Calvin Fletchers is Great!

So I'm kinda a coffee shop whore. I rate them, judge them, and subconsciously find the dumbest things to hate. I've been spoiled by Greyhouse in West Lafayette (http://greyhousecoffee.com/#/photos), and have been looking for a replacement after moving to Indianapolis about a month ago. I've tried a few local coffee shops which I may review later, but the one for today is Calvin Fletchers.

This place is great! I've been a couple times and have been quite impressed overall. The espresso is good and they have a Nuova Simonelli machine which gives them instant coffee street cred. The baristas are friendly, and though I haven't seen them do latte art yet, seem quite knowledgeable. The coffee is single origin, fair trade, organic certified and, though they don't french press it, is still quite good. Coffee from a fetco tastes like coffee from a fetco, though CF's is still oodles better than the cigarette char the green mermaid place passes off as coffee.

The biggest drawback to this place is it's so small! Luckily plans for expansion are in the works, as CF's will be moving down the block to a new location triple the size of their current digs. Though I can't walk to CF's, this very easily may become my regular place.

Summer is over

So I realize I haven't done anything on here in about five months. I took the summer off because I honestly had no motivation to cook for some reason. I would work on my master's thesis in the mornings and then hang out with friends most afternoons/evenings and just want to make a quick something something.

Now this semester my schedule doesn't really like the idea of cooking either, but I'm starting to feel that pull back to the kitchen. Maybe the idea is to combine these two worlds of being a social bug, and the introvert who cooks and eats alone. I mainly say this because I'm too chicken to try something new on friends, but I tend to think my friendships could weather a bad dinner. Maybe the idea is to start a dinner club!? Find some fellow foodies to come over once a week.

In this kind of a setting, maybe the emphasis switches from being equal parts cooking and photography to the photography being a capturing of the cooking and dining experience with friends.

Motivation for this post: I managed to finally make a good, juicy, tender pork chop after a half dozen attempts resulting in gray hunks of leathery protein. I also watched Anthony Bourdain go back to Paris, and it reminded me of my time in Paris. Particularly, I was reminded of a meal I ate in a little bistro on a back cobblestone street. I was on a shoe string budget and therefore went for the 15 euro fix price three course menu and promptly had any fancy, expensive meal I've had in the states blown out of the water.

It is now 12:15 am on Monday morning and I intend to be productive this week. We shall see if this idea of a dinner club comes to fruition.

I got a little carried away.

Dish: Sauteed Chicken in a lemon caper beurre blanc sauce with sauteed polenta and asparagus
Author: Me and Alton Brown (polenta)
Cost: No idea. Don't care.
Link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/savory-polenta-recipe/index.html



So I got home from class and junk around 5 and decided to make a quick dinner. That didn't exactly happen. No documenting the cooking process tonight, but I did end up trying something new: polenta! How have I gone this long in life without discovering such rich, cheesy goodness!? I discovered there are so many ways to make it. How do you prefer to make polenta?

The beurre blanc was something new that I just kind of decided to make off the cuff. Here is my personal recipe for the lemon caper beurre blanc:

-Saute some finely chopped onions in a little white wine over medium high heat until the wine has reduced to a quarter. (This is also known as a gastrique I have learned)
-Bring the heat all the way down and add a splash of cream or 1/2&1/2.
-Slowly melt in a few table tablespoons of cold butter so as to not separate the butter and break the sauce.
-Add some capers and a squeeze of lemon juice and you are done!

I can honestly say this dinner was probably the best tasting thing I have made in a month.

Grilling with no beer?

So last night I busted out my charcoal grill and grilled up some burgers for the first time this year. It was actually the first time using my grill, as living in an apartment building makes grilling challenging and simply a hassle.

Probably the worst part of it all is that my apartment complex has a rule against drinking in the public courtyard, where you have to grill. Grilling without beer is like existentialism: What's the point!?!?!? Oh well. I will say that the burgers were still delicious. I didn't take any pictures because we were on time constraints and had to getterdone!

Grilling is a very social thing when you live in an apartment complex. Everyone walks by eying your food and you get to say hello and meet new people. I may have to do this more and make some new friends.

Shrimp Capellini with Chilies and Tomatoes

Dish: Capellini with Shrimp, Chili, and Tomato
Author: Gordon Ramsay
Cost: ~$6 (I lost the receipt!)
Link: http://rouxbe.com/recipes/3025-angel-hair-pasta-with-shrimp-chili-and-tomatoes/text

The first dish!!! So having just started this blog today, I decided to make something! This first dish is Gordon Ramsay's Shrimp Capellini with chili and tomato. As this is a dish that goes VERY fast, cooking mise en place is a must.






















Overall, this dish was quite easy, except for the whole deal of trying to cook a quick dish and work a camera at the same time. As a result, my shrimp was cooked to heck, the pasta was overdone, and I didn't get the green onions in on time. Oh well. It was still quite delicious with a lot of flavor. I can only imagine how good it would be if I didn't screw it up! Practice, practice, practice.



I chose this dish because I had recently watched the one episode of cookalong live that hulu has up and it looked really good. I really admire Gordon Ramsay as a chef and really despise him as a person. It's a good thing it's the food I'm after!


As chef Ramsay would say: Capellini with shrimp, chilies, and tomatoes...DONE!

Phood Fotos

So this is the start of my food photography blog. The idea behind this is to combine two of my hobbies into one activity. First, I love to cook. Second, I have been trying to get into photography and have been looking for opportunities of things to shoot. Why not combine them?

The idea is that as many Mondays as I can, I will make something I have never made before and try to take some good pictures in the process.