What's cooking?

In all sorts of senses. I've been blogging a bit for the JNTO, the Japanese national tourist agency, who are based in New York. They wanted JETAANY people to help out, and I thought seeing as I'm shortly to become president, I should probably do what I could. You can read the essay, if you want - it's not very long, is about Shiogama, and is mostly a rehash of photos from the Port Festival of Summer 2005. Most of these have already appeared on this blog previously, but not everyone was paying attention...

And while I'm on the subject, what the hell has happened to all of my friends' blogs? With the honorable exception of Nick, just about everyone I know seems to have given up the ghost. And of course Arunabh has a fairly good excuse in the shape of Chinese internet censorship, but still. I hope this makes you all appreciate how lucky you are to have me as your host.

Anyway, back in the physical world, I've been doing a lot of cooking recently. Kate gave me some old back issues of a wonderful magazine called Cook's Illustrated, and it has some truly wonderful recipes in it, which I've been trying out as and when. One thing I did notice was that both in there and in the cookbook she bought me for Xmas (amusingly entitled How to Cook Everything*) there're far more recipes that involve grilling (on an open flame, not just in the oven) than you'd find in your average British cookbook. Anecdotal evidence from a reliable source concerning the average American family (above) suggests that a sizeable percentage of them do actually have grills and so forth readily accessible. Not in New York City, though. I have a smoke alarm in my apartment, and Columbia's Real Estate Office frowns on students lighting fires in their apartments, anyway. What is an aspiring gourmet to do?

Surprisingly simple, actually. I bought a grill pan - an aluminium pan with raised ridges in it - and it f*cking rocks. It kicks arse. Seriously, it really is about the closest to barbequeing you can get indoors, and the food is great. It's so good, in fact, I've given up going to my local deli in favour of making my own sandwiches. For your delectation, I offer a shot of my dinner this very evening - grilled pork chops with vegetable couscous and lime-coriander dressing. Check out the grill marks. That's what I'm talking about. Carnivore heaven.

*It turns out that this isn't in fact strictly true. There's no recipe for paella.