Tonight's Menu

Been a while since I've done one of these. It's been an absurdly hectic fall and most of the time, the blog has been eat up with the bewildering Auburn football season. Hopefully that hot can of angry is going to cool down sometime soon.

But in the meantime, my fiancee and I were lucky enough to catch "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" on the Food Network. It was a half hour of foodie people raving about, yes, the best thing they ever ate. And they eat some extreme stuff. Like, marrow bones with oxtail marmalade. Guinea hen cooked in a pig's bladder. "Burnt ends in bun." I damn near bought an ebelskiver pan that very minute, listening to this guy go rapt about what amounted to spherical pancakes with a chunk of banana in the middle.

Seems like my family is prone to these culinary moments. It wasn't that long ago that my parents cooked mostly out of necessity. Well, really, that my mom cooked mostly out of necessity. I mean no offense to my father, of course, but his staple Dad cuisine used to be green beans a la can, macaroni and cheese with an extra slice of Kraft, and hot dogs. Sure, he'd grill a steak or a burger over the tender love of propane, but that wasn't cookin' it was manhood. But all that changed one summer. I came home, and my parents had bought a charcoal grill and were busy making swordfish, jambalaya-on-a-stick, and grilled pineapple. And it all changed - not making this up - when they saw "Barbecue Boot Camp," in which a couple hillbilly Bama fans get a crash course in fine grillin' at the Greenbriar. My parents looked at one another and said, "If those people can do it, we can." And they did. And now, my parents cook for fun - and are quite good at it.

So as I was watching "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" the other night, I saw a fellow come positively unglued about ricotta gnocchi. Cut to the kitchen, where the chef smugly proclaims the simplicity: ricotta, parmesan, flour, egg. Boom. "I can do that," I thought. Here goes...

You can find a recipe for ricotta gnocchi here. I hope it's a good one because we're eating it tonight.

Atlantic salmon with Meyer lemon confit
Ricotta gnocchi
Sauteed spinach and shallots
Burgáns Albariño

Fresh cherries