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  • Grilled Red Snapper with Arugula- Anchovy Sauce :

    Fish   

    Grilled Red Snapper with Arugula-Anchovy Sauce:

    4 servings

    Total prep time including wood burning grill: 1 1/2 hours

    2 cans oil-packed anchovy fillets, drained

    3 garlic cloves

    1 large Serrano chile, seeded

    1/3 cup fresh lemon juice, plus lemon wedges for serving

    2 1/2 cups arugula

    6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for brushing

    Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

    Three 2-pound red snappers

    12-16 small thyme sprigs

    Large handful sage

    1. To prepare the wood burning grill, start with a kindling mound of thin nut or fruit tree sticks and twigs. Then slowly add fruit or nut logs, such as almond, orange, pecan or apple, until the desired amount of embers build (of course, an alternative is a gas or charcoal grill with slowly added mesquite, cherry or apple chips for a wonderful smoked flavor).

    2. In a food processor, combine the anchovies, garlic, Serrano and lemon juice until finely chopped. Add the arugula and pulse until finely chopped. Add the 6 tablespoons of olive oil. Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste and pulse just to combine. Transfer to a bowl.

    3. Make 3-4 evenly spaced slashes on both sides of each fish; be sure to slice to the bone. Tuck a thyme sprig into each slash. Brush both sides with oil and season with salt and pepper. Brush the grate with oil and grill the fish over high heat, turning once, until it flakes easily with a fork, about 15 minutes.

    4. Transfer the fish to a large platter and serve with the sauce and lemon wedges and scattered sage leaves.

     

  • Applesauce :

      Apples copy1

    I took this shot in September. This was early morning when the marine layer that so often shrouds our Malibu coastline still had long to burn off, and the sunlight was just filtering the fog.

    It was unusual for the apples to be so ripe this soon in the season, well before it was officially Fall. As always with the mysteries of nature the apples had seemed to mature and plump over night. And so when I stepped through the screen door onto my porch to see this particular cluster prominently poised through a veil of mist, I grabbed the camera and hurried to the orchard with our three dogs to capture the magnificence of the fruit.

    As I photographed this seemingly bejeweled bough, my canine helpers sniffed the damp soil under my feet and seemed to relish the glimpse of autumn just as much as I. That week, our kitchen savored of the sweet smell of a simple applesauce that fed our neighbors, family and us! You don’t have to harvest apples to taste a sweet moment of nature’s bounty.

    Applesauce :

    Five large apples

    1 cinnamon stick

    ½ C brown sugar         ¼  – ½ C water

    Hand held electric blender

    Peel, core and quarter the apples. Cover in water.  Break and crumble in the cinnamon stick and add the sugar. Bring to a boil, then lower to simmer. Cover for approximately 20 minutes or until soft.  Remove from heat, and blend with hand held blender.  Pour into sterilized jars and set in a cool place.

     

     

     

  • Dear friends, family, and whoever decides to gallantly drop into My Muse:Inspirations From the Hearth–

     

    Welcome to my blog, a path that a lifetime can conjure and an outlet which thrills and frightens me.

    Oh to rejoice the blog which will serve as a kind of muffled megaphone for my inspiration; ah trepidation, for the risk that as an artist I bear as I dare to share a bit of the heart and soul! "MY MUSE," the banner under which my inspirations will pour, flow, sputter, and stammer and at times, stunt, will investigate the passions of my life: art, books, food, style and the nature of the relationship to animal, vegetable and mythical. This may mean some dog and horse talk, but that’s as kinky as it gets. You won’t get political pontifications here, nor economic analysis. You will hear from the "artist’s muse," "the kitchen muse," "the "book muse," "the travel muse," and a couple of muses that will arrive via the local color.

    Hopefully at times I will be able to amuse.

    Thru my "muses," I willingly toss the yummy morsel of personal artistic experience to others, and thereby accept a potentially inevitable response: harsh and critical judgment. Here to wit, it is safer to self-flog and pour salt into one’s own wounds lest one can be ready for the beating that waits! But hey, here’s the truth. Today’s opportunity to take private pieces of musing into the public in turn invites public response for tomorrow’s art. (DRUMS ROLL) And the next best bumper sticker on the back of the artist’s van reads: "Angst if you want Art." So, in a way, criticism is collateral for inspiration, and I’m willing to collect if it means I might create decent poetry, paintings and prose!

    You betcha!

    And guess what? You might like what you see, hear, read and taste, for hopefully "My Muse" will please one or all your senses, even maybe intimately, and that point, I can murmur, "Far out, this is cool," Or even, "you like my work, you really, really do." Or maybe, in a kind of healthy selfish way, "who cares. I did for me." But truthfully, I aim to please and want this to be fun.

    The truth is, I’m not getting any younger and neither are you! So, for a few more clichés: if not now when, for time marches and so the world turns… But in fact, I welcome your thoughts and so, bravely commit to the miracle of the blog. As a mere ludite, I cannot fathom a blog’s technical outreach but hereby embrace it for yea it can serve me well. Hence, like millions before me, I assume the blog position, as it were, as a conduit for self-expression, and let’s face it, a bit of self-indulgence. Please consider this installation a mere amuse bouche of what is to follow.

    And so with best intention, namaste, and please, share "My Muse."

    Copyright 2009  Alexis Deutsch Adler

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