forever summer

when not knitting, reading knitting blogs or daydreaming about future knitting projects and the fabulous yarns i will use to create them, my free time is often spent reading cookbooks and scoping out recipes. if a modest home cook such as myself can claim to have a culinary muse, mine is nigella lawson. her how to be a domestic goddess is the source of the banana bread recipe i use, which never fails to win compliments (the secret is the rum-soaked raisins!) and it also inspired an afternoon experiment in bagel making (successful!). for a short time, my cable package included the style network and i was always excited when i'd flip through the channels and find her show, nigella bites (frustratingly, it never seemed to have its own reliable scheduled air-time). the best parts of it, for me, were the reality TV-esque segments where they'd show nigella standing in front of the fridge and eating a cold midnight snack with her hands made out of whatever she'd prepared earlier in the show. her cookbooks are the most fun to read. it's like having a phone conversation with a friend who's sharing a recipe for a dish she truly loves to prepare and eat. in forever summer's introduction to the instructions for cheesecake ice cream she writes, "striving for originality is frankly a grievous culinary crime. never trust the sort of cooking that draws attention to the cook rather than to the food." i love that.

i received nigella's forever summer as a shower gift from sarah, my co-conspirator in the bagel boiling and baking. as i was paging through it earlier this week, i decided that i would make it my primary source for recipes this season (my own less-ambitious and less-comprehensive julie and julia: 365 days, 524 recipes and 1 tiny apartment kitchen, which i have yet to read, anyway) and consult its contents before heading to the grocery store and farmers' market (starting next week!). i already made one dessert recipe the other night--caramelized pineapple with hot chocolate sauce--to use up the remaining half of a bargain priced whole pineapple.

blogging is teaching me that amateur food photography is tricky business. my paternal grandfather was a commercial photographer for a time and did a lot of food shoots. i know a few of the camera tricks (eg. raw meat + soy sauce = looks like its cooked), but not much about lighting, so you'll have to bear with fairly unappetizing food photos and take my word when i say the results were tasty.

this recipe probably would have been better had i used the coconut-flavored malibu rum she suggests adding to the chocolate sauce--my sauce had a little of the captain in it. also, the turbinado sugar syrup-coated, grilled pineapple slices stuck hard to the plate i transfered them to at first, but they eventually loosened up. the pineapple's tart sweetness becomes more intense with the grilling and is delicious. giada de laurentiis does a very similar recipe, but with a nutella sauce, which makes it even easier and adds that yummy hazelnutty flavor. i have a lot of chocolate sauce left over, which i made a milkshake with last night and will use as a makeshift fondue for strawberries (99 cents for 1lb.! samantha says they're already in season in NC!) later...

some recipes to come: sicilian vinegar chicken, mauritian shrimp curry, lomo de orza (pork traditionally marinated in a terracotta dish), and raspberry ripple ice cream...