Recipe: Cochinita Pibil

by brendan on May 26, 2010

Cochinita Pibil

As a father of two in household where both me and the wife work full time, simple is good. Looking at this recipe for Cochinita Pibil makes my mouth water and is instantly added to my category of simple recipes. I may not get to this one until the fall, as long braises in the summer are not something I tend to do, though I may need to make an exception for this one!


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Getting Back to Basics

by brendan on March 3, 2010

I’ve been trying to make this year all about increasing my cooking knowledge and have been reading a lot of different books, and one that is giving me some “aha!” moment is “James Beards Theory and Practice of Good Cooking.”

I got one of the original versions (signed) from my Dad for Christmas and was reading this morning about making Chicken Stock. Something fairly easy to do – take a chichen carcass, add some veggies, herbs, water, simmer for a few hours, strain, and there you go, stock. But want if you want to take it to the next level and make some uber-rich stock? His recommendation is to make Poule au Pot (Chicken in a Pot), which you usually do by poaching a whole chicken in water with vegetables, by poaching the chicken in chicken stock. At the end you get a beautiful poached chicken that you can serve right then or shred and use for something else, as well as “double” rich chicken stock. Simple and good – what do you think?

* photo from MLA 2.0


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fish baked in salt from jamie oliver

by brendan on October 28, 2009

sometimes its the simplest meals, like this fish baked in salt recipe from Jamie Oliver. I’ve always had mixed emotions about Jamie Oliver – on the one hand i can never really tell if he is for real, but on the other hand, he puts out some great recipes with simple flavors that pack a punch and are easy for the home chef to prepare. i do love the entire concept of cooking in salt – so easy, yet so good.


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how to make a bacon explosion

by brendan on July 17, 2009

i’ve been a very, very bad blogger. even though i still cook a lot, eat out, stay up on the latest food news, and love love love food, i have been extremely bad about keeping up with sharing it all on codcheeks. i am hoping to change all that and i figured if i was going to have a grand re-opening, i needed to do something big.

this brings us to the bacon explosion, a culinary delight i read about in the ny times and found more information about at the bbq addicts website. my dad and i did a lot of prep work over the last six months to get ourselves mentally ready to perform this task, and it call came together this past 4th of july. of course we taped the entire process, and even after some serious editing, it still comes out to about 20 minutes of video, albeit one that is all about bacon, sausage, bbq sauce, and bloody marys. if you have the time, and love pork in all its forms, you can check the video out here.

if you don’t have the 20 minutes to spare, below are a before and after picture of the bacony goodness. we ate this well after the rest of the meal was done, so it really qualified as dessert, and it was pretty much the best dessert ever.



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thanksgiving 2008 menu

November 26, 2008

i haven’t been cooking as much as i would like the past few months and what little cooking i have been doing, i haven’t been writing about. thanksgiving has me pretty motivated though, so the goal is to try to catalog my thanksgiving kitchen escapades and get codcheeks back on track! i spent the last [...]

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Farmers’ Markets in Louisville, Kentucky

June 25, 2008

Since Brendan is taking a break from food blogging, I decided to step-in with an update. We are now entering summer-time in Louisville. It has been lovely so far, not too humid or hot (except for a couple of weeks in late May). We discovered that Louisville has a few farmers markets during the growing [...]

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now with more salt!

March 21, 2008

i could list a dozen excuses for why this site for all things food has floundered and then come to a grinding halt over the past few months, but who cares really?! it’s time to move forward and start writing about food again! i’m been thinking about getting back on the horse for a few [...]

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Mango’s – South Beach, Miami, FL – Guest Writer

February 27, 2007

Since the Man on the Street is happily married and when he travels for work, he rarely heads out to any restaurants and simply gets room service. However, when I was in Miami a month or so ago, my colleagues happened to head out to great restaurant in South Beach. I suggested that Matt write [...]

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authentic italian episode #2: lamb and fennel stew

January 27, 2007

so i thought i would be doing one of these authentic italian posts a week, but reality has set in, so, after a delay of too many weeks, here is the only the second post. . . i would love to say there are more to some soon, but i don’t want to lie anymore. [...]

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coco500… again

January 24, 2007

i think i’ve written about coco500 on more than one occasion, and it has officially become my favorite place to eat in san francisco – loretta keller (no relation to thomas) is my new hero. we ate there again last night (our first official dinner without the little one) and had another great meal. the [...]

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