skillet potato cake, ala Jacques and Julia

pommes de terre Byron, from Julia and Jacques (mostly Jacques).  without the sour cream–i used creme fraiche– and Parmesan it’s pommes de terre Macaire. (from the book based on their TV show, Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home.)

“vacationing”… at home

husband and kids are home for the winter break.  sweet husband is the designated cook!  and we are playing tourists.

Boston, at dusk (view from inside the Museum of Science, looking out on to the Massachusetts Avenue bridge, or “Harvard Bridge”).

playing with some wild creatures…

dimsum at Hey La Moon, Beach St.–very busy: it’s Chinese New Year….kung hey fat choy!

curried potatoes with spinach

lately i have been craving vegetables, perhaps a signal that i NEED them. perhaps to make up for the fact that during childhood i didn’t really eat much of them.

this is one of the new dishes i experimented with. i figured that after the recent scare from the E.coli contamination of the spinach fields in California, there must be extra vigilance now in the recent harvests so i went out to get a big bag of baby spinach to use in “palak aloo sag ” slightly modifed from “A Taste of the East” by Deh-ta Hsiung, Rafi Fernandez, and Steven Wheeler.

i heart chocolate forever

Valentine’s day, were hearts agog everywhere?

not too much here, we were too busy first from digging out from under the snow and then just a few hours later, wading through slush on top of that.

matcha marbled pound cake

i combined two recipes to make this delectable tender-crumbed pound cake for my kids’ afterschool/presnowstorm treat…. the weather outside belies the big nor’easter everyone’s talking about. it is so sunny and milder than usual at 24F…but not for long: the weather man says we are in for 4-7 inches of snow before it turns to ice. my kids all said, “bring it on!” #2son who’s been hugely disappointed this season (no snowball fights with daddy yet!) pouted though, “the weather man is always bluffing.”

la la labong

fresh bamboo shoots

ooh baby baby it’s a wild world….

post pilfered. dismay.

puzzled?! just cook and eat. mad.

meditated. ohmmmm.

(check if yours is there too. recipesworldDotinfo. )

(by the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens)

now that i’ve lost everything to you
you say you wanna start something new
and it’s breakin’ my heart you’re leavin’
baby, i’m grievin’
but if you wanna leave, take good care
hope you have a lot of nice things to wear
but then a lot of nice things turn bad out there

oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world
it’s hard to get by just upon a smile
oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world
i’ll always remember you like a child, girl

you know i’ve seen a lot of what the world can do
and it’s breakin’ my heart in two
because i never wanna see you sad, girl
don’t be a bad girl
but if you wanna leave, take good care
hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
but just remember there’s a lot of bad and beware

shrimp tempura with creamy spicy sauce

inspiration from nobu matsuhisa, via thess and food network.

a little devil’s food white out cake

this is really devilish. for a little devil who turned one yesterday.