All Hallows' Eve

Day of the Dead Woman and Binder Full of Women

Pimpy the Clown admiring the Binder of Women

Summer Recap

J.D. prepping our picnic at APT

I love the above pic of J.D. I know he doesn't like having his picture taken, but I have to make this exception. Look at his adorable little smile.

APT

Cedar Falls

These are just a few shots of trips to Cedar Falls this summer.

Adventures in Stock Land

<in Julia Child's voice> You start with the vegetables (celery, onion, carrot, garlic).

Then you add a pile of sage that's been hiding in your freezer for longer than you want to admit.

And then you toss in a carcass of some sort (I believe it was fowl in origin), also dredged from the frozen depths of the freezer.

Larp

I've been yearning to make this for ages. I used to have a version of it at Chee Peng Palace, a Thai and Laotian restaurant in La Crosse. Unfortunately, it no longer exists. I think they made a beef version, it was called larb, and they served it with this divine purple sticky rice. I haven't perfected the purple sticky rice yet and this was a pork version, but it was pretty darn good. The recipe's below.

Belated Fireworks + Eggs Benedict

At the beginning of September, I visited the Daleys in Lake Mills. A small group of us had a lovely dinner and then built a fire and watched the belated fireworks (they were rescheduled from July 4th because of a burn ban). The next day, Mr. Daley treated us to eggs Benedict. I hadn't had that decadent treat since childhood, and that was at a Perkins. I'm not sure if that even counts since some of the party-goers said that restaurants often use a mix for the Hollandaise.

There are conflicting versions of eggs Benedict's origins, but at a basic level, it consists of two halves of a toasted English muffin topped with ham or bacon, poached eggs, and Hollandaise sauce. Hollandaise is one of the five mother sauces of French haute cuisine, and it consists of emulsified egg yolks, butter, lemon juice, salt, and white or cayenne pepper.