cookrookery

Week 1: Creme, Tart, Spring

Weekend agenda:

Make twinkies
Make something with rhubarb
Learn how to make spring rolls

1. Made the easiest thing first: rhubarb syrup for cocktails, or as I’m enjoying it most, over ice with seltzer water and a slice of lime for a refreshingly tart soda. A couple stalks of rhubarb, some lime juice and sugar [...]

>>>>>Friday

So I made a batch of David Lebovitz’s vanilla ice cream. I’ve made several of his flavors, as you know, but never the most classic. Turns out it’s wonderful, combining an entire vanilla bean with its seeds and 3/4 teaspoon of extract (I did a combination of Madagascar Bourbon paste [magical stuff] and [my very [...]

This week I lost a tooth, which always puts me in a maudlin state of mind wherein I obsessively contemplate the nature of mortality, and I’ve been thinking the best way to be memorialized would be to have a food named after me. Here are some examples I can think of:

The sandwich (Earl of Sandwich)

John [...]

A friend of mine, Steve, has a predilection for bringing treats to parties that are naturally colored. There was the time he brought a trio of frosting-dips that had been dyed with blueberries, mango and matcha powder. So in a nod to Steve, I was inspired to create a naturally-colored cream filling of my own [...]

Virgil, my fry bread guide, got a deer this year and I got a piece of it. Two jars of canned venison, in fact. Until a couple of weeks ago I had no idea you could keep venison in a jar, but there it is. Life is a learning experience. Here’s what I [...]

Rice, to me, is not a comfort food like pasta or bread. It is something far more fundamental and taken for granted until you don’t have it, like blood. Rice is a hint at the great and profound fact that we must eat to live. When I hear the word “Spam,” on the other hand, [...]