We, the ladies of G3, spend a lot of time in the kitchen; readers of this blog know this well. We also spend a lot of time online. At some point most Mondays, one of us writes the other two to ask “eat anything good this weekend?” We’ve been having a version of this conversation for nearly a year and a half now, and we thought we may as well invite you behind the scenes and follow yesterday’s chatty summary of our weekend eats. [Scroll down for recipes and more photos.]
Shana:
Happy Cinco de Mayo, ladies. I just had pozole at le dog — it’s only there today and tomorrow. Pretty delicious - I recommend it. I also sampled some posole at zingerman’s this weekend, which was much more unctous and spicy — and was made with tomatillos rather than tomatoes.
Any good eats this weekend? Here’s my rundown:
Friday night we feasted, but in a simple, I-live-in-a-tiny-apartment-with-no- dishwasher” sort of way. First course was marrow bones like Maria and I ate them at Prune — so easy! so delicious! Main course was bucatini with clams and mussels in wine, garlic, parsley and crushed red pepper. Little chocolate souffles for dessert.
Roasted marrow bones
Saturday was too many mint juleps at the Kentucky Derby party, followed by dinner at Zola. We split octopus, a salad, and a lamb shank, and ran into my therapist. Splendid.Last night I made larb chicken salad from Hot, Sour, Salt, Sweet (the book, not the blog), and a green shrimp curry with shrimp (TJ’s, frozen), eggplant, and cherry tomatoes. My typical (loser) method is prepared curry paste and coconut milk and stock and veggies and protein. This time, I used a prepared green curry paste, but doctored it up with lots of ginger, garlic, lemongrass, tumeric, and cilantro — really brightened up the flavors.
In all, a pleasing parade of dishes.
Maria:
Indeed! That’s quite a Friday night line-up. Where did you get the marrow bones? Ours was grilled burgers — portabello and stilton for me and John, plain for the kids, and these oven-roasted fries I’ve been making lately that are quite good if not up to the deep fried standards of the Jeff.
Saturday we had a little antipasti plate of red leicester, city goat, smoked trout from Tracklements, cornichons and olives, followed by home-made angel hair with a little pesto from the freezer, and then a grilled pork loin marinated in garlic, mustard, sage and olive oil with some asparagus in balsamic vinaigrette on the side.
Sunday after the Burns Park run we went to Zola (that kind of weekend, I guess) and did a four-way share of the salad sampler (egg, chicken, tuna — all delicious), a waffle, a Kobe burger and fries. Although this may sound odd, every one was deeply satisfied. A basic margarita pizza for dinner with buffalo mozzarella and, to celebrate Naomi’s run, I made chocolate pots de crème — not perfect, although very tasty. I think maybe I let them cook too long. Shouldn’t pots de crème be a little jiggly? Mine were quite solid — almost fudge-like. I’m inspired to try again though.
Shana:
Marrow bones were from sparrow. So ridiculously cheap — 3 of them for 3.50.
That all sounds delish. The pots de creme at eve sometimes were fudge-like. I always thought it was because they were too cold. Maybe overcooked . . .
Maria, does Naomi know about M.I.A.? I was thinking of loaning you guys her new cd for the post-dinner dance parties chez vous:
http://www.last.fm/music/M.I.A
Maria:
I don’t think she knows M.I.A. — I’ll pass it on tonight.
I did read later that it’s best to take the pots de crème out of the fridge about half an hour before serving. Maybe that’s the secret.
Anne:
M.I.A. is playing in Detroit on Thurs. I wish I could go but I think it will be too late and I have all these meetings Friday morning.
We ordered from Lotus Thai on Friday night. I don’t know why I order from them. Maybe it is better if you eat there. We had summer rolls (totally blah) tom yong however you spell it spicy soup (ok) and thai salad (icky and cost $6.50!) and pad thai (eh).
Kind of a disappointment.Sat we were going to cook/bbq but then it was really windy and got cold so we ended up going to Grizzly and I was really wanting a buffalo burger but they didn’t have them. I swear I had one there before and said from now on I will always order this. Did they have them at one time? Where did I have the awesome buffalo burger? Anyway I ended up having this pear and ricotta ravioli and I ordered the spring greens soup but they forgot to bring it and then they brought it later after the ravioli but it was cold and the ravioli was just warm. But the taste was still good and I ate most of it. Lenny got a Caesar salad with tons of anchovies, which was a good thing and their lettuce is always super fresh. But he also ordered the mussels and he was kind of saying they had a strange taste and then I started eating them and agreed and we told the server and she didn’t charge us for the mussels or the soup and said call if Lenny got sick, and he did get sick yesterday so that kind of sucked. We called and they said they did stop serving them. I guess that stuff happens.
Luckily Lenny recovered enough by end of day so we could carry out the Sat plan. We got a whole mackerel from Monahans and I stuffed it with lemon slices and parsley and tarragon and sprinkled w/lots of sea salt and drizzled w/ olive oil then we tied it back together and grilled it. We also did asparagus on the grill, and roasted potatoes, and wild mushrooms (the morels were too much - it was like $10-12 for just one little container of them at Produce station) and fiddlehead ferns sauteed in butter and olive oil.
Anne’s grilled mackarel
So one out of 3 good meals - at least the best one was the one we made ourselves.
Maria:
This reminds me of one of my favorite food moments of the weekend. I was buying buffalo milk mozarella at Trader Joe’s and one of the overly chatty cashiers said “if you like this, you’ll LOVE our buffalo burgers.” No I won’t! They have nothing to do with each other. She also told me that the really great thing about them was “they’ll fit on ANY bun.” Fancy that.
This is a good email. We should blog it.
Recipes
Maria’s oven fries
Shana’s roasted marrow bones
More from Shana’s Friday dinner:
Posted in Ann Arbor Restaurants, From Anne's Kitchen, From Maria's Kitchen, From Shana's Kitchen | Tagged chatty, how-to, weekend | 6 Comments »










Simple French Food. Richard Olney. Wiley, 1992.














