Hope all of y'all had an enjoyable 4th. We did not engage in the main American pastime of blowin' shit up (or the closely related "watching other people blow shit up") instead opting for the less explosive grilling of cheeseburgers on ye olde Weber. After some misadventures caused by poor planning that involved two separate trips to two separate grocery stores by two separate people to secure all the necessary components. But in the end burgers were grilled and enjoyed. I kicked off the evening with an oh-so-veddy-British gin & tonic and then declared my freedom from colonial rule by switching to local microbrews. Now we're watching 1776. Which I seem never to have mentioned is a favorite of mine. Not so much cos it's a great movie but because it was the first musical I ever saw on Broadway. One of the advantages of having grown up in NYC is that I got to take school trips to see Broadway shows. Well, only twice (probably would've been more if I'd ended up being a theater geek instead of a band/orchestra geek) but still not too shabby. I had the Playbill from that show kicking around my folks' house for a long time but I'm pretty sure it got tossed in some mad frenzy of cleaning at some point over the decades.
One thing which I first noticed last year when TCM showed 1776 with the restored footage of "Cool Considerate Men" (apparently cut from the movie at the request of Nixon) is that the number (which I'd forgotten about after multiple viewings of the movie had gotten in the way of my memories of the play) is anachronistically using the right/left political spectrum. Dickinson and his boys sing that they're "to the right, ever to the right, never to the left." But the idea of left and right as we understand it today is generally thought to have come from the French Revolution. Or about 13 years after the movie takes place. Oh well. The number is rather obviously more about the political realities of the 1960s than the 1770s. But if it's not a great song, it is a pretty good number with all the minuet-ing and then everyone driving off in horse drawn carriages waving walking sticks in the air.

So we decided to skip going out for Valentine's Day. Instead we're hanging out at home -- got a fire going, watching ski jumping (and other variety sports from this afternoon's Olympics which we recorded), and making home-made steamed pork buns. Actually we've been working on those on and off since yesterday morning when I started brining the pork belly for the filling. Everything has gone pretty smoothly other than this AM when the Fiesta baking dish exploded in the 450 oven, spilling a mix of water, chicken stock and melted pork fat all over the floor of the oven. That was exciting. At least nothing burst into flames. Sarah got me a new Wüsthof knife (a santoku, which we were lacking) and I got her a new Ella Fitzgerald box set. So, yeah, maybe we know each other a bit at this point.
And for dessert? Peanut butter & bacon truffles from Scratch.

Here's a current fave side dish for these wintry months: spicy sweet collards. The recipe's by Aaron McCargo and, yes, I did see it on an episode of his show. What I like about it is that it's a collards recipe that doesn't take all day to make. I have few notes and things I've adapted after cooking it a couple of times. It's definitely important to cut the collards super-thin if you want them to cook quickly. Think chiffonade. I roll up 5 or 6 leaves and then cut them. I've also cut back on the amount of heat -- a hefty teaspoon of chili-garlic paste worked well, a full tablespoon of aleppo pepper was a bit too much. Also, I've kicked up the sugar (1.5 or 2 Tbsp). And, altho they are edible in the 8 min. cooking time in the original recipe... c'mon, they're collards... it's tough to overcook them. I got results I liked after about 20 min.

Having a nice lowkey day. Sarah got me this kit that converts a Weber grill into a BBQ smoker so I decided to test drive that today on some country ribs. A pretty good first run. The smoke was great and the meat got cooked. Maybe a bit dry and not as fall-apart tender as I generally like my ribs. Need to work on regulating the heat better. It seemed to fluctuate a bit too much between too hot and not enough to cook anything. Tried to smoke some potatoes to recreate the amazing smoked potato salad I had a 12 Bones back when we were in Asheville but they steadfastly refused to get cooked in time for dinner.

It's spring. Which means it's asparagus season. I saw this recipe for prosciutto-wrapped roasted asparagus. And I thought, hey, I'm in the South. I should try that with country ham. Finally got around to trying it tonight and it was damn good. I think next time I'll try wrapping 4 spears in each slice of ham instead of 5. And maybe roasting for another minute or two. Something to adjust for the difference in thickness between prosciutto and country ham. But, like the original post says, you don't need to do anything like steaming or blanching or tossing with oil. Just wrap with ham and pop in the oven. Next time I'll also try to get a picture.

Here's another link I lost track of in my mailbox. An excellent article on science and cooking. MG hataz be advised -- these are not the droids yr looking for. Also covers some of the history of science in the kitchen, including McGee and This. And includes This' chocolate chantilly recipe, which I really do need to try at some point.

Speaking of "there's nothing about that I don't love" -- bacon-infused bourbon old-fashioned. I still think bacon ice cream will be my next bacon project, but I may give the infused bourbon a try as well.

Here's a really interesting post about the impact of food color on flavor. I'd never thought about it quite like this before but it makes sense. Thinking about the example she gives, I'm sure that my assumption, before tasting, would be that a redder cherry sauce would be fresher tasting than one that was brown. Even if the sauces were exactly the same, it's not surprising that you might taste them as different based on the visuals and they way they alter your expectations. This probably relates to studies I've read about that say people tend to reject blue food. That is, blue food that's not supposed to be blue. Dye a bunch of mashed potatoes blue and most people won't want any. And I've had the experience where I've felt that adding food color to something changes the flavor. Which of course it doesn't. If you gave me spoons of the same buttercream dyed blue and yellow to taste while I was blindfolded, there'd certainly be no way to tell them apart. But if I tasted the same thing w/o the blindfold, it wouldn't at all surprise me to find that, say, the yellow frosting tasted more buttery.

Great new blog by Michael Ruhlman, in support of his new book, Elements of Cooking. The plan is to post a different element of cooking every Monday. So far he's covered aromatics, water, and pate a choux. And there have been comments from a number of food bloggers and at least one instructor from CIA. Awesome stuff!

In case Thanksgiving doesn't make your week festive enough, the day after will be Black Friday Beer Fest. A nice way to spend a couple of hours in the afternoon and recuperate from a day of shopping, college football, or (in my case) work. I'm very excited to see that Arrogant Bastard will be on the beer list for the event.

And, in other yeast-related news, here's a nice tutorial on how to cut pain epi. It's a scissor cut you can use on a batard or baguette type of loaf that makes for a really nice presentation of your bread.

Before re-capping vacation (which won't take that long because we did NOTHING for vast stretches of time... and it was great), I should mention the class I went to at Southern Season last weekend. It was on baking with whole grains, led by Peter Reinhart. In addition to being a well-known baker and very influential in the artisan baking scene, he also teaches at J&W down in Charlotte and is the author of several books, including a new one on whole grains. This was actually the first class in his book/teaching tour on the new book. But you'd never have known it. Everything went off smoothly and he did a great job of getting out a lot of information (and a lot of new information, even for someone with a background in baking) in an entertaining fashion. He did various steps in a couple of different kinds of breads and starters, as well as a whole grain cracker. That was the only recipe that I thought didn't come off all that well. Not so much the recipe, I guess, as the version presented. Needed a bit more seasoning. And, because it uses milled seeds, it was a little dry. Sorta came apart as I was eating it -- would have been better if presented with some cheese or dip, I think. Anyway, this was the second time I've been to a class at Southern Season. It's a nice set-up. If you're sitting down front you can get a good view of what the chef/instructor is doing on your own, or you can check out the video monitors overhead for a close up. And if you're at all interested in bread, I highly recommend any of Peter Reinhart's books and getting yourself to any class he teaches in your area.

bread good...