Salsa Verde, Hello New Friend!

I like to think of my friend Winnie as my own personal food guru - restaurant recommendations, recipes, suggestions towards adventurous eating. She provides it all and hits the mark every time. Recently I was perusing her food blog, Get in My Belly, and read about her recent adventures in pesto, garlic scape dip, and salsa verde. Luckily, my CSA share from Roxbury Farm that week included garlic scapes and the freshest parsley I've ever had.

The garlic scape dip proved to be excellent - both creamy and sharp with not much more than cannellini beans, garlic scapes, and olive oil. On some slices of whole wheat Pullman loaf from Silver Moon Bakery along with some green market cucumbers, it was a fantastic lunch at work this week. [ASIDE: If you live within marathon distance of Silver Moon I cannot recommend this bread highly enough. Full and rich without being heavy. A touch of sweetness that seems to come from the grains and not sugar. A beautiful tasty crust.]

I also made salsa verde according to the Alice Waters recipe. The result was left to meld for a day and then came across quite well on some basa en papillote (in parchment paper pouch layers from top to bottom: mixed braising greens, 4 oz. of basa, olive oil, dill, parsley, green onions, and a pat of butter - 8 to 10 minutes at 400 degrees or so). The real treat, however, just came this morning. Winnie had said that salsa verde was good on hard boiled eggs. I wasn't expecting much, but since Winnie's recommendations have traditionally brought me so close to gastronomic divinity that I gave it a go. I boiled some eggs according to the science informed technique of Harold McGhee (10 - 15 minutes at 180 to 190 degrees for optimum consistency) two nights ago and had them with my salsa verde this morning. It was absolutely incredible. Get yourselves some parsley and capers and go forth! Experience the sum greater than its parts which is the hard boiled egg with salsa verde.

Best of St Louis

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We have spent the past 4 weeks in St Louis, and done our best to tap into the stomach of this town. First we have to say that we have had a great time here. It is a charming city with all sorts of gems. Here are some of our favorites, illustrated for you in the slide show above:

• Slow cooked pork a la Super Smokers. We did this two ways---with their sauce on our own grill, which was good, and at their restaurant which was great. We recommend: the PORK STEAK. Amazing. Ribs good too. Stick to the pork though. Other things weren't great.
  
• Beers at the Boat House in Forrest Park. And not just any beer, but the local Schlafly's Unfiltered Wheat Hefeweizen.
  
• DIY bloody mary's at Brandt's on the Loop. Don't shy away from the clam juice. Second place bloody mary goes to some place whose name we can't remember off of Euclid Ave that made them with gin and balsamic pickled onion. Dee-lish.
• Burning calories by touring the Arch (it really is impressive), Museum of Westward Expansion, and Old State Courthouse.
  
• Beef brisket sandwich at BBQ spot in Busch Stadium. I'm tellin' ya, it was really good! Much better than Super Smokers brisket, which was dry and tough. You can find the BBQ spot at Busch stadium near Ford plaza on the first floor by right field.
• Sitting in the gorgeous garden at John D McGurks Irish pub in Soulard.
  
• Not pictured here, but dinner at Charlie Gitto's in the Hill. Wow. Living in New York, we foolishly tend to think that we've seen it all when it comes to Italian cuisine. But the food here really exceeded expectations: slow roasted pork shank with dark fruit reduction over porcini risotto. Etc. And the dining room was perfectly rat-pack-eqsue, but in a tasteful and welcoming way.
  
• Being able to drink beers while touring the Missouri Botanical Gardens. I mean, it's sponsored by Anheiser Busch, you know? The jungle room in the climatron was a particularly good accompaniment to a Bud Select. The Chihuly and Niki sculptures were really cool too.
• Our take on St Louis pizza: we tried the local standard, Imo's, known for square slices and a very thin (Matzo-esque) crust. Cyrus prefers a bit more chew than crackle in his crust, and the pizza here was more the latter. But overall not bad.