That was fun

You can have no idea how badly I wanted to taste that tart when I was 10. 

Thank you so much for your incredibly nice -- and abundant! -- comments on the last post. I've been blushing for the last three days. I wish I had a blockbuster post to continue my hot streak, but tonight it's  business as usual.

A few things:

1. The asparagus and rice soup from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook is great. Make it. Owen said it was "pretty good" and Mark gave it a 7 out of 10, but I would give it a 9.5 out of 10 and I'm the one to listen to. It's easy and inexpensive and the recipe is here. It's a very brothy so if you have homemade chicken stock in the freezer, use it.

2. On Friday we had a party and I made pulled pork from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter. The first glitch I noticed was that I didn't specify whether the pork shoulder should be bone-in or boneless. BONE-IN. Actually, that was the only glitch. Otherwise, the recipe worked pretty well. Next time you have 12 hours to babysit some coals, consider pulled pork.

3. I'm going to cook from the Time-Life Foods of the World series next. Vintage, out-of-print, still enthralling. These were my first cookbook love and probably, even after all these years, my greatest. I recently started flipping through the books again and wondered why I never thought of doing this before. I'm very, very excited. I was going to make the Tunisian brik from A Quintet of Cuisines tonight, but it looks like I'm going to a high school drama production instead. Like, right this second. Brik tomorrow.

brik

Bumper crops

Yeah, I guess the new goat babies are sort of cute. Check out the ears on the brown one. Now look at the ears on either of the black ones.

runt in foreground

Back in December, we bred Natalie to a Nigerian Dwarf (upright ears), but he didn't seem tall enough to knock her up, so a Nubian buck (floppy ears) was brought out a few minutes later. Now I think we got kids from both of them. Score! We all favor the runt because people always favor the runt.

I'm continuing the policy of cooking only one item every night, although I'm allowed to make dessert if the mood strikes. I harvested half a laundry basket of monster fava beans on Monday and braised some of them with sage and pancetta, adapting a recipe for peas in The Zuni Cafe Cookbook. I put them on the table next to the rotisserie chicken. (Note: I asked Mark to choose the next 10 dinners, but he declined the offer.)

not sure I'm up to the job

"No fava things for me," Mark said jovially. "I'm on a diet." Isabel tried the favas and disliked their texture; Owen said they didn't taste good. I alone ate the fava beans. Must every blog post include an anecdote of this nature? Apparently. Here's another from the same night:

For dessert, I made David Lebovitz's chocolate-banana ice cream. I used the version of the recipe printed in Ready for Dessert,  but it is also here. It's a super-cool recipe: Puree bananas, melted chocolate, milk, Bailey's Irish liqueur, and rum. Freeze. No machine required. The resulting ice cream is dense, icy, and complex, like a spiked fudgesicle. Mark took a bite and said, "Nope! Too alcoholic." He then served himself a big bowl of Snickers caramel swirl chunk and we sat down on the sofa with our different ice creams and watched Robin Wright have hot flashes on House of Cards. Whatever. The day we start watching different TV shows in different rooms, that's when I'll start to worry.

Last night I made fettuccine with preserved lemon and roasted garlic from The Essential New York Times Cookbook because it looked easy, delicious, and unusual. It was all three. Everyone in the household ate it without complaint. Next time I'd mince the preserved lemon finely like the recipe says, rather than chopping it coarsely like a lazy person does. I'd also add more cheese. It's a great recipe to have on hand for those occasions when you really, really, really don't want to go to the supermarket, which for me is always. Try it.

pretty pound cake baked in new bundt pan

I would rather be eating spicy crab

It WASN'T like this.

I have no enthusiasm for cooking this week, a hangover from our trip to Hong Kong. Buy the bread, buy the butter. Better yet, go to a cha chaang teng and pay someone to spread the butter on the bread and serve it to you with sweetened condensed milk and a cup of hot Hong Kong milk tea. Walk home to your shoebox apartment, stretch out on the bed, listen to the air conditioner rattle, and read a John Le Carre novel. Preferably one set in Hong Kong.

We're back from our trip. I loved Hong Kong. LOVED. Much more than expected. As I mentioned before, no one in Hong Kong cooks because home kitchens are tiny and restaurants so plentiful, excellent, and cheap. Honestly, it didn't seem like such a bad way to live. If I could walk down the street for crispy roast goose instead of roasting my own chicken? I'd never turn on the oven again.

But I don't think there's a roast goose to be had in this entire county. The closest restaurant to our house: Taco Bell. And it's not that close.

I made lentil and red pepper soup from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook last night because I was feeling so half-hearted about the domestic arts and the recipe looked really easy. It was really easy and it was really unexciting, as is usually the case with lentil soup. But the oranges with rosemary honey from the same book were even easier than the soup and they were improbably spectacular.

I don't generally gush over simple fruit desserts as I don't think a piece of fresh, seasonal fruit makes the perfect dessert. I think it makes a really disappointing dessert. These oranges, however, are delicious and rich, which is mysterious because they contain no rich ingredients. Don't skip the rosemary; I think the rosemary is what gives that curious illusion of richness.

Zuni Cafe's oranges with rosemary honey

1/4 cup honey
4 teaspoons water
leaves from a small sprig of rosemary, bruised with the back of a knife
4 oranges

1. In a very small saucepan or a large metal measuring cup combine the honey, water, and rosemary. Over low heat, simmer until melted. Watch closely so the syrup doesn't boil over. When it is runny, turn off heat and let it steep until you are ready to use it, at least 20 minutes.

2. Cut the bottoms and tops from the oranges, just enough to expose the juicy flesh. To quote Judy Rodgers: "Set the fruit on end and use a paring knife to carve away the skin and pith in a series of smooth arc-like strokes from top to bottom, rotating the orange a little with each stroke. (Most of us misjudge and miss a little pith on the first go-round, but this is easy to trim once you've removed the bulky skin.")

3. Slice the oranges thinly -- less than 1/4 inch thick -- and lay them on 4 serving plates. Drizzle with the honey. Serves 4.