The 22.5LB Wild Striped Bass: Part II

Here's the second meal from our friend, now affectionately known as Albert, the giant striped bass. I will admit to having turned up my nose to fish tacos almost all my life, but this was a game changer. Honestly, the fish wasn't remotely fishy or stinky, even when it got dredged in flour and some seasoning and then lightly fried. Fried fish! Under my own roof! Well, I never...

Then we splashed copious amounts of fresh lemon juice on the succulent little fish bits, and lots of lime on the avocado and cilantro and salted, julienned radishes and chopped onion (very, very conveniently, I had all of these on hand except for the avocado--in fact, having all these ingredients was my impetus for actually giving fried fish a go). Rounding out the lovely little color spectrum was a deep blue-gray tortilla and a chilly, pale pink Chinon rosé.

 

Poppa Provides: The 22.5LB Wild Striped Bass

Yo. This is massive. So massive that Josiah actually won discounted fishing trips for the rest of his life. Also so massive that we have enough fish to feed us for about a month. We literally made 22 1/3-pound bass fillets from this mother!

Here's dinner number one...

This erases my carbon footprint from those stupid tomatoes I bought earlier this week: A completely sustainable and local meal of wild, line-caught striped bass and peas, potatoes, baby fennel, green garlic and herbs all bought from the farmer's market. 

This was really simple, involving just boiling the fingerlings until they were tender, then sauteeing them up with green garlic and little bits of baby fennel with snap peas thrown in at the last moment to keep them crisp and fresh. Then we chopped up a bunch of dill, cilantro, parsley and fennel fronds while the fish were seared, two minutes a side, in a pan with butter before being finished in the oven for another two minutes. Butter, lemon and herbs were mixed together, then slathered over the fresh, tender, slightly sweet and very mild fish.

Ridiculously delicious.

Fat Sausage

Look at that big bad boy. Oooh-ee! Chicken apple sausage all glistening in duck fat juices. Quite savory all browned up and served over a bed of warm cabbage-apple slaw and buttery, parsley mashed potatoes. Ja, so German!

Gasp! Tomatoes in May in NYC

Seasonality be damned. I wanted a tomato in my mouth so badly that I didn't care if they were flown in from Mars. You stinking carbon footprint!

So I popped right into the shiny new, fluorescent green "Kim's Millennium Market" around the corner and snatched up a heap of cherries, tomatoes and basil, all unsustainably trekked from the entirely opposite side of the nation. And heavens, they were delicious. I scarfed the cherries as a snack while I whipped up the last of my box of whole wheat couscous, then I dumped in a greedy ton of tomatoes and ribbons of basil and some nuggets of feta that I had hiding in the back of the fridge.

Tastes like sunny California! Humm. Homesick.

If You Have Cream, and You Have Celery...

Shouldn't you be able to make cream of celery soup?? I figured, why not? Plus I was dead broke and had almost nothing else on hand.

I poked around the internet for about 30 seconds before deciding that lightly sweating about eight stalks of celery that I had left over along with some random old scallions (sort of like onions) and a bit of even more random carrot juice (kind of sort of like diced carrots, the third ingredient in a classic mirepoix) ought to be a good start before dumping in a bunch of homemade vegetable stock and a splash of cream while the whole thing whizzed in the blender.

There she is, the end result. All oddly yellow (damn carrot juice) and tasting queerly, a bit overwhelmingly, tangy-green celery-y. Next time, I shall consult a real recipe for this one. Something like the one listed in this tasty article in the LA Times.

Oh well. It cost me nothing, and the leftover pizza dough baked in my toaster oven and slathered with some Stilton was a nice and cheap accompaniment.

Walk the Wok

Sarah's wok recently took a walk over to my place for a bit of Saveur-inspired velveted chicken. Let's say it again: velveted chicken. Salut, succulence! Now I know the secret to the tenderest, most velvety (ya!) chicken possible in a stir-fry.

I will also admit that the sight of so much celery made me cringe a bit, anticipating excess watery, well... celery flavor. But the fresh, crisp texture remained intact and that aromatic green essence infused the dish just enough; combined with julienned leeks and ginger, the whole thing was entirely too easy to be so outrageously delectable, especially when it was paired with a warm, heady coconut-milk-saturated turmeric rice.

Oh! And to help clean out a bit of the fridge, leftover asparagus spears were chopped up and stuffed into wonton wrappers for some first-course dumps... obviously.

Succotash!

After an excess of starches and red meat, even my little carbohydrate-loving body craved some fresh veggies. I desperately wanted corn and bell peppers, even though they're not remotely in season. A little trip to Whole Foods got me the makings for a smashing succotash with pan-seared bay scallops and basil-lemon vinaigrette.

Smashing Succotash!!

Maple Walnut Butter = Majorly Winning Breakfast

OOOH, this screams irresistible! Would you look at how luscious? Gimme gimme gimme! I do not know which Miss La breakfast spread is better: this or the homemade cheese. But I know that when I want something really umami and tiny-salty, hint-o-sweet-y, this is what I need in my mouth immediately.

To make:
1) Get a bunch of walnuts.
2) Put in blender or food processor. Turn on.

3) After a few minutes, when it starts to get all soft and buttery, add a pinch of salt and a drizzle of maple syrup.
4) Enjoy! Or, as my six-year-old sister once wrote, "ENGOY!"

Pizza, Beer, Friday Night Date Night

Indeed, what more could you ask for on a Friday night? The evening was utterly lovely, we had the roof open and cocktails on hand, and a freshly made batch of beer was conditioning in the closet.

Ahh, rats. So that means we didn't get to drink the homebrew. But we will in two weeks! Meanwhile, "Dook's Brew" conditions away, and our home is filled with sanitized and drying equipment as we gear up for the second brewing...

We made two pizzas for the evening: the first was an artichoke, ramp and ricotta pie, which wasn't actually all that satisfying, and the second was a date, bacon and blue cheese pie, which had all the properly balancing sweet/salty/savory notes until I got carried away and put ramp bulbs all over it...
which somehow turned the thing into a strangely Dorito-flavored concoction with bits of dates.

It was okay, but this is not something that I'd fully recommend anyone tries to duplicate, unless a sweet, Dorito-y pie actually sounds good to you. Hmm.

Coo-Coo for Cocchi

Buona sera!!

If this isn't what's going to get me through the summer, well then, I suppose nothing will. LOOK AT HOW GORGEOUS!

Dear Crush just got in the first batch of Cocchi Americano, and damn if it isn't my favorite new alcoholic beverage. Slightly bitter, highly aromatic and refreshingly herbal with just the tiniest honeyed florality, this thing rejuvenates the soul. I very much like it served over lots of ice with a splash of soda and a bit of fresh orange. I think my old Raw Honey jars make for a tres chic aesthetic.

Ricotta in the Morning

This is the breakfast of champions. As properly emphasized in the picture, I like to portion out more fresh homemade ricotta than actual raisin-pecan toast per bite, and I like just the tiniest dab of four fruits jam with each mouthful. This ricotta is, simply, stupid it is so delicious and easy to make. I often eat giant spoonfuls of it all on its own. Thank you, Miss La, for the addiction.

I've also found that a nice milky, honeyed cup of British breakfast tea is a perfect pairing with this.

Creamed Spinach Heart Attack

The other night I bought spinach for Josiah's morning smoothies, not realizing that he had also bought a boatload of the greens earlier in the day. What to do with an excess of about-to-wilt greens?

Make creamed spinach! Whew, was this a delicious heart attack about to happen. First I made a roux with butter and flour, then I sort of randomly threw in a bunch of chopped ramps and a few splashes of heavy cream that I had on hand to make ricotta... after it bubbled around for a few minutes, in went handful after handful of spinach.

To really get my cholesterol going, I supplemented my meal with french fries. And steak.

This meal was delicious. It really was. I just couldn't eat more than eight bites of it before feeling like my breath and heartbeats were restricted. So I had some Ramazzotti and digestivo'ed my way to the couch.

Ramppote

There they are, for-real foraged by the good CC on his trip upstate this last weekend. He came in yesterday, stinking, with a giant tote bag full of them, and they reeked up the Cube at Crush before we hungry, fiending coworkers schlepped them home to our fellow train passengers' noses' dismay.

This evening, I was entirely too tired (and poor) to go grocery shopping, so a real "No Chive Left Behind" supper was fashioned out of two fist-fulls of roughly chopped ramps, a diced potato, some leftover quinoa, ginger, lemon, olive oil and spinach--all on-hand in the trusty refrigerator.

Into the pan, slowest cooking time (potato) to quickest (spinach) they all went. The end result: fetid and spicy and devour-able, just like the Gossip Girl episode I paired with it.

Moonshine

Thank you, Emily, for your bootleg Slivovitz that you hawked off mountain priests and toted back to the States in a Vodavoda bottle. Nice tape job.