Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

One of today’s most emailed New York Times articles urges us all to approach Thanksgiving dinner like CEOs.

I’m sorry… like what???

Do you mean that as CEO of Thanksgiving dinner …

• … I should blow my full budget on superbowl ads for my cooking — and beg for a taxpayer bailout to buy me some turkey?
• …I should take a holiday bonus of half the gravy and cranberry sauce?
• …I should tell people I long ago asked to share dinner with us that times are tough so I have had to “downsize” them?

No thanks, New York Times, but how about telling those high-flying CEOs to be more like … us moms out here making Thanksgivings? Because when tomorrow night comes, we will have given a whole lot of people a whole lot of what they really, really wanted. Can you say the same?

Really, honest to Pete, can you believe that the deep-thinking economists and high-flying MBAs — who just landed our planet in its current pickle — truly imagine that they have good advice for others?

On a kindlier note, here’s a link to one of my alltime favorite posts ever including the national Thanksgiving prayer: “O Lord, you know I don’t know how to cook this ugly bird…”

Smoked salmon with horseradish-flavored whipped cream

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

Mmmm graphics!

The FoodPairing website illustrates food inspiration of two different kinds:

1. Food combination: (quoting the site) “A list was made of 250 food products each with their major flavour components. By comparing the flavour of each food product eg strawberry with the rest of the food and their flavours, new combinations like strawberry with peas can be made.”
2. Food swapping:(quoting the site) “A food product has a specific flavour because of a combination of different flavours. Like basil taste like basil because of the combination of linalool, estragol, …. So if I want to reconstruct the basil flavour without using any basil, you have to search for a combination of other food products where one contains linalool (like coriander), one contains estragol (like tarragon),… So I can reconstruct basil by combining coriander, tarragon, cloves, laurel. The way to use it is to take from each branch of the plot one product and make a combination of those food products.”

Thanks to the always-inspiring Tingilinde for the link!

Ljungdalen0579

Originally uploaded by skrubtudse

Turnips. Parsnips. Carrots. Maybe an onion.

When we get home from yet-another-trip, these are the foods that will still be potentially dinner.

The green beans will be black and the spinach leaves will be liquid but the root vegetables will be waiting and looking delicious.

Just the way root vegetables waited in the cellars of my French and Irish peasant ancestors as the long days of winter slowly wore away.

If those ancestors had only had Knorr’s veggie bouillon cubes, plus ICA’s fullkorn rice and canned fish balls in bouillon, they could have had the same winter soup that we ate last night.

Frank says he doubts the Neanderthals had canned fish balls but he’d have to admit that, after way too many meals in too many restaurants including (scary thought, I know) airport restaurants, the winter soup I made last night was simply perfect.

Beautiful soup

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

The beautiful red beet soup with mushroom dumplings is part of traditional Christmas in this part of Poland. In the background, you can see a plate of varied sausages, including kielbasa, which Frank’s Polish grandmother used to make.

Can you see that steam is rising from the hot soup? Mmm, making me hungry!

After the school festivities, Babice’s local hotel and restaurant treated us all to a Christmas dinner augmented by folk songs.

The hotel, whose food is delicious, is Hotel Plowiecki. The "l" in Płowiecki is a special Polish letter that has a slash through it; my keyboard won’t make it but I copied it off the Internet.

Lunch at the Pierrogeria

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

Or should that maybe be PQ?

The root of Polish “pierogi” is “pir,” for festivity. Pierogies look like half-circles of dough because they start out as circles you cut with a drinking glass–then you fold each in half over some bulging lump of good filling.

People boil, bake, or fry these fat little dumplings in many different Slavic home kitchens.

Frank’s dynamic Grandma Wilczek, who grew up in Babice, made delicious fried pierogi every Thanksgiving. But Warsaw’s Pierrogeria goes way beyond Grandma, offering pierogi with every kind of filling from mushrooms and spinach to blueberries, raisins, and rum.

Yum. I really like Polish pierogies. But I’m afraid that if people keep taking me out to wonderful Polish restaurants, meal after meal after meal, I’ll look more like a fat little dumpling than I really want to!

Photorecipe: Schrödinger tomatoes

Originally uploaded by funadium

Some nights it’s almost too hot to think about food–except for maybe something cold yet spicy like Funadium’s latest photorecipe.

Disclosure–I blogged another Funadium photorecipe, some fusilli called “Waves and particles” and he mailed me some fun Funadium swag from Italy. That was a surprise, not something I was expecting, and I don’t crave more swag for any future blogpost. I just try to blog stuff I think blogreaders will enjoy.

Why are these chili-topped tomatoes named after Erwin Schrödinger? Read the explanation yourself, but try not to lose your appetite when you get to the part about chocolate with bruschetta!

Smoked salmon with horseradish-flavored whipped cream

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

Mmm, restaurant food–but that quickly gets old.

My quick-dinner fall-back, which I learned about in the Netherlands, is handfuls of mixed chopped vegetables tossed into the boiling water when I’m cooking pasta. Top with pesto or nuke some chunky red sauce in the microwave.

Today’s NYT has 101 more ideas, including an easy recipe for gazpacho.

Fusilli “waves and particles” - Photorecipe

Originally uploaded by funadium

Here’s something I haven’t seen before, over on Flickr–a “photorecipe” that combines food instructions with helpful pictures of each different stage. And, in this special case, with a physics flavor!

The creator, Funadium teaches both cooking and photography in Italy, close to France, but with lessons in English.

Judging from these fusilli, those courses would be delicious.

Menton market - candy fruit

Originally uploaded by funadium

I once read on the Internet (so we know it must be true) that being in love is delicious because it gives joy both to familiarity and to surprises.

I think I’ve just fallen in love with some candied fruit that funadium Flickred from a street market in the French town (not village, I’ve been informed) Menton.

Rob at West Side Lounge, Cambridge, MA

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

Because Suw’s blog is “Chocolate and Vodka“, I wanted to introduce her to Cambridge’s reputedly best bartender–Rob of the West Side Lounge, also home to Cambridge’s best chef.

(In fact Rob is most famous for his mojitos, including (his own recipe) Mexican mojito, but that’s a different story.)

Consider this blogpost just a bit of local knowledge offered up to Google and you concerning a very good place to eat and drink in Cambridge, MA–well, at least a place I like a lot, and so now does Suw!