Gustatory
This is from the " Best of 2009" "challenge" that I am "doing". The original post is here!
December 2 Restaurant moment. Share the best restaurant experience you had this year. Who was there? What made it amazing? What taste stands out in your mind?
I actually "gave up" going to really nice restaurants this year because I was spending too much money eating out and started cooking and making my own food more. So I will talk about that instead. When the weather was warm, I worked my way through a few different salads on the Mark Bittman simple salad list. There were so many good ones, but I think I remember doing the watermelon, tomato and feta cheese one and thinking it was divine. I even made a batch of it on the crazy film shoot I was on in August and it went over really well. I liked the tomato and peach one with chili flakes, too; the combination of the sweet with the tangy and just a bit of spicy made me think of Thai food. I also did my mother's yum nuer salad, with steak, red onions, basil and chili. I also got really good at making a kind of ratatouille and made loads of it in the springtime.
I wasn't as good about making food when school started up again, but I did make a few soups, particularly a butternut squash one that filled me up like a charm. Soup, some really good bread and some delicious Dutch cheese -- that's my meal for the fall, shared with a sweetheart, followed by tea and a movie.
