FoodNerd!

curry-leaf cocktail

Run, do not walk, to Rendezvous in Central Square and order yourself a curry-leaf cocktail before they are rotated off the menu.

The cocktails at Rendezvous are generally quite good, but this one is really great. Curry-leaf-infused gin, with lime and celery juice. You get that fresh, vegetal hit of celery and lime, and then the finish is the floral fragrance of the curry leaf. Dreamy, and great for spring.

(While you're there, get the gnocchi. Pillowy-light and perfect every time. Yum.)

flouting the ban

Apparently Hot Doug's has been openly serving -- *gasp* -- foie gras hot dogs despite the city-wide Chicago ban:

http://theedge.bostonherald.com/foodNews/view.bg?articleid=191880

The man has passion for what he does. You have to respect that. That and the fact that he fries potatoes in duck fat twice a week.

ready-to-eat microwave meals that don't suck!

These SWAD brand "micro curry" pouch meals are astonishingly tasty. I picked a couple up at Patel Brothers in Chicago, on a whim, because they were cheap (less than $2) and hope springs eternal that convenience food won't taste like complete shite. http://www.bqfoods.com/readytoeat2.html

Turns out they are awesome. I've had the Baingan Bharta and the Methi Mutter Malai, and when combined with rice you can get two light meals (or one hearty one) out of the packet. Who knows what poisons you get from microwaving food in a plastic packet, but if it's only once in a while I guess it probably isn't the worst thing ever. Because I tell ya, for 2 bucks and 2 minutes and some leftover rice, you can't really beat these.

Appear to be available at the Waltham (Moody St) Patel Brothers store also, and presumably at other Indian groceries elsewhere.

pi(e) day; or, we have returned

Hi everyone. Tallasiandude pointed out to me this morning at breakfast that there are NO POSTS AT ALL on this blog anymore because the last one is more than 30 days old, and that is just sad.

So, since as of last Wednesday we have actually finally moved to the new house (which is extra-beyond awesome, more on that later), we have a bed and a shower and a semi-set-up kitchen, and we don't actually have any specific nightmarishly-urgent task to complete, I actually have two minutes to spare for (dare I say?) Leisure Activities.

And so I will post about our moving-day dinner.

We have a friend, DZ, whose birthday is March 14. He now lives in Seattle, but when he lived here he would have an annual Pi(e) Party on his birthday. This is genius on so many levels: it's a pun, it's exceedingly nerdy, and there's PIE. Everyone would make pies and bring them along, often with a pi symbol cut into the crust to vent steam. (It is awesome to party with crafty creative nerdy types.)

Anyway, he's not here this year so there was no Pi(e) Party for us to go to, which was good in any case because we had the movers coming that day, and we were up to our ears in furniture and boxes and kittykats trying to escape into the shrubbery. Which of course is hungry business, and so as night fell we needed to forage for some dinner. And we wanted to have some pie, as it seemed only fitting.

And so we settled on the Deluxe Town Diner, a fine old enamel traincar diner in Watertown, which has excellent pancakes of many types at brunch. And which also turns out to have excellent food at dinner.

The fried chicken was extremely crunchy and came with deliciously creamy skin-on mashed potatoes and buttery-garlicky broccoli. The meatloaf was non-standard, containing sauteed veg such as carrot and celery, but this made it quite savory and yummy; it also came with the fab taters and some spinach prepared similarly to the broccoli. Both green vegetables were perfectly cooked crisp-tender, which is rare and wonderful.

And of course, at the end, there was pie.

Mixed berry pie, in homemade crust, with vanilla ice cream. Yum. And then we went home and fell into the bed and slept.

Later that week, we scrambled around and set up the house a little bit, because we had NoodleFest '07 scheduled for the weekend (post to follow), and so I leave you with a photo of our living room in progress. (Do i hear cheering? Screams of joy and pleasure at its fabulousness? Oh, sorry, that's me.)