I included a TV remote control in the picture, just so you can see the approximate shape. It’s about the same size as a larger paperback.

It’s been some months now that I’ve had a Kindle. I bought one when Jeff Bezos (Amazon’s CEO, and the Kindle’s maker) was on Oprah last Fall, and offered a discounted price if you bought one then. I’d been contemplating buying one anyway, so that was all the impetus I needed.

Why did I buy one?
1. I hate to give away my books. I have hundreds. And hundreds. And I keep buying more. Even though I never (almost) re-read a book. Hundreds and hundreds of pounds of books. So, I figured if I read books on the Kindle, I’d not be adding to my collection, my home book footprint. None of our kids read like I do. What are they going to do with all my books, for goodness’ sake, except give most of them away?
2. Whenever we travel, I always have to allocate precious suitcase space to books, since we read a lot when we travel. As we’ve gotten older, we’re not quite so active at every destination – we rest some in the late afternoons. And we read. So I saw the Kindle as a perfect solution. Ten (or dozens) more books, all in the space of one. Except for the charging cable, which isn’t all that big.

The advantages:
1. The small (footprint) space, lots of books (several hundred) can be loaded, you can make notes and bookmarks (there’s a small keyboard on it), you could read 5 books at the same time for that matter.
2. The dictionary – is amazing. You merely scroll to the line where the questionable word is, click, go to Dictionary and the Kindle defines all the major words on that line. There’s a tiny little roller button that is sort of like a mouse. That’s what you use to navigate around.
3. Buy a new book anytime. Right through the Kindle. Or you can do it from your home computer too. Or somebody else’s computer – just log on to your Amazon account. Takes just seconds to download it. You can also subscribe to newspapers and magazines too (I don’t, but lots of people do). For business travelers, that would be a very good deal. Supposedly you can access the internet on the device, although it’s not really a computer, as such. You can get to the Kindle bookstore easily and select new books. If you have an amazon account, it’s a simple matter of pressing a button and the book downloads in about 60 seconds. Bingo.
4. The price of books. Most books were $8.99 when I bought the Kindle. They’re now $9.99, but still a good deal. And a few books are more.
5. The screen – it’s not backlit – you can’t read it with a light. For some this might be a disadvantage, but for me it’s easier to read this way. And the print size can be adjusted to suit your eyes. (In the photo below you can see the print – it’s adjustable to 5 sizes, I think it is.)

The disadvantages:
1. The battery. It’s only as long-lived at each sitting as the battery. If you don’t use the Kindle (and charge it) regularly, it goes into a power-down thing and it’s a bit of a hassle to get it back to running again, but that’s a minor thing. It does have to be charged often (about 4-5 hours of use, is my guess). I now have the charging cable right next to my bed, so it’s easy to plug it in after every 2-3 or 4 days of use.
2. It is a computer, after all. If something were to go wrong with it on a trip, it might be difficult to get it fixed. That hasn’t happened to me yet (except the major battery down thing which was easily fixed after talking with a Kindle customer service person). You can buy an extended warranty.
3. The Kindle 1 case that came with it was not good. I’ve since purchased another one, built especially for the Kindle, but fixes all the little problems with Amazon’s case. It was $50, and it does keep the Kindle securely in the case. If you’re interested, you can search on the internet for “Kindle covers,” you’ll find many manufacturers of them). I understand that the Kindle 2 is shipping without a case.
4. It’s too easy to accidentally advance or backup a page. The bars on both sides of the Kindle take you ahead one page (top right and lower left), back a page (top left) or to the beginning (bottom right). They’ve made this user friendly for both righties and lefties. Clever planning, I’d say. Overall, though, I’m saying it’s worth buying – I LUV my Kindle – but it’s a bit of a nuisance sometimes when you accidentally hit the Next Page bar. Usually it advances just the one page, but occasionally if the Kindle falls out of its case, in righting it, picking it up, etc. you may advance the pages by several. Just a little bit of a pain to have to back up to find the page you were on. But then, that’s really no different than dropping a regular book and losing your place. It’s just different on a Kindle.
5. I won’t be buying any cookbooks on the Kindle. And I do buy new cookbooks with some frequency. Those books I want to hold, be able to see the color photo (the Kindle just has B & W), glance at the whole recipe at once. All things the Kindle can’t do for me.
6. Some people don’t like the millisecond of time when the pages turn – the screen flickers once (blips to black momentarily) with each page advance. At first it was annoying to me, but quickly I got used to it.
7. If you like to loan or give books to friends – well, you can’t loan a Kindle book you’ve read. The book lives only on your Kindle, and unless you want to loan the actual reading unit, it’s only yours. Supposedly Amazon offers a family plan (up to 3 units) and within that “family,” you can share all the books. You don’t have to be an actual family – but the units and books have to be purchased from the “head” of the group only.

And just because I listed more disadvantages than advantages, doesn’t mean I don’t LUV my Kindle, because I really, really do. In case you haven’t heard, they just announced a second generation Kindle at the same price – $359 (what I paid 6 months ago). Longer battery life, thinner package. More books can be loaded. And the blip at page turns is vastly improved, I’ve heard. It will read TO you, if you’d prefer (good for the sight-impaired). I won’t be buying a new one since mine works just fine, but now I’ll try to convince my DH that he needs one, then I can give him mine and get the new one 😉

A year ago: Coriander Lime Shrimp (an appetizer)

Tweet

I’m simply a sucker for more food blogs. I follow so gosh-darned many of them now, it takes me hours sometimes to get through them all. And since I rarely delete any of them, there’s nothing but more and more and more in my RSS reader.

So, when I read at somebody’s blog today that they’d been chosen as one of the 50 best in the world food blogs from the Times (London), I had to go look at the list. (My blog is a very small fish in a big pond, so NO, I wasn’t expecting my blog to be on the list at all.) But I assumed many of my favorites would be on it (about 30 of the 50 were), and that there would be a bunch of new ones (yes, there were). And so, I’m now going to be watching about another 6 new blogs. From places all over the world. I luv finding a new blog (in English) from some foreign land. I added one from Istanbul, another from London (although the author is South African), and one from Colorado, and Sydney, well, and on and on.

If you’re interested in checking out the London Times’ list, maybe you’ll find some you’d like to follow too. And oh, by the way, thanks to all of you who ARE regular readers of my blog. I appreciate that you come to read about my cooking, or travel, or see the photos or the stories.

A year ago: Pear & Chocolate Tart (one of my favorites)

Tweet

Likely you’ll look at this and think – uh – ho-hum ham and cheese. Nope. Not cheese, and not ho-hum, either. The middle layer is pear. And that little golden nugget on top is crystallized ginger.

These appetizers are really easy, except for assembling them. Not that assembling is hard, just a bit time consuming. My DH, Dave, did it for me, moments before our guests arrived.

The ham cubes are soaked in port wine. (And if you don’t want to imbibe, just eliminate that step – they’ll still be awesomely good.) That’s it. Nothing all that unusual. You can use canned pears if that’s easier. We used fresh, just because we had them. The crystallized ginger I had was in small pieces. The bite (toothpick) might have handled two small pieces of ginger, but I advise you taste first. You do want about equal sizes of pear and ham – that we’ve learned from the years of making these. I was supposed to grate some nutmeg on top – oops, forgot. The nutmeg does add just a little scent of something different, so when YOU make them, do add it.

I found this recipe – years and years ago – in some English cookbook I have (or had). And have been making them ever since.
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: Pear & Chocolate Tart (a favorite)

Tweet

Another Carolyn favorite coming your way. This cake. Oh yum. That’s all there is to say about it. For me there’s nothing much better than chocolate and whipped cream, and this is a really lovely presentation – and taste – of those two things.

I began making this cake in the 1960’s. It came from one of my military wives’ cookbooks (From Mrs. Louis P. Hodge, “Recipes on Parade Desserts,” 1965) I bought at the time, and the page in the cookbook is smudged and spattered from frequent use. This used to be one of my top desserts of choice when I entertained back then, and as my daughter Dana grew up, this was one of her most favorite requests on her birthday as well.

If you don’t like to make a sponge cake (in a jelly roll pan) with the work accompanying it, you might want to pass on this. But if you pass, you’ll be missing out. The cake isn’t an overwhelming dark chocolate taste – it’s on the mild side, actually, and the cake itself is almost milk chocolate colored. I used bittersweet chocolate shavings in the filling and sprinkled on top. And I used Penzey’s 24% Fat Dark cocoa for added flavor.

The only tough part about this dessert is rolling, unrolling and filling, then rolling up the cake. I’ve rarely made it when it didn’t crack somewhere. I never seem to know the exact time to unroll and fill this. But, even with the cracks, you just do the best you can, and trust me, nobody will care once they taste it. When you roll it up, put the break on the underside, if possible. You can actually see a break in mine (in the photo at the top) – along the front right. Did it affect anything? Not at all.

When dessert time came the other night, I brought the platter to the table and cut and sliced each piece and put them on a pretty heart-shaped red plate.
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: Almond Bar Cookies

Tweet

This post is a partial recap of the dinner I did the other night. We had 7 guests (with us that made 9). Here’s a snapshot of us at the table.

That’s me on the left, Sue (who brought the Spinach Salad with Strawberries and Blueberries that we’re eating there, which is just oh-so-good), Roger, Maureen, (my hubby Dave is missing from his seat at the end of the table), just a peek at Alice back by the French door, then George, Lynn and Maggie was taking the photo).

All the recipes will be posted this week. The meat was a fillet mignon, cut into 1 1/2 inch steaks, tied up with kitchen twine. Once cooked, it was served on a portabello mushroom with some Danish blue cheese melted on top of the mushroom, the steak sitting on top of that, then drizzled with a sauce made with Port wine, Zinfandel, and shallots. Absolutely scrumptious. I’ve posted that recipe before. Worth making! Notice how perfectly cooked the meat is – it was just seared in a hot pan, then finished off in a 400 degree oven for about 8 minutes. Here’s a photo:

Then, after we’d let dinner settle, I brought out the chocolate sponge roll I’d made earlier in the afternoon. Maggie took a photo of  me as I started to serve the slices.

We had many laughs and great companionship, all shared over a nice dinner.

Tweet

What can I tell you. This relatively simple side dish got raves at the dinner party the other night. I mean, really, it’s just mushrooms, some toasted bread cubes (from some good challah bread), half and half, eggs, Parmesan, a tiny bit of garlic, shallots, butter and parsley! Several people wanted to know if we were going to have the leftovers for breakfast. Uh, hardly. I made nine. We ate nine. No leftovers.

The recipe came from Gourmet in December, 2007. It was in an article about a whole beef tenderloin, so since I was serving fillet, these seemed like a perfect fit. It can be made ahead by a couple of hours (I did) and they’re baked for just 30 minutes before unmolding. I used a knife to make sure each ramekin wasn’t sticking around the sides, then turned the pudding out into my hand, and quickly righted it before putting it on guests’ plates (without the little parchment round in the bottom). If there was anything fussy about it, it was cutting out the parchment rounds that perfectly fit the bottom of the 6-ounce ramekins. But I had a measuring cup that was a perfect size for a stencil and it really only took about 3-4 minutes to cut out the papers.

I’d advise you that if you didn’t do the parchment rounds, likely this bread pudding would stick. But, on the other hand, you could serve them right IN the ramekins and not bother. Just butter the ramekin well. The recipe called for using wild mushrooms. Well, I opted to use button mushrooms instead, and I’ll just say it tasted great, but if you want to forage or pay the premium for fancy mushrooms, it would probably be off the charts wonderful. In any case, you should make these. It can also be made in a single gratin dish (and be passed at the table). It could also stand in as a vegetarian entree as well. Next time I make these I think I’ll add just a little bit of thyme. Just because. Especially if I use button mushrooms again. If using wild mushrooms maybe not.
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: Fish Chowder with a Thai Twist

Tweet

This recipe has been collecting dust for years. And years. And years. My notes say I got it from a MasterCook message board, but after sleuthing on the internet about it, it seems this recipe originated from the California Table Grape Commission. I found this version at a website called Taste of Home, posted by someone named chefly.

I was getting a head start on all the food prep for tonight, so made this a couple of days ahead. And because I wanted to see what it tasted like before the big evening, we had a few as a snack (actually our lunch). The only caveat I’d tell you is that you don’t want to add the pine nuts or grapes until you’re about ready to assemble these. No soggy nuts or grape juice oozing, thank you. I made the cheese mixture sans grapes and nuts, and just added them at the last minute. Do bring the cheese mixture to room temperature, though, as you’ll never get it to spread otherwise. The mixture gets spread on a baguette slice and is baked or broiled. Watch them carefully, though, as they’ll burn easily.

The combination of fresh grapes in this cheese spread is masterful. You’ll like the texture change. The original recipe said to cut the grapes in half. That’s not enough – they need to be cut in quarters. But that really doesn’t take long if you have a very sharp knife. Once spread on the baguette slices and baked, the cheesy mixture is just sublime. Melts in your mouth. The gorgonzola is not overpowering (really). The grapes are what make this, so don’t eliminate them.

The nuts can be baked for 7 minutes or so to toast them, or toss them around in a nonstick skillet for even less time, which is what I did. Let the crostini cool just a minute or two before serving so people don’t burn the roofs of their mouths. I sprinkled a tiny bit of Italian parsley on top just for decoration. I’ve added it to the recipe.
printer-friendly PDF

Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click to open MC – 14 includes photo)

A year ago: Orzo Carbonara

Tweet

We’re having a dinner for nine at our house on Valentine’s evening. All friends and the sister of one of our guests who is visiting from the Midwest. Couples who probably will be very happy not to have to vie for a waiter’s attention on a very busy holiday evening. It’s been some years since we have gone out for Valentine’s Day. It’s just not worth it. Too busy. Hectic. Competitive. Not always good service. Food sometimes compromised because of the crush of people all wanting to eat at about the same time. So it was my idea to hostess a Valentine’s Dinner at our home.

But I got to thinking that if any of YOU are planning to cook at home, maybe you need a few ideas for the menu. I certainly have ample recipes to choose from. And especially some chocolate desserts, since chocolate is one of my favorite things. So, here’s a short list of appropriate items for the 14th. When I think of Valentine’s Day, I think beef, because that’s probably my hubby’s favorite, and I think of salads with a bit of fruit in it, and I think CHOCOLATE. Here you go:

Filet Mignon on a Portabello Mushroom with Blue Cheese
Herb-Crusted Beef Tenderloin
Steak Diane Flambe
Tenderloin in Puff Pastry
Ribeye Steaks with Amazing Glaze (can’t get enough of these guys)
Cajun Steak with Creamy Creole Sauce
French Hamburgers (if you’d like a lower-cost, but elegant dish)

Other entrees:
Chicken Breasts with Spinach and Gorgonzola
Dijon Chicken, Panko Crust
Chicken Breasts with Bacon and Mushrooms
Pork Roast with Spicy Apricot Glaze
Shrimp and Pasta a la Pizziaola 
– – – – – – –
Spinach & Berries Salad
Spinach Salad with Fresh Mango
Apple, Cherry & Walnut Green Salad
Raddicchio, Belgian Endive Salad (no fruit in this one)
– – – – – – –
Bittersweet Mocha Roll
Chocolate Citrus Almond Torte
Chocolate Grand Marnier Decadence Cake
Flourless Chocolate Cake with Caramel Sauce
French (Chocolate) Silk Pie
Pear & Chocolate Tart
Raspberry-Almond Truffle Tart
Triple Chocolate Torte with Raspberry Sauce

– – – – – – – – – – – –

In case you’re interested, here’s the menu I’ll be serving for our dinner:
Gorgonzola, Grape & Nut Crostini (a new recipe)
Ginger Picks (a Ham, Pear & Ginger Tower on a toothpick)
Filet Mignon on a Portabello Mushroom with Blue Cheese (in list above)
Mushroom Bread Pudding (a new recipe)
Spinach & Berries Salad (brought by one of the guests)
Chocolate Sponge Roll (an old favorite of mine)

Tweet

Yesterday, my friend Cherrie and I were on a mission for herbs, spices and foodstuffs. We needed sustenance at about noontime and Ford’s Filling Station in Culver City came highly recommended. It was close to our destination, and the food was good. No, not good, but GREAT. And the most interesting part, is that the owner/chef, Benjamin Ford, is the son of Harrison Ford. Benjamin has some very commendable experience under his belt, and has obviously found his niche with this restaurant.

In that part of Los Angeles, you never know when you might see a movie star. Alas, we did not. We were so cold sitting outside we hardly looked to one side or another. Likely folks from Minnesota would have thought the weather was perfect for bikinis. We were bundled in sweaters and light jackets, and still we were cold. It was a gorgeous, clear, sunny day. The kind of day you like to write your friends about. It’s just that it was about 50 degrees and with a light breeze.

The sidewalk on this part of Culver Blvd is wide – not as wide as in Paris, but wide enough that they’ve set up about 6 restaurants in a row, all with outdoor seating. Lots of umbrellas abounded, and outdoor heaters. Unfortunately, the one next to us wasn’t working. That’s about the only complaint I could utter about our experience since everything else (most importantly, the food) was outstanding. You can see two other restaurants looking down the street some.

The lunch menu was substantial – offering everything from small plates of unique salami and cheeses (separate items), sandwiches, salads and entrees. AND, they were also offering a 3-course fixed price lunch menu at $22. I did photo effects on the menu above, so you probably can’t read the options. I ordered goose rillettes, fish & chips, and cream puffs with ice cream.

Cherrie had the greens and citrus salad, which she said was very nice. I wanted to try different things, if they were offered, and rillettes isn’t something you see often. Especially goose rillettes. In case you didn’t know, rillettes is a preparation similar to pate, that’s all. And mine (warm) was served with 3 tiny toasted baguette slices, some caramelized shallots, grainy whole mustard, and cornichons. It was scrumptious. If I’d had another bread slice I probably would have eaten it all. Sorry that the picture is in the shade so you can’t see the mustard on the right and the little cornichons.

Next up was fish n’ chips. Well, actually, it was a beer-battered combination of cod, fresh asparagus spears (2), lots of smaller-sized chips, onion rings, with two dips – a regular ketchup and what they called an ooo-eee sauce. It was a mayo based concoction, much like tartar sauce, but it was laced with curry powder. Delicious. The fish was perfectly – absolutely perfectly cooked. The batter was thin and crisp on all the food, and light. Cherrie and I both ordered the fish, and both thought it was outstanding. The waiter recommended it, among most other things on the menu, but he particularly mentioned the fish. I’d order this again anytime. It’s been several years since I’ve had fish n’ chips, but this was worth the wait. I couldn’t finish it all, it was so filling.

Last, but not least, we had a choice of cream puffs with mocha ice cream, or a butterscotch pudding. The waiter recommended the puffs, so we both had them. They were small, filled with a delicious custardy-cream, topped with chocolate, more chocolate drizzled decoratively on the plate, and with a nice little mini-egg shaped mound of mocha ice cream. Cherrie and I slicked up the plate. The ice cream was particularly creamy and smooth. My mouth is watering just lookin’ at the picture.

So, if you live anywhere near Culver City, I recommend you hightail it over to Ford’s Filling Station for a fill-up. The food was so good, in fact, that we decided we need to return to Ford’s Filling Station for another round. Maybe dinner this time, with our husbands.

Ford’s Filling Station
9531 Culver Blvd. (at Cardiff)
Culver City, CA
(310) 202-1470

Tweet

Yesterday, my friend Cherrie and I spent a fun day in Los Angeles. Another day with no cooking going on the Carolyn’s Kitchen.

We had two destinations on our schedule: Penzey’s Spices in Torrance, and Surfas (a professional cookware and foodstuff store) in Culver City. And lunch. Somewhere.

So, before we left, my friend Cherrie got a phone call from a friend of hers. Marilu cooks some, but not like Cherrie and I do.

Here’s the way the conversation went:

Marilu: So where are you and Carolyn going today?

Cherrie: We’re going to L.A. to Penzey’s and Surfas.

Marilu: Uh, what’s a pensee? And what do you do at a surface?

Cherrie: Penzey’s is a store where you buy spices. And Surfas has food and professional cooking equipment. And all kinds of cooking stuff.

Marilu: You can’t buy spices at the grocery store?

– – – – – – – – –

When Cherrie related this conversation (above) to me, I just cracked up! And the answer is, no, I don’t buy spices from the grocery store anymore, and likely Cherrie won’t be doing so either. Not since I (now she) discovered Penzey’s. This store is about a 45 minute drive from my house and until this trip I’ve always just purchased stuff online from them. But now that they have a store in So. California (and another one coming to Santa Monica, they told us), I can just drive up there and look around. We spent about an hour browsing the shelves, adding more and more items to our baskets. They have a really cool thing they do there – every herb and spice they have in the store is in a glass sealing canister which you can open and sniff. So you can smell the difference between Mexican oregano and Turkish oregano; between Korintje cinnamon and China cinnamon, and the various categories of saffron, or their unique herb and spice blends. Because of that I did buy some things I hadn’t planned to. I only spent about $100. (In Cherrie’s defense, I will say that she spent about $40 on glass jars at Penzey’s, so it wasn’t all herbs and spices.)

Then we drove on north to Culver City (about another 30 minutes). Upon a recommendation from the ladies at Penzey’s, we went to Ford’s Filling Station for lunch. What a great meal we had. I’m writing up a separate post about that, probably for tomorrow. Way too many pictures to include in this one post. After lunch (sitting outside, freezing our patooties off in the gentle but oh-so very cold breeze), we drove just a few blocks away to Surfas, a store that’s been in Culver City for years, caters mostly to the restaurant trade, but is open to the public. It’s a kind of small warehouse type store, but for foodies. Cherrie and I must have spent an hour and a half in that store, wandering up and down every aisle. I spent way over $100 in there too.

So, this morning Cherrie talked with Marilu again and she asked how our day went.

Cherrie: We had a great day. First we went to Penzey’s.

Marilu: Spices, right? So, okay, how much money did you spend there?

Cherrie: Are you ready for this? (Much laughing) About $170.00.

Marilu: (pause) A HUNDRED AND SEVENTY DOLLARS? Well, for that much I sure hope it was a package deal and you got a trip thrown in. Where are they sending you?
– – – – – –
A year ago: Crunchy Shrimp on Couscous with Spicy Sauce (a real favorite)

Tweet