Tangled Branches: Satiated
riveting tales of how we sustain ourselves
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Tea Diary
Today's Teas:
- Ceylon FBOPF Ex Special from PilaTeas
- Dan Cong Classic from TeaSpring
- House Blend
- Ceylon FBOPF Ex Special from PilaTeas
- Yunnan Pure Gold from TeaSpring
- Ceylon FBOPF Ex Special from PilaTeas
- Boluomi from Shan Shui Teas
- Earl Grey from Harney & Sons
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Today's Tea
Ceylon FBOPF Ex Special from PilaTeas
Shui Hsien from TeaSpring
House Blend from Me and Countless Others
Friday, February 18, 2005
Today's Tea
Ceylon FBOPF Ex Special from PilaTeas
Yunnan Pure Gold from TeaSpring
Shuixian Winter 2003 from Shan Shui Teas (I will be very sad when this one is gone)
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Today's Tea
Ceylon FBOPF Ex Special from PilaTeas
Yunnan Pure Gold from TeaSpring
Namring Upper First Flush 2004 (Darjeeling) from Jaya Teas
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Today's Tea
Ceylon FBOPF Ex Special from PilaTeas
Dan Cong Classic from TeaSpring
Royal Yunnan from In Pursuit of Tea
Croque Monsieur
For Valentine's Day dinner, we had Croque Monsieur, and Orange and Onion salad, with a glass of Pride Mountain's ? (forgot which one it was, but it was good).
I understand there are many and varied ideas about how to make this, but I make Croque Monsieur as it was presented in a recipe I read so long ago I don't remember the source. Good crusty sourdough or other rustic bread, Swiss (or in this case Jarlsberg) cheese, ham, coarse-ground mustard. Make a sandwich of the above and give it a quick soak in an egg-milk mixture (like French Toast). Then place in a frying pan or griddle on which is sizzling a mixture of butter and olive oil. Toast both sides to your liking.
The Orange and Onion salad is nothing more than a plate of sliced oranges and very thinly sliced onion, dressed with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Sometimes this fights with wine and sometimes it doesn't, but it does a nice job of cutting the richness of the sandwich.
The sandwich was exceptionally good this time, because I found a source for exceptionally good ham. Decided to check out Balducci's - hadn't been there since it was Sutton Place Gourmet (which I had long ago given up because of high prices and mediocre quality - I should write a long post about that sometime). The first thing I saw on entering the store was that they had increased the produce section. This is amazing all by itself - the trend here is to open a store with a great produce department, and then keep shrinking it until the store goes out of business. So I bought Cara Cara oranges, Mineolas, and blood oranges for the salad. Then I wandered over to the deli counter and found it stocked with many, many types of ham. But one that caught my eye was Nodine's Applewood Smoked Ham. It was beautifully marbled with fat, and judging from appearance, it didn't seem waterlogged as so many American hams are. With most American deli counter ham, I heat it in a frying pan to drive off the moisture before making it into a sandwich. But with Nodine's ham, this was unnecessary - it had a beautiful silky texture and just a lightly smoked taste, and was just perfect in the sandwich. I will be back soon for more. And we had really great bread too, from the Bread House.
