Collwen- Woman of varied worlds

So I ended up getting a few cook books over the weekend at a rummage sale. In the stack is a set of McCalls magazine cookbooks from the mid-1960s. I ended up with 4 out of what seems to be an 18 book/magazine set. I got M1- Cookie Collection, M2- Casserole Cooking, M3- Practically Cookless Cookbook, and M10- Do-Ahead Party Book. In the party book, there is a bride's cake recipe that has a fruitcake layer at the top. I've never heard of this before, but it's written of as a given for the party planner.

Saturday- Mino's Sushi/Thai (Albany). I had been here once before with tetsujinnooni and chickipu_no_oni. This time it was tetsujinnooni, hotspurre, zimarra, and marnen (who had not been there before). The food is better then Bangkok on Wolf Road, and cheaper.

Sunday Suruchi- Indian (New Paltz). Marnen picked me up from my Rebekah's penny social in Highland, and we decided to go over to New Paltz for dinner. While wandering around, we found a street fair that was closing up on Church St. (To find out it's a weekly thing on Sundays). While wandering through the dregs of the merchants, we went to the Indian restaurant that I has noticed there before. Good gods... it's good. They had about the best samosas I've ever had. There's lots of vegetarian dishes, and they also cater to the range free/organic/vegan lifestyles too. They specialize in dosas it seems. Usually, and Indian place might have a single style of dosa as a special- Suruchi has several styles on their regular menu, with options of what to put in it as well (like adding paneer or spinach, or tofu) . I had the Goa Marsala one with paneer. It was HUGE. About 2 and a half meals worth of dosa. Even the nice waiter said that he can only eat a full one if he has no appetizers and hasn't eaten in hours.

Wednesday- Sukhothai (Beacon) I had leftovers from Mino's for lunch, and when someone asked me where I had gotten Thai food I mentioned that I hadn't found a Thai place around here. Another co-worker heard me and told me about a place which is about a block from his apartment. I arranged to pick Marnen up from the Beacon train station (after watching Clerks 2- good movie). The food is really good. They have some things on the menu that I've not seen, and Marnen hasn't seen in a while. They have a weekday special of a curry sampler (10 oz portions of 4 different curries) where you can choose what to add (vegetables, tofu, pork, beef, chicken, or shrimp). Its enough for two people and I still brought some leftovers home, and we split a grilled banana split for dessert (with coconut ice cream). The prices are decent.

So while I was on the exercise bike on Sunday, I saw part of a show on Food Network- Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello. First of all, the recipes I saw looked yummy, and he had this neat little nutmeg microplane. I'm looking for that shape, but I found something similar- the Microplane Nutmeg Grate-N-Shake.


One of the recipes I saw in the making that I liked was this one: Pizzettas with Olive Tapenade and Pecorino Cheese.

Zombie Alton Brown

I found out about this last night from Basia (one of the fencers at the practice I go to).

Cheyenne Wright is an illustrator that Basia knows (she and John know some *really* cool people) and who has done some work with Studio Foglio (of Girl Genius fame) and some game companies, including Cheapass Games.

Cheyenne also likes Alton Brown.

Apparently, Alton has seen the graphic, and now there's talk of them making shirts. In fact, one is already up on Alton Brown's website.

Artichoke-Stuffed New Potatoes
I'm not a big fan of mayo, but could work out something...

Marinated Feta I'm a sucker for feta anyway....

Cheese and Herb Mini Sweet Peppers

Praline Cheesecake Squares

Cranberry Cheesecake Tarts

Rum Babas Ok, a Russian recipe mixed among gourmet desserts... I have to try it... shit... it has yeast, and I've not tried baking with yeast...

Went to the home of nounsandverbs, 11th_letter, ioldanach, purpura, and assorted children. There were a lot of people there for Thanksgiving.

The cheeses went over fairly well, except for the buffalo cheddar. It's good but was too hot for some and others didn't try it for their own reasons.

I learned that while carmelized onions taste yummy in this, the French's Fried Onions are necessary. The texture isn't right without them. And for the stonetimber and ioldanach friendly version (using cream of potato soup and slices of potato), I should par-boil the potato slices first.

There's a lot of people I got to see and a couple meet (like Charlie and gryphon_m.... oh shiny knives....).

It was a good day.

And today I am at work.

he brought me a pack of Blue Diamond Wasabi & Soy Sauce Almonds. We found them on the way back from Pennsic and I've not had any since (I can't find them in the gas stations around here).

*wiggle*

marnen and I went to the Sheep & Wool festival. We spent a lot of time in the specialty foods area. The cooking demo really needed a microphone, but we had a good time. And we developed a shopping list for me the next day, when I was returning with my lunch cooler (so I could pick up some really yummy cheese).

Saturday night we went to the Bonefish Grill that just opened in Poughkeepsie. If you like fish and seafood, this is a good place. The wait was long, so we ended up eating at a "community table" in the bar area. I ordered the Ahi Tuna (pan-Asian style) and Marnen got the trout with Lime Tomato Garlic sauce. I also ordered the house "martini" (Stolichnaya vodka, Champagne, cranberry juice, garnished with an orange slice) which was very nice to drink. Then they brought out a warm loaf of bread with a dish of olive oil and a little bit of pesto. But the pesto was strong enough to hold it's own and blend nicely with oil. Then our salads came out (very well too), and then our main dishes. Marnen even ended up bringing leftovers home, which almost never happens. I brought home most of mine as well.

Later on, I was able to get Marnen to watch Real Genius. And to find out, he tends to dislike wiz-kid movies, and why (the sterotypes).

Sunday, Marnen had a concert and rehearsals, so I went back to the Sheep & Wool festival. I picked up the cheese (a very nice and strong bleu), and some other spice mixes and a wasabi sauce.

I also got a larger pair of knitting needles, some lambs wool, a ball of nettle yarn (more on that another time, but basically it has to to with my childhood and the story of the Seven Swans), and I found a skien of wonderful silk yarn in a bargain bin. It's already on my size 8 needles... and I'm on my 9th row. It's wonderful and soft... if I don't want it to stay the natural off white I'll dye it later... I had to start working with it before I pawed it to death.