The Kitchen Illiterate

Living and Eating in Walla Walla

I had all these grand expectations that I was going to be cooking up a storm and blogging like a mad lady once I moved to Walla Walla. But I forgot one thing: I am also working a full-time job for the first time in two years (not that being a student and working 20 hours a week wasn’t time consuming, but it’s different). I am also settling into a new town and a new life, one in which, frankly, I don’t know anyone and have been going through the gamut of emotional reactions to starting anew. All of this to say, oops. Sorry! I promised, and I didn’t deliver.

This unexpected busy-ness is compounded by the fact that I’ve been having a bit of a disastrous time in the kitchen. Adjusting to the electric stove is proving trickier than I expected. And things have been turning out, if not bad tasting, decidedly un-photogenic. And uninteresting. And certainly not worth sharing. I have even (gasp!) wondered if I wanted to keep doing this blog, instead of just cooking for myself (and, yeah, for myself, because I don’t even have a dog to feed these days). No need for alarm, though. As Miss Crystal reminded me last weekend, when I visited her in Portland, I just have to ease up and give myself time to settle in and get used to this new life o’ mine. Then I’m sure I’ll be back in fine form, and concocting all kinds of things I can’t wait to share.
Continue reading Living and Eating in Walla Walla

Grilled Salmon Livornese

Whew. It has been awhile. The move across the country put a longer hold on my blogging than I expected, but I’m here, in Walla Walla, WA, and getting settled in quite nicely. I’m more homesick for Boston than I ever thought I would be, but am quickly finding that Walla Walla ain’t a bad place to be, even though the whole town does shut down at 10 on weekends. The Farmers Market today played a pretty big part in convincing me I might be just fine here, and if you come back later this week you’ll find out what I’m planning to do with my bounty. Today is also the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Festival, but I have to admit I haven’t bought any sweet onions yet, largely because I only saw them for sale in five, ten, or fifty pound bags, and frankly, I do not need that many onions.

What I’m going to tell you about today has nothing to do with Walla Walla, really, other than that this was the first meal I cooked in my new house, and on my new grill. Daddy-o kindly showed me how to light a charcoal grill, and hopefully I won’t be too afraid to do it on my own in the future, because this grilled salmon was pretty spectacular and I definitely would like to do it at again.
Continue reading Grilled Salmon Livornese

Still Soup Weather

I realize that a lot of you are perhaps already experiencing that thing called BBQ weather, but in the Northeast, we’ve been rained in through almost all of June. I’ve been gazing at the pages of spring produce in Bon Appetit for the last two months, wondering when, oh when is it going to be our turn, and then looking at the window and realizing it’s not our turn yet.

But for all of you who live in already sunny climes, I know there are a lot of you who are also plagued with late June rains. I’ve been reading food blogs from people around the US who are also wondering where the heck summer is, and I have a few friends and readers in the southern hemisphere for whom summer is a half a year away. So in honor of our late-arriving spring, and those of you for whom soup season is just gearing up, I put together this post of some of my favorite soup recipes from the last two years.
Continue reading Still Soup Weather

Lobster Risotto

It is amazing how fast time is passing these days. I do believe I promised to share this lobster risotto a few days ago, but suddenly the weekend was over and I still hadn’t posted this recipe. Doh. My apologies.

I was dreaming of lobster risotto for a long time. Over a year, in fact. But cooking lobster always seemed so decadent, so difficult, so expensive…it was one of those things I just kept putting off. Which is silly, because it’s really none of those things, and lobster risotto is so wonderful, it’s worth boiling up a lobster just for this dish alone. Though if you’re lucky, you can have a lobster dinner one night, and lobster risotto with the leftovers the next.
Continue reading Lobster Risotto

One Last New England Lobster

One of the things on my Things to Do in Boston Before I Move list was cooking lobster. I probably should have re-phrased that, though, to read “Make Mr. X cook me lobster” because when it came down to it, well, I wussed out. There is just something about those things that gives me the heebie-jeebies, even after they’re dead. But I’ve got myself a pretty great man, and when I told him I wanted lobster, he took on all the heavy lifting of this particular cooking project without complaint. He even bought an extra lobster so I could make lobster risotto later in the week.
Continue reading One Last New England Lobster

Logo assistance?

I have mentioned here before that I have a big ol’ shiny site re-design in the works. In pursuit of that project, I’m looking for a budding graphic designer who might be able to draw me up a nifty logo.

I don’t have much in the way of extra funds these days to hire an artist, BUT I can cook! So in exchange for your artistic services, I’m happy to invite you over for a home-cooked meal (if you live in the Walla Walla, WA area) or I will mail you a huge and tasty care package of your favorite kinds of treats.

If you think you might be willing to put your skills to work for the new and improved Kitchen Illiterate, and get some good eatings for your labor, please either leave a comment here or email me at lkrier@yahoo.com.

Fiddlehead Ferns, at last

Here it is, my last two weeks in Boston. And I have to say, it has been a pretty lame spring so far. I know that June can often be gloomy and disappointing, but I had hoped that New England would give me a break and throw me some sunshine, just so I could leave with fond memories, rather than the reassurance I already feel that moving back to the west coast was the right idea.

The hardest part of a late and crappy spring? I’m still waiting for all those lovely spring vegetables Bon Appetit has been bragging about for the last two months. Our farmer’s markets are still pretty darned paltry, where they are even open at all. And I thought that I had missed the narrow window for Fiddlehead ferns, a treat I’m not so sure will be available in Walla Walla, Washington. But once again, it was Mr. X to the rescue: He found these at the market last week and bought them up for me, because he’s pretty swell like that.
Continue reading Fiddlehead Ferns, at last

Mushroom Sausage Puffs

I love puff pastry. I consider it a culinary wonder. But it’s not exactly something you can have for dinner every night, and most of the uses to which puff pastry can be put fall firmly in the appetizer category. So I relish the opportunity to make appetizers for dinner parties, and I was given just that opportunity this past weekend. Our awesome friends Stan and Charity hosted a dinner party and invited me, Mr. X, and some kind of pre-dinner treat, so I decided to throw together these.

They are very similar to the Mushroom and Goat Cheese Triangles I have made for several dinner parties in the past, but I wanted to do something a little different, a little more substantial. So sausage it is! And frankly, I think they are much better for it.
Continue reading Mushroom Sausage Puffs

Spinach and Barley Soup

Alright, so it’s not really soup weather anymore. In fact, Boston has suddenly leaped forward into what is pretty much summer. But I bought all this spinach when it was still soup weather, overcast and wet and chilly, and I really wanted this soup. It might be my last soup of the season, or at least, the last hot soup (I have some gazpacho in mind). So I had to do it. And even though it was 85 degrees out, and probably hotter in my kitchen, it was completely worth it. That bright green color made me so happy, and it was light and brightly flavored, and really would have been 100 percent perfect if I had made it when it was still hovering around 50 degrees in Massachusetts. At least now I have it in my repertoire for fall. And if you come across another cool day before summer is official, I recommend you give this soup a shot.
Continue reading Spinach and Barley Soup

Pollo al ajillo

The last month has been crazy. Between finishing graduate school, preparing for a job interview, and traveling to California and to Washington within the space of a week, I hardly had a chance to breathe. Then I came back from Washington (site of aforementioned job interview) and, before I had even unpacked, I was offered the job and was immediately thrown into the reality of moving across the country. So it looks like the next month will be crazy, too.

During all of that craziness, this recipe sat patiently on my desk, just waiting for me to find, not just the time to prepare food of any kind, but an occasion that deserved it. That occasion came last week when Mr. X and I finally had a Saturday evening at home that involved me not doing homework and him not doing work. Amazing. As was this dish.
Continue reading Pollo al ajillo