Cameo Herbed Potatoes

Easy, quick, delicious, impressive - everything you want out of a dinner party recipe. This is the perfect side dish to get your guests asking, "how did you do that?"

I used to make oven-baked tri-color herbed potatoes all the time, but I have a feeling that now, I'll be making these instead - they were such a success! Great flavor, tender inside with a crispy crust, and a pretty herb tottooed on top that reminds your of flowers you pressed in books as a kid.

Cameo Herbed Potatoes

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup plus two tabelspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh-cracked black pepper
2 large russet potatoes
About 5 sprigs of fresh rosemary
About 5 whole leaves of flat-leaf parsely

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Pour 1/2 cup olive oil into a 9x13 glass baking dish. Add salt and papper and swirl to combine.

Rinse potatoes and pat dry. slice each potato into 1-inch thick rounds. Press a rosemary sprig or a parsley leaf on one side of each slice (the cut side of the ends) and place herb-side-down into the oil. Drizzle remaining 2 tablespoons oil over potatoes and sprinkle with salt.

Bake until potatoes are soft and nicely browned, about 40-45 minutes. Shift potoes in pan every ten minutes to prevent sticking. When done, remove from the pan and turn herb-side up. Enjoy!

(Recipe adapted from Olive Oil: From Tree to Table by Peggy Knickerbocker.)

It Runs in the Family

My nephew Keegan, a recent graduate of the first grade, randomly left this scrap of culinary eloquence on the kithen counter one night recently: it's a recipe for a chocolate-berry smoothie. My sister sent it to me, and I wanted to share it with all of you. Note how he combines precise measurement of the blueberries with the "eyeballing it" technique for the cocoa and "shooger" - look out, Food Network!

Shameless Product Plug: Truffle Salt

When we opened the jar, the decadent, earthy smell of truffles immediately filled the room. We peered in awe at the tiny dark chips of the precious mushroom that flecked the glittering crystals of salt - surely those miniscule flecks weren't responsible for the holy fragrance purfuming the whole apartment? Gingerly, we tasted it...and that's when the walls started melting.

All I'm going to say about this product, procured at S.O.S. Chefs, is that you must have it. Ever had one of those dining experiences where your food was so good it (almost) made you cry - the perfect bite of tender lobster; the cool, creamy forkful of ideal key lime pie; the garden-fresh watermelon you plucked off the vine and cracked open by hurling it at a stone...well, those are mine. But I digress. Food that makes you cry. THIS IS ONE OF THEM. All the rumors about truffles - aphrodisia, transport to the gods, harbinger of wealth - they're true.

But seriously, this stuff is like CRACK. Yesterday I caught myself sticking my fingers in it and eating it by itself. I have to hide it in my "very dear and special seasonings" hatbox to keep it from miraculously disappearing.

I've taken to preparing simple foods just to be landscapes for its remarkable flavor - on the first night that the truffle salt came to be with us, we has fettucine in a cream sauce. It was out of this world. We ate in reverent silence.

If a real truffle isn't on your shopping list (local market price is a minimum if $55/oz here, so it definitely isn't on mine) truffle salt should be. If you want me to, I will help you get some. Just ask. The jar is $15. It will change your life.

Herbal Update #4

Remember my little Easter Herbs, who hatched from pretty, naturally-dyed eggs with all the promise of a fragrant, verdant summer on the fire escape? Well, some of you have been requesting updates since the last one, which came at about the two-week mark for most of the little guys.

We've had a week and a half of chilly rains, which slowed everybody's growth but kept them happily well-watered. Today, our first sunny day (but it's still cool!), they're having a good yawn and stretch up toward the sun.

Featured at top are my little cucumbers. I transplanted them into a pot that at the time seemed infinitely spacious for the little shoots, but now I'm regretting not giving them even more room. They seem content enough to flower, but we're having a problem: I don't think it's pollinating. After blooms drop off, there's no evidence of little cucumbers. Thinking there may not be enough insect life to sustain a New York City fire escape garden, I did some research about hand-pollinating cucumbers, but a problem arose: my plant does not appear to have any "female" blooms. This could be for one of two reasons: a) it's a cucumber plant engineered to self-pollinate within one bloom, so all of the blooms would be identical (this is a frequent occurrence, and the seed packet didn't specify the kind of cucumber it was); or b) the pot is stunting the plant's growth and making it sad so that it only produces flowers of one sex! I hope this isn't the case, although it seems the likelier of the two, since I did try hand-pollinating. Perhaps I am simply meant to develop an aesthetic appreciation of cucumbers this year.

The basil, relentless little plant that it is, is coming along fine and not posing any objection to frequent harvests and delicious pesto.

The box I like to call the nursery, because all of the slow-growing herbs are in it, is doing alright, with its oregano, parsley, and chives. Because my lavender didn't come up, I tossed some cilantro seeds in there on a whim, and two days later, POP! they looked like this!

Everyone seems to be fairly happy, though perhaps wishing they had a proper garden with unplumbable depths of earth. If an when the cucumbers make any fruiting progress, we'll get back to you!