Scott, David, and Tom Pappas. Three Bowl Cookbook: The Secrets of Enlightened Cooking from the Zen Mountain London: Carroll & Brown Limited, 2000: pg. 38.

MENU:

• walnut bread with fireweed jelly
• saffron risotto
• grilled salmon
• grilled beets
• salad
• grilled peppers
• chocolate chip cookies
• pear mouses

GUESTS:

• Michael Booth
• Eric Mack
• Nelleke Mack
• Nick Metzger

Michael caught the salmon for this meal on the Copper River in Alaska this summer, and he also made the fireweed jelly while he was up in Fairbanks. He smoked most of the salmon, but brought home one whole fish to eat fresh.

Gabriel made the cookies the night before in our shiny new copper KitchenAid mixer. While he was doing that, I made the saffron risotto in our heart-shaped Le Creuset pot. It was much better the 2nd time, because I used arborio rice, instead of whatever I used last time.

On the day of the feast, Gabriel grilled, and I made the pear mouses.

I remember making pear mouses with my Grandma Pratt in Birmingham, MI when I was little (in the early 1980’s), but these are somewhat different. Here’s how to make the Serafini Pear Mouse:

BODY:
• 1/2 a fresh, ripe bartlett pear, peeled and cored

Cut wedges into the pear half where the ears will go. Also, fill the cored out part of the pear half with a blob of cashew butter. This will stick the pear to the plate so it doesn’t move all over the place when you are trying to make the mouse face. Cashew butter is much stickier than peanut butter.

EARS:
• thin slices of red plum with skin on

Obviously, you can make a lot of mouse ears from one plum. If you are only making a few pear mouses, you can eat the rest of the plum while you are in the kitchen.

EYES:
• 2 whole cloves, stuck into the pear

NOSE:
• 1 whole raspberry, filled with cashew butter

Stick the raspberry onto the small end of the pear half. See how the little hairs in the raspberry make adorable wiskers for your pear mouse? And the red nose matches the ears and the tail in a nice way…)

TAIL:
• 3-4 inch section of red beet leaf stem

It’s handy if you happen to be having a beet dish with the meal, but if you don’t have beet stems available, you could always be creative and use something like a string bean, or a long carrot peeling for the tail instead.

(Also, the eyes and the tail of the pear mouse are two parts I wouldn’t necessarily recommend eating…)

Our kitchen wasn’t quite finished yet, but the grill worked, and Michael was about to leave for a month in Alaska. Darn it if he didn’t have $40 worth of pancetta in his fridge that needed to be eaten up before he left town! Thus, he let us in on the divine mystery that is the Pineapple Pig Bomb.

(also pictured: ginger beer, kalamata olives, grilled peaches on beet greens, grilled beets, peppers and asparagus)

Kristin and Gabriel decided to re-do their kitchen. This site will document the remodel process, the design decisions to be made, and the people who have visited, cooked, and enjoyed the final results of the kitchen project. It will feature recipies that we’ve made and will share the ongoing usage of the kitchen.

This site was actually started in September of 2007, but entries have been back-dated to match the timeline of events.

Thanks for visiting! 🙂