Gastronomy 101

Grilled Cheese with Fig Jam, Kale and Fontina This sandwich was on the cover of Gourmet magazine several months ago and it looked so pretty I had to make it. Click the sandwich name above for the recipe. As you can see, I changed the ingredients a bit, based on what I could get my hands on, but it still turned out yummy. The combination of the fontina and the fig turned out to be so good, that I've used it a couple of times since then. And the leafy greens make me feel more healthy so that I don't feel quite so bad about eating a grilled cheese sandwich.

These pictures are from Breadbar on Third Street, a combination restaurant/bakery serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner and selling fresh bread and baked goods. This is kind of a bad picture, but the food was good. This was from a lunch where I ordered their chilled beet gazpacho, and my friend and I shared some sweet potato fries. The service was outstanding that day - our meal was maybe five minutes delayed and they brought us a whole bread basket and a foccacia to make up for it. We hadn't even noticed anything was wrong! So we ended up with a lot of leftovers, which this is a picture of. This is from 4th of July weekend, when they had "build your own burger" weekend. We took the bus over to be good citizens for the holiday. For that weekend only, they had a deal where they offered a checklist of buns, meats, toppings, etc. and you could create your own burger from the ground up. Above is a skirt steak burger with chimichurri sauce. Mine was a chicken sandwich with moz...

Pasta is my go-to dish ... the active working time is generally minimal, you can usually make it with whatever you have around the house, and it's always satisfying. But I sometimes take pasta for granted, because it's such a great back-up dish. It's the trusty old standby that I never appreciate while I am sitting and waiting for sexier dishes to call and take me out. So every once in a while pasta and I, we renew our vows. We get all fancy and do it up right. Instead of just throwing whatever into the pot, I actually a get a recipe and some ingredients that are actually chosen specifically for this pasta, as opposed to whatever's in the fridge. I go slow, and take my time so that me and my special lady can rekindle our old flame. This fettucine was part of a special three course meal I made for Sunday dinner and was accompanied by a salad and some bread sticks and a peach pie for dessert. Yum! Unfortunately you can't really see the beautiful sausage as it's bu...

Okay, I know I know I know I know. It seems like I have abandoned this thing. I have been trying to do this post for almost a month now. But I spend my entire day writing about food, and then when I am done .... well, once a week I have to write about food some more. When I sit down to write on this blog, well, it doesn't feel like fun anymore, it feels like work. And in the past few weeks, I've had a lot of stuff going on ... birthdays galore, and friends in need, and between that and the work I've been exhausted a lot, with not a lot of energy left over. But I don't want to abandon this blog, so I'm changing the plot a little bit. While I do have to write about food all day, one thing I don't have to do is photograph it. I have been thinking and I think I may take this opportunity to practice my photography skills and try to improve. My pictures are not exactly masterpieces, but maybe with some work, they can get better. So for a while, I think I am going to n...

Guys, I know I have not been posting to this blog much recently. At the moment I am not only doing work that involves writing about food and the foodservice industry all day, but I am also taking a food writing class. Between the two of these things, the thought of also writing about food on my blog on a daily basis is just exhausting. I still plan to keep it up however, as I've been gathering up posts. It just won't be as frequent. The best way to be updated when I write something is join my RSS feed on the side there. Then you can just check for updates there and not have to keep looking here disappointedly as I know y'all are doing. (Refresh! Refresh! ... damn, still no new post!) But an exciting thing that's happening is that I'm getting very close to the end of my wine book. I am in the final section now. How exciting! Now we are learning about how to collect and keep wines. If you decide you want to become a collector, then you will probably be keeping your w...

So my dear friend, Ms. Vaguely Urban , sprung on me this meme, the purpose of which is to write your own memoir in only six words. She herself set the bar very high , so it's taken me quite a while to deliberate on this subject. As it turns out, my life is best described in phrases of five or seven words, and not really in phrases of six words. But I came up with something. Not the greatest, so I have added illustrations to make it seem better. So here it is, my memoir: KT's MEMOIR (in six words) Appears harmless, but ... It's a TRAP!

J. and I had a giant feast at Providence for our sixth anniversary. Read about it on la.foodblogging !