Cheffitude

Doing some research on a chef whom I was told to contact about a possible job, I stumbled on a series of hardcore foodie sites. And I don't just mean people who like food. I mean snootyfoodies. You know the type.

Anyway, after reading an exhaustive analysis of just what was in a braised short ribs plate and how expensive each ingredient simply must have been, I thought I'd share my latest and proudest creation. It has exactly five ingredients, and one is water. It took about three minutes to make, plus some additional hands-off time to steep and then freeze, with only occasional attention from me.

Of the four ingredients I have not yet mentioned, three are cheap pantry staples that I use for a multitude of things. The fourth was a pile of scraps. On Christmas Eve, my mom came over and I made a simple dinner: herring with paprika on poached eggs, seared scallops on sauteed fennel, oven-baked tilapia with roasted root vegetables, roasted grapes and the Pastry Pirate Family Christmas staple of (store-bought) pierogi with sauteed onions, an experimental cake of almond jaconde soaked in vin santo and Italian buttercream and, as a back-up in case the cake didn't work out, and also an experiment in itself, pomegranate souffle, which tasted way better than I anticipated. I would actually make it again.

Anyway, I had some fennel scraps left over, and yesterday morning, as I hate to throw any food out, I decided to make a fennel granita. And damn. It was good. I mean, really good. Like a rival to the mint granite at Gordon Ramsay's.

I was pleased it was good, but mostly I was happy because the chefs I really admire and respect are not the ones who order asparagus from Chile in the dead of winter because they can, or the ones who make a fuss about using the most prestigious salt or butter or whatever. It's the ones who take the simplest of ingredients and turn them into not one or two but three or more different things through ingenuity and a determination Not To Waste.

Oh yeah... I know fennel isn't in season, but I got it for cheap.