I’m on a bit of a pasta kick these days that involves putting the egg on the inside.  A few months back I made a duck egg raviolo appetizer that complemented the fresh white Alba truffle I shaved over it perfectly.  Now that the Alba truffle season is passed and my inner foodie snob will not allow me to substitute domestics or French blacks, I’m forced to pair my eggs with such exotic ingredients as bacon (really going out on an adventurous limb here, I know).  Now when you think bacon, egg and pasta, what comes to mind? You got it, carbonara- the Emilia-Romagna or Lazio- originated comfort food quite popular amongst noi Americani because we sure do love our bacon.  But I can never make it that simple.  No, there always has to be a culinary twist, and in this case I decided to make the eggs quail, the pasta giant ravioli called raviolone, and cook the eggs inside the pasta instead of cracked over the top upon tossing. 

A quail egg is the perfect size to work with to fill a raviolo.  It gently bursts from its mottled shell into the waiting mote of ricotta in a faultless decisive moment.   Cooked al dente in its raviolone package, the yolk oozes forth like a particularly lively poached egg.  After this lengthy Pollyanna intro, you would think everything in my kitchen was coming up sugar and spice and everything nice.  You would be wrong.  You see, I have an 18 month old boy named Bentley Danger.  Why oh why did I give him the middle name Danger? People live up to their names, and in his case it couldn’t be truer.  What is it they say about little boys? Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails? Well we haven’t gotten there yet, but we will.  He’s smart as a whip but so mischievous and curious I can’t fathom what the terrible twos have in store. 

While I was elbow deep rolling out pasta sheets on the island in my kitchen, Bentley decided to open the floor-height wine refrigerator.  The locking mechanism broke last week and Jonas and I have been scratching our heads on how to somehow baby proof the fridge while not adult proofing it at the same time, since we do require ready access.  Bentley is completely aware of this development, and I’ve had to blockade the fridge numerous times in the last week.  Somehow intuitively knowing that I would be engrossed in my pasta mass and therefore unable to retaliate, he managed to lift a bottle out of the fridge (starting early, I know).  The really bad part? He proceeded to drop it whereupon it shattered upon contact with the floor.  I jumped to action and lifted him away from any danger, coating him in a mixture of duck egg and semolina in the process.  I put him in his crib and went back to survey the scene. The really really bad part? It wasn’t just any bottle- it was an ’01 Barbaresco worth a pretty penny in economic value, but even more sentimentally speaking, as we picked it up in Italy during our wedding festivities a few years ago.  I guess you can’t fault the boy for good taste, right?  In any case, all is well now, Jonas managed to repair the lock, and I decided that after smelling all that good wine during the cleanup I needed to open a bottle to finish my pasta and drown my sorrows. 

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How many reinventions can the classic BLT sandwich undergo? This version, while not your typical rendition, certainly packs a punch in the department of deliciousness.  My new favorite thing is blind gelato tastings; it’s amazing the flavors people think they’re eating, and when you break down and tell them the actual taste, the look on their faces tends to be photo-worthy.   With the BLT redux I did everything I could to make it obvious what we were eating.  The hardest part was the bread.  I finally settled upon shortbread cookies cut into squares and dipped in chocolate around the edges so as to resemble crust.  The color of each flavor turned out remarkably akin to their natural-state counterparts, yes, the frozen BLT is something to behold. 

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Back in the ‘70’s the question du jour was “Do you fondue?”  If your answer to this simple question was not affirmative I’m told you would be virtually cast away to Gilligan’s Island to live out your days far, far away from Studio 54, Jean Michel Basquiat and all things polyester.  I’m hoping to start a new, globally-sweeping trend now that we’re nearing the bend of 2010 (hard to believe, isn’t it!) by busting out my raclette set and throwing a thoroughly modern type of shindig.  Maybe the catchy slogan will be “Got raclette?”  A thinly veiled attempt to make “Got milk” actually sound appealing.  Yeah, maybe not.  I’m starting to think that universal food trends only come about when you can think of a really good slogan to advertise them, and alas, raclette isn’t exactly the easiest word to throw into a play on words.  Well, let’s move on from my semantic quandary and get down to the meat of the evening (I am such a dork).

If anyone is wondering what I’m going on about and wouldn’t know raclette from Adam, let me explain. Raclette is a Swiss/French cheese and is also the name of the tabletop heated griddle/cooker used to melt said cheese.  You can officially call it a raclette party when you add various bits to the mix such as cornichons, boiled potatoes (I boil my potatoes in bacon grease for the added health benefit-ha ha) and an assortment of meats that you fry up on the griddle as you’re melting your cheese under the heating element. 

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