Bittman Cookbook Scores with Chicken Adobo

From Neil on Food by Neil Nathanson

August 7, 2011

On the way back from OSSA soccer tryouts this afternoon, Dana and I stopped for a Jamba (Green Tea something) and decided to also pick something up for dinner at New Seasons. Nothing was striking my fancy, however, when I remembered the How to Cook Everything iPhone app on my phone. I clicked on Most Popular and Chicken Adobo was the fifth recipe listed. (The first most popular is “Boiled Water” which reminds me that whenever we would ask my Dad what was for dinner, he would always respond “Boiled Water and Fried Toothpicks.” Notwithstanding the title, Bittman is serious about “Boiled Water” which is apparently a basic soup.)

The Chicken Adobo was easy to make and quite tasty (maybe a little too salty - I may cut back on the soy sauce a little next time.) Dana gave it two thumbs up!

Definitely check out the iPhone app - it’s excellent.

National Donut Day

From Neil on Food by Neil Nathanson

June 3, 2011

My favorite magazine (Portland Monthly) just reminded me in its Facebook stream that today, the first Friday in June, is National Donut Day. According to Wikipedia, National Donut Day was started as a fundraiser for the Chicago Salvation Army in 1938. I feel like I am getting a late start on this important holiday, but I will be playing catch-up aggressively. I have “fritter"ed away enough National Donut Days. Eating donuts on this national holiday is the “yeast” that I can do. I will eat until my eyes “glaze” over, and I am maple “barred” from further donuts, at least until next year.

Portland Monthly also printed its top ten local donut shops. See http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/blogs/eat-beat/march-9-doughnuts/. However, I rely on local donut expert Trey Do[nu]ty for my donut advice. He swears by the following top 3:

Donutland (Tualatin)
Delicious Donuts (Burnside/Grand)
Sesame Donuts (Beaverton-Hillsdale/Scholl’s Ferry)

Have a great National Donut Day!

Birthday Pie!

From Neil on Food by Neil Nathanson

May 15, 2011

My wife requested birthday pie instead of cake last week. I don’t know what possessed me, but I decided to try to bake my own. There actually was an Apple Pie recipe on culinate right at the same time. I considered it, but decided making my own crust was too ambitious for a first effort. I ended up going with the premade crusts that you buy at the grocery. I searched the internet for a recipe that uses orange juice for the liquid because I remembered that being the “secret ingredient” both when I made pie in 7th grade chef shop and for my grandmother. The recipe I found called for cooking the filling in a sauce pot before filling the pie and baking. My biggest challenge was deciding how long to bake especially because I started rather late at night. The pie crust box had one suggestion and the recipe another. I tried to follow the recipe which called for a lower baking temperature, but it had no time, just bake until the crust is golden brown. Unfortunately, I was falling asleep and the crust still didn’t look quite right. I knew that if I didn’t pull it out, however, it would end up burnt as my eyes were closing. This turned out to be the right decision. The crust may have been a little al dente - but it was fine, and certainly better than burnt!

Dagwood Validates Culinate!

From Neil on Food by Neil Nathanson

June 11, 2009

I’m a big fan of the comics! I read just about all of the Oregonian comics daily and I worry whether I will lose this ritual if/when all the newspapers go out of business. Great new comics continue to appear. I’m quite partial to Cul De Sac which is relatively recent.
Some of the old standbys still work, too (even if Pearls Before Swine is always making fun of them). Blondie showed that it is still vibrant today by speculating that instead of FaceBook, Dagwood’s favorite social networking cite is “FoodBook.”
Of course, we all know that FoodBook exists in the form of Culinate and is a great site. For those of you reading this on my FaceBook Blog that have not checked out the real FoodBook - go to www.culinate.com and become a member right away!

Hey Facebook Friends - Check Out Culinate

From Neil on Food by Neil Nathanson

February 17, 2009

This is my third blog entry on the social networking site for foodies - www.culinate.com!

I think I’ve figured out how to export these blog entries into my facebook notes so that they will get a wider audience. This is the test entry to see if the export is working.

If you find this on Facebook, I hope you will also check out Culinate. It’s a great site for finding and sharing recipes, learning about the slow food movement, and just socializing.

Ever notice how at parties everyone ends up congregating in the kitchen? Well if the same holds true for the internet, I think everyone will be moving to Culinate!!!!!!! Hope to see you there.

The Wall of Shame

From Neil on Food by Neil Nathanson

February 11, 2009

In my last blog post I reported on the dramatic improvement in my college meals when my roomates and I started voting a gold star to the winner of the weekly cooking competition.
Many years later, in law school, I again found myself living with several classmates. This time, we rarely prepared communal meals. Spaghetti was a staple in the house. It’s fast to prepare, tastes great, and fits a frugal student’s budget. On some nights, four or five us us might each separately prepare our own spaghetti dinner. Wasted effort? You bet. But, we just didn’t have the organizational skill or motivation to share meal preparation.
With that many people cooking each night, however, clean-up was critical. Without timely clean up, the pots and pans would pile up in no time. Furthermore, if you didn’t clean the spaghetti pot immediately, the next spaghetti chef would be inconvenienced.
The solution - THE WALL OF SHAME. I don’t remember all of the clean up rules, but I do recall that infractions were reported on a piece of paper posted on the kitchen wall for all to see.
As you might imagine with a group of budding lawyers, there were great debates regarding whether reported infractions were fair, and whether the wall accorded sufficient due process to alleged violaters. Notwithstanding some heated moments, the kitchen stayed a lot cleaner, as nobody wanted to be outed on the WALL.

My cooking night!

From Neil on Food by Neil Nathanson

February 6, 2009

A while after my wife went back to work, I volunteered to have a cooking night. Seems fair - one night for me, six for her!!!!! Dinner is now my responsibility on Wednesdays.

The last time that I had a cooking night was decades ago in college at University of Michigan. I shared an apartment with three friends and we decided to share meals on Monday through Thursdays. As you might imagine, the meals were not good.

After a few weeks, someone came up with the idea of a cooking contest. Each Thursday night, we would vote for the best meal of the week. With our competitive fires lit, the meals improved dramatically. Everyone wanted to reap the reward that went along with winning the Thursday vote. And what was the reward that motivated us to produce gourmet fare? A gold star!!!!!!

Next time I will write about cooking while in law school. We did not have the motivational “carrot” of the gold star - but we did have a “stick” when it came to cleaning the kitchen.