Tea Leaves

This one is easy. Basically we’re going to do this recipe for pork stew except with lamb shoulder instead of pork, a bit of extra potatoes and parsnips, and just a plain set of herbs instead of chili peppers. That’s all you really need to know, but here’s the rest anyway.
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Today a soup that I discovered accidentally. It’s influenced by a lot of Chinese and Japanese style soups that I have consumed over the years, but I can’t claim that it actually has any real authentic connection to those cuisines. I threw this together one night in a miracle after a late day at work. So here we go.
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Today, a good all purpose side dish that’s stupidly easy. This is my lame version of roasted brussels sprouts, in which I have tried and failed to duplicate what they do at Legume. Mine are good, but not quite that good. I’ll even do a vegetarian version in addition to the one with bacon.

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Please enjoy my latest video, “Cooking Like a Peasant #6: Fresh Sardines”.

I have often been accused of an almost irrational affection for my standard hangouts, especially my favorite purveyors of various forms of material sustenance. If you are in Pittsburgh you get pizza at Piccolo Forno. You get Chinese food at Rose Tea. You get Thai food at the Green Mango. You get grilled meat and fish at DISH. You buy fish at the Penn Avenue Fish Market. You get fancy meals at Vivo. And most recently, you get cozy personal bistro food at Legume.

And, for as long as I’ve been back in Pittsburgh, if you want good coffee you go to La Prima.
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Today’s recipe takes a bit longer because there is more prep, but once you get through that you can play two full games of Madden while you wait for it to simmer. We’re making a pork stew with chili peppers and lime. This is based on a recipe that Karen found that is completely wrong, so I rewrote it. The last time I did this it turned out I had lamb instead of pork, and that’s not really the biggest change I made to the recipe. Then I forgot what I did. So now I’m writing it down.
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Ok. It turned out to be more like 45 minutes or a little longer. But that was only because I messed up in the middle. But first, the background.

I was annoyed this weekend to listen to an insufferably smug interview with Michael Pollan, who has written several enjoyable books about food and cooking. The interview was on NPR, and appeared to be a trial balloon for an upcoming book tour, since a longer version of his main thesis also appeared recently in the New York Times.
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Paris 66 is a nice alternative in a town which has had a shortage of crêperies. Located in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty district, near Kelly’s Bar, they have a nice variety of both savory and sweet crêpes, along with many other choices including sandwiches, soups, and salads. I enjoyed my carrot soup, and my co-diners’ sandwiches and salads all looked great. The prices are reasonable, ranging from $4 for simple sweet crêpes, up to around $9 for some of the more elaborate savory creations. (more…)

We had folks over for one of our periodic Chinese dumpling parties. The food came out particularly well this time, and I managed to use my nifty Panasonic LX-3 to take pictures of some parts of the process. So here is an updated and hopefully slightly more useful version of the reference recipe.
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This weekend was the opening weekend for the Farmer’s Market at the Firehouse in the Strip, our favorite place to go for this sort of thing. The market is run by the Slow Food Pittsburgh people and has gradually grown to be a fantastic source for local organic produce, meats, and other products. This week we got wild leeks (ramps) and morel mushrooms. So to celebrate, I made eggs for breakfast on Sunday.
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