Pasta al Salmone

Thursday 22 September

The classic.

Cold Swordfish and Green Sauce

Wednesday 21 September

Two nice swordfish fillets left over from Monday, kept moist by their jellied sauce.  Ground up some of the jelly, including any garlic slices, with fresh parsley and cilantro from the garden, plus spoonfuls of capers and Dijon mustard, to make a green sauce topping, and put that back on the fish.  Vegetable: warmed-over chickpeas and greens, also from Monday.

Ribeye with Herbed Goat Cheese and Leftover Vedge

Tuesday 20 September

After yesterday's incredible dinner, something simple.  Succulent grilled steak on the bone, topped with the herbed goat cheese from yesterday, and a selection of yesterday's varied and tasty leftover vedge.

Dvorah's family dinner

Monday 19 September

Our dear friend Dvorah and her family - sister Ziona, her husband Miko, brother Aytan, and his wife Lyla - were doing a road trip after a family wedding, and we were delighted to hear that they were coming through Cincinnati.  So it was a kosher vegetarian dinner for seven!

 We started, of course, with appetizers to sit down and chat over, with a nice pour of chardonnay, coke, or lemon balm iced tea.  Barbara made two batches of goat cheese spread, one with fresh garden herbs, the other with oil-cured tomatoes.  There were dolmas, and Holt's own cornichons; then we jazzed up Dean's festive and mediterranean blend olives with some rosemary, thyme, and fresh olive oil, and laid out a platter of smoked salmon, flanked with fresh zephyr squash chips (thanks, Benriner!) and sour cream.  Oh, and the caponata we made a few weeks ago - keeps great in a jar in the fridge.  

Holt made his fabulous focaccia, with fresh rosemary chopped into the dough.  Unfortunately, Dora the Explorer decided to take a little walk across the rising dough; you could see her little catprint in it, but luckily there was a towel on top, and it tasted just fine while raising a few indulgent chuckles.  

Then we sat down at the table to the feast of vegetable contorni we'd prepared: little new potatoes boiled with turmuric; heirloom tomatoes and purple basil on a bed of arugula; roasted red peppers dressed with olive oil, garlic and capers; Lidia's Ligurian green beans (just parboil, cool in water, then french the beans; sauté a couple of cracked garlic cloves in a pan of olive oil, add some anchovy fillets and break up; then toss in green beans and mix around); roasted asparagus and batons of heirloom carrots; the late unlamented chickpeas, which we'd kept frozen, now cooked till absolutely tender and simmered with onions fried with hefty shots of coriander, cumin, and smoked paprika, then with parboiled collard greens; and Dvorah's own recipe for pickled beets and turnips.  

Once there was space on the table, we added the main dish, Lidia's Bagnara swordfish with plenty of lemon and capers.  Of course, everything was served family-style.

Dessert was Jacques Pepin's classic recipe for fruit tart pastry, filled with fresh South Carolina peaches - and for honored visitors, Graeter's peach and coconut chip ice cream to go on top.

As they say in China, what a fress.

A Midsummer Night's Wrap

Sunday 18 September

This is our second Shakespearean dinner this week, this time enacted in person by the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival in the Park - and the park was Burnet Woods, right near our house.  Barbara walked there and saved us a bench, while Holt brought her a few wraps foraged from the department's opening party at Baba Budan's.  One chicken, and one falafel, both with salad, both rather bland.  But it doesn't matter when Bottom is condoling in some measure.

In Honor of Archie Christopherson

Saturday 17 September

Sharon and the family invited us over for Archie's 80th birthday party, a wonderful occasion which was full of friendly conversation, good drink, funny songs by his kids, and a mandolin serenade on an instrument he had built himself.  As usual, the spread was bountiful, including a side of cold smoked salmon, little bagels and rolls with tenderloin, savory-spiced beef satay, horseradish sauce, tiny pierogis, artichoke dip, shrimp with cocktail sauce, Archie and Sharon's home-made dolma, and later, both a chocolate and a strawberry shortcake birthday cake.  Knob Creek bourbon, too.

So it was with heartache that we heard that, after the party was winding down, he went up to bed with a headache, suffered a stroke that very night, and died within days.  We hope that his last thoughts were of his wife and children giving him such a wonderful party, and of all of the people who love him. 

Shrimp and Corn with Basil (and a hint for getting the kernels off fresh corn)

Friday 16 September

The basic recipe was this.  But we stir-fried the red onion, then scallion whites, then red bell pepper, then corn kernels, then little kernellettes; set them aside in a bowl and fried up the shrimps on each side, picking up lovely brown from the sugars in the fond; put those in a bowl and deglazed the pan with a little wine.  Returned it all to the pan, rewarmed, and served.

Holt complained that kernels flew everywhere when he scraped them off the cobs, but we've seen a good hint since we did this: set the corncob on the middle height of a bundt pan; when you scrape it down, the kernels go right into the bottom of the bundt pan.