Last weekend I was out and about doing “research” for an upcoming piece on beer, and so I called my buddy Mike to see if he wanted to join me on one of my stops. He did. When I picked him up, he gave me a tour of their new (not so new, really, but the first time I’ve been there) place, including their enviable barn/shop/still room out back. They plant a few things just…
Category: Technique
So dinner yesterday was not soup, actually. It was steak. The roads improved a bit, so the family set off to buy a Christmas tree. And returned with strip steaks. (And a tree, sure, but let’s concentrate on the important stuff). There were also maitake and brown birch mushrooms. Instead of just making sweet potato fries, I busted out the saladacco and spun a tuber into lovely thin strips which I then double-fried into appealing…
First, some things cassoulet is not. Fussy. Difficult. Complicated. Intimidating. Very good for you. Some things it is? Very good to eat. Peasant food. Food for people who really should have spent most of the day chopping wood with their bare hands in order to work up a need for the caloriffic ordnance that this dish also happily happens to be. Cassoulet- notwithstanding the sputtering, indignant protestations of traditionalists- is beans slow-cooked with a shitload…
For the last two Thanksgivings I have thrown down 11-course extravaganzas (links here and here; menu for second link here) which took days to make and hours to eat. This time around, we were to have the meal in Vermont, and I just couldn’t deal with having to bring lots of components and more than a few tools, gadgets, and plates to do it there. So I just did a straight-up all-on-the-plate at once dinner,…
I’ve been getting earnest requests lately for authentic Chinese and Indian food; up here in the sticks the choices are pretty slim, especially after a decade in the Best Ethnic Takeout City in the whole world™. I tried some Chinese the other night, but got lazy and basically combined two dishes’ worth of food into one and made a muddy (if decent-tasting) mess. The key there is to feature each ingredient in its own dish,…
This is from a while ago, actually- back around the time I made merguez wontons in turkey phở. The leftover merguez mixture- after a day or two in the fridge to get extra sausagey- was the base for a pasta sauce with the last of the local heirloom tomatoes, garlic, onion, herbs, and white wine. I reduced it to a rich thickness, and tossed in a bunch of Israeli couscous. Just ridiculous. If Chef Boy-ar-dee…
We continue to have an incredibly mild and beautiful November, and in-between food- not too heavy, not too light- is working famously. I came across a decent-looking garlic sausage (with pistachios) recently at a store while looking for something else. My first thought was cassoulet, but since we’re out of duck confit that had to wait. And since I’ve been in a bistroey mood of late, the lentils in the pantry took care of the…
Returning with the cooler weather (though the last few days have been utterly resplendent Indian summer, flirting with low 70’s) has been my desire to bake bread. I kind of fell out of the habit this summer, but now I’m fully back into it, this time with some slight modifications to the process that fit better with my equipment and the rhythms of my life. I’m still using the live starter that Andrew gave us,…
My article in this month’s Chronogram mostly consists of a few recipes designed to make the traditional feast a bit less stressful and a bit more tasty. There wasn’t room in the piece to cover all the dishes mentioned or photographed, so I’m doing it here. Anybody with a question about any of it should leave a comment and I’ll try to help. First, the poached pears. I bought some local, organic Seckel pears at…
I’ll keep this quick, since I have a date with my mattress. For my November article in Chronogram (out on the first) I did a Thanksgiving recipe piece that sort of remixes the traditional dinner in what I hope is a more interesting and lower-stress way than many people are used to. A central ingredient is phở made from the turkey carcass and used to flavor several other components of the meal. The intensely aromatic…