Where I've been in this country:


visited 34 states (68%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or determine the next president

and where else I've been:


visited 15 states (6.66%)
Create your own visited map of The World or determine the next president

It's still kind of pathetic that I grew up in Southern California but have still never been to Mexico.

Yes, you heard me right. Szechuan peppercorn ice cream. Fear my l33t ice cream skillz.

2 cups whipping cream
2 cups half-and-half
1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
4 teaspoons Szechuan Peppercorns
9 egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar

Combine the cream, half-and-half, and vanilla bean. Grind up 2 teaspoons of the peppercorns in a mortar and pestle, and put the result in a loose wire sieve to separate the small, ground dark bits from the light husks; the husks will be caught in the sieve, while the dark bits should fall through. Add the ground dark bits to the cream mixture. Put the remaining peppercorns in a tea ball and place that in the milk mixture as well. Heat the whole mess in a double boiler until it reaches a simmer, and then turn off the heat. Set aside to infuse for 15 minutes. Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar in a separate bowl, large enough for you to add the cream mixture later without overflowing it.

Remove the tea ball from the cream mixture, and then pour the mixture through a wire sieve into a bowl to remove the vanilla bean and loose peppercorns. Scrape the remaining seeds from the inside of the vanilla bean and add back into the cream mixture. Then, whisking constantly, slowly pour the cream mixture into the egg yolk mixture. Put the combined mixture in a large saucepan and cook over low-medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture hits 180 degrees. Then remove it from the heat, and whisk until it drops back down to at least 155 degrees (you're releasing steam during this process). Then chill the mixture for 4 hours in your fridge, and then add it to your ice cream maker.

Yum. Double yum. As the Reduced Shakespeare Company once observed: "Damn -- I'm good!"

And a Grand Economy Sized Tip of the Toque to Prof. Jianhai Ruan, for bringing me the essential ingredient. And another tip to Lumiere Bistro and Wine Bar in Lake Placid, New York for giving me the idea in the first place.

I love science. :)

In my last post, I was enthusing about the menu at a restaurant I've yet to have a chance to try, Applewood in Brooklyn. Looking over their dinner menu, I noticed this entrée: "lemon-snap pea risotto
mascarpone, olive oil."

I'm watching Sis go pitterpat
said "I can do that. I can do that."

'Hmmm' thinks I to myself. Snap peas are currently in season in our farmers' market, the rest of the ingredients aren't too outré for me to acquire here in Champaign-Urbana, and risottos are probably my strong suit in the kitchen. That sounds like a dish ripe for recreation.

Knew every step right off the bat.
Said "I can do that! I can do that!"

A brief shopping expedition to pick up some mascarpone later, some time in the kitchen, et voilà! One lemon snap-pea risotto with mascarpone and olive oil, and if I do say so myself, it rocked. Followed up by some gluten-free angel food cake from the market (new vendor, and the angel food cake also rocked) with black raspberries, blackberries and cointreau, it made for a pretty darn good dinner. For those of you wanting to try the risotto at home, here's the basics:

2 cups arborio rice
2 quarts chicken stock
1/2 cup good parmigiano reggiano
1/2 cup white wine (recommend a New Zealand sauvignon blanc or an unoaked chardonnay)
1/3 to 1/2 cup mascarpone
2 1/2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons good olive oil
1 1/2 to 2 cups blanched snap peas
2 shallots, chopped fine
Zest of two large lemons (recommend breaking out a microplane grater for this)
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Bring all the stock to a light boil for adding to the risotto while you're cooking. Melt the butter in a large sauce pan over medium heat, and then add the shallots and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes. Don't let them get too brown. Add the rice and a pinch of salt, and turn down the heat a little. Cook the rice, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes. Turn the heat back up to medium, and add the white wine. Cook until the wine is absorbed, then add enough of the stock to cover the rice, and add another pinch of salt and a few grindings from a pepper grinder. Keep cooking the rice, stirring frequently, for 25 minutes, adding more stock when the previous bunch of stock has been absorbed.

Once the rice is cooked, add the lemon zest, lemon juice snap-peas, mascarpone, parmigiano, olive oil and another few grindings from the pepper grinder. Add another few ladles of stock (you should have used up almost all of the stock at this point), mix, and let cook on medium-low heat for another 3-4 minutes. Serve with extra parmigiano for grating on top. If you want to get fancy on presentation, a few extra snap peas arranged on top of each bowl would be a good option.

Between the butter, olive oil, parmigiano and mascarpone, it's maybe not the lightest dish in the world. But darn tasty.

Sour cherries have come into season in our farmers' market. parisgreen and I have been extracting sour cherry juice and making some truly excellent bourbon sours using the sour cherry juice. I wondered whether it would be possible to muddle some mint in there and basically do a sour cherry julep. I did a little web searching to see if someone else had done something similar, and hit the website for a restaurant in Brooklyn called Applewood.

Check out the cocktail menu and the dinner menu. I need someone to check this place out and give me a report. Whoever's running the bar end of things is obviously a person of distinction and character.

On the continuing list of things you don't want to see outside your front door, add this:



Image courtesy of Ms. Lori Mehman of Orchard, Iowa, who took this photo from her front porch before running and hiding like a sensible person.

So, we had a line of severe thunderstorms roll across the state today. Our weather alert radio rang no less than 3 alarms about it, warning of possible quarter-size hail and 70 mph winds. It rolled over us, and while we did get a few wind gusts, it moved through so fast it did almost nothing.

Nothing, that is, except apparently bring a tree branch a wee too close to a power line, and took out our power, along with most of our neighborhood. Stupid storm. So, I got to take my first shot at cooking chicken tikka masala by the cheery glow of my laptop screen.

Fortunately, it came out extremely well, at least in part because the chicken was actual tandoori I had done up on the grill yesterday. Yum. Unfortunately, because the power was out, and we didn't really think that a dish consisting of large amounts of chicken and cream was something that would survive without refrigeration, we threw out what we didn't eat.

Thereby guaranteeing, of course, that the power would come back on in three minutes making us kick ourselves for throwing out all that spicy, creamy goodness. Oh well.

And for those wondering, no, we are not in the flooded part of Illinois. You would be hard pressed to name a direction we could driving in *without* hitting something that is flooding, but we are not. In fact, our sump pump has apparently gotten into its summer mode -- I haven't heard it doing anything in a couple of days, which is typical once we get into the summer season. All of the trees in our neighborhood are pretty effective straws keeping the water table lower than our basement in summer.

Your brasserie's food is indeed very tasty, but having a 20' animatronic tree frog appear over my shoulder and start singing "Lowrider" during dinner is not conducive to good digestion.

Oh, I have so got to lay my hands on one of these.

My muffin-manufacturing friends have made the cover of the NY Times Science section. I'm so proud. Photos of Digital Preservationist Extraordinaire Keith Johnson & daughter Karydis taking a ride in their muffin-mobile are available here.