because you can't eat angry birds

Last Friday my cousin sent me an email:
(actual transcript from my email. Don’t judge on the grammar, we keep it loose)

Jess!

A few things. One, what are your fave apps? I am trying to find a food one for printing to our wireless printer.

To which I responded:

My fave apps...let's see, like off the top of my head what I would put out on the table? Roasted cherry tomatoes a chunk of manchego and some crackers, maybe a small bowl of caramelized onions too. Last night I made an impromptu appetizer of a goat cheese log with red pepper jelly spooned over, microwaved for about 30 seconds, just to warm and make spreadable and um, let's see what else, Sue Pithie's chicken wings and "Swedish" meatballs are party go-tos and Cousin Jenny's Cheeseball, which is on Porky D in December of 2009.

To which she responded:

You are soooooo awesome! Because, of course, one day into iPhone-ness, I meant iPhone apps! But of course any other time of the year I would have responded the exact same way! ( and your list of app apps will do me well this weekend!)

I should probably mention that I too have an iphone and because I am an American citizen with access to the outside world on a regular basis, I know what an “app” is. My nephew taught me when he got his iTouch. He is 8.

Anyways. After her response email I had a good laugh at myself and was thinking about this dual use of the abbreviation “app”. Because in my social circle “should we get an app?” is met with heads bent towards the menu studying what worthwhile starters are on there, not fingers swiping their way along the app store to find a free version of Tetris*. Is there an app for apps? Is that the most meta thing out there? Should I call a lawyer and take out a patent or a copyright or whatever the heck you use to make money off your ideas right now?

Nah. That sounds like too much of a hassle. Plus it’s nice out for the first time since September so for today let’s keep it short and sweet and I will serve as your App App.



WARM GOAT CHEESE and RED PEPPER JELLY

This app (okay I’m getting a little tired of it already) was something I made out of necessity because the friend who was bringing the appetizers was stuck in traffic and we were ready for a snack. It’s a slightly more bourgeois take on the old party classic: cream cheese and red pepper jelly. All you need to do is sub the cream cheese out for a log of goat cheese, dump some red pepper jelly over, microwave it for about 30 seconds, just to soften and warm it slightly and serve with crackers or crostini. Oh snap. Now that’s an app.



*does this exist? If so please message me privately and tell me how to buy it. I need a new time suck and Tetris always did the trick back in 1992.

that's one old quiche

Check me out this week over at Edible South Shore. ESS celebrates all things local. Which, here in the Northeast, during winter, means those people eat a hella lot of root vegetables. One of my main damies, Aja Amontea, is their blog editor. Which means occasionally she plies me with wine, gelato and compliments in order to get me to drop some Porky knowledge on that corner of the web. This week, I herald the coming of spring with a recipe celebrating the humble ramp.

You might recognize the photos because I included some old faves from a brunch post from last spring. Ramps are seriously really good. You will start to see them now in the produce section and at the farmer's market. Ramp it up!

tastes like spring

Did you know pine nuts are made of spun gold and the dander from endangered species? Well, they must be, because they cost $9.00 for a small container. I blinked my eyes several times and gasped out loud so that the lady standing next to me would wonder what I was upset about and I could say to her “get a load of the price on these pine nuts! How do they sleep at night?!” and we would enjoy a moment of grocery store camaraderie about food inflation; but she ignored me and may or may not have angled her fleece-jacketed shoulder farther away from me so as to make it completely clear that she was not interested in hearing my musings on the high price of pine nuts. Whatever lady, your loss. Because you should probably know they are expensive.

OUCH



But still, I splurged. I look at them as an investment, because truly, a nicely toasted pine nut. In the right recipe, there really is no substitution. And in the pasta I was scheming to make I knew no other nut would suffice. As I put them to toast over low heat I made a mental note “Jess, don’t forget about the pine nuts.” And then I sat down on the couch with Val and started yakking and completely forgot about the stinkin’ pine nuts. But only a few were too toasted. The rest were salvageable, which is good, because I’m no Hercules Rockefeller.



PESTO PASTA with SPRING VEGETABLES

One box pasta
One bunch asparagus spears, trimmed and cut into pieces
Half box frozen petite peas (defrosted)
Half bag baby spinach leaves, coarsely chopped
½ cup basil leaves, sliced into ribbons
½ cup pine nuts, toasted
¼ cup grated parmesan cheese, plus more shaved into strips
One jar store bought pesto, or homemade, if you’ve got it
Juice from half a lemon
Extra virgin olive oil



Prior to cooking, toast your pine nuts in a nonstick pan over low heat until they are fragrant. Set aside. Heat a large pot of water over high heat for pasta, once boiling, salt generously and add pasta. Meanwhile, trim and chop your asparagus, spinach and basil. Most pasta should take about 8-10 minutes to cook, check the box for cooking time and set your timer. When there is about 3 minutes left add the asparagus and let cook a minute or two. For the last minute of cooking add the chopped spinach. Then drain the whole thing together and dump it back into the pot. Add the peas (if they are still a bit frozen, the hot pasta will cook them through in no time), the pesto, basil, pine nuts, cheese, lemon juice and a drizzle of olive oil. Stir together; salt and pepper to taste. Shave thin slices of parmesan over for serving and more cheese on the side if needed.





This pasta dish was really delicious and came together in one pot, in about 15 minutes. Get a good pasta that has lots of surface area to catch the sauce and vegetables. I used an oversized rotini and it was perfect. When I make this again, I will use even more peas, spinach and basil, because the more vegetables, the better. By the time we were done with dinner we had picked them all out and mostly just pasta remained in the bowl.



To serve with this, I made a simple little baby mache salad with a few shaved pieces of parmesan cheese and a light drizzle of olive oil and some aged Balsamic vinegar. Even if it doesn’t look like spring outside, this meal tasted like it.



photo credits to Mish and Val. Who gladly assisted in the production of this post and also got to eat its contents. Thanks ladies.

afternoon snack

Can I interest you in a snack?



As you can see I'm still plugging my way through too many boxes of Girl Scout Cookies. My niece hustled me for like, 6 boxes and solicited about 5 of my friends' phone numbers so she could bag them for some too. I told her she has a future in sales.

But forget about the GSCs for a second. Check out their friend, Green Tea Frappucino over there (can I say Frappucino on here?). I have long been scheming to make one of these homemade and I finally did it. The recipe isn't quite right yet so I have to do a little more field research, but it's coming. Until then, enjoy the cookies.

where the magic happens

If a kitchen is not comfortable nor will you be. So make it suit you, and not the universal customer. Make it an extension of your personality. Above all give yourself, and it, over to the chaotic coziness that in a cold universe is the kitchen's soul-saving grace.

~Nigella Lawson





Nigella is, as the song goes, strumming my pain with her fingers with that statement. When I spend a few hours in my kitchen, I feel whole again. Soul, saved. Dinner, done. Far from being a chore, chopping, scraping and simmering are a few of my favorite activities and I think there is no greater scent in the world than onions and garlic hitting the pan. That is the smell of supper.





In an article written for the Wall Street Journal last week, Nigella detailed, in her poetic prose, what makes a kitchen cozy. I loved her words. She is, in addition to being an excellent chef and a total Brick House, a great writer to boot.





The only hitch with the article is that what was billed as a slideshow of “Nigella’s Cozy Kitchen” was actually a bunch of stock photos of kitchen ware and gadgets that she recommends. Major false advertising. I don’t want to see a gift guide. I want to see your crumpled up dish towels and what pictures you have on your fridge. So I figured, even though you didn’t ask, that I would show you mine.




“A real kitchen is not a perfect kitchen” she writes. As we speak, the top of my stove is crusted with oil spatters and coffee grinds from breakfast. We rent, so the only real changes we can make is to add artwork and ourselves (and cute dish towels too, obviously). Perfect it is not. But consistently used, completely functional and definitely cozy, it is. I love this kitchen so much and I hope you like it too.



Pot rack made by my dad. Arguably, best use of space ever.



Bruce and Bea's chow station:



This high top desk is the perfect height to give extra counter space and is neutral enough that it doesn't hurt my need for aesthetic cohesion.





I have also created, in case you are confused about the layout from my crappy photos, an architect-grade, completely to scale drawing of the kitchen layout. As you can see you must have a seven inch waist line to walk past the fridge and get out onto the back deck:

Meet Neens

Friends are good, right? Wait. No friends are the best. We can all agree on that. Howzabout friends that are so nice it hurts and so talented and adorable you just simply can't get over the fact that they are actually your friends? I have friends like that Meet Nina Isabella: former college roommate, friend for life and super sick interior design guru. A few months back Neens started her own blog to celebrate all thing pretty, indulgent and cool. It's very cute and stylish and I want to pick it up and cradle it like a baby. Which incidentally is what I do to Neens every time I get to see her, whether she likes it or not.

She asked me if I would share some Porky over on Ciao Bella a few weeks back and today, she posted a link over here to yours truly. Thanks Neens! Much love, mama.

CHECK her OUT!

Here is a cute shot I took of her and her nephew at her wedding last summer.

new fashioned

I was scrolling through recent posts and realizing that if I introduced another dish that was a) a soup or b) chickpeas, we might have a full scale revolt on our hands. So I thought, what could I charm you with? Why booze of course.



When I used to sling drinks, if someone ordered an Old Fashioned, the odds of it being an elderly man with ear hair and a hearing aid taking advantage of the Friday night prime rib special was about 10 to 1. Thanks to Mad Men and the entire borough of Brooklyn making all things either a) old timey or b) midcentury modern searing hot these days, the Old Fashioned and variations thereof are seeing a new moment in the sun right now. It’s funny what a couple years can do, right? It’s like how mullets came back around and were really hip again for a little while there. Oh wait, they didn’t? Don’t tell my sister, because she had one in 2006. True story.



Lately when I go out for dinner, or lunch (who am I kidding) if there is a whiskey based drink on their list that intrigues, it is hands down what I will order first. I really enjoy how cocktail menus in recent years have moved further away from syrupy sweet, sugar rimmed martinis to drinks that actually taste like drinks. For too many years it seems the collective ideology of the Cocktail List was to mask the alcohol in juice and dye, leaving us with something that tasted more like a sleeve of Sprees than an actual Adult Beverage. We are, after all, adults now aren’t we?



So remember when I made the liquid pie? Well it was such a traumatic process that I had to stop halfway through and make myself a drink. I had on hand about ¾ of the ingredients necessary for an Old Fashioned (bourbon, lemon, seltzer, sugar, ice). So I made myself a variation on that. Since then I have kicked around the idea of really making a go at a delicious, new fangled version of the old classic. A traditional Old Fashioned is comprised of this: one slice orange or lemon, a maraschino cherry, a teaspoon of sugar and a dash of bitters, muddled, topped with rocks, Bourbon whiskey and soda water. When they are good they are fantastic and when they are bad I can actually FEEL hair growing on my chest as I drink it. Which if I was a dude, would not be such a bad thing, but I have to appear in tank tops on a regular basis and if I showed up looking like Wolverine, I think people would get a little weirded out.



So what we have here is what I came up with on a cold, grey Sunday afternoon while doing some laundry. I (accidentally on purpose) made enough for two drinks and ended up folding my laundry with a pretty decent buzz on. There are worse things that can happen. So here is my sexed up, citrified, new fashioned Old Fashioned. She’s got only the slightest hint of sweetness, she’s a bit tart, somewhat bitter and very pretty. I call her Betty, because, obviously.



BLOOD ORANGE BOURBON BETTY
(makes two proper and strong cocktails)

Juice from half a blood orange
Juice from quarter of a lemon
1 tsp. sugar
½ tsp. ground ginger
½ tsp. ground coriander
approx. 2 oz. Bourbon Whiskey (I like Maker’s Mark)
approx. 1-2 oz. Pimms
Seltzer water
Sliced blood orange or orange peel for garnish



Juice orange and lemon and pour into a pint glass or cocktail shaker, including any pulp from the orange. Add sugar, ginger and coriander, whisk together. Add ice (lots of it) and then pour in equal parts bourbon and Pimms. You could make this with just whiskey if you don’t have Pimms, but I had a bottle kicking around and wanted to see if it could be used for something other than just Pimms Cups. Clamp the lid on your shaker, or if using a pint glass, clamp a martini shaker on the other end. Shake well, until good and frothy. Don’t be a sissy when it comes to shaking your drinks. The shaking process melts away a bit of the ice and really blends the juice and booze together in a way that two weak baby shakes would never do. Shake it like a Shake Weight, just make sure your glass or lid is clamped on good and tight.



In a rocks glass or an old fashioned glass filled with ice, strain half of the mixture in, filling the glass about 2/3 of the way; top with seltzer and don’t forget to start the dryer on the second load of laundry. It won’t dry itself and you will feel moderately embarrassed when you go to change the laundry and there is an entire dryer of soggy sheets staring your drunk mug in the face. Cheers!



If you’re serving a couple people, double or triple the recipe and combine all of the juice and booze ingredients in a small pitcher with some ice. When serving, pour over ice and top with seltzer.



*note* I remembered in hindsight that I did use a dash of Angustora Orange Bitters. But I don't think it was entirely necessary. Use it if you've got it. If not, no biggie.