thoughts

I finished Joe Country by Mick Herron a few days ago. It’s part of his Slough House series. I picked it up after the most recent season of Slow Horses left me wanting more. The book picks up right where the show leaves off. The tone and humor of the show clearly draws from the book.

I’ve started reading Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. I liked No Country for Old Men. So far it’s a couple of vignettes with the main character. It’s less driven and tense than No Country, but the poetry of his writing makes it no less enjoyable.

I’ve been taking photos of the tear down of a local mall, Collin Creek. They’ve stripped out most of the building, leaving just the base structure.

It’s surreal to walk around the shell of a place that I have memories of

I dropped my dutch oven while cleaning and it failed spectacularly.

I don’t have a sentimental attachment to it, but having to buy a replacement will sting. I’m hoping that the Le Creuset customer service will help me out, it seems like they have a policy of one time discount for user-error failures.

I struggle to make well emulsified, creamy pasta sauce when using just pasta water and cheese like in cacio e pepe. The best source for good technique I’ve found is ChefSteps cacio e pepe recipe

• Only lightly salt your pasta water
• Cook pasta in minimum amount of water to concentrate the starch
• Concentrate further the cooked pasta water to increase creaminess
• Add cheese off heat

But I still found myself successfully making an unbroken sauce only 3 out of 5 times. And then I found this very untraditional NYT recipe for cacio e pepe with tuna (e tonno?) that uses a blender (!!) to combine the starchy water and the cheese.

Now my hit rate for a well emulsified sauce is 100%. I would love to be able to do this solely in the pan, without having to use + dirty my blender, but it’s just too convenient.