At some point, I'll get around to writing a longer treatise on the wonders - consisting, in roughly equal proportion, of cardiac perfidy and gustatory revelation - of In-N-Out's "Animal Style" offerings. But not today. Today - and, if you saw my recent column on Savory Onion Jam, I guess you'd say all week - I have eyes only for condiments, and few condiments inspire like In-N-Out's insanely caramelized onions.
Downtown Santa Rosa eatery gets a new lease on life
Forthcoming nightclub to be called "Rapture"
Yesterday, as I was blabbering about cooking with friends, I tried to argue that the biggest prize from letting another cook into your kitchen is, aside from some help with the dishes, the potential to eat a meal that you'd not otherwise have thought of. A case in point comes courtesy of a dear friend's torrid love affair with thermal immersion circulators and my new favorite condiment: A pitch-perfect finger sandwich of pork loin sous-vide, local blue cheese, and savory onion "jam".
Whoopie cookies, macarons, profiteroles, frosting shots and cupcake truffles get added to the Sift menu
What are you going to do in the New Year?
Pies, southern cooking, haute dogs and "free" foods are hot for 2011.
MFK Fisher once said, "Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly", and the same, I think, could be said for cooking food cooperatively: While cooking for friends and cooking with friends can both be successful, they require - per baby boys and girls when it comes to changing diapers - distinct sets of operating instructions.
If you've already got Champagne and caviar lying about, then by all means, use it, and with neither apology nor reservation. But here is my contribution: Whatever you do, make sure you serve something that will get you lucky. As it happens - to nobody's surprise, at least if they're regular readers - we in the Proximal Kitchen are nothing if not opinionated, and we love most of all to pontificate about which foods and wines are most likely to earn you flirty looks and even messier sheets, and we've got just the ticket:
I once asked a dear friend of mine, a man with at least several points more of IQ than a low-grade fever claims in mercury and a penchant for securing invitations from the hipster set, why he refuses to go out on new years' eve, and he told me, in no uncertain terms, "it's the ultimate rookie night". And he's right, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't go out and celebrate, and why I'm taking my wife to lunch instead of dinner. What, really, is more luxuriant, more celebratory, than ordering a cocktail or a glass of bubbly at lunchtime, or walking out of a nice restaurant, arm in arm and a little warm and tipsy, in broad daylight? It's very nearly downright naughty, and who's not a fan of that?
