Friday, May 8, 2009

French Toast

I bought a loaf of Fairway's Holly bread (but I think it's just Challah bread for the non-Jews) because I was craving inch-thick French toast and Wonder bread just wasn't going to cut it.











It reminded me of those special Saturday mornings when my sleepy-headed adolescent-self rolled out of bed to find my mom making french toast (I believe she used Wonder bread). As I reflect upon it, I now realize the most memorable moments with just my mom and myself were over breakfast. We were either walking down to Shalimar Diner to get our 2 eggs, corned beef hash & home fries special, or piling lox over our cream cheese-d bagels. While we haven't done those in years, I still find the times we get brunch very nice.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

An Italian Amuse Bouche?

Oy, I missed blogging about all of the April feasts (Matzo Ball Soup, Easter dinner, etc), but will get to them next week. For tonight, I am posting a simple but delicious meal Tom made me the other night. He came over and we were trying to decide what to eat for dinner.

It was 6pm and we were starving, we decided not to make pasta fagoli (and please, pronounce it the correct way- Pasta Fah-SZOOL) since he figured it would take at least 2 hours to cook (even though I so desperately crave it. The last and I believe only time I had it was when Vini fed me a bowl 5 1/2 years ago. Go figure.)

Instead, we went to the Westide Market and Fairway to pick up basil, garlic, onions, red wine vinegar, parmesan and pecorino/romano cheese, and ridiculous expensive pine nuts (seriously, 16.99/lb?! absurd, even if it is organic.) I still need to ask him for the recipes.

Tom made his own pesto sauce for our Farfalle (bowties) and red wine vinegar glaze for the cipollini onions that he learned to make in his cooking class he took in Florence, Italy. (best boyfriend ever!) To be honest with you, I was a little hesitant when he said he was making onions as a side dish, with nothing else. As much as I like a good Allium cepa, without a burger, salad or stew to complement it, onions on their own don't really appeal to me. Well as it turned out it takes a while for the onion glaze to thicken, and we ended up eating at 8:30pm anyway. And let me tell you, those cipollinis were amazing! It probably helped that it was drenched in a syrupy mess, but seriously, I could've eaten a whole bowl of them. He said that if I was impressed by that, to just wait for the other dishes he'll cook up since he's got a whole recipe book with more impressive meals waiting to be made. I will hold him to that.