Summer Week 7

Congratulations to nannydeb, who won this week's contest for Your Best Heirloom Tomato Recipe with her Heirloom Tomato and Lemon Mascarpone Tart.

Q & A with nannydeb

• Describe an early food experience that has influenced the way you think about food and/or cooking.
• When I was a kid, my mother loved to try new recipes and techniques. We made crepes, fondue, etc. She also made wine out of grapefruit (we lived in the Rio Grande Valley). I just wish she would have written down her recipes!

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• What's your least favorite food? 
• Tarragon, and I'm not very fond of berries of any kind.

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• What is the best thing you've made so far this year?
• One weekend I made lobster cannolis with lemon gastrique (Emeril's recipe) and lobster bisque. Both were very decadent.

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• Describe your most spectacular kitchen disaster.
• I don't have any disasters that were "spectacular", but I've had many little mishaps. When I first started cooking I made my parents some black bean enchiladas. I didn't know that you had to not only wash the beans, but pick through them for rocks. Yuck. And then there was last Thanksgiving when I forgot to serve the tangerine cranberry sauce that I had made and was very excited about. I could go on and embarrass myself further, but I won't. 

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• What is your idea of comfort food?
• Bean and cheese nachos with homemade salsa and guacamole and cold beer. This is our Friday night ritual. 

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• Apron or no apron? 
• Though I have many food splattered shirts, I love aprons. I just forget when I'm just quickly whipping something up.

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• What's your favorite food-related scene in a movie?
• Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when they first enter the large room where everything is edible and there's a chocolate river. When I saw the movie as a kid I was mezmerized. Plus, I had a crush on Gene Wilder.

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• If you could make a show-stopping dinner for one person, living or dead, who would it be?
• I think Anthony Bourdain. How could you possibly offend him? He drinks, smokes, cusses and talks lots of trash, but seems totally appreciative of what he's served. 

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• You prefer to cook: a. alone, b. with others, c. it depends on your mood
• Usually, a. alone

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• When it comes to tidying up, you usually: a. clean as you cook, b. do all the dishes once you've finished cooking, c. leave the kitchen a shambles for your spouse/roommate/kids to clean.
• a. clean as much as I can as I cook.