Foodie

First: weekend food. Nothing inspired. Delivery pizza. We have this lovely little card that scores us "buy one get one free" pizzas from a local place. It's quite a scam. I made sloppy joes Sunday. Partially because I had a late strategy session meeting today and I knew I'd need something nukeable for dinner tonight. Also, because I thought it would be easily freezeable and thus a good thing to pass along to McSmelly as the birth spasm approaches.

I did make a Lemon Pound Cake. By far, the best thing about lemon pound cake is the glaze. I think this glaze would be good on all sorts of desserts. It made rather tasty lemonade today. You take two parts sugar to one part fresh squeezed lemon juice and melt them together until the sugar is completely dissolved. I bet it would be awlfully tasty as a sweetener for Iced Tea too.

I was planning on making, but ran out of time: Blue Cheese Grapes. I have everything I need to make them - I just need to wrangle the time. My new " boss" loves them and this would be some mighty fine sucking up. This is the easiest Martha Stewart thing you'll ever make.

You need:

10 oz chopped, toasted pecans
8 oz softened cream cheese
4 oz room temp blue cheese, crumbled
2 tbls heavy cream
1 lb seedless red grapes.


Wash, stem, and dry all the grapes. Discard any that are split or look smushy.

With a mixer, whip the cream cheese until very soft. Add in the blue cheese and cream to make a creamy mixture.

To assemble, have grapes, cheese mix, and pecans in separate bowls in that order. Roll a grape in the cheese mix to cover but not glop too heavily -- then roll in pecans. This works best if you have a cheese hand and a pecan hand. Refrigerate and consume within 2-3 days.

This is the perfect mix of juicy, sweet, crunchy, creamy, tart, and nutty. A former boss tells me that she doesn't like blue cheese, but loves these things. The blue cheese isn't overwhelming in any way. This makes a simple, make a day ahead, treat to bring to parties or events.

This evening, I realized that I've moved from the tame, instructive foodie programs to the Extreme Foodie programs. The Old Woman and I would watch cooking programs together. I remember her teaching me about food. I suspect that years of eating "monkey pellets" in the lab had a lasting effect on me. I'm now obsessed with food. Back in the day, we'd watch Frugal Gourmet or Julia. Two of my weekly favorites are now "Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" and "Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations." These guys are both an experience to watch. They are arrogant and abusive, and curse like sailors on leave. And I love their shows. I have something of a crush on Anthony Bourdain -- but am careful to steer clear of him -- he'd probably eat me.