Reflections on a summer past

Ok, maybe summer has not quite past yet, but it's definitely getting there.  The nights are cooling off, preseason football has started and I'm sweating through my t-shirts way less often.  When dead of summer hit, my desire to cook dropped to NONE, which is pretty typical for me.  Actually, usually as soon as spring hits and it's warm enough to sit on a patio all I want to eat is beer and nachos from 5pm-12am, but I've been much more restrained this year due to my domestic partnership blissitude.  Anyway, we have been eating a lot of sandwiches and meals that require little thought (with the exception of a newly discovered authentic Chinese joint that I will post about next time we go).  Therefore, I had to look into my archives for something to write about when the bug hit me tonight.  Shamefully I never managed to post these pics, taken when mi Mama was in town the first week of June - she sprung for some seriously fancy steaks and brought from Minnesota a bottle of very precious, very difficult to find zinfandel.  I hear the winemaker for this particular label is quite handsome, but step off single ladies, I also hear his wife a big time hottie.

Just a little meat here.

Obviously it's been awhile, but I believe those are the first field greens from our garden (now all gone to seed) with shaved manchego, thinly sliced pear and spiced walnuts or pecans (I can never remember which is which until they are side by side.  Or in a labeled bag).  And of course, THE ZIN.  

I'm going to miss summer.  

PS.  I just wanted to mention how much it annoys me when people type, or say, "YUM-O!".  Thanks for listening. 

Chicken Piccata. Again.

** EDIT: Whoopsie daisy! My lovely mother pointed out today that this dish was NOT chicken piccata (NOR was it chicken piccaTTa - I'm just going to go ahead and fix that titular typo and we won't mention anything else about it, hmmmmkay?). It was chicken MARSALA. Which you'd think I'd know, since immediately after arriving back in Denver I made it for Mike. With marsala wine. However, if I just go and replace all the piccata's with marsala's, half my post will not make sense. Let's just chalk this one up to early-onset dementia and pretend it never happenend. **

Dude prior to a few months ago I had tasted chicken piccata ONCE, at a flipping wedding banquet, but judging by this blog you'd think my family has had a decades-long tradition of maniacally developing/cooking/eating the perfect chicken piccata.  We don't...at least we didn't used to.  But anyway, this post isn't really about the piccata, which was EXCELLENT, thank you very much Mom.  First of all, check out this salad:

Brought to you by the letters A and M

My Mom and I picked up some lovely arugula from the Sioux Falls farmers market when I was home for a few days.  I haven't had any arugula all summer (my life is so hard) so it was rather exciting to see perfect, peppery leaves all bagged up and ready to go home with us.  The salad was pretty simple - I shaved some parmesan and I think I dressed it with lemon and olive oil and a generous sprinkling of salt.  My mom came up with the idea to add pistachios, which I think is what actually made the salad.  

Mom's got this idea that adding pasta to the piccata sauce makes the dish.  IT DOES.  Hello, who doesn't like a creamy-but-not-too-creamy pasta with fried chicken on the top?  Probably not you, and definitely not me. 

Le Chef Michele

The meal was fantastic, which brings me to the photo that made this blog post necessary.  Anyone who's eaten dinner at the Malters' residence will know this scenario well:

Just a bite.  C'mon.