Ahem... Did someone ask for snow?

It started like this.



And then someone wished for snow... And then it became like this...



And then like this...





The lesson of this tale: be careful what you wish for... because others may get your wish.

BB

Pre-New Years, Pre-Birthday Before / After

Shamefullylessly ripping off my friend Lola's wonderful before after feature, you've seen the after:



Here's the before:


If you're adept at maths, you will have noticed that there are only 6 bottles of champagne in the before and 10 corks in the after. As it turns out guests were most generous. A friend of mine, Kris, noted that it's a feature of aging: when you're young(er) and have a party, you buy decent alcohol, and at the end of the night your good stuff is gone and you're left with stuff that wouldn't drink even if you were desperate. Fast forward, ahem, 10 years, and after a party you're in surplus, and it's stuff you would gladly drink.

This also gives me a chance, at long last, to respond to PH's tag what's in your refrigerator. What's in my refrigerator: 4 bottles of Lassalle champagne (a fine, single-estate champagne -- highly recommended as a house champagne), two bottles of Ruinart blanc de blancs (one of my two favorite champagnes -- a bit of a splurge here in the US, but if you're in London and can pretend to be French, Nicolas will give you a big discount), 5 bottles of Poland Spring water, 2 bottles of cranberry juice, 5 pots of Fage Greek 0% yogurt (love this word, "pot" -- very British, not used here in the US, where instead you would call it a container, tub, or more technically "thing"), some sort of Austrian cake I bought at Bouchon Bakery (great place in a terrible location if you're in NYC -- it's the bakery attached to Per Se, the impossible-to-get-into 4-star restaurant -- but the bakery is open to all, but sadly located in The Mall, The Time Warner Center), 250g of Lescure AOC butter, lime juice, Arm and Hammer Baking Soda, and some cubes of The Laughing Cow (Light) cheese.

Hope you're all having a wonderful 2009!

xoxo

BB

Transformation*

Clementine and I decided to try another Peter Gordon recipe.... We started here:

And ended up here:


(This is what happens when you put too good a camera in the hands of an amateur...)

But the curries were a great success. One reddish (tomato, sweet potato, red onion, and harissa) and the other green (butternut squash, peas, onion, and some green curry paste)...

BB

* Another theme cheerfully and gratefully stolen borrowed from my friend Lola...

Before / after: Attack of the mushroom mound

It started innocently enough, with the desire to cook a mushroom ragout for 6-9 people. So I doubled the recipe that could feed 4-6 people. I had never seen what 2 kg of mushrooms look like, here it is:


Intimidating and impressive. That's my 10-person paella pan filled to the brim. But the alchemy of the fire again takes over, and after 90 minutes it looks like this:


It was (thanks Mark Bittman) delicious, but still enough to feed 14 people. Since I only had 4 for dinner, if you would like any mushroom ragout drop me a line and I'll send you some in the post.

Cheers,

BB

P.S. Another excellent blogging theme stolen from my friend Lola.