Ham Sandwich Indicted!

Pack a picnic! Wear white! Feast with Friends!   Fête en Blanc  2012 is set for Friday, August 10 at 7pm, somewhere in Columbus. What is it, you ask? Well,  Fête en Blanc  is a semi-underground, outdoor picnic for which guests bring their own picnic dinners, tables, chairs, and white garb to a location that is not disclosed until a few hours before the event.  It's been a French summer tradition for the last twenty or so years and is now an international phenomenon called D î ner en Blanc . Last year was a huge success...even with a day full of rain and some muddy ground.  Two hundred people showed up in white outfits and brought amazing food and drink, feasted by candlelight, then danced to the retro-sounds of local band The Randys.   This year's event is shaping up to be even bigger and better! For more information, check out the Fete website, here .  You can order tickets through the website, or at the eventbrite page....

It's been a crazy few weeks at Ham Sandwich HQ.  A murderer got his just desserts (don't kill people, kids, it's not cool...and you'll go to prison), the Ham Sandwich celebrated another year on the planet ( Ad Hoc at Home AND The French Laundry  cookbooks? swoon ), and triathlon training started. Along with that last little project comes a revamping of some eating habits, which is good, I suppose, but unfortunate since I've been in a baking mood for a while. (I'm looking at you, butter-loaded recipes by Ree Drummond and sweet dough recipes in April's Bon Appetit... ) Week 1 of training started with this dish for dinner (and several lunches): polenta cakes with black bean and corn salsa (two times the corn!) and a shrimp and mango ceviche, courtesy of the talented and charming BF.  Polenta, essentially coarse grain cornmeal, is easy to cook with and pairs wonderfully with a million different things.  You can cook it and eat it right away, spooned o...

It's damn near impossible (at least for me) to take a picture of braised meat that looks half way decent, but you'll just have to trust that it tastes amazing. Beef cheeks, you ask?  Are those what I think they are? Yes, they are on-the-face-cheeks, not rear-end-cheeks.  They're a tough, fat and sinew-marbled piece of meat, and are surprisingly big, as evidenced below: Big hunks of meat, huh? (And that's just two.) Anyway, somewhere along the way I read an article about beef cheeks and decided to give them a go.  After talking to the fine folks at Bluescreek Farms , I pre-ordered a "bunch" of cheeks and picked them up a week later...A bunch turned out to be about five and a half pounds for $18.  A pretty good bargain, I'd say.  I took home my bag o'cheeks and surfed the internet for ideas. (Not happening: The French Laundry's "Tongue in Cheek" --not because I'm anti-tongue, but I was really not interested in a three day project....