The Bitten Word

Fennel, Apple and Avocado Crudo

Food & Wine (August 2015)

If you don't mind, we'd like to start off today with a mini-rant.

We are so over recipes and restaurant menus with meat-dish names for vegetarian plates. In fact, we thought this was already a played-out trend two-and-a-half years ago, when we wrote about a "broccoli carpaccio":

Quick tangent: Can we talk for one second about the word "carpaccio"? We know it's a very trendy thing right now to treat vegetables as hefty meat entrees. From coast to coast, chefs in progressive restaurants are serving things like cauliflower "steaks," carrot "tartare" and beet "carpaccio." Can we please cut that out? We love vegetables at least as much as the next guys -- honest!  But we find this trend a bit eyeroll-inducing. We swear, the first time we see a turnip "meatloaf" on the menu, we're walking out.

Like with today's recipe: Why oh why is this called a "crudo"? A crudo is a dish of raw fish or, more rarely, raw meat.

We already have a word for raw vegetables on a plate. It's a salad.

Okay, now that we got that off our chest, here's what you really need to know about this dish:  This salad is incredibly delicious.

Grilled Eggplant with Fresh Hot Sauce and Crispy Eggs

Bon Appétit (August 2015)

Egg and eggplant. There's something about that pairing that strikes us as funny, but also a bit revolutionary. Egg. Eggplant. How have we never before put those together in a dish?

Well, our long national nightmare is over. Because this dish pairs eggs and eggplant -- and it's delicious.

Charred Tomato Vinaigrette

Food & Wine (August 2015)

Never fear, Bittens! We're still here.

We've just been away on vacation in Cape Cod for the past few weeks. 

Here's our vacation by the numbers:

• Beach bonfire with friends: 1 
• Run-ins with Bitten Word readers who said hi: 2
• Jars of peanut butter: 2
• Bags of Cape Cod chips: 4
• Novels read: 4
• Lobster rolls eaten: 8
• Issues of the New Yorker read (finally): 12 
• Days on the beach: 13
• Oysters: 24
• Spf: 30
• Seals spotted: >50 
• Head clearance of the house we stayed in: 5' 10"
• Glasses of rosé consumed: Innumerable 

 

It was a decadent, hilarious, fun-filled few weeks with friends.

But now we're back. Back to sanity. Back to the gym. Back to healthy(ish) eating. Back to (thankfully) more summer. 

After a big few weeks, it's time to get back in touch with our good old friend Salad.

And we turned to this Charred Tomato Vinaigrette to help reintroduce us. 

Salted Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake

Bon Appétit (April 2014) 

 

"CHOCOLATE!!"

That's what Zach's sister Cassidy texted us last week, after we'd asked what sort of dessert she'd like us to make for her birthday. We were heading out to Annapolis to spend the day with her and her husband; she planned to cook dinner, but we wanted to bring a dessert to help celebrate her special day.

But here's the thing: Food magazines don't really write much about chocolate in their summer issues. July and August -- the issues we're cooking from right now -- are all about summer fruits and popsicles and ice cream. 

We were with Cassidy on this one. Sometimes, you just want a big ol' piece of chocolate cake for your birthday.

So we dove into the Bon Appétit archive and found this Salted Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake.