VIVRE POUR MANGER

Left with a pot of cooked chicken wings after making stock and too lazy to pick off the meat for salad, I decided the best and easiest way to use them would be to fry them up. And since I had been craving Mark Bittman’s Sweet Garlic Soy Sauce, I decided that would make the perfect glaze. I was right.

You must try these. Just fry up the wings as you would for Buffalo wings and toss them in the sauce. A little goes a long way since the sauce is basically a sticky sweet and salty caramel. Next time I think I’ll add a bit of orange juice or rice wine vinegar. Or I’ll use the sauce from David Chang’s wing recipe. Here’s a simplified version. The original calls for brining, cold-smoking and confiting the wings, then browing and pressing them in a cast-iron pan, and then glazing them.

Looking for a laugh, I picked up an old cookbook from my South Dakota grandmother this weekend, “The German-Russian Pioneer Cook Book.” I have three editions of this cookbook, all originally typed on a typewriter, two plastic spiral-bound with laminated cardstock front and back covers and one bound with binder rings. In addition to some “real” German and Russian recipes like Schupfnudeln, Einlaufsuppe and “Borsch,” it also contains some recipes I can only describe as very regional.

This video speaks for itself, I think.

Who doesn't love fried cheese?

Stuck with a bunch of mustard greens (which are far from my favorite) from my latest CSA share and looking for recipes other than greens with garlic and olive oil, I asked for ideas from Facebook friends. Colin came to the rescue, suggesting saag paneer.

Roasting a whole fish is so easy and so tasty, I have no idea why I do it so rarely. Actually I do. Fish is a buy-same-day-you-cook-it food, and I only ever have such a chance on a Saturday, and lots of Saturdays I have evening plans that involve not being home.

While on vacation in Kenya with my sister, we stumbled upon (and later, because of) a fantastic cocktail. Simple to construct, lots of flavour and extremely refreshing. It’s called a Dawa, which is the Swahili word for “medicine.” I assure you, the name speaks to the effect rather than the taste.

Washed-up, shore-worn sea turtle skull for scale.

Among my many long-term goals is to train a bay laurel into a standard. I want it to look like a child’s drawing of a tree: stick + ball. This year’s seasonal pruning was harsh, and yielded more fresh bay leaves than ever. Given that one man can eat a finite number of pots of soup between prunings of his bay laurel standard, something had to be done.

The answer, as always, was booze.

If I had a pie shop, it would be called ‘Simple Simon’ and it would serve pie, good coffee and sandwiches by Tiffany for lunch.

A friend here in Berlin, who knows of my pie shop fantasies, emailed me to say he was going to visit a pie shop in Berlin-Kreuzberg, Hemingway’s Pie Factory and would let me know if they were any competition.

Suddenly, I was inspired to bake a pie.

I just came across this Meat Eater’s Guide to Climate Change & Health via the epicurious blog and thought some of you might be interested, especially since cheese is apparently the third worst offender. I haven’t had a chance to read the methodology yet.

All measurements can be adjusted as you like. These are so delicious that I can barely stop myself from drinking them in one long pull, especially the strawberry one when made with fresh sweet berries.

Mint Lassi

• 1 cup loosely packed mint
• 1/2 tsp toasted fennel seeds or less
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• sugar to taste, I usually add 1-2 tbsp
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 5 ice cubes
• Litte bit of cream, totally optional

Blend!