OK folks! Once again, reporting to you live, the Ghost of Kiss The Cooks' past! We not-so-recently convened in Fernando, Shawn's, and Sebastian's home for a summertime meal structured around late summer stone fruits and berries! Meg and Shawn organized some snacks.....
...and Fernando took some photos with his new fancy-pants camera! Doesn't that look nice? It's homemade labneh, fresh out of Meg's kitchen, served in a ruby-toned lake of summer berries-Yum!
Spiced olives...
We made a lovely Welcome cocktail: watermelon, vodka, and lime - oh, my!
Joyce and Jessica brought more home-spun summer bounty: Asian pears!
More summer yumminess...
And speaking of yumminess, here's Anne!
Salad...
Green tomatoes!
Besides these pre-dinner treats, our evening's menu would include:
Peach gazpacho (inspirational recipes here and here)
Grilled salmon with berry coulis served over arugula salad
Peach lambic ice cream (Meg? Do you have a recipe?)
We made up a berry coulis for the salmon, with huckleberries, blackberries, and other goodies:
Lardons, yo. For the salad, of course!
Fennel - fresh and crisp, also for the salad:
Shawn asks a wise wine question: "What Would Lyle Lovett Do?"
We focused on easy, quick, non-heat-producing meal prep, so really, after an initial flurry of activity, there wasn't much to do. So we chatted! We visited! We shot the proverbial "Ess Aich I Tee!"
We enjoyed a quickly-growing Sebas:
And spied on Damian, whom we glimpsed through the curtains basking in the sun by the grill. (Frank's around here somewhere, but I didn't like the ones we took that day...Frank, you can thank us later).
Here's Rick and his very-hip new frames:
"What? You got a problem with me?!? I'll break your arm!!"
And so it was.
Not really. But it was a great excuse to show off some fancy martial arts moves.
The aforementioned grill: a birthday gift for Fernando, on its inaugural cooking adventure!
More relaxation ensued. We even put up our feet!
Sebastian decided he was ready for dinner and got settled in:
And the delights began flowing onto the table. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you grilled halloumi cheese and green tomatoes!
Why yes, those are fresh summer tomatoes with an extraordinary balsamic reduction:
Want a closer look. you say?
Our sneaker star of the afternoon: A raw peach-and-yogurt-based "gazpacho." It was super tasty!
And, of course, everything is even tastier with a smile.
We broke bread...
And posed for a group picture...
And then posed again, glasses raised...
Even Sebastian got in on the action, raising his sippy-cup to our proffered "Salud!"
This gorgeous salmon is about to go on the grill. Rick tells us that the trick is to grill fish when it's still just a mite frozen on the inside still. He says this preserves just enough moisture so that the fish does not overcook and dry out. Thanks, Rick!
A lovely arugula, manchego, fennel, and who-knows-what salad accompanied...
Where's papá? Over there!
Meanwhile, fish grills.
And then the skin side grills!
While it cooks, Sebas enjoys some "yums," courtesy of Meg...
And in a flash, the salmon is done!
Sebastian plays catch...
And then WE play catch chasing him around...
Salmon is plated...
It was just as good as it tasted! Before we knew it, it was time for dessert: A peach lambic ice cream with raspberries and gingersnaps! OMG delish!
Next up, a recap of our very-awesome Woodinville wine tasting day in September, organized by the dapper Frank and debonnaire Damian (or is it the other way around?). Stay tuned, Kissers!
OK folks - reporting here from Cabo San Lucas, where I'm sprawled out on the beach where I've been relaxing for hours, watching the sunset, margarita in hand and enjoying a leisurely page of the book I've been trying to finish for the past four months.
Also, I have a fabulous beach house I can sell you for super-cheap in beautiful downtown Tucson - just let me know if you're interested!
Har. Ahem.
Well, yes, we are in Cabo. And that is the gorgeous sunset here. Also, I have had my share of margaritas so far. I gotta tell you, though, that vacation is very different than it used to be now that our tiny travel champ Sebastian is also on board!
But that's the way the tortilla crumbles - and really, we have nothing to whine about: It is sunny and beautiful here, and we are enjoying some great family time without even thinking about work and what's piling up and the tasks which await us upon our return. Additional plus: cocktails! Talk about First-World Problems, amiright?
So without further ado (or any more gratuitous vacation photos), I bring you our March KTC event at Meg's, hosted by the Meg-Shawn-Fernando-Sebastian quartet. The plan for the evening was to keep things in the Indian food-ish vein, and Shawn and Meg met in a very high-tech, late-night, instant message forum (Thanks, Microsoft!) to discuss the details. They hashed out a few interesting options each had run across in her online travels, and made The Plan.
First, we would have snacks! Meg had made some fresh yogurt cheese, which was amazing, and she'd divvied it up into three different flavors. I think one was plain, one was cumin, and one was something else very helpful description, I know)...olive oil with a little salt and pepper maybe?
Then (and only second in this list because we Kissers are responsible adults (whee!) and don't libate on empty stomachs), the first order of business was to prepare a welcome cocktail: The Boozy Lassi. Doesn't it look pretty?
Shawn and Meg reasoned that this would be a fabulous idea. After all, everyone loves a welcome cocktail, right? AND neither of them had ever even heard of a lassi cocktail, so it sounded like an interesting opportunity to try something new.
Sadly, Frank and Damian weren't able to join us, having sneaked off somewhere for an early Spring getaway weekend, but the rest of the Kissers trickled in and began sipping on their Boozy Lassis. In spite of the initial squick factor upon hearing a description of our concoction (yogurt? with booze?), we decided that this cocktail recipe is a keeper: much tastier than anticipated, and surprisingly refreshing. Also, and more importantly, the Boozy Lassi is what we used to call in my high school days a "sneaker." That is, you sip on one and it's tasty and it seems so cute and innocuous, and then WHAM!! It sneaks up on you and makes you say or do something Really Stupid.
Fortunately, like I said above, we Kissers are all responsible adults, and none of us did anything all that stupid. I mean, Jessica proclaimed that after her 40-mile (right?) bike ride earlier that morning, she would be pretty much done with just the one cocktail. And, although I don't think it classifies as Really Stupid, in the company of a couple of Boozy Lassis, Rick did have some fun with the appetizers.
Here, Anne demonstrates the power of the Boozy Lassi to convert you into an actual supermodel. Stand aside, paparazzi! Click, click!
The afternoon's menu would consist of loose variations of the following recipes:
Joyce gets started on the lamb curry, which will need to cook for a while...
Jessica, Anne, Meg, and Sebastian look out the window at Meg's squirrels and chickens...
Three pounds of lamb looks sort of like this...
We chopped up some veggies, herbs, and spices to add to the soaked split peas for the fritters...
Closer? You betcha!
And prepared the lamb for its long, warm burbling.
Fresh tomatoes in March? Um, we used canned Marzanos instead. Easier, cheaper, less offensive, AND tastier too at this time of year!
We got the basmati rice a-cooking...
The Almond Chikki was spread out on sheet pans to cool....
Crushing the tomatoes by hand is always fun...
Joyce and Sebastian monkey around...
Fernando looks on, pleased to have both his hands free from the grip of sticky baby fingers for the first time in several hours...
Shawn had brought some Nora peppers, but they weren't yielding much flesh after being rehydrated... next time, consensus was to simply skip the peppers in this recipe.
Sebastian solemnly agrees...
Our curry begins to reduce!
We all chit-chatted between tasks...
Sebastian even squeezed in a short nap, tucked in under his mom's jacket...
No need to wait for dinner to enjoy these babies: The fritters were crispy on the outside and tender on the inside - very flavorful and yummy to eat!
Here they are again, closer...
And, the frying process. w00t!
Fernando expertly trims the cauliflower...
Meg's chickens came over to see what was happening in the kitchen...Here's Grace Hopper now!
Of course, these girls aren't just any dumb "chicks" (see what I did there?) - There is a method to their madness! Here's Joyce, demonstrating why the chickens' curiosity behooves them:
Fernando tackles the cruciferous veg...
We set a festive table...
Anne and Sebastian mugged for the camera...
Then something magical happened. Meg's music selection was a stunning compilation of amazing 1980s hits, and during a cooking-task lull, it somehow transported us all simultaneously back to the big-hair and layered sock days of our faraway youth. We were so infused with the spirit of The Eighties that an impromptu '80s dance party erupted--right in Meg's dining room!
Then, as suddenly as it began, the dance party ended, and we were back to our normal, 2013 selves, ready for a normal, 2013 sort-of-Indian dinner. We settled in at the table...
The titillating aroma of the sizzling lamb curry beckoned steamily, hot and redolent with succulence and spices... Of course, that sentence is also the opening line from my soon-to-be-published romance novel, "The Call of Cast Iron." What do you think? Will it cut the mustard?
We served up our plates and everything looked just a tasty as it smelled!
Curry? Me? What curry?
I can't at all remember why I took a photo of what appears to be an angry red finger...Anyone recall? I think it may have been weather-related or fishing-related...But it was important enough and/or entertaining enough for us to take TWO photos of it! Maybe if I didn't wait so long to publish the blog entries after each event, I might have a better memory....?
Another thing I can't quite remember is why Joyce was distributing candy canes. I do know that Shawn and Fernando managed to arrive home with one, and Fernando wouldn't permit Shawn to eat it, citing concerns about the unknown age of the candy cane (I'm sure he recalled that Shawn's grandma used to keep and display the same ones year after year after year!).
The Almond Chikki turned out great - essentially a buttery almond brittle.
So tasty, and wonderful with the accompanying salted caramel gelato from our friends at the Fainting Goat in Wallingford.
These two digested as they showed off their many similar characteristics...
We got things cleaned up before clearing out for the night. Washy-washy!
I want to thank you all again for your patience as I've played catch-up on blogging our events...I'm up-to-date now, thanks in no small part to our having skipped April's event. Hopefully, beginning in May, I'll be able to claim a more timely turnaround for our future blog posts!
Looking forward to seeing you all next Saturday, May 18--be there,or be square! Actually, I don't think we have determined where "there" will be yet...Last I heard, there was to be a potential duking-it-out between Chez Kello-bach and Chez F-and-D. Stay tuned...
Our group has been cooking together at least once a month for more than a decade. From French Laundry to homemade s'mores to flavors of Asia and pastry experiments, we love to cook (and eat!) it all!
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