crunchy, creamy, sour, sweet, bitter, smooth, gritty, peppery, syrupy, salty, pungent, fragrant, warm, cool

Recently I tested some recipes from Mache Bistro in Maine, which is the restaurant owned and run by dear friends Marie and Kyle. They are putting some recipes into a book and needed a few friends to try them out in their home kitchen.

The first recipe was for hangar steaks. It was my first time cooking hangar steak. In short it's: rub with oil, then chopped garlic, and a rub made from pepper, rosemary, garlic, and salt rub. Cook briefly on a hot hot hot cast iron pan, then dress with some blue cheese and herb compound butter. Mm!

My favorite recipe, though, was for a cabernet poached pear.

Now, a recipe for a poached pear doesn't sound up my alley, for a number of reasons.

1. if i can afford cabernet, i don't want it, as a general rule. it's going to be too tannic

2. overloaded on balsamic in the 90's

3. i embarrasingly do not like honey because it tastes way too floral in a sickly way to me

4. this may not make sense, but pears seem to take themselves a bit too seriously. if they were able to eat, they would be gourmets rather than gourmands. in other words, they leave me somewhat cold and once, in high school, i gave them up as my new year's resolution.

5. the filling is blue cheese, which i never go out of my way to eat.

However: wow, was it delicious. I guess that cab is different if you cook with it (tannens are tamer.) As for balsamic, I experienced a backlash when it was on menus everywhere, but that part of history is over, plus I now mostly eat at home. So sometime last year I began

to experience what I like to think of as a frontlash with regards to balsamic vinegar, which is, objectively, delicious. (This also happened with portobello mushrooms.) Honey is good when you cook with it. And the pear thing, that was a lame new year's resolution. And of course, blue cheese is a super ingredient esp. for contrasting with different textures and tastes, which this recipe did absolutely delightfully.

It has: crunchy, creamy, sour, sweet, bitter, smooth, gritty, peppery, syrupy, salty, pungent, fragrant, warm, cool. And a mix like that is RIGHT up my alley.

It was freaking awesome. Can’t wait to get to Mache Bistro sometime!