Belm Blog

The Mostly-Homemade BLT

David — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:37:24 +0000

What to do with my newly-smoked bacon? Put it to the test in the vehicle designed explicitly to highlight its flavor: the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, the humble – potentially mighty – BLT. Inspired by Michael Ruhlman’s BLT From Scratch Summertime Challenege, I decided to create the ingredients myself. Sadly, it’s March in New England, [...]

Bacon

David — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:06:25 +0000

Last week I indicated that the two pork bellies from my meat CSA were destined to become bacon. He Who Will Not Be Ignored expressed an interest in helping me, so it was time for a lesson about Where Food Comes From. We began with the Maple-Cured Smoked Bacon recipe from Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie: The [...]

Feeding the Maws of Doom

David — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:47:36 +0000

It’s been three months since I set up my iTerrarium. I must be doing something right, because the Nepenthes alata has developed two fully-formed pitchers (front and rear in the photo), with a third (to the right) on the way. I was advised by Paul Riddell, the iTerrarium’s creator and curator of the Texas Triffid [...]

No-Knead Bread, Version 2

David — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:59:16 +0000

My first attempt at no-knead bread was serviceable, but, as I noted at the end of the post, I felt it could be better. By the end of the week in which it sat in the fridge, the last of the dough had become so wet that it was almost unworkable. It oozed water during [...]

Try Reason, Not “Everything”

David — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:09:14 +0000

Last week Time magazine published “The Autism Debate: Who’s Afraid of Jenny McCarthy?” As much as I’d like to rant about her, as I’ve done before, instead I’ll call your attention to this paragraph, buried halfway into the article: There are dark murmurings from scientists and doctors asking, Was her son ever really autistic? Evan’s [...]

Punching Your Ticket

David — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:20:23 +0000

In the dark ages of computer programming, mainframes like the IBM System 360 relied on keypunch cards for both program and data input. Programs consisted of huge stacks of cards arranged in a specific sequence, which, if spilled, lent a new meaning to the phrase “system crash.” My father’s entry into the world of mainframe programming [...]

Preserved Meyer Lemons

David — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:42:19 +0000

While I was cooking lamb tagine last week, I thought this dish could be improved with some preserved lemon, which, unfortunately, I did not have. Now that the peak of winter citrus season is drawing to a close, I figured it was time to remedy the problem before I had to wait another year. I [...]

Monthy Meat-Up

David — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:41:07 +0000

Another month, another meat score. The people at Stillman’s have spoiled me for any other chickens. Now, when I “settle” for a Bell & Evans bird, it still tastes bland compared to the free-range version. The rest of the delivery was hot Italian sausage, a pork loin roast, and pork cutlets. I supplemented those with a [...]

Lamb Tagine with Apricots

David — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 22:50:40 +0000

There are as many formulations of ras el hanout as there are families in Morocco,” advised my local spice vendor, “you just have to settle on a version you like.” The blend I found contained galangal, rosebuds, black pepper, ginger, cardamom, nigella, cayenne, allspice, lavender, cinnamon, cassia, coriander, mace, nutmeg, and cloves – quite the [...]

75,000 and Counting

David — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:07:08 +0000

Last January my iTunes library hit the 70,000 song mark. This month I exceeded 75,000. My latest music listening experiment has been the service provided by lala. I used their MusicMover software to match the contents of my library to songs already present in their own archives. Much to my surprise, they were able to match [...]