Profile

tnword

  • Location: Black Hills
  • Favorite foods: Ceviche, Andouille, Lox and Bagels on a Sunday morning

5 days in Colorado Springs - where to eat?

I stumbled on a family Italian while there for a kids soccer tournament. It was clearly a long-standing institution. The building had "Pizza and Spaghetti" painted on it and it wasn't in a very great part of ton, but the food as phenomenal. My google search didn't trigger any candidates, but a local (or concierge) should be able to make it work. It was east of I-25 and across from a drug store. Sorry the memory has faded.

Healthy and Delicious: Fresh Corn Salad

Like salpice, I like a little more color, so I use edamame for green and roasted Hatch chiles for red, which gives a nice kick to the whole dish as well. I also prefer the corn roasted to boiled/blanched.

Serious Cocktails: Drinking Without Drinking

Mango and orange juices, mixed with about equal parts soda, and topped with a splash of homemade, flavored simple syrup...usually ginger, but sometimes chile/lime.

Infusing Liquors

I do rums of all kinds...10 Cane with blood orange zest, Appelton with chiles and/or ginger, Mount Gay with dried cherries, allspice and nutmeg. The best of all is Zaya (a very dark, deep rum) with split vanilla beans.

Seriously Delicious Holiday Giveaway: Zingerman's Praise the Lard Gift Box

Our Thanksgiving is different. Instead of a traditional menu, each person gets to cook whatever he wants. This year, the six main and side dishes were: pork loin with Chipotle glaze (15-year-old cook), calzones with ham, bacon and cheese sauce (12-year-old cook), fried potatoes with pancetta, standing rib of pork, dirty rice with pork and alligator sausage (16-year-old cook) and cajun shrimp. Alas, there was no pork with the shrimp, but by that point, you could dredge them on your plate and get the effect of bacon-wrapping them.

'The New York Times' Doesn't Know What the Flying Spaghetti Monster Is

Clearly this is a heretical attempt to divide the Pastafarians. The true FSM sees with meatballs, not malted milk balls.

A dessert schism?

For those of you not yet touched by his noodley appendage, the FSM is fond of beer and blames global warming on a lack of pirates.

Best dish you've had at a restaurant

Roasted duck breast with a port wine/cherry sauce at Prairie in Chicago. Mind-bending.

Sample Thanksgiving Dinner Menus

We abandoned the traditional Thanksgiving menu after I caught myself telling my then five-year-old that "You can't have corn dogs for Thanksgiving." Now everyone draws from a hat and prepares a main dish, side dish or dessert. (Appetizers and drinks if the gathering is large enough to warrant specialization).

The rule is that you have to make it yourself. As a result, we have the whole family cooking together all day and it has become our favorite holiday tradition.

Last year's menu (with just our immediate family):

Turkey rouladen with andoullie/cornbread stuffing (Mine)
Baby-back ribs (15 year old)
Sweet potato fries (11 year old)
Arepas (Mom)
Creme Brulee (14 year old)

Other highlights over the years have included Jamaican jerk pork steaks, spinach custard timbales, trifle and, of course, corn dogs!

What's the craziest thing you ever ate?

Sea cucumber w/ soy sauce and garlic, and raw, frozen, salted pork fat, sliced thin and just thawed enough to melt in your mouth. On the same night.

The first was horrible (especially since I had to eat double for a squeamish friend). The second was surprisingly good...think butter and you're not far off.

Both were enabled by vast quantities of vodka and a desire not to create an international incident. That night we also had freshly-caught scallops from the Russian Pacific, served raw with nothing but a squeeze of lemon, which may be the best thing I have ever eaten.

Thanksgiving Redefined--You Are Invited

Seven years ago, my then five-year-old told me he wanted corn dogs for Thanksgiving dinner. After chuckling and telling him "no," it dawned on me that there was no reason that every Thanksgiving dinner had to be the same and I relented. (To be honest, I was hearing the Harry Chapin song "Flowers are Red" in my head and didn't like being the teacher.)

That has sparked our Thanksgiving tradition. Everyone gets to pick whatever he want for the Thanksgiving dinner. The only firm rules are that it cannot be pre-made and that the chooser has to participate in the cooking.

We also (usually) draw from a hat to determine whether you will make a main dish, a side dish or a dessert. With three young boys, this kept us from having nothing but desserts. Some years, when we have a full house, the categories have expanded to include appetizers and drinks.

After seven years, it has become a great day when we all cook together and my boys (now 16, 15 and 12) have learned to love to pick something different every year.

The menu has included Jamaican pork steaks with herb dumplings, BBQ babyback ribs, spinach custard timbales and brownies...all things that the kids picked out and cooked.

When we have guests, they do tend to re-insert the traditional Thanksgiving fare: turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet potato pie, etc. But I figure that is in keeping with our theme of cooking what you want.

Even my father-in-law, at 80, cooked for perhaps the first time in his life. He drew a dessert and made a fruit salad, which was as far as his cooking skills would take him.

If anyone else takes up the torch, I would be interested to hear the results!

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