Happy birthday weekend! We’re only partway through August, so why not declare birthday month?
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I see the debbil’s lettuce and the raspberry vodka tea did their job 
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Happy birthday, and happy bruise-healing!
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DaYUM! I’ve been missing your pasta shots 
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No house chores yesterday. After we did a whole hour of PT in the AM I swung by the FM in the hopes of picking up nice local tomatoes to make gazpacho for my Sunday potluck, but my favorite stand only had a small selection of heirlooms that I didn’t want to waste on being liquified. I’ll hit up another FM in a bit. If I can’t find tomatoes, I’ll have to figure out what else I can make instead, and I’d rather not 
Last night’s dinner was with 10 friends at the amazing farm-to-table place in the boonies for their August menu.
Before their season started, I’d sent them an email with a handful of dates for each month, hoping to score their chef’s table that seats 8. I lucked out, and for yesterday we actually had the private dining room upstairs big enough for 12, with my kind of art on the walls.
The hostess brought more of those fab, flash-fried shishito peppers we had last time, this time with the addition of kimchi-pickled cukes.
Everything was great as ever, although we thought the July menu was more interesting.
The greeting from the kitchen / welcome bites consisted of a tomato water with olive oil and basil (a bit bland), a puffed tapioca chip with carrot hummus, salsa matcha, purslane (the chip was fried too hard and a bit awkward to eat, but tasty), and the absolute star if not best bite of the evening: coffee roasted beets with beet vinaigrette and roasted hazelnuts 
The man has a way with beets, for sure. July’s roasted cabbage & beets dish with cashew cream was amazeballz as well.
Next up was the sweet corn soup with corn riblet, blue crab, miso, roasted poblano, toasted kernels, chive & toasted husk. Second best dish of the night.
Before…
and after.
The burrata with grilled peaches and heirlooms was nice, but silly me had made a Caprese for lunch, so this didn’t exactly blow our minds. Nice, good peaches, a lil skimpy on the burrata IYAM.
Another salad course of compacted watermelon, cuke and jicama followed. Nice & light, but nothing spectacular.
The intermezzo this time was a sweet Thai basil jalapeño sorbet with candied jalapeño and coconut granita. Excellent.
The main was a surprisingly tender and very juicy grilled peach bbq’d pork loin with a lovely bacon & corn relish, slow-roasted cherry tomatoes, and a light cool ranch potato salad.
Dessert was grilled peach and oak (!) ice cream, pecan corn cookie crumble & bourbon caramel. A nice ending to a lovely meal.
We’d brought a bottle of Prosecco, the Pfälzer Gewürztraminer I picked last time and loved, and two rosé wines — with the main being pork loin I didn’t see much reason to bring a red, which I barely ever drink anyway.
One of the newbie couples, who split their time between the boonz and Chelsea said this wouldn’t be out of place anywhere in the city — just double the price tag and forget about BYOB 
We closed the place down & were home by midnight, happily sated and talked out. Glad I’d “made” everyone carpool, too 
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Super simple eggplant tian is a meal we look forward to every summer. I like pairing it with corn on the cob and a satisfying crusty bread. Olive oil and flaky finishing salt at the table.
We raised a glass of rosé to Julia Child, who was a birthday baby 113 years ago. We let ourselves imagine that she and her beloved husband Paul might have enjoyed an easy meal like this—minus the très un-French COTC—during one of their South of France summers.
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I won’t buy those “baby” carrots.
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Old school Chef Salad.
Mixed leaf lettuce, oven roasted , deli sliced chicken breast, bacon bits, Swiss cheese, disappointing tomato, cucumber, HBE and homemade thousand island dressing.
Pretty tasty…
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Slow Saturday. I got my ‘maters for the potluck gazpacho at the uptown FM from an Amish stand & promptly left my wallet there. Thankfully, the guy next to the Amish stand was able to send me a Fb msg & I had to drive back there to retrieve it. The gods only know when I would’ve realized its absence, as I paid with my phone at both Wegmans and Aldi. Yikes! 
Anyway, the gazpacho for tomorrow’s potluck is done. I do not understand the hype over this recipe whatsoever, but I have a dish to contribute & that’s all that matters to me RN 
As for WFD tonight: shrimp tacos with sautéed shrimp, orange & red bell peppers I seared together with a bunch of chopped up Thai bird chilies for a serious kick, grated queso fresco, lime, cilantro, Herdez avo hot sauce, El Yucateco jalapeño hot sauce. Fried the tortillas up in the pan bc I hate it when restaurants serve you ‘raw’ tortillas. Made just enough for each of us to have 2 tacos & share a third.
Thrilled about a chill evening at home, my hungover PIC even more so than I
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It’s a new-to-me Recipepalooza today!
During visits to Penzeys and Trader Joe’s, I put together tonight’s dinner. (And the A/C was turned back on at 5pm to offset the heat in the house.)
Country-style pork ribs with a maple-ginger BBQ sauce (using some of the ginger maple syrup I got several weeks ago in Vermont). I used more ground ginger, and sriracha for the heat for hot pepper sauce, but not a lot. Didn’t broil the ribs at the end. Didn’t need it.
https://www.thekitchn.com/country-style-ribs-recipe-23537322
Kenji’s roasted duck fat potatoes from Serious Eats. Holy hell, these were great! Didn’t infuse the duck fat; just added reconstituted Penzeys chopped garlic and dried cracked rosemary with the s/p at the end.
A sugar snap peas and roasted corn salad, to which I added chopped red bell pepper, and scallions to augment the little bit of red onion I had. I skipped the feta.
There was wine!
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Your were liucky!!!
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Very! If ya can’t trust the Amish, who can you trust?
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This looks great!
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Lovely celebration of Julia! I’m sure it was like one of their dinners!
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Summer minestrone: Italian sausage, onion, carrot, tomato, green beans, tarbais beans, zucchini, corn, basil, oregano, pasta, and a parm rind. Served with a squeeze of lemon and freshly baked focaccia.
Veggies, aromatics, and herbs all from the garden.
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Splurge dinner with a friend at Martine’s Wine Bar in Toronto.
Pornstar martini
Green salad with fennel
Stuffed zucchini blossoms
Potato topped charred cabbage
Ajo Blanco
Raviolo with crab and nduja bisque. Sounded tastier than it was. Lol. The nduja overwhelmed the crab and the raviolo.
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We had showers last night, just enough to wash the dust off of everything.
Today was National Rum Day so I made a Jungle Bird.
Baked cod with lemon and garlic. Coating fell off but it was still tasty. Mediterranean sauteed yellow squash. Delicious. Salad of mixed greens, little gem, green onion, radish, celery, Gold Nuggets, garlic and thyme vinaigrette.
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We enjoyed another sensational dinner at Fiorentini, in Rutherford, NJ, including Fregola Sarda with shrimp in a pesto sauce; excellent Buffalo mozzarella with zucchini velouté, basil, tomato confit; handmade corn gnocchi with fresh truffles; refreshing scallops tartare with cucumber, shallots, Fresno chilies, watermelon; sesame crusted pork tenderloin with cannellini beans, potato foam, poivre jus. It all went great with an excellent cabernet and Priorat.
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I’ll have to ask my friend @buttertart whether she’s been to this place! It always looks amazing!
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