AliThinks

Today's Secret Ingredient Is...

You have to listen to me rant before you can have the pie crust recipe.

We get a number of foodie-type catalogs: Dean & Deluca, Sur La Table, Williams-Sonoma, et al. The other day we got a new one called Cooking Enthusiast. I was flipping through it today when I saw the recipe wheel:

No longer do you have to scratch your head over simple fractions when you want to increase or decrease a recipe. Spin the wheel on this ingenious magnet and you can double, triple, half or third a recipe.

Just how hard is it to halve or double a recipe? I'll admit that thirding something might take a little more brain power, but who in their everloving mind thirds a recipe anyway?

And believe me, I'm no math whiz. I quit math after high school geometry and avoided the math requirement in college by taking science courses instead. (Don't ask me the logic of that, but I was damned if I was going to take remedial math in college, and that's what they wanted me to do.) But I can, um, figure out pretty easily that half of 1/2 cup is 1/4. I even know that a third of 1/2 cup is 1/6 cup.

This is a prime example of dumbing-down a process. But we're not stupid, we're lazy. On the other hand, if you don't use your muscles you lose them, and it's the same with brain cells. This is why I will never own a recipe wheel. This is why I still add, subtract, multiply, and divide on paper a lot of the time.

Okay. Rant over. The secret ingredient is VODKA, and the recipe is below the fold.

Why I Didn't Create A Food Blog

I haven't mentioned food much on AliThinks lately, but I really love to cook. And eat. And I'm kind of a food snob. So how come I never made this a food blog?

1. Laziness
2. Dim-wittedness (no, really)
3. Working Mom Fatigue
4. All of the above

Can I Just Say? I Rock.

Since I'm not feeling up to the challenge of Self-Portrait Tuesday today, I decided to channel my creative energy in the kitchen. 

I made a quiche. 

By now you're probably thinking I'm doing the Time Warp again.  Memo pads from the 70s, bitchin' 80s earrings...when will the madness stop?  I know: quiche is so 80s, so not for real men, so for yuppies who ate radicchio before radicchio got all ubiquitous on our asses. 

Well, I love quiche, because it's warm and comforting, and it's a great way to clear out the fridge.  Tonight's quiche ingredients were all fresh, however, and for the first time in months I didn't include vegetables.  Stop your gasping!  I'm going to accompany my meal with a nice salad made of frisée.   (And anyway, this is France – quite possibly the only country that considers pasta to be a vegetable – so I figure I'm ahead of the game). 

So what's in that thing I've got baking in the oven right now?  Rondelé Garlic and Herb cheese; this is like Boursin, only it's cheaper. And cubes de jambon.  And a little gruyère cheese to top it off.   Pictures will follow.  I wish my blog had added odorama, because it smells so good here right now.