Free Rice

I found this on iseul bee my friend Alee's blog:

FREE RICE

I thought it would be appropriate to post. It's education, charitable, and fun!

Now go donate some rice.

Easter Dinner

Ham is traditional for Easter in the States due to long ago meat preserving traditions. Fresh pork that wasn't eaten during the winter was cured to last until after lent, thus ham. I, however, can't eat ham as it is a trigger for my migraine headaches (I'm not supposed to have red wine or chocolate, due to caffeine, either but I'd rather cut out the ham and cut down on the others).

The other more traditional Easter meal around the world is lamb. That being the case I don't feel so bad when I request my absolutely favorite dish Ed makes, crusted rack of lamb with blackberry reduction dipping sauce. He has made it a few times now, as a request for my birthday, for my family last New Years and now for Easter. Each time he makes it, it tastes absolutely fabulous. My grandma who "hates lamb" cleaned her plate!

The best place to get the rack of lamb is Costco where you can usually find a rack for about $11-13; you want to serve a half a rack per person. The delicious crust, which almost always falls off as you start to eat the lamb, consists of seasoned bread crumbs, sauteed chopped onions, dijon mustard and a raw egg to make it moist and stick to the lamb. The best part is the dipping sauce. Combine any kind of blackberry or black currant preserves or jam with red wine, worcestershire sauce, coarse ground pepper and a pinch of salt then reduce it for about 10 minutes. As a side dish we have made cous-cous or mashed potatoes.
This time Ed wowed his brother Rick and his wife Val who said, "this is one of the best things I've ever tasted".
And, of course, we dyed Easter Eggs...
...Then posed their baby Ella with them.

Risotto

Apparently my mom made risotto for us once when I was a kid. She said our comments were, "moooom, this rice is really sticky". I don't know what I was thinking, I was having a stupid kid day or something. Risotto (made from rice) is delicious! Ed has made a few renditions of the dish but his best, by far, is his Chicken Pesto Risotto.
His recipe yields a fair amount of rich, sticky goodness. The best part of this is leftovers!! He has not only wowed me with this dish but several of our friends and my parents. My mom asked for seconds and possibly thirds.
If you ask very nicely Ed might give out some tips for cooking the risotto but he rarely writes down the recipe. He does have a recipe file on the computer that he refers to on occasion but it's really all up in his noggin.

I HEART RICE

It was about a week ago Ed and I were wandering through BevMo making a mental wish list of each thing we would buy if we had money and I became mesmerized with the Sake section. I love Sake. It is so yummy hot or cold I just love it! My brain quickly ran through other things I enjoyed and I came to the quick conclusion, I love rice. Almost anything that is made with rice I love.

Sake (rice wine), sushi rolls, rice pudding, rice cakes, risotto (Italian rice dish), rice paper candy, rice bowls, wild rice stuffed in game hens, saffron rice, rice noodles, jambalaya (New Orleans rice dish), Horchata (the sweet Mexican rice milk drink), Paella (Spanish rice dish), I could go on but you get the idea. The only exception I could think of is dolmas, I like greek food but something about the grape leaves I'm not a fan of. For the most part anything made with rice is yummy in my book therefore...I HEART RICE!

"I should name my blog that," I thought out loud to Ed "I heart rice".
And so it is.

I'll do my part

I will help with this blog. I suppose my job is to let you know what it is Jodie ate and how I made it.

Basically, I will comment upon Jodie's posts with whatever it seems necessary as a cook/tasting partner to clarify.

I love to cook. I love to cook for someone who appreciates my cooking as much as Jodie. Please keep in mind I married a photographer. My meals look as good as they do partly because she knows how to make them look good. Like that artichoke and shrimp skewer she used as her titles background. I can't believe that is something I cooked.

My wife always likes to point out that her parents always said she had better marry someone with a gourmet taste in food. Well, I don't know how gourmet my taste is, but at least I can satisfy her with my gourmet cooking. Or so it seems by her wedding vow, and the creation of this blog.

That's what it's all about...

I have been wanting to start a blog for a while to keep in touch with family and friends and see if I could entertain anyone else.

But what to write my blog about? My day to day life is quite mundane and boring not to mention a bit depressing. Nobody wants to read a blog about how I still cannot get on the path to my desired job and that I am still stuck at a job that pays so little.

Of course I would love to write a blog like the Lost Girls (the first blog I ever started reading) a group of three New Yorkers who quite their jobs to travel around the world for a year. How totally awesome would that be? (yes, I just wrote "totally awesome," I also use "dude" in my vocabulary. And if I was speaking to you I would occasionally throw in "like" but it doesn't show up in my writing unless required.) The Lost Girls are always advising me (and all their other readers) to just do it, if I (we) want to. I would LOVE to travel the world for a year but it's just not going to happen any time soon due to lack of money and constant work towards desired careers.

So, I thought what is the happy part of my day?
Food! When Ed makes dinner; when I can enjoy the delicious combinations of food and drink. In this blog I will celebrate food, whether it is cooking at home (90% of the time) or adventuring out into the expensive and expansive LA scene.

Of course I promise to stray from the path at any point. But for now, I heart food!