Posts Tagged ‘bacon’

California BLTs

Life is nothing short of hectic these days with four teenagers, all on different afternoon and evening schedules. There’s baseball training, newspaper layout sessions, driver’s ed classes, sports broadcasts, Spanish tutoring, yearbook meetings, study sessions, alumni college interviews, guitar lessons, piano lessons, bass lessons—well, you get the idea. Some nights, it’s like Grand Central Station with ridiculously staggered arrivals and departures.

On those crazy nights, instead of wasting time cooking something that will be shoveled down on the fly between activities, I often put together the components for BLTs (or in this case, California BLTs!) and let the troops assemble themselves as time allows. They’re easy and satisfying, and the cool secret is cooking the…


Spaghetti alla Carbonara

A warm bowl of perfectly al dente pasta lightly coated with a rich sauce bursting with umami flavor, flecked with salty, crispy shards of pancetta, encircling a glistening egg yolk ready to spread a luscious creaminess throughout the dish…all whipped together in 20 minutes or less? Yup! That’s the insane beauty of carbonara.

Okay, if you really want to bring it down to its lowest common descriptor, I suppose it is bacon-egg-and-cheese pasta. But honestly, that would be like yelling, “Yo, LARRY!” across the room to the esteemed Sir Laurence Olivier. It’s oh, so much more. Superbly decadent. Sublimely fulfilling. Even though, legend has it, it was created as a hearty dish for Italian coal miners.

The


Ain’t gonna lie to ya, folks. This recipe is fairly time-consuming and involved. BUT…these babies aren’t even remotely related to your standard bar fare, and in our opinion, it’s more than worth it for scrumptious, over-the-top nachos that make you vow never to order pathetic “super nachos” at your local brew hall or chain restaurant again.

I’m waving good-bye to the two-thirds of you who will promptly stop reading when I reveal that you actually fry up your own chips from quartered corn tortillas. So ta-ta, and we’ll catch you next time.

Okay, you lone talented, bad-ass kitchen hottie: now that it’s just you and me, I’ll tell you the secret is that it takes literally five…


Back in “the day” (whatever that means!) when I was a hose-‘n-pumps corporate chick in Downtown Providence, RI, I used to take out the most awesome sandwiches from this little place called Barclay’s Gourmet on Weybosset Street. They were among the earliest adopters of Boar’s Head provisions and they used fresh breads, great cheeses and good quality veggies on their creative sandwiches. One of my faves was the “BLTA” — you know what the B, L and T stand for, but the A was the genius addition of avocado.

These California BLTs bring back memories of the early 90s: standing behind the same giant, buff attorney every day in line at Barclay’s, tall white cans of hair spray,…