Fab Pizza!

Last night my beautiful Italian friend Fabrizio & I made pizza. That is -- Fabrizio made pizza while I drank wine! I brought a white bordeaux for the occasion -- this one was dry and clean and gravelly, but not exceptionally flavorful. I think I prefer white burgundy.

The pizza, on the other hand, was mama-slappin' hot! I'm so impressed and inspired to rededicate myself to pizza making now.

We tried four different variations on two pans. On one side of the first pan he made a margherita pizza with an uncooked tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, salt, and fresh basil. The second side of the first pan had slices of fresh tomato, fresh mozzarella, salt and basil.


What I was particularly impressed with was the uncooked tomato sauce. What a revelation! I usually make my pizza by reducing canned whole tomatoes for about 5 hours over low heat. It results in a highly flavored and sweet sauce. It's thick, too - edging onto pasty. I've always been happy with it and gotten lots of compliments, but Fabrizio's uncooked sauce has converted me. He took a can of crushed tomatoes and added to it a bunch of quartered onion pieces. He didn't do anything with the onions other than let them infuse the tomatoes. And the flavor of the resulting sauce was wonderful - tangy and fresh and a perfect balance for the richness of the cheese. The crust was delicious, too -- who says you need a pizza stone? Fabrizio used two metal sheet pans slathered with olive oil.

In the second pan Fabrizio made one pizza with the uncooked tomato sauce, mozarella, red onion, and butter and another pizza with fresh mozzarella and mustard greens sautéed in red pepper and bacon.




Here's a surprise: I liked the red onion pizza the best! Who would have thought to drizzle butter on a pizza?! It was perfect. The richness of the butter brought out the cheese's milkiness and balanced the tang of the onion and tomato sauce. Cheers to Fabrizio! The mustard green pizza was very good, too - but Fabrizio was worried it was a little too salty. It was very hearty and the greens were perfect after cooking for about 30 minutes. So good! I had seconds rather than strawberry ice cream for dessert....

Fried chicken salad?

I think I may have gone a little overboard when I described Gus's Fried Chicken to my friend Nico. (Most amazing chicken in the world? Would it even be possible to defend that?) But no one had taken him! He's visiting from France and has been here for months, and not a single one of his friends has thought to take him to Gus's??? So, I took him today.

I know I've written about Gus's before, but it makes me happy to be able to say it's just as good as the the first time. The chicken was delicious, spicy, moist, etc. The beans and slaw were still standard.


I'd never tried the fried green tomatoes -- they were nice, but not amazing. They turned a little mushy inside their thick batter coat and were *very* greasy. Mostly what I tasted was the grease and mild vegetable-sweetness. I'll never understand why people don't just cut the tomato slices thicker.

One thing that changed for the better: the service was outstanding. Nico wanted mayonnaise with his fries but the first server I caught told us they didn't have any. But our waitress volunteered to look for some anyway. When she found it she brought it out in this little bowl and Nico was so happy! It was really sweet of her.

Protein & Fruit

Shawn is so amazing it makes me feel guilty. Look at what he made me for dinner:

arugula salad with strawberries, feta, and a honey-lemon vinaigrette.
This was my favorite part of the meal. The arugula's bitter peppery-ness played well with the sweetness of the strawberries. Straightforward salty feta and this *delicious* vinaigrette. Shawn tells me he makes it by infusing lemon into some oil then mixing it with the vinegar and honey. His version is so well balanced, and I guess that's the key to vinaigrette.


Seared sea bass with a baba ghanoush crust and little slivers of pepper.
Yum! This was a very generous piece of fish and Shawn seared it then baked it. The inside stayed so soft. You know how fish often flakes apart after you cook it? This one was so perfectly rare that the flaking was minimal. And the baba ghanoush was very tender and salty. I could taste the roasting as well as the earthiness of the eggplant. I wouldn't have thought to put it with sea bass, but it was nice. Shawn's restraint is evident in this dish: I would have been tempted to add citrus or something to offset the richness of the ghanoush. Shawn trusted the freshness of the fish to do this. He was right.

There was also a crème brûlée, but I forgot to take a picture of it. I wish I had, though, because I have a lot to say about this dessert. I'm a little exigent about desserts...only because I make them so often myself and don't usually prefer them to savory things. If I'm going to eat a dessert it had better be damn good. Shawn's crème brûlée is very good. I liked that the crust was nice and thin and crunchy (and didn't taste even the least metallic or butane-like). The flavor was nice, too -- though he claims there was lemongrass and ginger in it. I could only detect those flavors indistinctly and on the backend once it warmed up in my mouth. My only real complaint was the texture. Shawn added more egg yolk than a classic recipe would require. It made the color much richer and the crème thicker. -- Which was far from bad. It was lovely -- but less like a crème, which is distinct from gelatin-thickened desserts or flour-thickened puddings by it's delicateness. Like it's quivering between states. This one touched my tongue and got rolled around. My favorite crème brûlées melt there.

delta fair

I always have high expectations of fair food. And the Delta Fair totally delivered! Bryan and I had funnel cake, gyro, pronto-pup, and the most *outrageously* tasty cajun chicken-on-a-stick. Moist chicken, thick-cut onions, spicy salty seasoning, all fried in a crunchy brown oiled casing. And the best part? They gave us these little plastic packets of ranch dressing to squeeze onto our chicken while we walked! Whoa!

if you can't stand the heat...part four

This was very time consuming. Delicious, but I'm not sure I'd do it again. And I cheated on my rules. Or at least I bent the rules. The noodles need to be cooked, but I used the scalding hot water that comes straight from our tap. Only use so far for the kitchen sink water that goes from frosty to burning in 5 seconds.

Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad (adapted from an epicurious.com recipe)

1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 red onion, quartered and thinly sliced

8 ounces firm dried rice noodles

1/2 cup fresh lime juice
6 tablespoons water
6 tablespoons sugar
5-6 tablespoons Asian fish sauce, to taste
1 teaspoon dried hot red-pepper flakes
1 teaspoon soy sauce, optional
2 teaspoons minced garlic, optional

1/3 cup chopped fresh mint
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 large cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, thinly sliced
4 green onions, thinly sliced
2 carrots, peeled, julienned
1 red pepper, julienned
1 cup bean sprouts
4 tablespoons chopped lightly salted cashews

Whisk vinegar and sugar in medium bowl to blend. Add onion and toss to coat. Cover and let stand at least 30 minutes and up to 4 hours. Drain, reserving vinegar mixture. Pile cucumbers, carrots and peppers in individual piles on top of onions and drizzle vinegar over, then drain again, taking care not to disturb the piles. Reserve 2 tablespoons of vinegar.

Cook noodles in large pot of boiling water until tender but still firm to bite, about 2 minutes. Drain. Rinse under cold water. Drain well.

Whisk lime juice, water, sugar, fish sauce, red pepper flakes and garlic and soy sauce if using in small bowl to blend.

Place finely julienned romaine lettuce in the bottom of a large bowl. Place noodles on top. Drizzle with reserved 2 tablespoons vinegar mixture and toss to coat. Pile the cucumber, green onions, carrot, red pepper, bean sprouts and onions into separate piles on top of noodles. Sprinkle with cashews and serve with lime juice mixture on the side for flavoring to taste.

Serves 6

if you can't stand the heat...part three

Taco salad: Toss together greens, chopped tomato, chopped red onion, sliced avocado, a small can of black beans and kernels from a couple of ears of corn. Toss with crumbled tortilla chips and dress with lime and chopped cilantro leaves.

if you can't stand the heat...part two

This salad was delicious, sated my protein craving, and required no cooking. Perfect.

Smoked turkey & black bean succotash salad

3 cups diced, cooked smoked turkey breast
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup fresh corn kernels
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup diced bell peppers (any colors)
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
3 cups arugula or salad greens mix

Dressing
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint (plus leaves for garnish)
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1/2 cup tomato juice
2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon sherry (or balsamic) vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil

Combine turkey, beans, corn, tomatoes, bell peppers and onion in a bowl. Whisk all dressing ingredients in another bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Add dressing to turkey mixture and toss to combine. Divide greens among 4 plates and top with turkey salad.