I'm Pissed, Therefore I Cook

Let me explain. I was feeling like hell on a beautiful Friday night and I was pissed about it. Nothing sounded good and my tummy hurt like someone kept kicking me in it repeatedly, so I just laid in bed and watched Food TV until something clicked. And guess what it was? Milkshakes!

So yeah, I made myself a strawberry milkshake with Tillamook Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and strawberries. And milk. And then, since I was still feeling pouty, I decided to go to my happy place and cook, Oregon-style.

I had morels from the market that I let dry out (which I deserve to be kicked in the stomach for), so I reconstituted them in some warm water, then sauteed them with butter and garlic. I also had asparagus from the market, and since mushrooms and asparagus are best friends, I figured I'd go with it. I sliced the asparagus and blanched it, boiled some whole wheat macaroni I found in the pantry, then added the morels, asparagus, and pasta to a large skillet. I added a squeeze of lemon juice and a splash of white wine, then tossed the whole thing with freshly grated Parm and black pepper. I also threw a Thai chile in there because I f-ing wanted to.

I even plated it before I realized that it wasn't enough. I mean, it was enough food, but it wasn't angry enough. It was way too sterile. If angry food isn't deep fried or sweat-through-your-eyes spicy, it better at least have some fat in it. So, I grabbed some half and half from the fridge and reduced it in the skillet with another splash of wine and some pepper. A little more grated Parm and then I retossed everything together. Much better.

(Alright, it took me two tries to make the psuedo-half-assed cream sauce. The first time I completely forgot how to cook and added everything at the wrong time and it broke. Stupid delicate cream.)

Oh, yeah, and I topped the pasta with some toasted filberts. (Those are hazelnuts, you know.) This is my ode-to-Oregon pasta. Local nuts, local veg, local 'shrooms. It's kind of like trail mix, but it's pasta. It's Oregon Trail Mix Pasta. Maybe that's what I should have called this post. No, I think being pissed was more of the theme.

It was kind of good, but honestly, I wasn't really even hungry. My tummy was still feeling kicked in and I was kind of full from the milkshake, which I had first, but I was just in the mood to cook. Because I was pissed. Hence the title.

I planned on hanging out with my milkshake and my angry pasta in the living room while watching a mind-numbing TNT movie, but nothing was on! What the hell? Then, I remembered that my friend gave me a new book to read, so I decided to light some nag and do that instead. It turned out to be a much better idea, so I owe him one.

Serve your Angry Oregon Trail Mix Pasta and milkshakes with anything by Beirut, which I am currently ODing on because it's so bloody good and I can't stop listening to it. I was turned onto this by the same friend who gave me the book, so I guess I owe him two.

*Health Note: calcium is a highly important mineral, especially for women, and studies show that most women only get about half the recommended daily intake. Dairy is an excellent source of calcium because it also contains lactose, which helps the body absorb calcium. Oh, and there is also evidence that calcium helps to reduce PMS. Now we're all happy. Bet you didn't think I could justify the milkshakes and creamy pasta. Ha. In your face.

Wild Mushroom Agnolotti with Asparagus, Sweet Spring Onions, and Speck

"You got a box in the mail that says, 'Keep Refrigerated.' Should I open it?"

This is the message I got from my roommate the other day. I had completely forgotten about the Tastemaker Program, where I am supposed to review new products they send me, so of course I had a lot of fun thinking about what the hell was in the "Keep Refrigerated" box. It was a huge receptacle, mind you. Like, big enough to contain a reasonably sized living creature. Imagine my disappointment when it was just pasta.

It turned out to be a new product from Buitoni called Buitoni Riserva, which apparently contains 100% natural ingredients. Right. I have an issue with products that advertise this, like fast food shacks and their new chicken sandwiches, "now with 100% natural chicken." Uh, so what was in the other stuff?


Anyway, the specific product was Wild Mushroom Agnolotti, and I'll tell you what, those little bastards were actually really tasty. The filling was shockingly ample, flavorful, and identifiable. I even plucked a large piece of mushroom out of one of them. This is both impressive and surprising to me. Nice job, Buitoni. Must be all the natural ingredients in there...

My preparation goal was to showcase the pasta, so rather than drown it in sauce, I decided to pair it with some complimentary fresh springy flavors. I picked up some nice looking sweet spring onions and a bunch of asparagus at the farmers market and stopped at Pastaworks (another fab local market with a killer meat case) for some speck.

Speck is another product from the pig, or as I like to call it, the culinary wonder animal. It comes from Tyrol, which is an Italian region near the Austrian border (hence the German-sounding name). Think prosciutto, only smoked and laced with a hint of juniper berry. I learned about speck from watching the great classic Italian chef, Lydia Bastianich. I like to say it like her: "schpeck!"

First, I sliced up some of the speck and sautéed it until almost crispy. Next, I grilled the asparagus and onions to give them extra flavor, then chopped them up and sauteed them in the pan with the speck drippings. The agnolotti only took about 3 minutes to cook (they were fresh...did I mention that?), so I boiled them at the end and then just before serving, I added them to the pan with a splash of their cooking water. They were thick and reminded me of pierogies, so I felt like giving them a little char rather then serving them all slimy and chewy-like. I tossed the saute with the speck, some good olive oil, and chopped fresh rosemary right before serving. Topped with shaved Parmigiano and served with a simple green salad with lemon vinaigrette.


The salty, smokiness of the speck worked well with the creamy, earthiness of the 'shroom filling, and the grilled veg added an appropriate texture contrast, along with some freshness and a hint of grill char. Success.

Oh, I also grabbed a rosemary focaccia at the market. Ripping off chewy, fragrant hunks of that to sop up any lemon vinaigrette or rogue bits of speck was quite satisfying. Preferably serve this outside on a brilliantly sunny day with some classic Italian trattoria-style music and say, "tutti a tavola a mangiare!" The vitamin D and Italian eating commands really add to the experience.

I Spent Years in a Relationship with Food, But All I Got Was This Blog

It's funny how sometimes the Stream of Consciousness can actually lead somewhere. Mine seems to have landed me in Portland, Oregon.

People always ask me why I up and moved to Portland, pretty much out of the blue, after having spent most of my life bouncing around the right side of the country between Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Washington, DC.

"Well, the food, of course!"

This is what I tell them, but it's usually not deemed a satisfactory answer, so I have to rephrase it a bit. I moved here because I love the quality of life Portland offers. I love the beauty that surrounds the place--the city, the mountains, the people. I feel right. I "fit." (And I don't fit anywhere.) And for me, Happiness is largely found amidst the stacked rainbow tables of the local farmers market, or swirling through a tulip-lipped carafe of Willakenzie Estate Terres Basses Pinot Noir, or in my own humble kitchen stocked with local bounty.

Portland is a food town at it's best--creative yet classic, indulgent yet modest, and fabulously positioned in the middle of a palatable wonderland. (Think Willy Wonka's edible room, but replace the gum drop trees with filbert trees and succulent marionberry bushes, swap the marshmallow mushrooms with golden chanterelles and shitakes, and drain the chocolate river and refill it with hop-heavy microbrews, organic house-roasted coffee, and earthy, inspiring wines the leave the French shaking in their chaussures.)

My first (and only) trip to Stumptown prior to my hasty move was in mid-September, and I had a day to kill with a local chef friend who gave me a tour of the kitchen before we hit the streets of downtown. It was a Wednesday, as luck would have it, and we stumbled upon the Park Blocks Farmers Market. There, we sampled fragrant herbed cheeses, sipped organic Hood River cider, and left with a crusty multi-grain baguette and the world's most luscious white peaches at their juicy, flavorful peak. It was all over for me right there.

I'm not exactly sure where my affair with Food started--maybe somewhere circa 1986 when I was pulling spices and dried beans from the cabinets, mixing them all in a bowl, and then patiently waiting for my terrified cats to indulge in the treat I created for them. Maybe it was in 8th grade home ec, the true manifestation of my middle school awkward phase (sure, we'll call it a phase), where I secretly reveled in that hour of grilled cheese-making bliss and didn't mind staying after class. (Alright, I'll give it another shot. I'll give home ec another shot...) Or maybe it's just that I'm always hungry. Needless to say, we dated briefly, Food and I, and then I, being the codependent one, dove head first into a serious relationship. Now one of us just has to commit. Culinary school? Restaurateur? Assistant line cook, at least? Nope.

Always the difficult one, I didn't think taking this infatuation and putting it to logical use was the right path for me. My professional life has nothing to do with the culinary world at all, but I still get at it in any way I can on the side, changing our relationship from healthy coexistence to something more like addiction. And now that I'm in Portland, all bets are off. So, since rehab is clearly not an option, (you wouldn't drop a recovering alcoholic in the middle of Oktoberfest and expect her to stay on the wagon, would you?) my fetish needs some sort of outlet while the farmers markets are out of season. This brings me to the blog. My first blog! Well, what else would I write about? Coworker woes and shamefully contrived soul-searching? I know what you're thinking, but don't worry...I'll save that melodrama for my journal try to focus my public musings on adventures in gastronomy.

No, I don't have "credentials," but I like to think of my experiences as the Culinary School of Hard Knocks. Oh, you learned to make a perfect Béchamel in Sauces, 101? Well, I was spiking Prego with basil stolen from the neighbor's yard and my parents' cooking wine. I mashed potatoes for an entire Thanksgiving feast for 20 with nothing but a plastic fork! OK, enough already. (My tuiles could beat yours in a fight!)

I've never had a blog before, so I can't say exactly how successful I'll be at keeping up with it, or really how it's supposed to work at all. I find it slightly self-indulgent to put my inner monologue into writing and expect people to care about it, but hey, I love to write, and I can't really help it. (Addict, remember?) Let's say, in theory, I'll try to write about my food adventures, indulgences, feats and failures, and hope that at the least it comes out in a mildly entertaining way. Anyone who decides to read this, I hope you know that you are just feeding my addiction, so thanks a lot. (Enablers.)

Disclaimer: while this is a serious attempt at offering some actual food insight through my twisted affair with the culinary world, it is also just that; a glimpse at a personal relationship, which always brings with it an element of incoherency, emotional bias, and depending on the strength of the Stream of Consciousness, some unexpected debris.

Cheers!