What Happens When The Cat's Away

Well the answer is, not a whole helluva lot. This week MrsRW is in lovely Oceanside NY, which puts her on the wrong side of the Brooklyn Bridge from where she'd like to be but a job is a job and money is money and duty calls. I've been to Oceanside. It's a lot like what's on either side of it, town-wise. But so is just about everything on Long Island until you get to about Yaphank and then they start making wine and stuff. I don't know what Indians lived on Long island but they didn't want you to know where they were hiding. Cutchogue? Ronkonkoma? Yaphank? Say what? Funniest town name for LI, though, is Hicksville. No, seriously. Hicksville USA. You wouldn't think to look for that in New Yok.

So what I do most of the time is try new dishes. Last night I made a just-burnt edged fresh shrimp with a ginger-apricot sauce. I took some tomatoes from the garden and sliced them up, then added some pepperoncini - also sliced. I hit it with some fresh ground pepper and viola... er... voila... salad. No I didn't eat them at the same time. I don't know - ginger and pepperoncini. No. I did it as two courses. It was pretty good.

Tonight we enter the city of Rome with some cacio y pepe, which I saw them make on Bourdain's show last week. Basically you need fresh ingredients to have any chance of tasting somewhat authentic when doing Italian. So I got a wedge of pecorino romano and a wedge of parmigiano reggiano which I will fresh grind for this receipe. But mostly the rest of it is just pasta, butter and fresh ground black pepper.

It's supposed to look like this...


Going to see the White Sox/Yankees game this Friday so getting off work early so we can cook up some grass-fed burgers and play a little bean... bag... thing... in the parking lot. But outside of that and a big plate of bacon wrapped dates... (I wasn't kidding)

it's going to be just hitting Word to keep smashing away at the book and maybe scouting a "Himalayan Cuisine" (I know, right? What the hell is THAT?) place that just opened up nearby to see if it's wife-worthy. But yeah that up there is pitted dates wrapped in center-cut bacon and stuck with a toothpick. You oven that for 10-20 minutes depending how you like your bacon and go. Don't knock it till you've tried it.

I assuage my solitude with food, baseball, and fiction. Which is what i do when MrsRW is in town too but... anyway what the hell.

Drool and wish you were here all you want. It won't work.