Browned onion and scallion champ

Yes, this is basically mashed potatoes, shot in a golden spring afternoon. But with the addition of a variety of alliums, it becomes champ - a classic Irish potato dish. I did mix it up ever so slightly for our dinner, but not much. I browned some minced onion and shallots in a small pan with butter, and then deglazed the brown butter and sticky, caramelly fond with heavy cream. I added a blob of butter, some sliced scallions and chives and let this sit on the stove (turned off - the latent heat wilted the scallions nicely) while I boiled some Yukon gold potatoes (preferred over a floury Russet for flavor). When the potatoes were tender, I smashed them with the cream-onion mixture and folded in a handful of grated Irish stout Dubliner cheese.

I read that traditional additions include peas or nettles, and I can testify that peas are wonderful with this (I had them with leftovers the next day). Nettles, though? Ooh, that's a thing. I'll be headed down to the crick this weekend and give that a try.

Ebelskivers with blueberry preserves and orange zest

I've been trying to find the time to post this for more than a week, and I barely have the time to do it now, as Zephyr naps and dinner simmers away on the stove. I should be posting the Irish soda bread I made for tonight's dinner, or the lovely corned beef brisket, roasted cabbage and champ (creamed with browned onions and wilted scallions and chives, topped with grated Guinness Dubliner cheese), or even taking a phone-in post on the Guinness ice cream float I'll serve for dessert. But no, I must finish what I've started, even as Zephyr stirs from his fleeting slumber.


Ebelskivers (a Danish filled pancake) are kind of a pain in the ass to make, so I made a couple dozen and froze what we didn't eat for breakfast. These ones have a dribble of blueberry preserves in the center, yielding a gooey, jelly donut-like effect. I added orange zest to the batter for interest. Dusted with powdered sugar (and served with more blueberry preserves for dipping), these are a special treat that are worth the trouble.


I keep meaning to use my ebelskiver platar to make takoyaki - I even have some Spanish canned octopus I could use. Or maybe another savory donut (corn and cheddar?).

Serve with cripsy, thick-cut bacon and a peach-berry smoothie (because you're purging the last of your frozen summer bounty).

Lobster mushroom, sweet corn and watercress risotto

This is the best time of year. The weather is up to its typical late summer bipolar antics, and while I still have sweet Silver Queen corn down here in the Valley (thanks to sunny days), the mountains are cooling off enough in the evenings that lobster mushrooms have made their way into my neighborhood fancy grocery store.

Scott had a bee in his bonnet for some lemony chicken and risotto, and even though those are a springtime jones, such is his wantlessness that I tend to cater to his every (infrequent) craving. And despite the fact that our garden is a cornucopian money-shot of nightshades (six tomato varieties for a dozen plants total, four chile varieties and an eggplant), this third trimester heartburn started kicking in today, and I just didn't feel like one more helping of spaghetti Margherita (with a masochistic craving for extra chile flake).

I melted some butter in the pan while I thawed some homemade chicken stock (frozen in June), and sweated a quarter of a tiny red onion with two minced garlic cloves. I added a drib of olive oil to prevent the butter from browning and added one fist-sized lobster mushroom, sliced and broken into bite-sized pieces. I tossed in a couple handfuls of arborio rice and stirred it around, doing the "making risotto" thing until time to add a glass of chardonnay (now that I'm getting late in the pregnancy, I'm not afraid to taste the wine that goes into my cooking). I added splashes of the rich chicken stock, stirring lovingly, and then added an ear's worth of corn cut fresh from the cob.

A few fat pinches of lemon zest went in at the end, along with some fresh thyme and a few handfuls of chopped watercress. The peppery, nasturtium verdure of the watercress slapped the sleepy, smalltown white carbs right in the kisser, the mineral parsley gave it some backbone, and a sprinkling of crumbly fat and salt Parmigiano Reggiano gave it cheeks.

Enjoy with a crispy pear cider, or I suppose a nice Gewürztraminer, if you had one laying around.

Sweet potato salad with green tomato pickle relish

This is supposed to be about the sweet potato salad, but I really want to talk about the sandwich. Is it even okay to blog about a sandwich when I didn't bake the bread or cure my own charcuterie? Is that allowed?

We paid a visit to the Berlin Inn the other night, to grab an early dinner and a sturdy mug of chest hair-inducing, dark German beer (a bock is my favorite way to drink bread). We were truly raring for it, but then decided to go ahead and stop into Edelweiss for some things while we were in the neighborhood. I've been having exigent (nigh monthly) cravings for the odd meat product (I literally stared at the olive loaf for ten minutes before talking myself out of it). My Grandma Laverne used to serve me olive loaf or Braunschweiger and mayo (or sometimes the Fleishman's/Hellman's sandwich spread) on white bread when I was a small child, and I still get the congenital jones for this stuff.

We came home that night with a 1/4 lb. each of Jagdwurst (a spicy beef and pork sausage that resembles a firm liverwurst with larger meat bits) and Sülze (a vinegary/mustard seed-y headcheese made with beef tongue). We got a half pound of cooked beef salami too (Scott isn't as "German" as I am for the cured meats). Tonight, I really just wanted a sandwich for dinner. I toasted some Bavarian rye and smeared it with homemade sandwich spread (mayo mixed with minced green tomato/shallot pickle), some spicy brown mustard, greenleaf lettuce, a few slices of sharp cheddar and layers of cured meats.

The potato salad was really a basic thing: cubed, steamed (not boiled) sweet potato, minced celery, minced red bell pepper and onion (sauteed lightly with some minced bacon so it wouldn't overpower), chopped green tomato pickle, mayo, mustard, salt and pepper and a little chopped parsley. The sweet potato didn't cloy; rather, it stood up nicely to the spanky pickle and fatty bacon/mayo dressing.

Delightful with potato chips and a cold Weltenburger Kloster Asam Bock (it's awesome).

Gratin Dauphinois

Gratin Dauphinois is a basic thing. So basic, in fact, that I can't imagine any reason why people would eat the boxed shit. The garbage dehydrated crap isn't even cheaper. Okay, I'll admit that it is marginally easier to open a box and a couple bags, but you end up having to boil water and milk to pour over the dehydrated potatoes anyway, when you could just slice a couple of real potatoes on your mandoline (or in the processor), dump them in a glass bowl and microwave them in the milk. Then all you do is dump the whole lot into a buttered casserole with a slice garlic clove, top it with cheese, and whack it into the oven for an hour. Easy peasy.

I used 50-50 milk and half & half (so I guess it was 75% milk, and 25% cream), a few pinches of salt and some pepper, and a few scratches of nutmeg. I topped it with the last of the Madrigal cheese and tented some foil over the whole pan to keep the cheese from browning too early.

Serve with a medium-rare ribeye (grilled with only crunchy salt and cracked pepper) and a bitchy red (I like 2006 Three Winds Syrah these days - a little brash and ign'unt, but she calms down if you give her some space. Plus, the label looks like a Kurosawa movie poster).

Lasagna Bolognese

Lasagna always seems like such a fuss, and I'll admit it, I usually just go for a frozen one. It always seems like too much work to make a real one, from scratch, and frozen ones aren't that bad (if you avoid the orange grease stain that is Stouffer's). So it's kind of ironic that I made this last night, because real work at my real job was eating my figurative baby and I needed to be able to put something in the oven for an hour and forget about it.

This is why I took the time to can my tomatoes last summer. It was precisely for this reason. I can totally shirk my duties without feeling like a lazy wife or a shitty blogger, because technically, this is homemade sauce. (Not that any of you should ever feel bad about using store-bought sauce. I'm just an over-achiever.)

This is why I grow and sauce my own tomatoes, grind my own beef and can my own Bolognese sauce. I'm banking my time and energy in canned food form, to withdraw at a future, overworked date. A good thing, too, is a box of no-cook lasagna noodles, already snuggling in my pasta drawer amongst my jars of summer sun. A bag of baby spinach and a cube of extra firm (silken) tofu got blitzed to stand in for ricotta (adding a spoonful of creme frâiche for dairy twang, and a little sea salt and fennel seed for flavor).

A nutmeggy bechamel layer, noodles, Bolognese (heated through with some leftover sausage and mushrooms), noodles, spinachy-tofu smoosh, noodles, then all remaining sauce, topped with shredded mozz and parm*. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Wait, it looks like I had to cook after all...

Serve with a juicy Spanish grenache and unmitigated languor.






*Note: this got a little on the extra-browned side of melty, but was still good. I just added extra cheese when it came out of the oven. Next time I'll cover to bake.

Lemon-cornmeal ebelskivers with blackberry preserves

Scott and I were up so, so late last night, finishing an evening celebrating Norm's birthday with friends and 20-year old syrah that smelled like goat testicles (and Saxum Rocket Block (2005?) - a grenache that was like making out with black cherries and literally made me giddy). We got home late and then hung out for a few more hours until it was eventually 4:00 in the morning and we reluctantly collapsed from so much ado.

We woke up at around noon, ravenous and rheumy-eyed. A light dusting of snow covered the ground outside our window and we didn't hurry out of bed, despite our rumbling tummies. Planting kisses upon his bearded face, I promised pancakes with blackberry jam and whipped cream. Once in the kitchen, I decided to kick things up the proverbial notch and busted out the ebelskiver pan that he gave me for Christmas.

I whipped up a basic pancake batter, but subbed a third of the flour for cornmeal and folded in lemon zest and a little juice, and some sour cream. This made a very thick, yet porous batter (the acidic lemon juice reacting with the baking soda really kept things airy, despite the thickness of the sour cream). This was my first time using the ebelskiver pan, but it's really pretty easy. I just filled them 3/4 way full (allowing room to expand), and when they started smelling nice and the bubbles started to look dry, I flipped them in their little divots with a fork.

When they were all ready, I gave them a little pool of blackberry preserves (warmed with melted butter) and whipped some cream to a light froth. I dusted the ebelskivers with powdered sugar to mirror our snow-sprinkled day and we had a lovely brunch.

Serve with pink grapefruit mimosas and marital bliss.

Swedish meatballs with buttered noodles and nutmeg gravy

Wow, what a week. Not even a (much-needed, and well-spent) paid holiday or a sexah new president could shake the funk of cold weather and crampy ladytimes. I made it to the gym again, to try to run off some of my shitty attitude, but it just made me more tired. When push finally came to shove, dinner had to come with gravy.

You love those Ikea Swedish meatballs so much, don't you. Of course you do, you're not made of stone. You don't, however, love driving through traffic to circle the 50-acre parking lot, or swimming through the crowds of mouth-breathers that hoved in from the suburbs to buy exquisite plywood shelving with sleek birch veneers. What in the fuck can you do, though? You love those meatballs.

So make them your damn self already. Mix together some ground chuck and ground pork (about 3:1, respectively, for about a pound total), an egg, a half-handful of plain bread crumbs, a quarter of an onion (minced), more nutmeg than you think you should (at least ten scratches across your microplane zester), four or five good cracks of pepper, and a few pinches of crunchy salt. Mix only until combined, and use a little ice cream scoop to perfectly portion out meatballs onto a silpat. Roast these at 400 for about 20 or 30 minutes, until they're browned and lovely.

Whilst the meatballs are roasting, get a roux going. When it's nutty, whisk in milk until the lumps are all gone, and it is creamy and gravylike. Add some cracks of pepper (white is nice, if you have it), salt and 10 or 15 scratches of nutmeg. After it's bubbled for a spell (and the floury taste is gone), add some minced fresh thyme and a generous spoonful of creme frâiche, and taste. Whilst the gravy is simmering, boil some egg noodles. When they're done, toss in a knob of butter to coat. Toss a squonch of chopped parsley at it artfully.


Serve with a mug of hefedunkel and bork bork bork.

Minestra al pomodoro e pesto

It's finally soup weather. We've gotten back to the sodden, gloomy, winter weather that makes people slit their wrists when they move here. I love it. It's damp and moldy, and it smells like warm compost and fecundity again after all that stupid Arctic Blast nonsense. Snow and ice doesn't make me crave soup, it makes me crave hard liquor and sweets, preferably combined. Soup in rainy weather, however, is the pink in my cheeks.

This is Soup. It is a rib-sticking bowl of salubrity that chases the hate away. I wanted a minestrone-type affair, but don't really care about beans enough to make room for them among the sausage and tortellini. If you want a vegetarian-ish version of this, by all means, omit the sausage. But everyone knows that vegetarians will lose the fight against the zombies when the end times come, so you may as well start building your strength and perfecting your aim.

This is a soup of leftovers and fridge-purge. Bulk pork Italian sausage got browned with leftover chopped onions, red peppers and chopped mushrooms. Tubs of fire-roasted tomatoes (puree with a half a can of tomato paste and a glug of budget Syrah) chicken stock from the freezer sauced it up all brothy. Tortellinis in, and after they softened up a bit, Blue Lake green beans and choy sum joined the party. A moment later, half a tub of leftover arugula-pumpkin seed pesto enriched the broth and brought some much-needed garlic. Soup's on.

Top with copious amounts of Pecorino Romano and a spoonful of pesto. Serve with olive ciabatta and Les Hérétiques. Buon appetito.

Salade Niçoise on Belgian endive

I picked up these beautiful little quail eggs at Fubonn. I was thinking of what little appie I could bring over to Carolyn's house that wasn't crackers and dip (she was making Amy Sedaris' Lil' Smoky Cheese Ball) or something that would require heating in situ, so I thought about mini deviled eggs (excellent idea, but way too cumbersome) or a little salad of some type served on endive leaves. I know, 1989 called and wants its hors doeuvres back. Fucking sue me. Greta had given me some gorgeous albacore that she canned, and I had some lemons and olives, so this seemed like a no-brainer. And after all the holiday stodge, a crisp, citrusy salad sounded perfect.

This is the difference between starting your photography at 3:00 and finishing at 3:30. Night and day, innit? It gets dark early, and all of the shots of the salads in natural light were migraine-inducing blurry (I really should get in the habit of using my tripod, but like I need one more thing in my kitchen), so I had to resort to my new lights (thank you, darling husband!). Unfortunately, I broke the reflector umbrella when opening it so I've been directing the eye-piercing lamp directly at the food to simulate daylight, but it's just harsh and red and obvious, even after shopping the fuck out of it. Look at the size of those shadows. Okay, stop looking.


I blanched and slivered haricots verts, cut a brunoise of olives and home-made pickles (sharp as cornichons, they are, but from full-size Persian cukes), and finely diced a boiled red potato. I added these, with minced shallot and parsley, to the flaked albacore. I loaded the whole mix up with lemon zest, and a vinaigrette of olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, anchovies and S&P. I added extra luxuriant crunches of Maldon over the top for flourish.

I forked a little of the mixture onto each endive leaf and then topped with a little softboiled quail egg. I wasn't trying to be stingy, it was just such an extreme pain in my ass to peel each of these wee eggs and I was in a hurry (and the whole thing was getting to be waaaay too precious), so I opted to quarter the eggs instead of serving halves. This ended up being the perfect amount of egg anyway.

Tomorrow night I'm making tiny Scotch eggs and Boddington's-battered halibut fish and chips (fagging pub grub up a little more with sweet potato fries and a savoy slaw with a creamy lemon vinaigrette).

Pannetone French toast with orange-bourbon syrup

...or, Special Christmas Breakfast

I really haven't gotten into the holiday spirit this year. No baking, no candy, nothing. I still have time to pretend I'm Russian, though, in which case the New Year celebration is more important. Technically, my people were German-Russian for a hundred years or so, and I'm calling that close enough. Ooh! Also, I found out recently that my great-grandmother was half Tatar (my father claims her conception was nefarious, but I can find no information that supports the claim that Mongol raids of the Volga were still happening in the 19th century). My first reaction was not surprise, or shock, but "omg, really? I'm part Asian? I knew it!" Now the slight almond shape to my eyes, my Nipponophilia and my hard-on for Stephen Chow makes so much sense. Being 1/16 Volga Tatar makes me practically Chinese, right?

But that's neither here nor there, and is typical of my digressions. On my journey to Trader Joe's (partly for sustenance, partly to escape cabin fever), I picked up one of my favorite holiday treats, pannetone. They didn't have any of my real fave, the orange and chocolate chip (I honestly haven't seen that kind in about a decade), so I grabbed the cranberry instead. Then I proceeded to forget that we had it for a couple days, just long enough for it to go a little stale.

Then I had the stroke of genius to make French toast with the pannetone (of course, now I find out that Giada deLaurentis makes it). I whipped up a quick batter of cream and eggs, orange zest, my homemade seven-spice and bourbon vanilla, a pinch of salt and a spoonful of sugar. I browned it in butter, then topped it with powdered sugar and a syrup of orange juice and zest, sugar and Maker's Mark, simmered until thick and good.

Serve with a little holiday cheer (in this case, mimosas, but I'll also accept "screwdriver", a propos of Russia). S Novim Godom!

Broccoli rabe, potato and ham frittata

I am losing my fucking mind in all this snow. We were able to drive through it on Saturday night, when it was just a few inches, but yesterday chains officially became required on all roads and the highways are closed. I don't have chains, and I can't go get any, either. We're trapped in our 2-foot drifts, with only our cupboards and fridge to sustain us, and there's nothing we can do about. Well, I guess I could shuffle through all that snow to the grocery store (a half mile away), but come on. Shuffling through snow is for suckers.

Anyway, I was frantically tearing through the fridge to find something to make for breakfast, and I found some eggs, broccoli rabe, ham, and a squidge of buffalo mozz. I sauteed a diced potato and some minced shallot, then dumped in the chopped ham and broccoli rabe (perfectly green-bitter, with lovely, cruciferous horseradish notes on the upper palate). I let it cook for a second to brighten up the greens, and then dumped in 4 (salted and peppered) beaten eggs and topped it with torn-up blobs of mozz. Into the oven for about 15 minutes. With good grainy wheat toast, it's a perfect breakfast. With a salad, it'd be a nice lunch or light supper.

Thanks to this lovely frittata, we're out of eggs now. We're out of a lot of things, come to think of it. No eggs. No milk. No flour. I can't make biscuits, or cornbread, or cookies, or anything of any value to a snowed-in person. Shit, I might end up walking a mile in the snow today.

Caraway-Gruyère Spaetzle Gratin with Quince-Cranberry Chutney

Because I am completely détritus blanc, I prefer my mac & chee with ketchup. Oh, don't look at me like that. Some of you are toasting marshmallows onto pork loin chops or eating barbecue sauce on spaghetti. Like that's a thing. Ketchup on mac & chee is good, and I don't even get high any more. My point, however, is that creamy-rich and twangy-sweet make excellent bedfellows. They're best mates.

Okay, I can't completely take the credit for this. My SE Portland homies will call me out if I try to anyways, so I may as well come clean. I totally stole this idea from the Victory, a cozy little Old Berlin-esque gastropub that makes a stellar spaetzle and cheese with applesauce (and has an intelligent, restrained beer and wine selection). But I knew I could do it better. It is my modus operandi, after all. After tasting my souped-up version with a sweet, spicy chutney of roasted quinces and dried cranberries, Scott admitted he'd been wondering when I was going to pwn Victory's spaetzle.

This dish is eerily reminiscent of the strozzapreti I made awhile back, but with a Kraut edge. I toasted the caraway seeds in the browning cultured butter (as it transformed flour into roux), then whisked in half & half, a splash of my homemade aqvavit and a few glugs of Spaten Optimator. I whisked and simmered, then added a little mustard powder and S&P. Handfuls of grated Gruyère (and a whole wedge of last-legs Chaubier). Stirred into some cooked spaetzle (store-bought from Edelweiss) and into a buttered casserole it goes (a sprinkle of fried onions is prudent), and a 350 oven for 15-20 minutes.

The chutney is from the quince tree in my back yard. This year it produced less than half the fruit it did last year, which is fine, since quinces are hard to use when you have 20 pounds of them. People just don't take them, and don't care about homemade quince paste with Manchego. Last year we had so many that I was draping them all over the house just for their intoxicating rose blossom-pineapple fragrance. If they could only bottle that. But I digress.

Roast the halved, cored quinces (easier with a melon baller) peel on for an hour or so, until soft (I added an apple to the mix for sweetness). Place the roasted halves in a potato ricer skin side up so when the flesh is pressed through the holes the skin stays behind for easy retrieval. This is way easier than peeling quinces, and the flesh will stay much more moist, besides. Stir in a small handful of dried cranberries (chopped), a few spoons of brown sugar, a fat pinch of Seven Spice™ and a drib of pear liqueur. A few drops of balsamic will give a little spank of acid.


We decided to go full bore and served it up with some grilled Weisswurst; bitter treviso and baby bok choy braised with bacon, chanterelles and lemons; and Bavarian-style soft pretzels with lots of crunchy salt and good brown mustard. Oh, and beer. Beer.

Steak and chanterelle pasties with brown gravy and glazed carrots

I swear, I've almost worked through all of my chanterelles. I'm actually getting tired of eating them, being too much of a good thing. I've been craving pot pies and brown gravy and all that, and thought I'd give making pasties a go. It's pretty much just an empanada, so I used the dough recipe from last year's buffalo and chanterelle empanadas with mole.

I diced up some chuck steak, coated it in a little flour and browned it with some onion. This made a sticky (but savory-smelling) mess in the pan, so I removed the brown steak and added the chanterelles. Chanterelles, like all mushrooms, are almost all water and release copious liquid when cooking. This liquid deglazed the pan nicely and stirred up into thick gravy with the toasty brown fond-roux. I added some finely chopped thyme and rosemary, a squirt of Worcestershire and some salt and pepper, and stirred in one diced, boiled Yukon gold potato.

I spooned the filling into rounds of dough, sealed the edges with a little eggwash and then pinched the edges up into cute little pocket pies. I sloppily brushed the remaining eggwash on top of the pasties to brown and sent them to a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, I peeled and sliced some Sweet Nantes carrots and browned them in a little butter and sugar, then added a splash of chicken stock and simmered over a low flame until the carrots were tender and shiny. I added a pinch of kosher salt and fresh-crushed celery seed. The gravy was just beef stock (fortified with a bit of veal demi) shook up in a jar with some flour and simmered until the flour cooked and thickened.

The crust was nice and flaky, unlike the leaden pasties served up at the Horse Brass (who have the best fish and chips in Portland, but terrible pasties), and the silky gravy not at all like library paste. The filling was tender, moist umame. I'll definitely make this again.

Shepherd's pie

Okay, to be honest, Friday was pretty fucking glorious. A seriously perfect autumn day: sunny, a balmy 65 degrees, just gorgeous. But when I got to the store after work I still ended up leaning toward comfort food, and picked up a half pound of ground lamb (and some beef, just for shits and gigs). Shepherd's pie was calling.

This also afforded me the opportunity to use up the celeriac languishing in the "root cellar" (bottom drawer of the fridge, where I keep my carrots and apples and such). I caught it in the nick of time: slightly stronger-than-desired celery flavor, but not yet totally lignified.


Shepherd's pie is dead simple to prepare. It's just a meaty, veggie mélange with gravy and a mashed root veg topping. The creativity comes when you decide which veg to use, and how you'll go about the gravy. My veg consisted of the classic (read:predictable) savory pie combo: peas, cremini mushrooms, Sweet Nantes carrots, onion, and sliced scarlet runners. I sautéed these in the fat from the lamb and beef mince until crisp-tender. The gravy was comprised of two tomatoes (simmered hot until melted into sauce) 2 tbsp veal demiglace and a half a pint of Guiness, thickened with a flour and chicken fat roux. I added some chopped rosemary and thyme for good measure, added the meat and veg mix to it, and into an oval soufflé.

I creamed together a large Yukon gold potato and a celeriac tuber (both peeled, cubed and boiled 'til tender) with a knob of good butter and some half and half. I opted to go cheese-free with the topping (my mother always topped the potatoes with grated cheese, though her Shepherd's pie was always just ground beef in tomato sauce without veg, likely a vestige from her days in the Marine Corps), but whipped in an egg so the topping would brown up better. In retrospect, added grated cheese and scallions to the potato-celeriac mix would've been a sexy take on traditional Irish champ that could've elevated it to a new zenith. Next time.

Served simply with some steamed and butter-browned Brussels sprouts and a glass of earthy Ponsalet Monastrell Jove, and you're getting hugs on your insides.

Wild mushroom and cheese tart

I was totally going to do this with more of the last of the pâtisson, but then I saw matsutake mushrooms at New Seasons, alongside gorgeous vermilion lobster mushrooms. The matsutake were $25/lb, but one mushroom was only 75 cents (sliced wafer-thin, it was enough). The lobster mushrooms were much less, as were the maitake and shitake mushrooms I picked up to round it out.

I am going out soon to pick chanterelles, hedgehogs and cauliflower mushrooms, but have to wait until the last of my arduous fieldwork is over. By 'arduous', I mean I have to live on a $110/day per diem, which means I stay in the first Motel 6 I can find that has internet and no bloodstains on the mattress. But until I have bushels of the forest's bounty that I hunted myself, I have to use store-gotten gains. I think I'm okay with that.


I lined a sheet pan with some store-bought puff pastry (don't look at me like that, making puff pastry from scratch on a work night is for losers) and set the oven to 400. I whisked together 4 eggs and some chopped thyme, marjoram and rosemary, and a little pepper. I heated up a half cup of cream and whisked it in (tempering the eggs as I went), and stirred in a few good knobs of goat cheese, a handful of grated dill havarti and a little manchego for bite (I had these all in the fridge and I tend to forget my cheese drawer for weeks, so cutting off the science-y parts was necessary).

I carefully poured the cheese custard into the pastry shell, and layered on thinly-sliced onion, the sliced mushrooms, and sliced some bits off an old hunk of slab bacon from the freezer. The custard and filling came all the way to the edges, but it was still good. Bake for 20-30 minutes.

My gorgeous friend Stacy gifted me some fancy salts on Saturday, one of which is an intoxicating Salish alder-smoked (the Salish are an ethnographic group of Indigenous/Aboriginal people of the Pacific Northwest coast, although I doubt they actually passed their time by smoking chunks of sea salt over alder fires and then putting it into chic little tins). The salt took a quick crush in the old mortar and pestle, was the perfect final touch.

All that richness was a perfect dinner with a little sliced tomato and quick-sauteed zuke from the garden. These are the very last of the good days weather-wise, and I'm finding that eating the vegetables in less-adulterated ways helps me truly focus on why I'll miss summer.

...but I sure am glad it's mushroom season.