Fresh Borlotti Beans
Excuse the quiet over here. Just before Prince stunned the world, John fell ill, necessitating some quality time at the hospital, where we impressed the nurses with our lifting technique. He is home now, rapidly recovering, almost his usual self. As you might imagine, recent events left little time or energy for…
Soups Without Recipes
There is nothing like soup. It is by its nature eccentric: no two are ever alike, unless of course you get your soup from cans. Laurie Colwin, “Soup”, Home Cooking Even we are exhorted to hoard every leftover scrap of food to craft innovative meals in a thrifty cycle of…
Deviled Eggs: notes, technique, and a recipe
Chances are you can hardboil an egg. But tell me, how are you at peeling that egg? Until recently, hardboiled eggs Chez IK looked like they’d won first place at the local tractor pull. Enter Gabrielle Hamilton, she of the dictatorial Prune Cookbook. Spend any time with this highly idiosyncratic…
Sinkless Salad (Dinner Chicken Salad)
The Insufficient Kitchen’s 70th post is occasioned by increasing insufficiency after the sink quit late Tuesday afternoon. Our plumber promised to appear Thursday morning. Alas, he called needing to postpone until Friday morning. Confident of my amateur plumbing skills, he talked me under the sink, coaching in the art of garbage disposal maintainance: “Just crank…
Back-in-the-Pot-Pork
My community college photography classmates would have decimated the shot below. After slowly feeding my ego through the wood-chipper for using color film, a choice signaling rank amateurism, the group would have settled in for a nice long discourse about compositional elements. Meaning ninety minutes on the blue rubber band. Fortunately, none…
While we wait for the next post…
We here at the IK are peering out the window, where El Niño, conspicuously absent last month, has reappeared with a vengeance. We’re also working on a long-overdue book review for our editor at PopMatters.com, where you may read our review of Bee Wilson’s excellent First Bite. While there is indeed food…
Corned Beef Brisket After Jane Grigson
Before discussing today’s recipe, it is only fair to touch on the last post, wherein I ranted and raved about my failed attempt to enroll in an identity theft protection program. This was occasioned by the hacking of my former employer’s antiquated computer system. Alas, attempts to protect my identity…
Surreality and Spanish Tortilla
The past month featured both of us being told by surgeons that our new, annoying ailments required surgery except our respective weird diseases–which caused the ailments requiring surgical intervention–meant surgery was too risky to attempt. We should, therefore, watch, wait, and, it is assumed, worsen. The above two sentences required…
Lamb Chops With Lemon Potatoes
The first time I cooked lamb chops with lemon potatoes, I didn’t intend to blog the dish. When you have a food blog, meals fall into categories: destined to be blogged, never-ever, murky maybe. Then there’s a whole category entitled: this is just dinner. Of course these hastily assembled meals…
Tortilla Pizzas
In the past month I’ve spent so much time in doctor’s offices that I considered renting a hospital room. Why not cut my commute, save gas, spend maximum time in my favorite staycation destination? Granted, there were drawbacks. Hospitals are amazingly crowded places. It’s kind of like going to a…