The BLT is one of my favorite comfort foods. In the late summer, when tomatoes are at their ripest, most delicious selves, I almost always come home from the farmer's market with a loaf of french bread, heirloom tomatoes and greens (there is always bacon in my refrigerator, always always always), and they quickly become the almost-instant-gratification expression of delight-- a juicy, delicious and meaty sandwich. And as much as I love tomatoes any way I can get them (minus from other people's refrigerators, naturally, because that makes them all mealy), I have a particular fascination with mayonnaise, too. So between the french stuff, the artisanal hipster stuff from Brooklyn with the chile tinge and the perfect workhorse, Hellman's (or Best Foods if you're west of the Rockies), there are many delicious versions to always keep me interested and to highlight the perfect sandwich.

When I was planning the breakfast-palooza! menu, I had a hard time figuring out how to work in a proper green salad with the circus of carbohydrates I was offering up. It occurred to me that even though it wasn't summer and tomatoes aren't really in season, except, of course, here in Southern California where most produce is pretty much in season all the time, and BLTs aren't really a breakfast food at all, they still pop up on brunch menus sometimes and they would probably taste great next to all the other stuff I was planning to force into the arteries of my guests.

And I was right. This salad is quick, delicious, and Rachel Zoe is somewhere in a corner, furiously shoving it into her mouth whispering, "I die" to anyone within earshot. I would make it as an entire meal for two and eat the whole thing myself.

PostedFebruary 26, 2013

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriespositively piggy, salad, breakfast

Tagsbacon is best, piggy piggy piggy, positively piggy, BLT salad, recipe, soupapalooza!, breakfast-palooza!, crouton, mayonnaise malaise, someone get Rachel Zoe a cheeseburger STAT, tomato

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I have been yammering on and on and on about how I am going to do a breakfast-palooza for almost an entire year. Yes, since LAST APRIL when I did my TV dinner soupapalooza. I am nothing if not a sloth when it comes to executing all the little delights my underutilized brain can conjure...of course, when I dream up these little delights they are always executed quickly, perfectly and I'm wearing a beautiful party dress that doesn't get any food on it. I really loves me an imaginary Best Case Scenario.

After all the plotting and thinking and reality TV watching (please feel more than free to judge me since I judge everyone else ALL THE TIME) I got off my duff and decided to get back on the soup program. Actually I was nudged by a friend who was coming to town for a quick visit and who also wanted to pack in seeing as many people as possible at one time as she could, which worked out well for me because just like starting a blog to ensure that I actually completed the cooking challenge I set for myself, this was a good way to make sure I didn't puss out. Because I do have a tendency to really, spectacularly puss out. Just ask my friend Delia about how I pretended to tighten the tension on the spinning bike in her class, and about the fact that I still almost fell down the stairs after the class because I've been sitting on my ass for A YEAR. And please forgive my Kanye-ALL-CAPS-I'M-YELLING-AT-YOU emphasis, but I think it's necessary to really MAKE MY POINT.

Anyway, I dreamed (dreamt?) up a pretty ambitious menu, though, like I said earlier, I never think it's all that ambitious (and why am I always so cute in these daydreams?) until 30 people are in my house and there are no pigs in a blanket for them to much on while I toss the salad. I consider that a party fail, though I have learned along this journey that it's usually more important to have the drinks ready than the proverbial pu pu platter as guests arrive, or maybe that's just because I have pretty boozy friends, I don't know, but whatever works.

I had a nagging feeling this Monday morning when I woke up from a sleeping pill haze (an hour earlier, actually, thanks to the time change). I looked to my left and saw Monkey curled up in the crook of my rib and then I heard very loud, concentrated mewing emanating from Osama Beans Laden, a very persistent, totally annoying rescue kitten downstairs, so I knew everything was OK, but something was off (anybody want a really cute, neutered gray cat--he's 'ca(s)t'rati?)... like in Pretty in Pink when Andie and wacky Iona are discussing whether or not Andie should go to prom. Iona says, "I have this girlfriend who didn't go to hers, and every once in a while, she gets this really terrible feeling--you know, like something is missing. She checks her purse, and then she checks her keys. She counts her kids, she goes crazy, and then she realizes that nothing is missing. She decided it was side effects from skipping the prom."

But I didn't skip the prom, I actually went four times. Granted I never even got kissed at any one of them, so it could hardly count that I even went, but I did take a hit of ecstasy my Sophomore year and I danced up a storm while I tapped my acrylic nails rhythmically on a red solo cup full of rum and coke, so I have that going for me. Which is good. I also happened to wear a silver lamé sequined poufy gown that year and I tanned myself into oblivion which meant the only things keeping me from exactly resembling a baked potato were a of a pat of butter and a sprinkle of bacon bits dusted on my head (ugly but DELICIOUS!). Incidentally, I think the fact that the only thing that keeps lamé from being lame is a french accent. Never has anything been more appropriate.

As I started my hike Monday morning, it hit me. Sunday was the three year anniversary of soupapalooza! and I hadn't remembered.

PostedNovember 9, 2012

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriessoup

Tagsrecipe, thanks for souping, potatoes, kielbasa, soup, ritz crackers, soupaversary, sausage, positively piggy, soup with a side of ennui, soupapalooza!, baked potato prom dress, piggy piggy piggy, potato

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Just in case you're wondering where I've been, which of course I know you breathlessly have been, I've been pinned under a pile of Get Your Shit Together, Girl. Reentry is such a tremendously whiny little bitch.

My little August adventure proved to be a fantastic distraction from my real life here in LA, but as I learned when I was taking Physics in college, if you ignore a problem (or 10 problems) long enough, they most certainly do not go away by themselves unless you bribe the TA. I was so hopeful then, as I am now, that the opposite is true because I never learn. Also because I seem to love the sound of my head hitting the wall or the palm of my hand, depending on the severity of my denial.

It's still hotter than hell here in LA. Not a turning leaf or a cashmere sweater in sight, in fact. But technically it is fall in this fair land of ours, and it is a very fair land, indeed, as I discovered on a little road trip this last week, a journey that I accepted in an effort to delay the getting out from under the Get Your Shit Together, Girl pile even further.

I was invited to tag along with a friend who was driving a car and her dog, a black lab appropriately named Demon, from Chicago to Los Angeles along with another mutual friend (we will heretofore be known as Thelma, Thelma and Louise)...

PostedSeptember 28, 2012

Authormelissa mcclure

Categorieslibations

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*Blogger’s note: I originally pulled this post down because I thought it a little too raw and personal. And it is. But here’s what I’ve come to believe: it’s just a version of the truth that doesn’t portray my behavior in the best possible light, to be sure, but ultimately is just a part of the whole. And that greater whole is complicated and sometimes loving and fun and sometimes petty and mean just the same, and that’s A-OK with me. This was just how I was dealing, incredibly poorly I might add, with my own expectations of the timeline. I hope you enjoy, even if you think I’m a total ingrate. ---mm

If I thought I tripped into a pothole when I turned 39, then I plummeted full-force into an Everest-style crevasse starting a few short months before I summited to 40. I cannot tell you how crazy I became. Like so crazy that I pitched an absolute hissy fit when I found out my whole family was going to celebrate my niece’s ninth birthday but had no plan to acknowledge mine, this year that I would officially stop being Peter Pan and become Peter Pan-fried. Yes, I was jealous of a nine year old. Trust me, I’m aware (and, sadly, was also even aware at the time) of just how terrible I was behaving, but in the interest of really spilling the pettiest of the petty details, I’d like to set the scene:

PostedFebruary 17, 2012

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriespositively piggy, soup

Tagsblue cheese, brattiness, panic button, soupapalooza!, cheesy, main course, 40, piggy piggy piggy, pancetta, pear

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BLT salad: presented in all its delicious glory without a side of ennui

homefry potato soup with hashbrown, bacon breadcrumbs, fried egg & sriracha: there's a whole lotta bacon goin' on

potato kielbasa soup: sometimes you eat the potato, sometimes you look like the potato

Sunday Bloody Mary Sunday: road trips and alcohol are awesome diversionary tactics

pear with blue cheese and fried pancetta: “40” isn’t just a crappy song by U2 anymore

Why? Because soup is cheap, delicious and easy. Kind of like me.

a weekly attempt to eat well and to savor life. or to see how much food I can get on my clothes.