If it ain't broke - deep fry it?

This past weekend was my grandmother's 80th birthday. (Happy birthday, Grandma!) We had a two-day celebration involving museum-visiting, shrub-planting, cat-doting, and of course, lots of yummy food. One of the dinners was rather impromptu, and so we ended up making my Grandma's salmon loaf. This involves a couple of cans of salmon mixed up with eggs and breadcrumbs and whatever other veggies are on hand, and baked in ramekins until they're crispy and bubbly on top.

It was perfectly tasty, but I couldn't help thinking it could use a little bit of a twist. So when I got home I decided to try the same basic idea, with one big change.

I decided to fry it.

Lighter and Brighter

For the first time in many months, I stepped outside in my socks and felt warmth coming up from the ground. I had almost forgotten that feeling. None of the trees have started budding yet, and there's still some snow on the ground, but I'm willing to overlook that because I could feel the warmth of the sun on the bottom of my feet. And that means winter is finally on its way out.

A change in the season calls for a change in kitchen as well - it's time to retire the stews and move on to something lighter and brighter. And my latest lighter and brighter obsession is a combination of cod, caramelized onions, and kalamata olives. The buttery flakiness of the cod pairs beautifully with the sweetness of the onions, and the whole thing gets a lovely little zing of salt and flavor from the olives.

So happy spring, everyone. We've definitely earned it.

Is It Spring Yet?

Even though I know that, yes, technically spring has sprung, I'm still a bit skeptical. Some of the usual signs are here - I saw my first robin, drank my first iced coffee, and got back on my bike without feeling like my lungs might freeze. But I can't help but notice that the weather forecast for the next few days is averaging around the mid-thirties.

My usual technique for dealing with the cold is to wear and giant scarf and then just try to ignore it. Sometimes I channel my nordic roots and pretend to be a Viking, because, as my frozen brain likes to say, Vikings don't get cold, they just get awesome. If it's especially windy, I pretend to be Shackleton exploring the Antarctic; he definitely got cold, but at least he got to see penguins. I play all sorts of mind games with myself to battle a physical phenomenon. And while this isn't necessarily the most direct solution, it does at least provide some entertainment.

It also spills over into my cooking. In an unfortunately unsuccessful attempt to coax out some warm weather, I picked up a pineapple at the supermarket the other day and decided it was time to make something fruity and colorful.

A Very Good Place To Start

One of my favorite pieces of cooking wisdom came from my aunt, who told me that when she has no idea what to cook, she throws some butter and onions in a pan and it smells good enough that everyone else in the house gets fooled into thinking she has a Plan.

It's Just A Phase

I've realized recently that I bake in phases.  Two winters ago was the Winter of the Scone. I was studying in Germany, and that year was the first time I had had a real kitchen of my own. After some misadventures brought on by German baking powder used in American recipes, I decided I needed some proper German cook books. The first one I bought was in a sale bin for €3 and is called Lecker! Schokolade, which translates rather enthusiastically to Delicious! Chocolate. How could I resist?

A Few Of My Favorite Things

Over the summer, I started a list of some of my favorite things. The idea was to rewrite the Sound of Music song into something a little more personal. My roommate and I had already reworked If I Only Had A Brain into a little job-search ditty somewhere along the lines of, "With the money I'd be makin' / I'd be bringin' home the bacon / If I only had a job." But once we were both not-particularly-gainfully employed, it felt like time for a another re-imagined classic movie song, this time with a little genuine optimism and appreciation thrown in. I have a habit of over-using superlatives, so all I really had to do was to start paying attention to exactly what it was I was already saying were my favorite things. I never did finish putting everything into lyrics; instead I've had this list on my computer for the past few months:

Favorites: Google maps, vikings, Doctor Who, butter, iced coffee, the way British people say literally, boots, pie
Not favorites: spiders, blood tests, crooked knives

This isn't a comprehensive list by any means, but it is a nice reminder of the little things that make me smile. So I decided to go through my kitchen with a similar mindset:

Family Recipes

This past Sunday, my shopping list looked like this:

• eggs
• milk
• dish soap
• something soup-y

It had been a long day, and I didn't want to make decisions - I just wanted something warm and comforting and, well, soupy. So I called my mom from the produce section to ask her about her lentil soup.

If I had to pick one food that sums up home, it would be this soup. I'd be tempted to choose something flashier, like lobster, or more locally traditional, like a mug of thick New England clam chowder or a heaping plate of fried clams. But this soup is the quiet, steady constant. My mom has fed it to me when I was in bed with a fever, sent me off to school with a tupperware arsenal full of it, and served it up piping hot with hot chocolate on snow days. I honestly can't remember this soup ever not being a part of my life.