Baskin-Robbins Peanut Butter and Chocolate ice cream. To many of you this may not seem like such a big deal, but to me, it’s a little scoop of gustatory heaven. Now ice cream is good, I eat it somewhat regularly, once a week in fact. But I’m not one of those people who is ga-ga for all things milky and frozen. I would much prefer a delicious slice of pie (anything but apple, too blah); even a delectable cookie is more than alright with me. But Baskin-Robbins Peanut Butter and Chocolate ice cream is pure brilliance.

I love chocolate, and I do adore peanut butter. I have been known to partake of the much loved Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. But my adoration of this one particular frozen treat melts down to a more succinct terminology– it’s all about the ratio. The ratio, it’s just a measly scoop of ice cream, what is this girl talking about? Well my dear readers, the reason I love this dessert treat can be traced all the way back to the sixth century B.C. with the great thinker Pythagoras. You might remember from Geometry class that Pythagoras discovered the ratio of the hypotenuse to the two sides of a right triangle. But in the case of this ice cream treat, the ratio of salty to sweet, or the ratio of peanut butter to chocolate.

As you continue to read this site you’ll see just how important this theory of ratios is to me. I LOVE THE RATIO. Entire meals can be made or broken with this one simple theory, be it found in the composition, the look, or the taste. We all know the ratio of salty/sweet or sweet/sour. But think of virtually any meal you have, and soon you will realize that this theory exists in almost everything we consume. Let’s take for example your average pasta meal, the substance and neutrality of the pasta, carefully balanced by the pungency of the tomato sauce. Or the fried chicken dinner, all of the flavors might appear to be the same, salty, greasy goodness, but the crisp, crunch of the skin, balancing out the juicy succulence of the chicken is what makes this meal.

So let’s return to the ideal example of Baskin-Robbins frozen dairy dessert. Yes it’s sweet, yes it’s rich, but this ice cream contains the salty/sweet combination I have so come to appreciate. You see, the ice cream is rich chocolate, but not overly so, swirled in with crunchy ribbons of peanut butter. But this is not just your average, overly sweet butter like a Skippy or a Jif, this is true peanut butter, slightly salty, delightfully subtle, maintaining the careful balance of this difficult to achieve ratio. We have the flavor combination, let’s move on to the crunchy/smooth. The velvety smoothness of the chocolate ice cream, blending with the crunchy bite of the peanut butter; almost warm to the palate as the bits of ice cream melt away around it.

Oh, how I dream of you sweet manna, delightful bite of ratio heaven. I can only thank the glorious Mr. Baskin and the magnificent Mr. Robbins for creating such a splendid culmination to a meal.

My uncle has been in the hospital for several weeks. He has something called pancreatitis. I’ll leave out all of the gory details, because I know that no one really finds their ailments all that interesting except for the person who has them, and get to the good part. Over the weekend he was told he could actually start eating again. Now it’s been weeks, weeks I tell you of nothing, not even an ice chip to wet his palate, a little, slippery orb of frozen beverage was even too extreme for his delicate pancreas. Can you imagine? Obviously you can see what a difficult notion this would be for me.

So over the weekend he’s told that he will be trying a semi-restrictive, pureed diet. Hhhmm, a pureed diet, what exactly does the hospital mean, will he receive an entire spaghetti dinner pureed to pinkish hue and stuffed into his IV tube? What he got, only minutes after his new diet was announced was an entire Salisbury steak dinner, complete with peas, mashed potatoes, and some smooth, milky, maybe potato-y, possibly clam chowder-y (New England mind you) we’ll just call it Cream of ? soup. Now this might not seem remarkable to many of you, but remember, this meal was pureed, then pressed, molded, and formed back into its original state.

When I was a child I had entire fake food sets to play with. Heads of lettuce, entire carrots, were split in half, held together with a piece of velcro, just crying out to be sliced in half with my plastic chef’s knife. I then tossed the food together gingerly, the plastic parts clinking against one another, careful to not chip any of the green paint that decorated my stalks of celery. Seeing my uncle’s less than appetizing entree this weekend brought these afternoon playtime activities flooding back.

Perhaps the most peculiar assemblage was the little portion peas. The hospital had pureed a regular portion of greyish-green vegetable until entirely smooth, then poured this globby green mess into a “pea-like mass,” complete with bumps symbolizing the individual, minute veggie. My question is why? Why would the hospital do such a thing, why would they care? You’re eating hospital food, everyone knows you won’t be receiving some gourmet treat. It just struck me as odd, the particular attention that was vested upon this otherwise ordinary vegetable side dish. I think I would actually prefer a globby mess of something green, than a carefully molded, olive green mass, resembling a piping hot mound of peas. And what do you suppose the mold looks like left empty, on its own? I wonder…

Let’s talk about zesty for just one moment shall we? What exactly does this one, almost onomatopoeic adjective mean in the world of food today? This word has gotten to be a bit declasse. I mean you would never say (for example) the frog legs at Chez Robert are zesty, or the steamed dumplings at Shin Shin are full of zest. Even if these food were overflowing with all things zesty, would you proclaim them to be zesty? Probably not. And let me tell you, that would be quite alright with me. Usually I’m pretty egalitarian when it comes to food. I definitely have my like and dislikes, but anyone else? To each his own. But zesty, I HATE zesty.

Recently I was out to dinner with my husband and another couple. Somehow the topic of red peppers were brought up, and I was ranting about how I dislike cooked red peppers in my food, they flavor the entire dish, ruin the nuances, and all of a sudden you’re stuck eating one giant red pepper in what should be a melange of crisp cooked vegetables. My fellow diners did not feel the same way, but still could understand my discontent. It was in this conversation that Zach proclaimed that usually dishes containing the rank red pepper, can easily be called the dreaded, the unspeakable, the base- ZESTY.

This got me to thinking about all of the dishes that I have eaten out that have been ruined by this little, overcooked vegetable. Corn Chowder- The mellow sweetness of the soup, overtaken by seemingly innocuous red flecks, the flavor of the soup sacrificed in favor of the piquancy of another vegetable. Home Fries- An ordinarily pleasant breakfast treat, smashed by the pungent flavor of this slippery pepper. Pasta Primavera- In this case an argument could be made that peppers belong in this springtime feast, but to me, it just becomes pepper pasta, rather than a delightful springtime harvest.

What do each of these meals have in common, besides the dreaded pepper? They could all be accurately assessed as zesty. This entry poses an interesting question. Which do I dislike more, the slippery, slimy, spicy, cooked red pepper, or its adjective of choice zesty? I think in fact I dislike them both the same.

Last weekend was my brother-in-law’s birthday. Not knowing what to get him, I decided to bake him a birthday cake instead. I had several ideas myself, something chocolate, or maybe a sticky toffee pudding, there were a variety of different recipes that I had swimming about in my head. But I decided to ask the birthday boy what he wanted. I got a very specific notion of a cake that was delightful once made, but that I never would have created on my own.

Eugene is English, and has a very specific palate that has been shaped by years of eating trifles, sponge cakes, steamed puddings, jams, and clotted creams- all things delightfully sweet, even considered childish by many. And here was what I was told his ideal cake would be:

A double layered sponge cake.

Filled with strawberry jam.

Topped with vanilla buttercream.

And here is what he got…

Slightly different, but I must admit, a very festive, very sweet, but altogether delectable birthday treat.

When I set about making the batter for the cake, I realized that I did not own standard circular baking dishes. I had fluted, pie pans, even spring forms, but no standard circular baking pans. Not to be deterred, I simply used two, 8-by-8 inch pyrex dishes, lined with parchment to make unmolding easier. The result was a sweet rhomboid treat. The center of the cake was filled with strawberry jam (per Eugene’s request) mixed with stiffened whipped cream. This gave the filling more body, enabling the cake to stand higher. Finally the cake was iced with a simple vanilla buttercream. I took the recipe from the bible of cooking, Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, this is a tome of all things culinary. I have never had a recipe that I have tried from this book not turn out.

Topped with a single, beautiful strawberry, the cake was a scrumptious success, and most importantly, was adored by the birthday boy.

My husband has been sick, so I decided to make him some chicken soup (from scratch, mind you) on Friday afternoon. Now this may not seem like much to many of you, you may be saying, “Big deal, a little soup, whoop-de-do, a little bit of soup.” Making soup isn’t such a grand deal, in fact I do it all the time in the winter months. It’s just that I usually cheat on some part of the experience- the broth/stock part.

In today’s day in age most of us simply cannot be bothered with dragging out the stockpot, cutting up a chicken, skimming that disgusting, chicken-y, grey scum (what is that anyway?), adding the aromatics, and letting this entire concoction simmer for a minimum of two hours. So there are several chicken stocks I have come to depend on from the grocery store. There is one in particular that comes in a tetra-pak (it’s like a giant juice box ‘o broth), made from organic chickens that is really quite good.

But let me tell you, after going through all of the rigmarole, the toiling over the stockpot, it was well worth it. Despite making the house smell of a scrumptious chicken laboratory, the end result was a delicious, rich broth in which to nestle delightfully light Matzo Balls, sharing the bowl with celery and onion, adorned with just a hint of fresh dill. And to think, Brian only needed to get deathly ill in order to reintroduce the wonders of homemade soup to me.

I actually feel like baking something. Perhaps it is the weather; when it’s cold and blustery outside, my ultimate nesting instinct kicks in and I feel like doing all things domestic. I say actually, because the desire to bake is somewhat unusual for me. I believe there are two kinds of people to be found in the kitchen. Those who like to cook, and those who like to bake. That is not to say that the bakers don’t enjoy a good twirl of the soup spoon from time to time, and that the cook-ers don’t grease and flour a cake pan from time to time, but on the whole…

This desire to bake may be unusual for me, but the desire to eat sweets however, is definitely not. In fact, I’m a bit of a dessert whore. Now mind you, this doesn’t mean I need a rich, ganache covered confection, laced with toffee, nougat, and all kinds of tooth-achingly sweet goodies. I just need something sweet to culminate a meal, a biscuit, piece of chocolate, or the aforementioned ganache covered treat.

The propensity to not bake, does not provide problems come the dessert course when I am entertaining. This doesn’t mean I rely on the bakery; and I certainly don’t offer my friends a bowl of oranges and proclaim, “Dig in.” Fruit is a wonderful ingredient in dessert fare, but not simply fruit. In the summertime, I grill stone fruit. Peaches, nectarines, and apricots are wonderful sprinkled with sugar, or dried ginger, and roasted either on an indoor grill pan, or an outside BBQ. In the fall, a little bit of sweetened mascarpone cheese, sprinkled with figs or red grapes. Those are just two examples, both excessively easy, that quell the sweet tooth inside us all.

But when I want to bake, heat up the oven, warm the entire house, the smells of yeasty goodness wafting about, what other choice do I have than to break out one of my many cookbooks, peruse the pages, blow the dust off my measuring spoons and cups, and begin the process that will end in delightful construction of some late afternoon treat.

Welcome!
No, Bon Appetit!
No, definitely welcome, bon appetit would be cheesy, and you’re not actually eating anything, you’re just sitting in front of your computer, maybe in a cube, maybe at home.

So this is the Nosheteria, kind of like a cafeteria, where bites on food are served up to you like little morsels of goodness. In this site you’ll get a little bit of everything, the occasional recipe (in the Daily Specials section), the occasional musing, and the always entertaining, story about my life (you’re expected to care) in food.

In the Nosheteria I want the bourgie’s to congregate, to meet and greet, and eventually, take over the world. Now bourgie, what is a bourgie? First let’s get the pronunciation down, boo-zhee, sort of rhymes with sue me. Actually, it doesn’t rhyme at all. “Bourgie,” is a colloquialism used by millions of people daily. Stemming from the French word bourgeoisie, “bourgie” means someone who is class-conscious, with educated and discerning tastes, and interested in enjoying the finer things in life. It is definitely not high-class, aristoratic, snooty, or snobbish. “Bourgie” is as much an idea, and a state of mind, as it is an attitude towards enjoying good food, good friends, and good conversation, everyday. It evokes a mood of simple elegance, casual yet sophisticated—modern. And let’s face it, when it comes to food, who doesn’t want to eat like a bourgie?

I’m young. Just starting out on my culinary adventures, so I do not have a surplus of disposable income. But given these constraints I (and I’m sure you as well) want to eat and entertain well. Hell, not just well– stupendously. Therefore bourgie is a thinly veiled illusion for me, one that I’m serving up to you, my faithful readers.

If you visit this site frequently, you’ll learn helpful hints, read about my trial and travails, and hopefully– through osmosis, eat a bit better yourself. So go ahead, eat with abandon. Cooking should be fun, not simply a way to fill up your belly and absorb nutrients. Don’t be afraid to call yourself a bourgie, and of course, don’t be afraid to eat like one too.