Sunday, October 11, 2009

Gourmet Today: some low-hanging fruit


Toasted coconut cookies. Brown sugary, chewy-crispy, like chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips. You finish one and your mouth instantly wants another, which is the best kind of cookie. 
 
Capellini with fresh tomato sauce.  It tasted exactly as you would expect, was juicy and much loved by children. Benefited from heavy dosing with Parmesan.

Two early thoughts about Gourmet Today

1. There's a recipe for cinnamon toast ice cream, but none for vanilla or strawberry. On the other hand, pasta with fresh tomatoes? Buttermilk pancakes? I'm not sure I understand the mix of novelty and pedestrian basics. 

2. So much booze. Dish after dish calls for a dram or two of some expensive/exotic liquor -- armagnac, framboise, pomegranate liqueur, sauternes, creme de menthe -- that I don't have and really don't want to buy.

 We are about to be pounded with our first storm of the season and I can not wait.  Whole Foods was aswarm, everyone talking excitedly about "stocking up for the storm," which was funny because it's not like you can't go to the supermarket in the rain. 

5 comments:

  1. So, I totally read "aswarm" as some sort of new cussword: "ass-warm" like "asshat". I thought, "Wow. People at whole foods were acting like tepid jerks over a storm?"

    It took a couple of readings to get "a-swarm" out of that.

    We're storming too on the East Coast. Maybe I have latent issues with bad weather. Or I'm just jealous over the pasta since I didn't get to grow tomatoes this summer. :-)

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  2. Ummmm. I should totally change my avatar now.

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  3. My sister-in-law claims that California shuts down in a rain storm, but that was San Diego. I would assume that the Bay Area would be a little more used to weather.

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  4. Well sure you can go to the grocery in a rainstorm, but do you really want to? There's never a close parking spot. If you've remembered to bring an umbrella or happen to jackpot on one in the car, then you just have to tote the drippy thing up and down the aisles with you, while your rubber-soled shoes make that "squinch-squinch" sound with every step. And I've never figured out how to hold an umbrella over myself and the groceries while loading them into the car. Someone or something always gets wet, and my reusable shopping bags smell like wet dog when they get rained on. So, yeah, I've been known to say "Looks like rain. I'll do the shopping tomorrow..."

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  5. I had to walk the kids to school today in the rain. The toddler refused to accept the rain shield on the stroller. The 1st grader had to splash in every puddle. My vision was compromised due to accumulating raindrops on my glasses because I can't hold an umbrella and push the stroller. Rain = fun for kids; not fun for moms.

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