As our guests began to filter out this evening, somebody wondered, what did we do before we had Google? A friend of Crescat suggested that in fact people simply used to let their trivial questions go unanswered. "What is the secret-recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken?" "(shrug). Who knows?" (Not that these things weren't discoverable, just that the costs of finding out usually outweighed the trivial benefits.)

In that vein, a few things that were asked, and are now answered, this evening.

1: Where is Northern Illinois University?

Answer: Dekalb, Rockford, Naperville, and other places

2: When does the Dukes of Hazzard movie come out?

Answer: August 5.

3: Does the Metro run Friday/Saturday hours tonight?

Answer: Unclear, but not so far as we can tell.

And so on...

Almost a month ago now, the blog riting on the wall noted that I tend to fall back on basics rather a lot when I'm cooking. That's true, except that I'm not "falling back" as such. Basics is what I cook. It's what I enjoy. It's what I think people cooking at home should strive for. There are men and women whose job it is to cook complex foods that forward the progress of culinary history. I'm just here to cook interesting things, rooted in history, that taste really good. That, at least, is my official explanation. My unofficial explanation has something to do with my ludicrous closet of a kitchen, shown here. Having just signed a lease in a real, one bedroom, 750 square foot apartment in Wilmington, I'm just a few months away from salvation. Countertops! Workspace! Hurray. But if I ever need to cook on a submarine, I'm ready.

In any case, the food this week was particularly simple. Just so you know.

Breakfast -

Clafoutis: I have something of an obsession with clafoutis, the thick, unleavened pancake eaten lukewarm or cool in Limousin. I can also attest that a good way to attract attention in a bar review class is to turn out with a few squares of freshly made clafoutis, and proceed to eat them during the lecture. Yum. Picture here, though some of the more interesting pictures with more cherries were a bit overexposed.

Lunches and Dinners:

Salmon with tapenade toasts - I love tapenade, the olive, anchovy, caper, and garlic paste so beloved in southern france. I think it goes perfectly with all fish. But I like it a little more chunky than saucelike (so many of the store bought version really are fully ground pastes) so I put my tapenade on toast to enjoy like that. My only complaint about this meal is that the farm raised (alas) salmon was far too fatty. You can see it happily glistening in the picture. The next version of this was patted dry after broiling (the broiler turns out to be an exceptionally useful tool. Who knew?). Picture here.

Pork with aparagus vinaigrette and singed fennel - Ok, so I went a little crazy with my broiler here. But why not, with such delicate asparagus and well raised pork. And as for the fennel in the background, which is incidentally an ideal accompaniment to fish as well as pig), the broiler really did a heck of a job. I'm not sure an outdoor grill would have produced a better, or more convincingly singed root. The pork, by the way, was marinated for the night in lemon, olive oil, and chopped fennel leaves. Picture here.

Leftover pasta - What do you do as the week winds down, and you've got a few tomatoes and bits of asparagus leftover, and you happen to be especially hungry? Nothing's much better than an olive oil doused pasta spiked with enormous quantities of garlic, and all the remaining veggies. The cheese atop is peccorino romano rather than parmesan, which I find almost as flavorful and much cheaper. Picture (not that you need a picture to imagine pasta) here.

The American Visionary Art Museum: After my soul-deadening experience at the Whitney I am dubious of places that bill themselves like this. I like modern and contemporary art a great deal more than the next guy, but fox-heads being rended apart by giant fiberclass carrots are a little bit beyond me. But this place was the consensus recommendation of the Ask Metafilter so who were we to disagree?

The results are hit and miss, as you would expect. The diorama of a man being devoured by a bear (And a wolf being devoured by a dwarf) were quite striking, ans was the painting by James Snodgrass (yes that Snodgrass) that evoked the Garden of Earthly Delights. And the series of tapestries by a holocaust survivor and the large sculpture carved out of an apple tree by a British sufferer or tuberculosis, who had never carved before or again. But there were also a bunch of truly silly, bizarre, and stupid things, whose depths I will not recount here. I wonder how often they turn over their collection. If I were in charge, we would get rid of everything every year, using our status as a museum to help get good pieces placed in other museums, but keeping the new visions flowing.

Obrycki's: We went to Baltimore in search of crabs, and because Tyler Cowen summed up Obrycki's thusly in his dining guide:

Yes, that’s right, Baltimore. This place blew me away, and I don’t even like crabs, or rather didn’t even like crabs until I was converted. A memorable experience, though lately I received one report of decline.

In comments here Jacob Levy recounts some thoughts on the grammar of "y'all".