Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 52

The Ultimate Weeknight Dinner: Braised Chicken Thighs and Cauliflower with Olives and Capers

You’re not going to believe me, but I’m telling you the truth: the dinner you see above? It’s cheap and easy.

Don’t balk! I kid you not. Last Monday, I made this dinner for less than $20 and it was one of the best things that I’ve made in a long time. I didn’t even use a recipe, I just whipped it up based on an idea I had. The idea went something like this: what if I buy chicken thighs and braise them in white wine vinegar with onions, garlic, olives, capers, and cherry tomatoes and serve it all on plain couscous? It seemed like a foolproof plan for deliciousness.

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Animal Protein Cake

The world’s first synthetic meat burger made its debut today and the verdict is in. Well sort of: according to this Guardian article, the tasters were impressed if not quite thrilled. “I was expecting the texture to be more soft,” said Hanni Rützler of the Future Food Studio. Still, even if the burger doesn’t wet your appetite there’s no denying how much good a synthetic burger could do for our deeply damaged food system. The more important question is: would YOU eat it?

A Kitchen Table

One of the things that came up, when we found our new apartment, was the fact that there was room for a kitchen table. I liked that idea, but didn’t really think that much about it. As we set things up, though, there was an obvious space in the kitchen–in front of my cookbook shelf–that needed to be filled. Last week, I pressed Craig on the subject and showed him a wide variety of options. On Twitter, Charlotte Druckman and Oliver Strand mentioned the famous “Tulip Table” which was a little too expensive for us; but IKEA makes a decent copy called Docksta. We decided that would go well if we got some colorful chairs to go with it. We found those on Crate and Barrel’s website.

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My Top 10 Favorite Breakfast Recipes

Breakfast may be my favorite meal to cook because there’s nothing fussy or formal about it. You just wake up, roll out of bed, head to the kitchen, put the coffee on, see what you’ve got in the fridge and the pantry and get going. Most of the time, I improvise with what I have on hand; but sometimes, if I want breakfast to be special, I turn to one of these ten recipes and start my day in style. Now that it’s almost the weekend, consider this a prompt to start your Saturday or Sunday with style too.

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How To Make A Summer Farmer’s Market Feast

It’s August and you have no excuse: tomatoes and peaches are calling. Not the ones with little stickers on them at the supermarket, but the superior, positively bursting-with-summer ones you’ll find at your farmer’s market. “Ugh, but do I really have to go to a farmer’s market?” If that’s you, listen up: yes you do. And I’m going to walk you through it, tell you what to buy, in order to make an incredible Summer Farmer’s Market Feast for six. Are you ready? Let’s do it.

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Do You Really Speak To The Manager?

Mario Batali’s been responding to his “haters” on Twitter lately, asking people who complain about bad experiences at Babbo or Del Posto if they bothered to speak to management. The message seems to be: “If you’re unhappy, give us a chance to do something about it.” And while Batali should be commended for acknowledging his “haters” at all, I don’t know if I’ve ever asked to speak to a manager at any point in my restaurant-going career. The thing is, if something specific is wrong, I tell the server: “this steak is overcooked” or “this ceviche is raw” (just kidding about that one). I couldn’t imagine calling a manager over to complain about the things Batali’s “haters” are complaining about: snooty service, bad attitudes. “Excuse me, Mr. Manager, but my server has a bad attitude.” Have you ever done that? Was it effective? I’d rather just suffer through bad service and chalk it up to the server having a bad day than pipe up and…do what? Get the server fired? I’d feel so bad! That’s why I won’t be playing Mr. Burns in a live action “Simpsons” movie.

Clamming For The First Time

I don’t know if Instagram is making me seem like a good photographer or if I’m really a good photographer and I didn’t know that until I had Instagram. Either way, look at that picture I took of Craig standing on rocks the day we arrived on Eliza Island, where Craig’s parents have a cabin in the San Juans. If Annie Leibovitz saw that she’d be like, “I give up…I can’t top that!” See the purple sea stars in the foreground? That’s my favorite part. But this post isn’t about purple sea stars (though I wonder if you can eat them?); it’s about going clamming with Craig’s dad, Steve, the next day.

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BBQ vs. Cookout

My friends Nick and Jason got into an argument recently about the definition of “Barbeque/Barbecue/BBQ.” Jason, who’s from Texas, insists that Nick is “dead wrong” for using “barbecue” as a verb for grilling in general. “A social gathering around a grill is a ‘cookout,’” says Jason. Nick, who like me is from the North, counters that while this may be true in the South, in most other places around the world, it’s called BBQ when meat hits a grill. So now we turn to you, the people, to help settle this matter. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Something tells me we’re going to get a lot of conflicting answers.

The Night People Paid To Eat My Food (A Charity Dinner in Bellingham)

A few months ago–what seems like an eternity ago–Craig’s mom, Julee, asked if I’d be willing to donate a cookbook dinner for a charity auction to benefit the Whatcom Center for Early Learning in Bellingham, Washington, where she and Craig’s dad, Steve, live. I said, “Sure” and didn’t think twice about it. Of course I’d be happy to cook a dinner for charity, no biggie. Then I forgot all about it. Months passed and then Julee reached back out: the auction item was a big hit. Two couples had paid money (real money) for a meal that would be cooked by yours truly for them and four other people (they could each bring two more people) based on recipes from my cookbook SECRETS OF THE BEST CHEFS. This was really happening. Holy crap, what was I going to cook?

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On Vacay

Hey folks, I’m headed to the San Juan islands to go crabbing, drink wine, and, basically, go off the grid for a week. Let’s call this my summer vacation. See you back here next Monday!