Time?

How do people do it? How do they have time to make dinner and clean up (having a dishwasher probaby helps!) and do their volunteer work and take care of their families and do their jobs and work out and see their friends? How do they do it all?

Sick!

Uuugggh. There is nothing worse than being sick and throwing up. I'm not sure what's up. Whether my bi-valves and red wine allergy has now extended to fish since for dinner I had a Thai dish of salmon in curry and several hours later, I had one glass of red wine. Or, if I have picked up what I hear is a nasty bug that is spreading like wildfire. Either way, yuk!

But, since this is a food blog, I am going to look to the food side of things and say that hands down, the best upset stomach food is saltines, peanut butter, gatorade, and bananas. This menu seems to be digesting well and keeping in its place, if you know what I mean. Let's hope that all stays there tonight.

Food porn: Molly Wizenberg

Every blog needs to sprinkle in a few posts titled this, correct? But, I really do have a good example; I'm not just trying to be hip (although, that's a part of it, too--I must admit)! Reading bon appetit this weekend I 'discovered' (like Columbus 'discovered' a land completely populated by people already) Molly Wizenberg, who seems to be quite famous, actually (there is a pretty full set of images of her on Google images!). She is a food writer for bon appetit, a blogger--see the new addition, Orangette, to my favs list--and a chef/restaurateur, owner of Delancey in Seattle. She is also the author of a food and life memoir A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table.

So, my saying I 'discovered' her is just ridiculous, but her article in the February 2010 issue of bon appetit, a love letter to celery root, is food porn at its best. Read and dream of this ugly duckling at your table.

Gum Crackers!

Seriously. Shut your mouth! No one wants to hear what's going on inside of it. Believe me.

We were walking along Commercial Street today on this crisp, sunny winter day, absolutely delightful when Deb wants to go in a store. I have the dog, so I just decide to wait across the street, standing in a beam of sunlight, breathing in the fresh salt air and loving Provincetown when so few people are in town when CRACK! POP@! CRACK! A woman is getting out of her car--which, by the way, she is parking illegally, cracking her gum loud enough to be heard at the end of the pier. And she never stopped. How many pieces of gum does one need to have filling up the space between their teeth and gums in order to make that damn much noise? But the bigger question is why, tell me why, do people--99% of the time, women and girls--do it? What is the appeal? It's like a fricking addiction. Enough! GO GET HELP! No one wants to hear that nastiness.  I'm calling for a universal ban on gum cracking! Who's with me?

I do not chew gum. I was not allowed to do it as a child because my mother said it made a person look like a cow and she 1) was right, and 2) thank you mom! It is one of her life's lessons for which I am most thankful. I am especially against gum chewing because I think that for some reason, females tend to be particularly drawn to it and it makes females appear unable to control themselves in some primal way. It's ridiculously unprofessional behavior, ungracious, unattractive, a sign of bad manners, and it makes people who engage in it--women and girls mostly--easily dismissed and not taken seriously.  And the cracking--enough said. Shut your mouth! Take yourself seriously and others will, too. Enough!

Restoration

I took my unhappy tummy to Chach and am now restored. A basic and delicious breakfast burrito--a flour tortilla stuffed with perfectly cooked eggs, black beans, and cheddar cheese topped with salsa and sour cream. Roasted red bliss pototoes with herbs on the side and fresh brewed iced tea with lemon quarters thick and juicy enough that when you squeeze them, a good dose of lemon juice drops into the tea. Delight.

Chach has become one of our favorite places in Ptown. (There really is a Chach--someone called out her name today!) What a pleasant place to be. Bright yellow walls and red vinyl booths, Patsy Cline singing away, locals sitting together or alone at the bar and talking to the super friendly staff, and just really good home cooked food. Deb had a reuben and tasty fries. I wish we were locals (for oh so many reasons) and were here during the week so we could go to Mexican night on Tuesday nights--an event so popular that this little homey place recommends making a reservation. All the online restaurant reviews give it almost all of their allocation of stars. They are all deserved.

Thank you Chach for restoring my sensitive tummy and giving our spirits a quiet little place to be for a while.

Bye bye bi-valves

It's official: no bi-valves ever again. After a lovely dinner with friends at one of our favorite places in Provincetown, the Mews, I spent a night akin to that of a college freshman hugging the porcelain goddess, as we used to say.

I experienced a similar fate about three years ago after a delicious cioppino and a couple glasses of red wine at the Alchemist in Jamaica Plain. What?! About a couple months before that, I was doing the same thing after a dinner of mussels. Last night, I had a delicious dish of grilled scallops with handmade papparadelle in a lemony wine sauce. But, boy oh boy, not so fun later. And now I know: I can never eat shell fish again. Not ever.

Turns out, according to the Cleveland Clinic website pages on food allergies, shellfish allergies are more common in adults. And, being a medical writer, I know that allergies can come on during adulthood. But I have always believed myself, I don't know, above such things. But alas...I am not. I am a foodie who now cannot eat a whole range of foods that I really enjoy.

My biggest fear now? Oysters. I LOVE oysters. If those, too, need to be off my list, it will be a very sad day for me! I ate oysters last summer at the new oyster bar at the Pig here in Ptown, and that was all fine. Sitting at the bar in the middle of the day enjoying a plate of 6 oysters with a spicy cocktail sauce and a squeeze of fresh lemon, washing it all down with a bloody Mary was a joyous hour or two spent indeed. While it will not be a crime for my waistline if I can never have a fried oyster po'boy again, my soul will be devastated. Let's hope that oysters do not enter the realm of the forbidden....we'll have to wait for summer to see. Until then, stick with meat!

Best Deal in Town

Hands down is L'Espalier on Cheese Night. For $75 per person, you are served four courses, each with an accompanying wine, including the cheese course. Each course features a cheese that is the focus of the evening. Outstanding.

We have gone to Cheese Night a few times, and each one has been a delight. Our trip last week, however, included a special treat. The evening featured selections from the Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery. The special treat was that the founder and head cheese maker, Allison Hooper, and a 10-top table of her friends were with us for the evening.

The VBCC is best known, I think, for two products: the bright pink containers of creme fraiche (and the only brand of this that you can find most places) and their butter, which is creamy and fresh and tastes how butter is really supposed to taste.  This night was an opportunity to try her cheeses, which I have to admit, I had never tried. I am always eager to reach for cheeses from further away--like Europe; to choose those from just a few miles north didn't seem adventurous or indulgent enough. I even resisted the "buy local" trend by arguing that we needed to all buy local from small artisan fromagers in Europe if we want them to survive. And I do, so I buy. I've also not been as content with local cheeses, believing they lack the depth and delicacy of European cheeses. I have been put in my place!

Hooper learned to make cheese in France, so she has a European sensibility to her cheesemaking; only fresh ingredients, and take the time to do it right every time.

She gave an introduction and then introduced her cheese course, which featured "Cheese 17" a still as yet unnamed new cheese that we were being offered as a trial run. While most of VBCC cheeses are made from goats milk, #17 is a dual-latte of goat and cow. It was closest to the French d'aufinois. Creamy goat with a little cow funk. The delight of eating these cheeses this night was that they were chosen at their best, so each selection was fresh, pungent with real depth and delicate on the palate. The cheese course also featured two standards: a fresh cottin, an easy, very pleasing little cheese, and a bonne bouche, a little runny, richer, ash covered rind. Both delicious.

Of course she has a book out now: In a Cheesemaker's Kitchen, that we had to buy. The photos are beautiful, the recipes look like the align with her philsophy of the best ingredients well prepared, and shared with love.  But if nothing else, it's addition to our collection will remind me to choose her cheeses and to be on the lookout for #17 when it arrives in the market.