So where does the time go anyway? One minute I feel like August will never end and then I realize that it’s already mid-September.

But that’s okay. I’m done with summer. Over it. I’m ready for cooler temps and heartier food. Like last night I tried a terrific Italian Stew–easy too. Perfect for an autumn weekend afternoon. Tonight I have to try pork chops as well as a turkey dish, both of which make me think of fall.

And I’m on the lookout for a really good white chili recipe.

What else would I call quintessential fall foods? Anything with apples, of course. Check out next Wednesday’s (9/20/06) Indianapolis Star for some great apple desserts from pastry chef A. Rene Trevino of Rene’s Bakery in Broad Ripple.

But I’ll be thinking of more, along with some perfect fall menus.

I ate squid ink last night and loved it — though it did give me a bit of a goth girl look.

“It looks like you have on black lipstick,” my husband pointed out discreetly in the midst of our meal at L’Explorateur in Indianapolis last night.

Sure enough, when I blotted my lips on the white cloth napkin there was a lip imprint, for all the world like I’d put on black lipstick to seal a letter to my boyfriend with a gothic kiss.

My lipstick shades tends to have names like “merlot” and “berry blush,” so my inky lips were certainly out of character. But who cares? The food was fantastic.

The dish, created by chef/owner Neal Brown, was called What is Black and White and Red All Over? Three scallops cooked three different ways, one on a red pepper puree, one in a puddle of creme fraiche and another on a bed of tagliatelle pasta with squid ink and capers.

My husband had the lamb chops, and it was all he could do not to pick up the bones to get the last bits of the tender, juicy chops.

Brown is doing very cool stuff at his three-month-old Broad Ripple restaurant, where the menu changes every two weeks. He’s making up these new dishes on the fly and his menu suggests a quirky sense of humor that should keep customers coming back to see what he’s up to.

But don’t worry that the inky pasta scallop is gone forever. He tells me the scallops have been so popular that the dish will likely show up on a greatest hits menu in the future.

Let’s hope his mint sorbet — topped with butter “noodles” — reappears too.

Since I started writing the Five in a Fix recipe column in the Indianapolis Star’s weekly food section–called Taste–I’ve found some great recipes. They all have to be quick and, for space reasons, fairly short, which makes them great for foodiemoms and foodiedads facing that what’s-for-dinner question. This week I was testing salmon on the grill, minted lamb burgers, a very quick shrimp recipe, a paella and a fajita–all proved great for an easy weeknight meal.  I’ll start posting my favorites soon.

Among that batch, the lamb burgers were the big hit with the kids–who would’ve thought?

What a summer it’s been–and it’s only August.

So what have I been up to here at Foodiemom Central? Well, a few days after my last post, we closed on a new house–then our daughter broke her leg. So surgery and a bright pink full-leg cast slowed us all down for a while. But happily we’re all up and running again. 

Took a couple months to actually get into the new (well, new to us–built in 1925) house; we tore out the old kitchen, reconfigured a few things and then put it back together with a cool new five-burner stove and double oven–our big splurge.

Still lots to do, but I’ve got a great office–the new home of Foodiemom.com–and I look forward to posting more regularly.

Especially once school starts!

I had the opportunity Sunday evening to hang out in the kitchen at The Oceanaire Seafood Room in downtown Indianapolis while chefs from eight local restaurants whipped up servings for more than 75 diners attending the Chef’s Alliance charity fundraiser. Each chef created a dish for the eight-course tasting menu, and they all looked great.

I sampled bites here and there, and it was cool to see that the chefs enjoyed sampling too. They would squirt a drop of sauce on a finger for someone to sample or pull a plastic spoon out of a pocket to offer a bigger taste. Servers too got to sample; I shared a leftover chocolate pot de creme with a couple of servers still in the kitchen at the end of the dinner.

The dishes were for the most part beautiful as well as tasty–lots of interesting ingredients too. The basil ice cream that was served atop a shortbread cookie, which in turn was atop a strawberry rhubard salad, was fabulous.

But the ingredient I found most interesting was fennel pollen. When the chef sprinkled a bit over each serving of his dish, I wondered–even wrote in my notes–whether such a tiny ingredient would make any difference in the taste of a dish.

When he offered a sample later, I realized that even the tiny bit I tasted from the tip of my finger was surprisingly flavorful. So the sprinkling of fennel pollen would be like a dusting of anise or licorice flavor–certainly noticeable but even cooler in that a diner probably wouldn’t be able to identify where the flavor came from.

It was great fun to hang out and watch the chefs, especially when they were plating 76 dishes simultaneously. I even managed to spot a dish that didn’t have its swirl of balsamic as a server was about to head out with it.

I look forward to fresh asparagus in April, then strawberries in late May, tomatoes by the Fourth of July and sweet corn and canteloup in August. But I hadn’t thought much until recently about seasonal fish.

And that’s too bad for me, because–as with strawberries and tomatoes–when your food is in season, it’s about a zillion times better. There’s just no comparison between a hard sour strawberry shipped from who-knows-where in March and an absolutely ripe berry plucked off the plant in May or June.

And it’s the same for fish. Though you can get farm-raised salmon, for example, year round, the wild, line-caught variety proves much more flavorful. Salmon is in season now, and halibut is coming on soon.

Halibut’s on the menu at several restaurants right now (two that I’ve spoken to recently are serving it with asparagus), but it wasn’t available at my neighborhood supermarket, so a trip to the fish market is in my future. I have a great-sounding recipe for poached halibut with marjoram that I want to try.

I’m also hoping for some fresh salmon caught and then smoked by Captain Steve that we’re sometimes lucky enough to get while on vacation on Lake Huron every July. Just-caught smoked salmon is truly a wonderful thing. And worth waiting for.

Just like a fresh-from-the-vine tomato.

So who’s going to win on Celebrity Cooking Showdown? Any predictions?

It’s been pretty amusing so far, but as I watch the celebs I can’t help having a little sympathy for them. I mean, I love to cook, and I cook a lot, but I don’t think I’d enjoy the pressure of competition. I never was much for sports!

And that’s what this sort of show is–competitive cooking. Now they need more team events. I can imagine the TV chef cook-off dream team. Who would make the “A” team? Or end up on the “B” team? 

Would Emeril be a team player or would he be what my kids refer to as a “ball hog,” the guy who won’t pass to his teammates? How about Mario? Or Cat? Personally, I’d have to pick Alton because he’s so amusing, although I get the feeling maybe he was one of those guys who wasn’t very high on the roster when dodge ball teams were chosen.

That’s okay. Neither was I.

Inspired by a conversation I had recently with a Columbus, Indiana-based personal chef, I decided that it’s time to delegate. Jean House, who in additional to personal cheffing (that’s an interesting phrase, isn’t it?) also provides cooking instruction at bridal showers, explained that by the time her youngest was 9, the kid was taking a turn making dinner once a week, whipping up meatloaf and baked potatoes.

Sounds good to me. I’ve got a 9-year-old who likes meatloaf and baked potatoes, and I’d be glad to have her make dinner. The almost-12-year-old and 14-year-old could certainly take a turn each week too. The 14-year-old will likely be testing some of Alton’s and Emeril’s recipes.  The middle child is less interested in culinary matters, but tacos aren’t hard to make (with the Old El Paso taco kit from the grocery store!), and I wouldn’t even mind hot dogs and our favorite baked french fries. Surprising what sounds good when you don’t have to make it.

I’m in the kitchen a lot testing recipes, sometimes making numerous dishes in one day, so a few days off from making dinner would be much appreciated.

And while we’re at it, they can throw in a load of laundry too! 

In the past week, I’ve made jambalaya for Mardi Gras, lentil stew for a meatless Ash Wednesday and hamantashen cookies for the upcoming Jewish holiday of Purim. And I’ve had all three kids home sick off and on as a troublesome cough-cold-fever made its way through their school.

So now that I could use some comfort food (and a day spent in bed reading while someone brings me tea and toast), I’m looking for a traditional Irish stew recipe for St. Patrick’s Day. That sounds soooo good on a chilly, gray March day like today.

And a nice cup of Irish coffee wouldn’t be bad either.  

Happily, my chicken and dumplings came out great. I started with a cut-up chicken and make a great broth while stewing that with a little onion and carrot. I added the deboned chicken back to the broth and then mixed up the dumplings.

I dropped the batter into the simmering broth by generous tablespoonsful and ended up with maybe a dozen nice, puffy dumplings. Theoretically, the recipe serves four, but when my husband and 14-year-old son are among those being served, it only served three. (The younger kids declined to sample it–their loss.) I seriously need to consider doubling it next time.

And I do need a next time, since I feel compelled to test a couple more recipes before I post mine. Here I was, patting myself on the back for my tasty chicken and dumplings, when I noticed that my dumpling recipe is different from most others I looked at.

There’s no butter or shortening at all in mine. Hmmmmm.

Most other dumpling recipes I’ve come across use at least a small amount. Wonder why mine doesn’t? It’s just flour, baking powder, milk, salt and egg. Would it be even better with the addition of shortening?

I’ll have to find out.