Comfort Foods/Brisket

I can’t get over how orange this blog is right now, browsing through these posts I realized that it seems like I have only been eating root vegetables and squash. Factor in the orange background and I am getting worried that I am victim to some bizarre color hypnosis. Maybe it’s too orange, but I can’t help it, orange foods just taste so good. Also, orange is such a happy color that each time my blog pops up all it just adds a flash of brightness to my day. When I was contemplating all this orange business I realized that recently Stefi told me I looked tan even though I have been a prisoner of the halogen lighting in the library. Suddenly it hit me, is it actually possible that the myth of beta-carotene giving skin an orange glow is actually true? If so, you can expect to be seeing a LOT more orange food around here.

Although I made this brisket with parsnips, carrots and sweet potatoes before the 'orange revelation', if it turns out that orange food is keeping me looking sunny I think I will be making this again sooner than I expected.

Cultures/Challah Bread

I guess I should be starting off this post by telling all of you that I am not actually Jewish, but sometimes I think I am. Actually, I went to a small all-girls Catholic school. Once in university, I found myself surrounded by a lot of wonderful Jewish friends, so my appreciation for the religion as well as for the classic foods grew tremendously. That, and the fact that I am from New York City where Jewish food reigns, means that for me it is comfort food, well some of it (sorry gefilte fish, I am just not ready to try you yet). This weekend while many of my friends were home for Rosh Hashanah, I decided to honor the holiday by trying my hand at Challah Bread.

I am notoriously (kinda) awful at bread making, I never knead enough or correctly, the bread always comes out as a heavy brick, and so I usually choose to accept my weakness and buy bread. Well, not anymore. Today, I realized that bread making is more or less a cinch, now that I am out of my Milanese pseudo-kitchen and have a decent counter to knead on.