Les Bonnes Choses

So I tried a little something this evening. Inspired by an episode of Good Eats, Rebecca bought a celery root last week. Implied with the purchase is that I would figure out how to cook it. So this evening, I staged a rather scaled down Iron Chef with celery root as the not-so-secret ingredient, and without the competition. There was judging, however. Jude wasn't very subtle in his evaluation, and spat a mouthful of mashed celery root out on to his plate, and exclaimed that he didn't like it at all. In case there was any confusion, he continued to make "pthooey" sounds until the taste left his mouth. Rebecca and I didn't mind it so much, though we both agreed that it needed 'something'. Being a fan of peanut butter on celery, I tried a forkful of mashed celery root with some Skippy, and decided that it wasn't bad. I don't know how I might make that into a side dish, however.

The accompanying meat product was a pork tenderloin with a dry herb rub. I browned it in a 12-inch cast-iron skilled and, not wanting to dirty another dish, I just put the whole thing into the 425° oven. After I took it out of the oven and had served it up, I wished I had some wine with which to deglaze the pan. But then it occurred to me that vinegar is sour wine, and that balsamic vinegar becomes a sweet syrup when you reduce it, and I now highly recommend balsamic vinegar as a deglazing agent.

If you're still reading, waiting for the moral of the story, you're in the wrong blog. I don't do fairy tales. Though it just occurred to me that Hans Christian Anderson Cooper 360 would be an awesome name for a blog.