Back to Pasture

With the opening of the farmers markets here in Chicago last week I am like a ruminant who has been allowed out into pasture after a winter of eating hay; I am obsessed with fresh green things. Pea shoots, spinach, baby lettuces, arugula have all been making their way down the gullet. This week's dinners have included:

• Sauteed greens with a bit of prosciutto and shallots over olive oil tossed pasta.
• A spinach omelet.
• A massive spinach salad with warm bacon dressing.

And for tonight I'm brainstorming a pizza with pork sausage (meat from the awe inspiring Mennonites of Organic Pastures) and greens over some of the remaining roasted tomato marinara from the freezer.

Spacca Napoli

I do not eat out all that often. Since I cook at home, when I do go out I like it to be something that am I either not prepared to tackle in my own kitchen, something with unusual\hard to procure ingredients or something done very, very well. Doing something well doesn't have to mean high-end culinary training, sometimes its just a recipe passed down from somebody's grandma and made over and over and over again.

Last week I went with a group of friends to Spacca Napoli and had a meal that somehow managed to be all three. I left the table a very happy girl.

This was the second time I'd been there and I love, love, love the food geekiness of the joint. It's not good enough to just have woodfired pizza. It's pizza in the style of Naples.

They tell you what kind of flour they use.

They had an appetizer of white anchovies on the specials list. Which are one of my favorite things in the world. And awfully hard to find.

As we sipped our rose (Sicilian and the color of plums) they gave us each a little sampler piece of a not on the menu truffle pizza.

I had a prosciutto and arugula pizza that tasted like the best thing in the world and traded slices to get a piece of sausage\rapini and diablo (spicy sausage, basil, real mozz). Lovely.

Quail Eggs

Too pretty to resist.

True Love Never Dies

I got my first good knives as a graduation present from my parents when I left college 12 (gulp) years ago. I had started cooking with gusto when I was about 19 I so I was sent into the world with a good GPA in not so useful majors (English, American Studies), a second hand car and three German knives.

Since then I've got a lot of experience in the tech field, a different car and...the same knives (with a couple of additions). I realize that as a proud resident of Chicago I am supposed to shun Macy's for the whole renaming of Field's but I was lured today by the offer of free professional knife sharpening; a service which normally has pornlike pricing by the inch.

It's hard to turn down free.

So I biked off to the train this morning with my blades wrapped in a dish towel tucked into my messenger bag and walked over at lunch. SO exciting. I have a steel at home but one run through a pro-sharpener and my babies are like new again.