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  • Daniel Greene 7:45 pm on April 14, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: food, photos,   

    Happy end of Passover 2012 / Pesach 5772 

    As the sun sets on the last night of Passover / Pesach, a look back at the past eight days at the Smithers-Greene.

    We held a little seder at home the first night.

    Sunday morning I had some charoset with a matzah covered with dark chocolate cream cheese.

    Sunday night Andy made a delicious matzo ball soup.

    Tuesday night Andy made a sumptuous lasagna with matzah instead of noodles. It had beef in it (my idea), so it’s meat and dairy together, but that’s how we roll!

    Friday I made a lemon sponge cake from a recipe on a canister of Manischewitz potato starch.

    (Friday night I drenched it in an icing made of lemon juice and powdered sugar. Even yummier.)

    I’m not orthodox about the way I celebrate holidays. There was the hamburger in the lasagna. Heck, on some Passovers I’ve breakfast on eggs, matzah with butter on it, and bacon. Once in a while, I give into a craving, mix meat and dairy, add bacon, and have it on a chometzdik bun! As I Facebooked Thursday, “Eating a Sourdough Jack during Passover is wrong in so many ways… but it feels so right.” I do try to avoid “cheating” for the sake of observing the holiday, but when I give in, I don’t feel guilty; I just joke about it. The way I see it, even if I’m breaking tradition and joking about it, I’m acknowledging the tradition. The stomping of feet, the smell of sweat breaking out on flushed skin, the fear and hope of people who grabbed what they could and ran out of Egypt without even time to let their dough rise– these “memories” are with me. One might ask, “If you’re going to break the commandments, why even bother?” Well, I would rather observe the holiday by mostly abstaining from chometz (leavening) than by not abstaining at all. This was our Pesach, and I enjoyed it!

     

  • Daniel Greene 7:23 am on August 22, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: bird, cat, food, , humor, morbid, , neighborhood, , pigeon   



    Here today, gone tomorrow
    Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene

    My husband Andy found these two baby pigeons in our planter by the front door yesterday. This was not a cause for rejoicing. We have already been conducting a long egg disposal campaign in the backyard palm tree for the past two years (the dogs love to lap up the raw eggs). Just when we thought the egg laying was easing up in the backyard, we see these two ratlets with useless wings in the front. We wondered why they hadn’t been eaten by cats yet. We thought about taking them and putting them in the cat food bowl our neighbor puts out twice a day. That would give the kitties a real feast. But we laughed that off to sick humor and left them alone, hoping the neighborhood cats would finally notice them and eat them. Maybe the cats were waiting for them to fatten up a bit first? We should see…

    Well, it doesn’t distress me to tell you that the little vermin were gone in the morning. I guess the cats decided they were finally plump enough. The cats probably already knew they were there, right? I mean, two birds in the bush…

    Andy went looking around the yard and found the signs of carnage accounting for one bird. The other, I guess, was hauled away to another cache in the sharp-toothed mouth of a feline filcher.

    I guess it just goes to show: here today, gone tomorrow. As much as I may morbidly gloat over Nature’s predation over these creatures, the truth is "you could be hit by a bus" any time so you might as well live, love, and laugh– even if it is sick laughter about poor little baby birds!

     

  • Daniel Greene 10:38 pm on August 9, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , food, , , , ,   

    Homemade chicken Caesar salad – a product of love 

    Some people make fun of me for posting photos of my food (my husband included). No, wait– people make fun of me for taking photos of my food. The posting part is beyond belief. Other people say, "I love your food pictures!" Or, "Thanks a lot, Daniel. Now I’m hungry!"

    I like taking photos of food because food is beautiful, food is delicious, food is comforting and nourishing. Eating is not being hungry. Eating healthy food is being healthy. A good plate of food is supposed to delight your eye and make your mouth water. A good plate of food is an accomplishment– it means you earned your food, you planned your meal (or improvised it), you prepared (and/or cooked) your food, and you plated it with love and gusto.

    This meal was a collaboration between me and my husband. He marinated the chicken while I was at work. After I came home, he grilled the chicken while I soaked some croutons in Caesar dressing, tossed in some bagged romaine lettuce, and shredded some parmegiano reggiano cheese. While I was slicing the rind off part of the cheese, I nicked my thumb and drew a bit of blood (it didn’t get on the food). Andy put a bandage on my thumb and I put it up to his lips so he could "kiss it and make it better." I smiled and said, "That was almost worth getting a boo-boo for." And then we ate our meal together.

    So I take this photo to celebrate the glory of food, to express thanks for the food I receive, and to remember the love, humor, and partnership that went into making this simple meal. It is a blessing.

     

  • Daniel Greene 9:10 pm on August 8, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , chicken, , eating, food, , , , pizza, wings   

    We didn’t go out to a fine French restaurant or the Compass Room with its 360º view of the Valley. No. This year we just got Pizza Hut stuffed crust pepperoni pizza and chicken wings. We watched Bounty Hunter which, little did we know, ended with the phrase "Happy anniversary, darling." And we took a walk around the neighborhood. A nice simple afternoon / evening together.

     

    • Andy 11:16 pm on August 8, 2010 Permalink | Reply

      Well I am blessed that we can just enjoy simple things that life offer us. Pizza and wings were great. The conversation on our walk was so sweet and heart felt. I love my husband more than ever today and I can’t wait for tomorrow.

    • Philip 8:50 am on August 15, 2010 Permalink | Reply

      Happy Anniversary, guys! ;)

  • Daniel Greene 12:09 pm on August 3, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: food, groceries, , international, , middle-eastern,   

    Halva floss, yogurt soda, and sesame bread sticks from Aziz Market. We’re pretty adventurous eaters here at the Smithers–Greene.

    Review? The halva floss tasted good, but I thought halva necessarily meant made with tahini (sesame butter) as many "halvas" are. Now I guess it just means candy. The yogurt soda was unique– pungent, goaty, and tart. Very strong flavor that would probably go best with Greek or Middle Eastern food. The sesame sticks are, well, less sweet than your typical breadsticks. They are heavily coated with sesame seeds which gives them a slightly bitter taste. Good though.

     

    • carlos benjamin 12:47 pm on August 3, 2010 Permalink | Reply

      Dang it! No wonder I’ve had to have so much dental work. My Dentist told me to floss after every meal and now I find out I’ve just been eating candy?

  • Daniel Greene 10:00 pm on July 4, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , food, , , , Independence Day, , ,   

    Andy’s Red, White, and Blue Parfait 

    How could I be with this guy for seven years and not have had “his” red white & blue parfait? Last time he said “I think I’ll make ‘my’ such-and-such” was about something else he made in this 13×9 Pyrex dish– “My breakfast casserole” —after we had been together for six years! You got any other tricks up your sleeve, honey? ;-)

     

  • Daniel Greene 8:18 pm on April 21, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cake, chocolate, , , food, , ,   

    I baked this confection using this flourless chocolate cake recipe. Is it delicious? Oh. My. God is it delicious! I had originally bought these eight mini Hershey’s Special Dark bars to eat as little desserts, but today I decided I wanted to bake a flourless chocolate cake for the first time. I found the recipe above which called for four ounces of bittersweet chocolate, so these "8-.49 oz bars" filled the bill perfectly! We also happened to have Hershey’s cocoa (natural unsweetened) in the house as well as sugar, unsweetened butter, and eggs (we’re a baking household). Oh, boy is it good! I’m so glad I decided to bake it.

    One thing I would recommend, though, is to follow the recipe and use an "eight-inch" cake pan as opposed to this 9″ cake pan, because the smaller the pan, the taller the cake. And this one could stand to be a smidge taller. Other than that, «magnifique»!

     

  • Daniel Greene 5:00 pm on August 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: chocolate chip, cookie, , food, , oatmeal, ,   

    I’m making three dozen of these tonight with this recipe:

    1 cup butter, softened
    1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
    1/2 cup granulated sugar
    2 large eggs
    2 tsp vanilla extract
    2 cups all-purpose flour
    1 tsp baking soda
    1/2 tsp salt
    3 cups uncooked regular oats (I used cracked, toasted Coach’s Oats)
    1 12-oz package Nestle’s Toll House semisweet chocolate morsels
    1 cup pecan pieces

    1. Preheat oven to 350º

    2. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugars with an electric mixer at medium speed until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla, beating well.

    3. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl, stirring well. Add oats; stir well. Add to butter mixture
    and stir until well blended. Gently stir in chocolate morsels and pecan pieces. Drop by rounded tablespoons 2″ apart onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper (I used wax paper on two of the baking sheets and nothing on a non-stick baking sheet, and it worked fine.) Bake for 15 minutes or until peaks of golden brown appear on top. Cool on pan 5 minutes or until firm; cool on wire racks.

    (I took this photo in April, but I’m making more of them tonight!)

     

  • Daniel Greene 11:11 am on November 2, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Barri Gotic, , evening, food, , , street, ,   

    This is the street our hotel is off of. I took this just before sundown, when the streetlamps were lit and the setting sun was bathing the Gothic buildings. When I took this, I was standing at the entrance to Carrer de Ferran just off Las Ramblas. We found a little place here on Ferran with free Wi-Fi called Fresh & Ready, where I’m eating a strawberry Danone yogurt from a little glass jar. Andy & I just had our first dinner in town– a beautiful hot plate of grilled veggies soaked in olive oil and another plate of tortilla espanola (potato, egg, and cheese cake).

    Today we lucked out since museums are free the first Sunday of every month. We saw the Picasso, geological, and zoological museums. Tonight, we’re thinking of going to a Spanish guitar concert in a Gothic cathedral. It rained quite a bit today, so the museums were a good option.

     

    • Timur I. Alhimenkov 5:47 pm on January 27, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Great! Thank you!
      I always wanted to write in my blog something like that. Can I take part of your post to my site?
      Of course, I will add backlink?

      Regards, Timur I.

    • Daniel 5:33 pm on January 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Sure, Timur. I’ll have to trust you on that since your blog is in Russian. ;-)

  • Daniel Greene 1:49 am on November 1, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: food, France, , , , , , , Villefranche   



    Villefranche sur Mer
    Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene

    Marvelous place! Why even go to Nice? We’re sitting in a seaside cafe right now, with free Wi-Fi, eating crepes, & pain au chocolate and drinking cappuccino. C’est si bon!

     

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