We’re just past Memorial Day weekend. I have to say that I’m a bit saddened that Memorial Day isn’t really observed for what it’s meant to honor, which is fallen U.S. soldiers. I don’t go out of my way to do a lot for the day, but I do think about the sacrifices made by others. Unfortunately, I saw a lot of other celebrations going on, too, that had nothing to do with that; people are just confused, I guess.

On Saturday, Pat of Patrick’s BBQ held his annual customer appreciation event by cooking anything that he could fit in his smoker (which is a whole lot). While there, I noticed a field of wildflowers, and I had to wander down to get a better look.

It is a long weekend, and it unofficially denotes the start of summer. We had incredible weather for Saturday and Sunday, with Monday not too awful. On Sunday, my dad and stepmother were in Ohio, and they spent the afternoon and evening with us, which was all the excuse I needed to put the XL Big Green Egg through it’s paces, just to see how it did with a variety of tasks.

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I remember my first introduction to weird forms of sea salt. It was a few years ago while watching Napa Style with Michael Chiarello; he sells grey salt via his show and website. It’s actually great stuff. From there, I’ve learned that there are several forms of more natural sea salts that include color from other things, like pink Hawaiian salt or more moisture like grey salt.

Fleur de sel (flower of the sea, I think) is a French salt that’s supposed to be the best of the best, and it’s tough to argue with that once you try it. It’s better as a condiment than to use just to salt a dish that’s being cooked. And it goes great with sweet stuff.

I love caramel, so I thought I’d try making some caramel with fleur de sel. I’ve found it all over the place on blogs and recipe sites, but I used a standard caramel recipe that I think I found in Gourmet. I just changed and added stuff to try something new. The original recipe called for kosher salt, just a touch, unsalted butter and white sugar. I used fleur de sel, French butter and turbinado sugar, along with some vanilla.

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or My Favorite Thing My Wife Makes For Me That I Eat Too Much Of Too Quickly. But that title was too long, I thought.

I do most of the cooking around hte house, but my wife does make a couple of things, and I let her. I’m not about to start making pumpkin bars and have her decide not to do them anymore… I’m a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.

The pumpkin bars themselves are from my wife’s grandmother, and they’re good, but my wife made them considerably better… by using butter! One truism I’ve discovered in life is that just about anything can be improved by adding one of two things: bacon and/or butter. Bacon in pumpkin bars wouldn’t quite fly, but these bars are right in the butter-improving zone.

The original recipe called for vegetable oil, but we were out, so she substituted, wisely, melted butter instead. Yum! The old recipe was fine, this and a few other slight changes really made a difference. Before this go around, the pumpkin bar part of the dessert was little more than a transport mechanism to get cream cheese icing to my taste buds. This time, the pumpkin bar is great on its own (but best with the cream cheese icing!). Read the rest of this entry »

I can hardly believe that my trip to Pittsburgh was only 2 1/2 weeks ago; our October has been really full! When I was there, I got a great candy bar that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, from Chocopologie, that was dark chocolate with burnt caramel and sea salt. Great stuff!

If this is the only entry you’re reading here, you haven’t yet heard about the wine party we had last weekend, but it was not only a great party, it also has provided me with all kinds of stuff to write about. I made a dessert for the party to mimic the candy bar I got in Pittsburgh.

The dessert started with something I saw as I flipped through the channels a while back. I found a recipe for chocolate creme fraiche pot; I don’t really care much for the show it came from, but then Alton Brown is about the only food show host I really like, but the dish looked interested because it 1) sounds good, and 2) is really easy to make. So for a big party or just when you don’t have time, this is pretty cool to try, especially with my additions.

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