First attempt at making paella. It was a fun challenge. Best part, is the social aspect of eating it. The process encourages everyone to participate on the preparations, and then, traditionally, you put the pan in the middle of the table and everyone eats from the pan, working towards the center.

This post is mostly about the pics. You don’t really need a recipe. But at the end of the pics, I’ll give you some pointers.

You can get the pans here: La Paella.

Get Bomba rice and real Spanish pimenton peppers, if possible. If not, roasted red peppers and a short grain rice will do.

Figure 1/2 cup rice per diner, and 4 cups of stock per cup of rice.

Cook over a hardwood fire if possible.

After browning the chicken, softening the veggies, you add the rice, stirring it to toast it a bit and spread it out in the pan. Then you add most of the stock all at once. No more stirring. Leave it. Just move the pan around to make sure the pan is evenly heated. Place shellfish on top of the rice.

You then adjust the heat to keep a steady simmer, aiming to have the rice become tender, absorb all the liquid and then just begin to crisp up on the bottom of the pan.

Remove from heat, cover with a towel for about 15 minutes. Then eat!

Enjoy.

We’re upgrading our kitchen and, as many of you know, have been planning to or doing so for over a year now.

The new Ikea cabinets are in, including a giant rainforest green granite-topped island in the middle of the room. We have a new Samsung refrigerator, a new shiny stainless hood, and a white subway tile backsplash.

But what we’ve been waiting for, planning for, shopping for, researching, and longing for since two Thanksgivings ago (when I killed our old, tiny, electric wall oven) is a new range.

It arrived this week, and you all will now pay the price of having to watch me post food pics for awhile, instead of landscapes.

The new range is a Capital Culinarian, a 36″ propane range with 4 x 23,000 btu open gas burners and a chargrill on the cooktop.

I will post pics of the kitchen when it is finished. Still some lighting, painting and floor refinishing to be done…

In the meantime, if you’re shopping for a range, I highly recommend this one, as well as the Boston area dealer called Eurostoves. Read more about it here: capital-culinarian.com

But what I will show you is FOOD.

The Culinarian has a rotisserie in the oven. Perfectly crispy skin and moist meat.

The super powerful burners and the extra wok grate makes stir-frying in a round bottom seasoned steel wok a game changer for me. I will be doing a lot this. Beef and broccoli above, lamb and shredded scallions below.

And, not having an oven for a while, what I have missed the most is baking. This is a loaf of bread from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I strongly recommend this book, as well as the companion volume for healthy varieties of same bread. See links below.

Another fabulous show by the Nantucket Skating Club. Great because…

1) my kids did so wonderfully out there,
2) it forced me to get on skates for the second time in my life,
3) I didn’t hurt myself, and
4) it was such an entertaining show.

But beyond great because…

of all the community involvement and how many people came out to support the skaters!

They called it a Super Moon. So aptly named as it framed a wonderful weekend of friends, cooking, family, moonborns, and the Dawn of Spring.

Buffalo Bills no more!

Saturday was the Grilled Cheese Smack Talk Showdown at Bartlett’s Farm.

The first two years of this competition, I deservedly finished in second place. This resulted in a year’s worth of smack talk, focus groups, recipe trials, and more than a few superfluous calories.

This year’s competition was amazing. It has grown to the point of needing to move to their greenhouse. We would not have fit in the Hayloft, where it was held the past two years.

There were three categories of competition, all of which had unique funny names that I cannot remember but essentially boiled down to Plain & Simple (bread, butter, cheese only), Fancy-Enthusiast, and Fancy-Professional.

The results are in.

Renee Bistany and I teamed up to form Team Smack and won the Plain & Simple category, on the strength of an amazing James Beard bread recipe that Renee baked. The bread is tender but also has an open crumb. So as the sandwich cooks and the cheese melts the bread absorbs the cheese. This brings a new element to a grilled cheese sandwich because it isn’t two pieces of bread containing melted cheese, instead it is a single thick slice of bread suffused with cheese.

1 package active dry yeast
3 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/4 cup warm water (100F to 115F)
2 cups sour cream, at room temperature
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
4 1/2 to 5 cups all-purpose flour

Combine the yeast, sugar, and water, and allow to proof for 5 minutes.

Put the sour cream, salt, and soda in a mixing bowl. Add the yeast mixture and combine.

Add 4 cups of the flour, cup by cup, to make a very wet, sticky dough, beating hard with a wooden spoon after each addition. Scrape out onto a lightly floured board.

Using a baker’s scraper or a spackling knife, lift the flour and the dough, and fold the dough over. Turn it clockwise slightly and repeat the lifting and folding process until the dough is less sticky and can be worked with your hands. Add only enough flour to prevent sticking. (This entire kneading should take about 10 minutes, possibly longer if you are inexperienced). Shape the dough into a ball, place in a buttered bowl, and turn to coat it with the butter. Cover with plastic and let sit in a warm spot to double in bulk.

Punch the dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured board and knead for a minute, then divide into two equal pieces. Butter two 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf tins. Shape the dough into loaves and fit into the tins. Cover loosely and let rise again until doubled. Bake in a preheated 375° oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the loaves sound hollow when tapped on top and bottom. Cool thoroughly before slicing.

In the final Fancy-Professional level of the competition, I went head to head against Renee (last year’s winner), Chef Neil Hudson (last year’s Pro winner), Barbara Gookin (local foodie and previous winner), amongst others.

And, with a complete lack of humility, THIS was the winning sandwich…

From the bottom up, what you see is…

Cinnabon Cinnamon Bread, cut in to rounds and grilled in homemade butter
Homemade Dulce de Leche
Homemade Mascarpone cheese, blended with vanilla bean
Homemade blackberry jam (Thanks Grandpa Weikle!)
Topped with drizzles of dulce de leche thinned with cognac and blackberry coulis and a sprinkle of Maldon sea salt flakes (thanks Natasha!)
Served with whipped cream, fresh blackberries and garnished with a mint leaf

Here are the recipe cards I gave out that show how to simply make these wonderful ingredients:

It was a blast to make, and I am very happy to have a ton of leftover ingredients that are going to have to be used up in the week!

Renee’s Sandwich deserves mentioning here, because it was an amazing bite as well and, as seen above, won the People’s Choice Award!

Un sandwich de queso cocido

Freshly baked, homemade cheddar and onion bread (it was still warm from the oven even!)
…filled with farm made chorizo sausage
cheddar, manchego, and mexican melting cheese
spread with a compound butter made from homemade butter, salt, pepper, cumin, and chili powder

And served with a Mario Batali inspired cream of tomatillo dipping sauce, made from tomatillos, Serrano chili peppers, garlic, lime, cilantro, chicken broth, and Mexican crema.

I am evaluating an interesting website called ProShow Web, that allows you to create, on the fly, videos or slideshows of your photos. It is amazingly easy. I just need to decide whether to purchase the upgrade that allows you to use more than 15 photos.

I’m the new owner of a B+W ND 110 neutral density glass filter. When threaded on to the end of your lens, it allows you to increase your exposure by a factor of 1,000! It’s so dark that you cannot see through it looking through the viewfinder. This allows you to slow down the exposure to add intentional motion to your shot, even in bright daylight. I look forward to seeing what this will do to Nantucket Seascapes. Here’s the first two examples:

Was able to enter Coskata Woods today. I was denied access this past summer, by the M.O.U.S.’s, the Mosquitoes of Unusual Size. Apparently, like their smaller relatives, the Canadian Geese, they fly south for the winter.

It’s a magical place, even without the persistent buzz…