Living in a city with an IKEA (as opposed to the nearest one being 2 [2006-08] or 6 hours away [2005]) can be dangerous. I may or may not have been there twice in the last 14 days. I didn’t see any of these items when I was there last week… so they must be just coming in to stores. It’s about time they got some new napkin patterns!

Solig paper napkins, $0.99–$1.99

Dyning hammock in assorted colors, $29.99

I’m interested to see what the Dyning hammock is like in person. For its price, it would be lovely if it were light and squished up small so as to be camping-friendly.

And the trays! There are several new trays also part of the Solig line; the price is right too. We have one tray at home with a great black and white striped pattern, a gift from Sarah, that makes for fun food presentation. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to have a couple more?

Solig trays: Left, $7.99; Right, $4.99 each

Lastly, I almost forgot, there are new bags. I still like my ’05 beach bag best… mostly because it was purchased at IKEA Florence and because it’s just generally awesome, but these are pretty great patterns too. Below are the Solig gardening bags in three colors at $2.49 each and the new Solig beach bags at $1.49 each. This is why IKEA=Love.

All images: http://www.ikea.com/us/en

**Update: If you’d like to see the catalog pages check out AT’s “sneak peek” of the summer line.

I forgot to mention (as Sue pointed out in her comment), that Reisenthel baskets make great gifts. More than just gifts, they make great gift baskets. For example, here’s a photo from Tom’s birthday present from a couple of years ago.

If you look closely at the contents, you’ll notice this basket is how Tom came to know harissa. 1.5 years later, we’re still going strong on this jar.

The gift focused around Claudia Roden’s The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. In the section on “Flavorings, Aromatics, Condiments, and Oils,” Roden discusses and defines many ingredients that are key to Middle Eastern cooking but perhaps not typical in the average US kitchen:

Harissa. This very hot chili-pepper past flavored with garlic and spices is much used in North African cooking. It can be bought ready-made in tubes and cans but it will not have the special perfume of the homemade variety. To make your own, see page 464.

I pulled items from this list and filled the basket with them, knowing that a lack of hard-to-find ingredients might inhibit Tom’s creativity when looking through the book for inspiration.

If you’re purchasing a new cookbook for a friend, consider throwing in some key ingredients when you give the gift. I remember the hunt for all of these items being a lot of fun, especially once I discovered a gold mine in Yasmeen’s Mediterranean Foods in Saginaw, Michigan. They don’t appear to have a website, but you can reach them by phone at (989) 791-3082 or visit their location at 3545 Bay Rd in Saginaw, MI if you’re in the area. If nothing else, pick up a bag of dried limes and make yourself a pot of Chai Hamidh, as Roden says, “made by breaking open dried limes [with a hammer] and pouring bowling water over them” (p. 483).

Also in the basket: Bodum’s Assam tea press, a mint plant, roseflower water, dried limes, orange flower water, pomegranate syrup, Mustapha’s Moroccan Harissa and Olives, Gilway Demerara Sugar Cubes, Urban Accents rice, and several large containers of spices including sumac and whole fenugreek and nigella seeds.

I’m not Catholic, nor did I grow up Catholic, but ever since I started working for the Catholic Church I’ve noticed oddchanges in my behavior. Like saying “God Bless you” to people in contexts not involving sneezing. Also as a result of work, I am well aware that yesterday was the first friday of Lent; that means no meat. So in observance of Catholic laws of abstinence, I decided to make some fish. Thai-curried cod, to be exact.

Anybody who knows me probably finds this odd for two reasons; the first addressed above in reference to my not being Catholic. But the second, more substantial cause for surprise and amazement is that for most of my life, in addition to avoiding eggs, I have refused to let the flesh of fish pass through my lips (with a few exceptions). As of a year or two ago I decided it was time to grow up and start eating our friends from the sea and stream. Not having eaten much fish, though, I still don’t have much of a taste for it, so it’s rare that I get the urge to make it. And when I do get the urge I am at a disadvantage from inexperience cooking fish. Poorly cooked fish does not breed desire to eat fish.

The most important factor in my enjoyment of fish is not overcooking it. Overcooked beef is a waste but not the end of the world, overcooked chicken gets dry but can still be eaten, but overcooked fish is disgusting. Once it starts to get on the medium side of medium rare the mealy texture is unbearable and all those bad fish flavors of my childhood nightmares start to come out. Too raw is not a problem, in fact, nigirizushi is probably my favorite way to eat fish. So when I am making fish I am vigilant with my paring knife, looking for the point when the flesh just begins to lose its translucent sheen. Notice the level of opacity of the bite on the left, and the overall texture, on the right.

The cod was very mild so this dish was mostly about the curry, which was very good, if a little rich since it was mostly coconut milk; I woke up the next morning feeling a little polluted. That might also have had to do with the (copious amounts of) Michigan wine this was beautifully paired with: Good Harbor Fishtown White.

Since this is a “recipe” post, here’s a recipe:

• 1/2# cod filet
• flour
• oil
• salt
• pepper
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 t ginger, minced
• 2 t red curry paste
• 1/2 t brown sugar
• 1 c coconut milk
• 1 1/2 T lime juice
• 2 t fish sauce
• 3 T water
• 2 t minced cilantro

Heat some oil in a saucepan until it shimmers. Take off heat and add garlic, ginger, curry paste and sugar and stir till fragrant. Add coconut milk, lime juice, fish sauce and water then bring to a boil. Reduce to one cup. Off heat stir in cilantro and season with salt and pepper, then lid to keep warm.

Divide the cod filets into a couple of pieces of equal thickness. Salt and pepper the pieces, then coat with flour. Heat oil in a non-stick skillet until shimmering, then add the cod. Cook without touching it for 2-3 minutes, then flip. Cook for about 1-2 minutes more, making sure to check carefully after the first minute for the moment when the fish is perfectly cooked.

Cod on plate. Sauce on cod. Rice on side.

We keep our bikes in the basement… but I wish we had two of these.

CYCLOC Bicycle Storage, $135 at Design Public and available in three four excellent colors.

*Image source: Design Public

I have often sung the praises of Cook’s Illustrated‘s Multigrain Bread, and I have made their “No-Knead Bread 2.0” more times than I can remember (I stopped making it after I decided it was too easy). Suffice to say, Cook’s Illustrated publishes great bread recipes, so when a new one comes out I take notice. In the latest issue there is a recipe for ciabatta. Ciabatta is a rustic bread with a big crumb, and since I am a fan of all things rustic and big-crumbed, I had to try it.

Reviewing the article and recipe, most notable was how wet the dough is. It calls for a starter with 5 oz of flour and 4 oz of water, and then a final dough of 10 oz of flour with 6 oz of water and 2 oz of milk (the milk inhibits gluten formation, preventing the crumb from getting too large). That’s 15 oz of flour and 12 oz of liquids, for a hydration of 80%. In my standard bread recipe I shoot for about 68% hydration, so this was ridiculously wet dough, practically batter! This makes kneading and shaping the dough very difficult.

Cook’s gets around this problem by using a stand mixer to mix and knead the dough. That’s all well and good if you have a stand mixer, but I don’t. I like kneading! Since a machine was not an option, but kneading was necessary to make sure everything was mixed and gluten strands were long, I turned to a technique frequently used by Peter Reinhart: with the dough in a bowl, use a hand continually dipped in water to squeeze and rotate the dough, basically simulating a dough hook. Dipping your hand in water prevents the dough from sticking to it. Unfortunately, it also adds even more water to an already very-wet dough, making it even harder to work with. Cook’s also says to fold the dough over itself a few times with a rubber spatula to further develop the gluten. Here’s what I ended up with:

The key to shaping a dough this wet is using a lot of flour. I put a pretty thick bed of it on the board, poured on the dough, and then threw a few handfuls on top. This allows you to touch the dough without immediately having your hand sucked into the giant dough monster. In spite of all this flour it was still pretty difficult to contain the dough; eventually I wrestled it into two rough rectangles.

The dough rested on parchment for a half hour, then I baked it at 450° for 25 minutes. The breads came out pretty well, although I would have liked them to rise a bit higher in the oven.  It was very difficult to get the necessary surface tension for vertical rise with such a wet dough. Had I used a stand mixer I probably would have had a stronger dough since I could have kneaded it longer without the addition of water. Still, I certainly couldn’t complain about the crumb:

The bread was nicely crusty and but still soft and chewy, really a first-rate ciabatta. Without a stand mixer, it may be more of a hassle than it is worth, but if you do have a KitchenAid gracing your counter, I would recommend giving this recipe a try.

UPDATE: In fact, this was so worth giving a try that I gave it another try. Still no mixer, but using less water during the mixing process made for an easier time with a consistent result.