, lower the heat. Add the vinegar, salt, and pepper and cook for 2 more minutes, scraping the brown bits from the pan. Season to taste (they should be very highly seasoned). Set aside .

Prepare the buns. Open buns and set them out on a shallow pan or cookie sheet. Mix mayo and grated gruyere cheese and a few shakes of pepper to taste. Spread out on the top of bun.

Preheat to Broil setting and light grill. When the grill is medium-hot, brush the grill grate with oil to keep the burgers from sticking. Place the burgers on the grill and cook for 4 minutes. Using a big spatula, turn the burgers and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes, until medium-rare or more, or cook longer if you prefer hamburgers more well done. Close the lid to avoid flair ups. Don't push down on the burgers while they are on the grill! This causes flareups!

Put buns under the broiler until cheese is bubbly and slightly brown. Remove from broiler, top bun with burger and onions.

Pickled Carrots & Asparagus with Tarragon Sis Boom Pickle

The Picklepalooza continues... I do like pickles, and really...why shouldn't I. Its all perfectly natural, I mean, who wouldn't like pickle? (If I may paraphrase Valerie Perrine only slightly.) Staring down (or up) on the same pickle day in and day out, however, is sure to trend toward the unexciting so after awhile it would only seem natural to seek out other choices as long as you did it safely. Its a tendency not to be too alarmed over. These days, with the Internet, it seems easier than ever to sample from different pickle varieties. Hardly a week goes by without some new trendy boutique pickle shop getting a mention in the New York Times. I read somewhere that Simon Doonan (he of the famous windows of Barney's fame) has actually declared pickles to be "the new cupcakes" and while I don't really think tourists any time soon will be lining up outside pickle stores in the East Village I do think their newly rediscovered popularity is well founded. For those of us cursed not to live on the island of Manhattan or in one of the Burroughs adjacent we either must make do with mail order or we must learn to make our own. I'm doing both. (You are seeing my efforts develop here but I have also ordered up a few varieties of fun pickles and pickled veggies to play with.)

What you see here are my latest efforts. Carrot pickles and asparagus pickles, both with tarragon and garlic. As much as I love a big, fat, pickled cucumber I'm steering clear of that particular veggie for the time being. They can be trouble and somewhat particular and idiosyncratic when it comes to their briny treatment. Also, people tend to be a bit fussy when it comes to their cucumbers so until I have a better grasp of their nuances I'm keeping my hands off. I realize that this is my third such pickling recipe on the blog in as many weeks but I don't think I should need an arm twisting to show off my antique Victorian pickle fork, do I? (Besides, I feel a new obsession (explosion) coming on and I have to get these veggies put up for the cold harsh winter while I can!)

I wasn't that interested in using a store bought pickling spice this time so I did a little research (this means I scoured the blogasphere) and my 'aha' moment was centered on one thing: Tarragon. It is one of my absolute favorite herbs as it just reeks of class for me. (Using the word "reeks" alas, does not. ) I thought I would be extra clever and skip the parboil of the veggies before loading them into the jars. My thinking was that they will cook enough in the hot brine and water bath treatment so why overcook them? Turns out there is a reason for this step: Kevin at Saving the Season tells me that the parboiled veggies are actually a bit smaller after this treatment (the veggies lose a bit of volume as they lose water to the boil) and a tad more flexible so packing them in the bottle tighter will be easier with the parboil. Who knew?


Pickled Asparagus and Pickled Carrots
with tarragon and garlic.
adapted from Saving the Season

For 6 pints jars (Any combination of asparagus or carrots)

• 3 lbs fat fresh asparagus
• 3 cups white wine vinegar
• 3 cups water
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 5 teaspoons salt

Per pint jar:

• 1 clove garlic or 1/4 of a small head of green garlic
• 3-inch leafy branch of fresh tarragon
• 1 dried red chili
• 1 lemon cut into very thin slices
  
• 6 whole black pepper
• 5 whole coriander seed
• pinch mustard seed
• 2 whole allspice cut stalks into 4-inch lengths to fit jars.

Cut the stalks into 4" pieces to fit into the jars. Peel and cut the carrots into 1/4" to 1/2 inch thick sticks. Peel the garlic cloves but leave whole. Sterilize your jars and lids. After they are done, prep the aromatics by putting one slice of lemon on the bottom of the jar and then add to each prepared jar the appropriate amount of garlic, tarragon and spices.

If you parboil the asparagus and carrots do so in rapidly boiling water for 45 seconds, just long enough to set a bright color and make the spears pliable. "Shock" the hot spears in an ice-water bath. Then drain. Pack asparagus and carrots into the jars so that you have a snug fit, but don't overcrowd.

Make the vinegar syrup by combining vinegar, water, sugar and salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Fill each jar with hot vinegar syrup, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Wipe rims and seal. Process in a boiling-water bath for 10 minutes.

"Original Plum Torte"

"Original", "beloved", "fabled". I have even seen "infamous"! These are all words used to describe this simple yet tasty plumb torte on the various blogs and discussion boards where I have seen it described. I have to suspect that the writer didn't really mean "infamous", right? After all, this torte never stole from anyone did it? It never actually tortured anyone in defiance of the Geneva Conventions nor did it lead a country into war using falsified evidence of weapons of mass destruction, did it? Of course not! Certainly it would deserve to be known as infamous (and we would all agree) if it had done these things but this particular torte did not. It does, however, deserve fame -- the good kind. "Original Plumb Torte" has been in my clipping pile for so long I can't even remember how it got there. It may have been clipped during one of its annual runs from the Food Section of the New York Times but it could have just as likely been culled from the many other times it has appeared in newsprint. I do know that it is one of those baking legends that everyone seems to know but me. I Googled it and was astonished to see just how many times this cake has been made and referenced. 519,000 results! It turns out the New York Times had ran Marian Burros' famous recipe 13 years in a row in the pages of the New York Times Food Section until one day she finally got so fed up with the repeated requests that she told her readers to just laminate the damn thing 'cause she wasn't going to publish it any more!

These are the kinds of factoids I don't really bargain for when I Google a recipe! I prefer to read things like "it was a bit too sweet" or "it needed 10 extra minutes in the oven" because that is good stuff to know before you start out! Knowing that this torte was so popular that the fabled New York Times food writer actually got sick of sharing the recipe would have you thinking you were about to eat the Second Coming of cake and while it is good, this torte is not That Cake. Whatever That Cake is, I can safely say that no dessert with only a handful of ingredients and that is this simple to make can be considered That Cake -- but conversely, I simply don't know of any other desert with this few ingredients that is this good. Period. And really, all I needed was to use a bowl of Italian plumbs that were thismuch away from being "old" to be happy. This torte dispatched them perfectly and elegantly to boot. While you can make this with any stone fruit or even berries there is something about the fleshy plum that turns magical during the cooking process here that I can't imagine any other fruit achieving quite the same way. The plum transforms into an almost jam like consistency as the puffy warm batter surrounds it. The light sprinkling of sugar adds some texture and flavor to the top without getting in the way of the delicate flavors of both the cake and the plums themselves. Knowing my audience, I omitted the cinnamon in favor of a dash of cardamom tossed into the batter. Just enough to be inconspicuous yet somehow present. This will definitely be made again. Several times.


Original Plum Torte
(adapted from NYTimes)

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup unbleached flour, sifted
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of Cardamom (just shy of 1/4 teasp.)
  
• 2 eggs
• 24 halves pitted purple or Italian plums (I had several fewer.)
  
• Sugar for topping.
• Cinnamon (optional)
  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream the sugar and butter in a bowl. Add the flour, baking powder, cardamom, salt and eggs and beat well. Spoon the batter into a spring form of 8, 9 or 10 inches. Place the plum halves skin side up on top of the batter. Sprinkle lightly with sugar and lemon juice, depending on the sweetness of the fruit. Sprinkle with (about) 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, depending on how much you like cinnamon. (Omit if using cardamom.)

Bake one hour, approximately. Remove and cool; refrigerate or freeze if desired. Or cool to lukewarm and serve plain or with whipped cream..To serve a torte that was frozen, defrost and reheat it briefly at 300 degrees.

Time Travel.

Fig. and Sis. Boom. Then and Now...

Ms. Fig and I attended homecoming together as high school seniors so when she suggested several months ago that we leave our spouses behind and go to our 30th reunion together it sounded like a good idea... I did do some considerable rethinking as the event drew nearer but I stifled the typical reunion angst as I did not want to disappoint Cindy by changing my mind. At worst, the thought of an entire evening with my blog mentor (and friend) sounded like great fun and I instinctively knew this would not be an evening for spouses anyway. If she was up for it, so was I. Turns out having her to lean on for the evening was the best decision ever.

Things started out with a bang as I drove up to the very house I drove up to 30 years ago in order to pick up my date. The neighborhood looks much more like Wisteria Lane than I remembered it. 30 years of tree growth and rising property values will do that. Instead of Mother Fig answering the door and admonishing me not to stay out too late it was her beautiful daughter Sophie. Upon seeing me she exclaimed "You're the Pepper Jelly dude!" I fell in love with her immediately and started questioning my decision to not have children. Surely they all turn out this charming, fun, and beautiful? I opted not to gift my date with a corsage and she presented me with a big bag of Padron Peppers instead of a boutonniere. We have gotten much more practical in our dotage.

The rest of the evening was a happy blur. Any real anxiety I had vanished when I received a big hug from a classmate who took our picture and seemed genuinely glad to see me even though we probably didn't have terribly much interaction all those years ago. I pretty quickly stopped thinking about why they were glad to see me and as I started feeling happy to see them too. I'm still not sure why this was so but I'm not sure I want to over think it either. It just was. In between the hellos and many furtive glances at name tags I remember seeing an unfortunate choice of hot pants and spending quite a bit of time contemplating the construction of one particularly fetching backless blouse --on a classmate who could very much still pull it off. Brava! I did manage to reconnect with someone who actually was a close friend of mine in gradeschool and high school so that was worth the price of admission right there. All the rest was gravy.

And having not really ever merited the attention from the opposite sex in high school I don't think I could be blamed for enjoying the attentions Holly gave me that night for a few bubbly minutes. Going on and on as she did about how good I looked would have been embarrassing had I not enjoyed it so much. I never did get the chance to tell her ....well...you know. (Holly, if you are out there, you made my night and if you are in the market for a sassy gay friend, give me a call.) Thankfully Cindy described the rest of it so well on her blog and while she gives me way too much credit for being "a kick ass date" the rest of it she got perfectly. I was grateful that Cindy had more friends in high school than I did or our evening would have been pretty short. As it was, her friends were my acquaintances and former classmates and they were nice enough to pretend to remember me while I marveled at how nice it was to be there even though high school was not a particularly happy time for me. Its complicated for sure but I realized it was that way for most, not just me.

When I arrived at the party I saw a room full of strangers. An hour later my neurons were reconnecting at a rapid rate -- bringing faces and memories into focus. Surprisingly, this is a process that can't be stopped just by leaving the party. My high school life and its various inhabitants continue to push their way into my memory and I continue to work at figuring out just where the gravitational pull of this event comes from. 10 years ago, after attending the 20th, I swore that I would not go back. Yet I did. 10 years ago I felt as if I had fulfilled whatever obligations I had set out for myself and thought that was that. As much as I would like to blame the whole thing on Ms. Fig I know there is something else at play here.

When I figure it out I'll let you know but in the meantime, I have no regrets. It was fun. I actually think Cindy and I had a better time than we did at Homecoming!

Now it is with great relief that this blog can return to its regularly scheduled programming. Remember those Padron Peppers? Well, we have been enjoying them all week long. They are mild and smoky, easy to make, and the perfect appetizer to whip up with a couple of after work margaritas.

Padron Peppers

.

Here again I don't wish to rehash what Ms. Fig has already done so perfectly. Read her simple instructions for cooking them here. Eat until you get a hot one!

I will be looking for more of these at the farmer's market this weekend.