Dinner
I've been reading Clotilde’s book
What most interests me about Chocolate and Zucchini, the pioneering food weblog, is the emphasis on how one might plan and think about cooking and eating. In one of the first posts I read, I remember that Clotilde had a bottle of wine she wanted to drink with her friends. “What will be nice with the wine?”, she asked. I’d always asked, “What wine would suit this dish?”
Tonight featured a good old-fashioned cooking disaster. These things happen. I wrapped a nice big chunk of my home-cured pancetta in a foil packet, and wanted to cook it gently, gently, in a very low oven for hours and hours. Because my big over would be busy, I used the toaster oven. Voila!
Except somehow the toaster oven’s rheostat founds its way to 400° (200°C) when I meant 200° (95°C). This meant the confit was way over. But it was mostly edible, and it certainly was as lean as pork belly can be!
- corn-chipotle muffins
- margaritas
- carpaccio of summer squash, goat cheese, cilantro sprigs, pear vinegar
- home-smoked duck breast, confit of pancetta-cured pork
- white Rueda
- asparagus and cod en papillote, with shallots, orange zest, dill, thyme, and crème fraîche
- duck stew (fresh figs and apricots, turnips and potatoes from the farm)
- a modest super Tuscan
- blueberry tarte with almond cream
- coffee and lemon sablés