Flavors 518

I love the Gardner Museum Cafe Cookbook , because who doesn't want to cook luncheon pies and party like its 1890? I also love the photos in the book from the archives at the museum taken during many of Gardner's fancy dinner parties. Everyone looks so relaxed in their tight-fitting Victorian outfits. I made the ratatouille pie recipe last night from this cookbook. I have to admit to having felt a bit stressed. I remember when I was in college and reading in the bath a short story in The Atlantic about a doctor who got to Friday night and collapsed and thought to himself "This is professional life?" I remember thinking "That can't be right, clearly you finish all your school assignments and the whole rest of life is easy." Where I got this idea I can't ever recall. When I was a kid it was always all this pressure to do well at each thing so that you could get onto the next thing ("You better be perfect in high school so that you can go to co...

We didn't travel anywhere for the holidays this year, and so far it has been really relaxing. I was wondering why people make the holidays into such a crazy thing, but then I thought of my favorite holiday things in the past. In 1990, my grandmother gave me a dollhouse she had made that had real electricity, actual newspapers and magazines, bacon and eggs cooking on the stove and a whole family complete with a dog and a pet turtle. It was awesome, and I am sure it was probably stressful for her to make that whole thing herself in addition to all that she did for all the other people in her life. The fact that I remember this fabulous dollhouse and that Christmas in general 22 years later must point to the fact that it is all worth the stress - at least maybe for relatives of small children. But for me now, let's hear it for the least stressful holidays ever. Brought to you by: French press coffee (so, so delicious). I got the Bodum 8 cup Brazil French Press for Chris...

Our Thanksgiving festivities really started on Tuesday night when I drove up to Oscar's Adirondack Smokehouse in Warrensburg to pick up our boneless half ham. It easily fed five adults and two kids with plenty leftover. It was an easy drive from Saratoga where I am now working, and the shop was very cool to visit. They have all kinds of cured meats, cheeses, and sauces. I also picked up some summer sausage that we added to our charcuterie plate (filled with other goodies from The Cheese Traveler ). My new coworkers seemed to find my ham errand very funny and referred to me as a courier (as one is to valuable paintings that travel from an art museum). They also asked me if I put a seat belt around the ham, which wouldn't have been that crazy considering how great their products are. It was a really delicious ham, and totally worth the trip up there (you can also purchase Oscar's products at Roma Foods and Cardona's ). Rounding out our Thanksgiving table ( what no tu...

I have been a huge fan of Saratoga Spice and Salsa Company for years (or as we call it, the hot sauce store in Saratoga). Recently I mentioned it to Deanna of Silly Goose Farm, and it was a shame that she didn't know what I was talking about. It is an awesome little store in the middle of town with more kinds of hot sauce than you might even know existed. They have a tasting booth set up, and in the past when we weren't able to decide which one to get, we were able to try all of the hot sauces and get a sense of it before making a commitment (as a sly marketing move they also sell bottles of water now). Here are some things we've tried and really enjoyed from there:   Marie Sharp's Hot Habanero sauce because it has carrots in it, which sweetly complement the heat just a bit.  Their own salsas are very good including the Tequila Lime, and regular medium level heat salsa. I am pretty sure we once tried a red wine salsa they made, but I don't see it listed on ...

As part of Tuesdays with Dorie using the book Baking with Julia , I made the hazelnut biscotti. As with the pecan sticky buns , I tried to find someone else's house I could make them at since my husband is allergic to nuts. In this case, my friend Elizabeth agreed that I could use her kitchen. I mixed the dry ingredients all together at my house, and the wet ingredients (including eggs from my boss's backyard chickens), but then I realized I was late in going over there and skipped putting in the sugar. I got over there and she made a lovely cocktail with Hendrick's and an orange liqueur. It was delicious and refreshing. Their house is older with a lot of character, in contrast to my house which is new and might require less upkeep but might have less of a story to tell too. It is fun to see the inner workings of other people's kitchens - what awesome gadgets they have, cool books, different products or missing elements (my coworker doesn't own a fine mesh siev...

I was told John Roberts would force me to do this: Fortunately, broccoli stir-frys are terrific.   Adam Gopnik has more tips to deal with our scary new constitutional era.

My sister made me some bacon wrapped asparagus. Here is the approximate recipe . She mixed together some brown sugar, olive oil, sesame oil, garlic, jalapeno, salt and pepper, rice vinegar, and sesame seeds and brushed that all on the asparagus. Then, she wrapped the asparagus in bacon, and I am pretty sure she sprinkled on a little more brown sugar before putting it in the oven for 400 degrees and 30 minutes. Delicious! It has some Asian flair and a nice sweet and salty mix. Well played sister of mine, well played.

Last night, we had over our new friend and her husband, of JessJamesJake fame, who I met at the All Over Albany party . I thought it would be a good time to use our pasta machine and I totally pimped out my husband's cooking skills ("Do you guys want to come over and eat his pasta sauce?" "Scott, you are going to make some pasta sauce for some people who live around the corner from us!").  The good thing about having people over is you can make desserts that you wanted to make, but thought were too decadent for a house with two people in it. I bought the new Pioneer Woman cookbook when I went and saw her speak in NYC in March. We wanted to make the coffee cake, and this one she posted in 2009 is pretty similar to the one in the book except you'd swap out the instant coffee crystals in the filling for cream cheese, and put a different icing on top (more of a ganache), but the cake is the same. I made some doughnuts from that book back in March. Anyways...

Chicken Kiev -- butter filled fried breasts of chicken -- deserved its fashionable status in mid-century America based on taste.   But in another sense it deserves its contemporary degraded status as food for hospitals and bad dorm cafeterias.   Tasty the classic recipe may be, but unhealthy is also is.       Fortunately, Jacques Pepin has a solution.   The lovely and gifted Ms. Garlic purchased his new Essential Pepin for my birthday, and the title ain't lyin'.   Among the book's many virtues is that Pepin has a good instinct for knowing when tweaks to classic dishes can eliminate fat and calories without major sacrifices of flavor.   His updated Chicken Kiev -- baked, not fried, and with a filling from which butter can be reduced to taste -- is a perfect example. Nor is it difficult.    Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.    Melt a little butter in a skillet over medium heat, and add one large...

I am always on the hunt for lunch ideas to eat at the office . My last idea was wrap sandwiches and that worked out great for a while. On our plane back from D.C. this week, I bought a Martha Stewart publication "Whole Living" . It is like "Living" but without the crafts and with more of a focus on health. I read in the magazine about quinoa and kidney beans veggie burgers. I am always looking for ways to use up things in our pantry, and if I can turn things we just have sitting around into healthy and readily available lunches, than my week is all the better. I didn't follow the recipe exactly. After a bit of Googling I found this recipe , and it seemed a bit like making meatballs only with vegetarian ingredients. I cooked up some red quinoa we purchased at the NutBox in Brooklyn (love that place). I cooked up some kidney beans we got way back from our CSA in the fall. I cut off some scallions from my totally awesome scallion plant I got from my friend ...

I'm thrilled to be one of the people chosen to write out the recipe for this week with Tuesdays with Dorie using the book Baking with Julia . If you check out what other people are saying about this recipe , they've summed it up pretty well - it is a sweet crust with a savory filling with the salty bite of prosciutto. Could it use some vegetables? Possibly some nutmeg? All the other bloggers who said that may be right. I do think though that the ricotta filling (I did buy ricotta made with skim) mixed with eggs is probably lower in fat than a quiche filling made with heavy cream - so that is a bonus. Overall, we liked it and my husband even immediately got up for seconds. It is a nice hearty dish that seems ideal cut up in slices and served at room temperature for a dinner party. It would probably be good for a brunch dish with a nice green salad. The other bloggers are right to point out that the fillings can easily be changed up. One problem I had: I read in Thomas Keller...

I love Valentine's Day. Are you one of those people who hates Valentine's Day and thinks it is just for marketing purposes and making single people feel bad? If I bake you a red velvet heart shaped whoopie pie will you shut up about it? I am a subscriber to Martha Stewart Living magazine, and while the December holiday issue makes me feel anxious every year, the February Valentine's issue always gets me excited. The cards! The amazing desserts! The cheesy little presents you can make for your love! I know Caitlin Flanagan is weirdly against date night for couples in relationships, but some people who are in long-term relationships or married actually do enjoy their partner's company - imagine that! Now, I am a person who likes to stay home for New Year's Eve ,  but I always, always like to go out on Valentine's Day. And by this I do not mean actually on Valentine's Day - that would be too crowded, no doubt. I mean the 13th or the 15th, when it is eas...

The winter holidays obviously can cause a whole range of emotions in people - they are weighed down with memories of past Christmases, especially if people or things are now gone. Also, places that mean one thing on other days of the year can have other connotations on Christmas. They are weighed down with expectations, pressures, and comparisons. The sentence "But its Christmas!" seems so much of a stronger thing to say than "But it is President's Day!" It seems a bit like weddings - what other thing has such strong expectations attached to it because it happens to be a certain day on the calender? That being said, most other Christmas breaks I have had I have traveled farther than this year. The college where I work does a campus shut down during this week to save money with energy costs. It is the sort of thing where you don't want to know what day it is, because you don't want to know how fast it is going by ( like our honeymoon ). It makes me thin...

I have heard of cookbook addicts who have a problem - that is people who constantly buy cookbooks and never use them. These individuals seem to get fed up with themselves and say things like "I am going to cook my way through that entire cookbook all in subsequent days". Who have you ever known (besides Julie Powell) who has actually done that? My approach is more balanced. I don't buy a crazy amount of them, and what I do have I actually use. We keep them on a shelf in the dining room so we can never forget which ones we have. Also, sometimes if I have nothing to do for an evening I might browse through one I had never looked at very closely before. You can always revisit them, and some times we go through phases where we revisit cookbooks we've had for a long time. This browsing through them turns out to be useful when one random night you really wish you knew what to do with some leftover chicken, and you remember some interesting quesadilla recipe you read fr...

So it goes without saying that signing up for a share with a CSA fills your house with vegetables. Some things are obvious what to do with like eggplant (eggplant parm!) and tomatoes (panzanellla!), and some things are less obvious (bunches of basil bigger than our heads). And while careful thought and planning can lead to amazing results with different and unique dishes, sometimes it is easier to just throw it all together and hope for the best. And in that spirit I decided to make a soup. First I chopped up leeks, both red and yellow beets, both yellow and orange carrots, huge amount of cabbage, garlic, and crookneck squash. I put in the pot some butter and canola oil and added the leeks and garlic. I cooked that down a little and added  the rest of the vegetables and salt and pepper. I added some oregano and red pepper flakes. I threw it a ton of chicken broth, good amount of dry vermouth, and some water. I put in a bouquet of oregano, thyme, sage, and dill from the CSA. At thi...

Is Junior Soprano right in his evaluation of dandelion's flavor? Well, I wouldn't say he's entirely wrong. We've been greatly enjoying our first CSA -- this week's highlights included eggplant made into a delicious parmigiana, cabbage turned into great slaw, and a wonderful squash soup. Tonight, the main thing left from last week's bounty was dandelion greens. We used Mark Bittman's recipe , making a salad with a bacon, shallot, vinegar and dijon dressing. Essentially, a classic frisee aux lardons salad without the egg and with dandelion serving as the bitter green. The results? The good news is that dandelion greens are extremely nutritious. The bad news is that they...don't taste real good. I like bitter greens more than most -- escarole, broccoli rabe, love 'em. So I finished my salad, but I wouldn't claim it was with relish. Even if you like bitter greens, the intensity of dandelion bitterness is tough to take. In the fu...

I made this to take to our friends' house for 4th of July. It is from the book The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook . It is so good that when I gave Scott a tiny piece to try he actually got back up to try more. He also called me a genius which was pretty funny. I think what is so good is the flavor from the buttermilk and the nice texture from the brown sugar. It really has a great, tangy, unique flavor. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease and flour a loaf pan. Sift together two times 2 cups cake flour, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon mace (I didn't have so I used pumpkin pie spice). In a measuring cup whisk together 4 eggs and 1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract. In another bowl, beat together 2 1/2 sticks butter, 1/2 cup light brown sugar, 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, and 2 tablespoons regular sugar. (I think this combination is important for the overall flavor, and I think if you used all dark brown sugar you would overwhelm the flavor of th...

I made watermelon gazpacho from this book . My coworker brought in a watermelon the other day andsaid she didn't know what to do with it, and I think there are actually a lot of things that can be done with watermelon - salsas, cocktails, sauces, sorbets. It is not just for eating out on a picnic table with the ants. As I was wandering around the grocery store looking for the ingredients I was also thinking of a firecracker popsicle inspired cocktail I had at New World Bistro last Fourth of July weekend, and I realized I was just trying to recreate that meal of a year ago subconsciously, and that seemed sort of funny to me. Anyways so you have a watermelon and you chop it up and purée it. I used my immersion blender we got as a wedding present, and I can't believe how fast and effectively it works. It helps to start out with a little bit and add 1/4 cup cider vinegar and 1/4 cup water, and then once that is puréed add more watermelon in batches until it is all liquified. ...