I’ve gone back to my original blogging home, back where it all began for me in 2003.  Feel free to follow me there, if you like – if you know where it is.  It won’t be all food, all the time, but quite frankly, neither am I.

So. Dinner tonight was yum.  I took inspiration from this post but decided to tweak it up a bit.  First, because I don’t like water chestnuts so I left ‘em out.  And second because my printer is out of ink and I didn’t feel like copying down the recipe by hand so I was working from memory.

I took two chicken breasts (I was only cooking for me and Jack – if you’re serving more than two you’d want to increase this of course) and pulsed ‘em in the food processor until they were nicely miniced.  I pulled some ginger I had in the freezer (’bout a half an inch) and microplaned it and then added about another teaspoon of jarred fresh ginger.  Big ol’ tablespoon of garlic.  Drizzle of sesame oil.  Salt and pepper. 

Then I had to deal with the cilantro.  I only grocery shop about once every three weeks so my cilantro was a little squiffy.  But I was able to save about a quarter cup.  Threw in a couple of chopped green onions and a large dash of dry mustard.  And an egg.

Mixed it all together.  Formed two patties plus a little extra I cooked up to test for seasoning.  Tasted good, but I knew I’d want some type of sauce/spread.  I tested it with mango chutney and then with soy sauce.  Both were good.  And then I thought HEY!  Let’s add a little soy to the mango chutney!  And how about some Chinese mustard?  So this I did and it worked perfectly.

So I cooked up the chicken….about four minutes per side but another four minutes covered with lid over medium.  Served on buns with the chutney/soy mixture,  Fabulous although next time I will serve without buns because Jack said it was too much bread.  (Oh yeah…..speaking of bread, I threw some fresh breadcrumb into the mixture to bind it all together)

My side dish bears mentioning.  Again, I only grocery shop every few weeks and last time I went shopping, I decided to buy some frozen veggies.  I am a total snob when it comes to veggies.  I hate using canned or frozen.  Only fresh for ths girl.  But….I also hate throwing stuff out so I caved and bought some frozen asparagus.  I cooked up some sliced shallots in butter with some salt and defrosted the asparagus in the mic.  Then I tossed the asparagus in the butter until it was hot through and added a quick splash of lemon juice. Didn’t taste frozen at all.  Wish I could say the same about last night’s green beans.  Sigh

Anyway.  That was dinner tonight.  I figgered it was wotth blogging about because it was that good.

I’m going to be making some design changes around here soon.  I need something more zippy.  But for now….I need a bath.  ‘Night y’all.

And then, a buzz started spreading.  It started out like this “murmurmurmurbzzkrispykrememumblemumble” and I didn’t really pick up on it much but over the next few weeks the buzz grew and turned into “OMG YOU GUYS KRISPY KREME IS COMING TO TOWN!!!” 

Kripsy Kreme?   What the heck is a Krispy Kreme and why is everyone talking about it?

And then, I did a Walk a Thon and said Walk a Thon was sponsored, in part, by the newly arrived in town Krispy Kreme.  And I had my donut and shrugged my shoulders and said, “Okay, so now I know WHAT a Krispy Kreme is but still?  What’s the big deal?”

And then, one day, I finally had one hot.  My gosh my goodness was that good!  Thankfully, there were only four locations in all of Maryland and none were particularly close to me.  Whew.

A few days later I was taking my eldest to King’s Dominion for the day and decided to stop at Dunkin Donuts for a few of my beloved chocolate frosteds.  But, one bite in and I was spitting it out.  It tasted stale, plasticky.  Just…not right.  Krispy Kreme had ruined me for Dunkin Donuts and I don’t think I’ve had a chocolate frosted since.

Well…..folks…this weekend I finally tried a a Fractured Prune donut.  It was at least as many orders of magnitude better than Krispy Kreme that KK was over DD.  I ordered an OC Sand (wanted to start off simply) which is simply honey glaze and cinnamon sugar (if I remember correctly).  They handed me my donut in it’s own little box (no bag!) and I stepped outside and opened the box and reached in to lift the donut…..and immediately snatched my hand back.  That sucker was HOT.

They make them fresh to order.  You can actually see the fryer/conveyer belt behind the counter.  Not a mammoth contraption like at Krispy Kreme….this is something that would fit on a (largeish) kitchen counter.  Of course, I didn’t notice this at the time, hence my burnt fingers.

But I noticed it the next day.  Because see?  I went back.  With the kids.  For a dozen.

This can’t end well.

But not any donuts.  Noooo……I am finally going to the donut shoppe I have heard so much about.  Ye Olde Fractured Prune. It’s been about a year since I first heard of them and for a while, they were near the top of my to-visit list…..but then I got sidetracked by the whole “getting married” thing and then the moving thing and then the holidays and then of course there was the breakdown in all coherent thought processes when I decided it would be a BRILLIANT idea for me to quit my job (of eight years) without having anything else lined up so while all that was going on, there really wasn’t any room for thinking about donuts.

But about two weeks ago, something, I can’t remember what, reminded me of this place, and I pulled up the website and did some drooling and have been trying to find a time to stop in and try a donut for myself.  I actually lingered outside their door last Friday, sorely tempted, but I had the kids with me and my ten year old son has a real sensitivity to sugar so we have to limit his intake and I somehow thought he might object if me and his sisters had donuts and he didn’t get any.

But tomorrow!  No kids!  And I’m going to be in Columbia!  So hello donuts!!!

Tonight I took a brief detour from my road to 100 beers and tried a new libation created by Alice, Barmaid Extraordinaire at Jack’s restaurant.  She made up a very tasty raspberry mojito with fresh raspberries.  Very yum.  Do try this at home.  And, because it was all chunky with fruit, it was kinda like a meal too.  Bonus!

Speaking of meals.  A report on the peach-jalepeno chicken from last night.  It LOOKED beautiful and it tasted….well, like chicken.  But the sauce, although very tasty on its own, added no flavor to the finished dish.

Next time, I’m going to do it differently.  The sauce was simply two heaping tablespoons on peach preserves, warmed in the mic which I then added about half of a diced jalepeno.  The flavor was perfect – just enough heat to make it interesting.  Then, I browned the chicken in butter and olive oil, butterflied it to cook the center and then spread the sauce over and around which made it all beautiful and glistening.  ‘Cept the chicken was all the way cooked through so I finished it in the mic (something Jack convinced me was okay.  I’d always been violently opposed to cooking meat in the microwave but he said in the restaurant kitchen, they do it all the time.  As long as you start the chicken on the grill, you can finish it in the mic without it getting rubbery.  Cool)

The only change I’m going to make next time will be to make sure I save enough sauce to serve on top of the chicken once it’s done.  Then it will be beautiful AND tasty.

Okay, I’m off to dream of donuts.  Ta!

Fook.  New laptop.  Doesn’t have Word yet.  No spellcheck.  Damn.  Maybe I should retitle this entry and skip the whole thing. 

Blast.  Carrying on.

Yeah….I had planned in writing here daily but then I kinda….didn’t.  Those (few) of you who have been reading me in one place or another for years (many!) aren’t surprised.  But…..see…um….I has reasons!  Monday I had major major family drama go down and by the time I got home and cried to hubby it was too late to write and then Tuesday I gots my new laptop set up but I was still familiarizing myself with it and the different feel to the keyboard and you know how when a keyboard is all new to you it’s real awkward and I just didn’t feel like writing extensively under those circumstances and again, some of you know that I rarely write in anything less than extensive fashion and WEDNESDAY I was crippled with a mega migraine that had me 1) leaving work early and collapsing on the couch and 2) worried that said migraine may have been caused by some lack of ergonomic ease with said new laptop or maybe monitor issues and I tried to change the refresh rate but apparently since this is an LCD screen that doesn’t apply but THEN Jack pointed out that said headache was probably due to withdrawal from teh Vicodin which I have stopped taking.

Whew.  Now THAT was a run on!

 But today!  I feel mostly fine!  Huzzah!  I am sitting here sipping on my beer which is a very tasty Lagunitas (spelling?  again!) Lucky 13 Red Ale and is very very tasty.  Over the past several months I have been journeying into the world of craft beers and really liking most of what I find and fine tuning what I like and what I don’t like.  It’s been really interesting and aided by the fact that my husband works at one of the best beer bars in Canton and I’ve joined their 100 Beer Club (I’m at 62 now!) plus I’ve found some really good beer stores in and around Columbia (which is where I grew up.)  The other night, following my blowout with my aunt, I enjoyed a big ol’ bottle of Dogfish Head Black and Blue (malt beverage brewed with blackberries and blueberry puree) which knocked my socks off but which also threw me for a loop because of it’s high alcohol content.  If you saw my MySpace bulletin that night, you know what I’m talking about.

Last night I made one of my favorite comfort meals – chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and corn.  I’ll admit to taking shortcuts because the potatoes came from a box and the corn came from a can, but the potatoes were enriched with a little bit of goat cheese (just enough to add some tang, like sour cream would have if I hadn’t been OUT OF SOUR CREAM thanks to my teenage daughter CONSUMING all of it on her tacos last Saturday), plenty of parm and of course lots of butter, cream, salt and pepper (I said it was good, I didn’t say it was good for you – bonus points to whoever recognizes that quote) and the corn….well, it was corn.  But the steaks…..OMG they were good.  Pan fried till they were golden brown and delicious (another quote!) and I made a cream gravy (duh!) overtop.  Yum-O!  (SHUT UP!  I love Rachael)

Tonight, I’m making chicken breasts and I’m making a glaze with peach preserves and jalepeno pepper.  It’s a riff on a dish from Rachael Ray (again with the Rachael) that I made a few weeks ago.  THAT dish was a chicken sandwhich with sliced peaches and an aioli made with pickled jalepenos.  There were other items on that sandwich as well, including, I think, cukes and radishes.  I decided that it was just a bit much and I wanted to try it with just the peach and jalepeno.  So I’m going to make a sauce and serve it atop sauteed breasts.  I’ll try to remember to update tomorrow.

Okay, I’m off to finish my beer.  Ta, y’all

PS:  Courtney?  There’s another clue for you up there. 

So, I’ll say this much.  My name is Vicki, my husband is Jack and my kids are Melissa, Ben and Susanna (from oldest to youngest).  My ex husband is Dave and his wife is Inez.  My best friends are known as Tea and Krumpet (not their real names, but that is one level of anonymity I’m keeping).  I work for a financial services company based out of Columbia although I actually work from my home which is the best thing ever.  We live in Fells Point

Jack is the chef at a beer bar in Canton (which is a neighborhood in Baltimore).  (I’m not naming the bar but if you’re familiar with Canton, and especially if you’re a beer aficionado, you can probably figure it out).  Before that, he had stints at a crab house in Canton (and I typo’d stinks for stints, which tells you how much he loved that job) and well a respected seafood restaurant in the Inner Harbor.  Prior to that, he was Chef de Cuisine at Kiss Cafe for three years.

I’m choosing not to name the bar where he works because once that particular barn door has been opened, it’s impossible to close again.  He loves it there and I love the place as well, but I reserve the right to one day write bad things about them if they piss me off….so that’s why I’m not naming the joint.

And onward to another topic, briefly before I head to bed.

Tonight I made the tuna burgers I read about here.  They were delish.  I had to tweak the recipe a bit because I had no lemon zest and instead used lemon juice.  Also, cooking for two minutes per side resulted in a burger that was all the way cooked – not mid-rare.  Normally I prefer my tuna as rare as can be but in this case, they worked out fine.  I did serve them with the cole slaw (unlike the original poster) because I love me some cole slaw, and it worked out well.  For my veg, I just served some quick cooked snap peas, sauteed very briefly in butter with some salt and pep.

Jack was happy.  He’s said many times that I’m a better cook than he is.  I don’t 100% agree with this, but I do feel I’m a more organized and methodical cook….but I’d never make it in a restaurant kitchen.

Anyway.  Off to bed.  Ta!

At that time, I was usually getting 10-20 messages a week from random menfolk – some illiterate, some skanky, other proclaiming undying love.  Very very rarely did I write back to any, and even more rarely were they worth my time when I did.

But when I got that first message from Jack, my now husband, there were two things that piqued my interest and caused me to respond.  First, he went to the same high school as my brother and judging from his age, probably graduated around the same time.  Second….he said he was a chef.

Um?  Score!

We wrote back and forth for about a month before finally meeting in person for our first date.  (Dinner at Henniger’s on Bank Street in Baltimore – a restaurant I highly recommend!).  For our second date, he made me dinner.  And as time went on, and we got more and more serious, I thought I was the luckiest girl around.

But……life with a chef isn’t all caviar and foie gras (not that foie gras is all it’s cracked up to be).  I remember the first time I was in his apartment by myself, the first thing I did was open all his kitchen cabinets, his cupboards, refrigerator….and discover he had NO food…..and very little in the way of cookware and equpment.  The man lived off of Beef-a-Roni, eaten straight from the can.  Blech.

This should have been a warning.  But still, I loved being able to go to the grocery store, pick up whatever looked good and be able to bring it home and have him create something.  It reminded me of that old show on Food Network, remember that?  Ready, Set Cook!  Guest competing chefs were each given five items to work with.  Something like that.

But as time went by, he pretty much stopped cooking at home.  He cooked his heart out at work and never had the energy at the end of the day.  I don’t complain too much because I enjoy cooking and whenever I go into his restaurant he’ll make whatever I want, even if it isn’t on the menu.  So there are perks.

But the other downside is that he’s worked with so many chefs here in Baltimore and there are a few that he just can not stand.  To the point that he will not go to their restaurants.  And one of them, Cindy Wolf, is one of the best chefs working in Baltimore today, with one of the best restaurants, Charleston.  And I’d love to visit Nancy Longo’s tapas joint.  But, just not happening, not with him. 

Gonna have to rally my girlfriends, that’s all.

I had water simmering for pasta and was quartering mushrooms while keeping on eye on the chicken breasts I had poaching in some vegetable stock when Eldest Child entered the kitchen.  “Here,” I said, handing her the knife (she’s 13!).  “Can you finish quartering these for me please while I check the chicken?”

So she did.  Score!

Five minutes later, I’m sauteeing the mushrooms and green onions in butter (LOTS of butter).  I stir in flour to start my roux and turn to the cutting board to start dicing the cooked chicken.  Middle Child comes in so I ask HIM to finish cutting up the chicken for me as I start stirring in more vegetable stock and evaporated milk (when I first learned how to make this dish, the recipe used all shelf stable ingredients.  Onions, canned chicken, canned mushrooms…..evaporated milk instead of cream.  I’ve changed it a lot over the years but for some reason, I’ve always kept the evaporated milk).

In goes the sherry and a big handful of parmesan.  MC stirs in the chicken, I grind in some pepper and we’re done.  THIS is comfort food to me.

Later, we walked down to the water to watch the fireworks over the Inner Harbor.  The kids oohed and ahhed….and pouted because I wouldn’t let them play with sparklers.  Seriously?  What type of parental adult says to children, other than his own, “Hey, want to play with sparklers?” before checking with said children’s actual parent?  Because that happened tonight.  I mean, I’m sure the guy was really nice and all but just….thoughtless.  I told the kids no, they could not play with sparklers because Youngest Child burnt herself with them last year (or maybe the year before, as she insists) and I knew that if they got hurt and I brought them home to ex-husband and the step-mother, I’d never hear the end of it.  So I had to listen to YC begging and pleading for the rest of the evening to please please PLEASE let her flame with giant sticks of flame.  FLAME STICKS OF DOOOOOOM!

Walking back home after the fireworks was pretty cool because all the tourists scurried like rats back to their cars and the kids and I just strutted back to our house.  I was all, “That’s right.  I’m a local.  Recognize!”

Anyway, once back home, for dessert I made the Banana Chocolate Bars I found here.  They were absolutely wonderful.  The only hard part was waiting for them to cool off so we could eat ‘em.  YC didn’t have any though.  She claims to not like coconut.  How this is possible I have no idea…..but I gave her some fudge that we got from Candy Kitchen last weekend so everyone was happy.

That’s it.  Happy Fourth, y’all.  I’m off to go watch iCarly with the kids before bedtime!

I mean, we could go to a bar, but we do that anyway, heh.

But then I remembered that Jack’s Bistro serves food until 1am and there food is GOOD.  And super-inventive and cool and stuff.  I wrote a review of them in my old blog.  You should read it. 

So I had my tastebuds all set for something neato nifty peachy keen.  Thai coconut curry mussels or something like that.  We walked all the way down there (a good half hour walk)….only to find out they’re closed for the week.  Vacation! 

Much pouting ensued.  Plus, consternation.  It was 11pm and we needed food, badly.  And there just isn’t much open……plus, there was the issue of my demanding tastebuds.

I quickly evaluated our options.  We could walk back home and I could try to come up with something for dinner on the fly.  But I really did not feel like cooking.

Or.  We could go to the Sip ‘n’ Bite.

Yeah.  So I hit the reset switch on ye olde tastebuds and told them they wanted a pizza burger sub and they protested mightily but we had a good half hour walk back to the diner where I was able to wrestle them into submission and by the time they got their sub they were very happy and made “Mm-mm” noises.

Except, when it came time to pay the tab, we found out that we couldn’t put the tip on our card.  And neither of us had any cash.  I don’t get that at all.  What type of restaurant doesn’t let you put a tip on your card?  Have any of you ever heard of such a thing?

But, we are not the sorts to walk out without tipping so I sent the husband scurrying down to Canton Market to get some cash while I tried to avoid finishing the rest of my french fries because really, who needs an ENTIRE side order of fries?  Why did I even order fries?  It’s not like their fries are particularly spectacular. 

So that was my night.  I wanted a tuna sashimi martini, I got a pizza burger and I was happy to have it. 

Happy Fourth, y’all.

But tonight, I don’t feel much like writing.  At least, not about anything frivolous.  Just got some bad news and I’m still digesting it and railing against the world and the inequity of it all.

But still.  I promised a blog a day, right?  Let’s talk about smoking.  You know, smoking has been banned pretty much everywhere in Maryland and to this I say hooray!  How nice is it to come home from a bar or club and not smell like smoke?  How nice is it to enjoy a nice dinner and not have my taste buds and sense of smell corrupted.  (See, I have now made this blog food related.  I can write about anything else with impunity)

I wonder how many smokers might find their way to quitting once the beer/cigarette connection has been broken?  Not many, I’m guessing.  Smoking is such a hard habit to break.  I’ve been begging and begging my mother for 30 years now to quit smoking.  There’s always one excuse after another.  She’s always too stressed to quit smoking.

Did you know that hospital patients who are smokers are now given a nicotine patch when they’re admitted?  At least they are at the hospital in my hometown.

My brother smokes.  My husband smokes.  I worry like hell about them.  I worry about my mother.

Yesterday, my mother was admitted to the hospital due to complications following surgery on her rotator cuff.  She was having problems breathing.  This evening, she was diagnosed with emphysema.  I am angry.  I am furious.  I’ve kicked and punched walls. I’ve yelled and screamed. 

I beg you.  All of you.  If you smoke, please quit.  Do NOT put your loved ones through what my brother, my father and I are going through.  I don’t know what to think.  I don’t know what to do.  I do know that if I see anyone smoking around my mother (INCLUDING my mother) I’m likely to rip their arms off.

My mom is going to be okay.  I believe that.  She’s going to quit.  She has no choice.  The doctor told her, “You can quit smoking, or you can quit breathing.”  Hopefully, she’ll choose breathing.