Earthly Delights

::a week of pleasures::

The perfect hangover dinner: grilled steaks, corn on the cob, grilled onions, nopales and seedless watermelon.

This week has been full of amazing meals, thanks to the occasion of a birthday. First, there was Traxx at Union Station. C. and I split the salmon and the tofu steak, and both were equally amazing. The pinot grigio was dry and smooth, and the view from our table, of people lugging suitcases or running to catch a train was pleasant and odd. I'd definitely return. I especially dug the chairs, which looked like something out a very fine thrift shop that I might have found in Olympia or Shelton, WA.

Then there was Blair's, another first for me and my date. From the bread to the parsnip soup, to the trout and the sweet potato gnocci, we were knocked out by the supreme tastes. While nothing will ever beat the trout we had in Mindo, Ecuador (caught that day, steamed to perfection), Blair's was a for sure second place. The bread pudding at the end was absolutely narcotic. Another place to return to!

Then, finally, was the Sunday night-your-birthday-is-long-over-now/hangover meal, grilled in the backyard by boys who didn't have quite the hangover I had. Something about chewing all that fine meat, biting into crispy corn, crunching whole baby onions and sucking down seedless watermelon was wholly satisfying and also exhausting. More grilling to come, as summertime wafts in...

Only If You're Desperate

I hid this cookbook when we had guests staying at our place while we traveled to our wedding destination (it would just open up too many questions that weren't worth the time asking). Then I forgot about it. For a very long time it slipped my mind completely. That would probably be because I have never watched one full minute of the show Desperate Housewives, and I honestly have no interest in changing that fact. So when The Desperate Housewives Cookbook showed up in my mailbox, I was in no real hurry to break it open. I'm no fan of creating an industry around a celebrity or a television show, so books like this wouldn't be something I'd seek out myself. Though Six Feet Under is my favorite t.v. show of all time, I wouldn't be buying shirts or baseball caps with the show's name on them (and I'm pretty sure they don't have a cookbook, nor does one from a funeral home sound very appetizing).

Once I told other people who did watch the show that I had the book, they asked me about it. From my cursory glance at the pages, I noticed that the names of recipes sounded pretty ho-hum (Tomato Bisque. Coffee Frappe. Basic Crepes.) so there was obviously no hook for fans that might salivate over desperately-housewivey names. I thought for sure the recipes would have mildly salacious names, or even just attempt puns, or in-jokes from the show. What we have here, though, is a character-driven cookbook. Perhaps if you relate most to one of these characters, you will want to read "her" section of recipes.