Delicious Seafood Pasta Fra Diavolo

Tonight I made some delicious Seafood Pasta Fra Diavolo in my cool new Le Creuset Enameled Cast-Iron Round French Oven with Cover (more on this below). I had some pasta fra diavolo from Brio Tuscan Grille earlier in the week, and I decided to make some myself this weekend. I suspect the stuff Brio made had some cream in it, but the stuff I made was pretty good, and it had seafood (shrimp, calamari, and scallops) instead of chicken which is always a plus in my cookbook.

If you decide to make some yourself (it's so easy), here are a couple of pointers. First, I used half as much crushed red pepper as was called for in the recipe, and it was still too spicy for my family (for me, it was just pleasantly warm).

Second, instead of basil I used Penzey's Tuscan Sunset, and I think that was a good substitution. More complicated, but really tasty.

Third, I used mini penne instead of linguine.

Finally, I added a bit more shrimp than was called for. There was plenty of room for it. The scallops were terrific, though; I should've splurged on those instead.

My new Dutch oven is my first ever. It's made of enameled cast iron, and it's a spectacular vessel. I highly recommend it. The color of mine is Dune ("... Arrakis... desert planet..."), if you would like to cleave to my ways as closely as possible. ;-)

Bon appetit!

Churrascaria!

Today my group and I went out to lunch at Bacana Brasil, a really nice churrascaria in Chesterfield. Places such as these serve churrasco-style grilled meats, and lots of them. They have to place a special sign at your table so you can turn off the flow of grilled meat when you can't take it any more. So much meat is served, in fact, that I began to fret about various meat-related disaster scenarios, like "meat exhaustion," or the "meat death of the universe." Anyway, even though you really have to be a good carnivore to enjoy them, churrascarias are great. If you've never been, you should find one and try it out.

Special thanks to Scott Patterson for taking me to my first churrascaria feast, not so long ago in Seattle.

Best Christmas Album of All Time

My vote for Best Christmas Album of All Time goes to the Vince Guaraldi Trio's A Charlie Brown Christmas. If you don't agree, I will fight you.*

* Not really. :-)

Brain Rules...Rules!

Last night I finished reading Dr. John Medina's Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. I really enjoyed this one. I'm sometimes a bit skeptical about popular science books, being geeky enough to enjoy the more in-depth works. This book did not disappoint, though. Medina gave us some fun personal anecdotes, and tied them in very well with the latest in brain research (much of which I didn't know about). All of this was organized into 12 rules, which I thought was a nice way to do it. Highly recommended.

I read this on my Kindle (I guess I read everything on my Kindle these days), and I should point out two potential issues. First, there is text missing from the Kindle edition in half a dozen or so different places. I don't think I missed too much, but maybe I did, and it did interrupt the flow. Amazon is aware of this problem, but I haven't heard anything smacking of resolution on this topic from them.

The other issue is that the physical book has a DVD that comes with it. I'd be surprised if the DVD had more than what you find on the Web, but I don't know.

Go read Brain Rules now.

Neptune Made Me Cross

I recently finished reading Neptune Crossing by Jeffrey Carver. Actually, I gave up on it, because I couldn't get into it at all. I think that devotees of scifi will maybe enjoy it, but not me.

This book was made available for the Kindle for free, at least for a time (it's not available for Kindle at Amazon.com), which is how I ended up reading it. Maybe it's a "loss leader," and not the author's best work. I do like the strategy of making a book free for the Kindle to try to attract readers to the author's other books. I think it would be cost-prohibitive to try this with physical books. I hope it's successful for the authors who try it.

My Favorite Turkey Sandwich

So easy, and so delicious. Take some of that leftover turkey from Thanksgiving, chop it up into little bits, and add enough mayo to get it all to more or less stick together. Add some fresh ground pepper to taste (I like Penzey's Quatre Poivre), some kosher salt to taste, and then put in (also to taste) some Penzey's Sweet Curry Powder. Mix that all up and put a healthy dollop of it on your favorite sandwich bread, toasted or untoasted. Try some lettuce on there, if you like. Bon appetit!

Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Stayed up late last night to finish Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Loved it. I haven't really ever read another novel quite like it. It's as bookish a book as I've ever read, complete with tons of citations (some real, some not) for all kinds of quotes and other things. It's a mystery story, with clues sprinkled throughout, so it's good to pay attention as you go. But it was a great read, with some writing that I thought was just brilliant. I'm looking forward to the author's next book.