Hibernation

It has been a long winter.

I've been to the farmer's market once -- once -- since the December 26th blizzard here in New York. On that day (the 26th, not the day I went to the market, which was in March), it snowed about 20 inches.

Some bike with your snow?

I didn't leave the house for a while. When I finally went to the market, in March, I bought a turnip. Not that it's been a completely uninspired winter; there was, after all, the coq au vin:

Some bird with your bacon?

 Experiments with duck fat:

One of the many, many experiments. One pound of duck fat goes a long way.

Experiments with "New York Fondue" (New York State cheddar, Brooklyn Brewery IPA, and, um, Emmenthaler):

A New York state of rind.

And something I called "Thomas Bittman Mark Keller" chicken, which if you've ever read either Mark Bittman or Thomas Keller's recipes for a foolproof roast chicken, is basically a combination of their two methods:

Ready for her closeup.

The basic method: Preheat your oven, with a cast iron skillet in it, to 450 degrees; pat dry and salt & pepper your chicken heavily, slap it in the pan, and let it roast for 45 min to an hour, without basting. Also disengage your fire alarms, apologize to your pets, and try to open the windows, even if it is 15 degrees outside. I made this a lot this winter. A. Lot.

But our real winter default is pork chops and kale (the version below contained a rare spurt of winter creativity, dasheen fritters). The pork chops in our household are traditionally sauced with a combination of fried shallots and whatever-is-left-in-the-back-of-the-fridge -- usually a spot of jam, some tamarind paste, a splash of day-old beer or wine, juice, hot pepper sauce, or as a last resort, vinegar. The pork chops are also traditionally prepared by the masculine portion of the household, and somehow, they always work. I have never quite mastered the subtle art of back-of-the-fridge Finishing Sauce.

A spot o'green!

Three to four pounds, several work-induced fast food meals at airports and a probable vitamin deficiency later, I finally bought some grapefruit and a few out-of-season eggplants flown in from the Netherlands (who knew?). When is spring really arriving? I'm not sure, but my source tells me that ramps are only 2-3 weeks out (my source: someone who reads more blogs than I do).

In the mean time, I'm cracking this puppy, purchased last week at the gift shop under the St. Louis arch. What was I doing there? Not eating St. Louis pizza, that's for sure.

Blogging without an iPhone is hard.

Shoo-fly pie, here we come!