No, it’s not delicious cyanide you’re smelling, that’s just the smell of concentrated almond goodness in the form of Cooking Club – Almond, thanks to our gracious host, Jessica! As always, everything was delicious and I consider myself extremely lucky to have blundered into a group of professional amateur chefs who are able to take the smallest seed (or nut) of an idea and execute it in an excellent way. Kudos!
“Schmoop de Cloop der Cloober doodle!” Which of course translates into, ”Swedish Cooking Club was delicious.. doodle!” Thanks to the Brazelton clan for the opportunity to sample the best that Extremely Northern Europe has to offer. Believe it or not, food with names like Gravlax, Glogg, and Bruna Bonor are actually excellent eats. Also, I can get behind any meal that’s entirely focused around a giant ball of meat floating in gravy.. Just not too often methinks.
Evan had a great time playing with the Brazelton sisterhood, making caves with them when I wasn’t taking the time to train them in the finer points of castle architecture and removing well hidden eggs from their ears. Also, we were fortunate enough to round out the Club with our 8th, Jen. Excellent first entry with the Swedish Pancakes, hope we didn’t scare ya too much!
Jeanette and I recently saw the movie “Julie and Julia”, with Meryl Streep’s brilliant portrayal of Julia Child, and Amy Adams as the blogger who attempted to cook through the entire set of recipes in the book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in a year. The movie was great, and even better, inspired Jeanette to make it the theme of this month’s Cooking Club! This is the kind of 3D filmmaking I can get behind!
Desiree – French Bread – The perfect companion to the soup and the Bourguignon sauce. We wish you were here to taste it!
Jessica – Vichy Carrots - Who knew that carrots cooked in sparking water could taste so crisp!
Jason – Brussel Sprouts Braised in Butter - This is officially the only way I plan on eating Brussels sprouts in the future. Excellent!
Greg – Potato Leek Soup – Awesome soup man! Despite not having the proper tools for making this tasty warm and hearty soup, it came out great! Couple this with your amazing butternut squash soup and I’m thinking tou may be our official go-to soup guy!
Paul – Some amazing tower of homemade ice cream, a sugar cookie-like crust and fire! Needless to say, I need the official name of this tower of tasty goodness.
Jeanette – Boeuf Bourguignon – Takes like 4 hours to make and you can taste all the work that goes into it too. Simply amazing!
John – Upside Down Martini (JC’s favorite drink) and a variety of French Wines. – This may be the crispest and easiest to drink martini I’ve ever had. Thanks Julia!
As I’m starting to expect from our expert team of CC’ers, everything tasted amazing. I learned that properly prepared vegetables can taste like a high-end delicacy, 4 hours of cooking can culminate in something truly mind blowing, and that ice cream can be set on fire. Now that’s how you celebrate a Saturday night!
As if to start the new year off right, the Millers’ hosted this month’s Cooking Club with Jason choosing th excellent theme of tapas. Big things come in small packages, especially well seasoned small packages it seems; this entire theme would be better labeled as “TAPAS!” as every dish was an explosion of tasty Spanish flavors.
Here’s the rundown on the delightful dishes sent from the gods to destroy any remaining diet-based new years resolutions.
Whoever came up with the original/ancient idea behind “Dates Wrapped in Bacon with Marcona Almonds” must have made some form of culinary Faustian Pact. Personally, I consider it a soul extremely well spent.
Thanks to Greg for hosting yet another great Cooking Club with the theme Cherries and Cranberries. Unfortunately, we went on vacation right after we went to this event, so I don’t have a massive writeup to go with it, but since a picture is worth a thousand words, I figure this qualifies as a small novel. Tasty and sweet things abound!
