Joel McNeely

I’m pretty sure no one is actually reading this thing. But STILL. Ladies and gentlemen of the seemingly endless cyberspace plain… if you were there, wouldn’t you share in my outrage? While we’ve touched on the subject of the dreaded double R, the woman who has clearly smoked more than she has cooked, judging by the sound of her abrasively masculine baritone voice, we should applaud her for her obvious skills and training in obfuscation and buffaloing studio executives. The skills of opening a can and programming a microwave have surely contributed to her being on the OBF list (Oprah’s Best Friend) and selling all kinds of useless orange colored kitchen gear crap at Target. How this qualifies you to get a show teaching people about cooking is a deep mystery to my soul. And the ridiculous Food Network seems to be making her their franchise girl.

Great, we finally get one channel devoted to cooking and it gets dominated by a clueless twit who has no more business teaching cooking to people than my eight year old.

And one more thing…this Paula, queen of the lipids. You know the one, the southern fried bell? Well, good god, is she trying to kill all of mankind? I saw a show the other day where she was making “FRIED BUTTER BALLS!!!!” Ok, butter is not nearly dangerous enough, lets f-ing fry it and see how freaking destructive we can make just ONE dish. ‘If y’all don’t get at least a few massive coronaries out of this, then we need to add a GOOOD helping of bacon fat! That outta just do the trick and make it GOOOOD’.

Sheessh.

Spring is here in California. That means wonderful things growing that we only get once a year. If you have a farmer’s market near you, GO. This is the best way to buy fresh food, things that are seasonal, grown close by and usually not messed up with nasty chemicals. My bliss at the moment is pea shoots and English peas. Yup, it’s a lot of work shucking the damn things but damn, it’s worth it. The pea shoots (the green from the top of the pea plant) are amazing, flash sautéed in a little EVOO (no I’m not a Rachel Ray drone, can’t stand her), shallots and a squeeze of lemon. Perfection.

And last week I was brave enough to buy fresh Fava beans. Okay, those things are A LOT of work. First the pods have to come off and then there is another shell around the thing. Sure you can boil them to get off the second shell, but then all the color goes away when you cook them. And why eat favas if you aren’t going to get that incredibly unique green color? Lastly, chives. I’ve got abundant chives in my garden. More than I could ever use. So I cut a bunch, ran them under hot water to remove some of the chlorophyll and then soaked them in a little canola oil for a day or two. Then pass it through cheesecloth for several hours to drain out the oil. You get bright green flavorful oil that is perfect for garnishing. Okay that’s it. C’mon, GO to the farmers market!