Home made

Confession: I haven't managed to do any Cookbook Challenge cooking since I got to Boston. I blame the fact that I've only cooked dinner three times in the past 10 days--and one of those was Christmas dinner, which is about as far from a 30-minute meal as you can get. The rest of the dinners have been in restaurants or in other people's houses, as we make the rounds of people in Boston that we haven't seen for more than a year.

So most of the cooking I've managed to squeeze in has been of the "sheer necessity" or the "food gift" variety. In the former category, I made homemade mayonnaise over the weekend, for only the second time ever, when I realized we didn't have any.* In the latter, to bring to friends hosting us, things like homemade chocolates and, yesterday, these cheesy, salty, spicy treats.

Cheesy nibbles
Adapted from Tamasin's Kitchen Bible by Tamasin Day-Lewis
These have been described as being like "homemade Cheez-Its", but I think that's only because they're cheesy and it's really hard to stop eating them. Texturally, they are like tiny, crumbly cookies, and they taste complex and savory. To me they're more like what Cheez-Its want to be when they grow up.

110 g/4 oz plain/all-purpose flour
110 g/4 oz parmesan, grated**
healthy pinches of: salt, freshly ground black pepper, mustard, and cayenne pepper
110 g/4 oz butter, melted

Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Mix dry ingredients together, then add in butter and stir until mixture has the consistency of breadcrumbs. (Add more butter if necessary.) Make walnut-sized balls*** and place on baking sheet(s) lined with parchment. Bake 15-20 minutes (reversing position of sheet(s) halfway through) until lightly browned. Sprinkle lightly with more salt and black pepper after removing from oven, and allow to cool on sheet(s).

Makes 20-40.

* I also managed to slip this into the latter category, by bringing some of along yesterday as a gift--I thought my hostess would appreciate it.
** I used a mix of mostly pecorino romano and some sharp cheddar.
*** I used a deep teaspoon measurement to make half-balls. They were a good bite size and went further.

Happy holidays

Well, I didn't mean to go completely silent as soon as I hit terra firma in Boston, but that's essentially what happened. I guess that's the unintended consequence of volunteering to cook Christmas dinner for 12 people four days after completing a 10,000-mile trek. Not to mention all the Christmas stuff that couldn't be completed from overseas, like putting US stamps on 50 cards, buying and decorating a tree, helping my mother make the dough for the Christmas doughnuts, brining the turkey...and best (and most unexpected) of all, having a snowball fight on the Boston Common with DP and Miss B at sunset on Christmas Eve.

But it's all done now: the only things left to do are sit back and enjoy the lights and the gifts, and figure out creative things to do with the leftovers. I hope that you have had wonderful holidays, filled with good food, good cheer, and good company.

Los Angeles

We're finishing up a three-day layover in LA, to tackle our jet lag (check) and spend some time with DP's brother and his girlfriend (check), who drove in from 12 hours away just to goof off with us for a bit. I've had a thoroughly fabulous time: enjoyed some sun without Canberra's searing summer heat; played some skee-ball; stuck my feet in the Pacific ocean on this side (it's much colder over here!); and reunited with a friend I've known since I was in fifth grade but hadn't seen in more than 10 years. I've also seen several LA landmarks, including the Hollywood sign (much further out of town than you'd think), Rodeo Drive (I've never seen so many high-end jewelry stores in one place), and the La Brea Tar Pits (which was so interesting it deserves an entry all to itself).

And, of course, the food: in particular the first good Mexican food I've eaten in 15 months that I hadn't made myself; and, finally (it only took three visits to LA), In-N-Out Burger, probably the best fast-food joint hamburger I've ever had. It's not gourmet and doesn't even appear dramatically different from its competitors; what is notable about it is that it actually tastes like real food and doesn't leave you with that fast-food hangover afterwards.

Early tomorrow it's on to Boston, where I hear they're laying on a great big snowstorm just for us. Time to pack away the t-shirts and dig out the boots; we're back in the northern hemisphere for real.