Category: Cookery

Back to the grind

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments

Bilbo Baggins’ Road goes ever on and on, but mine came to a halt on Sunday. Monday I spent in the usual post-expedition fog, and today it was time to get back to business.

Herself lacks my interest in the culinary arts, so it’s a given that when I come home from a road trip there will be exactly jack-shit in the house to eat. After we burned through the steak, spuds and salad it quickly became apparent that someone would have to replenish the pantry, and as usual that someone was me.

Muchos grassyass
The Turk' catches some rays in the backyard.

So today, I hit the grocery — and man, did it ever hit back. Two hundred smacks down Whole Paycheck’s organic rathole for tasty bits of this and that. I should just sign over my Velo checks to these dudes and be done with it.

The good news is that the week’s menu will include fusilli draped with a spicy all’arrabbiata sauce full of red pepper flakes, capers and black olives; kung pao chicken with white rice; sausage and cheese enchiladas in red sauce with Mexican rice; chicken quesadillas; and chicken enchiladas in green sauce with a side of roasted potatoes in red chile. Can you tell I’ve been to Santa Fe recently? Yeah, me too.

Meanwhile, the Turk’ has been enjoying plenty of outside time since my return. Getting him in a harness is like sticking a hand in a running blender, and since he’s mostly my cat he’s mostly my problem.

No worries. I’ve been getting my furry brother hooked up so he can live the feline dream in the backyard, hunting grasshoppers and enjoying the last few days of summertime in Bibleburg.

Getaways, groceries and grifters

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

There’s nothing like that first day after the Tour folds its big yellow tent and life gets back to normal.

I got out early for a two-hour ride northeast on Highway 24 and enjoyed a tailwind to Falcon. The headwind on the homebound leg wasn’t outlandish, and I considered stretching the outing to three hours before remembering that there was nothing to eat in Chez Dog, someone having been a little lackadaisical about grocery-shopping lately.

So I rolled home, made a list and headed north to Whole Paycheck, pissing away a car payment on bits of this and that to keep flesh on the bones. Last night’s “dinner” involved a tin of smoked oysters, cheddar, crackers and a salad, and that’s just not enough to keep a renowned cycling journalist at the top of his game.

Now it’s raining for a second consecutive day, which is excellent. It’s been hotter than the high-flange hubs of Hell around here lately, and this takes the edge off, as does a little effervescent Austrian rosé.

Alas, we may all be reduced to drinking feeble American lager out of red-white-and-blue cans if the “mine is bigger than yours” contest ends badly in DeeCee, as seems increasingly likely.

These overfed, undereducated pustules afflicting the body politic should be compelled at gunpoint to hold their slapfests in small-town bars and beaneries, in the company of the simple folks these rich fucks profess to care about. Maybe after a few vicious beatings administered by work-hardened knuckles they’d realize their cushy gigs are about people, not politics.

• Late update: Kevin Drum sure wasn’t impressed by either Obama or Punkinhead tonight. I listened to the first few minutes of Obama’s bit while cooking dinner and I wasn’t exactly hearing a clarion call to arms. As for Punkinhead, I unplugged his ass before he even had a chance to start lying. My patience has its limits.

An evening on the deck

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments

It’s 11 p.m. and I’m relaxing with a glass of rosé after two days of medium-heavy cookery and other minor labors in honor of a couple of friends and neighbors who are shuffling off to another area code.

Mexican feast
Cuidado señores ... hot plate! The leftovers are good, too.

I started yesterday, roasting some Whole Foods poblanos and Anaheims on the gas grill, then whipped up a basic posole (a recipe so old I can’t remember where I found it) alongside a pot of pintos with chipotle (from The Santa Fe School of Cooking Cookbook). Herself, meanwhile, got busy on a killer lemon-vanilla pudding, saving the final touches for just before mealtime.

Today I hosed down the back deck and zip-tied down the fabric pergola cover — a good thing, too, as Bibleburg tied a record high of 91 degrees — and broke out the patio table’s umbrella for backup. Then I made a little pico de gallo salsa, roasted potatoes with Chimayo red chile, and a green chile sauce (all three from the Santa Fe folks). Poached a pound of chicken, shredded it, made enchiladas with blue corn tortillas, some Monterey Jack and that pot of green chile, and hey presto! Dinnertime.

There was wine, of course, and also beer. The 2010 Thierry Delaunay Touraine from the Loire Valley seemed a bit thin, so I switched to a 2010 Le Cengle Côtes de Provence, which has a beautiful copper color and a tart flavor that, oddly, reminds me of Jolly Rancher watermelon candies, an item I was addicted to as a much younger dog.

The beers were two seasonal items from Deschutes Brewery — Red Chair NWPA, which is hard to find right now, and Twilight Summer Ale, which should be around until September. I should have Vespa’d on down to Bristol Brewing for a jug of their Red Rocket Pale Ale, but tomorrow is another day, eh? As it is I barely had time to grab a shower before the guests of honor arrived.

We ate and drank and shot the shit until long after sundown, and now I and my wine are surfing Al Gore’s Innertubes in search of evil tidings, which are regrettably easy to find, and enjoying a cooling breeze from somewhere.

Or we were. A small yet authoritative voice in another room has chimed the hour in a style that Big Ben would envy. See you tomorrow.

Kung pao, chingado

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment

OK, time for another cooking show here on the Dog Channel. Remember the NPR kung pao chicken recipe I linked to a while back? Well, I’ve reprised it a few times since, ramping up the chile content each time and changing the protein from chicken to beef to pork.

Today Herself and I are both suffering from various ailments — allergies, injuries, you name it — and so I went for the healing pork and 14 chiles plus an overflowing teaspoon of Sichuan peppercorns. Hijo, madre, puto, cabron … my head is still sweating. And I think I just grew a third testicle. It was that powerful.

But there’s not a picture, because we were both so beat down and hungry that we just dove right in, and I ate all the leftovers for seconds. Sorry ’bout that. Stir fry up a batch yourself and you’ll forgive me for my piggishness.

Thou art mortal

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
calabacitas
Chicken quesadillas and calabacitas.

Damn, this has been a fun week. First I make drunkard tartare out of my right leg in a trail tumble, and now I’ve managed to throw my back out again.

Hitting the deck on Tuesday started the ball rolling. Favoring the bum leg gave it a nudge. And the kicker was probably spending too much time crouched over the cutting board, assembling last night’s New Mexican feast, chicken quesadillas and calabacitas.

These are easy dishes, to be sure — the quesadillas are merely poached and shredded chicken, seeded and sliced jalapeños and grated Monterey jack layered between two flour tortillas and baked for 12 minutes at 350 — but some assembly is required.

Long story short, this morning I bend down to see if Turkish is lurking under Herself’s car and pop! Out goes the back, which I first injured in college while delivering heavy appliances for beer money. Every couple of years it likes to slash the tires on my chariot and hiss, “Thou art mortal!”

Still, things could be worse. A couple of friends are on Cape Cod, playing hide-and-seek with Hurricane Earl. Or I could be one of the poor chumps blown off the latest offshore oil platform to explode.

So, yeah. I’ve got that going for me. That, and the drugs, and the ice pack. …