Food from Summer 2007

I have been taking pictures of food for sometime now, I don't know why its taken me so long to start a blog.  Here are a couple pictures of some of the food I experienced while traveling around Europe during summer of 07.  While they were not my most memorable meals, this is where my love of food journaling started.  Unfortunately, I didn't capture the amazing food I had in Tuscany or Paris, which were some of the best meals of my life.  

1. Pastries from Florence, Italy.  As tasty as they are beautiful.

2. My first fish&chips, London.  My favorite part was the pint. 

3. Potatoes and Meat, Amsterdam, Netherlands.  We asked our hotel where to go for an authentic meal.  I remember this being served with a bowl of melted butter.  Needless to say, we stopped and got pasta on the way home.  

4th of July Feast

Every holiday my mom and I cook a feast.  For the 4th of July, which is also my dad's birthday, we decided to make fried chicken. We researched  for weeks, as we had never really attempted fried chicken before.  We studied about 100 different recipes, some as intricate as soaking the chicken for at least 24 hours in a brine followed by buttermilk, a recipe from Thomas Keller. Others as simple as flour, salt and pepper.  We decided to experiment and try 3 different recipes.  First, we brined 4 pieces overnight in a salty solution followed by a bath in buttermilk. Second, we let 4 pieces soak in buttermilk for about an hr, dipped in seasoned flour buttermilk and again in flour.  Lastly we took four pieces and just shook them with the seasoned flour.

We didn't see much of a difference in the chicken we brined, personally I think it was a waste of time.  However, the chicken that we double dipped in buttermilk and seasoned flour did seem to create crispier more delicious skin.  We cooked all of our chicken with crisco in a cast iron skillet.  Almost every recipe suggested this method, and it seemed to work well for us.

 

Side Dishes

Aunt Urma's Potato Salad

 classic mayo potato salad with a splash of white wine vinegar and pickle juice.

 

 Bright Green Salad 

with orange segments and simple vinaigrette.

 Bow Tie Pasta Caprese

 with fresh mozzerella, cherry tomatoes and a basil balsalmic dressing

REAL Maryland Crab Cakes

Fresh jumbo lump crabmeat a touch of mayo and dijon

with fresh white breadcrumbs