Wednesday, July 09, 2008

I'm Melting! I'm Melting!

For the last few days it has been hot here. Really, really hot, and humid. The weather is supposed to break tonight, but for the moment it's safe to say that if crotch sweat were crude oil, George Bush would be invading my shorts. Last night, I made good hot-weather food: Vietnamese Summer rolls with tofu and a zingy peanut sauce, plus sautéed escarole with copious garlic and a little BBQ chicken broth. Tonight, though, a couple of things at one of the local stores inspired me so I ended up sweating over the proverbial hot stove. It was worth it.

First, I got some wild Alaskan salmon- always an excellent place to start. Then, they had real, fat, perfect bolete mushrooms from nearby woods. Local porcini. And also more local heirloom tomatoes (ours are flowering, but still at least a month off.) The garden did the rest.






















So dinner ended up being the following: seared salmon with a fennel-seed crust, plus radicchio mashed with olives to make quenelles, mushrooms sautéed with garlic and deglazed with wine, tomato, peas, and zucchini. Really simple, but the purity and freshness of the ingredients helped elevate the dish. I will play more with the bitter greens and olives mix; it's got a lot of potential. Also possessing potential is a 2005 Bourgogne "Cuvée les deux papis" by Alex Gambal that I swore I wouldn't open and yet the salmon demanded it. Since I obviously do not possess the willpower to resist the 05s until they're ready, I will at least decant them from now on to give them a chance to open up a little.

9 comments:

Heather said...

Our tomatoes are also flowering-but-a-month-off, but everything really blew up this past week. My beans are growing a foot a day, I swear.

Alaska salmon is the goods. Loved the crotch sweat joke.

cookiecrumb said...

That's your best-dressed plate ever.

Shut up, Heather. Gross. Don't encourage him.

Debra Morgan said...

you funny with that Bush reference

michael, claudia and sierra said...

i cringed at the crotch sweat reference... you boy you.

my crotch merely perspires...

porcini's send me, but funny enough i've never been a huge salmon lover...

beautiful food all around. as usual...

peter said...

Heather: I knew you'd appreciate it.

CC: Thanks. Secretly, you laughed and laughed.

Genevelyn: Me funny.

Claudia: I'll leave it to Heather to make a "glisten" joke.

cookiecrumb said...

I was just gonna say "glow."
And yes, I laughed.
Ew.

Hunter Angler Gardener Cook said...

Local porcini? Where, pray tell? I keep looking for them, to no avail...

Brittany said...

I was shoveling taco salad into my face when I read the crotch sweat comment. Normally I would have laughed my ass off- but crotch sweat and taco salad just turns my stomach.

Good thing the actual food sounds delicious.

peter said...

CC: I knew it.

Hank: There's a store here that deals with local foragers. More then that. I can't say.

Brittany: Having never had taco salad with actual crotch sweat in it, I'll take your word for it. You're the masterbaker, after all.