Kate F____, Girl Reporter

Two of my best friends from Fortune were in town for a journalism workshop, so they joined us for dinner on 11/1. Back at the beginning of the year I had made the pork burgers from Sunday Suppers at Lucques, which Tom had seen on the blog Well Fed. They’re a little rich for my taste (they have chorizo AND bacon in them) but Ben loved them and he wanted to grill again while the weather was nice. There are a lot of ingredients in the burgers, though I left out the cumin, which I dislike.

The meat: Ground pork, bacon, chorizo. (+parsley)

Flavoring: Shallots, a mild roasted chile powder, thyme leaves, lots of garlic, salt. These are sautéed together before being added to the meat mixture.

Then the whole mess is shaped into burgers:

Then grilled, topped with manchego cheese, arugula and tomatoes, and served on toasted rolls slathered with a cheater’s version of aioli (mayo with mashed garlic and some cayenne):

I served a salad and some roasted potatoes on the side, but the potatoes weren’t as good as usual–I’d cheaped out and gotten regular red potatoes instead of the new ones, and so instead of quartering them and having nice evenly-sized pieces, I had to cut them up smaller and it was a bit of a mess.

Still, the burgers tasted great–I liked them much better this time–and it was a fun night. I missed having my cooking buddy, Tom, to help with the chopping/mixing, though.

Well, I’m weeks and weeks behind, and we’ve had quite a few dinner parties and a couple good regular dinners. Among the things I’ve eaten:

10/25: A surprise lunch with Tom, who brought over an extra robiola cheese from his Cheese Class. Also a loaf of ciabatta, so we had the cheese and bread with honey for lunch while discussing the article about him in the Dartmouth newspaper.

10/29: Craving cassoulet but obviously lacking the time or resources to pull even a facsimile together, I cooked navy beans and then combined them with garlic sautéed in olive oil and a can of muir glen diced tomatoes, then added a couple sausages (I browned them a bit first). When the sausages were almost cooked I pulled them out and sliced them, then added them back in a few minutes before serving the stew. It worked out well and was a nice warm meal on a damp Sunday. I still need to get the cheater’s cassoulet recipe from a guy I work with at Tuck, who served it at a big french-themed party a month or so ago.

10/31: On Halloween we carved our first jack o’lantern, who Ben named Steve. Ben did the initial hollowing and I took over for the carving. (The hair was Ben’s suggestion.) We weren’t going to be home that night, so we left out candy for the trick or treaters, of whom there were very few on our quiet little street.

Sadly Steve, after being moved outside next to the steps a week or so later, seems to have attracted a large number of very small slugs. Yikes.