With my love across the Atlantic, I was slipping into bachelor mode – fast food, sandwiches, lots of eggs. So walking into the kitchen to make yet another sandwich, I fought the urge and fish stew quickly came to mind. I made a quick assessment of the pantry and fridge. Garbanzo beans, a can of whole peeled tomatoes, a bulb of garlic and not much else for such a dish, I decided to make a quick trip to the market to round out the ingredients.

A pound of firm white fish, a nice fennel bulb, a bunch of organic celery, a green pepper, sweet onion and a large can of whole baby clams later, I head home to throw together a big pot of fish stew to hold me over until the little lady returns, and stave off the fast food. read more

Well, as the week winds down, I wanted to enjoy a nice dinner with my muse, so after a failed trip fishing in the morning, I head to the market. Some nice looking bay scallops and small white shrimp seemed just the ticket. I had some fennel bulb left over from the Moroccan shrimp, so I decided to grab a couple of lemons and make a broth. A can of artichoke hearts, and some perfect pencil sized asparagus rounded out the dish.

As normal, angel hair pasta is the de facto pasta around my home, and, as normal, I like to get the water going right away, as I will use the same water to blanch the asparagus as well as cook the pasta. This asparagus is so tender and thin, it could actually skip the blanching, but since I want to make things quick, I'll give a quick trip to the boiling water anyway. read more

Well, summer's coming to an end, at least in regards to schedules, meaning the homestead is getting back to normal ...

Well, mark that experience up to bad judgment, but what was I thinking getting a job in a country club? I should have known when they used the words "fine dining" and "bargain to our guests", that they where not serious about putting out the best food possible. I just didn't want to believe the generalizations about country club food. Live and learn.

Couple the failed job, and add into that the blistering heat, and odd schedule the household has been under, and you get very little cooking, and very little writing. Until today. I had a craving, a fairly odd one for me, to have fettucini alfredo and shrimp. Rarely do I cook anything other than angel hair, and almost never do I do cream sauces, especially in the middle of summer. Perhaps it was a way of nature telling me to fill up before the hurricane, but there was no turning back, off to the market for the fixings. read more

I've been quite lax in writing, as I've started a new cooking job, and haven't quite gotten into the swing of things just yet. That whole "life gets in the way" thing. Anyway, I wanted to keep the site some what up to date, so I had this dish set to do a few weeks back, and never got around to writing about it. It was done for an impromptu dinner party of sorts, and was served family style. One nice thing about risotto, is that contrary to popular belief, a lot of the work can be done ahead of time, and simply finished when you are ready for dinner. First thing first was to go to the market and get some nice medium sized pink shrimp and approximately half a pound of crab meat. read more