Wednesday, July 18, 2007

June: The Tastiest Month I

Oh dear reader, I am touched we are still together! This is a level of love and devotion (and probably grumbling tummyness) I cannot imagine, you are the *best* dear reader ever. Thanks for sticking around, I missed you guys!

So then where did I go? Basically, I worked almost every day in June and very nearly killed myself in the process. Some fantastic food came out of my manic over-achievement, but I'm still exhausted. How exhausted? Here's an actual photo of me taken July 1st:



But today I took a long nap, shaved (that fur was out of control!), and am ready to share June: The Tastiest Month, which shall come in 3 installments. We can pretend it's a Dickens' novel, except I won't make you cry with boredom nor will I demand a useless 'compare and contrast' report at the end.

Part I will largely be told by others: it's hard to say nice things about myself, and luckily I don't have to! Mid-June I had the good fortune to teach a cooking class for the birthday party of Len Wein, a super-cool and jolly guy who, among other things, created the Swamp Thing and New X-Men comic book series. I had such a good time reading Swamp Thing as a kid... it is remarkable how the Universe operates, isn't it? What a gift to be able to offer some fun back to him. Christine Valada, a devoted foodie and Len's lovely wife, hired me as a surprise for his party. Their kitchen is mid-remodel, so she wisely chose the class, "You Can Grill That?"
Yes dear reader, you *can* grill a salad! We were outside the whole time and grilled appetizers, a main course, salad and dessert. And pizza, check it out:

Christine and Len wrote flattering things I am incapable of saying, please check out their blogs for a full report. Len offers a thorough review of the menu and I think felt and perfectly expressed my whole purpose in pursuing this delicious path: food has magical power to bring people together (and at times heal them too). He totally picked up on that, yay! I feel successful. Christine took great photos and detailed the course of event beautifully! Check 'em out, and stay tuned for Part II: an English tea!

Whew! I'm back.

3 comments:

M. C. Valada said...

Oh, I am so delighted you are back and you are even starting with our party (of which people still speak!) I must know, my dear, if I can replace the feta with mozzerella in the grilled pizzas because I am thinking of making up the pizza dough and doing this for our party on Saturday. Can't let Len do all of the grilling.

Tory Davis said...

You totally can replace the feta with mozzarella. If memory serves we had more topping than dough, so you could probably just leave that 3/4 cup of cheese out entirely. Once you cut the feta it makes it not-so-Greek style, so I'd also recommend x-ing the red wine vinegar.
Mmmm, I love grilled pizza! Can't wait :) And I know it'll be good!

M. C. Valada said...

Obviously, I didn't get around to doing the pizza at the party. I do have a photograph of the cake over at my blog, in case you left before it came out of the fridge. I will attempt the grilled pizza another time soon, thoughh