smitten kitchen

Hoo hoo hoo. Hee hee. Remember when I was all “and I’ll tell you what to serve this crisp rosemary flatbread tomorrow!”? Well, the beach got in the way. And after that, some Chinese food. And a movie (do not watch! the first was so much better). Oh, and then a nap that lasted until 10 this morning…

Wait, are you still listening? Of course not. You’re at the beach, too. The weather has been so fantastic lately and the summer is almost over, making it even hard for me to motivate to cook anything. And yet, I am looking at the long list of recipes I haven’t gotten to writing up yet, and I realize that I’ve been cooking more than ever. How does that compute?

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It took me until I was on some interminable wait on the phone last week with hold music so awful, they had to have done it on purpose, to finally get to flipping through the July 2008 Gourmet magazine. And if there were ever a spread that could lift you from your “love lifts us up where we belong” drudgery, it would be that gorgeous herb-focused spread near the back of the issue. (Like I said, it was a long hold time.)

I immediately had to make it. All of it. And I can see I am not the only one. But to start, let’s talk about this recipe, something I think everyone in the entire world should have in their repertoire: Flatbread.

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All of a sudden, the summer is as awesome as any summer could possibly be–the days are no longer oppressively hot, swinging from a temperate high-seventies to mid-eighties and the humidity has dropped–and just like that, it is also almost over. Noooo!

I’m not handling this very well. I don’t want summer to be almost over. I don’t care that I love fall; I love even more not having to wear jackets and toe-covering shoes and socks. I hate socks most of all. Everyone knows that fall is abundantly short-lived and all of a sudden you’re catapulted into the longest, winter ever, and …

I’m not ready.

And yet, there’s something happening in our kitchen that subverts my insistence that summer must not end. I made a tiny braise (it was vegetables but still, a braise), I’ve started missing that butternut and chickpea salad we made almost weekly last winter and now this too: I put cinnamon in a coffee cake.

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One of my favorite things about cooking is being surprised. As much fun as it is chasing some childhood recipe or flavor ideal I caught a whiff of at some restaurant, somewhere, nothing matches the surprise of finding a recipe that you’re not entirely sure will be your thing, trying it anyway and then spending the rest of the night going “this is good,” “wow, this is so good,” and “wow, I had no idea it would be this good.”

Well, that part is kind of boring to anyone but the person experiencing the delicious surprise but still, this recipe is one of those. I have to admit that my fearful-of-combining-sweet-and-savory husband has poisoned me a little, and when I see warm spices like cinnamon and allspice in a savory recipe, I’m doubtful I will like it. Not that it won’t work, per se, just that it won’t work for me. Even though a good part of the world adds these spices to their savory dishes and surely they can’t all be wrong.

But these meatball skewers are awesome. Awe-some. And then some. I expect that some astute readers might have noticed that I rarely feature meat recipes; I’m not enthralled enough with it that I am easily impressed into trying new recipes. But when I am, well, hot damn. I didn’t think I could even like a meat anything this much, nonetheless a meatball. They’re spicy and juicy and delicious charred at the edges, and the minty yogurt sauce is the perfect contrast for the kefta as well as the zucchini skewers and I want more right now.

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Be glad you’re not in the room with me these days, because I’ve been singing, or “wailing” as Alex likes to call it, “getting to knooooooow yoooooou” for days. Except that’s the only line I know, and as usual, it has not stopped me from restarting the tune every 20 seconds or so. Oh, and I don’t even know what “pitch” is or how to approximate attaining it. Really, I’m a delight.

Nevertheless, as painful as it might be to hear about in person, I really do want to get to know you better and I’ve finally buckled down and begged Alex (see how I did that there?) to put together a questionnaire-type thing that will help me towards that goal. Despite the fact that you’ve given this site such a fun and enthusiastic comment section, I suspect that only about 5 to 10 percent of you have ever chimed in, which is totally fine but means that the rest of you are something of a mystery to me.

For example, do you like pie after a movie or are you completely tired of me overusing this True Romance reference? Do you like your pancakes with butter and jam or maple syrup? How many days a week do you eat PB&J for lunch? Is four too many? Do you think that I could shatter wine glasses with my high notes?

Okay, fine, I don’t really get into any of those questions, mostly I just want to know a little bit more about who you are, where you’re from and how you feel about cooking, and the answers are just for me, me me–not some marketing research group or an ad network–and to satisfy my curiousity, so I hope you’ll consider taking a few minutes to answer 15 easy questions. In fact, I’ll even leave it open for a whole week, so you know, you’ll have no excuse not to regale me with your answers.

[The Smitten Kitchen Getting to Knooow Yooou Poll]

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