{Originally Published on Gourmet Chick}

The best excuse ever to eat eye popping amounts of pork is to gather together 18 of your closest friends and book a whole pig at St. John Restaurant in Farringdon in London, England. You really do need to book the pig in advance. A deposit of £320 at least a week before your meal is required to reserve the pig which we affectionately began to refer to as Percy. Yes, Percy would die for our eating pleasure however where else but St. John’s to best appreciate and pay tribute to the life of the pig. The head chef at St. John Restaurant, Fergus Henderson, is the champion of the concept of ‘nose to tail’ eating. We could be sure that every part of the pig would be appreciated in all it’s glory and used and consumed right down to the last trotter.

For the privilege of eating a whole pig our group is allocated the private room at the front of the restaurant. Just around the corner from the Smithfield meat markets, the austere white washed walls of the restaurant and the waiters clad in butchers aprons are a nod to the area’s continuing carnivorous traditions. The bone marrow served with parsley salad is St John’s signature dish so I have no intention of passing up an opportunity to sample the bone marrow despite the lashings of pork that was to follow.

{Originally Posted at Chaos in the Kitchen}

We don’t make many casseroles in the Chaos household. I have nothing against them but the kids don’t eat well when their food is all mixed up together. This is one of the few casseroles that I do make. It is like a lasagna in that it is not a quick, one dish meal-it requires making different things then assembling the final dish, but it isn’t difficult and it makes a TON. I usually take the opportunity to divide this into two smaller casseroles then I store one in the freezer for another night. The great thing is leftovers are just as wonderful, and you will have plenty of them.

This is another Greek dish that I cannot vouch for its authenticity. I will tell you though not to freak out about the cinnamon stick. It is not like putting ground cinnamon in the dish-please don’t do that!-it just imparts a subtle warm, richness to the beef. Honestly I can’t taste it at all, the meat just tastes meatier. Daddy Chaos says he can taste it but not enough to freak him out, he told the kids it was Christmas meat.

I love pastitsio. The meat sauce is flavorful and rich and the bechamel covered noodles are light and creamy. The edges get chewy and browned-a requirement for any good casserole. Try this for the first time on a chilly weekend when cooking and baking seem like the perfect afternoon activity and I promise you’ll be hooked after the first bite.

Pastitsio

serves 12, prep 1 hour, cook time 2 hours

Meat Sauce

• oil
• 2 onions, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 lbs ground beef, pork, lamb or combination
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes in puree
• 1/3 cup kalamata olives, chopped

{Originally Featured on Noble Pig}

There’s always that fleeting moment in a restaurant when your wine server brings over the bottle of wine you ordered, drops the cork in front of you and pours you a little splash to taste. At this point everyone at your table, including the server are all waiting for your seal of approval.

Do you always say it’s good? What if you don’t like it? What if you think something is wrong with it? Do you send it back? Would you rather avoid the confrontation and drink the wine you think is flawed because you don’t really know if there is something wrong or not?

Many people have expressed to me their hatred of this moment.

They don’t know what to do with the cork and they don’t know why they are tasting the wine.

Let’s start with the cork. It’s plopped down right in front of you, what should you do with it? Nothing. Just leave it alone, I know it feels like you should fondle it, but you don’t need to.

What’s really important is tasting the wine. It has been given to you to see if the wine is spoiled or “corked.”

So here’s what you do…keep the base of the glass on the table while holding the stem. Gently swirl the glass a couple of times, shooting the wine up the sides of the glass. As the wine drips down the sides it evaporates and gives you more to smell. Really stick your nose in it, giving it a big whiff and then give it a taste.

Do you smell a lovely perfume of fruit and spices? If you don’t and what you do smell is a musty aroma reminiscent of damp newspapers and a mildew stench, you can almost guarantee your bottle is “corked”, the world’s most prevalent wine flaw.

When a wine is officially “corked” technically it means a chemical known as TCA (2,4,6-trichloranisole) has gotten into the bottle as a byproduct of mold in the cork or the winery. It kind of smells like a wet dog that has rolled itself up in a mildew blanket. Yummy, right? However, sometimes the mildew smell isn’t prevalent and the wine aromas and flavors are just dead, completely masked by the TCA. This is when a corked wine is harder to spot.

{Originally Published on Food Loves Writing}

Morning, and the kitchen is quiet, with sunlight streaming across the sink and onto the wood floors, and I pour coffee, grab my lunch, take my keys from the little basket by the door. There will be 20 minutes at least, between me and the office, along expressways of commuters, and I will look at them, talking on their phones, singing with their radios, glancing at their watches, before I park and walk inside, up stairs to my desk, to begin the work day, to talk with my coworkers and double-check spellings at Merriam-Webster and watch the geese fly past my window and onto the roof.

5:30, and I’m getting in my car, like I’ve done so many times, and I’m stopping by the train station, like I do every day, and I’m walking in my front door, and I’m eating dinner, again. It’s spring here—when did spring come? Weren’t we just talking about fall and winter and how I hated the snow? The light lasts longer now, and the days are warmer, rainy. I take it all, eagerly, greedily, like it will never end.

You know, I’m only 26—I find myself throwing the only in there more and more, the way it’s inserted into excuses from guilty children like, I only skipped one homework assignment or I only said that because the other kids did. But as much as I know we are guaranteed nothing, in terms of time, in terms of living, I also know 26 is, usually, not a lot of life to have lived and, usually, it’s not enough time to warrant strong opinions or heavy reminiscing. But I do: I look at the moments around me—the way the grass looks when it’s wet, shiny with dew and fragrant with summer; how my mom makes me laugh when she does, when her mouth closes and her nose widens and her eyes slant, just slightly, as her body shakes, like her mother’s did; the kindness someone shows you when he carries in your bags, so you don’t have to—and I think, I am living this.

This, right here—the morning coffee and the conversation and the drive home in daylight to a cozy evening with a book and blankets—this is life, and it’s a gift, and I am living this.

{Originally published on Ezra Pound Cake}

This is my all-time favorite Hot Fudge Pudding Cake. The one I make when it snows or when my PMS (aka the Raging Pink Hulk) makes me crave an intense chocolate punch in the face.

Most chocolate pudding cake recipes involve a cake mixture that resembles brownie batter, a sprinkling of cocoa powder and sugar, and boiling water. The ingredients aren’t stirred, so some parts are cakey, and others form pockets of chocolate sauce. Pure edible magic, no Kitchen-Aid required.

{Originally published on Chaos In The Kitchen}

I love french toast. Our family has always made french toast for special breakfasts, more so than pancakes, eggs, or waffles. I have always enjoyed making it for the kids when they were little but now that we are so busy in the mornings before school we don’t have it very often. A great weekend recipe is a huge batch of french toast, with all the extras sliced into sticks and stashed in the freezer for the grab and go convenience of school mornings.

I made these with some indulgent challah bread but any Texas Toast or thick cut sliced bread will work. The nice thing is you can buy the ”priced to sell” stale bread since you will be soaking it in egg and frying it anyway.