The Hunger Struck - Confessions of a Food Fanatic.

I have been on the hunt for new and exciting sage recipes. I don’t know what it is with this herb but it sure does grows like a weed in my garden. I was looking through some pictures the other day, taken in May just after planting and realized how quickly I forgot about the savory, marjoram and dill I planted – all absorbed by my mutant sage bush. I have cut it back twice now, but this just seems to encourage new and stronger growth to the point where half of one of my vegetable beds is now all sage. I used to love sage but I have to say it is officially getting a little old.

I’ve made several varieties of sage pesto, sage anchovy fritters on 2 separate occasions for a crowd, stuffing, brown butter sage ravioli, crispy fried sage for topping salads, sage in every soup imaginable I even harvested large bundles for bouquets, this thing is unstoppable. I was considering dedicating a whole series of posts to good old sage but this guy thought otherwise and I am bound to obey. A series of posts, ha! You are crazy lady.

I decided to repost a recipe from my archives while I finish up a few new posts. This was originally posted a few years back and is still one of my favorite recipes. It’s so great for a party or even just a very indulgent weekend snack. It’s a bit of a time commitment but very much worth the effort. If you’re entertaining it’s unexpected and will even appeal to the most picky eaters. These chicken rillettes are fabulous with a good glass of chardonnay, throw a few cheeses on a board with some great bread and you’ve got an instant party. 

OK guys, after more than 6 months with my new camera and several BlogHer Food panels about food photography I decided to get proactive and actually start to read my camera manual in the hope that one day I may actually understand at least 2 of its functions. I haven’t started yet but the decision has been made, which is more than I could say for myself a few weeks ago.

My dear friend in San Francisco was kind enough to spend an hour or so with me on the weekend going over some of it’s basic functions. I’m proud to announce that I now know what shutter speed is and took my first pictures on the manual setting. Where are some examples you ask? Well lets just say they were taken while watching a band I enjoy perform at the Folsom Street Fair on Sunday and though I tried I just couldn’t find a way to work all that leather and nakedness into this site. Also, I didn’t want the people who organize leather pride week to hold me accountable. This event is definitely not the ideal place for a newbie behind a camera on manual setting for the first time. Overexposure just got taken to the next level. Not funny, I’ll stop.

I have been the laziest cook lately. For the last few weeks as this blog will attest I have had minimal time in the kitchen. Actually it hasn’t been intentional at all, I’ve just been so busy lately. We are desperately trying to find a house right now as we’ve out grown our one room apartment, so all of my free time has been spent doing this. Any of you Vancouverites who have been through this process recently will know how frustrating it is. I wont get started on the housing prices in Vancouver, they make me want to pull my hair out.

But hopefully we will find something soon because I’m sick of this and need more time to do the things I love again. AND my kitchen misses me. AND i just got a new set of amazing pots and pans. AND figs are in season!

I don’t know about you guys but I’m absolutely obsessed with figs. I wait not so patiently all year until its fig season. Once they start showing up we go absolutely fig crazy. Seriously we eat them on a daily basis. I thought I would share this extremely no brainer recipe quickly, its the first thing we do with figs each year and it may change the way you look at bruschetta forever.

There really is nothing that pleases my hubby more than some open face sandwich action. It’s among his top 5 favorite things to eat and I would bet that it might actually be in his top 2. It doesn’t really matter what you put on the bread, as long as it’s piled high, it could be almost anything that you fish out of the fridge and it would still be “the best thing he’s ever tasted.” Men are funny.

Because of this we tend to eat bruschetta a lot or some other variety of sandwich fare. More often than not these also end up to be quite simple, as they are usually the result of random items left at the end of the week. After being away for a few weeks on vacation with my girlfriends, I was feeling generous and decided to plan his favorite and perhaps more lunch appropriate meal into our dinners for the week.