Hello Everyone! Happy Flag Day!
Last night I hosted a dinner for three colleagues to help with the exciting plans for a Low Residency MFA program in Newport RI at Salve Regina College, launching in June 2018 with fabulous poet Jen McClanaghan and me at the helm. As anyone in New England knows, it has been very hot and very steamy here. For dinner I was thinking of cold food--panzanella salad maybe. Corn salad. And I had pretty much landed on Laurie Colwin's yummy mustard chicken when my darling husband suggested I make Chicken Marbella, my no fail recipe from The Silver Palate.
He was in NYC doing publicity for his new book, so he wasn't going to partake in my Chicken Marbella. But I could almost see the twinkle in his eye when he suggested I make it.
Back in 2011, I wrote an essay about my beloved Chicken Marbella for the sadly now defunct literary journal Alimentum, which was dedicated to all food writing. That essay won a Best Food Writing Award that year, and unfortunately that's the only way you can still read it as it isn't available online.
"The Golden Silver Palate" told about my history with Chicken Marbella, and how in some ways it turned me into a cook--mostly because you can't mess it up. I've forgotten the brown sugar, the wine, marinated it too long and too short, and it's always delicious. So the first time I cooked for Michael (well, it was technically the second time, the first being spaghetti cacio e pepe, but that's another story) I was so nervous--I was madly in love! With a chef!--the only thing I could make that I knew wouldn't fail was Chicken Marbella.
So organized was I! I set up the chicken to marinade the night before he arrived. I snipped the parsley for the garnish, measured the brown sugar and wine for the baking, and...
It was terrible. I mean, really really bad. Michael likes to tell the story of how I woke in the middle of the night and said: I forgot the olives! But this was more than that: flabby chicken and tasteless juice.
Almost every woman I know who came of age in the 80s makes Chicken Marbella as her go to dish--BECAUSE YOU CAN'T MESS IT UP. When Michael and I tell about the first meal I made him, when I say I messed up the Chicken Marbella, we always get the same response: That's impossible!
Alas, it's true. But seven months later, at my sweetie's prodding, I made it again. And it came out perfectly. Check out my Instagram at annhood56 or my Facebook page for pictures of its yumminess. I guess it proves no dish is foolproof. Or maybe that you can be so blinded by love that you can even mess up Chicken Marbella?
It's been a truly lovely week, this victorious dish only adding to it. Michael and I drove to Coney Island with Cousin GJ and her beau on Friday night for a walk on the boardwalk and dinner at a new restaurant. Then we headed to Cousin Chippy's beach house in Breezy Point for a weekend of food and wine--pizzas in the pizza oven, long beach walks, lots of vino, lots of cousin love when Cousin Tony and his Girlfriend showed up and Marina arrived too, and our traditional Sunday morning ribs slow cooked all night in aforementioned pizza oven for breakfast. Perfect weather to boot.
I am still knitting away on the Churchmouse Yarns Airport Shawl in alpaca. This week I've been reading A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles.
Tomorrow I'm meeting my beloved in NYC for our friend's art show opening and the performance of the daughter of another friend. On friday I'm on a panel at Hunter College's Summer Symposium, then we are going to see the play WHIRLIGIG with my theater crush Norbert Leo Butz in it.
And then we are off to northern California for a week for some reading, writing and romance. Looking forward to eating lots of oysters, drinking lots of California wine, working on my new novel, reading Maggie O'Farrell novels, and well...the romance part!
I hope you are enjoying Flag Day wherever you are. And that you are eating and drinking and reading to your heart's content!
Last night I hosted a dinner for three colleagues to help with the exciting plans for a Low Residency MFA program in Newport RI at Salve Regina College, launching in June 2018 with fabulous poet Jen McClanaghan and me at the helm. As anyone in New England knows, it has been very hot and very steamy here. For dinner I was thinking of cold food--panzanella salad maybe. Corn salad. And I had pretty much landed on Laurie Colwin's yummy mustard chicken when my darling husband suggested I make Chicken Marbella, my no fail recipe from The Silver Palate.
He was in NYC doing publicity for his new book, so he wasn't going to partake in my Chicken Marbella. But I could almost see the twinkle in his eye when he suggested I make it.
Back in 2011, I wrote an essay about my beloved Chicken Marbella for the sadly now defunct literary journal Alimentum, which was dedicated to all food writing. That essay won a Best Food Writing Award that year, and unfortunately that's the only way you can still read it as it isn't available online.
"The Golden Silver Palate" told about my history with Chicken Marbella, and how in some ways it turned me into a cook--mostly because you can't mess it up. I've forgotten the brown sugar, the wine, marinated it too long and too short, and it's always delicious. So the first time I cooked for Michael (well, it was technically the second time, the first being spaghetti cacio e pepe, but that's another story) I was so nervous--I was madly in love! With a chef!--the only thing I could make that I knew wouldn't fail was Chicken Marbella.
So organized was I! I set up the chicken to marinade the night before he arrived. I snipped the parsley for the garnish, measured the brown sugar and wine for the baking, and...
It was terrible. I mean, really really bad. Michael likes to tell the story of how I woke in the middle of the night and said: I forgot the olives! But this was more than that: flabby chicken and tasteless juice.
Almost every woman I know who came of age in the 80s makes Chicken Marbella as her go to dish--BECAUSE YOU CAN'T MESS IT UP. When Michael and I tell about the first meal I made him, when I say I messed up the Chicken Marbella, we always get the same response: That's impossible!
Alas, it's true. But seven months later, at my sweetie's prodding, I made it again. And it came out perfectly. Check out my Instagram at annhood56 or my Facebook page for pictures of its yumminess. I guess it proves no dish is foolproof. Or maybe that you can be so blinded by love that you can even mess up Chicken Marbella?
It's been a truly lovely week, this victorious dish only adding to it. Michael and I drove to Coney Island with Cousin GJ and her beau on Friday night for a walk on the boardwalk and dinner at a new restaurant. Then we headed to Cousin Chippy's beach house in Breezy Point for a weekend of food and wine--pizzas in the pizza oven, long beach walks, lots of vino, lots of cousin love when Cousin Tony and his Girlfriend showed up and Marina arrived too, and our traditional Sunday morning ribs slow cooked all night in aforementioned pizza oven for breakfast. Perfect weather to boot.
I am still knitting away on the Churchmouse Yarns Airport Shawl in alpaca. This week I've been reading A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles.
Tomorrow I'm meeting my beloved in NYC for our friend's art show opening and the performance of the daughter of another friend. On friday I'm on a panel at Hunter College's Summer Symposium, then we are going to see the play WHIRLIGIG with my theater crush Norbert Leo Butz in it.
And then we are off to northern California for a week for some reading, writing and romance. Looking forward to eating lots of oysters, drinking lots of California wine, working on my new novel, reading Maggie O'Farrell novels, and well...the romance part!
I hope you are enjoying Flag Day wherever you are. And that you are eating and drinking and reading to your heart's content!
