Phillipe and Lea hosted a party for John, and several people brought some food and wine. Phillipe made fantastic boeuf bourgignon and a sublime gratin of cauliflower; Liz curated the perfect salad from her garden and made her signature cashew cream to pour on gorgeous fresh berries for dessert (there was also cake.) I made the raw sweet potato salad, twice-baked tiny blue potatoes with fromage blanc, chives, and truffle oil mixed in and baby…
Category: Wine
Another city trip, and finally we were able to schedule a dinner at Kris’ house. Mary came, and Sujit and James, and Sujit’s Mom, and Susan. Kris made many courses, most very high-end riffs on simple comfort food. The amuse bouche was a tiny bowl of puréed chard atop a dollop of parmesan cream- like creamed spinach but super refined. Next came ham and eggs- a poached egg with super fancy jamón and a red…
This time at Rick and Julie’s house, where they’ve been playing with sous-vide cooking, using a vacuum sealer and a hot water bath to slow-cook meat and fish so that they’re perfect all the way through. In this case, New York strips that he had dry-aged for a month in a special fridge, then cooked at 128˚ for 4 hours, each in its own bag, then seared up in a pan to put a good…
Christine got me a big Paella pan for my birthday back in November, and we finally got around to using it. First off, I made homemade merguez and chorizo the day before, and let them sit in the fridge overnight before forming the meat around wooden skewers and grilling them up. Shrimp shells made a broth with vegetables and wine, and red pepper, peas, shrimp, mussels, clams, and bay scallops rounded it out. Everybody brought…
I finally made it over to Kris and Ken’s place for dinner, and it was great. Sujit and James joined us, but alas Mary and David did not since his flight from Paris was so late due to bad weather. In order, the courses that Kris prepared were as follows: first, sea bream with celery root purée and caramelized garlic, enjoyed with a 1986(!) Pouilly-Fuissé “Les Reiss” from Ferret which was fascinating, and then a…
Danny got hold of a 1978 Mouton Rothschild, and thus a dinner was called for. John and Debi came too, and brought a 1979 Pichon-Lalande. I made more of the cannelini-artichoke mixture, and spread it on the toasted homemade bread, then topped each one with a quarter of an artichoke (alla Romana, of course) and a drizzle of truffle oil. These were insanely hearty and great with the 2004 Quintarelli “bianco secco” that John brought…
Today I happily bought some monkfish, which we haven’t seen in a while, and wrapped it in blanched collards, then put it in the iron pan with a bit of duck fat and olive oil. While it was cooking, I peeled, cubed and steamed an acorn squash. Once cooked through, the rolls came out and a pan sauce ensued: some of the carrot/burdock purée from yesterday, juice of half a grapefruit, a pat of butter,…
I got home later than I had hoped, but still had time to get these pretty tender. Browned, then simmered in wine, tomato paste, soy sauce, onion, dried porcini, and chard stems, served on barley with the strained and reduced cooking liquid and red cabbage braised in more wine and soy, they found a special place between beef-barley soup and corned beef & cabbage. We tried two different 97 Bordeaux: a Pavillon Rouge de Margaux…