Hank's Smoked Brisket

Every couple of months, we get a hankerin' for Hank's Smoked Briskets. In the picture above, you'll find Hank with our order of sliced brisket. He smokes it all on-site and serves it with his own barbecue sauce. It is melt in your mouth, buy a sandwich to eat on the way home or you won't make it with a whole pound good. I prefer grape Faygo with my brisket, but Alexa enjoys the peach. Make sure to drink one or the other with your brisket. Hank's on Urban Spoon.
Next door to Hank's is H.O.T. (Hate on This) hair salon. He even offers specials in his restaurant inspired by the H.O.T. stylist and customers. We tried to make Addison go in to have her hair done, but she declined--even when we offered to buy her a H.O.T. stuffed baked potato with pulled pork barbecue and jalapenos.

Addison sucks down her first raw oyster

This week, we had some friends over for dinner to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day. How was the corned beef and cabbage? Well...we ate that the day before (and it was pretty darned tasty). We feasted on oysters and other delicious treats with two friends that just happened to be redheads. We even ate on the back deck, enjoying the beautiful weather.

In the top picture, our friend Addison enjoys her first raw oyster. And she seemed to like it-since she ate more than one. However, she wouldn't try the cockatil sauce. Instead, Addison ate her oysters topped with both the a tradition mignonette (a red wine and vingegar sauce with garlic, lemon zest and herbs) and a Thai mignonette (with chilis, sesame oil, cilantro, lime zest and rice wine vinegar).

We tried a new-to-us type of oyster called Gold Band. Not to be confused with varieties of oysters, the name refers to the brand name. The oysters are already separated from the shell and then the whole thing is wrapped with a yellow band. Salty and sweet, the oysters were delicious.

Is that avocado in one of our meals? Well, yes, yes it is. Alexa made some avocado eggrolls that we dipped in a tamarind cashew sauce. Crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside, they were a great choice.

For the main course, Alexa broiled a flat-iron steak with a blackberry and balsamic glaze. She topped it with the shitake mushrooms we had picked up at the Bloomington Winter Farmers' Market.

I wish I had taken a picture of our dessert. Alexa made ginger creme brulee. It was perfect. Marley and Isis (our new friend who is a barbet) joined us in dessert. They like it, too.

We had a great meal with our friends.

The Mother Prepared a Feast

To celebrate Alexa's birthday, Chris, her mother, prepared a wonderful feast. From top to bottom, here's what we enjoyed this evening. The pictures are in reverse order of enjoyment.

1. For this birthday celebration, even Marley enjoyed a special treat. Chris, Alexa and Marley inspect the giant bone. Even though Alexa thought we should prepare it for marrow, Marley was allowed to enjoy it all.

2. Chris created a beautiful Beef Wellington. In this picture, you can't see the flavorful duxelle or red wine sauce that we enjoyed.

3. Here's Chris with the grilled haloumi. Made with a mixture of goat's and sheep milk, this hearty cheese tastes like no other.

4. We started our meal with some light appetizers. Red grapefruit, kiwi and nectarines added a lighter note to compliment the Pico and other cheeses. The cippolini onions and blue cheese stuffed olives made delcious additions. Of course, there's guacamole (Yes, most of our meals include avocado).

A 1981 Antinori by Tiganello accompanied the meal. It was heaven.

And we finished the feast with a decadent chocolate cake topped with curls and candles. Chris made some whipped cream that I am having to resist right now.

In fact, I can hear the leftovers calling from the fridge. I don't know that anything else will fit in my stomach, though.

Are you familiar with Christine's latest project? She is producing a series for PBS called Dreamtime. Here's a link to the website: www.dreamtimetv.org.

Happy Birthday Alexa!

Sam

Comfort Food

On Sunday, we decided to indulge in comfort food. What says comfort better than carbs, fat and garlic? Okay...chocolate. It's just not pictured on Alexa's plate.

So we looked up recipes for Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic and settled on a recipe originally published by Bon Appetit in 1967 (www.epicurious.com). While we had heard about this fabulous dish, neither of us had ever prepared it. With some minor adjustments to account for our lack of string and fresh herbs (How could the Marsh not have fresh rosemary, parsley, thyme or sage you wonder? As do we...), we cooked a delicious chicken. I don't know why we never made this before Sunday. I would like to have some right now. It was that good.

The mellow richness of the garlic cloves was wonderful spread on Crescent Rolls. We made mashed potatoes with red bliss potatoes, heavy cream and butter. Alexa enjoyed hers with Amish noodles nestled inside. And we included some avocado to have something green.

Not pictured, but enjoyed, was our fresh juice (carrot, celery, pink orange, apple and ginger) and Graeter's Coconut Chocolate Chip ice cream.

Sam