Monday, February 11, 2008

Language Lessons

We'll return to the (apparently mildly controversial) topic of solar energy soon. In the meantime, it's time to discuss something much more important: food.

Regrettably, I won't be sharing an entire recipe this time. I did want to share a bit about what we had for dinner of late, though. Last Saturday, we had a yummy dish. The original recipe comes from the Food & Wine 2007 annual cookbook, for those of you who have that. It's something like "Snapper with Spiced Crab and Lime-Cilantro Broth". I made the lime-cilantro broth according to the original recipe, and the spiced crab was also as suggested (with lots of fennel, cardamom, and coriander), but I substituted Ono for the snapper, as that's what looked good at my local fishmonger.

Here's where the language lessons come in. Ono, in Hawaiian, has two meanings. The first it "delicious". The second meaning is a proper noun for the fish known in English as Wahoo. In the case of this dish, both meanings are entirely accurate - the Wahoo was entirely delicious in this dish. I strongly recommend this particular substitution. If you don't have the recipe, contact me directly and I'd be happy to make it available.

We had a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc with this dish, along with a nice crusty French bread loaf. The wine was, to be specific, a 2005 St. Supéry bottling. Very yummy with the fish and spiced crab - definitely worth the price!

So, that's Saturday. Today's weather was very nearly perfect - for a moment, I thought it was April instead of February. The weather made me opt for an outside dinner...time to fire up the grill! Tonight's dinner was quite "Ono" - salmon marinated in Teriyaki and then grilled, with asparagus (grilled, of course!) and oranges (also grilled, and sprinkled with Hawaiian red salt), a bit of bread, and some rice. We had a bottle of 2003 Rioja with this scrumptious feast. It was really quite tasty, although I had the first case of hiccups I've had in the last decade.

In any case, I hope this fine evening finds anyone reading this in good health and enjoying an equally fine meal.

Bon appétit!

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