January has been a month of feasting despite the post holiday focus on health and well being! I’ve been cooking LOTS and attending some amazing home dinners- an authentic Turkish meal featuring stewed lamb and a pureed cheesy char roasted eggplant dish, lentil soup and a cinnamon spiked rice pudding…an Australian friend had us over the next night. He smoked turkey on the grill and served it with roasted peppers..along with a side of green beans with a sweet sour twist- dates and bacon! …a decadent stuffed twice baked potato with spinach and artichokes- and I have to mention the smoked fish plate that welcomed the evening, which he had flown in from the West coast, caviar and all. A cool Ann Arbor weekend- we are a melting pot.
The cookbook took my breath away last week, when I cooked for the Hawaiian Laua chapter and decided I was ambitious to think I could prepare all of the dishes I had written into the chapter in a morning session. Fourteen hours later, I was still cleaning up! Finishing the volcano cake was the most fun- I invited my chef and sous chef to help decorate, and they creatively made candied flames that burst from top. My favorite flavor of the day? A lemon grass dipping sauce I made for the fresh spring rolls..which were filled with rice noodles, carrots, cucumber, Thai basil, scallion and mint. So fresh and so simple! Lemon grass is pungent and fragrant, and I peeled the stalk, cooked it with lime, raw sugar, chilies, and fish sauce. AMAZING!
Off to Toronto for my birthday weekend- so stay tuned for flavors from Canada!
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