Memorial Day

Memorial Day seems to typically end up being our massive spring cleaning day even if it seems to really herald the arrival of summer since we typically turn on the a/c for the first time this weekend every year. (Since GA is so hot and the a/c will run every day for pretty much the next like four months, I try to wait as long as possible before turning it on.) Since we both took tomorrow off, today was even more of a spring cleaning than usual since I don't feel like I'm losing my only day to "relax" to cleaning. I typically feel productive and happy after getting a lot done so it's cathartic to me.

Yesterday, we went to both the farmer's market and Publix to stock up since we were lot on a lot of things like coffee (blasphemy!) and toothpaste. No chile rellanos for us since we could neither find the right cheese nor the peppers. I decided to try to dedicate today to cooking a bunch and also cleaning out the DVR. I was only mildly successful.

I ended up cleaning the shower, washing all the towels, bathmats, and sheets as well as spot cleaning all the floors. Oh yeah, and I did my laundry so I actually have clothes to wear. I'm sure that all my co-workers will be happy that I will not arrive at work Wednesday morning naked.

On the cooking front, I made a batch of french onion soup and a large pot of potato leek soup. Typically I make the Joy of Cooking recipe, but this time I made Julia's from Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home. I'm a creature of habit so I have to admit that I like the Joy version better. In what is likely a blasphemous move, I added some corn starch and cream to thicken up my soup a bit. I also created the marinade for some short ribs from The Art of Braising. I'll cook those tomorrow and since it's a large batch, we'll have some tomorrow and then also two days later, when Molly Stevens says that they will be even better. I also made a large pot of dark chicken stock which has been happily simmering on the stove the last couple of hours, deepening its flavor.

What else... we also made a batch of lemonade. Yum.

Tomorrow, J wants to head to Madras Chettinaad for a lunch buffet. I really love their garlic fish curry so I hope there is some of that. I know that their weekend buffet has more offerings than their weekday buffet, but it's always good to be exposed to new foods (that I will just order every time I go there).

Hopefully we will manage to stay awake after that, and we can get in a trip to Atlanta Fixture. I want to check out some skillets for my sister as well as get a good non-stick skillet for me (we don't have any except the cast iron, and non-stick is bad for you anyway) and a fine mesh sieve. I really need want a new cutting board too, but am having trouble deciding which to get. I really love my rubber cutting board, but it's round. I have decided that I lose a good amount of real estate on a round cutting board, especially when you pile things on the corners like I like to do. I went to the Chinese restaurant supply store where I got my cutting board, and they did have the rectangular ones, but it was $45; a bit steep, I thought, for a cutting board. It's not really that bad compared to, say, a Boos block. And I have had my current board for like five years so they definitely last. Which is actually why I don't need a new one! This one is still great. Oh well...

Since the pile of unread (cooking-related) books and magazines has been piling up on my nightstand, I've really been making an effort to get through them. I don't like to move new cookbooks down to the kitchen to be used until I've finished reading through them. With the influx of food magazines (Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, Gourmet, and Saveur), not to mention my healthy addiction to the library where I always find new things to read, it's been hard to even get through all the books that I received for Christmas. However, even though I have two thick library books right now (Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking and a New Yorker food compilation called Secret Ingredients, neither is really holding my attention.

Instead, I've been poring over Cecilia Chiang's The Seventh Daughter which is just an amazing book. Following that will be Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food and even Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie that somehow got left behind in the stack. At that point, I think I will be mostly caught up. Jill Norman's Herb and Spices doesn't need to be read since it's really a reference book without any fun anecdotes.