Gigs
Topic: food writing biz
Sofia's begging me to take her to the library, and how can a Mom refuse such a request? So this will be brief.

I'm going to be doing some chef demos at the huge Dutchess County Fair next month and then at the not-so-huge Sheep and Wool Festival in October. How exciting! I hope I have an audience.

And I'm going to write an article on the food of Afghanistan for FACES magazine.

The website, www.jenniferbrizzi.com , is getting presentable at last. There are still a couple kinks to work out, notably the nightmare of the navigation bar, but it's getting there!

Brief kid-less bliss
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: Good grub in Connecticut
Topic: Eating
After years of wanting nothing more than to be a Mom, it was delightful last weekend to have four meals without my two tiny tots while my sister Calico kindly watched them for me.

After dropping them off Rolando and I stopped at Lenny's Indian Head in Branford, just east of New Haven, for a Shore Dinner that began with a pitcher of Bass Ale. Then came a cup of Rhode Island chowder, which I haven't had since my eight years in that state. Rather than a tomato or milk-based broth, its base is a murky rich gray-brown clam broth. I don't like clam chowders that taste like clam-flavored thick white sauce, and this was a real rustic, killer soup. With it came two sweet raw cherrystones on the half shell, something else I don't think I've had since 1993 when I left Rhode Island.

Then came as its own course some fresh sweet butter and sugar corn, then a boiled lobster perched atop a huge platter of steamer clams. It took me about an hour to make my way through that and I savored every blissful minute of it. Then was a huge chunk of watermelon with a knife and fork and some needed coffee. All but the Bass was part of the Shore dinner and it was heavenly.

A few short hours later we were still stuffed but it was time for our reservation for the 8:30 seating at Le Petit Cafe, also in Branford. When this place opened it was affiliated with Jacques Pepin and was called a "bouchon lyonnais," but now current chef/owner Roy Ip is French-inspired and very original, creative and talented. He offers two seatings of a prix fixe dinner at $39.50. Dinners out these days are so rare that I wanted to pick a great place. This was praised by Chowhound and eGullet and Zagat, and we weren't disappointed.

Les amuses-bouche began our meal: intensely gingery and sweet pickled chunks of beet, an assortment of cumin- and garlic-flavored olives and my favorite: crusty bread fresh from the oven and a crock of sweet butter generously studded with black truffle.

Then I enjoyed a huge diver scallop wrapped in prosciutto with grapefruit sections and a cilantro sauce. Rolando had an exquisite house-made duck and pork pate studded with Grand Marnier-soaked cherries. He had a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon and me, a nice white Bordeaux.

Then came a great salad of organic mesclun topped with warm tangy French goat cheese, then the entrees. Rolando's was the star, a rack of NZ lamb with Provencal crust, unbelievably good, and served with a gratin of potato and celery root. My wild Canadian halibut was just slightly dry but fresh, mild and fluffy, and the best part was that it hid a pile of exquisite sauteed slices of trumpet royale mushroom.

For dessert I dug into a tart passionfruit creme brulee and Rolando had a peach tart in puff pastry, both flawless. Chef Ip kindly stopped by our table to chat (I love it when chefs have time to do that) and told me all about the mushrooms so I could describe them in my column "Ravenous" this week.

After a night in Niantic and a Mystic morning, we capped off the adventure with luscious fried clam bellies from the Sea Swirl, recommended by the tipsy barkeep at John's Irish Pub.

A Tragic Passing
Mood:  sad
Topic: Cooking
My heart breaks as I write this. Last night a horrible thing happened to me. It was a tragedy that--if you notice that the topic above is "Cooking"--you may realize was a horrific event that affects only me, and is not the passing of a person or the burning down of anything.

In a fit of frustrated pique, angry at having to cook when tired, and in a messy kitchen that few people clean but me, I tossed my beloved ten-inch cast iron skillet onto the kitchen rug. When my outburst passed and I bent down to pick it up, I discovered that after twenty-five years of faithful service, used twice a day, my beautiful, perfectly seasoned cast iron favorite-cooking-pan-in-the-world was broken. The handle had come off, taking much of the side of the pan with it. You would think that something so strong and fine and well-seasoned would be more durable.

I must have cooked hundreds, nay thousands, of delicious things in that perfect specimen of panhood, and when I found that it was broken, I sobbed, feeling silly for doing so, but truly heartbroken that I will not ever cook with it again.

Like falling off a horse, today I will go to Warren Cutlery and buy another ten-inch cast iron pan, but I just know it won't be the same.

Read my Zuke jokes column, here through Thursday, July 7, then in archives.

Words, Food & Me
Mood:  suave
Now Playing: Born to be a food writer
Topic: food writing biz
The first word most babies utter when they begin to learn to speak is "Dada." Mine was not "Dada" or even "Mama." It was "hot." I used to think it was because I was a hot ticket, but it's really because hot is a cooking term, and my path to being a food obsessed, food-impassioned writer started early.

My second word was food related, too: "apple." And when I grew a little older, to the age my own children are now, when kids eat about .005% of the food items that are offered to them, I was abnormally unpicky. I would eat everything. Although I wasn't crazy about the texture of liver or okra, I would eat them if coerced, and I ate snails, kidneys and all the green vegetables my mother put before me.

Older still, I learned to write and would practice with my spaghetti on the tablecloth, writing my name in elegant script. It was official. I was a food writer.

In tenth grade I took a mini course on Japan, for which a paper was assigned on the topic of our choice. Although at that time I had not yet tasted it, you can guess what I chose to write about.

To this day, words and food are intertwined inseparably for me. When I dine alone I love to read while I eat, enjoying two of life's greatest pleasures simultaneously, like having sex while listening to Ravel's Bolero (actually I'd pick Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez for that).

If I'm eating something good and someone begins to talk about something bad, their recent bout of diarrhea, perhaps, or how the cafeteria stew yesterday resembled vomit, my appetite will completely dissolve in mid-bite, and I won't be able to continue eating. For a minute, anyway.

In my life I've considered careers as an architect, artist, actor or teacher of English as a foreign language. I've been a nurse, a cook and a waitress. But I didn't realize what I should have known all along, that from the very beginning I was destined to write about food.

I'm so excited, I just can't hide it, I'm about to lose control and I think I like it.
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: Sweet sweet summer
Topic: Cooking
I procured both fresh lard and tart cherries this weekend and I'm going to make a cherry pie. Is there anything better in the world? Well, yeah, my family and all.

I can almost taste that pie...it's too hot today to bake but maybe tomorrow....Yummylicious. If you think I'm disproportionately excited it's only because you have never tasted my cherry pie. You poor dear.

Prof dev
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Whereupon Ms. Brizzi confesses her deep-seated urges to be famous, or at least to make a living
Topic: food writing biz
Last week I e-mailed off three proposals for panels for next spring's convention of the International Association of Culinary Professionals in Seattle. For each one I would be the moderator with two panelists, because to be sole lecturer, you have to be a real, well-known food person, not the wanna-be I feel that I am some of the time.

One is about seafood of the Pacific Northwest, one about wild mushrooms ditto, and one called Write Like Bach, whereupon I would convince two of the country's most eloquent food writers to sit on a panel with me and teach fledging food writers how to become great writers.

Most likely the IACP will not accept any of these proposals, and life will go on. Possible but much less likely is that they would say yes to all three and I'll be busy at the conference, or best yet that they will say yes to one and I'll make $500, get a free day of conference, get to see my old friend from second grade who lives in Seattle, my second cousin who is book editor of the Seattle Times and the Kaplans who were in Vietnam with us and have two boys adopted from there, one of whom is Sofia's age. And I will increase my recognition and be on my way to...something....being a real food writer, recognized in my field, etc.

If it happens, I will have to speak in front of lots of people, something I have always been lousy at. It would be wonderful , though, and now it's time to set the thought aside and go on to other things and in the beginning of August I will find out.

Huh?
It has been hard to log onto Angelfire lately. I have been trying all night with no luck. Finally it's working.

www.jenniferbrizzi.com is taking me far too long to perfect. Hours of work have resulted in a half-done site with lots of problems, the current stumper being image-loading.

"By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed."--William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), The Heart of the West, 1907)

"An onion can make people cry but there's never been a vegetable that can make people laugh." --Will Rogers

Time Mgmt.
Mood:  d'oh
If I could eliminate cooking and eating from my daily life, I would have unbelievable amounts of free time.

Just this morning, part of my all-too-brief kid-free work hours, I spent an inordinate amount of time preparing a shad for slow baking: rinsing, tail trimming, thin-slicing onions and clipping herbs to stuff inside it, wrapping it carefully in three pieces of foil, then having to do it over because I forgot the four strips of bacon that was supposed to be laid on top.

Preparing, eating and cleaning up after dinner each night takes me about three hours. That's three hours that could be spent balancing my checkbook, scrubbing the shower , improving my mind by reading a classic book, or cleaning my room.

I try to blame my husband for expecting fresh meals from scratch every night, for not providing me with a dishwasher or helping with the dishes, but it's really not his fault. It's wholly mine. I love to cook. And even more than I love to cook, I love to eat (how can anyone like cooking but not eating?--I'll have to ask the next skinny chef I meet--that's a topic for another day).

Breakfast and lunch and a myriad of snacks, too, take time to prepare, consume and clean up after. It's a good thing that I'm making cooking and eating my life's work--it's the only way to justify all the time I spend on it--otherwise it would be called gluttony or the squandering of time better spent doing more constructive things!

Risky? Risque?
Mood:  flirty
Now Playing: Naughty food
At the risk of this blog being found and overrun by aficionados of Internet porn, here is a list of words from my new Magnetic Poetry set, themed "Cooking," that would not be out of place in a Magnetic Poetry set themed "Sex." I think its creators were being a little naughty when they included a word like "wiener" with candy, toast and oyster.

Here, in no particular order, are the words that jumped out at me from the side of the refrigerator when I noticed a few tinglingly sexy ones:

love
crave
roast
plump
moist
linger
steam
tender
devour
nibble
smoke
raw
succulent
satisfy
hunger
tongue
wiener
come
cream
sweet
ripe
mouth
bone
bun
spice
swallow

Now many might say that I have my mind in the gutter to consider some of those sexy, when they are so clearly merely food words. Well then I say to them, consider these, too, which while they may not shout out "SEX!", would not be out of place in an erotic tale:

toast
full
dough
boil
clam
oyster
sauce
honey
fruit
raw
delicious
eat
pinch
meat

I never knew that the exterior of my refrigerator could be as much fun as the inside. What hours of fun I'll have late at night with those little magnets!

Funny Ha Ha
Mood:  silly
The conference was awesome. I had such a good time being around 699 other writers. It made me feel like not such a weirdo. Laughed my ass off and learned a lot of useful stuff. All the panelists said you have to have a website, and no, I didn't finish mine in time but since I only handed my business card out to one other writer, I guess it's okay.

In one panel, business writer Gwen Moran said of food writing that it's not all chocolate and red wine, but actually "brains, bone marrow sauce and squid ink."

I love it!

Ay yi yi

Then all around from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat...
--Maurice Sendak, "Where the Wild Things Are" (HarperCollins, 1963)

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "What's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"'What's for breakfast?' said Pooh. 'What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.

--A.A. Milne,"Christopher Robin Gives Pooh a Party (E.P. Dutton, 1926)

It's all about the children, and lately it really has been. Too crazy 'round here to do anything but cook and mostly clean--apologies to my legions of fans who have surely bookmarked this page and turn eagerly to it each day before breakfast to see what clever bits of tripe I will bestow upon them. Sorry, fans.

Although I am crazed with getting my stinkin' website ready for the ASJA conference Saturday, at least the party is over, so I can breathe a bit. Forty-seven people have actually left my house clean, thanks to a gloriously sunny, warm early April day and my extreme cleanings prior to it. I will never clean like that again.

Tonight I cooked a Spain-inspired fish stew, with a goodly-sized piece of the freshest cod, a chunkily diced Russet, gobs of saffron, Pinot Grigio and garlic, and splashes of onion, tomato, parsley and clam broth, all simmered to loveliness and thrown over oiled croutons made from the simplest rolls that had been sliced and toasted. Aaah.

The website www.jenniferbrizzi.com is proving quite difficult and time consuming. If there are any food-impassioned web gurus out there willing to help a website-starting virgin make her name known on the Internet, email me at jerosoma@yahoo.com. Tanks.

Enuf fer dis day...

Getting there
Mood:  cheeky
The web site is up and on its way, still needs a lot of work, but is encouragingly happening. Don't look at it until it's done, well, alright, peek if you must, but it has a ways to go. It's very exciting, though, but too time consuming for a busy mom with weekly columns due and a major birthday party for one kid in a week and change and an extremely messy, filthy, cluttered house. Our house is tiny, and I mean teeny, and a zillion people are coming...Aaaagh.

Well, foodwise, I'm serving either dabo kolo or sambusas, two Ethiopian fried appetizers--one with a filling, fried chicken wings, pigs in blankets (can't resist, and people do eat them), chips, dips, etc. asparagus frittata or egg squares, baked ziti, cold cuts with the fixin's or a giant sub, green salad, bean salad, with the requisite beverages for the wine-swilling crowd that's coming.

Beautiful day today, spring is finally here and purple crocuses are blooming all over my garden beds. I'm making that Brizzi household standard pasta tonight, with a sauce embellished with anchovy and flakes, a sauce I could make in my sleep, that my husband wants to have every night. But it's simple and good.

I'm online this week
Mood:  happy
This week's column on a non-baker's experiences with bread is online and in this week's Woodstock Times. Although the Kingston Times and some of Ulster Pub's other papers run it every week, it's averaging about every two weeks for Woodstock, who already had a few food columnists before I came along. The WT is currently the only one of the five papers that puts it on the Web--I'll have to see what I can do about that.

Living Large
Mood:  mischievious
I haven't quoted anyone in a while, so here are a couple gems I just came across, from Oscar Wilde:

"Moderation is a fatal thing--nothing succeeds like excess."

and

"We are all of us in the gutter.
But some of us are looking at the stars."

Why Tripe Soup?
Mood:  celebratory
The sweetbreads were crispy and tasty--I did them simply, a 15 minute poaching in water acidulated with lemon, then a dip in seasoned flour, then a searing and sauteing in buttter and olive oil, a squeeze of more lemon. I had never cooked them before and had only eaten them twice or thrice. They were great.

I promised a few entries ago to tell you why this blog is called "Tripe Soup." Well, it began last year as an idea for a local newsletter about eating in the part of the Hudson Valley where I live. It was to have a logo similar to this one, that I drew late one night after a little wine and a lot of practice. Then I made it into this logo with the help of logobee.com.

I was going to distribute my newsletter, the first issue free, in local bookstores and food stores with a tiny black lace bagful of hot pink M & Ms. It was going to be mostly about local food. But after I put a lot of thought and work and planning and pretty much laid out the first issue, I realized that I can't take my two tots to fancy restaurants or even into food stores where a dirty little paw squeezing the Stilton would be unwelcome.

So I decided to make it a website, with my irreverent, sometimes funny, always passionate comments on food and eating, designed not to teach cooking but to entertain those interested in eating whether they cook or not. Before it becomes a website, it's having an incarnation as a blog about succulence, savoriness and enjoying life while eating, but in essence bits of worthless, sometimes offensive rubbish...

"Tripe" is defined as:
1. the entrails, generally; hence, the belly, generally used in the plural (obs)
2. part of the stomach of ruminating animals when dressed and prepared for food
3. anything worthless, offensive, etc.; rubbish; trash [Slang}

I call it Tripe Soup because it?s about eating what makes you feel good, what makes your eyes, ears, nose, tongue (taste and texture) happy, not what?s trendy, chic, or LITE. Like tripe, it may shock or disgust you. It isn?t sweet and bland but chewy and full of tang. My goal is to induce drooling, to make you hungry.

The subtitle of the original newsletter was "Not your Grandmother?s Newsletter," although my focus is on the kind of food she cooked.

Let me know what you think of the logo. I'm always happy to get feedback. Here are some links to some of my "Ravenous" columns:
Hooked on Cookbooks
Lowcountry Highs
To All a Good Soup