A mother-daughter conversation on food and cooking (mostly)
I don't know why I get so annoyed with Mark
Bittman's writing style, but I do, so in an attempt at being a nicer person I'm directing you to his article in the NY Times about
101 Simple Salads.
This is #20, with the substitution of carrots for radishes. I love Chinese cabbage but I forget that it exists until I go the the 17th Street Market where the Asian vegetables are so beautiful. This was refreshing and unusual.
In a final flurry of entertaining, we had Grandma's birthday party today. First Ron and I played a recital of a Mozart duet sonata, the Chopin two-piano rondo Opus 73, and a jazzy Gershwin arrangement. With champagne.
For lunch I made salad plates consisting of a layer of lettuce on which I placed a mounds of curried chicken salad*,
curried lentil salad, grapes, and glazed pecans. I made a batch of
blueberry muffins to serve with the salad.
For dessert I made a French chocloate tart.
*I read in a catering book years ago how to prepare chickens in bulk for various dishes. You put whole chickens in a roasting pan with an inch of water, then tent them loosely with foil and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour and 45 minutes. This keeps them moist but has a lot more flavor than poaching. I used two chickens and then made broth with the carcasses in the crockpot. Last night we had some of the chicken broth in Red Chile Sauce, which I served over thick Sonoran masa cakes.
