Photos of Phood: Cucumber Salad

This is, in fact, the best use I've found for my mandoline so far. It's vastly easier than trying to cut all those cucumbers into perfectly thin slices. We accidentally got a lot of very cheap if not free cucumbers from the Farm Market and well, had to do *something* with them...

Photos of Phood: Caramel Corn

So darn easy, and so tasty.

Photos of Phood: Enrobed in Chocolate

Ah, here is one of the ganache balls finished! In the foreground are my attempts to do the same thing with caramel. Semi-success, mostly turned into puddles. Next time they'll be in cup form instead.

An Insufficiency of Data

Experience is a poor guide to man, and is seldom followed. A man really learns little by it, for it is narrowly limited in range. What does a faithful husband know of women, or a faithful wife of men? The generalizations of such persons are always inaccurate. What really teaches man is not experiences, but observation. It is observation that enables him to make use of the vastly greater experience of other men, of men taken in the mass. He learns by noting what happens to them. Confined to what happens to himself, he labors eternally under an insufficiency of data.

From Minority Report, H. L. Mencken's Notebooks, Knopf, 1956, p. 248, nabbed from this page of Mencken quotes.

Photos of Phood: Chocolate Ganache

I think I need lights so I can shoot my food stuffs properly. The lack of focus and the flash bother me. Nonetheless: Chocolate. I believe this became centers for little chocolate covered ganache balls.

Tuesday Night Dinner, part IV

Somewhat delayed! Possibly by a month! whoops.

So after the pesto and whatnot I made scones as an afterthought. The recipe came from the Washington Post food section, but of course I didn't quite have everything required. I substituted whole wheat flour for the barley flour and used some chopped up and slightly macerated strawberries as the center layer. They make a fantastic not-too-sweet dessert or a snack with tea and are in fact ridiculously easy to make. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but rest assured that they're very tasty and attractive scones.

Ingredients:

For the scones

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, plus more for greasing the baking sheet
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons barley flour, plus more for the work surface
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 cup regular or low-fat buttermilk
• 1 large egg

For assembly

• 1/2 cup strawberry jam or marmalade
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Find the rest of the recipe here.

The true shape of frontiers

"In the sad August of that year we made a trip to Mentone, ordering bouillabaisse in an aquarium-like pavilion by the sea across from the Hôtel Victoria. The hills were silver-olive, and of the true shape of frontiers.

Leaving the Riviera after a third summer, we called on a writer friend at the Hôtel Continental at Cannes. He was proud of his independence in adopting a black mongrel dog. He had a nice house and a nice wife and we envied his comfortable installations that gave the effect of his having retired from the world when he had really taken such of it as he wanted and confined it."

From Show Mr. and Mrs. F. to Number –, by F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, May-June 1934, as in The Crack-Up, edited by Edmund Wilson.

Photos of Phood: Cucumber Sushi

I have a terrible weakness for sushi rice. Sometimes I'll just make a bowl of it for dinner. This cucumber roll is probably the most perfect piece of sushi I've ever made. I think I sharpened my knife immediately beforehand to make the cuts neat.

Photos of Phood: Stir Fry with Almonds

I love how the edge of the wok looks a little like vignetting. Almonds, broccoli, rice, a little soy sauce. Nuts are awesome to cook with, like chestnuts in stuffing.

Photos of Phood: Caramelized Onion Tart with Goat Cheese

Flaky pie crust, slow cooked onions with a bit of pepper and assorted herbs, a little custard and crumbled goat cheese. Wonderful hot and just as good at room temperature for lunch the next day.