Speaking of wind…
Thanks to everyone who checked in and for your well wishes. Weathered the storm safely in Asheville with no damage so far. Currently no utilities but we have been promised power restoration by Friday. 
With over 40 lives lost and counting in our county, we are grateful to be safe, sound, high (not that kind), and dry.
Some creative cooking with no running water. I’ll share later but just wanted to pop in to say we’re OK since we suddenly have data.
Many, many blessings!
Take care! Let us know your new cooking adventures!
Tonight’s dinner was halusky using purple cabbage instead of green since that’s what I had. Tasty nonetheless.
Duck wings
Chicken green bean cherry tomato curry (doctored simmer sauce) I made and froze a few weeks back, over jasmine rice. Hit the spot.
This was one of those meals I wish I’d never started because it dirtyed (I don’t care if that’s a word or not) way too many pots and pans but anyway. Fried pork chops, homemade chunky applesauce, glazed carrots and stovetop stuffing with a little cup of cranberry sauce. Steamed COC for him and cream gravy for the pork chop,
Never again🙂
Hot wings on the grill. Chopped garden salad. Homemade ranch dressing. Leftover mac and cheese for him.
Yup. I asked the dude who sold it to me how quickly I should use it, and he said it would last me a long while if I just kept the little sealed bag in the fridge. Since I’ve had it for over a year, I’d have to agree with him. 
And it’s very very mild. I prefer my own regular roasted garlic bulbs which I squeeze out and freeze. More garlicky. I think black garlic is like pomegranate seeds, molten lava cake, blackened fish, wine coolers, sundried tomatoes…just a recent trend of use by restaurants that became more mainstream but will fade.
Black garlic shouldn’t taste too garlicky but has more a sweet, sour and umami flavor profile (with sometimes hints of vanilla and dark chocolate.)
Definitely got the sweet, a slight tang, and a deep flavor. Don’t think I got either vanilla or chocolate, just a “deeper flavor”.
Decided to post the October thread a bit early, as I’ll be busy tomorrow morning and didn’t want to forget about it.
I’m blaming @John 's pizza experiments 
I was too tired to cook last Saturday and there were a plethora of restaurants I could have gotten take-out from (Caribbean, Indian, etc.) but I had pizza on the brain from looking at all of John’s lovely home made pizzas so take-out pizza it was!
Even your take-out photos are gorgeous! I am living vicariously through your food photos.
I’ve had a package of it in my fridge for like, five years, unopened.
Maybe I should take a peek. 
BTW, would you recommend any of the angencies, previously listed, that you feel would benefit your community best? Thank you.
I hope pomegranate arils never go away. The season is just about to start, and they are a breakfast staple in my house. Mind you, not just a few of those gorgeous pops of garnet strewn atop my yogurt — nah, I go all in with at least 1/4 cup and smoosh em up to let those juices flow. Pomegranate may just be one of the prettiest foods there is 
Thank you very much 
That is very kind of you.
I love pomegranate. Our mothers didn’t care for it staining our pretty white Peter Pan collared blouces during lunch in grade school. 
Last night’s birthday dinner at the highly touted Fiorella Pasta Bar was a bit of a disappointment, unfortunately. The place itself is tiny, with an open kitchen, a few seats at the counter, and a couple of 2-tops squeezed along the only path the servers use to bring out plates of steaming pasta.
There’s a lot more outdoor seating, but I will never understand what would compel anyone to sit in smelling distance of a street drain, as that would ruin my dining experience entirely 
We had a short wait outside, and were given a menu to order our aperitivi — a delightfully tart & refreshing Just Peachy for me (peach, lemon, amaro, vermouth, prosecco), and a Carbon Copy pilsner for my PIC.
Our table was along the serving path near the kitchen, where we had a good view of the action & the various paste and antipasti being carried past us.
We shared the corn flan with lobster, butter, and Thai chili, and my PIC got an order of the focaccia.
The flan was really nice & went well with the lobster, but any chili was indiscernible.
The focaccia was cold and drenched in olive oil. Meh.
As for our pasta mains — both the rigatoni and the tonnarelli portions being carried past us looked intimidatingly large, and we wanted to try something more… exotic?
My PIC got the maltagliati (which not one person working knew how to pronounce, btw 
) with rabbit, asiago d’allevo, and fried sage.
The rabbit was mild, akin to shredded chicken, the pasta portion rather small. Overall, pretty uninteresting.
I had the stuffed fazzoletti with corn, chanterelle, and huitlacoche. I’d not had huitlacoche before and was excited.
There were three tiny envelopes of pasta with maybe 4 chanterelles strewn atop. It was also rather boring.
While I’m not sure I would’ve wanted what looked to be a pound of rigatoni, or 1/2 a pound of tonnarelli (which everyone else seemed to order), we kinda felt like we might’ve missed the boat by ordering what we did. At least we weren’t overly stuffed — but at those prices one might expect a little more food, and DEF more of a wow factor. It’s a Vetri place, after all.
The Malvasia rosé we’d chosen with our dinner was out, so they gave us two others to choose from & generously offered a $75 bottle we liked for $65 — a gorgeous, lightly sparkling rosé whose name unfortunately escapes me now.
Dessert was an amaro for me, and grappa for my PIC.
I’d indicated the occasion for our meal when I made the reservation, and this is what was placed in front of me, along with our check:
It’s highly unlikely we’ll return, and I can’t really recommend the place, either 
Bummer, man. Here’s to the next, better meal — and make it BYOB!! 
!
