Thumper is tasty!

...ok, if that title didn't send you running for the hills in disgust, you have my thanks. Really, I'm not a totally cold-hearted b*tch. Honestly, I'm not. But there are very few animals that I wouldn't ever consider eating, and rabbits are not one of them. (Cats and dogs, though, are another story.)

The story goes like this - over a year ago, I discovered that our butcher at the time carried rabbit. Frozen, unfortunately, but as this was a relative delicacy that I have yet to see anywhere else, I just couldn't resist the temptation to buy one. As it happened, I bought two. And they've been languishing in our freezer ever since, because we just never thought of a way to try cooking them that really appealed to us. Sure, I found plenty of recipes for rabbit stew and rabbit braised in wine and rabbit pies and other similar things in my online search for ideas and guidance, but we just never got to the point where any of those things seemed like something we felt like eating. A lot of this was because we felt that with a new ingredient, one that neither of us had ever had the opportunity to even try, we wanted to make something that would really feature its flavor, rather than hiding it in a soup or sapping it in a braise.

Also, for awhile we honestly just forgot that we had them.

But a couple of weeks ago we found ourselves dealing with some tight finances until payday, and we wanted to use up some various odds and ends that we'd been saving rather than buying a bunch of new, fresh meat. Thus, one of our little icy bunnies made it onto the menu.

The inspiration? Traditional creole and cajun cuisine; namely, rabbit and sausage gumbo.

I know what you're thinking. "That doesn't look like any gumbo I'VE ever seen." And you'd be right. Because we didn't really make gumbo. We deconstructed it.

Deconstructed dishes tend to be sort of a trendy, high-brow sort of thing, but I think the idea has a lot of merit when thinking about single dish foods like soups, stews, baked goods, or other things that use many disparate ingredients to create a single harmonious whole. While such things can be completely delicious as they are, there is a lot of land to be explored when you consider each individual ingredient as a meal component in and of itself.

When making a normal gumbo, all of the bits and pieces combine and meld to make a bowl of goodness that has a truly tasty overall flavor, but those individual ingredients lose their identity, sacrificing individuality for unity. Deconstructing this dish allows each component to shine.

The rabbits themselves were packaged whole with certain organs still attached, mostly notably the kidneys. Breaking down the rabbit naturally fell to me, as I seem to have developed a bit of a knack for breaking down whole birds like chickens or turkeys. The rabbit, though, was well and truly a whole different animal. I suppose the basic structure was the same, but there were bones in odd places, and the mid-section of the animal was so lean I wasn't even sure if the bits surrounding the rib cage were actually meat or just especially thick skin. In the end I decided upon the latter, and I ended up quartering the rabbit (front and hind quarters on both sides) and removing what I believe were the saddles (a long relatively thick muscle that nestled against the ribcage on each side), discarding the bulk of the body of the rabbit. It would be prudent to note that there is really very little meat on a rabbit, and that the bulk of it exists unsurprisingly in the hind legs. The saddles are a hidden treat, however, and are tender the way a filet of beef is tender, as it seems to be a muscle that is little-used during the rabbit's lifetime. The skin on the quarters was left on, mostly because I found it to be a devil to remove.

Each of these pieces was rubbed down with a mixture of olive oil, salt and pepper - as I said, we wanted to keep it simple so that we could really taste the meat itself. They were then roasted in the oven (I honestly can't remember the temp. or time, its been so long since we made this... my apologies!) until they were golden brown and cooked through so that any juices than ran out when the meat was pierced were clear. Being a fairly uncommon meat and lacking in any sort of guide book for game meat, we didn't bother monitoring internal temperature and just used our instincts to judge when it was done - they didn't fail us, though I'd recommend anyone else who decided to give this a shot do some more thorough research than I did, just to be safe.

Accompaniments for the rabbit were some sliced and sauteed andouille sausage (made by Aidells, the founder of which was one of the writers of one of the most useful cookbooks we own, The Complete Meat Cookbook), some briefly stewed and spiced red chili beans, a heaping spoonful of trinity sofrito (onions, celery, and green bell peppers sauteed together with just a bit of salt and sugar - we added some carrot as well to round out the flavor), and a bowl of cajun-spiced broth.

The rabbit itself was delicious - the texture was almost exactly that of chicken, and the flavor was similar as well, but more earthy. This was a farm-raised rabbit, so I imagine that wild-caught rabbit would have a touch of gaminess to it as well, though I doubt it would ever be terribly strong. I would remove the skin next time, as it ended up a bit rubbery - we didn't achieve the crispiness I associate with good roasted poultry, and was a trifle unpleasant to bite into - but the meat was delicious, especially closer to the bone.

The true appeal of this meal was that with each bite of a single component - a slice of rabbit, or a spoonful of beans or sofrito, or a mouthful of sausage - you could taste the underlying purity of the ingredients, then chase it with a slurp of the broth and the flavors would combine in your mouth to give the distinct impression that you were, in fact, eating a bowl of gumbo. The contrast was fascinating, and great fun to eat and experience.

The truth is, though, that the cajun broth was the star of this show. It was spicy, rich, highly flavorful, and yet somehow light at the same time. I could take a thermos of this broth to work with me every day for a week and it would be a satisfying lunch all on its own, though perhaps a bit of cooked brown rice and sausage on the side would round things out. The flavor was incredible though, and I immediately requested that J make some more a few days later, this time as an accompaniment to some broiled catfish. The second time it was not as good, which leads me to believe that the recipe still needs some tweaking, but the memory of the very first spoonful that flowed over my tongue will stay with me for a long time, I think.

I won't post a recipe yet, not until I think we have it perfected and written down so that it could be repeated accurately, but here are some guidelines:

- The andouille that we ate along side the other parts of this meal actually created the base for the broth - J sauteed them in a saucepan along with maybe 1/4 cup of the trinity sofrito before removing them to eat separately with dinner. The relatively brief cooking period rendered out some of the fat and a lot of flavor, which made a huge difference to the broth in the end.

- We've discovered that the key to really authentic-tasting cajun/creole food seems to be generous amounts of garlic, paprika, chili powder, and thyme - combined with the flavors in the holy trinity, this really seems to lay down the base for a good gumbo or jambalaya.

- When in doubt, over-season. The broth was initially rather too strong when J completed it, but that was easily remedied by adding a bit of water. Making the flavors too weak at the outset, however, can require a lot of tweaking of spices later on, and it gets awfully difficult to maintain the proper balance when you're on your third or fourth addition of the same spice. Don't be afraid of them! This style of cooking demands the kinds of flavors that smack you in the face and leave you speechless as you try to figure out what the hell just happened, and that's really ok. What matters is that the proper blend is achieved, and once you get that, its always easy to just thin out the final product until you reach the level of intensity that you prefer.

I promise to share this recipe once we've gotten it down, because its just way too good to keep to ourselves. We've had tons of other ideas to use it, from cooking rice in it to using it to poach chicken, to thickening it with a roux made from andouille fat and flour and spooning it over steak, and I'd love to know what other people might think of!

My First Blogging Group

Well, there's no going back now - I'm committed to this blog, for better or worse. Know why? Because I've just joined my first blogging group! I've been accepted for membership in the Barefoot Bloggers, a group that is working its way through all of Ina Garten's recipes, two recipes per month. I've always been a huge fan of Ina and classify her as one of my heroes of the cooking world, so I'm thrilled to have more chances to try out her recipes. I'll start participating next month - so excited!

In other news, the Olympics are finally over (and what an event they were this year!) so I finally have my freetime back. I have probably half a dozen posts waiting in the queue, so maybe now I can actually get around to putting them up. And of course, we're still cooking every night, so I'm just racking up more and more meals that I want to share. I gotta figure out how to keep up with my own habit!

At any rate hopefully I'll be around more now, and I'm really looking forward to making my way into the food blogging community with the Barefoot Bloggers! :)

Rules Shmules

I am completely incapable of following the rules when it comes to food. I almost never actually follow a recipe, even when I'm baking, because I'm always tweaking flavor components and finishing methods, and I can't remember the last time I made any sort of traditional ethnic dish the way it is traditionally made. I've always gotta get my little hands right down into the heart of a recipe and futz with things to get the result I want, which I suspect won't win me any fans from the militant-accuracy set. But I don't care. Know why? Because my food tastes GOOD.

Please, please excuse my horrible photography - I'm still experimenting with my digicam and don't have anything resembling the right set-up to take well-light or focuses photos. I can guarantee you, my next gift to myself is going to be a tripod, closely followed by the materials to make myself a lightbox.

Take these enchiladas, for example.

In my admittedly-non-extensive experience, your standard enchiladas are made with corn tortillas, either cheese, meat, or perhaps bean filling, and topped with a simple red chili sauce and shredded white cheese like cheddar or jack. And I like standard enchiladas. I really do. I almost always go for some kind of enchiladas when we go out for tex-mex, my favorite being the ubiquitous combination platter of one cheese, one chicken, and one bean enchilada with rice and refritos. I love me some enchiladas, I do.

However, when it comes down to it, I've never been a huge fan of corn tortillas unless they're in chip form. I've even made my own homemade corn tortillas, and while I liked them and would make them again (with the proper tool for flattening them out, anyway) they're still just not my favorite as a yummy filling and sauce delivery system. I generally prefer flour tortillas for almost everything, but since we've recently been trying to replace as much of our carb intake as possible with whole grain alternatives, this time around I used some really delicious multi-grain tortillas made by Mission brands.

Also, since I always like a combination of different kinds of enchiladas on my plate, I figured, why go to all the trouble to make three different kinds of enchiladas of individual fillings? I'll just mix 'em all up in the whole batch.

And then, instead of using a basic white cheese for the topping, I used a mix of a couple of sharp artisan cheeses we picked up at the Italian specialty store the week before. Once again, I've given my dinner an identity crisis. I'm surprised my food doesn't grow legs and run away screaming as soon as I bring it home, just to avoid the emotional trauma.

Anyway, despite all these deviations form the norm, let me just tell you that these were some seriously delicious enchiladas. J made the chili sauce from scratch, and I wish to God I was paying attention when he did because although he followed this recipe by Emeril to begin with, he changed it all over the place and I have no clue how. I really hope he can remember what he did because I want him to make some more of the stuff that I can jar and keep in the pantry for future deliciousness. The filling itself was a mixture of some smoked pulled pork that we'd made much earlier in the summer and have had bags of in the freezer ever since (didn't do THAT the right way either because we couldn't keep it int he smoker long enough to get that uber-tender pull-apart texture, so we had to finish it in the crock pot with some bbq sauce to finish it... I know, I know, we should both turn in our pitmaster-in-training badges) plus some cooked black beans and some of the same cheese I used to top them with. It was a perfect combination, smoky and sweet and decadently cheesy, but without the grease that always seems to accompany the cheese enchiladas I get in restaurants. The finished enchiladas tasted sinful, but really weren't all THAT bad for you. Not healthy, but not that bad.

I'm not going to try to write a recipe here, because really once you have all the different components - tortillas, fillings, sauce, cheese, all of which you can alter to fit your own tastes - making enchiladas is all about assembly. Each enchilada ought to have the same amount of filling, and with a combination of fillings like I used, you want to have the same amount of each thing in each tortilla so that the flavor will be consistent. You want to pack the filled tortillas into your baking dish pretty tightly so that they stay rolled neatly and get all hot and soft and gooey when they cook. You want enough sauce both below and above the tortilla rolls so that they won't stick or dry out, but not so much that it ends up drowning in sauce and turning into something you have to slice, because at the end of the cooking process, after the whole dish cools for maybe 5 minutes, you want to be able to lift each roll out individually to serve. I've learned how to achieve these things just from trial and error and having quite a few dishes of enchiladas just disintegrate when I dipped a spatula in to serve, and this time around I got it just right.

We ate them with some quick homemade yellow rice (long grain brown rice cooked in chicken stock with saffron, tumeric, and chili powder) and a big 'ole dollop of sour cream, with sliced green onions sprinkled over everything. They were perfect - warm, savory, spicy, and comforting.

And I really, really wish I had some more right now.

Lessons Learned

I've been a little absent from the blogosphere this week. I'm sorry. Its way too early in the game here at "Table for Two?" for me to disappear for 6 days straight, and I apologize. I'll try not to let it happen again but, well, you know how it is. Life gets in the way sometimes.

That being said, there are a couple of legitimate reasons for my neglect. The first is that the Olympics started last Friday, and I've been watching them just about every night. I've been looking forward to the games for months, and there's been some really great stuff going on this year (Michael Phelps, anyone?) and I just don't want to miss a minute of it if I can avoid it.

The second is that we naively planned a couple of positively epic meals this week, and when we spend 2-3 hours making dinner after a full day of work, its all I can do to sit in front of the boob tube for an hour or so of Olympics coverage afterwards before passing out for the night.

This week did, however, yield quite a few valuable learning experiences which I'd like to pass on.

Mmmm. Melty Mexican goodness.

Lesson #1
Enchilada sauce, or red chili sauce, is shockingly easy to make at home, and tastes SO much better than the canned, store-bought variety that I've always used. J actually made the sauce this first time around, and although he used Emeril's recipe as a jumping-off point, he changed enough as he went along to render the original probably nearly unrecognizable. The end result? Pretty much what I would consider the perfect enchilada sauce: rich, savory, and tangy, with just a bit of warmth from some dried chilis. Poured under and over whole grain tortillas wrapped around smoked pulled pork and black beans, it yielded what J called "the best enchiladas EVAR" but I'll leave the details for a separate post.

Lesson #2
Cleaning your own squid is an absolutely monstrous job, and not at all pleasant. More importantly, its a hell of an undertaking for a weeknight. I don't think we ate dinner until after 9pm that night, and when you're used to eating dinner closer to 7:30pm, that is a seriously late meal.

I volunteered to do the squid-cleaning first, and I have to admit that my knee-jerk revulsion to handling shellfish innards (and having my fingers anywhere near a dead creatures eyes) lessened significantly after the first 2 or 3. I managed to get through about 8 before deciding I'd had enough, and passing the torch to J to finish up. Of course that meant he ended up doing almost twice as many as I did (the package we bought had a shockingly large number of whole squid in it) but he was graciously silent about the clearly unfair division of labor. I think I owe him a 6-pack or something for that.

We cleaned out all the bodies (or tubes) so that we could stuff them with a mixture of veggies and breadcrumbs, then bake them in a basic tomato sauce. The tentacles ended up getting discarded because, frankly, they just didn't look that good after being frozen and thawed. But of course, what you really want to know is, was it worth it?

No. Not at all. Never mind the fact that the plate of food up there will never win any beauty awards. It just didn't taste that good. The sauce and the stuffing, taken individually, were delicious. And being that we based it on one of Mario Batali's recipes, I'm not surprised. But the squid itself? Meh. Not impressed. I do think it was cooked just about right, as the finished product had a texture somewhat like al dente pasta. However, I'm used to squid being relatively non-fishy, and this was definitely fishy. I'm not sure if that's because it had been frozen whole and then thawed, or if we just didn't do a thorough-enough job of cleaning it (I suspect the latter, because some pieces were significantly more fishy than others) but quite frankly, I couldn't finish it. It was dsappointing, to say the least, and not something we'll be repeating anytime soon.

Now we've got a bag of about a dozen squid tubes in the freezer that we'll need to use up, though. I'm thinking we'll probably just fry them up at some point. Not anytime soon - I've got some mental scarring from this first fresh-squid encounter that needs to heal before I even look at it again - but eventually.

Lesson 3
Those little mini-springform pans I bought on my birthday are every bit as awesome as I expected them to be. I used them this week to make these delicious single-serving broccoli quiches, and they were really the perfect size for dinner when paired with some sauteed snow peas. The quiches rose in the oven and then held their form perfectly when removed from the pans, and were just perfectly cooked. I can't wait to find more uses for them.

Lesson 4
Sometimes, just sometimes, you want something simple. Something comforting. Something that fills your belly and warms your soul without breaking the bank. Something like... franks and beans. Or as J calls them, beanie weenies (*gigglesnort*). However, just because you're making a dish that your father made for you for dinner in grade school, doesn't mean you can't make it spectacular. We had this deceptively simple meal one night this week and made it amazing by making the baked beans from scratch, using dry beans that were soaked overnight and then cooked for a looooong time (over 12 hours) in the crock pot while we were at work. As a pleasant counterpoint to the squid fiasco, this made for a quick and easy dinner once we got home - all we had to do was crisp up the hot dogs a bit and then toast a couple of hot dog rolls in the rendered fat to have a supremely satisfying and surprisingly delicious dinner.

You know you want some of this. C'mon, don't try to hide it.

Even more surprising is that this particular dish was really not that bad for you - if you skip the bread-toasted-in-hot-dog-fat part, the franks and beans themselves have no added fat (helped along by that pre-cooking step with the dogs). There's a fair amount of sugar though, so diabetics may want to keep away from this sort of dish. The rest of you? Go get some beans soaking. Because I can guarantee there'll be a day this week when you won't want to cook, and this bowl of hot, hearty goodness is sure to soothe you after even the most difficult day.

Lesson 5
I still can't make fried rice. I tried my hand at a thai-style vegetarian fried rice on Thursday, and although it was basically ok, it just wasn't quite right. I'm pretty sure I overcooked the rice the night before, so it was a little too sticky and mushy when I tried to stir fry it, and fried rice just shouldn't be mushy, ever. I also think I used too much fish sauce in the seasoning, because the flavor was just a bit too prominent for me to really enjoy the dish. The basic premise was good, and the bites that got a piece of fresh tomato or pineapple were really delicious, but I couldn't quite finish my serving. J loved it, which I'm glad of, but I just know I could make it better if I could just get the rice part of it right.

Lesson 6
Rabbit is delicious. Also, "deconstructed" dishes are a ton of fun. But, I'll leave those details for my next post.

Bonus Lesson:
My photography SUCKS. Its virtually impossible to take decent photos in this dim-as-hell basement apartment. Normally I enjoy the gentle lighting we've got going on down here, but its not at all conducive to taking attractive photos of our dinners. I've really gotta work on that lightbox...

Gazpacho and Sesame Chicken (but not the way you think)

For the second time in two weeks, we're eating Greek here at "Table for Two?". Well, sort of.

I won't pretend for a millisecond that there is anything traditional or authentic about this meal. Its got a little bit of an identity crisis going on. "Gazpacho... isn't that a Mexican soup?" Well, yes, but this one isn't. "Sesame chicken? Sounds like Chinese takeout." It does, doesn't it? But its not. "You're calling this Greek? I've never seen a Greek meal like that." No, I'd imagine you wouldn't have, but wait, just WAIT till you taste it.

Lets start with the chicken, shall we? Really, this couldn't be simpler. J was inspired by a recipe for "Tahini Turkey Thighs" in the Better Homes & Gardens New Grilling Book, a birthday gift from my parents last year. Their recipe was heavily influenced by Asian cuisine and called for things like soy sauce and rice vinegar, which I'm sure would be good as well but wasn't what we were in the mood for. So he simplified the recipe significantly and made a few subtle changes to swing the dish around from Asia to the Mediterranean, ending up with a marinade of only five ingredients: tahini, toasted sesame oil, honey, and S&P. And substituted chicken. Because frankly, as much as we love turkey, we really felt that this NEEDED to be chicken.

I can't speak for the quality of the original recipe, but J's take on it was delicious. The tahini in the marinade created a really fantastic crust on the outside when the chicken was cooked, and kept the inside moist and tender. The sesame flavor was made even more prominent by the addition of the toasted sesame oil, with just the barest hint of honey sweetness. Next time I think I'd squeeze a bit of fresh lemon over the chicken after cooking, just to further balance out the flavor, but as it stands it was savory and aromatic and wonderful.

The soup was, I think, a bit of a revelation for J and a proof of concept for me: gazpacho can, in fact be GOOD, and it doesn't have to be Mexican.

Gazpacho is something that always sounds really great to me in theory, but always disappoints in reality. I mean, I really can't imagine anything more summery and refreshing than a bowl of cold, fresh tomato soup, but anytime I've ever eaten it or made it myself I have really not liked it at all. But recently I had a wonderful lunch at Grayz in Manhattan during NYC Restaurant Week 2008, and my first course was essentially a gazpacho with an Italian twist. Chef Kuntz called it "Two Tomato Coulis with Three Basils", but whatever it was called it absolutely blew my mind. What struck me most was how simple, natural, and fresh the tomato flavor was - it was obvious there was very little in this soup other than the tomatoes themselves, with the upper flavor notes provided by a fresh garnish of chiffonade basil leaves and a drizzle of olive oil. I absolutely had to learn to make it myself.

Further research showed that the soup was just as simple as it seemed - basically its just a bunch of tomatoes all whizzed up in a blender with some garlic, salt, sugar, and white pepper. Thinking about that, I realized that what I don't like about other gazpachos is the other ingredients that get added; the bell pepper, cucumber, onions, jalapeno, and whatever else just cover up the flavor of the tomatoes. The fact that I've never been a big fan of cucumbers probably doesn't help, but for whatever reason it never really occurred to me to leave them out. I almost never follow recipes as-written, but I just never thought about altering this one. I know, it makes no sense to me either. I was tempted to smack myself in the forehead once I figured this out, but was afraid J might think there was something wrong with me.

Anyway, moving on.

I'm going to include the recipe here, because the soup was delicious and I savored every bite just the way it was. However, I think I could execute it better and really clarify the flavors into something much simpler and cleaner on the next go-around, so expect to see this recipe revisited probably in the very near future..

Greek Gazpacho with Fregula Sarda
Fregula sarda (sometimes spelled fregola) is an Italian pasta variety from Sardinia (I know, even MORE of an identity crisis - this poor soup must be so confused). It looks rather like Israeli couscous, but the "grains" are toasted rather than simply dried, providing a distinctly nutty flavor to the cooked pasta. I used them here mainly to add some textural complexity, which worked really well. Its not something that is particularly easy to come by, though, so you could substitute in orzo pasta, rice, or Israeli couscous, or leave it out entirely - it won't affect the flavor of the soup either way.

And yes, I used canned tomatoes for this (for shame!) because they were all I had on hand. Obviously that's something I would change next time around.

1 14oz can diced tomatoes
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock or water
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tbsp each fresh chopped oregano and rosemary
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes, chopped
1 pepperoncini pepper, seeded and chopped
1/4 cup green olives, chopped
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
S&P

1/4 cup fregula sarda
1 1/2 cups chicken stock or water

Toppings: fresh lemon juice, crumbled feta, chopped fresh parsley, and good extra virgin olive oil

To make the fregula sarda: heat the stock or water to boiling in a saucepan. Add the fregula and stir to keep the grains from sticking, then cover and cook for 10-15 minutes or until most of the water liquid has been absorbed and the grains are tender. Remove from heat and set aside - the grains will continue to soak up mist of the liquid that is left. If you like, you can rinse them in a colander before serving to remove any residual starches, but I didn't bother.

To make the soup: place all ingredients except for the lemon, feta, and parsley into another saucepan and stir to combine. Place over medium heat and simmer for 10 minutes or so, or until all of the components are soft enough to blend. Remove from heat and either puree right in the pan with an immersion blender (my favorite method) or pour into a standing blender and puree until smooth. The mix could then be strained through a sieve or tammis for a super-smooth product, but again, I didn't bother. Taste for seasoning - I found that my soup needed no salt at all and just a bit of fresh-cracked black pepper. White pepper would also be a good option, but I didn't have any fresh.

Pour the finished soup base into a sealable container (or into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap) and chill for at least an hour. You don't want this to be ice cold, but you don't want it warm either.

To serve, divide the soup base between two bowls. Gently spoon half the cooked fregula sarda into the middle of each bowl, then top with a squeeze of lemon, a sprinkling of feta and parsley, and a drizzle of good olive oil.

********************
Notes for next time: Aside from the fresh vs. canned tomatoes thing, I would like to simplify the soup base a bit by removing the olives and using them instead as a garnish when serving. The rosemary may have been unnecessary, so I think I'd omit it completely. I'd also like to cut out the cooking process, which I think will be a necessity if I use fresh tomatoes, so I'm expecting to need to strain the soup next time around to get rid of any little bits of the tougher ingredients (thinking of the pepperoncini here) that won't break down into the soup without cooking. Other changes may present themselves when I try this again that I can't anticipate right now, but we'll see.

In Photos: BBQ for Two (a.k.a. The Perfect Sunny, Summer Saturday)

A Gift with Possibilities

I don't say this often enough, but my parents are really cool. I mean, REALLY cool. You hear that, Mom and Dad? I'm talking about you!

Why do I mention this now, you ask? Well, here's why:

What you're looking at right there is quite possibly the coolest birthday gift EVER. (Well, maybe next to J's gift, which was Rock Band, and one of coworker buddy's gift of a Roger Dean print, signed by the artist. I mean honestly, how did I get such awesome people in my life?) Its a $100 gift certificate for a food enthusiast class at the Culinary Institute of America, and a catalog that's just full of temptingly interesting courses. I've always wanted to take a real cooking course or two, and the CIA is one of the most respected culinary academic organizations in the world. The only downside to this? Figuring out what course to take!

In theory, I could go to either the Astor Place location in NYC, or the main campus in Hyde Park (which is in the Hudson Valley area of NY, near Poughkeepsie). The Astor Place location would be a lot more convenient for me, and the hands-on classes are a bit cheaper there, so that would seem to be the obvious choice, but the main campus offers "boot camp" programs, which are a full day's worth of instruction along with an afternoon lecture.

I already know that I want to take a hands-on course rather than a basic demonstration course, despite the fact that the demonstrations are significantly cheaper and could be paid for entirely with the gift certificate - if I'm going to do this, I want real, hands-on instruction. There's a couple of classes that I'm eying (specifically the Astor Place "Sundays at the CIA" programs in Pasta or European Breads, or oen of the CIA Fundamentals courses, or the main campus Boot Camps in Classic and Contemporary Sauces, Spanish Tapas, or Italian-America Classics) but I want to ask around a bit to see if anyone I know has had experience with the CIA's enthusiast courses and which formats are the most worthwhile. I'm also debating the merits of choosing a course that might be a bit cheaper so that I could foot the bill for J to go with me - I know he'd enjoy it and it would be a lot more fun for us both to go at once. Decisions, decisions!

I know there aren't many people reading this blog yet, but if anyone happens to see this, do you have any suggestions or experiences you could relate?

I don't think I can express just how excited I am about this.