Friday, October 16, 2009

on the menu

For Sean's birthday this evening:

1. Amped-up Caprese

The basics are there: tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil leaves. But there'll also be baby spinach, tuna, and hard-boiled eggs.

2. Crazy Bolognese

I made this for my brother David's birthday, and Sean declared himself envious, because on that day, he was strictly following his Atkins regime. Today, Sean plans to take a day off from Atkins, risking pasta shock in so doing.

The "crazy" part of the Bolognese lies both in the variety of meats (spicy Italian sausage, ground pork, ground beef, pepperoni, and bacon), and the fact that the meat doesn't dominate the sauce as thoroughly as it would in a classic Bolognese: mushrooms and certain vegetables all have a chance to shine in this unabashedly Americanized version of the sauce.

3. Ghirardelli chocolate brownies

Sean made a special request of this, so I found two boxes of the brownie mixture when I went to Wegmans with David. It looks to be rich. Rich is good.


_

3 comments:

Max said...

Hi, Kevin.

Well, happy "coming out" day to William, and happy birthday to your brother Sean. The big three-oh, eh? It's all downhill from here (joke)! Sounds like he's in for a nice meal this evening. I don't know how to say this without sounding patronizing, but I'll say it anyway: it's nice to see you being a good son to your mom. I'm sure she appreciates your love and devotion. It's clear that you have your existential priorities straight (family first). Thanks for the heads up on my blog.

Your Pal,

Max

Maven said...

Everything sounds so delicious! That Caprese sounds more like "Caprese meets Nicoise!"

Happy Birthday to your brother!

No pix of the food?

Kevin Kim said...

Maven,

Yeah, Sean called it "caprese niçoise" as well.

Alas, no pics of the food, but the meal was about as close to perfect as I could have hoped for. I forgot to mention, in my blog post, the pizzeria-style garlic bread I made: huge, thick slices of Italian bread with garlic herb butter slathered on top of them, baked for three minutes to allow the butter to melt down into the bread, then topped with parmiggiano reggiano shavings and mozzarella, and broiled for 40 seconds to perfection. Ah, that was bliss.

And I should add that the Ghirardelli brownies were incredible-- not thanks to my skill, but thanks to whatever formula Ghirardelli uses.


Max,

Thanks for the kind words. And once again, congratulations on the birth of your son!


Kevin