Cibo e Vino

Hearty Sausage and Lentil Soup

2011-11-26T13:12:00.000-05:00

In the aftermath of our epic move (the last few items, sofa included, were schlepped during the only snowstorm before Halloween in recent memory), I wanted nothing more than some easy, delicious, and hearty. I had plenty of lentils and rice, a little bit of duck stock, and with Fairway down the street to pick up a little Italian sausage, we ate healthily and heartily for days.

Hearty Lentil and Sausage Soup

1 lb. sweet Italian sausage , casing removed
Extra-virgin olive oil 
2 carrots, chopped
1 large yellow onion, chopped 
1 tsp. cumin
1⁄2 tsp. dried thyme 
1 tsp. Aleppo pepper
6 cups broth
 1 cup long-grain brown rice, rinsed 
3⁄4 cup brown lentils, rinsed 
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 
1 package frozen spinach, thawed

Remove sausage from its casings. Heat oil in a 5-quart pot over medium-high heat; add sausage and cook, stirring and breaking it up into small pieces, until browned, about 6 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer sausage to a plate.

Add carrots and onions, along with spices. Cook, stirring, until lightly browned, 10–15 minutes. Add reserved sausage, chicken broth, rice, and lentils and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Bring to a boil, lower the heat to medium-low, and cook, partially covered, stirring occasionally, until rice and lentils are soft, about 45 minutes. Stir in spinach and cook about 1 minute.

Recipe adapted from SAVEUR.com

Celebrations: Thanksgiving in our new home

2011-11-25T19:59:00.001-05:00

November flew by in a hurry, with our apartment coming together bit by bit. Last weekend, we finally bought a dresser so that I could put my clothes away (previously, they'd been stacked throughout, since Toni literally took over all of the shelf space in the closet. He's European, 'nuff said), but the night before Thanksgiving, we were still frantically shoving things away to assume the semblance of neatness for our guests the next day, all the while prepping a series of serious Thanksgiving dishes (I'd gone to Fairway before work so that I could have everything ready when I got home on Wednesday... Thanksgiving is very serious business to me).

The final spread

To be frank, I'd been a bit bummed about my favorite holiday this year. It was to be my third year in New York. Unlike years past, however, I had wanted to go home; tickets were just too expensive by the time I got around to planning. On top of that, none of the usual suspects were around for me to cook or eat with. That didn't keep me from putting a little something together with a few friends and my Croatian family. It ended up being such a lovely day, full of good food, great company, hours at the dining table, a few more on the couch, and then finally tucking in for an early night... all in our lovely new home.

Katie, Maya, and me, while the boys were upstairs,

watching the pie in the dormitory oven (Dubi and Ana live six floors up)

I'd been cooking since about 4pm on Wednesday, and when we finally sat down to eat on Thursday (around 3pm), there was plenty to go around. A few of the highlights below:

Sage Mashed Potatoes

Sage-brined Turkey

Whole Cranberry Sauce and Pan Gravy with Amontillado Sherry

Green Beans Almondine

Orange and Honey-Glazed Carrots

Cornbread Stuffing

And the coup de grâce:

Pumpkin Pie (which only the Americans ate)

and my aunt's Cranberry Apple Crumble,

which is quite possible my favorite thing ever

I tried to cook most of the meal using recipes from SAVEUR.com, with a few adaptations and personal inflections. The cranberry apple crumble, however, has appeared on my Thanksgiving table for as long as I can remember. It's the easiest thing to prepare and can be served either with the meal or as dessert, as I did here. It's also great with yogurt the next day.

Cranberry Apple Crumble

3c tart apples, unpeeled and chopped
2c raw cranberries (may be frozen and thawed)
1c sugar
1/2c butter
1c uncooked oats
1c chopped pecans
1/2c light brown sugar

Alternate cranberries and apples in a 13x9 pan. Sprinkle white sugar over the fruit. Melt butter in a medium bowl, add the rest of ingredients, and mix. Spread over apples and cranberries. Bake uncovered for 45-60 min at 350°F. Serve with vanilla ice cream for best results.

Here to a great day and many more. Cheers!

Quick and Easy: Cauliflower Soup

2011-10-09T20:29:00.001-04:00

Cold weather means soup. I eagerly await the onset of fall each year so that I can begin throwing things into a pot, testing new ideas that will last me throughout the week. Both soul-satisfying and easy on the wallet, my favorite soups tend to be little more than vegetable purees, flavored with just a touch of spice, oil, or something else special.

After a delicious, pizza-filled lunch, I decided to prepare something light and easy for my aunt and me on my last visit to East Hampton of the season. Although the day had been rather hot, it had cooled off by nightfall, so I had soup on the brain. I’d been inspired by a recipe in the most recent Bon Appétit, so I set to work making us a light and delicious dinner. Topped with a handful of chives and a splash of oil, this cauliflower soup was about as hands-off and easy as anything gets.

Delicious and ready to eat.

Cauliflower Soup

1 head of cauliflower, with leaves and central stem removed (keep head intact)
4 tbsp of butter (2 for the cauliflower, 2 for the pot)
1 small yellow onion
2 cups water
A dash of light cream
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 450˚F. Rub 2 Tbsp of butter into the top of the cauliflower, place in the baking dish with about a half a cup of water. Bake in oven, lightly covering with tin foil once it begins to brown, for about an hour. Remove from heat and let cool, then coarsely chop.

In a soup pot, melt remaining 2 Tbsp of butter and add minced onion; sauté until translucent. Then add the cauliflower and about 4 cups of water, until almost covered. Bring water to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, for about ten minutes, or until cauliflower is soft.

Purée the soup in batches in a blender (or entirely with an immersion blender), add a dash of light cream and salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with freshly chopped chives and a dash of olive oil; serve hot.

Tasting Notes: Drinking the Wines of Lebanon

2011-10-05T15:15:00.000-04:00

You might remember my little flirtation with Middle Eastern cuisine this past spring. Around that time, I tasted through the portfolio of several different winemakers from Lebanon. You can see my tasting notes and reviews over at SAVEUR.com!

Photo courtesy of Anique Halliday.

Dinner Party: Southern Soirée

2011-09-21T11:00:00.006-04:00

So, I am moving at the end of October, which means it's time to start eating through the goods that I've been keeping in my pantry and fridge. This includes the boiled peanuts that my father made and sent up at the beginning of the summer and that have been sitting in my freezer ever since until the right moment presented itself. And when it didn't, I made up a reason to enjoy them, putting together a little Southern-inspired get-together last weekend for some friends.

I discussed the menu with my mother, and together we made sure to include all the basic classics of a cocktail party, as well as to throw in a few surprises. Cucumber sammies, the peanuts, oven-fried green tomatoes, and pimento cheese were the standards (I made the latter with jalapeños, in honor of the entire Tupperware container Ben once ate at Bonnaroo), while bacon-wrapped saltines were a total curve ball for my repertoire... apparently, they were a favorite of my grandmother's when my mom was growing up? I hardly believe it, since she's the tiniest woman I know, but then again, they were delicious. And the coup de grâce? A few different flavors of homemade ice cream.

Ready for guests to arrive.

Cucumber sammies, pimento cheese,

thyme-dusted pecans, and boiled peanuts.

These nuts are always a party hit.

So is the cheese spread until people ask what's in it...

Here's a curveball -- bacon-wrapped saltines.

Who knew they were a delicacy... and that teeny little Nena loves them?

Cocktail of the evening: Brown Derby, with Evan Williams single barrel bourbon,

Sourwood honey made by Terrie O'Neal, grapefruit juice, and a dash of agua.

Ended the evening with pre-batched, homemade ice creams:

Peach and Peanut Butter Honey (inspired by Camp DeSoto).

An almost recipe for pimento cheese:

Start with a block of sharp cheddar and grate it. The finer the grater, the less mayo you will need to bind it.
Get a small jar of pimentos and remove them from the oil or water they are preserved in - start with half the jar, then go from there, as you don't want overkill on the peppers. You may want to rinse, depending. Chop into small chunks, and throw into the cheese.
Get a jar of jalapenos and chop a few into really fine chunks - this will totally depend on how spicy you like it, so taste as you go BUT don't forget the secret ingredient: jalapeno juice, which you'll add after the next step
Add two spoonfuls of mayo to start with, then a little more at a time until it is no longer crumbly. I don't like too much, just enough to make it a spread
Add two teaspoons of jalapeno juice to start, mix in, then more to taste.
Add lots of ground pepper and ta da! (no salt needed)

Tasting Notes: Côtes du Rhône Wine

2011-09-19T21:08:00.000-04:00

I spent the first week of September in Chicago for a series of dinners SAVEUR put on for Rhône Valley Wines, one at Balsan in the Elysian Hotel, the other at Blackbird, a long-standing hot spot for Chicago diners.

Our set-up in the private dining room at Blackbird.

Courtesy of Huge Galdones.

Needless to say, it was a lot of delicious food (some highlights: fermented black bean agnolotti with roasted cauliflower and dehydrated peas, roasted leg of lamb with Vidalia onion jam and maitake mushrooms, rustic tarte flambée with Uplands cheese and bacon, and OMG those corn beignets...) with a lot more fabulous wine. You can see my tasting notes from my favorite bottle, a 2007 Vacqueyras, here and some fab photos from our amazing photographer Huge Galdones here and here and soon on SAVEUR.com.

Hard at work... right before I got to dig into the goodies.

Corn beignets... so good with the Saint-Cosme Côtes du Rhône.

All photos courtesy of Huge Galdones.

Get Well Dinner: Whole Wheat Waffles

2011-08-27T11:00:00.002-04:00

The beach and I have never been fond of one another. My mom recounts that, as a child, I used to carefully spread my towel around me in order to keep the sand off; I hated the feeling of it. In high school, when all my friends wanted to tan on the beach, I panicked, fearing the inevitable, painful burn that would soon result from the hours they wanted to spend in the sun. I learned to love the umbrella in order to keep my sanity, and lo, I actually began to enjoy myself! Since growing up and older, I still diligently wear a hat and put on SPF 85 every day (ok, now 50) but have learned to appreciate the occasional walk on the beach and even rarer dip in the ocean.

The beach on a calm, tranquil day.

That was until recently, when I managed somehow to get injured amongst the waves in East Hampton. I was laid up for days with doctor-diagnosed whiplash and am only now able to sit up all day and function properly, sort of. The first night I was home, the most painful, my friend Marisa came over with her waffle-maker in tow. As I laid on my heating pad, she maneuvered her way through my kitchen, washing dishes, chopping up berries, and making the most delicious whole wheat waffles I've ever tasted. She would not share the recipe publicly, but I've been able to find a near approximation here (with the exception of the use of flax seeds).

Delicious, healing waffles.

Marisa, thank you for being so lovely to me!

Dinner Party: Corn Soufflé for Two

2011-08-25T19:58:00.003-04:00

My aunt Barbara is a cool lady. In reality, she's my dad's aunt, but she says she's never aged a day beyond 27, and I believe her. Since I moved to New York, Barbara has been my closest relative, and I've had the pleasure of getting to spend weekends away from the city in her East Hampton home, where she's lived the past 45 years. At the end of last summer, however, she sold that house and bought another, smaller place. Renovations were a disaster, leaving her stranded amongst friends throughout the construction and me without my peaceful summer getaway. Finally, she was able to move in, and I joined her for the first time in her new, almost-finished home. She's no foodie, but she indulges me, and we always have a blast seeking out new places to "lunch" (her favorite past-time) and cooking up a storm in her kitchen with local ingredients. Since corn's in season, we bought several ears and made a lovely little dinner for two to celebrate being together.

Corn Soufflé

1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
 Fresh corn kernels, cut from 2 ears
Salt and pepper to taste
 2 1/2 tbsp. Wondra flour
 3/4 cup warm milk 
3 eggs, separated, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 450°. Butter two small soufflé dishes (6 1/2'' diameter, 2 1/2'' deep) and sprinkle with cheese.

Melt 2 tbsp. butter in a small skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute, then add corn and cook, stirring occasionally, until corn begins to soften, 2–4 minutes. Remove from heat, season with salt and pepper, and set aside to cool.

Melt 2 tbsp. butter in a heavy-bottomed small saucepan over medium heat. Add Wondra and cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for about 2 minutes (do not brown) until a paste is formed. Turn off the heat. Simultaneously, warm the milk over low heat. Whisk half of the milk into the flour mixture. Return to heat and stir in remaining milk. Cook, stirring, until very thick, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, transfer to a large bowl, and whisk in egg yolks one at a time.

Beat egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff peaks form. Add a third of egg whites to egg yolk mixture and gently fold together. Add the corn, then gently fold in the rest of the egg whites. Do not overmix. Spoon the mixture into soufflé dish, and bake until soufflé is browned, 18–22 minutes. Serve immediately.

Adapted from SAVEUR.

Summer Wine: Txakolí

2011-08-24T14:44:00.003-04:00

I have been in love with this wine for awhile, but this summer was the summer of Txakoli. I just couldn't get enough of it and made it my goal to drink it as often as possible. See my favorites over at SAVEUR.com!

Summertime: Sour Cherry Frozen Yogurt

2011-07-24T16:02:00.000-04:00

Ever since I started working in and around food publishing in New York, I have read about the short sour cherry season and how important it is to keep one's eyes peeled for them at farmers' market, their presence more like a mirage in the summer heat than a reality. And so, every year, I dutifully look and buy, bringing them home with absolutely no idea what to do with them.

Photo courtesy of Fruit Acres Farm.

In the past, I've experimented with various cakes and compotes, but given this summer's heat, I decided to try a recipe for sour cherry frozen yogurt. It required minimal time over a stove to heat the cherries once pitted, then chill and churn for a quick and deliciously tangy summer treat. Given that I inherited a bottle of agave syrup at work, something else that I had no idea how to use, I thought this would be an ideal opportunity to try it out. Proportions of agave are slightly less than that of sugar, so when you see the measurements for sugar, multiply by 2/3 for the correct amount of agave. I also added a little Greek yogurt, whose tang I thought would nicely complement that of the cherries, as well as temper the agave, which does have its own distinct flavor profile. It's easy to tweak the final flavor to your liking before you churn, so make sure you taste along the way!

Sour Cherry Frozen Yogurt

1 pint of sour cherries
1/2 cup of agave syrup
1 cup of whole milk plain yogurt
1/2 cup Greek yogurt

Stem and pit the cherries. Place in a saucepan with the agave and bring to a simmer over medium heat (agave has a lower boiling point than sugar, so keep your eye on it) until the cherries are tender and cooked through. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.

Purée the cooled cherries and their liquid until almost smooth (I like to leave a few chunks). In a medium bowl, mix with the yogurt until fully combined, then chill in the refrigerator for at least two hours. Freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions.

Recipe adapted from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop.

Quick and Easy: Caprese and Pesto

2011-07-14T11:00:00.002-04:00

One of the things I miss most about not living at home anymore is that I can't go out into my mom's garden and snap off a sprig of rosemary whenever a recipe calls for it. I especially hate this during the summer when I have to buy huge bunches of basil that I can't entirely use before the leaves begin to wilt. However, I had my heart set on a caprese salad; since I had some leftover chicken in the fridge, I thought a pesto pasta main course would be an agreeable way to use up the rest of the basil.

Insalata caprese

One of my co-workers has been on the hunt for the perfect burrata this summer and recommended I try Bel Gioioso's version. On my way home from work, I grabbed it, along with some Roma tomatoes, an ear of corn, and pine nuts. Once I washed the basil leaves and set a few leaves out for the caprese, I put the rest into a food processor and began to add a little bit of pine nuts, parmigiano, black pepper, and olive oil quanto basta, tasting as I went along until the flavor was just right.

Pesto pasta with corn and chicken

In the meantime, I set some balsamic vinegar over low heat to reduce and put a pot of salted water on to boil. I threw in the pasta and, at the very end, the freshly-shucked ear of corn. Once I drained the water (reserving some in a separate pot to add to the pesto sauce if needed), I heated up my leftover chicken breast with the pesto and corn off the cob before tossing it all together for a delicious Italian-American feast.

Food Travels: San Francisco

2011-07-12T11:00:00.000-04:00

I got out to San Francisco a few months ago to visit Stevie and Josiah in their new abode. We celebrated the end of spring's bounty with some fabulous meals. Here's a quick round up of some of my favorites:

Dinner at Bar Agricole with Stevie and Alli.

Beautiful, refurbished industrial restaurant space with

spot-on seasonal menu and a funky wine list.

Stevie and me on the tram through downtown SF,

one of the oddest public transit experiences of my life.

Ogling the goodies at the Ferry Building's Farmers' Market.

We picked up a few treats to make dinner.

Mexican food at the market. Spicy and delicious,

with refreshing strawberry and ginger-peach aguafrescas.

Rabbit stew, made with broccolini, asparagus, potatoes, favas, peas, and more.

Topped with watercress and served with a California Fume Blanc.

Cherry clafoutis.

This time, we left the pits in for the famed bitter-almond notes they provide.

We also used half of a vanilla bean instead of extract

Last morning at Tartine, the famous bakery in the Mission.

Those pains au chocolat are as big and as tasty as they look...

Food Adventure: Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Shop

2011-07-10T14:46:00.001-04:00

So, it took me until the Times article came out last week to finally get myself over to Cobble Hill to sample the delicious, homemade sodas at Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Shop, but boy was it worth it! The decor, inside and out, is straight out of the 1950s, and the atmosphere was fun and energetic, full of patiently-waiting families and waitresses with their order up's reaching across both sides of the counter.

I sat at the counter and read, while my order moved along in the queue. I watched the barbacks whip up delicious sundaes and egg creams; blend the perfect milkshakes; and mix up sodas from the syrups on hand. When my Pink Poodle finally came, I was shocked by how delicious it was. I grew up loving coke floats (but don't get a root beer float anywhere near me please) and somehow hadn't quite connected the dots that I had essentially ordered that, flavored with hibiscus instead of cola. It was surprisingly refreshing and delicious after the long bike ride over, and I couldn't help feeling like kid again as I alternately sipped the soda and spooned out the ice cream. It was so hard not to drink it down in one fell swoop.

Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Shop
513 Henry Street at Sackett St.
Cobble Hill
Brooklyn, NY 11231

Summertime: First Batch of Ice Cream

2011-06-01T21:26:00.003-04:00

The heat hit, and it hit hard. I crave ice cream all of the time, but when it's hot, there is truly nothing than alleviates the melting pressure of humidity than delicious, ice-cold creamy goodness. The summer I lived in Rome, I straight up went on a gelato diet for my day-time meals... Nothing else even sounded good. Due to the purchase of a bag of lemons at Whole Foods more than a few weeks ago instead of my usual single lemons when needed, I had all of the inspiration I needed in the fridge. Add to that a no-cook, no-custard base, and I might have found my new best friend for the summer.

Disclaimer: make sure to let your ice cream maker cool sufficiently; if you're like me and jump the gun, you'll have to start all over because it won't freeze.

Lemon Ice Cream

zest of 2 lemons
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 skim milk
pinch of salt

Using a Microplane or other fine-grain rasp zester, zest the lemons directly into the bowl of a blender. Add sugar and blend until zest is fine, then add the lemon juice until sugar is dissolved. Blend in the milk and cream until smooth. Chill for at least one hour, then freeze in the body of your ice cream makers. Place into freezer immediately to allow it to set.

Recipe adapted from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop.

Quick and Easy: Asparagus and Lemon-Butter Pasta

2011-05-22T14:42:00.000-04:00

Spring, my favorite season, has been very unwilling to show itself this year in New York. So I am grateful for the little signs of warmer months that I see in the markets and on menus, especially the delicate little shoots of asparagus. A peek at the recently discovered Canal House lunchtime photo blog inspired this quick and easy dinner, which I paired with a 2010 Babich Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.

Fresh, springtime pasta.

Asparagus and Lemon-Butter Pasta with Soft-Boiled Eggs
serves 2

Fresh pasta (preferably sheets of lasagne, torn into even strips)
1 bunch of fresh, local asparagus, shaved with a vegetable peeler
1 lemon
Tbsp butter
3 eggs
Parmigiano, freshly grated

Blanch the asparagus, then set aside. Bring two pots of water to boil. In one, add the three eggs and let cook for 6 minutes. Remove immediately and let cool in an ice bath. In the other, add, salt then cook the pasta briefly, until soft (2-3 minutes). Drain and retain some water for the sauce.

In a separate pan, soften the butter and add the juice of the lemon. Toss the pasta in the sauce, using some of the pasta water if needed.

Plate the pasta, then place the asparagus on top. Peel and slice the eggs immediately before serving. Top with freshly grated parmigiano, as well as salt and pepper if desired.

Dinner Party: Middle Eastern Feast

2011-04-16T19:31:00.001-04:00

Stevie, Alexxa, and I are attempting a bi-coastal book club. While we haven't actually talked about anything yet, I read the first book on the list: Annia Ciezadlo's Day of Honey. It's an American woman's memoir of her time in Iraq and Lebanon during the conflicts of the past decade, told from the perspective of the people she met and the food she ate amidst the bombs, checkpoints, and other dehumanizing aspects of war. I loved the book and found it so inspiring and challenging. Especially when it came to my palate.

I have very little experience eating Middle Eastern food--outside of the occasional shawarma and falafel--and even less cooking it. So, why not cook a feast dedicated to the subject for ten people? That seemed like the most logical way to me to understand more about this cuisine. I spent one entire weekend sourcing ingredients (thank you Sahadi's); soaking lentils, beans, and bulgur; cooking onions so long that they puffed up like Rice Krispies; and creating some of the most interesting, at least texturally speaking, dishes of my life. Who knows how authentic everything was, but in the end, it was all delicious.

My Middle Eastern Feast Menu

Mezes:

Homemade Hummus, Babaganoush, Labne Cheese served with Croatian Olive Oil, Stuffed Grape Leaves, Leftover Caponata (I threw this in there, since I had it in my fridge and Sicilian cuisine is heavily influenced by Arabic culture)

The bulgur and greens dish shown here was one of my favorites, perhaps because the texture was one more familiar to me... it reminded me of cous cous.

Main (served family-style):
Lebanese Wheat Berry and Dried Corn Soup with Yogurt
Bulgur and Greens with Pistachios and Yogurt
Slow-Roasted Tomatoes with Rosewater and Sesame Seeds
Mjadara (Red Lentil Stew)

These roasted for 4 hours in a 250-degree oven, dressed with a mixture of turbinado sugar, coarse salt, and cinnamon, then were topped with toasted sesame seeds and rosewater.

Dessert:
Greek Semolina and Yogurt Cake
Rice Pudding

The semolina cake was delicious and moist, topped with a lemon sugar syrup.

Wines:
I've been doing some research on Lebanese wines, so we tasted a few bottles from the portfolios of Massaya, Chateau Kefraya, and Chateau Musar.

We washed the meal down with a series of Lebanese wines,

including the 2003 Hochar Pere et Fils featured here.

Many recipes inspired by and adapted from Paula Wolfert's Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking and Ciezadlo's recipes in Day of Honey. Photos by Anique Halliday.

Food Adventure: Rice Pudding

2011-04-16T19:29:00.001-04:00

I have had rice pudding on the mind for over a year, but I have somehow never gotten around to making the dish, despite having bought all of the ingredients. So when I read about mighli in Annia Ciezadlo's Day of Honey and started to plan a Middle Eastern dinner party, I thought it might be the perfect time to try out the dish.

Mighli is a rice-based dish served throughout the Middle East for a variety of occasions, according to the culture. In some places, like Lebanon, it is the dish of celebrations, such as the birth of a child. In others, it is a dish of sorrow, perhaps to commemorate a death. Regardless, it is a dish that gathers people together to acknowledge the cycles of life, so it seems like a wonderful thing to have in one's culinary repertoire.

I tried my hand at the dish, drawing inspiration from a variety of sources and from my own pantry. Warning: this makes a LOT of rice pudding.

3 cups water
1 1/2 cup basmati rice
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, split
1 tablespoon freshly ground ginger
1 tablespoon rosewater
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Bring water, rice, and salt to a boil; simmer, covered, until water is absorbed. Add the remaining ingredients, being sure to scrape the seeds from the bean. Return heat to medium heat, stirring occasionally as the mixture comes together, about 30 minutes. When it achieves a thick, creamy, pudding-like texture, remove from heat. This can be made ahead of time, refrigerated, and kept for up to a week.

Friday Cocktails on SAVEUR.com

2011-04-11T23:17:00.001-04:00

I got into sherry a few years ago at a tasting party at Stevie's house. Recently, I revisited the experience recently at The Noble Rot, a traveling wine club which hosted its own sherry party recently. Along with the lovely tastes provided by Kerin Auth of Spanish wine shop Tinto Fino in NYC, I greatly enjoyed a sherry martini that started the night. Check out my piece on SAVEUR.com to learn more!

Courtesy of Anna Stockwell, SAVEUR.com

Quick and Easy: Citrus-glazed Salmon with Potatoes and Brussels

2011-04-11T23:11:00.001-04:00

My friend Anique asked what she could do with salmon, brussels sprouts, and fingerling potatoes, and the combination made me recall one of my favorite go-to dishes, one I first tasted at cube in LA last year. I decided to recreate it myself for a quick and easy dinner tonight.

Citrus-glazed Salmon with Smashed Potatoes and Shaved Brussels Sprouts

Boil the water and add the potatoes.
Thinly slice the brussels sprouts. Once the potatoes begin to boil, place the sprouts over low heat in a steamer.
Dress the salmon with olive oil, salt and pepper. Broil the top side for 4 minutes, then flip for an additional two minutes on the skin side.
Drain the potatoes and smash them with salt, pepper, and some butter.
For the final presentation, arrange brussels sprouts on top. Lay the salmon gently over the greens and potatoes and top with freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and bits.

I ate this with a 2009 Musar Jeune, a Lebanese dry white wine with slight apple notes on the finish that complemented the meal nicely.

Food Memories: Blood Oranges

2011-03-13T22:57:00.000-04:00

Back in the spring of 2007, I was living in a convent in Rome. The sisters who ran it leased out the rooms and provided meals for the short- and long-term guests that stayed there. Despite Italy's culinary reputation, the food that was served could merely be said to sate hunger pangs—it was not food that could be particularly enjoyed. Sometimes, it could not even be eaten.

However, there was an orchard next to the property that the sisters tended. The fruit often made its way to our table, the highlight of otherwise dreary meals. Shortly after my arrival, blood orange season began. Having never before tasted its sweet, subtly complex, dark flesh, I quickly became addicted, often consuming entire meals of nothing else (obviously in addition to the large quantities of cornetti, cappuccini, and other delicious foods I ate when not at the convent).

Photo courtesy of Mike's Table

After several weeks, I began to notice a discoloration of my skin around my joints—a slightly orange tinge to my knuckles, elbows, and the web of skin between my fingers. Horrified when I showed her, my Italian mamma Maria Teresa insisted that I visit the doctor, convinced I had contracted some sort of fungal disease. We went for a visit to have my hands examined. The kindly doctor looked at me with a smile and quietly asked, have you been eating too much beta carotene? He then extended his hand, 30 Euro for the consultation.

Once I had calmed down after feeling swindled, I began to reduce my blood orange intake, and the color began to fade to a memory. Since coming back to the US, I have rarely seen a blood orange at the store, let alone eaten as many as I did in those few months. This winter, however, they showed up again in my life, with all of my favorite grocers stock-piling them high on their shelves, and with prices continually decreasing throughout the season, I scooped them up, eating as many as I could each day.

I've so far made it through without turning orange as they slowly begin to disappear from the produce aisles, now experiencing a sadness to see them go. I have, however, found one more opportunity to indulge my obsession—blood orange juice. Sold at Marlow & Daughters down the street from me, it unfortunately commands too high of a price to be a sustainable part of my diet until the season truly ends for the year. So, I plan to enjoy this last taste as I ready myself for next year's deluge.

Jansal Valley Blood Orange Juice

Celebrations: Eleven Madison Park

2011-03-12T16:46:00.000-05:00

Toni and I recently celebrated our one-year anniversary at Eleven Madison Park. The restaurant had been on my to-try list for some time, and I’d been especially excited to go since reading about chef Daniel Humm’s playfulness in the kitchen of this haute restaurant.

Courtesy of Todd Coleman, SAVEUR.com

When we arrived, the art-deco space seemed enormous, with its vaulted ceiling as grand as one would imagine possible in the city, and yet it was simultaneously intimate. The number of tables was limited, so the extra room felt luxurious, not necessary to house a crowd. The staff seemed to be a part of a seamless choreography, united by silent, behind-the-scenes communication, that trickled down to the smallest gestures: taking our coats without the need for a claim receipt; attentively letting us know that our table was being set the moment I began to be antsy sitting at the bar; transferring our drinks to the table’s ticket without being asked. These were only augmented by the care they took to make our anniversary as special as it could be—a hand-written note awaited us on our table, and every one of our servers greeted us in kind.

The meal itself was adventurous, if not the most delicious I’ve ever tasted, with each menu item identified only by its primary ingredient. However, its inventive spirit, coupled with the large array of amuses, a choice of butters (cow’s milk and goat’s) to accompany our already lusciously buttery rolls, and the additionally sweet nibbles served after our final course, made the prix fixe price feel utterly worth the experience. Our staff even presented us with homemade chocolate bars, with a cut-to-fit, handwritten “Happy Anniversary” message nestled inside the custom encasement.

And the coup de grace? After the chef himself came out to make his rounds, we were presented with a little mason jar of housemade granola—chef’s favorite—to have for breakfast the next morning.

Winter Blues: Summer Memories from the North Fork

2011-02-17T12:02:00.006-05:00

Winter has really been getting to me, everything from the nasty, dirty snow that lingers on the city streets to the dark, chilly nights that greet me as I leave the office. After revisiting some photos from the summer, I thought it might be the perfect thing to post these photos from a lovely little highlight of my summer that took place last July. They brightened my otherwise gray day.

Delicious and easy summer-time lunch: sliced tomatoes from the farm stand with fresh ricotta, mixed greens, and charcuterie was the perfect solution. We washed it down with a lovely Chateau Coussin Provencal rosé from T. Edwards imports and finished the meal with sliced plums and peaches.

Meats and cheeses from the Village Cheese Shop in Mattituck, NY

Shaved ricotta salata is a refreshing change from mozzarella.

A series of guacamoles and salsas: Stevie's an avocado purist, so her guacamole was without any tomatoes. Judy, on the other hand, likes to mix things up, it seems, since she threw some green apple and tomato into hers.

I love fresh salsa, so we got extra tomatoes and limes, then used up the white onion and cilantro left over from the guacamole. For fun, I threw some diced peach into a separate bowl to create a fruit salsa--inspired by, but much better than, the jar of mango salsa I saw at the grocery store.

Delicious fettucine with a rich, corn and basil "pesto" was a major hit at the table. From the August 2010 issue of Bon Appétit magazine.

Skewers of delicious, fresh, grilled vegetables.

Grilled pineapple: the perfect summertime sweet to complement pork chops, or delicious on their own. And those grill marks so remind me of summertime.

Corn fritters: I wouldn't let anyone shuck the corn until right before we planned to make the batter and fry it up; my mother has always told me that it is bad for the corn to expose it to air, since the sugars immediately begin to turn to starch.

Wondra-coated bay scallops: We'd made sure to buy local,
even though the Peruvian sea scallops were cheaper, and we were
rewarded by their sweet, juicy flavor.

Food Adventure: Gnocchetti Verdi in Alto Adige

2011-02-17T09:53:00.001-05:00

I rang in the New Year in a small town in Alto Adige, Italy, also known as the Südtirol. Here, the joint of influence of Austria and Italy is palpable everywhere—on the road signs that read in Italian, German, and the local dialect; on the cartons of milk labeled in kind; and most certainly in the food. Bordering, and formerly a part of, Austria, this Alpine region is characterized more by its German cuisine, albeit with Italian names, evident in the heavier meat-and-potato-laden dishes. By far my favorite of those I tried, however, was a dish that seemed more to bridge the two cultures: gnocchetti verdi are a local specialty whose form is like that of spaetzle but whose flavor is more reminiscent of a spinach-infused potato gnocco. Topped with butter and Grana Padano, it made for an excellent après-ski meal.

Gnocchetti verdi in the ski rifugio

Party Favors: Turkey Pot Pie

2010-11-30T21:25:00.000-05:00

The day after Thanksgiving, I headed over to Stevie's to make a big pot of stock from the turkey carcass, then a braised leek soup with the stock. Stevie's idea was to do an American riff on the traditional French onion soup: roasting the leeks in the oven, then adding the stock and some leftover brussels sprout leaves, and topping it with toasted pumpernickel bread and blue cheese. This meal was deliciously filling, and the braising—which I decided to do with butter, olive oil, and sherry—inspired this recipe for turkey pot pie.

The pie filling.

In a 475-degree oven, I roasted leeks, parsnips, and kabocha squash in a little leftover white wine, sherry, and the reserved turkey drippings for about 45 minutes. Meanwhile, I made the flaky pie crust and set it to chill in the refrigerator. The vegetables came out of the oven, and once cooled, I added the leftover turkey and peas to the pan to toss them all together. The filling was enough for two pie pans, so I rolled out the thin, buttery crust to cover both. I covered the pies with an egg wash, then baked them in a 400-degree oven for about 30 minutes.

Delicious pie, right out of the oven.

For the dough:

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup shortening
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and diced
1/8 - 1/4 cup ice water
1 egg beaten, for egg wash

For the filling:

4 leeks, quartered lengthwise
1/2 medium kabocha squash, diced
4 parsnips, peeled and diced
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup sherry
4 tablespoons turkey drippings or cooking oil
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 cup turkey, cooked and shredded
2 teaspoons flour
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 475-degrees. Place vegetables in a baking dish and cover with wine, sherry, and turkey drippings. Add fresh thyme, salt, and pepper for seasoning and place, uncovered, in over for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove from the oven and reduce heat to 400-degrees.

For the dough, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. Add the shortening and butter, and combine with your fingers until the fat is the size of peas. Add a small amount of water at a time, just enough to work the dough into a ball. Place in refrigerator for a half hour to chill.

In a frying pan, add the vegetables in their cooking juices and slowly stir in a bit of flour to make a sort of roux. Then add the turkey and peas, toss together, and place filling in the bottom of a pie pan. Remove the dough from the refrigerator, roll it out to a 1/8-inch thickness, and place over the pie pan. Crimp around the edges if desired and pierce with a fork several times to allow the air to escape while cooking. Brush with the beaten egg and bake for a half hour.

Recipe inspired by Wai Hon Chu, Whole Foods Culinary Center Educator

Dinner Party: Thanksgiving in New York

2010-11-27T20:53:00.001-05:00

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for great wine, delicious food, and wonderful friends, both new and old. A group of nine New York City "orphans" spent all day cooking, sipping, and noshing, in preparation for the big feast, which consisted of sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, collard greens, brussel sprouts, stuffing, Wondra bread rolls, and the pièce de la résistance, the beautifully-brined 20-lb. turkey that graced our table.

Along with the turkey (and more), Stevie and Josiah provided a fantastic celebratory Jeroboam: a 2009 Clos de la Roilette Cuvée Tardive, which we let evolve in the bottle and a decanter throughout the day. In addition to the Jeroboam, Bryan and Kelly provided the extensive wine selection for the day. Some of my favorites included the crisp N.V. François Pinon Vouvray Brut (2006), a delicious 2007 Weingut Hirsch Riesling Gaisberg (perfect with pumpkin bread), and a 1993 red from the Jura, an Overnoy Poulsard Arbois Pupillin.

We finished off the meal with three kinds of pumpkin pies, an apple tart, and some nutmeg ice cream. Alexxa provided a beautiful bourbon, as well as the photos of the day, featured below. A lovely day all around!

Snacks to start the day

A roster of wine, including a Jeroboam of 2009 Clos de la Roilette Cuvée Tardive

The 20 lb. turkey, fresh out of the oven

Serving and carving.

A toast.

Desserts to end the night.

Food Adventure: Cheesemaking in Upstate New York

2010-11-19T13:17:00.004-05:00

Lots of cooking coming up this week, but in the meantime, check out my post on SAVEUR.com on cheese-making in upstate New York!

Here's a teaser: When I was a little girl, I used to fancy that I was Laura Ingalls in Little House in the Big Woods, churning my own butter and frying crackling — despite not really knowing what crackling was. Last month, I visited Sprout Creek Farm, a working farm, creamery, and educational center in upstate New York, and watched a version of my dream come true. Read more at SAVEUR.com»

Food Adventure: Eat-fest 2010

2010-11-02T15:43:00.000-04:00

Whenever I am with my parents, we eat. It has established itself over the years as one of our favorite past times, and this weekend it took first place. Yes, the cultural excursion to see Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice was mind-numbingly good (emphasis on the mind-numbing part). Yes, the exploration of Court Street in south Brooklyn was interesting. But really, it was all about the food. I won't go into the litany of every dish we tasted, but I will share a few highlights.

Le Comptoir

Since I came to New York for the first time at age 16, my mother and I have always gone to La Goulue for a meal when we are in the city together. Chef Sebastian Chamaret from the now-defunct Upper East Side restaurant has opened up a new spot in Williamsburg, so we had to try it together. Everything about this meal was divine, from the company to the cuisine. Alexxa and Stevie joined us for charcuterie, seared foie gras, duck "a la plancha," the most succulent chicken breast I've ever tasted, served over a squash puree, and more. It's still BYO for a few more weeks until they get their liquor license, so Stevie brought us the 2009 Baudry Chinon Blanc, a Chenin Blanc that was lovely and round, with a high level of acidity that proved to be a real crowd-pleaser, as well as a 2001 Burgundy from Hubert Lignier Morey-St.-Denis, a bright, beautiful Pinot Noir with a lot personality.

251 Grand St. between Driggs Ave. and Roebling St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-486-3300

Diner

Another neighborhood adventure, we met for brunch at Diner, the refurbished yet rundown dining-car-cum-restaurant down the street from me. I thought my dad would get a kick out of the décor, which makes you feel as though the place has survived more than one earthquake, as well as the food. Although I enjoyed my grits, Mom her root vegetable hash, and Dad his sausage gravy, the real highlight was the Bloody Mary: tomato juice, thick with horseradish and rimmed with kosher salt.

85 Broadway, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-486-3077

Buttermilk Channel

After an ordeal to get a cab and over an hour wait for a table, I thought this meal was bound to be a royal failure. However, once we finally sat down and got our food, the first words out of Dad's mouth were: "This is a really good burger." Phew! Both Mom and Dad had opted for the quarter pound of house-ground beef served on the "perfect" bun, which was neither too soft nor too stiff, and both were members of the Clean Clate Club (as the saying has gone in my family since my brother was unable to properly pronounce "plate" as a baby). Admittedly, I helped out with the extra crispy fries, but I was mostly busy digging into the Eggs Huntington, the restaurant's own version of the Benedict. These eggs were perfectly poached, the whites and yellows both set, requiring two stabs of the fork to pierce the yolk and soak the deliciously dense buttermilk biscuit beneath. The only drawback of this meal was that my side of greens was bare.

524 Court St., Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
718-852-8490

Momofuku Ssam Bar and Milk Bar

For our last meal, Dad requested something different, and my mind jumped to the East Village Momofuku restaurants. Chef David Chang is a Korean-American who doesn't understand the word "vegetarian;" he is one of the chefs that has brought pork belly into the limelight in American cuisine, if that gives you any indication. I thought it might be a great fit: a killer combination of "ethnic" food and meat lovers, topped with some hefty spice. We started out on the right foot, ordering their famous pork belly buns, the fatty meat layered in soft, doughy steamed buns alongside thinly sliced cucumbers. A bit of the Sichuan spicy sauce made this an instant hit for my dad (Mom was less enthused). However, we made the mistake of ordering not one but two fish dishes, the pufferfish and the albacore tuna. The pufferfish tails were lightly fried and served with squid ink and squash, a unique blend but slightly difficult to eat. The tuna, on the other hand, was overcooked, and its barley accompaniments were as bland in color as they were in taste. Thank goodness for the final dish (all plates are meant to be shared), a spicy pork sausage ragu served with chewy rice dumplings. This one was so spicy the waitress took the Sichuan sauce away so we wouldn't be tempted.

For dessert, I wanted my parents to try something in keeping with the eclectic theme of the night. Momofuku Ssam Bar is connected to the Momofuku Milk Bar via a passageway (also accessible from the street), and we headed over to try their various desserts. Pastry chef Christina Tosi has taken her love of youthful treats -- from milk and cookies, chips, and cereal -- and created one of the most interesting pastry shops in town. The cereal milk soft serve and compost cookie (literally made of chips, pretzels, chocolate chips, and more) are certainly not for everyone, but we had fun tasting through the sampler of ice creams and a few of the cookies.

Ssam Bar: 207 Second Ave, East Village, New York
212-254-3500

*Milk Bar located around the corner on 13th St.

Food Memories: First Chesnuts of the Season!

2010-10-24T20:39:00.002-04:00

Chestnuts, more than many other things, make me happily nostalgic for the time I spent living in Italy. Although I knew the refrain well from Christmas carols, I'd never actually eaten a chestnut until my Italian mamma Maria Teresa made them for me. At the time, I was studying in Florence and coming down to Rome on the weekends for a visit. At one point, she stated that it was chestnut season, noting that Tuscan chestnuts were sweeter and thus preferable to those grown in Lazio. I proceeded to bring her several kilos every weekend for the rest of chestnut season.

The first time I brought them to her, she excitedly put them in a frying pan on the stove, after slicing the dark brown part against the grain. She covered the pan and let them heat up, and when we started to hear a popping sound, she removed them from the heat and put them on a plate. After admonishing us to wait until they cooled to dig in, she finally proffered one to me -- and I promptly put the entire thing in my mouth. Every Italian around started either to laugh or lunge in horror as I began the spit it back out...ma lo devi sbuciare prima! You must take the shell off first! What did I know? I'd never had one before. Choking and laughing aside, I finally dug into the surprisingly sweet meat of the nut. Then, I finished off the plate.

Chesnuts roasting on an open fire...as in my gas stove...

Such good memories. I love fall!

Party Favors: Smoked Trout Hash

2010-10-17T15:16:00.000-04:00

In addition to the venison and cheese, I also brought home about three pounds of house-smoked trout from the Telluride event. Of all the left over ingredients, the fish had me the most worried -- smoking would have preserved it for the first go-round, but after it had been opened and dressed with onions and oil, how long would fish last in a Tupperware container? Fortunately, I found a recipe for smoked trout hash that would be easy to execute, using things I already had in my pantry: eggs, cream, scallions, onions, and potatoes. I whipped up a big batch for a potluck dinner that I am heading to in a few hours, leaving a bit for brunch. Served with raw mache lettuce (Toni's favorite, I have now discovered, since he devoured it raw during post-event clean-up), it was the perfect Sunday morning meal.

Smoked trout hash with mache lettuce

Smoked Trout Hash

5 russet potatoes, peeled and diced
1 onion, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 lbs. smoked trout, skinned and shredded
2 egg, lightly beaten
4 tbsp. heavy cream
1⁄4 cup chopped scallions
1 tbsp. butter

1. Sauté potatoes and onions in a frying pan for a few minutes until slightly browned, then cover with salted water, allowing to simmer over medium heat for about ten minutes. Cook until potatoes are just tender when pierced with a knife, then drain.

2. Gently mix cooked potatoes and onions, smoked trout, egg, heavy cream, and scallions in a large mixing bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3. Melt butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add potato-trout mixture and fry, turning occasionally, until the hash begins to get a golden brown color and crisp texture. You may need to increase heat to get a good sear.

4. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve with a side of undressed mache lettuce.

Recipe adapted from SAVEUR.

Party Favors: ColoRouge Cheese Biscuits

2010-10-17T10:34:00.000-04:00

Also on Chef Roth's menu was a ColoRouge Grilled Cheese, little baguette rounds filled with homemade pesto, arugula, and slices of a stinky Camembert-style cheese from MouCo Cheese Company in Colorado. The cheesy bites were delicious, but with several blocks of the young cow's milk cheese left over, the fridge at work was already beginning to smell. I decided to take few blocks home to see what I could do with them.

Photo courtesy of MouCo Cheese Company.

I decided I wanted to make some sort of cheese biscuit to go with the venison pie but worried about making a traditional cheddar-style biscuit since this was a soft cheese, rather than a hard one. Inspired by a recipe from the Home on the Range blog, I froze the cheese so that I could grate it into the dry ingredients.

Grating the peeled cheese into the dry ingredients.

Using my fingers, I gently combined the flakes of frozen cheese and butter into the flour, baking powder, and baking soda mixture, added a cup of milk to create a dough, and then dropped them on a baking pan lined with parchment paper. The biscuits were ready to eat 12-15 minutes later -- hot, steamy, and a hint of delicious cheesiness, ready to sop up the dregs of the pie.

ColoRouge Cheese Biscuits

ColoRouge Cheese Biscuits

2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp fine salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, frozen solid
1/2 wheel of ColorRouge cheese, frozen solid
1 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Mix all dry ingredients together into a chilled bowl. Using a cheese grater, grate the butter and cheese through the large holes. Gently mix the shaved butter and cheese into the dry ingredients with your fingers until loose and crumbly.

Add 2/3 cup of the milk to the bowl, stirring together. Add a little more at a time as needed to incorporate all the dry ingredients, but do not exceed one cup. The mixture should come together in a loose, slightly sticky dough.

Knead together a few times in the bowl. Place a large spoonful of dough onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, evenly spaced. Bake 12-15 minutes at 425 degrees til golden brown. Serve immediately.

*Any soft cheese, such as a brie or Camembert, could be used instead, although I think the stinkier the better; the flavor mellows as baked.

Party Favors: Venison Hunter's Pie

2010-10-17T00:00:00.002-04:00

The SAVEUR team had a big event with Telluride Ski Resort on Thursday night in the SAVEUR kitchen, featuring the cooking talents of the Telluride Executive Chef Stephen Roth.

Photo courtesy of Courtney Henley-Anderson

One of the featured dishes was a rack of venison with spiced huckleberry Port sauce. It was delicious, but a little tough to eat at a cocktail party without knife and fork...so there was plenty leftover, and I went home with about 25 pieces of venison. However, unlike last time when I brought home the lamb, the meat was already cooked; I needed to figure out how to incorporate it into other dishes that I could eat or freeze to make sure the meat didn't go to waste.

Photo courtesy of Courtney Henley-Anderson

For the first attempt, I decided I wanted to riff off of the traditional Shepherd's Pie -- a hearty dish of lamb, vegetables, and mashed potatoes -- by making a sort of "Hunter's Pie" with venison as the base meat. I began by cutting the meat off of the bones, throwing the latter into a pot of salted water with other vegetable remnants to make stock. Meanwhile, I cut the venison into cubes and quickly browned them; after removing the meat from the heat, I added finely chopped carrots and leeks to the pan juices to soften them.

Primary ingredients coming together on the stovetop.

I added the meat back to the pan, along with the stock, some Worcestershire sauce, flour, and some herbs, then let everything simmer in the pan for about an hour and a half. In another pan, I covered some russet potatoes with salted water and brought it to a boil. Twenty minutes later, once strained, I added a splash of cream, a tablespoon of butter, and some salt & pepper, then set the mashed potatoes aside. When everything was ready, I assembled the crust-less "pie," topping the meat with the mashed potatoes.

"Hunter's Pie" fresh from the oven.

Once the potatoes turned a light golden brown number and the venison roux began to bubble, I removed the pie from the oven and let it cool briefly. Digging into the meal, we discovered that the nutmeg in the spice blend complemented the gaminess of the meat -- and I even think I preferred this dish with venison rather than lamb. I served it with a side of spinach and a cheese biscuit to sop up the jus, and we sipped on the Clos de la Roilette 2009 Beaujolais from Fleurie, the same wine that had been paired with chef Roth's rack of venison. Its complexity, with a bit of earthiness as well as bright fruit, was a refreshing contrast to the weight of the meal.

First round of leftovers = success!

Hunter's Pie

8 venison chops, cut into ½-inch cubes
2 leeks, white parts only, finely chopped
2 medium carrots, chopped
2 tbsp. flour
1 1⁄2 cups venison stock
1 tbsp. Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp. finely chopped rosemary leaves
1 tbsp. finely chopped thyme leaves
1⁄8 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 medium russet potatoes, peeled and quartered
Splash of Organic Valley half-and-half

1. Melt 2 tbsp. of the butter in a large pot over high heat. Add one-third of the venison and brown on all sides, then transfer to a plate, leaving fat in pot. Repeat process 2 more times, using 2 tbsp. of the butter and one-third of the venison for each batch. Add leeks and carrots to pot, reduce heat to medium, and cook until softened, scraping up any browned bits. Return venison and its juices to pot along with flour and cook, stirring frequently, for 1 minute. Whisk in stock, Worcestershire, rosemary, thyme, nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste. Increase heat to medium-high; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, until venison is tender, about 40 minutes. Uncover pot and simmer, stirring often, until thickened, 35–40 minutes more. Remove from heat and set aside.

2. Meanwhile, put potatoes into a large pot and cover with salted water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until tender, 20–25 minutes. Drain and transfer potatoes to a bowl. Add 1 tbsp. of the butter, half-and-half, and salt and pepper to taste; mash until smooth.

3. Preheat oven to 375°. Transfer venison to a pie dish. Top evenly with mashed potatoes, and top with small cubes of butter, scattered over potatoes. Bake until golden brown and bubbling, about 20 minutes.

Recipe adapted from SAVEUR.

Down South: Chicken-Fried Steak, Collard Greens, & Cornbread

2010-09-29T15:05:00.001-04:00

Where did September go? This whole month flew by in a whirl of busyness, work activities, and birthdays. I feel like I hardly cooked anything exciting at all! To make up for this, I threw a little dinner party last night, Southern-style, for my friend Dado who will soon be returning to China. After an ingredient fiasco (I wanted to make fried catfish... turns out, the guest-of-honor is allergic), I decided to make an easy but delicious meal of chicken-fried steak, collards, and cornbread.

I went down to Marlow & Daughters to pick up some top round after work, but since they were out, I went with the cheapest alternative: ground beef. Chicken-fried steak is essentially cucina povera anyway. I whisked an egg and add the meat and some salt and pepper to the same bowl, patting it into flat disks of meat. I then coated each with egg and dredged in flour, then placed each piece into a hot pan full of butter. Each side cooked for about a minute and a half, then I removed them to make the roux, adding a bit of flour, more butter, and water to create a sauce.

I served each person with their fried meat and buttery sauce alongside slow-cooked collard greens, which had stewed for a half hour in salted water and apple cider vinegar, and buttermilk cornbread. Dado had brought a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from Oyster Bay, which paired surprisingly well with the food due to its more robust fruit. The sharp, bracing acidity also cut through the rather fatty meal, refreshing our palettes as we ate through it all.

To finish off the meal, I had prepared a roasted banana gelato with a nutella swirl -- as decadent and down-home good as everything else we'd eaten. Bon Voyage, Dado!

Dinner ideas adapted from Virginia Willis' Bon Appétit, Y'all, David Leibovitz's The Perfect Scoop, and my mother.

Homecoming: Coconut Gelato for Toni

2010-09-09T21:09:00.000-04:00

Toni went to Italy and Croatia to visit his family for two long weeks. Over the course of these last six months, I've never known him to be so happy as he was while there, surrounded by his family and friends, in the place he considers home. I wanted to do something for him so that coming back to New York would be less bitter and more sweet. When I asked him what that might be, he said quite simply that he wanted gelato al cocco, coconut gelato. It doesn't get much sweeter than that.

Coconut Gelato for Toni

1 cup unsweetened coconut
4 egg yolks
2 cups milk (I used 1 1/2 cup whole milk, 1/2 cup skim milk, and a splash of heavy cream)
1 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean

In a bowl, combine sugar and yolks, stirring until incorporated. Heat milk and vanilla bean over medium heat, then add a ladle of the heated milk to the sugar and egg mixture to temper it. Add the sugar and egg mixture to the pot, stirring constantly. Add the coconut.

When mixture is thick and coats the back of a wooden spoon, remove from heat and cool. Keep, covered, in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or preferably overnight. Don't forget to put the body of your ice cream maker in the freezer to chill.

When you are ready to freeze the gelato, remove the vanilla bean and discard. Pour into the ice cream maker and let it churn for about 20 minutes, scraping down the sides every now and then. Put into a container and freeze until ready to eat.

Recipe adapted from Nicole Lang.

Celebrations: Being Together with Good Wine

2010-09-09T20:39:00.000-04:00

The last time I was together with both of my parents was in February, so I was excited that we were all able to be down at the beach for a few days. My little brother Scott was too busy turning 21 to join us, and what did he miss?

Dad in a kayak.

Aside from sea and marsh kayaking, fly-fishing on a motor boat that took us out to Cumberland Island, sea turtles, dolphins, and "The American," he missed the opportunity to drink a wine as old as his big sister. And not just any 24-year-old wine. He missed a Latour.

Yes, that is a Premier Grand Cru Classé from 1986.

Most likely, Scott does not realize what a momentous occasion this was, at least for me. This wine, along with a few others, had been sitting at my grandmother's beach house for who knows how long, cooking in the south Georgia sun when no one was on the premises to turn on the air-conditioning. So opening the bottle was as much of a gamble as anything. There were, however, a few factors in our favor: the ullage was high (the level of wine was above the neck) and the bottle itself seemed to be in pretty good condition. And I'd texted Stevie to know if the '86 was drinking. Her one-word response? "Drink."

Sniffing and tasting the newly decanted wine.

Boy were we well-rewarded. The liquid inside the bottle, a tawny color, neither smelt nor tasted of vinegar. Instead, it possessed the effect of tart, underripe blackberries -- tight as the wine was first exposed to air in the decanter and in my glass -- as well as notes of walnut dust, leather, and raisins. And it was immediately balanced, surprisingly so, as I'd read that many Bordeaux of that year were highly tannic. Then, the magic that I love about wine began to show itself. As we prepared dinner and let the wine breathe, it was suddenly rejuvenated: full of bright, ripe berry notes, and so incredibly smooth on the palette. No element of this wine overpowered another. I was utterly happy.

Taste-testing corn-fed beef (below) and grass-fed (above),

seasoned with smoky salt from Washington State.

The Latour proved an excellent complement for my first taste of my aunt Emily's grass-finished beef. Life is really good sometimes.

Down South: The Best BLT

2010-09-02T19:57:00.001-04:00

It's September, and I can finally say it: summer has arrived. For me at least.

I'm not talking about the heat. That's come and is hopefully going away soon. I'm talking about tomatoes, peaches, corn, and more... from south Georgia. Nothing tastes like summer to me like the produce I grew up eating during the summers down at my family's house in Sea Island, Georgia. The peaches up north just aren't as sweet, the tomatoes not as juicy. And now I am finally down south for a few days, eating the things that make me happiest. So what makes the perfect BLT? A Georgia tomato, on toasted bread with Hellmann's mayo.

Mamma's BLT, with Ruffles potato chips.

How-To: Putting Up Tomatoes

2010-08-29T18:34:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, I woke up early, trucked it over to Stevie's, then together we headed up to the McCarren Park farmers market to pick up 25 pounds of not-quite-ripe Roma tomatoes. Because we were buying so many, the farmer even gave us a discount: $1/lb., rather than the advertised $2. With trembling arms, we carried these home, then went back out to Brooklyn Kitchen to get quart and pint jars, as well as a wide-mouthed funnel.

25 pounds of tomatoes.

We began by sterilizing the jars. We filled Stevie's extra large pot with water and placed the jars and their lids inside, then set it over high heat to come to a boil.

Floating jars.

Then, we began to scrub the tomatoes to get all of the dirt off. Stevie put another pot of water on to boil. In the meantime, she scored the bottom of each tomato with an "x" to facilitate peeling later on.

Scoring the tomatoes.

Once the water was hot, she put in one batch of tomatoes at a time, removing them once their skin cracked.

Washed and ready to go in the water.

As she removed the tomatoes, she brought them over to me to peel, core, and quarter. With one hand gloved to protect it from the heat, I began the arduous process of peeling, using the edge of a paring knife to literally get under the tomatoes' skin.

Peeling back the skin.

We removed the large pot of jars from the stove to make room for the batches of tomatoes that needed to cook but left everything covered in the hot water. Stevie explained that the jars need to be hot when we put the tomatoes into them in order for them to seal properly. In separate pots, she cooked the tomatoes with a bit of salt and sugar, accenting the natural sweetness of the tomatoes while adding salt (a preservative) to the mix. When they were ready, she removed them from the heat and brought over a few jars to begin the canning process.

Placing the hot tomatoes and their juice into the hotter jars.

The funnel is important because it keeps the lip of the jar clean - necessary in order to seal them properly. If anything gets between the jar and its lid, it will not close up and make the much-anticipated "popping" sound that signals that all air is out of the jar and its contents are sealed for later use. Stevie had read that an acidifier was recommended in order to help preserve the tomatoes, bringing out their natural acidity, so I placed a tablespoon of lemon juice per pint on top of the tomatoes before we closed the jars. Then, we sat and waited, making sure that each and everyone popped, sometimes for an agonizing thirty minutes! At the end of the day, however, we succeeded, with about 10 and a half quarts put up.

Our beautiful jars of canned tomatoes!

Can't wait to try these this winter!

In Memoriam: The Perfect Hard-Boiled Egg, for Ian

2010-08-23T20:39:00.008-04:00

Today I learned that a friend from college passed away in a car crash over the weekend. Ian was one of those guys that I always just knew: we were placed in the same small freshman dorm and I can't remember a day of college that I did not consider Ian Burgin a friend. He and I were cut from very different trees. I liked to play the part of the Southern belle, walking around the Vermont campus in my heels, and if there was snow, I most likely fell into it (while wearing snow boots, lest you think I'm too crazy). Ian, on the other hand, was from northwestern Massachusetts, not too far down the road from Middlebury. He was fond of the outdoors and plaid, studied Environmental sciences, and, I was convinced, was going to have some fabulous impact within the realm of sustainability. Where I spent many months holding my breath when the smell of manure began to waft its way through the state, Ian inhaled deeply, saying it reminded him of home.

Despite our differences, I loved the person Ian was and I always enjoyed his company. He was a wonderful person, so genuinely good, and good to talk to. One of my favorite memories of him is a recurring one: breakfast in Atwater dining hall. Always mindful of health and fitness, he started every day with a balanced meal, which included hard-boiled eggs. He would carefully peel the shell, separate the white from the yolk, and, leaving the latter on his plate, eat the protein-rich and cholesterol-free egg white, without seasoning. I was appalled. How can you eat that without the yummy goodness of the fatty yolk...and no salt?, I asked him throughout our first year. It just didn't seem worth it to me. Ian, however, was more concerned with the healthful benefits of the egg over its flavor.

Over the years, our conversations often turned to food, sustainable eating, and farming, and the egg became less of an issue. His mother, he once told me, was involved in Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," a book about one family's decision to eat only food produced in the place where they live. I assumed this was his community in Massachusetts, but I never asked. Ian was someone who grew up with the ethos of local eating, something that I am only just discovering.

Ian and I did not stay in touch after college, our lives shaped more by our divergent interests than the ones we shared. All the more reason I was so deeply affected today by the news of his death. Ian, you are in my prayers.

The Perfect Hard-Boiled Egg, for Ian

Place the egg in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Do not salt the water.
Over high heat, bring the water to a boil.
Once a rolling boil is achieved, set timer for 3 minutes and let the egg cook.
After 3 minutes have passed, remove from heat. Let the egg sit in the water for another 8 minutes. Then, remove from the hot water and run under cold water, about a minute.
Let sit in the refrigerator for a half hour to an hour for best peeling results.

I LOVERMONT: Ice Cream and Whoopie Pies

2010-08-18T18:43:00.003-04:00

I spent this past weekend in Greensboro, Vermont in a beautiful turn-of-the-century wood cabin on the lake, in the middle of the woods, blissfully disconnected from civilization (otherwise known as out of cell and internet range). What did I do to celebrate these facts? I indulged my sweet tooth.

A few highlights:

Craving inspired by SAVEUR: a delicious Whoopie Pie

As discerning connoisseurs of sweet, Anna and I selected the whoopie pie from Connie's Kitchen, instead of one of the other options, since Connie's had about 10 ingredients rather than 35. We also picked up some of her delectable traditional doughnuts and ginger cookies, all on sale at the Willey's General Store in town.

Sweet Cream and Cookies, only available the Ben & Jerry's Factory Scoop Shop.

This bit of deliciousness was a cookie-heavy twist on one of my all-time favorite flavors. Even though I went to college in Middlebury, I never once made it up to the factory for a visit. So, on our way to a concert in Burlington, Anna and I stopped in for a treat. Although there was no time for a tour, there was plenty of time for a snack. And yes, this was a single scoop.

Really happy.

Dinner Party: Italian Night! Carbonara and a Twist

2010-08-07T14:07:00.000-04:00

Stevie has mentioned a few times that she was interested in learning Italian (she comes from Italian stock), so we finally decided to do our first cena italiana this past week. The idea was simple: cook an Italian meal, drink Italian wine, and speak as much Italian as we could, pointing and miming our way through it. I enlisted Toni to join us to keep the conversation going and to be an additional teacher in the room. Lesson #1 went well, with Stevie learning and recording a few key terms and present tense verbs in a little notebook I gave her, while assuming her usual duties of chef/sous-chef combo when we cook together.

And what did we eat? We decided a simple carbonara dish would be fun and easy, allowing us to focus on the language without having to worry about too much prep work. Since her butcher didn't have any pancetta available, Stevie picked up some thickly-sliced coppa, the muscle of the pork right behind the back of the head, at the top of the shoulder. It was an interesting, meaty alternative to the usual fatty taste of the pancetta (whose closest cousin in American is bacon).

Stevie diced the meat into little cubes and threw it in a pan with a bit of butter. In the meantime, we put some spaghetti on to boil. I had previously bought some elegant pasta from Marlow & Daughters for a dinner party a few months back but never ended up using it -- this seemed like the perfect time for it. I opened up the package to find that each spaghetto was slightly curled at one end: a handmade pasta that had been hung to dry and later cut. I was ecstatic... life really is in the details. While the sea salted water boiled, I began to separate the eggs. We'd consulted several carbonara recipes and ultimately decided we only wanted to use the yolks (no worries, I saved the whites for a yummy omelette).

We put Toni to work, grating the parmigiano. Everything had to be ready for the moment when the pasta came out of the water, since the heat of the noodles is what would cook the egg and create the cheesy "sauce."

Everything came together in the pot, lightly coating each and every spaghetto. We noshed happily on way too much pasta with a bottle of Orvieto, a white wine from the eponymous town made from Trebbiano and Grechetto grapes. A slightly fruity and weighty white that is balanced with the acidity from the Trebbiano juice, it was an excellent complement to the eggy, meaty pasta we were consuming.

At this point, you might be wondering what the twist was. Toni buys melons almost by the dozen, and since one was reaching a high level of ripeness, I figured it was best to try something new with it, a change from fruit salad. Summertime screams prosciutto e melone to me -- the perfect, light combination of salty and sweet -- but as a result of the hot days we've been having, I've been eating it all the time. So why not take the traditional antipasto dish and make it into a dessert? In preparation for the meal, I made a canteloupe sorbetto a few days before:

I had Stevie pick up a few of the thinnest slices of prosciutto she could get. I proceeded to dry the meat in the oven to give it a harder consistency:

Then, once we'd begun to digest the pasta, I served the sorbet with pieces of prosciutto sprinkled on top. The same salty-sweetness that I love in the antipasto shone through in the dessert version. Ta da! A meal in reverse!

Sorbetto di Melone

1 medium-sized canteloupe, diced
The juice of one lemon, freshly-squeezes
2 tablespoons vodka
1/2 cup sugar (shouldn't need more if the melon is in season!)

Place the melon in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth. Add the lemon juice, vodka, and sugar and process briefly, until blended. Place the mixture into the refrigerator until the mixture cools. Pour the chilled mixture into the bowl of an ice cream maker and churn for 20 minutes. Transfer the sorbet to an airtight container and place in the freezer for 3 to 4 hours before serving.

Adapted from Alton Brown.

Morning Report: The Gulf Dead Zone

2010-08-03T10:04:00.002-04:00

I was appalled when I heard the report this morning on NPR about the expanding "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. It's an area of deep water in the Gulf where little, if anything, can live because of a steady stream of chemical run-off from industrial farming in the Midwest (the American "bread basket") that runs down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico

Yes, it is frightening to hear about this dead zone expanding. Yes, I am happy that this issue is getting some national attention. I especially appreciated the analysis of government spending: even though there is some money to put toward "fixing" this problem, much more is spent in subsidies to keep agribusiness and industrial farming going... did you know your tax dollars are polluting the environment?

However, the part of the report that most irked me was the reference to this sort of industrial farming as "traditional." What a joke, since industrial farming has only been around for the last 50 years, give or take. Traditional farming is what your local farmer does -- raise animals and vegetables in a single, sustainable farm where all elements of the ecosystem benefit one another and do more good than harm to the environment.

I understand that producing food on the massive scale required to feed our population may not be able to be sustained entirely by this kind of farming (especially since farmers are decreasing steadily in number), but it is an insult to the institution to perpetuate the belief that our current, dominant food system is "traditional."

Eating Local: Hot Bread Kitchen

2010-08-03T09:40:00.001-04:00

Amazing farmers' market find at the Union Square Greenmarket this weekend!

Since I have almost finished reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan, I am finding myself being ever more conscious about the way I look at the labels on food. Not for calorie intake, but for what ingredients are listed. As Pollan suggests, I look for "real food," names I can recognize and place...what a concept! This bit of deliciousness has exactly 11 ingredients, all of which are things I have tasted individually: 100% whole grain rolled oats, peanuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, unsulphered raisins, sesame seeds, wheat germ, New York State honey, vegetable oil, and kosher salt. Believe it or not, most of the 'food' that is in the marketplace is processed to the point that all nutritional value is removed (if it was there to begin with), and we are left with page-long lists of manufactured 'ingredients' that look more like chemical compounds from a lab experiment. No thank you.

Additionally, Hot Bread Kitchen is a bakery with a cause that I am happy to support. To quote the mission from their site:

Hot Bread Kitchen is a non-profit social enterprise that creates better lives for low-income women and their families. We do this by paying women while they learn the skills necessary to launch food businesses and achieve management track positions in food manufacturing. To help offset the cost of our training and to build esteem in the contribution of immigrants, we sell delicious multi-ethnic breads that are inspired by our bakers and the many countries that they come from. We make it a priority to use local and organic ingredients. As our staff of trainees grows, so does our product line. As part of our mission, we preserve valuable baking and culinary traditions and “br-educate” New Yorkers about the tasty and important contributions of immigrant communities.

This granola cost me $5 -- that's more or less what I spend in the grocery store on a plastic package the source of which I am unaware. Instead, I bought My Mom's Nutty Granola from one of the staff of Hot Bread Kitchen and know that I am eating the produce of the state in which I am living. I think that's pretty cool. And it's delicious with Chobani Greek Yogurt, also local (I am not quite at the stage of making my own).

Food Trends: Mexican Ice Pops

2010-08-02T16:11:00.002-04:00

I've been reading a lot recently about Mexican ice pops so was extremely excited when I discovered La Newyorkina at the Hester Street Market on Saturday morning.

Cute, eye-catching sign in the shape of a pop, right at the entrance!

Essentially, these pops are just like the syrup-based popsicles I made as a kid (this freezing method pre-dated my obsession with my ice cream maker), only with flavors that are native to Mexico, with everything from mango-chile to horchata flavor... some brave souls even sprinkle red chile flakes on their pops once unwrapping them.

Mine were cool like this, with their built-in straws that minimized dripping

(waste in my eyes, mess in my mother's)

Since I am not a spice lover, the ones that caught my eye from La Newyorkina's selection were the coco fresco, blackberries and cream, and hibiscus. When I asked La Newyorkina herself what the favorite was, she immediately told me to go for the hibiscus. Boy was I glad I listened. It was juicy, sweet, and had a lovely red-fruit and floral taste. I'd only ever had hibiscus in teas, blended with black tea leaves, so I was excited to find that its essential flavor was more fruity than earthy. The beautiful red-purple plum color only enhanced the taste of the pop and left my lips stained the same dark color.

My hibiscus pop, straight from the freezer.

La Newyorkina's pops are also available at Marlow and Daughters, which I discovered the next day. This gave me the chance to taste the coco fresco and watermelon (unavailable the day before). Yes, I spent $13 on pops this weekend. No, I am not ashamed. Do I need to do it again? Only for the hibiscus... for the rest, I am going back to my roots and ordering me some new sipper ice pop makers.

This Song, Now: "Who Says" by John Mayer

2010-07-27T11:15:00.004-04:00

Thanks, Mom, for sending!

Dinner Party: Inspired by Chenin Blanc, a Middle-Eastern Feast

2010-07-22T22:27:00.002-04:00

I'd been waiting for some time for the epic dinner that took place at Stevie's house with four of my favorite people (myself not included). While in South Africa at Glen Carlou, I'd tasted through their portfolio, including a sweet wine made from 100% Chenin Blanc. I bought a bottle with the express desire to share it with this group - and I was overjoyed when the day finally came.

This wine, combined with my lamb supply and Stevie's desire for Kuku Kadoo, resulted in the following delicious menu:

Pan-fried lamb chops, scented with cumin

served with mint and pistachio pesto

Kuku Kadoo

Persian zucchini frittata

Parsley and tumeric cous cous

served with lamb jus

Pistachio meringue

with rosewater, strawberries, and whipped cream

We sipped on some lovely riesling provided by Stevie and Josiah while cooking, and quite soon, the boys discovered what a seamless cooking team Stevie, Alexxa, and I have become:

Stevie manning the Kuku Kadoo and the wok

Alexxa, hard at work on chopping strawberries

Whipping the meringue

The team at work

We sat down for our lovely Middle-Eastern-inspired dinner with fingers crossed, hoping that all of the elements would meld together... and they did. The use of complementary spices throughout the savory dishes was fantastic, and the various textures - from the smoothness of the Kuku Kadoo to the graininess of the cous cous and the bite of the pesto a top the crispy (and still medium rare) lamb - added a fuller dimension to the meal.

The spread.

Once the meal was complete, we assembled the tasty-but-not-so-beautiful meringues layer by layer, while Josiah, with his rippling forearms and new two-pronged wine opener (recently procured on a trip to Burgundy), opened the Chenin Blanc.

Wonderful, with its chewy texture and rosewater accent

The somm in action.

When I had tried the wine in Africa, I'd been hesitant. I am not the biggest fan of sweet dessert wines, but rather than the cloying sweetness I expected, I had been surprised - it tasted like eiswein, usually grown in the world's coldest regions and made from frozen grapes, giving the wine a high level of acidity that cuts through the residual sugar. This wine, though from the hot growing region of Paarl, had the same effect on the palette. AND it was delicious with the nutty, floral, and fruity dessert.

Other Things: Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and Brooklyn Museum of Art

2010-07-21T14:40:00.000-04:00

I know I write predominantly about food and wine, but I do have other interests... I swear! When Mom was here this past weekend, we spent a really hot day in Park Slope exploring the Botanical Gardens and the Brooklyn Museum. It was a bit too hot for the former - a lot of the plants were drooping as a result of our continuous heat wave - except that the "Herb" Garden was in full swing. Check out some of the yummy goodies they've got growing (ok, this is food-related, but still cool!):

a beautiful beetroot section

sweet and thai basil

celery stalks

lettuces of all kinds

a single pineapple!

Afterwards, we went to cool off at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which is a decidedly wonderful museum. Even though my major in college was art history-focused, I find that I do not spend nearly enough time exploring art in this city. Who knew that so many fantastic pieces and shows were tucked away in the heart of Brooklyn?

Currently on display are an Andy Warhol exhibition (the late years), an African art exhibition (which I studied my senior year - I've retained much less than I thought), and a display of the the museum's costume collection. We'd seen the sister fashion-oriented show at the Met the week before, and I'd been underwhelmed. So I was pleasantly surprised to find myself engrossed in this exhibit: the collection is extensive, and because it is predominantly donor-based, the clothing is in exquisite condition. Also by virtue of the donor's tastes, a few designers are more heavily represented than others, including Elsa Schiaparelli, whose work I love. The layout of the show was not incredibly visitor-friendly (chronology was only a loose organizational mechanism), but the pieces - from dresses to shoes to drawings - more than compensated.

Some favorites:

Halston caftan

Charles James evening gown

Elsa Schiaparelli suit with piano-button details

1940s happy-face swim ensemble

summer dress with beautiful pleating

Celebrations: Mom's in town!

2010-07-16T10:13:00.000-04:00

So, I've been a bit remiss in my posting because my lovely mom has been in town! Here are some highlights of our time together, which of course revolves around lots of food:

A Riesling tasting at Terroir, with Paul Grieco and winemaker Ernie Loosen.

Mr. Loosen, who brought over a vertical of his own wines for the tasting from the Erdener Treppchen vineyard, including a 1976 Auslese and a 2006 Auslese Goldkap.

Our insalata caprese, with basil from my new herb garden!

Yummy succotash with corn, red onion, zucchini, and squash,

baked with lots o' butta.

Additionally, we discovered a new French bistro, Bistro de la Gare, in the West Village, which provided a deliciously simply meal. Mom's summer cannelloni were outstanding, with their paper-thin pasta shell overflowing with fresh spinach and the tiniest hint of ricotta. We also visited Fort Greene, hitting up the Flea and the farmer's market at the Fort Greene park - here, we bought the most delicious cow's milk cheese from a farm in Connecticut, as well as herbs for my new windowsill garden.

Then, we had the best meal (Mom's emphasis) at Bar Boulud after a show, thanks to Josiah's able skills as a sommelier and the lovely fresh fish we tried. Between Toni, Mom, and me, we tasted almost all of the fish on the menu, which Josiah paired with a beautiful white Burgundy:

coquilles saint-jacques meunière (me)
dayboat scallops, stone ground polenta
purslane, brown butter, hazelnuts

truite arc-en ciel (toni)
local rainbow trout, roasted corn
olive, zucchini, smoked tomato coulis

limande au four (mom)
baked summer flounder, herb salad
glazed market vegetables
lemon buerre blanc

Each of us thought our own dish was the best, polishing our plates. Then we finished the meal with a beautiful apricot tart (the work "tart" vastly under-represents the presentation of the dish - a puff-pastry-like shell surrounded four distinct apricot-halves, served with a tart and refreshing red currant and lemon verbena ice cream), as well as a plate of the macarons and chocolates. Josiah gave us a taste of a Sauternes - not usually a favorite of mine because it can be quite thick and cloyingly sweet; however, this one was tasty with the apricots and rather refreshingly easy on the palette. Bar Boulud is hands down my favorite one of the chef's restaurants and, in my opinion, one of the best restaurants in town.

And finally, we had an easy, rustic pizza night at Keste, a Neopolitan-style pizzeria on Bleeker Street. The staff is almost entirely Italian; the wine list features wines from the Campagna region; and the pizza is one of the most authentic I've had in Manhattan. We ordered the Regina Margherita and the special, a four-cheese white pizza with prosciutto, whose crunchy parmigiano flavor made it my favorite. We washed down not one but two carafes of Falanghina, a medium-bodied white wine I discovered in Rome last year. Following the pizza and wine, we walked around the corner to L'Arte del Gelato for the finishing touches on a great weekend.

And she comes back today!!

Creative Time: Pimento Grilled Cheese

2010-07-09T12:56:00.000-04:00

A few years ago, when my mother and I went to Bonnaroo with a bunch of her friends, we prepared massive amounts of pimento cheese, using the large format Cuisinart that lives in her kitchen in Atlanta. To differentiate the two, we added some chopped jalapeno peppers and jus to one of the containers - and this spicy cheese spread was a total hit!

A Southern requisite.

Rather than waste half a jalapeno, a jar of pimentos, and half a block of Vermont cheddar cheese which didn't make it into my marinated vegetable salad, these leftovers were perfect fodder for remaking this spicy pimento cheese. Since I lack a large food processor, I adapted and used a Microplane, which finely shredded the cheese.

Got to stick with the Vermont white cheddar!

This consistency ended up being a welcome bonus, as it greatly reduced the amount of mayonnaise needed to keep the spread together and created a dense, rich flavor. I added some ground pepper, but no salt, since the cheese was already quite salty. Then, I cut the rest of the previous day's baguette into halves and created pimento grilled cheese sandwiches. Served with a yummy summer salad, it was a delicious, easy, and economical dinner!

Salty, cheesy goodness.

Quick and Easy: Marinated Vegetable Salad

2010-07-07T22:43:00.002-04:00

After the eat-fest that was Fourth of July weekend (er, well, my life in general), Toni and I decided we would try to tone down our diets. It's the best time of year to do so anyway: produce is at it's finest, and it's so hot in this city that one hardly wants to turn on the stove. Mom gave me a few ideas, via our friend Chef Jacques Pepin, for some quick and easy summer salads. Yesterday, we tried the first one.

Thanks Chef!

The ingredients in this salad can all be found in most grocery stores: canned artichoke hearts (I prefer those preserved in water, not oil), caponata, pimentos, green olives, parsley, a bit of jalapeno, and cheddar cheese. Everything was chopped into bite-size pieces and tossed with a bit of olive oil. We let it sit to let the flavors meld while we cut up fruit for another no-cook salad: cantaloupe, apples, kiwi, and banana.

It's prettier than it tasted...

The marinated vegetable salad was a success, with the predominant flavors of each vegetable shining through. We ate it with a bit of toasted baguette. The fruit salad, on the other hand, was a huge disappointment. We had bought the produce at the Food Emporium near Toni's place, since the market was not open on Tuesday, and almost everything we bought was absolutely tasteless (the watermelon, the beacon of summer, didn't even make it into the salad!) Thank goodness for the kiwi, which redeemed it, at least a little...

Celebrations: Fourth of July Weekend

2010-07-06T11:18:00.000-04:00

I spent Fourth of July weekend out in East Hampton, where my aunt Barbara lives during the summer. As usual, it was food-and-wine-filled affair. Toni latched on to the fact that we had a patio and a grill, so we cooked all meals outdoors, thanks to the grill master. The first night, we had blue fish, grilled corn, roasted radishes and potatoes, and blackberry cobbler, all from the local market.

Little market, long line.

Saturday night, Toni and I grabbed our rental bikes and headed to Tutto Italiano, an Italian outpost of Citarella down the Montauk Highway, to pick up some pizza dough and the house-made mozzarella. We then selected some grill-worthy veggies at the grocery store, including red peppers, onions, tomatoes, zucchini, and Portobello mushrooms. We roasted them on the grill. Once they were charred, we put the dough over the open flame, using a piece aluminum foil as a makeshift pan. After letting it toast a bit, we added the tomatoes and mozzarella, covered for a moment, and finally arranged the grilled vegetables on top. Although the pizza dough was slightly burned on the bottom (we should have flipped the dough before adding the various ingredients), it was deliciously simple. Good cheese and produce really make all the difference.

You can't even see the roasted tomatoes under all that cheese,

but they were delicious.

Our final night was the Fourth of July, so we decided a traditional barbecue was in order. Barbara picked up some freshly ground beef from the local butcher, as well as some watermelon. Together we headed to the store to pick up some more charcoal (we’d gone through all of it), salt & pepper kettle chips (which hardly made it out of the store), and some ketchup (Barb picked up the reduced sugar variety – she said by accident, though I hardly believe her – which ended up tasting just fine).

Sharing in the festivities

With some homemade guacamole to munch on as the charcoal burned, the three of us sipped the lovely bottle of Dashe 'Les Enfants Terribles' that Stevie had recommended we bring as a gift. The wine was selected since Barb loves chilled red wines, and Malbecs tend to fill her icebox. Stevie thought the Dashe zinfandel would be a nice alternative, and since it was a 2009, our glasses danced with the bright red fruits that might have dissipated in a later vintage. My grandmother Nena is a Dashe drinker, and I have always associated their juice with its rich, jammy quality. The old vines provided a nice, summery change.

Stevie's pick. Verdict = A hot red for a summer night.

We blended some salt, pepper, and chopped onion into our patties, and then threw them onto the grill after having cooked some more corn, onions, and tomatoes. Since the pantry was lacking in the bun department, we ended up tasting a butter croissant – a perfectly decadent burger. We were so full that we finished the meal with nothing more than a little watermelon. What a wonderful way to spend our midsummer nights!

Burger, roasted veggies, and grilled corn - nothing says summer like this!

Dinner Party: Lamb, Pinot, and a Summer Breeze

2010-06-28T15:17:00.000-04:00

Cookouts are a novelty in New York City. Growing up in Atlanta, I completely took it for granted that we had a grill and private outdoor space, where we could gather together to eat, drink, and laugh to our hearts' content. Here, however, I can count the number of people who have the luxury of a patio or backyard on one hand. My friends Emily and Mike are some of the lucky few -- in fact, they not only have a terrace but also a killer view of the Hudson River from their place on Riverside Drive. And fortunately for me (who is starting to go a little stir-crazy in this hot city), they invited a group of us over for dinner last night.

I was too busy enjoying the breeze and the view to snap a photo,

but Toni managed to get one of the table.

After some wonderful strawberry-lemonade cocktails that Emily made, we sat down to a meal of lime-cumin-and-coriander marinated lamb chops that I brought from my stash, an herb-and-balsamic couscous filled with fresh parsley and basil from Emily and Mike's flower pots, and some yummy sea salt kettle chips. We'd decided upon a pinot noir pairing: Bo brought a bottle of Au Bon Climat, while Alexxa and I both brought a Mark West from Sonoma County.

Ours was an '08.

To shake things up, we decided to chill one of the West's. The wine professed to have lots of bright cherry and raspberry notes, which were present in the chilled wine, but it wasn't until we drank the other bottle that we noticed its spicy, dry, and dusty qualities (fairly common characteristics of Sonoma wines, I've found, especially their syrahs): in both cases, the wine's high acidity went beautifully with the meat. Then, when we popped the Au Bon Climat, we experienced the real treat of wine themes - it was a totally different wine, light, fruit-forward, and with this beautiful black pepper finish.

I talk big, but this is what I actually look like when I drink wine...

As the sun was setting, we dug into Mike's homemade ice cream sandwiches (apparently a theme this summer): M&M and chocolate chip cookies, with coffee ice cream in between. We sat around the table a bit longer, savoring the warm summer breeze and watching the red moon as it rose, before we all headed home to our stuffy apartments for the night. These moments make me love New York -- this city reminds me how much joy the little pleasures bring, when you take the time to notice them.

Lime-Cumin-and-Coriander Lamp Chops

3 garlic cloves, smashed and coarsely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp ground pepper
2+ Tbsp olive oil
21 (1/2- to 3/4-inch thick) lamb chops

Whisk together garlic, cumin, coriander, lime juice, salt, pepper, and oil and transfer to a sealable plastic bag large enough to hold the lamb (or to several individual bags). Add lamb and seal bag, then make sure the lamb is evenly coated. Marinate at room temperature, turning bag occasionally, for about 45 minutes.

Heat charcoal grill and cook lamb in batches about 3 minutes each side for medium-rare. Transfer cooked lamb to a plate and let sit, covered with aluminum foil. Let the meat rest about five minutes then serve.

Recipe adapted from Gourmet.

Party Favors: A Freezer Full of Lamb

2010-06-24T14:50:00.003-04:00

This past Tuesday, SAVEUR hosted its first annual Summer BBQ at Pier 66 in New York for the magazine's chef and foodie friends. I spent much of the day running around in search of things like passion fruit puree for specialty cocktails for one of our advertisers, greeting chefs and their teams, making sure the bar stayed stocked, and trying to find someone to pull town tarps when it started to rain... All in all, I had a blast and officially love my new job.

Look for me and my gray hat.

Image courtesy of newyork.metromix.com

Once everyone had left and things were mostly cleaned up, we were instructed to take as much home as you can. Really? Yes. This meant bottles of wine and rum that were left over, goodie bags, freshly squeezed lime juice, you name it. People gathered what they could carry (which was nowhere near everything), but no one went toward a lonely little cooler full of lamb left to us by chef Victor Casanova. I feared the worst: that all of that beautiful lamb would be left to rot on the pier with no refrigeration. Sufficiently upset, I grabbed the whole thing on the way out, added a few bottles of wine and some cage-free eggs that another chef had left behind, and carried my heavy load out to the West Side Highway to grab a cab home.

The loot. It looked like I was hiding a

dead person in my fridge.

I was too tired when I got home to do anything but stick the meat in the fridge. So last night, I rolled up my sleeves, pulled out the boning knife, and got ready to remove the fell and french these suckers when something glorious happened -- I opened the bags and they were already beautifully cut into individual servings. All I had to do was separate them into single-person portions to freeze, readying them for easy thawing for the thousands of yummy lamb dishes I will be trying over the coming weeks.

Toni's freezer, full of meat (mine's already full).

I kept a few out for dinner last night at Toni's. Ana came over and I put the two of them to work on dessert (two Croatians + mistranslation of tsp/Tbsp + makeshift measuring utensils = a brand-new recipe for chocolate chip cookies). In the meantime, I steamed some rice and threw green beans into a pan with butter and almonds, a quick and easy stir-fry-and-steam method that I love when I need to quickly cook some veggies.

Looking tasty.

I heated up the grill pan, added some salt, pepper, and fresh thyme to the chops, and let them cook, about 3-5 minutes a side (I like medium rare, but everyone else likes their meat cooked more thoroughly). Since the oven was heating up for the cookies, I put the lamb in a pan to finish in the oven for a few minutes.

A square meal.

We sat down to eat our very well-balanced meal (Mom taught me well: meat, starch, green) and poured ourselves a glass of South African Sauvignon Blanc... not a traditional pairing, but it went nicely with the meal, as well as with the humidity. While we were eating, we put the cookies into the oven for about ten minutes. I went to check on them and at first thought they hadn't cooked at all. Then, I realized the bottoms were brown - the extra teaspoons of baking powder had created spongy cakes rather than a crispy cookies. Which was fine, as the plan was to make homemade ice cream sandwiches: their sponginess absorbed the melting ice cream and prevented the cookie from cracking as we bit into them.

Really wishing I had another one of these, right now...

And Toni made me promise not to make him fat...

Creative Time: Zucchini Latkes and Roasted Tomatoes

2010-06-18T17:43:00.001-04:00

Recently, I've had no appetite for the standards: chicken, beef, pork, even shrimp, bore me. And they are everywhere, in every grocery store, on every takeout menu, in every recipe search. How is it that a nation as big as ours has such a small repertoire of meats? One of my earliest childhood memories is a market in Provence; I was about six or seven years old when I saw skinned rabbits on sale for the first time.

Market in Aix-en-Provence.

Image courtesy of http://daleeurope.wordpress.com/

Meat hasn't really bothered me since, especially since I grew up eating venison, pheasant, and duck that my dad would bring home every now and then. What bothers me is how limited I feel on a day to day basis when I want to branch out. I think of the supermarkets in Rome, how even the plastic-wrapped meat aisles included options like veal, rabbit, mutton, and more. We just don't eat like that in America, at least not enough of us do for the big guys to cater to diversified diets.

I was feeling this sentiment rather urgently the other day while I was brainstorming a menu for a small dinner party. I just couldn't bring myself to cook another boring piece of meat, so I didn't. Instead, I found inspiration on Amanda Hesser's food52 site: these delicious zucchini latkes. I felt that the cakes would serve as a sort of homemade veggie burger, rich and thick enough to serve as a main dish. I used three large zucchini, two potatoes, some parsley, and lots of lemon zest in the cakes. I added two eggs since I'd essentially doubled the recipe, so it ended up requiring about a half cup of bread crumbs to hold it together. S&P on top, and I tossed them in a pan with heated olive oil and butter.

Fresh out of the frying pan.

Wanting to bring some color to the spread, I chose a side dish that I could broil in the oven: roasted grape tomatoes and garlic. The dish was simple enough, requiring me to check in on them only periodically as I stood over the stove, frying my zucchini.

A little pop of garlicky-red and thyme

made a pretty table accent.

We ended up with a very lovely spread: the zucchini cakes and tomatoes, as well as a loaf of bread, some peanuts (I was craving salt), and some charcuterie with cheese. With some light white wine, the meal was extremely refreshing and satisfying - both in terms of my palate and my mental well-being. We were so full, in fact, that no one had room for dessert!

Served with a dollop of Greek yogurt

and a big squeeze of lemon juice.

A Lovely Day, A Lovely Meal: The Cloisters, Lamb Chops, and Panzanella

2010-06-16T17:27:00.001-04:00

On Thursday afternoon, I got the best piece of news - I had a summer Friday the next day! One week in and already a day off! I decided I didn't want to waste a gift of a day, so I took myself out to the Cloisters, a museum of medieval architectural remnants and treasures that actually integrates the elements into its structure. (I can hardly fathom the effort and thought that went into its making!)

An image of one of the four cloister areas that was reconstructed once rescued from its original location.

Having rented the audio guide, I learned that the site—in Fort Tryon Park in Northern Manhattan—was chosen because of its isolation, so that it could reflect the actual setting of a Benedictine monastery, slightly removed from society. John D. Rockefeller, who acquired the Cloisters and the Park and gave them to the Met and the city of New York respectively, even bought the strip of land in New Jersey across the Hudson to prevent development and preserve the serenity of the location.

That's called having a lot of money.

And doing good with it.

So, after having enjoyed such a perfect day, I decided I wanted to make the perfect meal. I had finished this month's SAVEUR on the subway, and two recipes had struck me - lemon-thyme lamb chops and panzanella, or bread salad. The recipes were both rich with fresh and easy-to-find ingredients, many of which I already had around the house. (Most importantly, it would use up the half of a baguette I had left from dinner the night before). I made a slight tweak to the panzanella, using balsamic as I'd finished off the red wine vinegar. Eh voila! As beautiful, fresh, and simple as the way I'd spent my day.

My pretty spread, with a glass of Bordeaux to accompany.

Quick and Easy: Striped Bass with Lemon, Butter, and Parsley

2010-06-07T13:41:00.003-04:00

After a wonderful date night at Marea on Saturday night, where I ate my way through four courses and topped it off with a macchiato, I did not sleep. Call it heartburn from too much food or heart palpitations from the coffee or an unhappy coincidence - I was suffering on Sunday from lack of rest. So when it came time for dinner, I wanted something that would be simple and easy, no grocery shopping involved.

Marea, photo courtesy nydailynews.com

I had thawed the striped bass fillets Stevie had given me the night before, so I knew that they would be the central component of the meal. Looking in the fridge, I found: lemons, garlic, parsley, zucchini, lettuce, and half of an avocado. Most of these ingredients consisted of produce that was looking not quite as fresh as it did two days ago and thus needed to be used.

Check out the beautiful globular zucchini I found at the market

Stevie had pan-seared her fillets in butter and topped them with an herb sauce, and since I happened to have a lot of parsley on hand, this seemed like a good (and quick) way to prepare my fish. I heated some butter in a frying pan and added some chopped garlic. Once I rinsed the fish, I dusted the fillets with a bit of sea salt. When the butter was hot, I added them to the pan and let them sit in the fat, two minutes per side. To finish them off, I stuck the pan in a 500-degree oven for another two minutes, then promptly removed and plated, drizzling them with the pan juices and some freshly squeezed lemon, topping with loads of parsley.

Seared bass with garlic butter, fresh lemon juice, and parsley

Meanwhile, I was thinking about lunch. This June, I have placed a little budget bet with myself, and one of the ways I have been keeping on track is by bringing my lunch. Sounds simpler than it is, I'm afraid, especially given how busy and tired I usually am in the evenings. However, creativity prevailed, and I decided to slice and stir fry the zucchini... until I realized I was already frying fish. I quickly changed course when I discovered some frozen peas, and rather than try to thaw and risk overcooking them, I threw them (ice crystals included) into a saucepan with my salted zucchini. Although I had to periodically remove excess liquid, the result was a pot of crisply-steamed green vegetables. I threw some fusilli into boiling water, and my own version of pasta primavera was done in 15 minutes.

Dinner is served!

In a salad bowl, I added the lettuce and avocado, tossing it with the rest of the lemon juice, s&p, and a dash of Croatian olive oil. All of this took about 20 minutes between prep to table. That, combined with the lovely green palette, made this a very satisfying, light, and healthy meal that did not keep me up at night.

Fresh and Tasty: Summer Salad with Rose

2010-06-05T18:35:00.000-04:00

To celebrate the first Saturday of the summer, my friend Anna came over for brunch. I had lots of yummy lettuce leftover from the Greenmarket, as well as some Jonagolds. I threw those together in a bowl with some dried cranberries, slivered almonds, and a hunk of blue cheese, tossing them with my homemade balsamic vinaigrette. Anna brought some San Pellegrino and an avocado, which I sliced and served on the side with a few hunks of bread. A splash of rose and we were set - fast, easy, fresh. That's what summer is all about!

our lovely spread

Gifts: Wusthof Boning Knife

2010-06-04T16:13:00.002-04:00

A few weekends ago, my mom and aunts came in town to celebrate my aunt Laura's 50th birthday. I had a blast showing them around "my New York," namely Williamsburg and the Lower East Side, since they'd never been to either area before. We dined at Diner and Fatty 'Cue, ate at Frankie's Spuntino, drank at Delmano, and sipped at Alphabet City Wine Co.

The family at Fatty 'Cue

Needless to say, I had a blast rolling from one meal to the next. So, imagine my surprise when a thank-you gift arrived in the mail. Not that I shouldn't have expected it - my aunt Laura is a giver, not a taker. It took me 7 years to get her to take a trip to come visit me because she's not one to take a lot of time for herself, so even though the weekend was her celebration, she couldn't quite let it be all about her.

THE GIFT!

However, the gift was not a little one, but a fantastic Wusthof boning knife! I've been wanting one for awhile, ever since my knife skills class a few months back. I hate buying discrete chicken parts, but without a boning knife, it is difficult to split a whole chicken while raw. I usually end up roasting the whole thing and pulling it apart with my fingers. No more! With my next, and every, chicken, I will think of you, Laura. Thank you.

Dinner Party: Cous Cous, Cocchi, and Clafoutis

2010-06-03T22:51:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I had the good fortune of going to the Union Square Greenmarket on a weekday. Rather than avoid the Saturday crowds, I was able to easily peruse the produce available and brainstorm the dinner I had planned with Stevie and Georgia.

Union Square Greenmarket

Despite Stevie’s warning “I'm willing to bet the farmer's market does not have any summer squash yet either,” I emerged victorious with beautiful yellow summer squash in tow, as well as some fantastic shell peas I couldn’t refuse. I knew I had a half of an onion and some carrots in my fridge, and suddenly my veggie dish came to life.

my pretty little shell peas

Georgia got off work a bit later, so Stevie and I started chopping and cooking. I began slicing my veggies while she split cherries into halves for a clafoutis. To sip on while we waited on Georgia (and the wine!), Stevie prepped her Cocchi Americano cocktails, made with orange slices, soda water, and Cocchi, a white wine aromatized with many herbs and spice - entirely refreshing in her very hot apartment.

mixology magic

Georgia arrived with wine and Kalamata olives in tow. For the cous cous, we heated up the water to a boil, added some salt and olive oil, and then added the grains. Once covered, the flame went off and the cous cous was left to steam for a few minutes. Stevie chopped arugula, diced olives, and zested/squeezed lemon into a bowl, which I garnished with some parmigiano. In the meantime, my little veggies were sauteeing in a pan over low low heat. The cous cous was added to the arugula salad, and supper was served.

greenmarket goodness!

Georgia had brought a lovely Pouilly-Fuisse and a Roero (a region in Piedmont that, like Barolo, uses the Nebbiolo grape to make wine). We sipped on those, digested, then transitioned to dessert. The cherry clafoutis came out of the oven just in time, and after she'd dusted it with powdered sugar and let it sit a moment, Stevie served us. A dash of lemon juice and it was deightful, tasting like a thick, eggy crepe with the fruit inside rather than on top!

a little sweet to round out the meal

Food Memories: American Flatbread

2010-05-30T12:15:00.000-04:00

I have not been together with two of my good college friends since, well, college. Not for lack of trying, but it just hadn't worked out. So, a few months ago, we determined that this Memorial Day weekend would be the time to meet up. Emily lives in DC and has an apartment big enough to host, so Laura flew in from Chi-town and I got on the bus from NYC.

Unbeknownst to me, an American Flatbread had opened in Clarendon, VA, near Emily's place. On the first night of our Midd kid reunion, then, we headed over to the pizza place that had begun in Vermont and been the place of many dinners out in the early years of college. Because "local" and "sustainable" are core tenets of the Flatbread philosophy, the menu was a bit different, focusing on ingredients from farms and food providers in the Virginia area.

the lovely ladies

We quickly settled on the sun-dried tomato and mushroom pizza as well as the New Virginia Sausage, featuring naturally-raised Bluemont pork in a homemade, nitrate free maple-fennel sausage (I'm quoting from the menu). The wine list wasn't extensive or impressive, but I did find a good bottle: a Muscadet Sevre et Maine from Domaine Claude Branger in the Loire called Terroir Les Gras Moutons. Great minerality from the rocky, granite-filled soil and left on lees for 12-14 months, giving it a ripe, round, and powerful nose that hinted at the fruity and floral aromatics of a riesling.

ours was an '06

I tend to greatly discount the effect that going to college in Vermont had on the developments of my own palette and more importantly food philosophies. I spent years eating locally-sourced food in the college dining halls: apples from orchards right down the road, cheese from Vermont dairy farms, and more.

Middlebury College

To quote from the college's site, "Dining Services sources food products from 47 Vermont food producers and also purchases small amounts of fresh produce from the student run organic garden. Twenty-five percent of food at Middlebury is local, and we divert 75% of food waste from ending up in the landfill through our composting program." Sustainability is at the core of how Middlebury literally functions, from food systems to energy to research.

Sometimes a reunion makes you remember things you never even realized you'd forgotten.

Celebrations: Fish Tacos for a New Job

2010-05-26T10:18:00.001-04:00

To celebrate my new job at Saveur, Stevie invited me over for some lovely fish tacos. Josiah, her bf, had caught a 22-lb. striped bass a few nights before out on Long Island, so she had obviously been brainstorming delicious and creative ways to use up all that goodness filling up her freezer. Enter tacos - fresh, tasty, and easy.

the necessary fixings: radishes, avocado,
cilantro, onion, and lime

Stevie was busy julienning her radishes when I arrived, so I took over fish duties. I gently massage the flesh until it began to flake and fall apart. In a separate bowl, I threw together some whole wheat flour, salt, pepper, and paprika, then heated some olive oil in a pan (we had decided to fry in olive oil based on the recent Saveur article that focused on olive oil's frying capabilities). Each batch was cooked for about a minute and a half each, then set to drain on some paper towel, sprinkling them with lemon juice while they rested momentarily.

the fish, resting

Then, assembly time. Stevie heated oil in a separate pan to fry up the tortillas, which resulted in crispy, half-moon taco shells. We filled our individual tacos with fish, avocado, radishes for some kick, white onion, and cilantro, then drizzled lime juice over each one. Stevie had brought a Chinon rose for us to sip on - 100% Cabernet Franc and delicious. What a way to celebrate!

'ze tacos, before they were devoured

Get Well Dinner: Homemade Pizza

2010-05-20T14:39:00.000-04:00

I spent yesterday laid up in bed after a trip to the doctor. So that I wouldn't have to worry about dinner - and to make me feel better - Alexxa brought over the makings for homemade pizza. She'd paid a visit to Fornino, the pizza spot on Bedford Ave, and picked up a variety of other ingredients and accoutrements in the neighborhood...including pizza tiles from the Brooklyn Kitchen.

pizza tiles, keeping warm in the oven.

She and Toni set about prepping everything while I laid around and watched. They rolled out the dough onto some flour and cornmeal. The first they topped with thinly sliced potatoes, caramelized onions, fresh oregano, fontina, and parmigiano.

pizza bianca

We ate this pizza hot out of the oven before we set to making the other. The caramelized onions were rich and delicious, a sweet contrast to the saltiness of the fontina. The dough was thin and crispy, and I loved the touch of the cornmeal.

In the meantime, we got the red sauce cooking on the stove: tomato sauce, 2 spoonfuls of tomato paste, salt, white pepper, black pepper, and lots of rosemary. Alexxa had bought thick slices of prosciutto, which we laid over the tomato base. She topped it with the rest of the fontina and we let it cook in the oven until the edges browned and the cheese bubbled.

prosciutto pizza. not sure which was better!

Simple but delicious, and it made me feel so very good.

Dinner Party: Moroccan-Inspired Meal

2010-05-17T11:50:00.003-04:00

I recently read an article all about olive oil, describing the breadth of aromas, flavors, and places of origin. It included several recipes for sauces, dips, and other miscellaneous condiments from around the world. I was especially struck by a recipe for a pistachio chutney and ended up using the recipe as the foundation for last week's dinner party.

pistachio chutney, just out of the food processor

The chutney had a Moroccan vibe to it and called for a pairing with game birds. Since I always end up deciding what to cook at the last minute, I wasn't able to call ahead to pre-order my pheasant, as every butcher in town suggested. So I went with the next best thing and bought a 4 lb. cockerel from Dickson's Farmstand Meats at Chelsea Market. I spent a fair amount of time discussing preparation methods with the butcher.

spice blend

We settled on a spice rub to complement the chutney - equal parts coriander, cinnamon, cumin, and curry, with some salt thrown in for good measure - then cooked at 350 degrees for 15 minutes per pound (although I blasted it up to 425 for the last 10 minutes so the skin would get nice and crispy).

crispy little booger, resting

For the rest of the meal, I settled on a hummus with crudites as an hors d'oeuvres (made with a rich, spicy olive oil that Toni had given me from one of his neighbors in Croatia), fingerling potatoes boiled with butter and thyme as a contorno, and a strawberry rhubarb crumble with vanilla bourbon ice cream.

les ingredients

We noshed on the homemade hummus while the cockerel was cooking, sipping on my favorite summer rose, a Touraine from the Loire Valley. During dinner we moved from white to red - I'd paired a Vermentino and a Gamay (Beaujolais-Villages) with the meal, and both accented the slightly spicy dish without overpowering any of the flavors. And the fruitiness of the Beaujolais provided an excellent transition to my slightly-too-sweet-so-thank-goodness-there's-ice-cream dessert. I shouldn't have used a recipe that called for rhubarb only - didn't adjust for the sugar in the strawberries!

still delicious.

Overall verdict: success. Everyone ate at least 3 helpings and walked away stuffed!

Brown Bag: Tian Tian Chao Mian and White Gourd Drink

2010-05-10T13:18:00.001-04:00

Last week I was terrible about bringing my lunch, which resulted in spending way too much money on crappy Midtown food. This week, I am making a conscious effort to be a better brown-bagger and eat food I actually like. Today's lunch is leftover 'everyday fried noodles,' which I made last night from the most recent Saveur issue, paired with my extra white gourd drink that I bought last week.

My trip to Flushing has inspired me to introduce more Asian cooking into my diet - and this happily coincides with the fact that:
a. the two most recent issues of Saveur have focused on Chinese/Taiwanese cuisine, and
b. I own a wok.

This recipe was super simple to execute; the heavy lifting was mainly in the prep work, which really should be done before the wok is put on the flame. It's a quick process, and you need to be able to dump and go. For the noodles, I could not find lo mein, so I used buckwheat soba noodles instead (high in protein!), which added some color to the dish.

As for the meat, I luckily live by the amazing Marlow & Daughters. I showed up at 5pm on a Sunday and to my dismay saw no ground pork. I asked the butcher what I should use as an alternative, and he replied 'No worries! I'll run back and grind you some fresh meat.' Happy sigh.

Everyday Fried Noodles, or Tian Tian Chao Mian

1/2 small seedless cucumber, peeled and julienned

Kosher salt, to taste

3 tbsp. canola oil

1 medium carrot, julienned

1 onion, thinly sliced

1/4 lb. ground pork

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 1" piece ginger, minced

6 scallions, minced

1 1/2 tbsp. dark soy sauce

1 1/2 tbsp. rice cooking wine

1 1/2 tsp. sugar

2 cups bean sprouts

6 oz. dried flat noodles, boiled and rinsed under cold water

1 tbsp. Asian sesame oil

1. Toss cucumbers and a pinch of salt together in a small bowl; let sit 5 minutes. Heat a 14" wok (or stainless-steel skillet) over high heat until it begins to smoke. Add 1 tbsp. oil around edge of wok; swirl to coat bottom and sides. Add carrots and onions; cook until softened, about 1 minute. Transfer to a plate; set aside.

2. Return wok to high heat and add remaining oil. Add pork, garlic, ginger, and half the scallions; cook, breaking pork into small pieces, until browned, 3–4 minutes.

3. Add soy sauce, wine, sugar, bean sprouts, and carrots and onions. Cook, stirring, until hot, about 30 seconds.

4. Add cucumbers, remaining scallions, noodles, and sesame oil; cook, tossing, until hot, about 1 minute. Season with salt. 

SERVES 2 – 4 

This article was first published in Saveur in Issue #129

Food Memories: Vanilla Bourbon Ice Cream, or "Milk Punch"

2010-05-07T15:32:00.000-04:00

I have spent the past few days planning for a dinner party that will be taking place chez moi this evening. Well, mainly planning the dessert part. I wanted to make ice cream, which means deciding on flavor combinations and executing it a few days in advance. Since rhubarb is at its peak right now, I thought a strawberry-rhubarb crumble would be good, paired with a deliciously simple vanilla ice cream.

Then my simple idea, as usual, became more complex. I thought bourbon would be an excellent addition, and that led me to nutmeg. Suddenly I realized I was making a family favorite: every Christmas, when my mom's side of the family gathers together, we start the celebrations with what my grandfather dubbed "milk punch." Which basically means we begin drinking bourbon milkshakes at 11am. Nothing better.

"Milk Punch" Ice Cream

1 3/4 cups heavy cream
1 cups skim milk

1/2 cup light cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

3 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup bourbon (I used Evan Williams)

1. Combine creams and milk in a medium saucepan.

2. Add the vanilla to the cream mixture and bring to just under a boil over medium heat. Remove the cream from the heat and steep, covered, for 20 minutes.

3. Combine the egg yolks with the sugar and salt in a mixing bowl. Whisk until the color lightens. Slowly whisk 1/4 cup of the hot cream into the egg mixture to temper it, then whisk the egg mixture back into the cream mixture. Cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon without running.

4. Remove from heat and strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve. Add the vanilla extract and the bourbon.

5. Chill completely (at least 4 hours, or overnight) in the refrigerator, then freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturers instructions.

- makes about 1 quart -
Adapted from Serious Eats

Food Trends: Pulino's

2010-05-05T17:51:00.003-04:00

Today I experienced one of those fabulous New York moments in which one feels totally on top of the latest trends and in-the-know about the most fabulous food in town. I opened the New York Times Restaurant Review and bam! Pulino's was featured. A few minutes later, the New York Tasting Table arrived in my inbox. Pulino's again. Guess where I happened to eat dinner last night? I was wondering what all of those photographers were doing there.

The interior of Pulino's, before it got crowded

I was on my way to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and decided that it was early enough that I might be able to get a table. Looks like 6:30 is the perfect time to go - I wasn't even with my whole party of two and they let me grab a table. My waiter was wonderful, bringing me a taste of each of the roses on the menu when he wasn't sure which would be more similar to a Provencal style (the wine list is predominantly Italian). I ended up ordering the lighter Nebbiolo and sipped it while I waited. I eventually got hungry and decided to go ahead and order a few appetizers to snack on, hoping that they'd come out about when Toni would arrive.

Roasted Asparagus with Ramps and Rhubarb

First, I ordered what is possibly the most seasonal dish I have ever laid eyes on - roasted asparagus with ramps and rhubarb, served over black pepper mascarpone. Um, delicious. The asparagus and ramps were slightly warm and oily. Rhubarb added a tart kick, as did the black pepper in the mascarpone cheese. All of the flavors complemented each other well, and it continued to taste extremely good as it cooled down to room temp. (At this point, Toni had arrived and got to eat some too).

Baked Ricotta with Black Pepper and Orange Agrumato

Unlike Sam Sifton, I liked the baked ricotta, served hot in a mini cast-iron skillet. The cheese was slightly charred on top and sprinkled with olive oil and black pepper. I also enjoyed the orange agrumato that pervaded the flavor of the dish, giving it a faint but distinct citric profile. That being said, I love most cheeses and anything baked in an oven. Which brings me to the pizza. Pulino's centerpiece is a large, wood-fired oven which produces delicious flatbread pizzas. We ordered the basil pesto with stracchino and pine nuts to split, just the right amount after the bowl of cheese I had just polished off.

While we were munching and enjoying the saltiness, I eyed my neighbors' pizza and finally asked what they had ordered. The quattro formaggio with caramelized onions, they replied, want to swap a piece for a piece? After pretending to politely decline, I happily traded. The flavor was a little thin, but the sweetness of the onion was nice. It could have held up to a bit more cheese. Checking my watch, I asked for the bill and we hustled our way down to the Sunshine Theater... only stopping for ice cream on the way. Couldn't resist the Van Leeuwen truck. I even stuffed it into my purse so we wouldn't be late for the previews.

I LOVERMONT: Vermont Cheese

2010-05-04T14:13:00.006-04:00

I just had to post a link through to this amazing Newsweek article. Cabot cheddar cheese dominated my college diet, thanks to my lovely roommate who (despite her lactose intolerance) could not live without it, introducing me to the joys of white cheddar. I have been a large supporter of Vermont cheese ever since.

loving her cheese.

With amazing dairy farms and developments in sustainable agriculture at places like Jasper Hill Farms, the cheese industry is stronger - and more delicious - than ever. Go Vermont!

Food Adventure: Day Trip to Flushing for REAL Chinese Food

2010-05-03T11:18:00.004-04:00

Yesterday afternoon, because Stevie had a car in the city for a few hours, we went on an escapade - to Chinatown in Flushing, Queens. Right where the 7 train ends, there is an entire area of the city that is full of Chinese signs, faces, and strange meat and produce lining the streets. Stevie had scoped out a few places she wanted to go, namely to try steaming pork buns filled with mouth-burning broth, amazing pork and cabbage ramen soup, and the coup-de-grace - hand-pulled noodle soup from Langzhou Handmade Noodles.

The menu. We selected roast duck hand-pulled noodles.

This little noodle shop was located at the corner of Main Street and 41st in the equivalent of an underground food court. Stevie's got a few germ issues which definitely came to the forefront in this cramped but delicious-smelling space full of various food stalls, but she happily overcame them to watch this man knead and pull noodles before our eyes:

The noodle man, kneading

He kneaded the dough, pulling it like taffy, until it formed long, thin strands, which then were thrown into a pot with duck bones and delicious vegetables. Stevie even wandered over to touch the dough. This took some effort and miming, since the man and his assistant did not speak English and the shop's translator had his head down in a corner, but she eventually succeeded in bringing over a small lump of dough for us to play with. The soup was served, steaming hot, in a plastic bowl which we had to share (another phobia that was gallantly overcome).

The soup in all its deliciousness.

While sitting and munching through noodles and meat-covered bones, Stevie spotted a green soda can with a strange fruit on it. She tried to ask the lady working the counter what it was - which means we ended up ordering a can to share:

"white gourd" canned beverage

This might have been the best decision of the day. Whatever white gourd is, it tasted like liquid caramel corn, whose chilled sweetness really complemented the soup. We took turns sipping at it until I took a sip and the ominous end-of-the-line slurping sound surfaced - at which point the can was turned over to its rightful orderer. We then got two more to go.

This is what happens when I say "smile."
Pure unadulterated joy on that face.

Dalmatian-style Dinner

2010-04-20T18:17:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, I was treated to a lovely dinner, made Croatian-style. Cooking fish has long been one of my worst phobias, one I inherited from my mother. I am always afraid of the fillet falling apart or over-/under-cooking the tender flesh. However, fish is a staple of Mediterranean cuisine, especially for countries along the coast.

Toni went to the source for the perfect recipe - his mom and grandmother. We then paid Whole Foods a visit to pick up ingredients: whole branzino, red potatoes, vegeta (a vegetable-based seasoning from Croatia), parsley, and garlic. I also picked up frozen blackberries for dessert.

We began by making potatoes dalmatian style - krumpir na dalmatinski način - which were essentially pan-roasted red potatoes. These we thinly sliced sliced and layered in a small saucepan, which was lightly coated in olive oil. In between layers, we added parsley, garlic, and vegeta. We covered the potatoes with a bit of olive oil, a bit of white wine, and water, then set to simmer over medium heat until the water evaporated.

Meanwhile, I prepared a blackberry cobbler while Toni set to work on the fish. He salted the exterior and, after slicing it open down the sternum, sprinkled the inside with sea salt and pepper as well. The fish was placed in a pan covered in aluminum foil and lightly coated with olive oil. Both were set in a 350 degree oven to cook - the fish for 10 minutes each side, the cobbler for an hour.

I paired the meal with Florian Mollet's Sancerre, a beautiful, delicate, crisp Sauvignon Blanc - in fact, one could call it perfection in a glass. The minerality perfectly accented the sea-salty goodness of the branzino, and I was sad when I finished the last drop. We cleaned our plates, making sure to eat even the cheek meat... I had never thought to do so before, but apparently it's the most tender part of the fish. After an heirloom tomato and avocado salad, we finished the meal with a still-bubbling cobbler and bourbon vanilla whipped cream. Summer has arrived!

Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream

2010-04-19T12:58:00.003-04:00

What's an amazing way to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon? A walk over the Williamsburg Bridge to grab some ice cream at Lulu & Mooky's. I'd read about this hidden gem last year, but never made it that far south to try it. Now that Bowery has become my new transportation hub since moving across the river, I had no excuse.

Lulu & Mooky's brightly colored store front...

"over 10,000 flavors"

Within the industrial space, customers are greeted by a large list of various fruit purees and flavor essences, rather than the traditional vats of ice cream or gelato that one expects to see when walking into an ice cream store. Two pink standing mixers sit on the short, steel countertop, fitted with bowls of water. And here's why it gets so entertaining - once you choose your flavor combination, the ice cream man becomes a scientist. He adds an eyedrop of your chosen essence (lemon) and a precisely-measured squirt of puree (coconut) that he pulls out of his refigeration unit. Once combined, he adds a cup of liquid (I assume the actual cream mixture) to the bowl.

Yes, it does say liquid nitrogen ice cream

And then (the suspense is building), he sets the bowl over the water bowl in the mixer and turns it on. Once everything appears scientifically combined - or perhaps just when the ingredients are well-integrated - he whips out a giant measuring cup, which he proceeds to fill with a certain amount of liquid nitrogen... I could not see how much because liquid nitrogen is obviously so cold that it creates a fog around it.

If you can't tell already, I am extremely excited at this point. The liquid nitrogen was added to the mixer, and suddenly everthing was surrounded by steam. As it subsided, I saw that the liquid in the bowl had solidfied. The scientist returned to his role of ice cream man, scooping out the freshly-made deliciousness, filling my cup with two giant scoops of lemon-coconut ice cream. Now, I need to go back for the chocolate...

It's the same consistency as Dippin' Dots - dream come true!

Celebrations: Chicken Tagine and Birthdays!

2010-04-18T22:34:00.001-04:00

Even before I left for South Africa, my friends Stevie, Alexxa, and I had been trying to get together for a dinner to celebrate our birthdays, which all fell within weeks of one another. This past Thursday, we were finally able to make it happen. We gathered at my house to cook and drink wine. Not a bad way to celebrate for three food-lovers.

The lovely ladies

We'd decided to make an impromptu chicken tagine - Alexxa found an easy-to-execute recipe that used a lot of the ingredients that we already had lying around in our kitchens. She went to pick up three thighs at the Meat Hook, as well as some ginger and onion. Chez moi, we browned the chicken in my clay pot (thanks to my brother's lovely Christmas present, I knew that clay was necessary for emparting a few key characteristics to the slow-cooked flavor of the dish), then removed the meat from the heat. We then threw in some white onion and garlic and let them simmer until soft. Then we added the spices - cumin, curry, coriander, cinnamon and shredded garlic - letting them coat the vegetables. In went chopped pineapple, which I had lying around the house. Next, San Marzano tomatoes and chick peas went into the pot, along with some homemade chicken stock. Finally, we added the chicken back to the dish and some farro and let everything meld together over medium heat for about a half hour.

Stevie and I had each paired a wine with the meal. She had brought a 2008 Kabinett riesling from Schloss Lieser, inspired by Eric Asimov's recent article on the vintage.

Schloss Lieser, available at Crush Wine & Spirits :)

I served up a Glen Carlou 2006 Grand Classique, a Bordeaux blend from South Africa, gifted to me upon my visit to the winery last week!

At Glen Carlou

The 2006 Grand Classique, the winery's flagship wine,

a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec, and Cab Franc.

The riesling was a lovely wine leading up to the meal - easy drinking, light, a bit of acidity, and the aromas of the wine blended nicely with those coming from the pot on the stove. However, with the tagine, which we served with preserved lemon and parsley, the Carlou won hands down. The meat-y quality of the wine, which opened up into a smooth, almost chocolate-y dish of itself, was the perfect complement to the protein-and-fruit-heavy tagine.

The final dish

Happy birthday ladies!

Down South: Grillades and Grits

2010-03-30T10:37:00.006-04:00

End of March and it’s cold and rainy in New York City. Even though I cannot wait for spring and summer produce (and the correlating lighter meals that I plan to create), I am still craving hearty comfort food. Add to this craving a sincere pleasure in cooking all day long on lazy Sundays, and you get a grillades and grits.

I had been planning to do a lamb-based dish in honor of Palm Sunday, but when I went to my neighborhood butcher, I discovered they were out of stock – waiting to receive the big shipment for Easter Sunday, I suppose. Looking around at the other cuts of meat, ranging from free-range chicken to pork belly and tenderloin, my eye was drawn to a bowl of beef chuck toward the front of the display. At $10.50/lb., it was right in my price range for the day. I had the butcher give me a pound of the grass-fed meat – enough for dinner for two and lunch the next day.

the meat, post-browning

Thus inspired, I gave my daddy, the meat master, a call and asked him how exactly one goes about preparing grillades. He consulted his John Folse (the Encyclopedia of Cajun & Creole Cuisine) and listed off the ingredients, while I tried to memorize them on my way to the store. I had most of the things I needed, just had to grab a red pepper, garlic powder, a can of crushed tomatoes, and a jalapeno. Then, within an oven-friendly pot, you brown the meat and set it aside. You bring up the roux; add the veggies, then tomatoes, red wine, stock, and the herbs. Bring to a boil and throw into a 350° oven for an hour and a half to two hours.

the ingredients

The key to good grillades, he underscored, is the roux. Unlike a gumbo, the roux for grillades is darkened, which means you cook it longer, without letting it burn. I did not realize how time-intensive the process of bringing up a roux was. After browning the garlic-powdered meat and chopping the vegetables, I added 1 part olive oil and 1 part flour to the jus of the meat. I stirred it together over medium heat…for 45 minutes. For 45 minutes, I stood over the heat of the pot, scraped down the sides, made sure it didn’t boil or burn, and caressed it into a happy and healthy roux.

bringing up the roux

Finally, when it turned a healthy shade of medium brown, I added chopped onion, garlic, red bell pepper, and celery to the roux. Dad had warned that the new additions might make the smooth roux slightly clumpy, but I didn’t end up having that issue. I let the veggies simmer for about 10 minutes, still stirring continuously, before adding stock, crushed tomatoes, jalapeno, and red wine (I used a delicious Cahors, which I ended up drinking with the meal as well – the right amount of leather, liquorice, blackcurrant, and earth). I let this come to a soft boil before adding thyme, more garlic powder, salt, pepper, 3 bay leaves, and some freshly chopped basil. I gave it a stir and popped it into the oven for 2 full hours.

browning the veggies

When the time came to serve the grillades, I prepared the grits. Mom had sent me home at Christmas with a package of stone ground cheese grits from South Carolina that were surprisingly quick – boil the water with a tablespoon of butter, added the contents of the package, reduce heat, and simmer for 12-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. When they were ready, I plated the meal, grits topped with grillades meat and jus. I was so excited that I forgot the parsley garnish, not that I missed it.

digging in...

South Africa, part II: Rust en Vrede

2010-03-22T16:20:00.003-04:00

Friday night, I was supposed to cook dinner for Stevie for her belated birthday present, but my partner-in-crime/sous chef came down with the stomach flu. Instead of canceling dinner plans altogether, we decided instead to cook together at her place. She and Josiah would provide the sustenance, I would bring dessert and birthday wine. I won't go into detail about how deliciously perfect the steak with bone marrow butter was, since Stevie has already done so. I also won't talk about the dessert, since I've already described it before. What I want to talk about instead is the wine.

For Christmas a few years ago, my mother gave me a wine club membership, where 3 unspecified bottles showed up on my hypothetical doorstep each month. Each wine came with a distinct recipe to pair with the wine, which still proves at times to be an interesting exercise in flavor combinations that had never before occurred to me. Some of these were easy drinking, less expensive wines, while others were a bit nicer and meant for laying aside.

One of the latter was a 2004 Rust en Vrede Estate Blend. I'd earmarked this wine months ago as one I wanted to try with Stevie, and her birthday/the delicious steak dinner that she had planned/the confluence of my upcoming trip seemed the perfect occasion to pop it. And boy was I right. The wine was a luxuriant, velvety, thick, balanced blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, and Merlot. It was big, bold, and fruity, with subtle tannins from the bottle age that rounded it out.

Josiah, who is a sommelier, said that it was the first South African wine he'd been truly impressed with - mostly, he thought, the wines tasted like an ash tray to him. And to be fair, there was an element of ashiness to this wine, which must be representative of the terroir, but it was so beautifully counterbalanced by the depth of the Cab, the fruit of the Merlot, and snazzy spice of the Shiraz that the wine just tasted...smooth.

Rust en Vrede is a 315 year old vineyard that was founded by in 1694 by the then Governor of the Cape, Willem Adrian van der Stel. The winery specializes exclusively in red wine production, producing full-bodied reds aged in new oak. The wines coming from this estate seem to defend the notion that Stellenbosch may be the premier region for red wine production in South Africa. The 2004 Estate Blend was pure deliciousness. Even the experts approved. Happy birthday Stevie!

Homemade Chocolate Hazelnut Ice Cream

2010-03-20T17:35:00.002-04:00

I think I have mentioned this before, but I could live on ice cream alone. And ever since I was a little kid, I have wanted to make my own, so last summer I invested in an ice cream maker. Best. Decision. Ever.

There is a serious element of patience and forethought involved in making ice cream. I have to know that I will want it a day before I can eat it, which is both a good and bad thing. It is certainly an exercise in restraint - at lease until its time to reap the rewards. Then, it's no holds barred.

I've enjoyed following many recipes that have led me to some amazing flavor combinations - from Greek frozen yogurt to salted caramel - but I am getting ever more confident in my ability to forge my own personal creations. Inspired by the same August 2009 Gourmet issue, I decided I wanted to try to make my own version of a chocolate hazelnut ice cream.

Ingredients:

2 cups hazelnuts (8 ounces), toasted, cooled, and skins rubbed off
1 cup sugar, divided
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups heavy cream, divided
2 cup skim milk
3 large eggs
1 bar 60%+ dark chocolate, such as Green & Black's, finely chopped

equipment: ice cream maker!

Toast hazelnuts and let them cool. Once you can handle them without roasting your fingertips, rub off the skins as much as possible and place into a food processor. Pulse hazelnuts with 3/4 c sugar and salt until finely ground. Transfer to a heavy medium saucepan with 1 c skim milk and 1 1/2 c heavy cream and bring just to a boil, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let steep, covered, 20 minutes or more, depending on how deep you want the hazelnut flavor to be. Strain mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, then return to cleaned saucepan.

Return to saucepan, then boil over medium heat 2 minutes, whisking often (mixture will be thick). Remove from heat and add chocolate, stirring until melted and incorporated.

Meanwhile, bring remaining milk, cream, and remaining 1/4 cup sugar just to a boil in a small heavy saucepan, stirring occasionally. Lightly whisk eggs in a medium bowl, then add half of hot milk mixture in a slow stream, whisking constantly. Pour back into saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until custard almost coats back of spoon. Do not let it boil, or your eggs will cook through.

Pour custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl, then stir in cooled chocolate-hazelnut mixture. Chill custard, stirring occasionally, until very cold, 3 to 6 hours. Freeze custard in ice cream maker for 20 minutes. Make sure to scrape any of the hardened chocolate into the machine, as it will form little chocolate chip nugglets as the cream is churned. Transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to firm up.

Then, DIG IN!

Adapted from the August 2009 Gourmet recipes for Salted Caramel Ice Cream and Gianduia Gelato

Celebrations: Vegetarian Birthday Dinner at Dirt Candy

2010-03-17T13:12:00.008-04:00

Yesterday was my friend Noa's birthday, so I decided I wanted to take her to dinner. In the four years we've known each other, I have set a precedent of thinking way too hard about how to feed her, either at restaurants or at home. Noa keeps kosher, so she tends to eat like a vegetarian in the restaurants that us laymen frequent. Although she is perfectly capable of taking care of her own food intake, I like to mother-hen her (perhaps a bit too much) by always making sure there's something on the menu that she can eat.

Enter Dirt Candy. This vegetarian restaurant opened in the East Village in 2008, and I'd been wanting to try it for awhile - then repeatedly forgetting about it. While racking my brain for fun places to take Noa, the memory lightbulb went off. Take her to Dirt Candy! She can eat everything on the menu!

The premise of the tiny 12-seater on 9th street is simple: vegetables are delicious nuggets that come from the earth. They are "dirt candy." Chef and owner Amanda Cohen is right there to greet you when you walk in; she seated us herself when we arrived. And apparently we were lucky - they don't usually have room for walk-ins.

The menu is small and quirky. There was one "snack," four starters, and four entrees to choose from. All seasonal produce, and every item was named for its key ingredient.

Noa and I ordered the Jalapeno Hush Puppies to start - the soft, fried cornmeal was served with maple butter, which melted right off and onto our fingers. My only complaint is that there were five of them for two of us. Then we decided to split two entrees. Noa wanted the Corn and the Eggplant, so that's what we ordered. And we were delighted with her choices.

There is a definite southern flair to the menu. The Corn dish was essentially gussied up grits (not that I am complaining, I adore grits,especially with cheese). These were stone ground and tasted like they'd been cooking up all day. They were speckled with full corn kernels from the corn cream, microgreens, pickled shiitakes, and huitlacoche, which is a fungus that grows on corn also known as the "corn truffle." Served on top was a tempura poached egg, cooked to perfection.

As delicious as these dishes were, I preferred the Eggplant. The presentation is not as beautiful as that of the Corn - there is no vibrant yellow and green to perk the eye. However, if there were to be a single dish to embody the notion of "dirt candy," I think this would be it. Eggplant - sliced, pickled, breaded, and fried - was served a top black olive fettuccine, tossed with fresh ricotta, and served within a pool of basil broth. Eggplant jam was used as a garnish.

If this sounds like a dark, monochromatic plate of food, it's because it was. The dirt-colored food was even further underscored by the indigo plate it was served upon. But oh my, what amazing flavor combinations. I loved that the eggplant was pickled before it was fried, because it added an element of depth and saltiness that fried eggplant tends to lack. And the basil broth mixed with the eggplant jam was to die for.

Though stuffed, it was Noa's birthday after all, so we visited the dessert menu. We immediately nixed the popcorn pudding since we'd just consumed several heads of corn. Instead, we concentrated on the sweet potato puffs - served with sweet potato sorbet, brown sugar ice cream, and sour cream ice cream - and the ice cream nanaimo bar - sweet pea and mint ice cream and cream served between layers of chocolate. We mentioned both to the waitress and her reaction was immediate. The Nanaimo Bar. Hands down.

She brought it out with a candle on top - she'd caught onto the fact that this was a birthday date. I snapped this shot, the only one of the night, before we dug in (unfortunately, she'd already blown out the candle before I got to it).

The sweet pea and mint ice cream was delicate and refreshing, but I wish there had been more of it. The cream was reminiscent of the kind put in ice cream cakes from Baskin Robbins (not that this stopped me from eating my share), and the chocolate cookie at the bottom was a bit mealy. We cleared the plate, however, and ended the night with a bang - sweeping hand gestures left a bit of wine on the floor, and on me. Mazel Tov!

South Africa, part I

2010-03-16T11:24:00.000-04:00

I am gearing up for a trip to South Africa at the beginning of April to celebrate my birthday - I bought the ticket months ago and have slowly been setting up my itinerary. Everyone keeps asking me if I am planning to go on a safari and visit the lions. The answer is no. This is a wine trip.

Thus far, I am planning to spend a few days in Cape Town, hoping to wander the town, stumble upon good food, hike Table Mountain, and potentially drive down to the Cape of Good Hope to see penguins. Then, I am driving to Paarl to spend a few days visiting Backsberg, Glen Carlou, and a few others.

Paarl

Then, on my birthday, I leave the solo life behind and fly to Durban to visit a good friend of mine from college, Cheryl, who moved back this past year. That part of the trip-planning I've left up to her :)

see left. ignore my outfit.

I have been brushing up on my South African history, particularly as related to the wine industry, and I thought I'd share a few interesting nugglets of information here. If you are a history buff, keep reading.

1652 - the Dutch arrive at the Cape of Good Hope and set up an outpost on the Europe-India trade route

1659 - the first grapes on record are pressed

1679 - Simon van der Stel arrives and imposes the first wine-making regulations

1685 - van der Stel acquires Constantia, South Africa's first internationally renowned winery, producing wines that were highly favored in the courts of Europe (Vin de Costance was Napoleon's favorite wine)

1688-90 - After fleeing Europe, 200 French Huguenots establish Franschoek (the French corner, in Dutch), another wine-growing area in the Western Cape

throughout much of the 18th and early 19th c - SA establishes itself as a leading exporter of port- and sherry-style fortified wines, especially benefitting from Napoleon's Continental System, which blockaded the British

post-Napoleon - sale crisis due to the low quality of wine, whose high yields and overproduction could not compete with the leading wines of Europe

late 19th c - phylloxera and mildew epidemics reach SA and ravage vineyards

the phylloxera louse

start of the 20th c - export trade market dries up, further decreasing production

1918 - Koöperatieve Wijnbouwers Vereniging, a winemakers' cooperative, was founded to begin establishing wine controls

1924 - KWV given legal authority to fix the price of wine used to make brandy

1925 - the Pinotage grape was created by crossing Pinot Noir and Cinsault (known as Hermitage in SA) by viticulturalist Abraham Izak Perold

1940 - SA government fully transferred the supervision of the wine sector to the KWV, allowing it to determine wine prices, permissable yields, varieties, planting rights, and production methods, as well as to control the surpluses

1948 - apartheid established in SA

1959 - first call to boycott South African goods, including wine exports, as a response to apartheid

1980s - boycott fully established internationally

1992 - KWV quota system abandoned, granting winemakers greater creativity and flexibility to create quality wines of various depth and complexities

1994 - apartheid officially ends with the multi-racial democratic elections won by the African National Congress under Nelson Mandela

Mandela wins!

1994-now - huge increase in international demand for SA wines, as an affordable, quality commodity; this is reflected in the increased plantings of international varietals throughout the winegrowing regions of the Western Cape

More South Africa-oriented info hopefully to come over the next few weeks. Test on Tuesday.

Sources: Andre Domine's WINE; wikipedia; and various (see links)

From the Fridge: Mushroom Walnut Crostini

2010-03-11T11:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday evening, I wanted to make a quick and easy dinner after my book club. Inspired by the beautiful dispaly of winter veggies at Whole Foods, I decided on a stovetop ratatouille, with eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, and a bit of canned tomatoes (I hate buying fresh in the winter). However, I find that sauteeing eggplant is one of the more arduous processes in cooking, one that absorbs all the oil in pan, leaving precious little for the other vegetables. My alternative - a slow-cooking method that cooks the eggplant separately from the zucchini and squash, which require far less cooking time. All are brought back together when the tomotoes, oregano, thyme, and s&p is added. This in turn sits and stews in a covered pan for about 20 minutes.

In the meantime, I was a hungry girl. I didn't get home until after 9, and dinner wasn't getting into my belly any time soon. So, I decided I needed a little something something to snack on while I was waiting. One of my favorite combinations is mushrooms with nuts (or sausage, but that can be a bit decadent...), so I pulled the i-need-to-be-used-or-i-will-go-bad package of button mushrooms out of the fridge, chopped them up using my recently acquired knife skills, and threw them into another skillet over medium heat. As they browned, I cut my garlic into little brunois and added them to the pan - I have a hard time cooking sans garlic. I then grabbed the can of walnuts from my pantry and chopped them up coarsely. Into the mix.

As the flavors began to come together, I realized the texture wasn't. I wasn't looking for a crumbly mess to top my little baguette rounds, so I poked my head back into the fridge and saw a little spoonful of mascarpone (pron. mas-car-pon-ay, a personal pet peeve, if you couldn't tell) left over from a tart I made a few weeks ago. The perfect bind, with its creamy, light consistency and slightly tart flavor. Once ready, I dumped all of the ingredients into my Cuisinart with a bit of kosher salt, deafened myself momentarily as I hit the pulse button, and then transferred the mix to a serving bowl while I waited for the toast points to toast up. It spread beautifully onto the bread, and the flavor was woodsy and nutty with a crackle of salt (I sprinkled some extra grains on top for good measure). So delicious that I ended up licking the bowl.

And with that, dinner was served.

Pizza alla Romana

2010-03-10T18:06:00.001-05:00

Since getting over last week's stomach plague, I have been on Italian food kick, which for me really seems to entail a lot of pizza. When I lived in Rome, pizza was my favorite (savory) thing to eat... I won't deny that I could live on gelato alone, but I do like to throw in a good thin crust, bufala-covered pizza for good measure.

Most people have a crust preference. Some are die-hard Neopolitans, where pizza is said to have originated, with its doughy, medium-thickness crust. Others like the pizza alta, high pizza, the thick, Sicilian-style pizza that leaves a bomb of dough in your belly. It's been translated in the US as deep-dish pizza, but I wouldn't dare compare the cooking styles. Pizza alta is so yeast-filled that the dough rises up on its own, leaving its edges without the pan-seared edge of an American-style deep dish.

And there's Roman pizza. Thin, crispy crust, cooked in a wood-fire oven that leaves the edge with a bit of char that complements the goo-i-ness of the cheese, whether fior di latte or mozzarella di bufala. I am obviously a lover of pizza alla romana, with a few favorite places scattered throughout the center of Rome and even out to Ostia beach.

However, I have yet to find my satisfactory pizza in New York, although I've been on the hunt for quite some time. That's not to say I haven't had good pizza. I enjoyed the saltiness of Motorino's pizza, although the dough was a bit too thick for my taste (I do like to be able to polish off my personal pizza without feeling sick afterwards - another point for thin crust). And I was a great fan of Gnocco's Emiliana - fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce, prosciutto crudo, arugula, and parmigiano - until it left me ill one evening.

I've even enjoyed Farinella's pizza a taglio, which reminds me of my many pizza meals on the go from the local farinaio (baker) in Rome - the long, rectangular baking sheets of pizza covered with all sorts of toppings, then cut with scissors and sold by weight. I love the pizza rosso more than anything, with its thin layer of tomato sauce and oregano.

There are plenty of others to try in New York, but Atlanta's Baraonda is still the closest thing I've tried to what I am looking for. Maybe they'll open a branch up here soon. Or maybe I'll just hop a flight to Rome for a day - I've done it before :)

Saltines and Ginger Ale...

2010-03-05T13:41:00.000-05:00

Been sick and surviving on the above. More when I can think about food without nausea...

Ginger & Greens Soup

2010-02-26T13:54:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, with leftover collards and other random bits in my fridge, I decided to pull together a version of ginger-greens soup, which I love to nosh on when I don’t feel well, or at least need some cleansing comfort. I had been trying to entice my friend Stevie to come over for dinner for the past few days, but she hadn’t been well. Armed with this soup, I tried again, inviting her for dinner. I could hear slight hesitation in her voice when she asked, well, what are you making? Oh, I don’t know, I replied, just some ginger-and-greens-soup-with-homemade-stock-and-then-a-citrus-salad-on-the-side. I relayed this quickly, hoping that both the force of my words and the actual good-for-the-soul meal would convince her to come. It worked. She came, she ate, she took some home. The next day, she called - I feel better.

Sick Soup, for Stevie

1 large yellow onion
1 large sweet potato
1 bunch spinach
1 bunch collard greens
1 fist-sized stalk of fresh ginger, chopped*
2 cups good-tasting vegetable broth**
fresh lemon juice
olive oil
sea salt, plus more to taste
freshly ground black pepper

*I learned a great trick from Gourmet.com a few months back – you use a spoon to scratch off the skin of the ginger. Its rounded edge allows you to get around the crevices of the gnarly root without losing too much of the flesh.

**As you peel and chop and gather veggie discards, throw these into a pot with about a quart of simmering water. Add salt and any other herbs, and you will soon have homemade stock! I sometimes like to throw in a bit of white wine as well, if I have any lying around. Or, you can freeze the bits until you are ready to make stock, if you already have some lying around.

Chop the onion and cook it slowly in the olive oil, stirring occasionally, over low heat until soft and golden. (Throw the skin, ends, and additional misc. pieces into the pot of water.)

Meanwhile, peel and dice the sweet potato and put it in a large soup pot with 4 cups water and a pinch of sea salt. Thoroughly wash the greens, chop them coarsely, and add them to the pot, along with the chopped ginger. (All of the discarded peels and stems can go into the stock pot.)

Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer the soup, covered, for 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are completely tender. Add the caramelized onions when they are ready. (Back at the stock pot- After about 30 minutes of simmering, strain the veggie broth, removing the veggies pieces and floating detritus.)

When the vegetables are soft, add the vegetable broth. Stir in the lemon juice to taste and some fresh-ground black pepper. Add some salt if needed. I also like to shave some parmigiano on top, if I’m feeling fancy.

Serves 2 hungry girls, with leftovers for the next day.

This recipe was adapted from Heidi Swanson.

Coconut Macaroons and a very big thank you

2010-02-21T15:21:00.001-05:00

I've had quite the weekend. Friday night, while in the midst of grocery shopping for a potluck at a friend's house, I managed to lock myself out of my apartment - I left the keys on the kitchen counter, under the bag of fruit, and my door locks automatically. Shoot, I thought, then proceeded to do what the landlord recommended when the office was closed and something went wrong. I went downstairs, propping open the front door, and went across the street to the restaurant, which is owned by the same company, expecting someone to have keys to let me back in.

I walked in about 8:30 on Friday night, perhaps the busiest time of the week for a popular restaurant, let alone a well-known neighborhood institution. I went straight to the head of operations and carefully explained to the GM Tom that I needed help getting back into my apartment across the street. He looked at me like I was crazy - no keys there. He kindly sent me down the road to the Peter Luger parking lot, where he said I would be able to find the super; he cautioned me, however, that his English was limited. I thanked him and walked quickly down the street, for fear that the door to my building would be knocked shut at any moment.

I found Vladimir right away. Just not the keys to my place. He showed me his keychain - only the front door and apartment, 4, 5, he said. I reiterated and gestured - I am apartment 8, please help! He only shook his head, pointed to the office, and said, 8am Monday. Office opens. Arguing was fruitless, as he continued to shake his head and say he did not understand me, as I listed all the reasons I thought it unacceptable that there was no alternative. Before I could get too frustrated, I ran back across the street and up the stairs to try my door again. Nothing.

As I began to cry, my neighbor opened her door to let a deliveryman in. I asked her if she had any idea who I should contact, and she invited me in to give me the super's number. Too bad it turned out to be Vlad's. However, she kindly let me sit and take a breath, commiserating with me that life in New York is so hard and that the landlords have really got to be more responsive and...well let's just say, she had many things to commiserate about.

I went back across the street to see Tom again and ask if he knew anyone else I could call. He stepped aside and made a few phone calls, but came up with nothing. As I was holding back tears, a locksmith finally answered - I'll send someone within 20 minutes, he promised. I thanked Tom again and told him I hoped that I would not see him again that night. Then, I crossed the street and waited inside the entry hall to my apartment for the locksmith, who called to confirm the address and to say he was on his way. Then my phone died.

I waited patiently in the vestibule for the first 20 minutes, then began to pace, sticking my head in and out of the building, starting to cry. I feared leaving and heading over to my friend's (the potluck, and a place to sleep, were waiting), as I did not know whether he had gotten lost or if I would even be able to get back into the building. Finally, at 10pm, I grabbed a cab and headed over to Stevie's for a plate of pasta and some pjs.

As she poured me a glass of wine, I began to charge my phone and saw several missed calls. The locksmith! I quickly called back and asked in a desperate voice, where have you been? Missed connections - he insisted he'd been waiting for a half hour outside, and I said it was impossible, I'd been looking outside every five minutes from 9-10. We fixed a time, so that I could finish my pasta and wine and make it back in time to meet him. At 11:30 sharp, we met in front of my building, then I ran to get the front door key from Vlad, and we proceeded upstairs. I stood by and watched him try to pick the lock...which we soon realized was a high security lock that he would have to drill through and replace. 3 drill bits, 5 hours, and $582 later, I was in my apartment. Now I just have to figure out if I am able to take that out of next month's rent.

In the meantime, I am baking coconut macaroons for all the lovely people that went out of their way to help and comfort.

Recipe adapted from Gourmet:

4 large egg whites
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 (7-ounce) packages sweetened flaked coconut, adding the first, then more as needed
Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate morsels, melted

Mix the egg whites, sugar, salt, and vanilla together in a bowl. Add the first package of coconut. Keep the rest on reserve. Fill a level tablespoon with the coconut mixture and place on parchment paper, then pop in a 325 degree oven for 20 or so minutes. Remove from the oven and flip them over on the pan to let cool, so they don't stick.

macaroons cooling, pre-chocolate

In a large saucepan, bring water to a boil. Place the chocolate in a smaller pan over the hot water. Stir constantly, as the chocolate melts. Once melted, turn the flame off, but leave the chocolate over the heat. Dip the macaroons halfway into the chocolate, then let set on the parchment paper. Store in the refrigerator until ready to eat - or, in this case, package and give away.

Note: I found that the moisture ran through the coconut to the bottom of the bowl, so I had to keep adding extra coconut to blend together. You do have to strike the right balance - too much extra coconut, and it becomes dry, but too little, and the egg white mixture puddles out in the oven, forming a flat, crispy edge around the cookie.

Lenten Promise

2010-02-17T21:40:00.000-05:00

Most people make New Year's resolutions. I think that's cliche...er, rather, I might have been too hung over from a decadent night of champagne and lobster rolls to think about it. Lucky for me, today is the beginning of Lent, a second go-round for promise-making, with a nearer end in site. So here goes - for Lent, I promise to write more. I spend most of my time thinking about food, preparing meals, studying menus, tasting wines, but I don't usually get around to recording my thoughts, process, or insight. Which is a shame, as I both enjoy writing and being able to look back on what I've done (or in this case eaten). A big part of my phobia, as it were, is a blank canvas and a lack of chronology. That is, if I've skipped writing about a memorable something, I am less inclined to write about the next one, and so on. No more! These blogs might be less in depth at times, but at least they'll be a record. And who knows, maybe this promise will turn into a habit that extends beyond the Lenten season!

For now, I am off to practice my new knife skills that I learned at the Brooklyn Kitchen (although my mamma already taught me the best way to slice an onion). Cauliflower, chicken, and kale stir fry, coming right up! I think I'll have some leftover Cour-Cheverny with that too.