Sorry about the photo since those are some super sloppy seconds.

Polenta may be the best vehicle for the consumption of butter and cheese at dinner without just straight out eating buttered cheddar, which, lets face it, the recession isn't that bad yet. Then again, that'd probably just be sardines for dinner. Back when I had the black and white lumberjack. I know you probably can't see it from the photo above, but really, there's some polenta under that hot mess of a meal.

Polenta is perfect for a dish like this. The soft creamy bed of ground corn acts like a delicious sponge for the acidic and rich liquid from the braise like a beautiful piece of crusty bread sopping wet with French onion soup. God I am getting hungry just thinking about it right now and this cup of Flavia coffee just is not doing it for me.

I had originally wanted to make this with rabbit, but unfortunately I came up completely empty handed on that front — not at Fairway in Redhook, not at Ceriellos in Grand Central, not at any of the Polish butchers that dot Manhattan Ave, not at Espisito's Pork Store on 9th Ave; in a word, nowhere. What a shame. I guess I 'll have to wait for Marlow and Daughters to open up or really try to find a better butcher in the city. So, when god hands you lemons, you tell him to get fucked and just buy a chicken which you can find anywhere.

• Savory Polenta
• Chicken Hunter's Stew

The only thing I wanted this pizza to be that it wasn't was big enough to wrap around me and softly lull myself to sleep.

Yeast might very well be the most spectacular unicellular organisms in the world.* They can convert sugars to alcohol and they emit CO2 as a waste product. This allows us to a) brew beer (or make wine or spirits) and b) make risen breads, such as pizza dough. Specifically that pizza dough that you're seeing above.

* The only other unicellular organisms that might come close are the bacterial strains that allow us to make cheeses, vinegars, soy sauces and yogurts. Penicillin? Sorry, back seat to Lactobacillus.

I: Margherita Maria Teresa Giovanna di Savoia or Margaret of Savoy (20 November 1851 in Turin – 4 January 1926 in Bordighera), was the Queen consort of the Kingdom of Italy during the reign (1878-1900) of her husband, Humbert I.
II: A fucking delicious style of pizza involving San Marzano tomatoes, Buffalo milk mozzarella and basil.
Pictured above: definition II

In honor of the last bottle of my first drinkable batch of beer, it was decided that it would be pizza night, being that I've only made it once before and Julie has been craving it ever since. That, and even though you gotta let the dough rise, it's one of the most simple meals I make. Especially since I had already made penne with mushroom sauce, so I had tomato sauce in the fridge. But in as much as that Margherita pizza was amazing, the one at the top of the page was the main event.

As amazing as this looks it's not actually that tasty yet. Fire will fix that. Fire will fix everything.

Thinly sliced potatoes (thank you mandolin), blanched in boiling salted water for 60 seconds then shocked. A thin layer of olive oil on top of the dough, then the potatoes, a bit of dried rosemary, then very thinly sliced red onion, shaved 8 month old pecarino from Sardina, a sprinkling of crushed red pepper and a little more olive oil. The margherita, was exactly that. Sauce made from San Marzano tomatoes, basil and fresh buffalo mozzarella, a little olive oil and crushed red pepper. In a pre-heated 525°F oven for 15 minutes (or until golden and bubbly).

My prognosis? Delicious!

The salad was a nice mix of raddichio, shaved carrots, pomegranates, and supremed clementines, with olive oil and crushed black pepper.

Label courtesy Mike Gatti. Beer courtesy hops, barley, water and yeast.

Ugh.

So sorry about the media blackout here folks. My digital camera died, and, really, whats the point of a cooking blog if there are no photos to oogle over? Nothing. That's what. Nothing.

Last I left you, there were many posts about beer. Actually, many posts about temperature and air-lock activity. Which, I'll admit, is very boring. But, like, the end result was fucking awesome.

This was actually my second attempt at beer, but my first drinkable result. In August I brewed a batch, but the temperature was too hot in my apartment. The result? A banana smell so strong it'll kill a monkey.

So I waited until October and had another stab at it. The result? 14 days in the fermenter, 14 days in the bottles and a delicious tasting beer.

The recipe was straight out of How to Brew by John Palmer and a straight up extract brew. I used Muntons Amber extract (for both the DME and LME (that's Dried Malt Extract and Liquid Malt Extract) phases), Sterling hops for bittering and East Kent Goldings for aroma followed by a packet of Safale-05 American Ale yeast.

The B.G. was about 1.041 and the F.G. around 1.010 with a calculated IBU of about 38. That means it tasted very biscuity sweet with out a lot of floral hop aroma.

Next batch is already in the fermenter. Similar recipe, only a little hoppier since I did the hop boil longer on the aroma hops.

Sorry my digital camera is broke.

But my beer was fucking awesome. Only rivaled by my Thanksgiving.