Seared Scallops and Peas

This is the inaugural post cooking with another IHCC's new chef, Curtis Stone. "If you get your hands on good ingredients and treat them properly, you don't need to do much," Stone says about his philosophy. I like the idea of cooking with fresh ingredients, which requires stopping by the seafood department of the grocery store. The local farmer's market won't be operating for another month. Too bad, I'd have gotten fresher seafood closer to the source, from the Jersey shore. In turn, I picked up some large sea scallops from the store, source unknown.

A few hours later, dinner was on the table. A simple seared scallops and peas. Curtis Stone's recipe (seared scallops and peas with bacon and mint, page 156, in the five-ingredient Fridays section in What's for Dinner?) calls for fresh peas. I used frozen ones. I have no qualm using frozen peas in view of the flash freeze technology which preserves peas at their maximum freshness. I substituted pancetta for bacon and chive for mint; that's what I had on hand.

It is a dish like this that makes it increasingly harder for us to eat out and order something, that wows us, and that we can't cook in our own kitchen. Are we so overexposed with food, or curated food, if you will? Food TV have certainly changed the culinary culture and experience. It seems to me that eating out in a restaurant has become more of a social encounter than an adventure in food. That's a whole different discussion all together!

The flip side of this conundrum is: there is no greater pleasure than enjoying a fine home-cooked meal around the dinner table with friends and family.