If You Can't Handle the Heat [Outside], Get in the Kitchen

On Saturday evening, the night of my shadowing experience at The Short Story, I remember seeing what looked like sangria; regardless of what it actually was, the idea had been planted ("inception," anyone?). Sunday proved to be a beautiful day and with a shift in weather to the warmer side, sangria sounded like an extraordinary idea. And as such weather blossoms, I often think equate that heat with the freshness and vibrancy of fruit--particularly mango--and decided to pair that in some way with salmon. With a recent gift from Normandy (sel gris, a.k.a. grey sea salt) also needing to find a home in my blog, I ended up with a great Sunday dinner: Pan-seared salmon atop a bed of steamed green beans with sel gris, garnished with an orange balsamic reduction sauce (influenced by an episode of Dinner: Impossible I had recently seen), and served with jasmine rice and a spicy mango-cucumber salad. Oh yeah, along with a tall, cold glass of sangria. Of course with no actual blood in it, sangria comes from the Spanish word sangre and is based on the tradition of using red wine as the base. From what I have read, there is no one way of making an "authentic" sangria; as you continue reading, note the different layers to this wine punch of sorts and feel free to let your culinary creative juices (wait for the punch line...) flow.

First Angel Cake Trial (with Orange Blueberry Reduction)

Back in the day, I was first and foremost a baker and was into the measurements and precision that go into baking from scratch. One of the cookbooks that made it into the early days of my cookbook shelf was one titled "1000 Class Recipes," from which I drew most of my non-chocolate creations. Again, given all the "free time" I had today because of the freezing rain, I returned to the kitchen and made my first attempt of adapting an angel cake recipe (p 480).