What we’ve been doing instead of cooking new stuff

Usually, Wednesdays mean new recipes at Blue Kitchen. Spoiler alert, not this week. Here’s what we’ve we been up to lately instead.

WE’VE BEEN PLAYING WITH KNIVES. We first discovered these handsome Spanish-made knives at Almond and Oak in Oakland, California, in May 2019. We were having dinner with friends we hadn’t seen in years, and I was halfway through my thick cut pork chop before I realized how easily I was cutting it. The next morning, before flying home from San Francisco that afternoon, we took the bus to the elegant home store MARCH and bought two Pallares Solsona steak knives.

The Pallares family has been making these knives by hand in Solsona, Spain, since 1917. The carbon steel blades are sharper than stainless, tough and easy to resharpen as needed. As you can see above, also unlike stainless, the carbon steel blades develop a patina over time. The top knife is one of our originals, the bottom one a new paring knife we recently bought—with two more steak knives—from Flotsam + Fork in Minneapolis. The boxwood handles fit well in the hand and add to the rustic beauty of these modestly priced knives. We’re really glad we got them.

WE’VE BEEN COOKING COMFORTING OLD FAVORITES. Working from home has some advantages; chief among them are skipping the commute and the weather being merely interesting, not something to be dealt with. But when work is home, extricating yourself can be tough. So we rely on dishes we can cook from muscle memory—that come together quickly or that can simmer without too much attention while we put out work fires. We also want things that push all the familiar, cozy comfort buttons for us. This week, we’ve been enjoying Marion’s quick three-bean chili and my chicken and wine.

WE’VE BEEN MAKING TACOS. LOTS OF TACOS. It started one night when some leftover roasted chicken wasn’t inspiring us. Marion remembered we had tortillas. And canned refried beans. And salsa and cheese and—totally optional—fresh tomatoes and avocado and sour cream. Suddenly, it was taco night, and we were very happy. Lots of things now become tacos for us. Leftover pork chops! Ground beef! Even frozen breaded fish fillets! And now taco night or lunch or “hey, you hungry? want a taco?” is a regular thing for us.

WE’VE BEEN GETTING TAKEOUT. Partly, I’ll admit, we’re doing this to eat restaurant food, to taste something we didn’t cook. But we’re also doing it to help local places we love stay alive and keep people employed, so we can go back some day. Besides having something we want to eat, our main criteria for restaurants is that we can order and pay on the phone or the restaurant website, and that they will bring the food out and put it in our trunk. Lots of places are figuring this out. Some of our faves here are Pleasant House Pub, Michelin-starred Chinese fusion restaurant Go 4 Food and Shinya Ramen House.

We try to order directly from the restaurants, not through third party companies that dip into the already thin profit margins these places so need. And we always ask them to add a tip—restaurant workers are especially vulnerable right now, and every little bit helps.

WE’VE BEEN FEEDING OUR BRAINS. We are library users, readers in general, dance fans, museum goers. So we’ve been looking for ways to have those experiences—eBooks, more magazine subscriptions, online performances and one of our now weekly rituals, Cocktails with a Curator.

The Frick Collection in New York City is now closed, both because of the pandemic and a major renovation currently under way. To keep museum goers engaged, they are hosting weekly Cocktails with a Curator every Friday at 5pm eastern (you can watch whenever you like). Each week, either Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon or Curator Aimee Ng spends about 20 minutes discussing a work from the Frick Collection, pairing it with a cocktail.

For Marion and me, it’s a fun ritual to officially kick off the weekend. In the span of 20 or so minutes, we’ve been someplace else, learned about a work of art outside our Modern/Contemporary wheelhouse, and feel happier and a little smarter, cocktail or no.

The episode above is presented by Curator Aimee Ng. You can find all the Cocktails with a Curator episodes—complete with cocktail and mocktail recipes for each—right here.

LOOK FOR A NEW RECIPE HERE NEXT WEEK. Maybe. Or at least an interesting story, we hope.