Snowbound in the Kitchen

What are you supposed to do with yourself while waiting for the snow to stop? H and I decided to keep ourselves busy in the kitchen this weekend. Got the stockpots roaring with bean and bacon soup; an old fasioned beef barley; and a black bean soup with a garnish of salsa consisting of tomato, jalapeno, red onion, cilantro, and lime juice--don't forget the dollup of sour cream! Soup is soup but OMG, add the jalepeno corn bread baked in a cast-iron skillet. That bread is a staple of H's and I can't tell you how moist and spicy sweet it is! Try with some grape jelly, too. I've got to give out some thanks to a freind who on Friday afternoon dropped on my desk Bon Apetit magazine's Feb '05 issue, "Great Winter Food." H spent some time tearing out recipe after recipe and she had a little bake-off of the gems from this issue, which provided breakfast on both Saturday and Sunday. This included rasberry-filled and iced scones and oat bran whole wheat muffins with figs and pecans. Everything she bakes is blessed with perfection in taste and texture. Reading from the same magazine issue, I prepared for our Saturday-evening blizzard fare the following: oven-roasted Dungeness crab (roasted in the cast-iron skillet with olive oil, garlic, shallots, crushed hot red pepper flakes, orange juice, and zest). EAT THIS WITH YOUR HANDS! On the side there were pan-seared scallops over a field greens salad with balsamic and shallot vinagrette. Another side item, which I take no responsibility for, was a "Maryland Style" crab cake--a joke--this thing was perhaps sprayed with artificially flavored crab juice and was otherwise a big blob of bread crumbs held together with "The Stuff" (our code word for anything that contains the dreaded oils manufactured with the hydrogenation process). We do our very best to avoid any and all products containing "The Stuff," but in the instance of this crab cake (which I picked up on the salad side of the supermarket delicatessen), I took one bite and tossed it in the can, which is further than H got as she shrieked "get that off my plate." It did the Dungeness crab no justice to sit next to the A&P Maryland crab cake. I think we've spoiled ourselves getting crab cakes from the likes of McCormick & Schmicks and perhaps Legal Seafoods. For dessert H whipped up really fast a buttery choco-golden marble loaf pound cake. We washed this all down with our table pinot grigio staples, Cesari and Ecco Domani. Cheap! We have had some good wines, but if you don't have $20 to $40 and are up for "good wine" these $8-$12 wines are damn tasty. So it was Saturday night, it was snowing, our appetites were satisfied, and our senses were tingled with wine when we got to talking about bourbon. I was admiring the decanter H got me for my birthday, which is now filled with Knob Creek. I gave her a very small taste of it cut with some water and a single sliver of ice. She gave it a little swirl, admired the color, nose, taste, and finish, and she was inspired. Well, before you know it she and I go through the entire collection of bourbon on hand: Heaven Hill, Jack Daniels (not bourbon), Jim Beam, and the newly acquired small batch collection of Bookers, Bakers, Basil Haydens, and Knob Creek. Mind you, we tried a little less than ounce of each cut with clean cold water. Do I need to tell you what that much whiskey will do in an hour? The euphoria was worked off walking in the snow around the block for kicks and making snow angels in the street, and it wasn't but fifteen minutes after shedding our parkas that we were asleep.