Award Winning Eater

"Stump the Cook" Stuffed Squash

2012-01-05T20:09:00.000-08:00

Lynne Rosetto Kasper's "Splendid Table" is a fantastic public radio show for "people who love to eat." I love the semi-regular feature called "Stump the Cook." Lynne is the "cook" and listeners try to stump her by calling in with a list of random ingredients they have in their fridge or pantry. They recite the ingredients on air and Lynne then has a few minutes to devise a dish using those ingredients.

I hate for food to go to waste and I don't usually cook from recipes so I play the home version of this game very often. Every once in a while, I hit on a dish that's a keeper. This date-stuffed squash dish made me a winner a few weeks back--so much so that I've served it a few times since and even adapted the stuffing for mushrooms that were part of our Christmas feast.

Brightly striped delicata squash start showing up at our farmer's market in mid to late summer and they stick around until into the winter. We generally stock up on them this time of year because they store well and retain sweetness. Better still, the tough skin softens nicely to an enjoyably edible texture when roasted.

Prepping them for the oven is a cinch--just cut them in half lengthwise and scoop out the guts and seeds. Brush them lightly with olive oil and place them into a 450 degree oven face down on a nonstick baking sheet.

Meanwhile, some of the stuffing comes together on the stovetop.

One red onion, roughly chopped goes into the skillet over medium heat along with three to four good sized garlic cloves cut in half. Sweat those until they soften and toss in two jarred roasted peppers also rough chopped (fresh peppers will work too, but I don't usually have those in my fridge and the flavor is not as strong). Season with salt and pepper and cook for 2 minutes more so the peppers are warmed through.

Once the veggies are cooking, add 3 veggie burgers to the oven (I used Amy's Organic Cheddar Burgers) on a separate baking sheet cooking each about 4 minutes per side.

Separately, chop up kalamata olives (I used two per squash half) and pitted medjool dates (three to four per half).

In my oven, two medium delicata usually take about 15 minutes to roast through. I take them out when the skin softens and yields to the touch. Remember that they will need to keep their shape sufficiently to hold the stuffing so don't over-roast.

When the squash are roasted and the onions, garlic, and peppers cooked, combine the veggies from the skillet, the dates, and the veggie burgers in the work bowl of a food processor. Pulse a couple of times until the stuffing blends together but retains a coarse texture as shown above (I pureed it the second time I made it. The flavor was the same, but it came out a uniformly brown mush that doesn't look so appetizing and had a less interesting mouthfeel).

Set the oven to broil, spoon equal amounts of the coarsely processed stuffing into the halved squash, and top each with 1/2 ounce of cheddar cheese and chopped olives.

Place the squash under the broiler for a minute or two--just long enough to melt the cheese. Remove from the oven and serve after they've cooled for a minute or two.

Christmas Cooking Marathon

2011-12-24T21:54:00.000-08:00

It's officially Christmas as of eight minutes ago. In just over fourteen hours, 20 of us will sit down for a feast that my dad started planning as the dishes were being cleared from the table after last year's Christmas dinner.

The menu was set a month ago after intense deliberations aimed at getting my dad to scale back his Griswoldian aspirations for the meal in light of his recent knee surgery. The shopping started last weekend and finished up this morning. The cooking began yesterday and will continue right up until all the guests are seated at the table.

From start to finish, we will probably eat this meal in less than two hours. It's at times hard labor, but always a labor of love. Here are a few highlights from the prep that's taken place so far.

The good folks at Applecheek Farm supplied us with this certified organic, pasture-raised, 4 lb pork butt to flavor the ragu that will coat the home-made pappardelle pasta that we will serve as our main course. Here I am cutting it up into 1 inch cubes to be marinated for 10 hours in red wine with garlic cloves and rosemary.

As you can see, we scored a piece with a generous layer of fat and some meaty bones; all the better to flavor the sauce with.

Meanwhile, my mom fried up some eggplant for her melanzana parmigiana.

Dad gets into the action, dumping an industrial-sized can of San Marzano tomatoes into the pork-stuffed pot along with some fresh parsley. Then it was into the oven for several hours of slow braising.

Back on the stovetop, red onions and green celery get into the holiday swing with some spicy Italian sausage from our friends who raise happy pigs at Tangletown Farm. We will stuff mushrooms for our first course with this heavenly pork.

The problem with cooking things ahead when you have an Award Winning Eater and his dad in the kitchen: we have a hard time not eating everything as we cook it. This sausage was no exception. Needless to say, our sample-as-you-go style has resulted in several fewer sausage-stuffed mushrooms being available for tomorrow's meal.

The sugar high I got from binging on cookies at my Aunt Carol's Christmas Eve party is starting to wear off so I better head to bed. There's a long day of rolling out pasta dough ahead...

Holiday Cookie Swaptacular

2011-12-15T20:40:00.000-08:00

In the hierarchy of my favorite foods, cookies are second only to pizza. Naturally, when Rory asked for a volunteer to host this year's second annual Holiday Cookie Swap, the Award Winning Eater stepped up to the plate (with considerable assistance in the holiday decorating department from Joslyn).

Memories of October's Award Winning Eater-sponsored, gluttony-inducing Dessert Pot Luck Party were still fresh in the minds of many cookie swappers. Nonetheless we managed once again to push the per capita dessert density at our home way off the charts. As the photo above shows, there were no fewer than 13 types of cookies--at least a dozen of each type--with only ten adults and three small children to consume them.

I wish I had a solid close-up of each cookie type, but they were all so good and I hesitate to post a picture that fails to give even a hint of the deliciousness each cookie possessed. I'm still working with a camera that isn't really great for food photography (advertising revenues haven't exactly been pouring in despite the blog's official sponsorship of the wildly successful aforementioned Dessert Pot Luck Party and my shameless promotion of WeightWatchers in the last few posts). Hopefully these shots will give you some idea of the cookie-lovers' dream that this gathering was.

Dawn made a strong showing with this tray of treats. In the back, mint chocolate crinkle cookies. In the middle we have the consistent crowd pleasers: a rolo melted on a pretzel topped with a pecan. The recipe (which we've also made before) couldn't be simpler.

Line a cookie sheet with pretzels, top each with a rolo, and place the tray in a warm oven preheated to 225 degrees.

When the rolos are soft to the touch, but still holding their shapes (i.e., not melting over the sides yet) take the tray from the oven and press a nut )e.g., pecan) or shelled candy (e.g. peanut m&m) of your choice onto the rolo, pressing down just hard enough so the heat-softened rolo smushes into the gaps in the pretzel.

Let cool to room temperature and enjoy

Because Rory, as organizer, laid down the rule that no chocolate chip cookies were allowed at this "holiday cookie" swap, Dawn disguised her rendition, packed with two types of chocolate chips, pistachios, and dried fruit under a hood of chocolate and vanilla glaze.

For the second year in a row, Karen's stuffed cookies were real crowd pleasers. Molasses and lemon were never so good together as they were in this cookie combo.

Karen also gets points for being the only one at the swap to circulate her recipe beforehand. Thus, I can share it with you:

Soft Molasses Cookies with lemon filling

Ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour

21/4 teaspoons baking soda

11/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

21/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1teaspoon table salt

11/2 teaspoon ground cloves

8tablespoons butter softened

½cup shortening

11/2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup unsulphured molasses

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

fIlling

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

4 tablespoon lemon juice

22/3 cups confectioners' sugar

Instructions

1. Whisk flour, baking soda, cinnamon,ginger, salt, and cloves together in medium bowl. In separate bowl, creamgranulated sugar and butter together until combined. Beat in molasses and eggs.Add dry mixture to butter mixture in three batches, stirring after eachaddition. Cover bowl with plastic and refrigerate until dough is firm, about 1hour.

2. Adjust oven racks to upper-middle andlower-middle positions and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets withparchment paper.

3. Place 1/2 cup granulated sugar insmall bowl. Shape dough into 3/4-inch balls. Roll balls in granulated sugar,then transfer to prepared baking sheets, spacing balls 2 inches apart. Bakeuntil tops are just beginning to crack, 8 to 10 minutes, rotating rack positionand direction of baking sheets halfway through baking time. Cool cookies onbaking sheets for 3 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Useremaining dough to make second batch of cookies.

4. Whisk softened butter, lemon juice,and pinch of salt together in medium bowl. Whisk in confectioners’ sugar untilsmooth. Turn half of cooled cookies over (bottom side up) and spread each with1 teaspoon lemon filling. Sandwich with another cookie.

Clancy and Elizabeth brought these beautiful biscotti, sporting seasonal colors with green pistachios and red dried cranberries and cherries.

No holiday cookies swap is complete without gingerbread people. Rachel rendered both gingerbread genders with skill as you can see above. More impressive, however, was the moist texture these cookies held on to days after the swap.

This tray of leftovers was assembled just for the photo. In actuality, I walked away with many more cookies than what you see. Fortunately, I was able to donate most my haul to a Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium holiday open house that depends on board members like me to do the baking for children of all ages who stop in.

In addition to the cookies I already described, you can see Joslyn's chocolate-dipped pistachio shortbread on the viewer's far right (pistachio was the "in" nut for 2011 baking apparently). Rory's artistic cinnamon swirl is just to the left of the shortbread. My weight-watcher's approved no-bake cocoa, peanut, oatmeal cookies (3 points each) are hiding between the biscotti and Karen's molasses cookies. On the left, just below the ginger people, you can see one of Jess's salty-swet peanut and pretzel blondie bars. And next to hers on the far left Josh's chocolate-covered macaroons (so tasty were they that Joslyn stole all of them back from the portion I set aside to donate to the museum open house---cookie swap can get cutthroat).

At first we all tried to control ourselves. Joslyn and I were even splitting cookies in the early rounds. But 45-minutes into it, the binge was on. After this year's swap, there were a few of us who would have fit snugly into a Santa suit. Ho, ho, sugar-high!

Whoops, I did it again...

2011-12-03T19:29:00.001-08:00

Weight Watchers, week 4. I've been getting some compliments on looking fitter, which is nice. But it's hard not to detect suspicion in some of those compliments. I know some are surely wondering whether the Award Winning Eater may be losing his edge.

Yes, It's true that I've lost weight every week. In a big chunk at first and in smaller, steadier intervals ever since. I even managed to lose weight Thanksgiving Week. During that time, however, I have had the privilege to enjoy some of the finest food I've eaten in a long while, overindulging strategically--even exceeding my allowed WW "Points" twice.

First of all, Turkey really isn't my thing (readers of this blog know that I only recently returned to chicken). Pork, however, is very much my thing. Also very much my thing: Jess's brownies with chocolate chips, nuts, and dried fruit. I consumed both in abundance at my friend Rory's farewell smoke-off.

Picture the scene: I was confronted with a tub containing fifteen pounds of slow-smoked pork butt, dry rubbed and vinegar-mopped, not to mention a delicious pot of tortilla soup, and a tray of brownies stacked five high. Weight Watchers be damned, it was clear what I had to do. Rory supplied all the fixings for tacos of which I had two, and after which I just started eating the pork with my bare hands. Consensus guestimate on my pork consumption was 1.5 lbs. Official count on my brownie consumption was 7.

A few short days later, we baked up our favorite Weight-Watchers unfriendly Thanksgiving side dish. Gouda cheese, eggs, brown sugar, melted butter, white flour, and lots of pureed carrots achieve greatness together in this savory baked carrot pudding (think dense soufflé). The browned crust on the edges is my favorite part.

Based on the ingredient list, and notwithstanding the health bonus of eating so much carrot, this dish costs lots of WW points for a relatively small portion. Thus, I limited myself to two helpings on Thanksgiving day (with a few leftover portions scattered over the weekend). It's a variation on a super recipe for Boudin de Chicaros (savory pea pudding) over on the web site Mexconnect.

Despite the bounty that our family table offered (candied squash and apple bake, citrus raspberry salad with pecans and shaved pecorino romano, homemade rolls, mashed VT Elba potatoes from High Ledge Farm cooked slowly in milk and butter instead of water, parsnip and carrot mash, green beans almondine, a generous cheese board and all-you-can-eat shrimp cocktail during cocktail hour, and an equally full dessert table) I had actually managed to keep things under control through the main meal.

I was still well within my points budget when I arrived at my cousin Andrew's house for our annual Thanksgiving cousins' viewing of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation a couple of hours after the main meal. There waiting was my Uncle Paul's maple pecan pie (I ate three slices), and a smorgasbord of movie-theater concesssions my cousin Andrew bought as party favors. The place was swimming with swedish fish, mike & ikes, gummy bears, and endless bowls of buttered stovetop Jiffy Pop. I think there was some tequila in there too (4 points per 1.5 oz.). Again, there's only one thing for an award-inning eater to do in those circumstances.

Two points-busting foodfests. Two weeks of weight loss. So the critics surmise that I am starving myself the rest of the time. WRONG!

Exhibit A: Oysters. 6 medium= 1 point (For reference I get at least 37 points a day to work with not counting others I earn through exercise). I was already deep into Oysters before I started WW. James Beard Award-winning food writer, Oyster aficionado, and fellow resident of central Vermont Rowan Jacobsen likens eating a good Oyster to "kissing the sea on the lips." Let's just say things have gotten hot and heavy between me and the sea since I learned how many Oysters, mussels, shrimp, and scallops I can eat under the WW system. Last night at Kismet, I ate twelve expertly prepared Oysters on the half shell before devouring a bowl of divine mussels steamed with garlic and pernod.

Of course you cannot lose weight if you give in to gluttonous impulses at every opportunity; around this time of year those opportunities abound. As I write, I am nibbling furiously on a 0-point apple (remember most fruits and veggies are invisible to the WW points system) all to keep my mind off the fresh-baked, chocolate-dipped shortbread and chocolate peanut-butter no-bake cookies that we made for tomorrow's second annual holiday cookie swap (see photos from last year's here). Most people on Weight Watchers would probably not agree to host a holiday cookie swap, but I'm not sweating it. I've eaten wisely so far this week and exercised often. Still, there's going to be a lot of cookies here...

I am only 3 pounds shy of my 15 pound weight loss goal. Will I still lose weight if I blow my points for the third week in a row? Stay tuned...

What I have learned so far about Weight Watchers...

2011-11-11T10:07:00.001-08:00

Lesson 1: You can still eat rich foods, you just have to eat less of them, less often.

It's a good thing that you don't have to cut out anything entirely when you are on Weight Watchers (WW), because I was sitting on 3 and a half cups of the most delicious duck stock you ever tasted and about 1/2 cup of duckfat too. Both came to me by way of the ethically-raised Tangletown Farm (Middlesex, VT) duck my friend Ben brought by a couple years ago. I finally pulled it out of the freezer to make us some confit with duckfat-braised parsnips, brussel sprouts, potatoes, and garlic cloves when he visited several Sundays ago. That left me with plenty of rendered fat. Afterward, I simmered the carcass into stock with the heads of leeks, a few chunked up un-peeled carrots, and onions.

Armed with that duckfat and rich stock as well as a bag of chicken livers from my friends at Scout's Honor, I set out to challenge the WW system with the kind of meal I seem often to have occasion for and probably could not live without: a proper feast.

The occasion was the retirement dinner for my former boss Denise. Those of you who have read my post "Bill's 89th Birthday Fiesta" know that Denise and her husband Tom are deeply skilled in the culinary arts. Some of the best feasting I have done anywhere has been at their table. For this dinner, I wanted to go big. I knew there would be wine flowing and grappa too. So, could I create dishes worthy of the occasion, enjoy the wine and spirits, and stay under my WW points?

Here's the menu:

Champlain Farms Triple Creme cheese with home-made pear jelly from one of Joslyn's co-workers. Only two per person trying to stay under WW points. The people at Champlain Farms aren't kidding around when they say its triple the creme! So hard to eat just two...I knew I needed to save points for the decadent duck and liver fare to come.

First was the red-wine, duckfat sauteed leek and cippollini onion, garlic and sage risotto cooked with the duck stock from the picture above. If you read my first post on WW, you can probably guess that the points are starting to add up with the ingredients in this dish. Yet its intensity and diversity of flavors lent itself well to being slowly and satisfyingly savored (more about that in lesson two) in a smaller portion.

This sage-fried chicken-liver olive-oil crust tart came next and offered little slices of heaven (WW emphasis on the "little"--my slice was roughly a 1/10 of the tart). I dredged the livers in a bit of flour mixed with dried sage and fried them lightly in a mix of safflower and olive oil, removing them while they were still rare in the middle. Then I baked them off in the tart shell at 350 for 35-40 minutes with eggs and cheese. The tart crust recipe--a real keeper--is made with olive oil instead of butter and comes from the Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook by Jack Bishop. The overall concept for the liver, egg, and cheese tart came from viewing a photo of a similar version that the "Offal Chef" posted here. Eggs, romano cheese, white flour for the crust, 1/3 cup olive oil also for the crust, and fried chicken liver also coated in flour--the WW points keep adding up relentlessly...

...That's why dessert was mostly fruit. Honkin' slices of sweet pineapple topped with orange and kiwi slices that we garnished with shredded mint and spearmint before serving. Ok, there was some vanilla frozen yogurt with pureed mango in there too. But for the most part a low points dessert.

Still, there were a couple of glasses of wine consumed over the meal's course (4 points each) and prosecco before that (6 points) and grappa afterwards (I forget how many points). Add all those together and I was well over the 39 points I get per day and all out of the 49 weekly "bonus" points I had held in reserve all week in anticipation of a Saturday feast. I had even cashed in the day's "Activity Points" I earned on a roughly 5-mile walk up and down hills. Yet, I was still slightly under my budget...

...until they put the free pizza slices on the bar at the concert later that night.

Stay tuned for Lesson 2 on eating slowly, savoring food, and the fantastically low point value of raw oysters.

Happy Birthday to Auntie Rowie, my Award Winning Godmother!

2011-11-07T05:28:00.000-08:00

The Award Winning Eater has an award winning godmother and it's her birthday. Her hard-earned hardware--an Emmy Award for television news production--is impressive. Luckily for her godson, she brings her Emmy-winning attention to detail and aesthetic sensibility to the fabulous food that comes out of her oven. She's been baking for me since my first birthday, creating treats that I enjoy over and over again as I recall some of our family's happiest occasions.

The birthday girl in a "candid" with her handiwork--a plate of oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies and trays of chocolate and impossibly moist vanilla almond cupcakes sporting holiday-appropriate summer fruits on July 4th, 2009.

She is a grand master of the Toll House recipe chocolate chip cookie. Her drive for excellence in all things usually compels her to explain that "this batch is not my best effort," as you reach for the perfect cookie atop the perfect stack of other perfect cookies heaped on the tasteful plate she's selected. The two dozen cookies she brought us recently did not survive the evening in this good eater's house (I shudder to think how many weight watchers points that little cookie bender would have cost me).

She lovingly bakes loaves of banana-nut bread for me every Thanksgiving. I don't remember when she started this tradition between us, but I can't imagine a Turkey-day breakfast without eating at least half a loaf. I value each morsel all the more because I know how many other things she could have been doing with the time it took to make the breads on the eve before she hosts yet another picture-perfect family Thanksgiving meal with my uncle and cousin.

As someone who lives to eat and eats to live, I am so grateful that my godmother has shown me such affection through confection. It is one of the many great qualities that make me so happy to celebrate another year in the life of my Auntie Row. Happy Birthday.

Award Winning Weight Watcher?

2011-11-05T23:02:00.000-07:00

The rumors are true: the award winning eater has joined Weight Watchers online version (Trademarked, hereinafter referred to as "WW"). For the next three months, I will be trying to follow what WW refers to as its Points Plus plan.

(Because I know that Award Winning Eater is such an influential brand in the blogosphere, I want to make clear from the get-go that I am not receiving any compensation from WW (yet) for blogging about my experience. More importantly, I don't even know if WW works (day 4) or by what standard I will ultimately judge its success.)

A lot of people have been surprised when I tell them I joined WW, responding jokingly that I don't look "that fat." Point taken. Thus, my goals for the plan are modest--shed ten to fifteen pounds and keep it off.

Those are the ten to fifteen pounds that threaten the waistline of suits that I really like and can't really afford to replace. Those are the ten to fifteen pounds at the top of the slippery slope. Most importantly, those are the ten to fifteen pounds that make my aging knees ache from extra pressure after a long run or a day of mogul skiing.

Those ten to fifteen pounds come from trying hard to embody one of the credos of this blog: gluttony is the best sin, and it is best committed with food (examples include, but definitely are not limited to, past posts as "Tis the Season to Eat Cookies," "Pizza! Pizza!," "White Ingredients Party," and of course "Dessert Pot Luck Parts 1 + 2")

I stand by the indisputable truth of this credo. The problem is that I was raised to believe that sins must be atoned for (would they be as fun to commit if they didn't?). And those aforementioned knee pains are telling me to repent.

Enough preaching, let's talk about how I will try to maintaining Award Winning Eater standards with guidance from WW PointsPlus. The system is pretty easy. As you might imagine from the name, the idea of WW revolves around counting point values assigned to the food you eat, liquids you drink, and the exercise you do. You get so many points a day to use on whatever food you want and you can earn extra points by exercising. Veggies, even cooked, are zero points so that's key. But the fat you cook them in, breading, or sauces rack up the points.

My last name starts and ends with a vowel; there is pretty much no way in hell that I would give up pasta. So before I got too invested in WW, I wanted to see if I could create a pasta dish that actually had flavor, that could fill me up, and that did not break the bank on points. Tuesday night was my second WW night (Halloween was my first, and yes I did eat candy but only two pieces) and we were having friends over too so I could have some objective second opinions on my orecchiette in brodo con fungi, ravizzone, e porri (mushrooms, kale, and leeks). As you read the recipe, keep in mind that veggies = 0 points.

1 lb. orecchiette pasta (literally translated as "little ears," but I think they look more like little caps)
6 cups leeks, halved lengthwise, sliced every 1/2 inch, green ends trimmed
5 cups brussel sprouts, tough stem ends trimmed, sliced thinly every 1/8 inch
3 cups cremini mushrooms, coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic
juice of one lemon
4 cups kale, tough stems removed, coarsely chopped
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
4 cups vegetable broth
romano cheese

Boil well-salted water for pasta

In a separate sauce pan, bring the broth to a simmer then lower heat and add the kale.

While that is happening, bring a large, deep skillet with a cover--preferably cast iron--to a hair past medium heat and add oil.

Steam saute well-seasoned leeks and brussel sprouts in the skillet uncovering to stir occasionally.

When the veggies in the skillet start to brown and reduce in volume (3-4 minutes) add the mushrooms and continue cooking as before.

Add the pasta to the boiling water after the mushrooms go in the skillet.

A couple minutes before the pasta is done, lower the heat a bit and press the garlic into the skillet, stirring frequently to combine and prevent the garlic from burning.

Add the lemon juice to the skillet.

Because WW focuses a lot on portion control, I measured out each of our bowls with 1/2 cup of cooked pasta at a time (1 cup = 5 points), added veggies from the skillet and broth with kale from the sauce pan, and topped with a 1/2 oz. of romano cheese (=2 points). Two servings left me feeling very satisfied (and two meals worth of leftovers to boot thanks to smaller portion consumption on my part).

The best part is that I had enough points left over to eat 1/2 cup of Cobb Hill Vanilla Frozen Yogurt for dessert. 1/2 cup doesn't sound like much, but you'd be surprised. WW notwithstanding, this is the first but certainly not the last time that I will save some of my points for frozen treats from Cobb Hill.

Update Sunday 1:48 a.m.
Day 6 on WW. We had a dinner party last night with prosecco, wine, duckfat, fried chicken livers in a tart with eggs and cheese, risotto, and more Cobb Hill fro-yo among other delights. I also ate 4 late-night slices at PP2 and drank a touch of tequila. In short, I very likely racked up a WW points deficit that even the Greek government would be proud of. It was worth it. Stay tuned for more details...

Dessert Pot Luck Part 2

2011-10-09T21:27:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: As the title indicates, this is the second post in a series of two. Scroll down and read Part 1 first for context.

Photo Editor's Note: You can get a closer look at these desserts by clicking on the pictures and then zooming in.

Chris and Steph pioneered pie territory with this tasty chocolate cream creation.

Joyce and Victor were on the vanguard of the brownie brigade with these beauties, packed with chocolate chips and dried cherries.

Joslyn went gluten free with a custardy pear torta recipe from the pages of Cucina Italiana magazine.

Cayenne pepper gave Mike and Claire's brownies a special kick.

Just when I thought I couldn't eat (much less enjoy) another brownie, Kelly and Louis's straightforward rendition of the classic convinced me otherwise.

Taking me at my word when the invite specified that there was no shame in brining something store bought, Krista arrays premium chocolate's from Nutty Steph's in Middlesex, VT. My favorite of the three was dark chocolate with sea salt and bacon bits.

Flaky and fruity rugelach from a local bakery arrived with Karen, just in time for me to really push the boundaries of how much sugar I could safely enjoy.

In case you are wondering, I still had room for several pieces of the dark-chocolate covered bacon that James brought by.

And then Sean and Jenny arrived with their signature dessert. It's so easy and so good, you will wonder why you didn't think of it before. Onto a square pretzel you place a Rolo candy and then place into a low heat oven (around 225 degrees) until the Rolos starts to melt. Remove from the oven and press a peanut M&M onto the top of the melting Rolo, then allow to cool. It's the perfect combination of salt, sweet, chewy, and crunchy.

The quantity and quality of desserts and their makers present at the first ever party sponsored by the marketing team at awardwinningeater.blogspot.com, suggests a promising future for the blog and its publisher. And another great thing about sponsoring a dessert pot luck: leftovers.

Dessert Pot Luck Part 1

2011-10-09T20:41:00.000-07:00

Last night, this humble food blog took a step toward the big time by sponsoring its first culinary event. The pot luck party is a Vermont institution that www.awardwinningeater.blogspotocom kicked up a notch by focusing solely on sweets. The resulting "dessert pot luck" was an unprecedented sugar binge for the ages.

Because I was putting the awardwinningeater stamp of approval on this party, I figured my own contribution needed to be a dessert whose recipe I'd shared on the blog previously. Pumpkin whoopie pies, featured in the January 2011 post 'Tis the Season to Eat Cookies, came immediately to mind because they could be easily cut into bite-sized quarters--an important attribute at a party that ended up having twelve different desserts on offer.

If you want to be an award-winning eater, start by making friends with people who know how to make delicious food. This pot luck is testament to my good fortune in having been able to do so. In order of appearance, my confectionary cohort:

A tangy vein of lemon curd awaited eaters of Rachel's cupcakes.

Pumpkin pie filling and shaved coconut punctuate Jess's perfect tart crust.

Josh blew many minds with his peanut-butter-and-jelly chocolate cookies.

For a little perspective on the scale of hyperglycemic gluttony I engaged in, you should know that all of these desserts arrived at the party in its first fifteen minutes and that I sampled each one just after snapping these photos.

And there was still more dessert to come...

Can I get an Amen?

2011-10-03T19:13:00.000-07:00

If you cook like I do, spontaneously and usually without a recipe, then The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, will have you singing hallelujah. Unlike a classic cookbook, The Flavor Bible has no recipes. Instead, it lists hundreds of common and uncommon ingredients in alphabetical order (random examples include: chicken, cardamom, pork, raspberries, tomatoes, rum, saffron, etc.) and under each ingredient appears a list of other ingredients that would go well with the main ingredient. The authors compiled these cross-referenced lists with the help of expert chefs from around the country. Each entry also tells you what techniques work best for the particular ingredient (for rutabagas, the scripture says thou shalt boil, braise, deep-fry, puree, roast, or steam). In the case of an herb or spice, the bible tells you when in the cooking process you should add the ingredient in question for optimal effect.

The Flavor Bible takes a lot of the guess work out of improvisational cooking. To be sure, there is something exciting about throwing a bunch of ingredients together and hoping that you hit the jackpot. But there is also nothing worse than having your alimentary alchemy yield a dish decidedly more leaden than golden...

It's perfect for this time of year when I roam around the farmer's market grabbing whatever looks good without really giving too much thought to how I will use it. These sweet tooth mushrooms are a great example. The forager who was selling them knows I like wild mushrooms and he bade me to into his stall to partake of the sweet tooth's pungent perfume. One whiff and I was sold.

Later that day, armed with the knowledge that sweet tooth mushrooms were similar in flavor to chanterelles, I looked over the contents of my fridge and the list of flavor matches listed under mushrooms. Providence had filled my fridge with corn, onions, butter, and fresh sage--a mushroom match made in heaven according to The Flavor Bible. After a quick chop, I sauteed the lot in a cast-iron skillet. In about the time it took to cook some pasta, these flavors melded. I added the pasta and a little of its water to the skillet, sauteed it all for another minute, dusted with pecorino romano cheese, and sat down to devour this divine dish.

Rainy day dessert

2011-10-02T14:32:00.000-07:00

So easy to make.

1 clean spoon
whipped cream
Grade B Vermont Maple Syrup

Cover about 2/3 of the spoon with whipped cream (I used canned). Drizzle slowly and lightly with maple syrup. Eat. Repeat.

White (Ingredients) Party

2011-09-04T14:06:00.000-07:00

Labor Day Weekend is almost over. When it is it will be time to put away all your white clothes until next season. Impresario Sean "Puffy" Combs has been known to mark the occasion with an "All White Party" at which guests must observe a strict white wardrobe dress code. At today's brunch, however, we inadvertently had our own version of a white party, with an emphasis on white ingredients...

Though the finished product is decidedly golden, Julia Child's leek quiche owes its flavor to white flour, butter, and heavy cream

Some of the big playaz who made star turns at our white ingredients party:
16 oz sour cream
16 oz ricotta cheese
1 pound butter
3 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1 cup half and half
buttermilk
3 cups flour
2 pounds potatoes
two white onions
cream of mushroom soup (technically gray I think)

Real health foods. The yellow food groups were also well represented by corn, eggs, and cups of gruyere and cheddar cheese.

Sagaponack corn pudding with basil

Apple muffins, buttermilk biscuits, and "party potatoes"--so named because you only really want to eat these uber-unhelathy spuds at a party--were some of the other dishes that owed their deliciousness to white ingredients.

Eaters on the storm...

2011-09-01T21:26:00.000-07:00

In the calm before Irene last Saturday night, we feasted.

Here you see me, my Uncle Brian, my Dad, and my Cousin Meredith downing a round of raw Pemaquid Oysters grown up the Coast on Maine's Damariscotta River. These briny bites are packed with protein.

Despite the slightly grossed-out look on my cousin's face as she slurped up her first ever raw oyster, she enjoyed the experience enough to smilingly slurp down a second I offered her. Meredith wasn't the only one marking a first with raw Oysters. After more than a year of shirking shucking duty, I finally came to grips with the Oyster knife much to the chagrin of my right thumb. It bears the scars to prove that I am still learning when it comes to prying open these presents from Poseidon.

After the oysters came the pasta courses. Sungold cherry tomato sauce made with the fruit of our own vines suffused spaghetti with a sweetness that makes sugar seem bland. I was not the only one licking spare sauce from the plate off my fingers when all my noodles were gone. The second dish of earthy spaghetti I tossed with sauteed onions and rough-chopped wild-harvested Porcini mushrooms from Vermont then doused with aromatic white truffle oil. That preparation also earned groans of pleasure as it passed our lips. Cucumbers covered with mint came on as the closer to brighten up and cleanse our palettes.

Having hunkered down with fresh vegetables galore, the fete continued through breakfast and lunch on Sunday as Irene's whipping winds kept us mostly housebound. With all the destruction Irene brought to my friends and fellow Vermonters, we are still counting our blessings that the lasting memories we carry from the actual weekend of the storm are of great food enjoyed with family.

Having an old friend for dinner...

2011-08-20T20:46:00.000-07:00

Joslyn's college ski team friend Darcy visited this weekend. Since reunions with old friends call for a feast, we asked our guest what main dish she desired. When she requested chicken, I realized that I'd be having another old friend for dinner.

Chicken and I have a complicated relationship.

Tangletown Farm in nearby Middlesex, VT provided the first chicken I've cooked in more than a decade, a 4.5 pound organic, "ethically raised" beauty.

When I was a kid, my mom made the most delicious chicken drumsticks: oven-roasted, skin on, salt, pepper, olive oil, simple, perfect. Chicken legs were my lunch staple. I ate three per day, including the cartilage (especially the cartilage). She'd offer to pack me other things, but I always picked the poultry. I also greedily devoured her creamy chicken a la king and hardy chicken pot pies, sometimes so quickly she'd have to say "slow down, no one is going to take it away from you." (How could she be sure?)

Chicken and I were still tight all through college. My mom briefed me on the basics of roasting the drumsticks' dark meat to perfection so I could make them for my own lunches, as I often did. When I didn't have time to make food, I'd also hit up some "Chester Fried" from under the heat lamps at Chansky's market in Brighton. I had always been a drumstick guy, but eventually I branched out to breasts. They were the tailgate grillable of choice for me and my buddy Moje in concert parking lots or up on the roof at 1653 Comm. Ave. We cooked them on a cheap portable weber gas grill lathering them with barbecue sauce or italian salad dressing before and after grilling. Finally, I'd never have survived a semester abroad living with the Mughini family in Florence, Italy without consuming many a crostini covered in "fegato," chicken-liver pate typical as Tuscan antipasto.

Right before law school, I started learning more about the meat I was eating: where it came from, how it lived, how it died, what it ate, what happened to its poop, and the working conditions for the people who raised and slaughtered it. I won't go into details here. Movies like "Fast Food Nation" and "Food, Inc." explain it best and much of the horror of corporatized, industrialized meat production must be seen to be believed. Needless to say, what I learned disturbed me enough to go vegetarian.

My return to cooking chicken went from zero to sixty when I bought this bird whole. Most of the small, local producers only sell their chickens whole.

I hung on as a vegetarian for three years before succumbing to my meat cravings. I reintroduced it to my diet one animal at a time. Part of what allowed my conscience to rest somewhat more easily with the switch was the growing abundance of locally-raised, grass-fed, organic beef. It packed the same, if not stronger, meaty punch as the corn-fed factory-raised schlock served at McDonalds or in the butcher's case at big supermarkets without as much environmental and ethical baggage. Once my antennae were up, it didn't take long to find local pork producers who picked the pasture over the feeding pen, growing organic hogs that lived happy lives and made excellent chops and sausage.

For some reason, however, I was slow to seek out folks who could help me bring America's favorite fowl back into my life. On occasion, my buddy Rory would whip up some wings with Vermont's Misty Knoll chicken that were too hard to resist as were grill-smoked free-rangers from his CSA with a small organic chicken farmer who also comes to our farmer's market. But by and large, I still wouldn't eat chicken. Perhaps it had something to do with bird flu. It's totally illogical given my youthful devotion to chicken and the utter lack of scientific support for the bird-flu connection, but it helped keep chicken out of my kitchen for more than a decade.

My dietary drought ended in a big way Saturday as I began a butterfly cut, pressing a freshly-sharpened chef's knife into the back of my market-fresh 4.5 pound bird from Tangletown Farm in Middlesex. I'm not sure what a good price on a whole chicken is. I paid $24 and considered it money well spent (especially b/c I know the farm has a good reputation for raising healthy and happy birds and I often see the farmers out and about in my community).

Being that I'd never cooked, much less cut, a whole chicken, I sought lots of advice on how to prepare it. The friendly farmers who sold me the chicken took me through it step by step. Then I called grillmaster Rory for a refresher course--he advised me to grill it under a brick wrapped in foil (fortunately there are several loose bricks in my yard). I also consulted America's Test Kitchen's New Best Recipe--an encyclopedic, well-worn cookbook in my kitchen that is full of how-to diagrams perfect for a novice like me.

Prepping a raw bird is not for the faint of heart. There is blood. There are bones and sinews that challenge even the sharpest knives. You also get to remove the neck and giblets. Joslyn the vegetarian was thoroughly grossed out, but she couldn't complain because I was cooking for her friend.

New Best Recipe also had a great diagram explaining how to get under the skin with seasonings and fat (butter or oil) to prevent the chicken from coming out flavorless and dry. I slathered on a simple paste of of five minced garlic cloves mashed into 3 tablespoons of butter, and a tablespoon of salt. This was enough to cover the bird under and over the skin.

I held off on adding herbs to my paste because I knew I was going to serve this very strong pesto made with our own basil as one of the dipping sauces with "Andy's Barbecue Sauce" made right up the street in Waterbury,VT (it uses "Pure VT Maple Syrup" instead of sugar) as the other sauce.

After roughly 35 minutes on my Weber "Baby Q" gas grill (starting with 15 minutes skin side down), the digital thermometer told me that the breast had reached 160 degrees--the high side of the temp range that my Williams and Sonoma grilling cookbook advised. After a few minutes rest (for me and the bird), I carved it up with my cleaver and put it out on plates.

The grill-marked skin tasted as good as it looked, its rich fattiness fomenting a flood of lunchbox memories of innocent days around the elementary-school cafeteria table. The pesto and barbecue sauce were both great, but I couldn't help ignoring them both in favor of eating the chicken just as it was off the grill.

Leftovers are the best part about cooking a whole chicken. Since Saturday, I've eaten chicken w five times. I am keeping the bones for stock, and every time I open the container I can find another bit of meat or cartilage that I missed on my last sumptuous sortie into the fridge.

I also made a simple, quick, and delicious meal of the liver and heart cooked with onions (put a pat of butter in a pan over medium heat, cook the onions until they are golden, add the chopped liver and heart and cook tossing often until the liver turns dark brown and is just starting to firm up and serve it with fava beans and a fine Chianti).

Has anybody seen my willpower?

2011-08-09T20:06:00.000-07:00

I often delude myself that I am trying to lose weight. And then I have a day like today.

Everything started off fine. I ate a healthy breakfast of oatmeal cooked in hemp milk with a pinch of salt and a few drops of maple syrup. Usually that tides me over until lunch. Usually.

Our friend Jess's tangy lemon tart tempted me into eating my third dessert of the day (and yes, I did have seconds, and yes I did have whipped cream on both slices)

The trouble began when I emerged from my office at around 9:15 a.m. to fill my water bottle in the kitchenette. There I found a block of dense, dark brownies taunting me from inside a nest of tinfoil. Our intern Erin brought it in because she didn't trust herself with all those brownies at home, especially knowing that the recipe consumed half a pound of butter. The crisis of dietary conscience that ensued was very short-lived. I cut a "small" chunk, then another, then another--each chunk larger than the last. I managed to stop myself there (assuming you don't count the "crumbs" I continued to consume every time I came out to refill my water bottle).

Another of our interns had a birthday. So around 4 p.m. the office headed off to Morse Farm for maple creemees (soft-serve ice cream for those of you not from Vermont) in lieu of cake. If not for the fact that I ate the brownies earlier, I'd congratulate myself for sticking to a small cone with maple sprinkles. Licking at my cone, remembering the post-breakfast brownies, I resolved that I would skip dessert that evening.

As soon as our dinner hostess and friend Jess showed me the picture-perfect, raspberry-topped lemon tart that she'd made for dessert in honor of Joslyn's birthday (which is two days away), my no- dessert resolution disappeared faster than a block of brownies in my office kitchenette...

It's not easy being an award-winning eater, but somebody's got to do it.

Pizza, pizza!

2011-08-07T21:14:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I was living the dream: pizza for breakfast, pizza for dinner. I love so many foods, but pizza is by far my favorite. I can eat it anytime, topped with anything (yes, even anchovies), and in large quantities.

It's always a good time for pizza..My dad and I enjoy slices in San Gimignano, Italy earlier this month. We finished the slices as we walked into a "Slow Food" restaurant for a three-course lunch.

My breakfast of pizza actually featured "breakfast pizza." That's what the artisan pizzaioli behind Cabot, Vt.'s "Woodbelly Pizza" call it when they top their pies with eggs, breakfast sausage or bacon, cheese, and other ingredients that would be right at home inside an omelet. They make pies sauced with marinara and/or pesto too.

Though their slices never cease to sate, you can't be sure you'll get the same toppings each week when you queue up in front of the portable wood-fired oven that they tuck into the back corner of Montpelier's farmer's market each summer Saturday. That's because Woodbelly's pie-making predilections run toward spontaneity and seasonality. They often concoct combinations based on what's fresh that fits their fancy as they arrange topping trades with the other meat, cheese, and veggie vendors at the market (they get toppings and give back whole pies). On Friday nights, I go to sleep wondering what festival of flavors Woodbelly will feature the following morning and it's not unusual for my dad to call on Saturday afternoon to find out what I had on my slices that morning.

Until last Saturday, I would have told you that Woodbelly made the best pizza in Vermont (in fact it is some of the best pizza I have ever eaten anywhere). But then dinnertime found us passing by White Rock Pizza and Pub, just a stone's throw from the shores of Woodbury Lake. After we ordered, we sat on the deck admiring the lake view and the beautiful hydrangea bushes that flank the restaurant's comfortably-appointed outdoor deck. When the sourdough-crusted sensation pictured above arrived a few short minutes later, however, I only had eyes for the pie.

They call it "Garlic Love": Velvety garlic cream sauce coats a crust crowded with fresh-sliced tomatoes, fresh garlic, shredded basil, and ricotta cheese. Once you pick up one of these seductive slices, it is hard to put it back on the plate; as soon as one bite when down the gullet my palette started pleading for more.

"Fresh" is an adjective that most menus misuse to describe an ingredient that has not been pre-cooked even though it may be many shrink-wrapped miles and months removed from the garden where it was grown. At White Rock, when they say fresh, they mean FRESH. Pizzaiola Maggie Zuccardy tops her affordable pizze with ingredients that are cut from the garden out back only after you order your pie. Even the red pepper flakes are made from dried chiles grown in their garden (thank god, too--I am sick of the weak, dead Sysco flakes on offer at most slice shops).

A 16" pie was no match for the award-winning eater and his bride. We took it down in a sitting after scarfing a tasty salad dressed with a house-made tequila lime dressing

We had the good fortune to meet Maggie while eating Kismet's Sunday brunch at an adjacent patio table. She intrigued us with tales of her restaurant, including the story of her crust--a sourdough she makes from her own yeast grown according to a recipe and technique from the old country where Maggie has deep roots. The crust is truly unique in taste and texture. It is the source of my only complaint about White Rock pizza. Usually, I can count on eating the unwanted crusts from Joslyn's plate after I finish my own slices. Alas, at White Rock Pizza, there is no such thing as an unwanted crust.

A paen to pomodori italiani

2011-08-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

Tomatoes may have come from the "New World," but pomodori, as they are known in Italia, have really found the dolce vita living on Europe's boot-shaped peninsula. They are big stars of cucina italiana. They played many an unforgettable role in the epicurean epic that was my summer vacation in Tuscany.

Rows of fruit-laden tomato vines in the "kitchen garden" expertly tended by the family who runs Agriturismo La Valle in the central Tuscan town of Montaione fueled a weeks's worth of my family's lycopene loading.

Lest anyone question my alimentary allegiances, I refer you at the outset to my previous posts praising tomatoes grown in the good old U S of A. (E.g., "God save the Sungolds" Aug. 24, 2009 (citing recipes); accord "Farmers market finds" Oct. 8, 2009 (picturing one of the most perfect Vermont-grown heirloom tomatoes ever picked). Now that I have hopefully insulated this blog from being blacklisted by the second-coming of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee that I expect the Tea Party to revive any day now, I can safely sing the praises of foreign fruit.

The pomodori pictured above showed great versatility. They stood boldly on their own as afternoon snacks: sliced thick, sprinkled with salt, and drizzled with piquant evoo also from La Valle. They supported rich slabs of fresh mozzarella splashed with truffled balsamic vinegar (by the time the trip was over Joslyn was ready to drink that stuff straight). They balanced onions, zucchini, olives, lettuce, and chunks of stale bread softened in our version of the classic panzanella salad shown below.

Owing to the fact that salt used to be very expensive and fairly scarce in Italy (the state used to have a monopoly in salt), Tuscan bread is traditionally salt-free and thus fairly bland. It's no wonder then that so many classic Tuscan recipes incorporate stale bread--there's usually plenty left-over bread to go stale. Papa al pomodoro, a hearty tomato and bread soup, was another of these that I had the pleasure of sampling in a couple of restaurants. It's real rib-sticking stuff; soup that makes you chew through its smoky thickness.

One evening, we were feted by the wonderful Mughinis, my adopted Italian family who housed me when I was an exchange student. Among the many courses they served were these baked tomatoes bursting with onions, peas, rice, and black olives that are first sauteed in oil with the seeds and flesh scooped from the tomatoes.

But of all the roles tomatoes play in Italian food, award winning eaters everywhere agree that they shine most brightly in sauce.

When I lived at home after college, my dad tilled up a good chunk of our lawn to put in tomatoes. As they ripened fast and furious in the dog days of summer, my dad dedicated his evenings to turning them into sauce. When he was done, he'd freeze batches in zip lock bags ensuring supply for the winter months. In particularly bountiful years, he filled our freezer with so many bags of red sauce that it looked like a Red Cross blood bank.

Working at his side, I learned his preferred method: core, seed, salt and oven roast in a pan with nothing else but oil until the water cooks off and you are left with the the undiluted essence of the tomato. I think it is fair to say that his primary motivation was eating the final product tossed with the exotic pasta shapes he was always (and still is) buying. There is no doubting, however, that he loves the process too. Observe his deep concentration in the photo above as he practiced the familiar ritual, this time with La Valle tomatoes that sauced one of our final ooh-and-ahh-filled vacation meals.

I've always loved my dad's sauces. The one he made in Italy will live long among my memories of great meals.

I'd be lying, however, if I didn't rank the sauce that I made with cherry tomatoes from the village of Pomonte on the Isola d'Elba (where I stayed for the second week of the vacation) slightly higher. Cherry tomatoes deliver an intensity that their larger relatives cannot match. The cherries simmering in the photo above came from the small farms that crowded the fertile Pomonte valley where the mountains meet the Mediterranean. Like my dad, I kept it simple. Tomatoes, oil, salt. Even incorporated into a lasagna rich with ricotta, mozarella, pecorino romano, grilled melanzana , and zucchini, this sauce sang sweetly of the tomatoes' brief, sun-kissed life in the paradise that is Pomonte on Elba's "costa del sole."

Grazie mille, pomodori italiani. Vi non dimentichero` mai!

Something other than Christmas cookies

2011-08-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention that some friends (you know who you are) still check this blog from time to time even though I have been on an extended hiatus from posting. Some of those people have made it known that they are getting sick of seeing the Christmas Cookie post that has languished in the top slot lo these many months while I have been doing plenty of award-winning eating, but not writing about it. So I'll do my best to move the Christmas Cookies down the page...

For starters, here's a recipe for a "raw sauce"--a pasta sauce that you don't need to pre-cook--that I made the other night on a whim when a hot kitchen discouraged me from doing anything too ambitious at the stove.

4 1/2 cups Sungold cherry tomatoes (really any sweet, bright-flavored cherry tomatoes will work)

2 to 3 tablespoons packed fresh mint leaves

2 to 3 tablespoons packed fresh oregano leaves

3 medium cloves garlic (rough chopped)

the juice of one lemon

1/2 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon salt (probably was a bit more than that, but you can always add more if it doesn't taste right to you)

1 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cup grated pecorino romano cheese

1 tablespoon butter

1 cup shelled fresh peas

With water boiling for pasta, I reached for the food processor instead of a sauce pan. I procured the key fresh ingredients from our garden, dropped them in to the work bowl with all the other ingredients listed above (except for the peas, butter, and cheese), and after 5 to 10 pulses the sauce was ready.

After you drain the pasta cooked just al dente, place it and the sauce back into the drained pasta pot over a low-medium burner. Stir in the peas, cheese, and butter and cook stirring often for 2 minutes so that the pasta gets a full coating of the sauce.

Remove the pot from the stove and transfer to a serving dish. Let sit for a minute or two before serving so that the heat doesn't mask the flavors.

'Tis the season to eat COOKIES!

2011-01-02T06:22:00.000-08:00

For this cookie lover, it was truly a December to remember. I started to dabble in baking just in time to earn an invitation to a Christmas cookie swap. From that waist-line expanding extravaganza early in the month (photos below) to the first minutes of this new year, the cookies came on in waves. Here are just a few highlights of my season's eatings.

The dining room table at our friend's house overflows with a bounty of baked goods brought to the cookie swap. I sampled one of each. Technically that means I ate seven cookies, although I should get a higher gluttony grade because three were stuffed cookies.
Exhibit A in the stuffed cookie compendium--Rory's stuffed chocolate cookies rolled in candy cane bits. The actual cookies were reminiscent of the rectangular wafers that make up the classic ice cream sandwich, but crispier.
Exhibit B--Karen's chocolate malted cookies. I've had whole meals that were less filling than these rich morsels. Many participants rated these best-in-show at the swap.
Exhibit C is my entry--pumpkin whoopie pies with cream-cheese filling (recipe at the end). After chewing through these first three swap entries, it's amazing that I had any room left to sample the three varieties of iced sugar cookies (two types of traditional crispy and a soft almond accented entry from Joslyn), and the mexican hot-chocolate cookies kicked up with cayenne. One doesn't become an Award-winning eater by leaving fresh-baked cookies untried.

Each baker took home a generous assortment. Since Joslyn also participated in the swap, our household harbored a dangerous amount of cookies just as the holiday season gathered steam. There are certainly worse problems to have. Our coworkers and friends were quite happy to help us solve it over the coming days.

Just as we were eating our way through the last of the swap sweets, the first of several cookie tins we would receive in December arrived from our friends Jess and Josh. Amidst the chocolate-covered macaroons topped with almonds, artistically-decorated lemon sugar cookies, and ganache-topped brownie bites stuffed with mint-green icing (all as delicious as they sound), a superstar emerged. I had never eaten a "brown sugar" cookie before I had one (then another and another and another) from Jess and Josh's tin and I may never eat one as good again.

Next came an assortment from Johnny, Sarina, and Scout in an attractive emerald box. As soon as Johnny handed it over, I tore through the box in search of their "tea-time tassies." It's hard to explain this cookie other than to say it's like eating a miniature pecan pie. Alas, there was only one single tassie in the box this year. Not that I'm complaining because there were plenty of those amazing caramels, congo bars, and other cookie classics in the box.

My Aunt Carol's annual Christmas Eve party brought me face to face with a cookie platter that I dream of during other, less bountiful times on the cookie calendar. As a veteran of this particular party, I positioned myself strategically in a seat nearby the platter, waiting not-so-patiently as the dinner dishes were cleared away. Proving yet again that she is a woman after my own heart, Joslyn was the first to lift the cellophane, uncovering the calorie-laden cache. Of all the ooo-and-aaahh inducing delectables, the coconut macaroons sandwiches stuffed with a sugary hybrid of whipped cream and icing stood out.

Notwithstanding that morning's struggle to fit into pants that were quite comfortable only a month before, I could not resist two classics of the Christmas Day dessert tray: my mom's pizzelle and my Aunt Rowie's lemon cookies--a perfect accompaniment to pecan pie and ice cream.

Driving back to Vermont on the day after Christmas, I was pretty sure that it would be at least a week before another cookie would cross my lips. That resolution was (perhaps predictably) short-lived thanks to the generosity and baking acumen of our friends Bri and Leon. When they came to visit last year, they brought with them a tin of picture-perfect ginger bread cookies (see a photo here). Remembering how I ate them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner during their visit, Bri and Leon thoughtfully mailed another tin that was waiting on our stairs upon our return. As you can see from the photo above, they've got a great sense of humor and a steady hand for icing. I was powerless to resist their handiwork and can safely say that I was responsible for eating at least a dozen (the last crumbs of which were consumed in the wee hours of New Year's morning).

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

For the coookies

2 eggs
2 cups light brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 15 oz can of pumpkin
3 cups flour
1 tblsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tblsp cinnamon
1 tblsp nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Filling

4 oz. cream cheese softened at room temperature
1/2 cup butter also softened
3.5 cups confectioner's sugar
2 tsps vanilla

Heat the oven to 350
Beat the eggs, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla extract together in a large mixing bowl until smooth, then stir in the pumpkin mix
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder and soda, and salt.
Add the dry mixture to the egg mixture 1/2 cup at a time, blending each time until smooth
Drop a heaping tablespoon (or slightly less for smaller pies) of batter on to an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for 12 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack
Meanwhile, beat the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla extract in a bowl until light and fluffy.
Mix in the confectioner's sugar a half cup at a time until the frosting is spreadable. (Note: you can make the frosting a few days ahead of time and keep it in the fridge, but you'll want to bring it to room temperature before trying to spread it on the cookies)
Once the cookies have cooled, stuff them with as much frosting as you like and enjoy.

My Girl...

2010-11-07T16:07:00.000-08:00

...can hang with an Award-Winning Eater!

She invented the reverse-foldover technique for eating pizza, cheese-side out.

She recently spread a pat of butter on a chocolate-frosted, chocolate Halloween cupcake.

She ate leftover pasta for breakfast and dinner tonight.

Live blogging the pizza party

2010-11-04T16:58:00.000-07:00

Home-made pizza can be amazing. As I've written about before, making dough yourself is satisfying but also labor intensive. When you don't have time, grab some pre-made dough from your favorite pizzeria (many sell it over the counter).

Tonight, Rory grabbed some pre-made dough from the best pizzeria in Montpelier--Positive Pie 2. They charge $3 per order and ours was enough for three 9"-11" pies.

Pizze by Rory Malone

Sharon Trading Post's breakfast sausage graced the first cheese pie. It was applied liberally, much to my delight.

Pie #2 was Vermont Smoke and Cure Pepperoni and jalapeno from Shaw's. One word: SPICY.

Rory nailed the crust--thin with the fine balance of crispy and chewy and cooked on a pizza stone from our friend Jess's Capital Kitchen in Montpelier (for purposes of full disclosure, I am biased towards Jess because she bakes and shares amazing desserts--and occasionally blogs here).

Now we are waiting for Pie #3. It's got Wild Harvest basil and conventional red bell pepper. There are still a few pepperoni jalapeno slices and I need to attend to them before it comes out.

Photo editor, Clancy DeSmet

I have to stop now because I challenged myself, with the support of my photo editor, to get this written in a certain amount of time.

A reluctant baker

2010-10-28T20:33:00.000-07:00

I love baked goods. You pretty much can't win the "Good Eater Award," as I did in 2003, unless you love baked goods. But for all the time I spend in the kitchen, I seldom ever bake.

Cookies. Bread. Croissants (most aren't as good as they should be, but they're still croissants). Doughnuts (are they baked or fried?). Biscuits. Scones. Cake. Pies. Brownies. Muffins. Lemon squares. Layer bars (aka caramelitas). Cupcakes. Tarts. Did I mention cookies? Whatever the item, I rarely limit myself to just one (as my fellow guests at a recent bday party found out when they went to look for the "leftover" cookies late-night).

I have a serious weakness for this food group, more serious than my weakness for other food groups. Yet despite this weakness, or perhaps because of it, I rarely ever bake for myself. This Sunday was an exception.

My first attempt at Kathleen's "English Muffin" bread recipe

There are two main reasons why I don't bake often.

First, I don't follow directions well (I never have; just ask my mom to tell you the story about my coloring outside the lines incident in kindergarten). Unlike cooking, where the recipe is really just a suggestion and flavors can be adjusted as you go along, the margin for deviation is much slimmer in baking. Measurements matter. Baking can be unforgiving.

Second, I have always managed to make friends with great bakers, ensuring that my own lack of experience in the leavening arts wouldn't keep me from missing out. Most passionate bakers really like it when you tell them how good their baking is. You flatter, they make batter. It's often that simple. The list of beneficent bakers I've been privileged to know is too long to fit on this blog.

But this Sunday the spirit moved me. I made two loaves of my friend Kathleen's "English Muffin" bread. It is exactly what it sounds like--a slicing loaf with the flavor and airiness of english muffins complete with cornmeal around the crust. Kathleen sent me the recipe she uses with assurances that it wasn't too complicated (see below for recipe). We've been enjoying thick slices slathered with butter, ricotta cheese, or peanut butter every morning at breakfast.

Though I made an absolute mess with the mixer, I was feeling it so much that I thought I'd bust out oatmeal cookies while the english muffin loaves rised. The resulting batch, made according to the America's Test Kitchen "Best New Recipe" version, was bomb and surprisingly a snap to make. The recipe calls for lots of oats (old fashioned rather than quick) and nutmeg instead of cinammon. If you don't own the "Best New" cookbook, I strongly suggest you buy it. It is foolproof.

English Muffin Bread

Makes 2 Loaves

3 Tbsp Cornmeal

6 C. All Purpose Flour

2 Envelopes active dry yeast

1 Tbsp. Sugar

2 Tsp. Salt

1/4 Tsp. Baking Soda

2 C. Milk

1/2 C. Water

1. Lightly grease two 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch loaf pans. Coat each with 1 Tbsp Cornmeal.

2. Mix 3 Cups Flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl.

3. Heat milk and water in a saucepan until warm (105 degrees to 115 degrees Farenheit). Stir into the flour mixture. Stir in the remaining flour. Spoon into prepared pans. Sprinkle tops with remaining cornmeal.

4. Cover and let rise in a warm draft-free place for 45 minutes or until doubled.

5. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Bake 25 to 30 minutes until golden. Cool in pans on wire rack for 5 minutes. Loosen edges with a thin knife, remove from pans and cool completely. Store airtight.

Cleaning out the fridge

2010-10-20T18:27:00.000-07:00

Nothing breaks my heart more than to throw away leftover ingredients that didn't get used in the preparation of the recipe for which they were purchased. Whenever enough of these accrue, I challenge myself to cook something to save these derelict ingredients from being tossed in the compost or poured down the sink.

As I peered into the fridge one night last week, I spied a half-full, half pint of heavy cream, a lone stale kaiser roll, a ground-down wedge of gruyere cheese, a chunk of blue cheese and two parsnips in search of a purpose.

The cream and cheese had me thinking "gratin." Though I never made a gratin with parsnips, a quick check of the Google revealed that parsnips lent themselves well to several different versions of the gratin. With some insight from those other recipes, here's how I made mine:

I sliced the parsnips in rounds as thinly as possible--1/16". A mandoline would work really well for this task b/c if the slices are cut consistently they will cook consistently (my thicker slices made for bites that were a tad too toothy).

Since I didn't have that many parsnip slices, I chose a small baking dish in which to layer them. I covered the bottom with four by four rows of slightly overlapping rounds using the largest in diameter first and smaller slices to fill in gaps.

I hit that layer with salt, pepper, a sprinkling of fresh ground nutmeg, and about half of the gruyere I managed to shave of the remainder round. I repeated this step on the next layer.

At this point, I eyed the cream and figured I better top off the second cheese layer with parsnip and get this thing in the oven (If I had to guess, I'd say it was about 3/4 cup cream). I poured the cream over the dish and was grateful that it just did cover the top layer.

I put it in the toaster oven at 350, having learned from a few other recipes that it's best to cook your gratin in two phases. The first phase is to soften the veggies and let the cream and cheese form a bit of a sauce. I'd say it took about twenty minutes for the parsnips to really wilt. In the second phase you crank the oven to 425 to let things really start to bubble and crisp on the top layer.

Before phase II, I turned to the Kaiser roll, cutting it in half. I flipped the lid over and cut it into 1/8" cubes, heated two tblsp of butter in a small skillet, and tossed the bread cubes in the butter for about two minutes. I then layered the buttered cubes, slightly toasted but still mostly soft from the skillet, over the top layer of gratin. With those, I crumbled about 1/3 cup of the blue cheese and put it back in the oven.

After about 7 minutes at higher heat I took it out. The bread was golden and crunchy. The blue cheese had melted, binding the bread into a bit of a crust. The cream bubbled up rapidly from the sides, and the top layer of parsnip was browning around the edges.

The whole experience was a delicious reminder of the "waste not, want not" principle.

Award Winning Market

2010-10-11T19:04:00.000-07:00

Thanks to some untimely car trouble, we only had a few minutes at the Capital City Farmer's Market in Montpelier this week. While the market closed up, we managed to visit some of our favorite stands seeking items to stretch the bounty from last week's market still filling our fridge.

An assortment of edibles from the Columbus Day Weekend market

From Alan Lepage's stand, I bought a bunch of his delicious broccoli that in recent weeks has been fodder for roasting (a great way to use the stalks) and the best vegan cream of broccoli soup you've ever had (homemade cashew milk takes the place of real cream). Stout looking red fingerling potatoes and a bunch of leafy celery also recommended themselves to me for vegetable soup. I eyed but passed on what may be the end of the chanterelles, because I still had a mixed bag of his foraged finds from last week (see some orange waxy caps and a chunky white maitake in the picture above) that I would later eat for lunch after sauteeing the same in lots of butter.

We were amazed that Main Street Market Garden still had lots of whopper heirloom tomatoes in shades of yellow, red, and fully-ripened green. Last week I bought and cooked off ten pounds thinking that they would be done for the season. Our friend the farmer, Jaeil Pulskamp (I'm never sure if I speeled that correctly), works the plot on the grounds of Vermont Compost--less than a mile from our house but was at home with the family while partner, musician, and farmhand Kris Gruen, hocked their harvest wares. Despite serious temptation we decided to let others get in on the tomato haul, opting instead for a generous bunch of leafy kale that will be great in cannellini bean soup with sage and garlic.

I concluded our shopping with a bag of onions (almost everything I cook starts with sauteed onions) from High Ledge Farm. Their overflowing stand is a testament to their skill and drive as vegetable farmers. Just last year, their home and equipment was engulfed in a freak fire that left them having to start again almost from scratch. Now theirs is among the most popular and plentiful vegetable CSAs around.

Our market just earned honors from the editors at the "Daily Green" who included Montpelier's as among the top twelve markets in the country, right up there with the market in Union Square NYC, San Francisco's Ferry Plaza market, D.C.'s Dupont Circle FRESHFARM, and Madison Wisconsin's Dane County market. Aside from the quality of our produce, I think Montpelier's market belongs in the big leagues with these markets--all of which are in areas with better climate and more land for growing--for many reasons; top of them is the contact you get with the farmer. Our market requires that every stand selling farm-fresh produce be staffed by the farmers who grow it.

We usually spend more for this local and organic produce than we would if we bought conventional or big-organic veggies at the Shaw's one block away (although some items are fairly cost competitive). We do so gladly. We see the transaction as being about much more than price per pound on a head of broccoli. As I cooked some up last night (first blanched, then doused in ice water to stop the cooking process, then sauteed in cast iron skillet with chopped garlic until both broccoli and garlic had browned and finished with two splashes of balsamic vinegar), it occurred to me just exactly where that extra value comes from.

We're not just paying to eat the output of local agriculture. We're paying to preserve the knowledge that makes local agriculture possible. It resides within the farmers. They must be compensated fairly for acquiring and applying that knowledge season after season. The ability to turn seed, sun, water, and soil into delicious and nutritious food is too valuable to be ceded to the Agricultural Industrial Complex. We are making an investment in our food security.

Edible expressionism

2010-10-07T20:14:00.000-07:00

When tonight's dinner came out of the oven, I couldn't help thinking that it looked a bit like one of those drip paintings by the famous Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock.

In actuality, it was panko-breaded eggplant with shredded fresh basil, romano and gruyere cheeses.

Award Winning Eater Returns

2010-09-23T15:45:00.000-07:00

My wide flat feet, and in particular my oversized big toes, have been the subject of interest and, occasionally, humor for most of my life. Friends have called them "Hobbit feet" or "Fred Flinstones." I really haven't sweated these jokes because Hobbits and Fred Flinstone have eating habits that I admire.

For Hobbits, any time is meal time. They eat "second breakfast" and then have "elevensies." And even when the fate of the world is in their hands, they make time to trap and cook a brace of coneys.

Who can forget the Brontosaurus ribs and steaks that Fred Flinstone used to down after a hard day at the Slate Rock and Gravel Company? He needed all that protein to fuel his foot-driven car.

Over the Labor Day weekend, I had the good fortune of happening upon an opportunity to eat just like Fred. This "Ginormous" rib (the chef's word not mine but I'd say he was right on with it) came from grass-fed cows raised on the range in and around Crested Butte, CO. For those of you who love ribs, this one was as good as it looks. Yabadabadoo!

SaluBrious Eating Part 2

2009-12-26T18:17:00.000-08:00

Here's our friend Bri punching down the pizza dough.

There's nothing like waking up to a plate of perfect peanut butter cookies. Apparently, Bri was a little restless when she woke up several hours before everyone else. Thankfully, she applied her nervous energy to rifling through our cookbooks, settling on "The New Best Recipe" from America's Test Kitchen. Everything we've tried out of this cookbook has been excellent, Bri's early-morning version of their peanut butter cookies were no exception. It's amazing that so many were still left by the time they were plated for that evening's dessert.

The tin full of perfectly-decorated gingerbread cookies that Bri and Leon brought with them is one reason why the peanut butter cookies lasted as long as they did. They were Bri-licious.

SaluBrious Eating

2009-12-20T17:39:00.000-08:00

Eat to live; live to eat. This is the philosophy of an award-winning eater. I've been fortunate to find many friends who share this philosophy.

My law school friend Bri and her husband Leon are among my kindred culinary spirits. Bri is embarking on a new career as a massage therapist. On her new business web-site for "Salubrious Massage" Bri explains her holistic conception of a healthful and happy life with eating at its core:

To live a happy and balanced life, you need to take an interest in yourself. This includes developing good habits and making good choices in what you eat and do. Some days this means spending time being active and eating foods that are as close to their whole, original, living state as possible. On other days it means having a piece of cake and curling up with a good book.

Photography credit goes to sous chef Leon Godwin

When she and Leon visited us this weekend, Bri demonstrated the hand strength that will make her a masterful massage therapist by going to work on a whole mess of dough that drove a weekend of award-winning eating.

Exhibit A: the gorgeous loaves of bread she baked using the Basic Bread Recipe on page 94 of "The Enchanted Broccoli Forest" by Mollie Katzen of Moosewood Cookbook fame. Bri may have added her own wrinkles by using King Arthur's "bread flour" instead of regular unbleached and egg washing the top of the loaf before it went in the oven. The egg wash creates a challah-like shiny crust that beckons the bread knife. Six of us devoured the first loaf with generous pats of butter on each slice as soon as it had cooled sufficiently. It powered us through two hours of X-Country skiing in the cold (Bri rightly observed that carbo loading isn't such a bad thing when you stay active). The second loaf ended up as thick-cut french toast, a perfect vehicle for Morse Farm Grade B Maple Syrup this morning.

Bri and Leon later collaborated to make enough pizza dough for four 13" pies (we froze one of the dough balls for another day). The dough yielded an easily-rolled out hybrid crust (partially whole wheat). Better still, it cooked up thin and firm but still toothy.

The first pie--by far the group favorite--is topped with Blackwell Roots red bliss potatoes, Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery goat cheese, Maplebrook Farm whole milk ricotta, roasted LePage Farm delicata squash, and fresh rosemary from the plant my cousin Pasqua just sent us (the abundance of fresh rosemary provided me the inspirational spark for this white pizza, which is a take-off on the first ever potato pizza I ate in Rome in a small pizzeria near the Pantheon). At the last minute, Joslyn drizzled a syrupy-sweet balsamic vinegar reduction she had made as a dipping sauce for fried beets the night before--a perfect finishing touch (simmer two cups of balsamic vinegar and a teaspoon of sugar on medium-low heat, stirring often until it reduces to about 1/4 cup of syrupy liquid, stir often so it doesn't burn).

If you're lucky enough to have dough pros like Bri and Leon (and the six hours it takes to let their scratch pizza dough do all its rising), it's actually quite easy to make this ecstasy-inducing pizza pie.

Leaving the skin on, slice one medium-sized delicata squash in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, and then chop into half-moons 1/3" thick.
Toss with oil, salt, and pepper, distribute evenly on a baking sheet leaving plenty of space, and roast in a 450 F oven (turning once to brown lightly on both sides). The skin and flesh should be soft, but still holding their shape because they will cook further still on the pizza. Let cool until they can be safely handled.
While the squash cooks, slice two medium-sized red-bliss potatoes to a thickness of 1/8" (since the potatoes cook on the pizza, they have to be thin and uniform so I suggest cutting them with a mandoline)
Toss the potatoes in olive oil, season with salt and pepper and set aside
Coat the pizza dough with a generous layer of olive oil (roughly a tablespoon)
Starting from the edge and working around the pie's circumference to the center, place the potato slices on the oiled dough slightly overlapping one over the next.
Sprinkle a layer of rough-chopped rosemary over the potatoes
Then, because our potatoes are thin-sliced, we cover them with cheese to prevent them drying out and burning. Use a fork to scrape dollops of goat cheese off the log onto the potatoes and a spoon to fill in gaps with dollops of ricotta. Use the spoon to spread the cheese to your desired coverage, but don't go too overboard with these wet cheeses--you don't want a soggy pie.
Then top with the roasted squash, distributing evenly
It baked in a 415 F oven for roughly 15-20 minutes.

I won't bother trying to capture the effect of this amazing amalgam of fresh, wholesome ingredients in words; the genuine look of delight when I tried this pizza for the first time should say it all.

The evening's second pie: red sauce, steam-sauteed red peppers and onions, cherry tomatoes, cheddar, and shredded mozzarella.

Pie #3: Kale sauteed in olive oil with cherry tomatoes sits atop a dough coated with olive oil and sprinkled with a large rough-chopped clove of garlic. Add red onions, and more shredded mozzarella.

A Tale of Two Saturdays

2009-12-12T14:59:00.000-08:00

It was a social Saturday, it was a solitary Saturday

It was a Saturday of dining out, it was a Saturday of cooking in.

Last Saturday, I was in the midst of Manhattan's millions and did my dining out. Jos and I walked more than 40 blocks from Grand Central and a few avenues through Central Park and to the Hayden Planetarium--all in the rain (no wonder I have a cold; but more about that later). The rain drove us into the shelter of "Lumi," just off Lexington.

Lumi was warm and dry with friendly service, but that's about the best I can say about our experience. Joslyn's spinach pansotti with pine nut cream sauce looked good on the menu, but tasted pretty average when it got to the table. The runny-thin cream sauce was the weak link; it was more cream and and melted butter than a cream "sauce." My dishes came out of order--a big no-no with this good eater--and aren't worth even talking about. Worst of all the prices were high even by Upper East-side standards, which we wouldn't of minded if the food was actually good.

Thankfully, the Gotham City that award-winning eaters know and love shined through at Tribeca's "Dylan Prime."

It wasn't our first choice. That was the Village's uber-popular "Spotted Pig." My Aunt Rowie, who knows these things, has dropped the name a few times, raving after each visit. The trendy "gastropub" has a fiercely egalitarian no-reservations-no-matter-what policy. Since everyone we'd mentioned it to gave it thumbs up and it was Saturday, we knew we had to get there early. 6:30 wasn't early enough to stave off what we were told was at least an hour, possibly two and a half hour wait. Joslyn said the list was a mile long--with no room at the bar and the waiting area packed, people stood out in the rain/snow/sleet. We'd had enough time outside so we moved on.

Dylan Prime's house-made kettle chips served with avocado-ranch dipping sauce

Our gracious host Moje and hostess Corinne saved the evening with their Dylan Prime suggestion. It was a short cab ride from their house and had a remaining open table for all of of us at 7:30 in their lounge (a bonus actually because it offered the full dining room menu, some much lower-priced and more-varied fare on the lounge menu, and two college football conference championship games playing on unobtrusively-located tvs).

Jos's "I-won't-eat-anything-that-had-a-face" diet (a.k.a. vegetarian), wasn't a problem even though Dylan Prime bills itself as an upscale "steak house." The "truffled vegetable pot pie" was a hit for $22--look at the generously-sprinkled flecks of shaved black truffle on the buttery, perfectly-browned crust in the photo above! The rich filling of green filet beans, carrots, and onions under that dome of deliciousness were also infused with the taste of truffle-likely truffle butter.

The family-style a la carte vegetables were a hit too, presented tastefully in miniature cookware like the spinach in the copper sauce pot above. Dylan's truffle-happy chef worked the fungal infusion into hearty corn-potato cakes that Moje had as a side. And everyone got a healthy does of my crispy caramelized brussel sprouts served in cast-iron like the kettle-chips shown above.

I hit the TriBeCa truffle trifecta with my truffled lobster grilled cheese. Flawlessly-rendered on well-buttered, well-browned white bread; it was the grown-up version of the pool-snack-bar classic I used to beg my mom for and still dream about.

Great conversation with old friends and interesting social scenery (were the tuxedoed thirty-somethings and their dress-wearing dates eating dinner at the next couple tables coming from a holiday party with a fancy dress-code or refugees from a lame wedding with bad food?) complimented the food perfectly.

That was last Saturday...

This Saturday, as alluded to above, I am in self-imposed quarantine trying my best to fight off the cold that is threatening to lay me low during the hectic holiday season. Instead of being rain-soaked in Metropolis, I am snowbound at home in Montpelier.

Seeking to end my sickness-imposed-solitude asap, I focused my home-cooking efforts on food that could help cure my cold. With no one else's palette to worry about, I figured I'd cook freestyle without recipes. After seeing my whiney Facebook post about being stuck sick at home while Jos hit Mad River Glen's opening day, a friend suggested lots of garlic might help (again not a problem for a day at home alone with no one to smell my breath).

My thoughts ran to Aglio e Olio. It's an easy-prep southern-Italian classic that I rarely make. In my view, it's no good unless it's really spicy and Jos doesn't do spicy. But since she was not home...

As if by fate, I had some fresh, local garlic from the winter farmer's market, imported spaghetti, and velvety Frantoia EVOO on the shelf (contents of the cornucopia-shaped housewarming gift baskets from my cousin Andrew--truly horns of plenty)-pretty much all you need for the dish. In the time it took to boil the spaghetti, I roughly chopped two large cloves of garlic and fried them lightly in about an 1/8 inch of olive oil (heated-thoroughly first along with about five teaspoons of red chili flakes). Just before the garlic started to brown, I took it off the heat and tossed in the quickly-drained pasta. Dished up under a blanket of freshly-fallen pecorino romano, it was some deeply-satisfying, cold-fighting food.

After eating out so much last Saturday and during this busy work week, I decided to do more behind the stove this Saturday. Since I got my Kitchenaid immersion blender with a gift certificate at Capital Kitchen, I've been focused on soup. What better soup for a cold then carrot-ginger soup with orange juice?

Sticking to my no-recipe theme, I worked pretty much from memory of versions I've made before. We still have local organic carrots from Riverside farm on sale at our Co-op, and they were a good deal by the 5# bag as long you don't mind the misshapen ones. I grabbed the first 15-20 oddly-sized carrots from the big bag. Peeled and rough chopped, they and one and a half onions (some of the season's last grown by a farmer neighbor at her "Main Street Market Garden" plot on the grounds of Vermont Compost) went into a few tablespoons of medium-heated olive oil at the bottom of my stock pot. Then I went to work on what probably amounted to four or five tablespoons of minced ginger. Stirring and seasoning the carrots and onions as needed while they browned (sometimes leaving them covered to soften in their own steam), I added the ginger to saute for the last three to four minutes. I doused it with about 7 cups of water and enough vegetable bouillon to make 5 cups of broth, cooking it covered and uncovered on medium simmer for about two hours.

Then the fun part: immersion blending with the final ingredient--a cup or more of orange juice for sweetness. I really like using the stick blender rather than the food processor or stand-up blender because you can moderate the texture much more. When you blend soups, there's a fine balance between too much and not enough. The perfectly-blended soup would wait for tomorrow's lunch (soup is usually better after a night of melding in the fridge anyway).

Though I ate last Saturday night's dinner at a steak house, as you have already read, I went steakless. I try very hard (emphasis on the try) to eat local, grass-fed, humanely-raised-and-slaughtered beef. If you want to know why, watch "Food Inc." or read "Fast Food Nation." Our food system is still evolving to make that kind of meat option available at affordable prices everywhere.

Luckily for me and my Saturday steak hankering, we do have that option in Vermont. Regular readers know that our local beef comes from Roxbury's Flint Brook Farm (e.g., "Tenderloin Medallions" and "Where's the Beef"). This Saturday, I pulled two "eye of round" steaks from my 1/5 cow shares out of the freezer. Panfried in butter and the juices from button mushrooms and onions started a few minutes before, these tender two-inch-thick steaks may have had little direct benefit on my cold symptoms. They did, however, make me feel a whole lot better.

Dessert is also usually not advisable when you have a cold--sugars supposedly weaken the immune system. But when Joslyn came back from the dinner party I skipped while on quarantine with two of the leftover profiteroles Rory made, I couldn't resist. Joslyn had been eyeing them for weeks, looking gaudy and decadent on the c over of the latest "Cucina Italiana". Lucky for us, Rory loves to rise to a baking challenge. He did so with aplomb this time. I probably didn't savor them as much as I should have given the three hours that it took to make them. A few minutes later, I was licking the extra chocolate off the aluminum foil the profiteroles came in...

"Blogs by bloggers I've eaten with" Tribute Series Part 1: Thanks for Playing

2009-11-24T20:23:00.000-08:00

Sorry I've been slacking lately. I've had plenty of award-winning eating experiences since I last posted Veteran's Day, and I have a lifetime of food memories to draw from if need be. But I seemed to have developed a form of blogger writer's block that my friends and I have dubbed "clogger."

On a food blog, the term "clogger" could have many interesting connotations so we don't need to dwell on whether that's the best way to describe the cause of my reticence. The point is, with Thanksgiving a day away, I've found some inspiration to blog again.

My brother-in-law, Dan Guttenplan, is a pro blogger whose lectured on the topic "The Rise of the Blog", most recently as part of the Moses Greeley Parker Lecture Series. He does his blogging at "http://thanksforplaying.weei.com" on SportsRadio WEEI's web site. WEEI is the sports talk radio station of choice in sports-addicted Boston so its site is legit. I confess that I don't read Dan's blog as often as I should because I don't follow sports that closely. But whenever I check it, I am reminded that it is about a lot more than sports.

Dan's latest post on "Thanks for Playing" titled "Men's Guide to Thanksgiving" is a laugh riot that takes you through the awkwardly-familiar night-before-thanksgiving- reunion with hometown friends to the leftover Turkey sandwich topped with mashed potatoes and craberries that you house when you get your second wind on the day itself.

Dan's is one of the "blogs by bloggers I've eaten with" I have linked to on my site. Since reading his post reminded me how fun blogging can be if you don't take it too seriously, I decided I would do a tribute to his blog as the first in a tribute series on all three blogs currently linked to my site.

I couldn't find any pictures of Dan and I sharing a meal, so this photo from his wedding to my sister Lilly will have to do. Several of the meals I've eaten with Dan have been featured in past posts such as "In Search of Celebrity chefs...", "Summertime, and the livin' is easy" and "Non-stick wild sockeye"

One key feature of Dan's blog is the "best of______" category. He usually gives a best tip, comment, stat, conversation starter, email, etc. of the week and then asks the question: "What would "fill-in famous sports person's name" do? So without further adieu, here's awardwinningeater's homage to "Thanks for Playing.":

Food Revelation of the Week: CAYENNE CARAMEL POPCORN. It's sneaky because the crispy-thick caramel coating dominates the initial flavor experience, but as the sweetness subsides the spice kicks in. If you love sweet and you love hot, you will love this popcorn. I must have the recipe!

This reminds me of the two reasons why I love night's when Joslyn has "Gourmands" cooking club.

First, it means I can eat meat without worrying about making a separate vegetarian course for Jos. This week Mike D. and I ate two Flint-Brook Farm beef 1/4 lb. burgers each, with side salads dressed in Frantoia EVOO (aka liquid gold) and steamed kale. I grilled the burgers on the stove top with my new Lodge cast-iron grill/griddle pan (love it!) having first laced the meat with minced garlic. A couple of Grafton 1-year Vt. Cheddar slices melted nicely over each patty.

Second, it's because I usually get a small taste of leftovers. The theme this week was "spice girls." Each dish was required to prominently feature something spicy. The cayenne caramel popcorn nailed it. Joslyn tried admirably to recreate a dish I conjured last year around Easter: ginger-pear stuffing. She used more than four tablespoons of chopped "fresh" ginger in a classic veggie bread stuffing with onions, celery, carrots, and browned pears added for some sugar. The ginger flavor didn't really shine through except on those bites containing large shreds of ginger she baked on top for good measure. But when I made it last year with much less ginger using the same method the flavor was much stronger.

Jos is hard at work on her version of my ginger-pear homemade stuffing.

This leads me to the question of the week: how the heck do you know if ginger is fresh? If you know the answer please post a comment.

Quote of the week: "Do you think Al's French Frys is still open?--Joslyn 11:52 p.m., Friday Nov. 20.

You know you married the right woman when she's suggesting late-nite grilled cheese and fries after the concert. We hit Al's--a Burlington, Vt-area institution--just before they shut down the fryulators. When a place advertises itself as a french fry joint and intentionally misspells "Frys" in its name, you know it's going to have good fries. Despite the late hour, we decided to go for a full quart of Al's frys. Not a single one went to waste. The last fry was as crispy and warm as the first.

Team effort meal of the week: Clancy, Rory, Jos, and I whipped up a Friday night feast of "luganega" style sausage, roasted broccoli florets and stems, and trufila pasta imported from Abruzzo (a gift from my cousin) in a mushroom and onion alfredo sauce. We finished nearly an entire loaf of Bohemian's sea-salt and rosemary bread as we cooked. I grilled the sausage and sauteed the mushrooms and onions while Clancy made the alfredo sauce and Rory whipped up a delicious batch of chocolate chip cookies. Jos lent a hand with all but the sausage.

It's pretty amazing we had room for second-dinner at Al's.

Conversation Topic of the Week: Clancy and I have a conspiracy theory that the big-food industrial complex tried to rebrand "high fructose corn-syrup" (HCFS) as plain old "corn syrup" on candy ingredient lists. We've been talking about the news that the ubiquitous, cheap sugar substitute may contain mercury.

So when we stopped into the Shaw's for a snack last night, we pored over labels in the candy aisle trying to avoid HFCS. Surprisingly, it was not on the label of most of the candies. We tried twizzlers, gummy bears, starburst, skittles--you name it. All we could find was an ingredient listed simply as "corn syrup." Suspicious that the big food companies may have gotten together with a corrupt Food and Drug Administration to weaken labeling laws, we decided not to take a chance that plain "corn syrup" is HFCS's new alias.

The good news: Neither "corn syrup" nor "high fructose corn syrup" are listed among the ingredients for Heath Bar and Reese's Peanut Butter cups...but what's really going on here? Has all the bad press on HFCS gotten candy makers to switch to a less potent form of "corn syrup" or is it all a word game?

What would Julia Child do? She'd add more butter!

She'd cook thinly-sliced potatoes in a skillet with simmering whole milk, then transfer to a casserole dish, adding lots of butter, then more butter and a smashed clove of garlic and bake at 425 for about 30 minutes. That's what she did on her potatoes edition of the "French Chef." She called it a "Gratin Dauphiniois" and it looked downright delicious.

Jos and I have been watching old episodes of the "French Chef" on netflix. She may not have had the production values of the Barefoot Contessa or Giada DeLaurentis's Everyday Italian, but her classic technique and butter-heavy recipes still hold our attention. Vegetarians be warned: Julia mastered a cooking tradition that uses every part of the animals that give their lives to be our food. Julia can be quite graphic in her anatomical descriptions. Jos learned that the hard way with the episode featuring tripe.

Happy Thanksgiving fellow eaters.

Chewing on Veteran's Day

2009-11-11T16:56:00.000-08:00

We timed our breakfast so that we could arrive at the Montpelier Veteran's Day parade just as its lead honor guard passed through the intersection of State and Main. In our bellies: maple-syrup pork sausages from the Sharon Trading Post, red-bliss potato home fry with local, organic spuds and onions, and Vermont Compost eggs fried in an 1/8 inch of olive oil to achieve crispy, puffy whites and dense yolks. Bright morning sun made the marchers' job easier, though it didn't do much to bring out spectators to observe the parade (I'm not sure what the thin crowd at the parade says about our country as we continue to wage two wars).

After formally marking the holiday with a parade, we ran some errands in neighboring Barre, Vt. Cookie connoisseurs take note: Main St.'s Espresso Bueno has come close to achieving perfection with its chocolate chip and ginger snap cookies. About four or five inches in diameter, these $1.25 delicious disks of dough have captured the essence of two cookie classics. They're no frills. None are needed. Owner, baker, and barista Elizabeth Manriquez (an integral part of the crew during the golden age of now defunct Geisne's Confectionary), has nailed texture (crispy bottoms, toothy edges, moist and chewy centers) and taste (salty-sweet vanilla batter punctuated frequently with milk chocolate/spicy-sweet molasses). If you love cookies (who doesn't) and you find yourself in Barre, Vt., I highly recommend trying one of each.

After I briefly flirted with the idea of grabbing a Straffod Organic Creamery vanilla milkshake from L.A.C.E. to wash down the cookies on the way back to the car (their shakes are potable bit of heaven), we drove out to the Mad River Valley for a visit with one of our favorite veterans, Johnny, and his family. Before and after our walk down their road, we sat around their table breaking bread (first Red Hen baguette, then sesame bagels from Montreal, then slightly stale La Panciata--all toasted), eating pickled foods from their garden, Maplebrook mozzarella cheese, fresh apple, and dried sausage. I took most of my toast with butter--one of the simple pleasures in life that we should never take for granted. As we broke bread, we talked about wars past and present.

We asked Johnny about his service in the First Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm. He described witnessing a Patriot Missile shoot down an incoming Iraqi Scud missile from the vantage point of a nearby dock loaded with explosives. He cited this as the high point of his combat action. There were apparently some incidents of small arms fire behind the lines, but even then he didn't have to discharge his weapon during the ground offensive. We wondered about how our world would be different if only they'd marched all the way to Baghdad back then; although as Johnny's friends, we're grateful that he never had to fire a shot in combat. We wish the same were true for more veterans.

We bemoaned the elusive nature of world peace, we also tried to appreciate the peace of the present moment. Snacking on simple foods, we friends sat around the table unafraid that our afternoon repast would be disrupted at any moment by sudden violence. In this, we are fortunate.

Halloween '09

2009-11-02T19:04:00.000-08:00

Joslyn's cooking club went with a Halloween theme last time around: trick or treat. You either had to bring a treat or a dish with some trick involved (e.g., a surprise ingredient, a play on words, etc.). Joslyn opted for the "trick" theme. Martha Stewart came through for her with an "eye-popping soup" recipe. It's a tomato-herb broth meant to look like blood with eyeballs (mozzarella bocconcini stuffed with olives) floating in it. Jos said it was really good--especially once the mozzarella melted in the hot broth. We had plenty leftover (always a benefit of cooking-club), but I was too grossed out to eat any of it (go figure b/c I ate duck hearts last weekend and I have a beef tongue and oxtail in my freezer, but for some reason my gag reflex drew the line at fake blood and fake eyes).

When the day itself arrived, I couldn't wait to get my hands on some candy. Even though I had a costume picked out and at age 33 am not embarrassed to go door to door competing for candy with 3 year-olds, I wasn't willing to entrust my one day of no-excuses-needed candy bingeing to the randomness of the trick-or-treat market. So around noon, I strolled in to our downtown candy store (you don't know temptation until they put a bulk candy store literally in view of your office window)--Delish--and filled my candy-by-the-pound bag up with the following confectionary melange: sour cherries, gummy army men, gummy penguins, gummy coke-bottles, gummy lobsters (see a pattern developing?), gummy aquarium fish, swedish fish, chocolate-covered gummy bears, "Aussie" black licorice, and Kookaburra strawberry licorice. The bag was nearly empty by the time we hit the candy trail with our little friend Scout.

Halloween is all about candy, right? Wrong if your aunt happens to make a gorgeous tray of brownies to go with dinner after the trick-or-treating is done. And that's just what happened to Scout.

You can just see the longing in her eyes as the aroma of cocoa hits her nose. At this moment, her full bag of candy sits forgotten on the shelf in the background; she didn't even dump it out. After downing the square pictured above, Scout started the sadly unsuccessful negotiation with her parents for another one. It was too much to bear as her parents calmly, but firmly resisted her pleas. Making matters worse for me, I was sitting right next to the half-full plate of still-warm brownies and because Scout couldn't have seconds, I couldn't have thirds--it would have made her parents' job that much more difficult.

At this point, you're probably hoping for the brownie recipe that's so good it can make a kid forget about candy on halloween. Well it's so easy, even Rachel Ray could make it. That's because these brownies were from a box: Continental Mills Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Brownie mix. They're scary-good.

Bill's 89th Birthday fiesta!

2009-11-01T14:45:00.000-08:00

If you want decent Mexican food in central Vermont, you pretty much have to make it yourself. And that's just what we did to celebrate our friend Bill's birthday.

Bill's fiesta brought me the chance to collaborate with a few of the most talented home cooks around: Bill's daughters Denise and Rilla and his son-in-law Tom.

I had the relatively easy task of bringing two taco fillings to accompany the pork shoulder carnitas Denise and Tom made from the pig they've purchased. For the carnivores, I brought browned, seasoned ground beef from our Flint Brook Farm cow. I also threw together some steam sauteed portobellos with red bell peppers, and one of the last local red onions at the market. As each batch cooked, I added fresh-ground cumin, salt, pepper, chili powder, and lime--all to taste. The mushrooms were a hit as I'd prepared them. But without a sauce, the beef was a little lacking. Fortunately, at Denise's suggestion, the beef came together with help from a hearty dollop of sour cream and a few dashes of adobo.

Before dinner, we snacked on chips and guacamole, crudite, and sliced tart. I devoured chips laden with Denise's smoky guacamole kicked up with roasted peppers from Tom's garden, and savored my one slice of Rilla's sweet-potato, rosemary, walnut, onion, and fontina tart from the pages of Eating Well magazine (recipe here). Rilla's rendition was delicious (Joslyn is making it for dinner tonight!)

When we got to the table, we found the full range of taco accouterments waiting along with this lovely jalapeno pie. I'd never had jalapeno "pie" before so these fluffy, cheesy, spicy folds of egg were a revelation. This was very much a family-style meal with lots of plates passing as we stuffed our tortillas and then stuffed our faces with them.

The best thing about being invited to a birthday party is usually the cake. Bill, however, is more of a pie man. After one bite of Rilla's intricately-latticed, citrus-infused apple pie, all thoughts of cake were banished.

The chefs serve dessert to the guest of honor

Abandoned apples reclaimed

2009-10-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

I follow the old saw "an apple a day keeps the doctor away." So far so good on the doctor part and as a bonus I actually enjoy the flavor and texture of apples. They make for a great after-lunch snack in lieu of (or some times in addition to) a cookie from one of the bakeries in downtown Montpelier (La Brioche's standard chocolate chip is the most reliable, with Uncle Mike's deli a close second).

Luckily, for most of the year our Co-op gets good-tasting, Vermont-grown apples in standard eastern varieties like Macintosh and Cortland and even some heirlooms grown in Dummerston, VT by Zeke Goodband on a farm whose orchard dates back to 1791. Round about the late winter/early spring the supply of local apples kept fresh in cold storage since harvest dwindles to the point where the aforementioned cookies begin to play a more prominent role in the daily diet. Of course, I could go with one of the ubiquitous apple varieties from Chile, New Zealand, or Washington state that seem to be plentiful in the supermarkets all year long. But those picture-perfect apples tend to leave me unsatisfied from a taste/texture point of view (usually they are too sweet and either unpleasantly mealy or rock solid) and they don't score so well on the carbon-footprint calculator either.

This time of year, I find another source for my apples. Like much of rural New England, central Vermont is full of derelict apple trees. You see them still at the edge of people's yards, growing by dirt roads, or along hiking trails in lowland forests. In the apple chapter of Michael Pollan's best-seller Botany of Desire, we learn that some of these trees are relics of a time when North America abounded with apple varieties, many of which were produced for home consumption in backyard orchards of just a few trees. These forgotten orchards have become harder to see. Other vegetation grows in around the apple trees and the trees themselves blend in to the tangle when left to their own devices without the careful manicuring they receive at commercial orchards. Many still bare fruit that is as good if not better than the waxy Red "Delicious" apples you find in most cafeterias or convenience stores.

So I've decided to pay more attention to these persistent fruits. Wild apples: once domesticated but now free to grow as they please, often overcoming obstacles they were never intended to face without the assistance of humankind.

To be sure, there's a lot of trial and error in this endeavor. Aesthetically, you've got to channel Joni Mitchell's "i'll take spots on my apples, leave me the birds and the bees" attitude. Many of these reclaimed apples have blemished skins, but there's nothing wrong with them. After rinsing them in the sink, I feel safer eating these than I do most of the store-bought varieties that have been sprayed with chemicals and pawed over by countless people and machines. On the flavor front, I've spit out more than my share of bland or bitter first bites from mystery apples plucked from the low-hanging branches of long-untended trees. As Pollan writes, many of the varieties were grown for apple jack--a form of hard cider--and so don't make for good eating.

Every once in a while you can be rewarded for shaking the right tree.

Two weeks ago, I encountered such a tree while I was out for a walk along a dirt road in the countryside surrounding Montpelier. The tree was battling to be noticed, set back about ten feet from the road in wet soil among a stand of other second or third-growth hardwood trees all with spindly limbs reaching for the best place in the sun. Its fruit, shown above, was covered in a light-yellow skin accented with dashes of red. Underneath, the flesh was crispy-but-not-hard and bursting with sweet-flavored juice. It tasted exactly like an apple should taste, but at the same time I am hard pressed to compare it to any of the varieties I've gotten from the store. I liked it so much that I shook the tree again until I'd gathered enough of the golden orbs to fill my lunch bag for the week.

The world is full of rare and overlooked flavors. To be an award-winning eater, you must learn to seek them out. If you're lucky, you won't have far to look.

Farmers market finds

2009-10-08T19:34:00.000-07:00

The summer's wet weather presented a huge challenge for local vegetable farmers. Though they've had less overall to offer in terms of variety and quantity of produce, I was still able to come home from last week's market with some amazing specimens of our area's cultivated and wild edibles.

Exhibit one: this stunning heirloom tomato grown by Jael Pulskamp (I hope I spelled her name right) at her Main Street Market Garden plot on the site of Vermont Compost--less than a mile from our home and the marketplace. It was an honor to purchase this tomato. As we walked home from the market, people literally stopped on the street to marvel at it and discuss its beauty with me. Some people even asked me if they could hold it. I was glad to oblige, knowing that so many gardeners had lost their own tomatoes to the blight this summer.

Exhibit two: these chicken of the woods mushrooms. Though it's a bit of a cliche to say that something "tastes like chicken" the flavor of this fungus really does resemble that of its feathered namesake when cut into small pieces and sauteed thoroughly in butter and/or oil. These particular shrooms were foraged by farmer and master mycologist Alan LePage. Earlier this summer, I bought some delicious lobster mushrooms from him. Not only do those taste like lobster, they actually look like lobster meat too when cooked. Nature is so amazing in this way.

Cooking for a cause

2009-10-08T18:29:00.001-07:00

"Turning environmental values into state priorities." That's the tagline of the Vermont League of Conservation Voters. As "guest chefs" (no kidding, that's how they listed Joslyn and I on the invite) for a fundraiser held by the League in Montpelier a couple of weeks ago, our challenge was to turn the diners into donors.

I'm very pleased to report that the event was both a culinary and a financial success. My versions of trottole with creamy sun-dried tomato pesto (above right) and creamy pesto genovese (aka basil pesto, above left) were two of the dishes that kept prospective supporters coming back to the buffet table. I used organic Culinary Circle pasta--the new Shaw's brand. I give it high marks for cooking up al dente even as I boiled it in two pound batches, and holding its shape nicely even as I roughly and somewhat hurriedly mixed in the pesto. At $1.49 per pound, it was the same price or cheaper than non-organic name-brand pastas Shaw's was selling.

Now for my recipes (each makes enough for 1 lb. of pasta):

Basil Pesto

3 cups packed fresh basil leaves

3 medium garlic cloves unpeeled

1/3 cup pine nuts

3/4 cup pecorino romano cheese

16 oz homestyle ricotta

extra virgin olive oil

In a small skillet over medium heat, toast the unpeeled garlic cloves for 5-7 minutes. If the skins start to brown then they are done. I picked up this tip from Cook's Illustrated. Before I came to this technique, I could never stand to use the full amount of raw garlic called for in most pesto recipes b/c the raw garlic imparted a sharp and unpleasant flavor that tended to overtake the basil's subtler licorice notes. Toasting the cloves really mellows the sharpness.

After the garlic is toasted remove and set aside.

Then place the pine nuts in the skillet, tossing them often until they too take on a light golden brown color.

Peel and halve the garlic cloves, placing them in the bottom of a food-processor work bowl.

Add the basil leaves, pine nuts, and approximately 12 tablespoons of olive oil.

Process the ingredients together, pausing as needed to scrape down sides of the work bowl, until they have combined to a mostly-uniform dark-green paste.

Transfer the paste into a large mixing bowl and mix together thoroughly with the romano, ricotta, salt and pepper to taste.

As your pasta is almost done cooking and the water has turned yellow from the starch leaching from the pasta, mix about 1/3 cup of the pasta water into the pesto to thin it slightly.

Toss the pasta in the creamy pesto and either serve immediately or at room temperature with ample grated cheese on the side.

The directions are virtually the same for the sun-dried tomato pesto except it usually takes about 3.5 to 4 cups of sun-drieds. To save a step, I usually use the ones that are packed in oil rather than reconstituting dried sun-dried tomatoes.

Neither of these recipes are difficult or that different from standard recipes you can find in other places. My rather simple innovation is the addition of the ricotta. With it's mild flavor, most people don't even realize it is there. But its smooth texture helps it bind more easily with the pasta and it slightly ups the dish's overall protein content (not to mention the fat content too). Both of these also work quite well as dips.

If you enjoy these recipes and you care about Vermont's environment--please consider making a generous donation to the Vermont League of Conservation voters by clicking here. And if you don't live in Vermont, consider supporting the national League of Conservation Voters by clicking here.

Where's the beef?: the story of Beefing Up '09

2009-10-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

It started the day in six tidy cardboard boxes in Farmer Steve Twombly's basement chest freezer up the Oxbow Road in Roxbury, Vermont. The mixed hardwood forest visible just beyond the green grass pastures where our beef was grown epitomized peak foliage. Steve pointed out red maples with their crimson crowns, the bright orange of the sugar maples, and the smoky purple ash trees as we watched his dog chase one of the free-ranging chickens down the road. In his driveway, he explained that the cow we'd just purchased was a mixed breed Hereford, white-faced cows (read more about the breed and its history here) and Angus (and this breed here).

Photography and co-photo-editor: Clancy DeSmet (also the one who inspired this whole experiment in bovine volume purchasing--aka "Beefing Up 2009")

Earlier in the month, our Angus-Hereford mix traveled from Steve's Flint Brook Farm to the Royal Butcher in nearby Randolph, VT where it was slaughtered, hung for almost ten days, and then transformed into a variety of steaks, ribs, rounds, and grounds. And then back to Steve's where we retrieved it this morning.

With a trunk load of boxed beef plus one box of bones for the dogs owners and the shrink-wrapped-frozen tongue out loose, we made the roughly 30 minute drive back to 99 Barre St. where our fellow investors were converging to divide these cuts of beef among ourselves. The cow's hanging weight was 487 pounds; Steve estimated that you end up with about 2/3 of that in meat you can eat. What you see pictured above is only 1/5 share and the photo is deceptive because the freezer is packed several layers deep.

There are many reasons why you'd want to buy your beef this way if you could. It allows you to avoid contributing to the beef industrial complex that grows cows under inhumane conditions on factory farms where they are plied with anti-biotics, hormones, and heavily-fertilized corn--often corn that is genetically modified. It shrinks the carbon footprint of your meat eating by cutting down on transportation and all the fossil fuel that goes into feed production. These cows are solar-powered--the sun makes the grass grow and that's what the cow eats. (But we certainly have to give back some of our carbon credit because keeping all this meat frozen adds to the household energy use). It's also cheaper as compared to retail--especially for this quality of meat.

It wasn't all that long ago in America when buying beef from the farmer rather than the meat factory was not uncommon. Our decision to buy beef this way is our contribution to our area's food security. It's an act of hope that we can build a food economy that harkens back to the farmer-direct traditions that served us well in the past and can be improved on in the future.

Dividing this much beef equitably really took an excellent team effort. If you're going to try this at home, be sure you do it with reasonable and friendly people. We had folks unpacking boxes, dividing cuts up into groups, checking to see that packages were roughly equivalent weights, tracking how many we had of each cut and then announcing how many of each we should take. One example--each share was entitled to 35 1 lb. packages of ground beef. Not all cut categories broke down evenly, so we placed the remainder pieces in a box as we worked through ground beef, stew meat, sirloin tips and steaks, porterhouses, rib-eyes, eyes of round, tenderloin, flank and skirt steaks, short ribs, and a few others. To make this easier to divide, we went for ground beef in place of roasts.

When we finished the first phase, each of the contributing carnivores was staring at an enormous pile of frozen meat bulging from boxes and bags they'd brought to collect their share. And yet, the remainder box was also overflowing with cuts--some placed in there because they were much bigger than the rest, some because they just didn't divide equally in number the first time through.

How to divide these? My answer: take out the Farmer's per-pound price cut-sheet and calculate the value of each remainder piece based on the packaged weight (thank goodness for the ubiquity of cell-phone calculators). We added the retail value and divided by 5. From there on out we had a five-team beef draft. Each person picked their preferred cut through four rounds, then a quick calculation to make sure we were each at or near the 1/5 value of all that remained. The draft went for a total of seven rounds.

Because I shared in the task of retrieving the meat from the farm, I was able to get the tongue--it was in a separate box and farmer Steve didn't know if we wanted it. I spoke up for it. When I was a kid, my dad always used to talk about eating tongue. We never did back then, but I figure it might be worth a try now. I guess some of you are gagging right now, but it's very much in keeping with the Italian culinary tradition of ensuring that no part of the animal who gives its life to feed us goes to waste. Same goes for the "Ox tail," which the group kindly bestowed on me for my services in devising the meat draft system.

Staytuned for lots of posts about beef dishes from here on out...

Joslyn & Julia

2009-09-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

My wife Joslyn founded a cooking club for women in the Montpelier, VT area. They call themselves "The Gourmands" cooking club. The rules of admission are no "wieners, wankers, or winers"--no dogs, no men, and no babies. Technically, a man is allowed to participate if his wife, girlfriend, or roommate is hosting at his shared place of residence, but he must dress in drag (not sure if that's happened yet, but I can tell you I kept my pants on and ate out on the evening Joslyn hosted at our place). Once a month they choose a theme and assemble at a club member's home to eat dishes befitting the theme. Each person then says a little something about the recipe. I love "Gourmands" evenings because Joslyn usually comes home with great recipes and leftovers too.

When the movie "Julie & Julia" hit the big screen, they organized a group outing to see it. They liked the Julia Child part so much that the next club meeting was based on recipes from Julia's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." So we went to the bookstore and added the attractive hard-cover volume to our library. Joslyn was so excited, she actually started reading beginning to end like a book.

When the evening of the Julia-themed meeting arrived, a dehumidifier malfunction in our newly-carpeted basement nearly foiled her Joslyn's plan to make "Haricots verts gratines, a la mornay" (green beans gratineed with cheese sauce). She lost a lot of time cleaning up the basement mess. When she finally turned to making the dish, she became flustered by Julia's somewhat confusing description of a technique for "blanching" beans for 10 to 15 minutes. Needless to say, after 10 minutes in boiling water the beans were lifeless. And apparently the mornay sauce was no better; one of the other Gourmands described it as "glop." Fortunately, many other Gourmands had better luck with dishes that literally shined (thanks in large part to all the butter Julia uses in everything). Joslyn came home re-energized and dying to make one dish that she especially enjoyed: leek quiche.
I'm pleased to report that her second attempt to master the art of French cooking was much more successful than the first. As you can see from the photo above, she's got a ways to go when it comes to mastering the art of pie-crust for presentation. Despite doggedly following all of Julia's directions (trimming the excess crust with a rolling pan, pre-baking the unfilled shell with pie weights, etc.), her crust contracted quite a bit in the baking process. Nonetheless, owing somewhat to the shear amount of butter that goes into and on top of the quiche and its crust (if you look closely at the photo above, you can actually see pools of butter in the center), it came out splendidly.

Having served as Joslyn's sous chef on this one, I must say that Julia's seminal cookbook does take some getting used to. It's stepwise formatting is very orderly--ingredients on the left, instructions related to those ingredients on the right. But some of her instructions can throw you off because she is so economical in the amount of explanation she provides (this is probably the result of the editing process depicted in the film--the first draft of the book was so long it was actually many books--a volume each for the major meats, one dedicated just to sauces, etc). With fresh memories of her "blanching" disaster, the instruction to "boil" 3 cups of leeks for the quiche filling in 1/2 cup of water for approximately 20-30 minutes almost sent Joslyn into a panic. Usually, when you think of boiling something you think that whatever you're cooking will be fully submerged in water; so to Joslyn the called-for ratio of food to boiling liquid made no sense--especially when you consider that 1/2 cup of water probably couldn't boil for that long without totally evaporating.

I stepped in and decided to just plow ahead, bringing the water to boil over low heat with the leeks--the latter were not even close to being covered by water--and of course with some butter thrown in too for good measure. I figured Julia probably didn't make a mistake on something as fundamental as the amount of water needed for boiling. I also reckoned that the leeks themselves would give off moisture as they steamed adding liquid to help the cooking process (like when a person sweats in a hot tub). Turned out I was right--well actually Julia was right. The result was a silky pile of tender leeks that was a perfect textural match for the cream and egg quiche filling. With panic averted, I watched Jos work out the aforementioned pie crust with great aplomb (at least until the upper crust contracted).

Lesson learned here is that using this cookbook requires some trust and a lot of trial and error. The results are well worth it though. As Julia would say, "Bon appetit."

Non-stick Wild Sockeye

2009-09-17T17:11:00.001-07:00

To a voracious-but-principled piscivore like me, there are few things in this world more beautiful than a piece of wild Alaskan salmon.

For many reasons, I stopped eating the farmed variety years ago even though that means I eat much less Salmon overall. My Alaskan friend Clancy gave me a great Ray Troll T-shirt with a ludicrous image of a farmer plowing a field of row crops, but instead of corn or wheat stalks fish tails were sprouting from the ground. The Caption: "Fish are not for Farming."

My top two reasons for preferring wild salmon:

Color--there's no comparison between the ruby red hue of a wild-born salmon and the pathetic pink pigmentation of the cheaper farmed variety that gluts the seafood case at the supermarket. Even if you put aside the controversy over whether aquaculture operations manipulate the fish food to make the farmed fish pink, I think the wild fish wins hands down for aesthetic reasons alone.
Taste--It's hard to describe why, but I am sure that I would choose the wild fish in ten out of ten blind taste tests. A piece of wild salmon simply tastes more like...well...salmon. It's flavor has a strength earned in the wild that cannot be matched by the meat of those poor, former inmates of the fish prisons known in aquaculture as "pens" (photo here)

Because I will gladly pay the premium to get the better-looking, better-tasting fish, I also take great care not to overcook it, dress it up with any fancy glazes, or mangle its delicate flesh in preparation. All you need on a nice piece of wild salmon is salt, pepper, and olive oil or butter. And thanks to a recipe in Cook's Illustrated, I picked up a few tips on how to grill salmon without having it fall apart as a result of sticking to the grill!

I'll try my best to summarize their suggestions succinctly, but you'll have to go back to the source for a full description:

Super-heat the grill by covering it with aluminum foil. Do this for about 5-7 minutes. CAUTION--if you have a gas grill, you'll probably only want to cover part of it and you SHOULD NOT LEAVE THE GRILL UNATTENDED b/c I've had some sketchy grill fires with this technique. Any food scraps in the grill tend to spontaneously combust.
Create a teflon effect by brushing the grill with numerous coats of vegetable oil. After the foil comes off, turn the heat to medium and let cool a bit. Dip but don't douse a folded up paper towel into vegetable oil (don't use olive oil--its smoking point is too low and its quality too good for this job). Lightly brush the grill with the soaked towel. Let rest and then apply five or six successive coats until the grill surface really starts to shine--when it does, you're ready to put the fish on without fear of its skin sticking to the grill.

"Summer-time, and the livin' is easy"

2009-09-08T20:05:00.000-07:00

Yes, for award-winning eaters who love fresh, local foods, the livin' is easy in the summertime. I have taken on an almost militant defense of summer against those who consider Labor Day its official end. I pedantically point to the calendar and note that it marks September 21 as the last day of summer--the day before the autumnal equinox.

But I felt summer slipping away yesterday as we pulled away from Seabrook Beach, NH--our familial summer stomping grounds for three generations.

Perhaps it was because the night before, my father, Joslyn, and I, had combined our last major tomato harvest of the season into a sauce experience. Cooked on the grill in a cast-iron skillet, the sungolds simmered into pure sweetness that suffused the meaty foundation provided by our san marzanos and the fruits of my father's potted vines. Tossed with lightly-fried garlic, grill-roasted corn shaved from the cob, and garnished with shredded fresh basil leaves, this sauce was one of the best things that ever happened to fettucine on a late summer evening. But its very sweetness is the taste of summer ending; the long hours of hot sun that ripened the tomatoes that gave this sauce its character are fewer with each passing day.

Although we took no photos of the fettucine with three-tomato sauce, I thought I would take an opportunity to savor a few more of the summer's good-eating memories.

It was the summer of shrimp at Seabrook. Not a big deal for most families, but for ours a bit of a breakthrough. As a child, I grew up loving seafood. I loved it all: fish, crustaceans, bivalves. You name it, I ate it. My parents never discouraged this--they took me to many restaurants where I ate great seafood meals and fishsticks were in regular rotation on the dinner circuit. But because they weren't big into seafood, we just didn't cook it at home. The arrival of Eastman's Fish Market this summer (read my post about it here), opened some space on the grill for seafood mainly because my parents really like to support new, local small businesses (especially when they sell food). Above you can see how we lathered some of these wild-caught Gulf shrimp with a butter-tobasco blend (top) and a lemon, oil, and fresh oregano marinade (bottom).

Summer is a time for fresh herbs galore. To top these grilled white pizzas, I cut up chives, dill, oregano, rosemary, and basil, and tossed them in a bowl with olive oil, salt, and pepper. After we prepped each dough with a layer of goat cheese, feta cheese, ricotta cheese, or cheddar ( or some combination thereof depending on the whim of each pizzaiuolo), we sprinkled on liberal amounts of this herb melange.

Ever the theme-appropriate baker, my godmother displayed her patriotism with these red, white, and blueberry garnished cupcakes for the 4th. The vanilla-almond variety was to die for. I ate at least 4 and a half that weekend.

I am running out of steam as I write this (it's after midnight). I am trying to hang on to summer in any way I can--staying up late to write this blog post is one manifestation of this quixotic struggle. It's not over yet, but it will be soon. Savor it while we still can.

"g"'s stuffed eggplant

2009-09-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

Those of you who follow the media business know that newspapers are in trouble. Competition from the internet and TV, economic hard times for advertisers, a society that seems more interested in punditry than reportage, and stupid business decisions by those running the increasingly concentrated industry are all among the reasons for this trouble. Is it too late for newspapers to save themselves? I don't know. Nonetheless, while it's still possible to get your daily news delivered as ink on paper, aspiring award-winning eaters would do well to realize that most newspapers are a reliable source of information and inspiration for food lovers.

Case in point--the Boston Globe's new "g" Section on Wednesdays. Each week, this lifestyle section puts the focus on food. A couple of weeks ago, after reading the cover article about chef Dante de Magistris and his new Belmont, MA hot-spot Il Casale, I happened across a picture of a ham-stuffed eggplant that looked delicious. Having two eggplants in the fridge, my folks and I decided to give the recipe a try.

Also working from what was in the fridge, we substituted "speck"--"a smoked pepper-cured prosciutto" from New York's famed Salumeria Biellese for ordinary ham slices. The infusion of the smokiness from the speck was a real plus and complemented the ground coriander called for in the original recipe.

Mom scoops the stuffing into the hollowed out eggplant shells.

Despite numerous other ingredient substitutions and methodological variations we made to the recipe out of necessity, we all raved over the finished product.

I wasn't planning on a big production for lunch that day (a vacation day if you haven't already guessed). I probably wouldn't have logged on to Epicurious or sat by the TV watching Food Network, actively searching out a culinary challenge. I probably wouldn't have even opened a cooking magazine or cookbook. But when I sat down at breakfast, the newspaper was just there on the table inviting me to explore its pages, ready to whet my appetite with an easy-to-follow recipe for an impressive dish with complex flavors and textures.

Only time will tell if we are truly seeing the last days of the newspaper business as we know it. Let's enjoy it while we can. The eggplant recipe reminds me that there's still a lot to enjoy in the Boston Globe's Wednesday "g" section.

I Mughini

2009-08-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

In my "Good Eater Award" acceptance speech, I thanked Grazia and Silvio Mughini for the pivotal role they played in my development as an appreciator of food. They are my "famiglia italiana"; the couple that hosted me on my semester abroad in college and have opened their home and seats at their dinner table to me several times since. In their Florentine kitchen and dining room, they have served me copious amounts of delicious food and delighted in my insatiable appetite and ecstatic appreciation for their offerings. Li`, si mangia bene!

They generously hosted us for four nights of our honeymoon. On our second to last evening, they invited our traveling companions to come to dinner. Alas, as the day wore on, our friends decided to call it an early night. When I called Grazia to deliver the news at around 4:00 she told me the shopping was done and most of the dinner prepped for 6. At that, out of appreciation for her effort and anticipation of a feast, I promised to eat for three.

On the left, a simple preparation of steamed vegetables: carrots, cauliflower, green beans, and potatoes expertly seasoned with coarse salt and dressed with piquant Tuscan olive, oil. Center, a plate of oil-cured olives and goat cheese rounds with roasted peppers, hot peppers, and herbs. Right, Silvio's "carciofi salad"--a traditional Tuscan dish. Silvio slices his artichokes very thin, dresses them with lemon juice and olive oil, seasons with salt and pepper, and covers with shaved pecorino toscano. I gleefully consumed multiple helpings of each.

For some reason, the Florentines are huge fans of "rose beef," or at least the Muhginis are. Their stand-by "secondo" on special occasions: succulent slabs of medium roast beef, basted with wine and its own juices and rubbed with fresh herbs. This evening was a special occasion. To fulfill my promise to Grazia, who'd over-shopped and over-cooked expecting two other mouths, I ended up eating two-thirds of the plate.

Though Silvio has long been on cholesterol medication, cheese is his irrepressible vice. Accordingly, Silvio didn't seem too upset about the lack of competition for the cheese plate featuring the Grafton One Year Cheddar we brought as a gift, Swiss Emmentaler, stracchino (tangy Italian-style cream cheese seen at the far end of the plate), and a couple more whose names I don't recall but flavor I won't forget.

"Da morire." That's how I describe this meal, which ended with a dry-by-design golden cake that we doused with strawberries bathed in lemon juice and sugar. It means "to die for," and its a compliment to the chef that the Mughinis taught me--one that has delighted many Italian-speaking chefs upon whose meals I have bestowed it.

Grazie mille, famiglia italiana!

Tomato Basil Tart

2009-08-25T18:39:00.000-07:00

Lots of butter goes into the crust of this staple of our summer diet: a tomato, mozzarella, basil tart. The recipe comes from "The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook" by Jack Bishop--editorial director of America's Test Kitchen, the folks who bring us Cook's Illustrated. I cannot say enough about his cookbook. None of the recipes are difficult; all are delicious.

This was the first tart of the summer, but it will not be the last.

God Save the Sungolds!

2009-08-24T19:32:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like the taste of a tomato picked fresh off the vine--especially when the vine is in your own yard. It is the quintessential taste of summer. It is also that much sweeter because it's patiently-earned payoff for the many hours of weeding, picking off suckers, staking, and other t.l.c. needed to bring forth these divas of the garden.

In Vermont, like summer itself, the tomato season arrives late and is ever-too short. Sadly, many a gardener will not know the pleasure of plucking their own tomato crops in the summer of 2009. The infamous "potato blight," similar to the one that caused mass exodus from famine in Ireland, is riding the rain-soaked winds throughout our area, causing plants to crumple under their own weight as stalks rot and fruits die back. By some miracle, the sungold cherry tomato plants in our yard--that riotous tangle of green and yellow pictured above--are still going strong with no sign of blight. We are not, therefore, taking our two-pint-a-day harvest for granted.
Over the weekend, Joslyn assembled these sungold, mozzarella, and basil skewers for my grandma's 92nd Birthday party. She's got some fig-infused balsamic vinegar on the side--as if these yellow orbs of sugar, seed, and nightshade flesh weren't sweet enough matched with the licorice notes from the basil!

Tonight for dinner, I reprised something my dad did earlier in the summer based on a recipe whose source I cannot remember. It's an incredibly easy and fast ricotta pasta sauce jazzed up with chopped sungolds and basil from the garden.

1 pound pasta (malfadine noodles, with their ruffled edges worked well)
2 pints sungold cherry tomatoes--or whatever is in your garden.
16 oz whole milk ricotta (I used Calabro organic)
1 cup pecorino romano cheese grated
4-5 packed tablespoons of basil cut chiffonade
salt and pepper

Boil well-salted water and add pasta to cook
While pasta cooks, empty ricotta into large mixing bowl
Several minutes into cooking pasta, when the water has become infused with starch from the pasta, reserve about a cup of the cooking water and let cool slightly
Remove al dente pasta and drain
In 1/4 cup increments, pour in the reserved pasta water and stir vigorously--the goal is to get a texture that approximates a cream sauce so you may not need to use all of the water
Once texture is achieved, fold in the pecorino, basil, and tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately

Though we mainlined the sungold shot from Joslyn's birthday meal and gorged further on these two dishes, many more pints remain on the vine for the picking and should ripen over the next week. We offer prayers to whichever fickle god has thus far protected our plants from the blight in hopes that we will be able to enjoy their full harvest. And if our harvest is so delivered, we will show our thanks to the sungold deity by sharing the bounty with those whose plants died like so many young plants of their generation: before their time. Let us pray.

Sungold Cherry Tomato Sauce

2009-08-13T20:07:00.000-07:00

The makings of the pasta course for Joslyn's birthday meal...

The birthday girl and her tomatoes

Simmering sungolds

Joslyn's 32nd Birthday Menu

2009-08-11T19:23:00.000-07:00

A celebratory menu for seven friends (photos to follow)

Aperitivo

Summertime Soda

1.0 oz Sprite or Ginger ale

1 oz Chambourd

1/2 oz Grand Marnier

1/2 oz light rum

Shake with ice, then pour over rocks

add 1.5 oz of seltzer and stir

Antipasto

Wild Mushroom Haloumi Cheese Frico on Red Hen Seeded Baguette

3 cups (raw) chopped Chanterelle Mushrooms

1 cup (raw) chopped coral mushroom (both were harvested locally by a very skilled and trusted mushroom hunter named Alan LePage)

8 oz Haloumi cheese, grated thickly

Truffle Oil

(Also served with truffled honey as an optional condiment)

Sweat mushrooms down in butter and remove from pan

heat skillet to medium high

Spread thin layer of grated cheese over heated skillet covering evenly 6" circle in the center

When bottom starts to brown, sprinkle even layer of mushrooms on top of frying cheese and

then sprinkle with another layer of cheese

Loosen cheese fritter from pan and flip using plate to cover skillet

slide fritter back into pan with uncooked cheese side down and cook until it is browned--crusty on the edge, but soft in the middle

slice on cutting board and serve drizzled lightly with truffle oil on thin baguette slices

Pasta

Farfalle with Sungold Cherry Tomato Sauce

6 pints sungold cherry tomatoes chopped in half (enough sauce for two pounds of pasta)

2 medium onions grated

extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper applied throughout cooking process to achieve desired flavor and draw out the water from the tomatoes as needed

fresh basil leaves--1 teaspoon minced per bowl you serve

1/2 fresh lemon

saute onion in oil until light golden

add tomatoes and lightly salt them

simmer gently until the sauce thickens and most of the water has cooked off (about 45 minutes)

set aside overnight in the fridge to let flavors combine

reheat slowly over medium heat, adding 1/4 cup of cooked pasta water in at the end for flavor and to thin the sauce out slightly

toss with cooked pasta

squeeze lemon juice over the pasta as you toss it in the serving bowl

garnish each dish with fresh minced basil leaves

Contorni

Green Beans with Garlic Bits

1 pound string beans (thanks to Sarina, Scout, and John for growing and contributing them to the meal)

two large garlic cloves diced into small bits--less than 1/8 inch

The other half of the lemon

blanch string beans in salted boiling water

heat large skillet on medium high heat with olive oil (work in batches if necessary to ensure only one layer of beans in skillet at a time)

add beans, garlic, and toss vigorously with another quick drizzle of oil

season with salt and pepper to taste

let fry tossing occasionally until garlic bits start to turn light golden brow, get slightly crunchy, and start to stick to the beans

As soon as the bits hit that point, empty the pan into a serving dish

check the seasoning again and then sprinkle with juice from the fresh lemon

Dolce

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting and Wedge of Strawberry

As with most birthdays celebrated among our group of friends, Rory supplied the dessert. Stay tuned for his recipe and the recipes of all the other cakes he's made this birthday season in a subsequent post.

Pictures of this birthday meal to follow--I promise this time

Twitaly

2009-08-06T19:26:00.001-07:00

I don't tweet. Facebook is enough of an electronic addiction to manage. But trying to get a point across in 140 characters or less--as Twitter requires--could be a useful exercise for someone as longwinded as me. That's especially true when it comes to food.

Moreover, I've been dying to write more about the amazing meals we ate on our recent trip to Italy and, in doing so, relive the distinct pleasure each one gave me. So in an attempt to better understand the social phenomenon that is Twitter, I am going to try capturing the essence of the edibles depicted below in 140 characters or less (I'm not counting spaces--this is already hard enough for an Italian-American who's talking about eating Italian food in Italy).

"Gnudi"-boiled dumplings of ricotta generously bathed in a sauce of butter and sage. Imagine ravioli, but nude. Made in house at the Trattoria Accadi, Firenze.

Caprino con miele--Sardegnian goat cheese with Tuscan honey from the "ginestra" flower. Tangy, creamy, sweet, and quintenessentially Italian in its simplicity.

Fall-off-the-bone roast lamb in pan gravy of its own delicious juices--my third course at Tuscan institution "Il Latini." The line is out the door almost every night.

Lest we forget where all that buttery prosciutto hanging overhead came from, the disembodied pig head greets us upon entry. Thanks for being so tasty, amico!

Community-supported fish?

2009-07-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

Regular readers of this blog know that we have a "community-supported agriculture" share with a local farm. The idea is that you pay a fixed amount of money directly to the farmer and in return each week you get a random allotment of veggies grown by that farmer. It's a good deal for us because we eat a lot of vegetables and local organic veggies are pricey. But by eliminating the middleman and being flexible enough to eat whatever is delivered, we get a much better price. Of course the farmer wins too because he or she is guaranteed an income stream each week. Many farmers also offer a meat share.

Witnessing the success of this concept, members of New England's small-scale fishing fleet are trying to cash in--and lord knows they need the extra cash given the sad state of New England's declining fish stocks and the competition from the big international fleet. NPR recently reporte d that a pilot "community-supported fish" program in Boston has enrolled 780 fish-eaters with another 500 pining piscivores on the waiting list.
That reminded me about our delightful visit to the newly-opened Eastman's Fish Market in Seabrook, New Hampshire. The market is run by Carolyn Eastman, a fisherman's wife who buys directly from her husband Ed's boat and the boats of a few other locals who ply the Atlantic for haddock, flounder, cod, and other native species. When I say that this market is working with the "local" fleet I mean that you can walk out of the market and see the fishing boats that catch the fish anchored in the harbor 100 yards away. Carolyn keeps a great selection of fresh fish in the case and this past year she started a "community supported fish" program of her own serving in-shore communities of southern New Hampshire.

One thing you'll notice when you walk into Eastman's: it doesn't smell anything like dead fish even though the place is full of it. That's a sign of freshness. If your fish smells fishy, then it's probably been hanging around too long.

On our first visit, she sold me on the exquisite piece of haddock you see her weighing out above. She sells haddock fillets with skin off or skin on (same price) because she says some people think the fish tastes better with skin on. I went for the skin on, but I honestly couldn't tell a difference in taste. I will say, though, that there's a nice aesthetic to the skin-on--especially with a whitefish like Haddock. The skin is a reminder that the piece of food before you once belonged to one of Poseidon's progeny.

The fish was absolutely delicious. For those unfamiliar with haddock, it is a very mild tasting fish. It therefore presents a nice canvas upon which you can load a wide variety of flavors. In this case, I went for a mix of diced fresh veggies including cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives, onions, bell peppers, and fresh basil. I drizzled it all with oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, and sealed it in foil for placement directly on a medium-high heat gas grill. After several minutes, the steam emanating from the foil pouch (mostly given out by the liquid in the veggies) was a sign that this fish dish was done.

The finished product was so much of a hit that my sister--a vegetarian for most of her life--even had a small piece.

Blondies on Barre St.

2009-07-23T20:15:00.000-07:00

This is our second successful batch of blondies from "Baking Illustrated," by the editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine. We played around with the recipe a bit, using chopped raw almonds and doubling the vanilla (love that stuff), but their technique was pretty much foolproof (you know it is because two fools baked it and it came out fine).

Here's one thing I learned from the cookbook: to remove brownies from the pan for easier cooling and to prevent the blondies from crumbling upon transfer, the author's recommend first lining the pan with overlapping, lightly greased parchment or foil sheets before you add the batter.

Here's one thing I learned because Clancy doesn't have a wisk in his kitchen: if bereft of wisk you can combine butter and sugar using a flat potato masher with a light touch.

Photography and photo editor credit: Keith Walsh

(The Best) Lobster Roll

2009-07-19T19:09:00.000-07:00

Marriner's Restaurant in Camden Maine makes the following boast on its menu: "(The Best) Lobster Roll." As a general matter, it's always gutsy for a restaurant to claim to have the best of anything. It's all the more gutsy, however, to claim that you make the best version of a summer classic like the Lobster roll.

Up and down the New England coast--but especially in Maine--there are hundreds if not thousands of restaurants serving a version of this deceptively simple sandwich. Now I am in no position to say whether Marriner's version, pictured above, is truly "The Best," but I've had my fair share of Lobster rolls (at least five so far this summer) and I can say that I've never eaten a lobster roll better than the one I ate at Marriner's.

For starter's there is the shear size. I was informed by the friendly wait staff that each roll has the equivalent amount of meat you would get from a 1 & 1/4 pound lobster. Perhaps this is why Marriner's chooses to serve its lobster salad on a lightly-grilled hamburger bun instead of on a hot dog roll as most others do. This thing is so big that two different sets of patrons stopped on their way out of the restaurant to talk to me about the sandwich. They were literally stopped in their tracks drooling and expressing remorse for not having ordered it themselves (i bet that doesn't happen at Red Lobster or Long John Silver's). Moreover, this is a chunky lobster roll in which the pieces of meat are so coarsely chopped that you can tell which part of the lobster (claw, tail, etc.) the meat came from.

And when I say that this is a deceptively simple dish, I am referring to the fact that a good lobster salad requires fine balancing. Like chicken, tuna, ham, and other meaty "salads," the lobster salad has a mayo base. But lobster is no ordinary meat--lobster is pricey! For that reason restaurants and many home cooks often use more mayo than lobster (mind you, I rarely complain about excess mayo). To get lobster salad right, you must impart the essence of mayo: too little and you've really just got lobster on a bun, too much and you ruin the crustacean's pleasantly gritty texture and mask its briny flavor. Marriner's has found that balance.

One more thing going for Marriner's lobster roll--you know the lobster is local and fresh. Maine is the undisputed lobster capital of the world--fancy restaurants pay big $$ to have lobsters shipped from Maine. And because lobsters are kept alive after they are caught and can be shipped alive in fancy packing crates, it is still possible to enjoy a "fresh" Maine lobster in places where people would be very confused if you told them that you had to drive north to get "down east." But for my money, a lobster roll just tastes better when eaten at a restaurant overlooking a harbor filled with lobster boats and hundreds of brightly-colored lobster traps (known sometimes as pots) bobbing gently in the surf. True appreciation of food comes when you can connect what's on your plate to the place from which it came.

Surprise morels and Green Top Brontosaurus Chops

2009-07-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

Here are just a few photos from an epic meal we ate one weekend last month. While the meal consisted of many delicious components, I want to highlight two standouts.

I made this amuse bouche by topping water table crackers with chopped morel mushrooms that I sauteed in a well-buttered cast iron skillet and seasoned lightly with salt and pepper. It's a simple preparation designed to accentuate the complex, meaty flavor of the mushroom.

For those of you unfamiliar with morels and/or those who just don't like mushrooms this picture probably looks downright unappetizing. Trust me--there's a good reason why fresh morels can fetch prices as high as $35-$60 dollars a pound. Their taste and texture resembles the best steak I have ever eaten and they are among the most elusive wild edibles around.

I foraged the morels that went into these morsels myself on Barre St., Montpelier of all places. For those of you unfamiliar with Montpelier, Barre St. is a busy downtown residential/commercial neighborhood. I was out for my afternoon run sort of lost in my thoughts when my eye spied something odd on the sidewalk near the garden patch of the new apartment complex--it was the unmistakable stem and honeycombed cap of a morel. A group of volunteers was getting the garden ready for the summer and had pulled the shroom along with some weeds. I immediately asked the volunteers where exactly it had come from and was delighted to hear them say that there were more and I was welcome to them. Sure enough, at the back of the plot under some evergreen shrubs were four good-sized morels.

Mushroom hunters spend countless hours analyzing weather conditions and scouting the forest for these delicacies. In most regions where morels can be found, the typical season lasts a few weeks. They are almost impossible to raise in captivity (i.e., to farm). Point being, this was an incredibly lucky find.

Now I say the morel was unmistakable, but I should advise you that I've spent hours studying field guides and I know the tell-tale signs for distinguishing the true from the false morels (the latter aren't lethally poisonous (in most cases) and some people do eat them but I don't advise it.) I've foraged them and I've bought them at the market enough times to spot them easily. Before you eat any mushroom that you forage, you should consult with someone who has experience.

Rory scored these pork loin chops from our new favorite butcher at the Green Top Market in Morrisville, VT. The hogs who gave their lives to create this amazing meat were raised by the butcher's son on his nearby farm. The chops were cut to order and as you can see were quite thick. Hence, we dubbed them brontosaurus chops because they looked like something Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble would have grilled up.

They were a sight to behold--pink flesh covered with a dry rub Rory threw together with spices from the cabinet and marbled with a generous ribbon of fat. I'm not a big fan of Emeril Lagasse, but I wholeheartedly agree with his oft-uttered saying: "Pork fat rules." Grilled with a thick slathering of vinegar-based bbq sauce, these may be the best pork chops I have ever eaten.

The resolution isn't great, but this should give you some idea of the shear size of these chops

"Grill baby, grill!"

Pasta improv

2009-07-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

This time of year our Pete's Green CSA (community supported agriculture) share comes fast and furious every week with all sorts of seasonal, organic, and locally-grown produce. Despite this guaranteed weekly influx of fresh veggies, we cannot resist buying even more at the Saturday farmers market in Montpelier--rated among the nation's best by Eating Well magazine. So when Wednesday rolled around this week, we faced the kind of problem that an award winning eater likes to have: lots of random ingredients that need to be used while they're still fresh when their flavors are at their peak.

Situations like these are made for cooks who are comfortable working without a recipe and I count myself in that category. Here's what I had to work with:

two medium sized beef-steak tomatoes

two small waxy potatoes

a portobello mushroom

a bunch of basil (augmented by some from our garden)

lots of scallions

onions

garlic

two crowns of brocoli

What to do? I thought about a frittata, but I had eggs for breakfast. So pasta was the next obvious choice.

Looking around the kitchen, I spied a half-pound of Pastene brand malfadine--a wide noodle with ruffled edges that holds sauces well. I also knew I had pignoli nuts in the fridge along with a chunk of romano cheese--add the basil and you've got pesto. Things were starting to fall into place.

Because I had so many scallions, I decided to add those to the pesto in place of garlic (I found them to be a milder substitute for the sharpness that raw garlic often brings to pesto). I roughly chopped six or seven shoots from root to tip and added those to the food processor along with the basil, pine nuts and oil. Once those were all whirred together I transferred the paste to a serving bowl big enough to toss with 1/2 pound of pasta and stirred in freshly grated romano cheese.

Turning to the other ingredients, I decided that I would dice the potatoes and onions to speed cooking time in the saute pan with the goal being that the veggies could be cooked in roughly the time it takes to boil the water and cook the pasta. After seasoning these with salt and letting them soften in a cast-iron skillet over medium heat I added some chopped garlic and tossed that for 30 seconds. Next, I stirred in diced mushroom and the coarsely chopped broccoli--florets and stems (I find the stems to be as flavorful as the florets)--and added a little more oil, salt, and pepper to coat the newest additions. Because of the scallion glut, I added even more roughly chopped green onions to the pan.

By this time, the pasta water was boiling and the pasta was in. So to ensure that the veggies finished up in time I covered the pan to let the contents steam saute for a minute.

Early on, I decided that the flavor of the two hot-house grown early season tomatoes would get lost if I cooked them. So I halved each one, scooped out the seeds and mealy middles, and julienned them into long thin strips. These would add color and freshness as a garnish to the plated dish.

I drained the pasta, spilling a little of the starchy, flavorful cooking water into the pesto bowl to thin it out a bit. I then tossed the noodles with the pesto and, once it was well coated, I mixed in the sauteed vegetables. I topped each plate with a full tomato's worth of garnish. I grated a little fresh romano over each dish and tossed in some raw pine nuts for additional color/texture contrast.

The resulting bowl of pasta was visually appealing with its many hues of green, the deep black of the portobello, the bright red of the uncooked tomatoes, and the golden translucence of the onions.

It was also damn tasty and filling too. The key--as with virtually all Italian style cooking--is fresh, high-quality ingredients; mine were thanks to the skill and dedication of local farmers who overcome Vermont's short growing season and fickle weather.

Barreo "Freedom's Birthday" Barbecue

2009-07-01T17:43:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in Rory's kitchen where preparations are under way for an annual observance of a uniquely American tradition: the 4th of July Barbecue. I wish I had my camera to document the forthcoming feast. In the fridge: what Rory just referred to as "a buncha meat," actually approximately 22 pounds of honestagoodness Vermont-raised, conflict-free pork shoulder that will be transformed via vinegar, dry rub, and slow heat into pulled pork samwiches with cole slaw. The pork is from the Green Top in Morrisville and is raised by the butcher's son on a nearby farm. Rory has made his own buns (50+ so far) with the Gourmet recipe from what we think is the June '08 cover. I was fortunate enough to participate in the test run on both a week ago and I envy all of those who will eat it Friday at the Barreo "Freedom's Birthday" Block Party. Save room for the hot dogs, Flint Brook Farm farm sliders, deviled eggs, and other summer BBQ staples that Clancy, Karen, Keith, and Michelle will be supplying.

Rory's dry rub for the pork (eyeballed the proportions of each based on what the chef thinks is right for your taste buds and the amount of meat you have):

Salt

Chili powder

dried mustard

brown sugar

paprika

I hope they will have pictures of the finished products to share in a subsequent post.

Late night Bohemian bread

2009-06-19T21:33:00.000-07:00

I just devoured a very satisfying late night snack: a thick but stout slice of Bohemian Bread's Troika 3-seed loaf toasted with a drizzle of olive oil topped with a slice of lightly-melted Vermont-made fresh mozzarella cheese. I find fresh mozzarella gets too stringy if you really melt it down. Here I placed the cheese on the bread after the timer bell rang, letting it warm and soften just enough with the residual heat left in the oven.

No matter what meal or time of day, bread and cheese never fail to disappoint.

The Troika 3-seed round loaf that supplied the foundation for this rustic open-faced grilled cheese came with this week's community-supported-agriculture ("csa") share from Pete's Greens. (The CSA really deserves its own blog entry because it has spawned countless recipes and improvised dinners. It has taught me to appreciate celeriac and other hearty local vegetables that can remain edible well into the fresh food drought between the end of one growing season and the beginning of the next.) I am glad that B ohemian Bread decided to be part of the Pete's Localvore share. The brick-oven bread, made in small batches by Robert Hunt and Annie Bakst in East Calais Vermont using what the bakers describe as a "French long-fermentation technique," is only available in four stores in the area. We've enjoyed it thoroughly as a vehicle for peanut butter, butter (Organic valley's "pasture" butter--a product of grass-fed cows), jelly, and olive oil.

I could try to expound on the tangy taste of this textured bread that I continue to eat chunks of even though it is well past the time when I should be eating anything. Instead, I am going to simply reprint verbatim the list of ingredients printed on the white bag in which it came and let you use your imagination from there.

unbleached flour, pure spring water, organic whole wheat flour, organic oats, sunflower, sesame, flax, natural starter, sea salt (net weight 8 0z.).

Adventures in fried food: Oliva Ascolana

2009-06-12T01:00:00.000-07:00

Round one of free food that came with our afternoon Anisetta and Campari in Ascoli Piceno

Caption: A complimentary plate of fried delights came next at the famous Cafe "Anisetta Melleti" in Ascoli Piceno, in La Marche, a central region of Italy.

I heard an interesting story on NPR the other day; a Harvard anthropologist explained his theory about the human characteristic that has come to set people apart from all our other relatives in the animal kingdom: eating cooked food. No, it's not toolmaking--apes and crows are just two other animals that use tools to accomplish various tasks. But when it comes to meal time, we're the only ones that regularly apply some form of heat to our food before we chow down.

This raises the following question: what sets an award-winning eater apart from all the other cooked-food-consuming homo sapiens? One answer is a deep appreciation and voracious appetite for fried food. Sure, it's not the healthiest source of sustenance but it may be the tastiest.

On our recent trip to Italia, we visited a border region between Abruzzo and La Marche where they take great pride in eating food fried.

Food cooked in the "Ascolana" style is named after the epicenter on this fried-food fault, the city of Ascoli Piceno (I cannot help the earthquake references; while we were visiting, the region was still rumbling with aftershocks from the major "terremoto"--italian for earthquake. And in the town of Ascoli itself we visited the tomb of St. Emidio in the cathhedral bearing his name. There were many people praying at this tomb--St. Emidio is the patron saint of earthquake protection and thus far he's kept Ascoli safe while other towns not far to the South were partly laid to rubble. I digress...) This lush and hilly area is wedged between the Southern Appenine massif and the Adriatic sea. It's hillsides perform double duty. They nurture olive groves on the western side that doesn't get as much exposure to the sea air. On the eastern side where fingers of Adriatic mist spread over the coastal valleys in the evening the hills are home to vineyards mostly growing the montepulciano d'Abruzzo grape.

Though I wouldn't put it past my paesani to deep-fry grapes, their specialty is deep-fried olives.

Fleshy and mild ascolana green olives are first pitted, then stuffed with a mixture of browned-off meat (lamb, veal, pork sausage, or some combination thereof depending on the chef), bread crumbs, grated cheese, a beaten egg, and herbs. Then, the stuffed olives are breaded (standard method of flour dredging, egg wash dip , and then a dredge through bread crumbs)and fried in oil. The juice from the meat mingles with the olive's natural oils and those acquired in the cooking process. The result is a densely-packed sphere of mildly-greasy delight.

I first tried olive ascolane as part of a larger dish showcasing the fried fare of the region at Ristorante Zunica in Civitella del Tronto (much more about the amazing meals we ate there in future posts). Under other circumstances, the star of the dish would have been the moist and delicate fried lamb chops. But the richness of the olive ascolana and the novelty of the accompanying crema fritta (literally deep-fried custard of the flavor and texture you would find in Boston cream pie) wowed me with every bite.

I relived the rapture the next day when we journeyed to the City of Ascoli itself. Our hotelier, Maurizio, brought us to the famed Caffe Anisetta Meletti. We battled through a driving rain to find the Art Decco refuge situated in Ascoli's Piazza del Popolo. Roman stonework is still evident in the basement bathrooms of this establishment where Hemingway once imbibed and Dustin Hoffman filmed a movie. Five of us ordered a drink each ranging from rich ciocolatto calda to liqueurs and as our drinks arrived, the waiter brought over a plate of mixed snacks. This is a wonderful happy-hour-like feature of afternoon drinking in many Italian cafes: drinks come with free food.

Luckily for this good eater, the first plate pictured above with chips, raw olives, and a slice of crostata (a thick-crusted tart topped with fruit jam) was just round one. Half-way into our drinks, a heaping plate of Ascolana antipasto featuring fried bell peppers, artichokes, and of course the stuffed olives arrived. By then, most of my companions had had their fill and the fried plate was mine to devour!

Behold, the Tower of Donuts

2009-06-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words, so I will try to keep the text to a minimum. I wish I can claim credit for the brilliant dessert item depicted here--the Tower of Donuts aka the Donut Cake--but that goes to my friend Kelly who painstakingly assembled this masterpiece to celebrate her husband Mike's 40th Birthday. She gave me the honor of carrying it across a crowded room while it was topped with 40 burning candles. Kelly informs me that she reprised the idea from Mike's 30th bday party--this time adding in the layer of chocolate glazed for color. I am disappointed to report that I only ate three of these donuts (I was hoping for a better showing but I got too filled up on the bacon-wrapped dates from Bon Temps catering that they served as an appetizer).

Mother's day Maple Cremee Waffles

2009-05-10T10:35:00.001-07:00

As I struggled to come up with an opening sentence to this post, Rory placed a warm plate of grilled potato chips in front of me. Thinly sliced rounds of starch, seasoned with salt, pepper, and olive oil are grilled so that their edges are crisp and their centers fleshy. So easy, so good. Serve with a side of ketchup and douse with cholula, tabasco, or equivalent. I've been eating these a lot lately. I made a batch for our first meal in our new home just a couple of days ago. And as I struggle to come up with a beginning to my second paragraph, I do so in excited anticipation of the next batch soon to come off the grill.

Our family has a lot to celebrate. Aside from Mother's day, my mom won teacher of the year award earlier in the week, and my mom and dad were our first overnight guests in our first house. Like many other families, we celebrate these occasions with food.

--In case you were wondering, the newest batch of chips is as good as the last.

We started our celebration at Positive Pie 2 (Mom's choice; she remembered their web site because my review of their slices is a featured quotation in the bottom corner http://positivepie.com/) Before our pasta entrees, my dad got and shared two slices ordered from the counter but delivered to the table: a pepperoni, a bianco with pesto--both lived up to expectations for a crust that was crispy and chewy in equal measures.

My lunch keeps breaking my train of thought. I just bit into my friend Sarah's strawberry rhubarb pie. It is professional-bakery quality. The crust is so thin and light yet it manages to maintain its flaky shape over half an inch of sweet jelly-donut-like filling (apparently the key is that it is made with tapioca). Before that and after the chips, it was two grilled Applegate grass-fed beef hot dogs with cheddar cheese (Cabot Hunter's Sharp) on La Panciata pannini rolls. (La Panciata in Northfield, VT--best soft-bread, bakery around.)

Anyway, I better get to the point of talking about one of the many wonderful ideas my mom has given me: the waffle with ice cream. Much like your favorite diner, my mom would make them for us at breakfast, lunch, or dinner whenever we were being fickle toward the many other comfort-food recipes in her repertoire (shepherd's pie, eggplant parm, chicken florentine, ny strip steak and fried mushrooms from a can, New England boiled dinner; the list goes on). If I understand the family lore properly, my mom learned the sublime pairing of waffle and ice cream from my grandmother (although us grandkids associate more strongly with grandma's "flapjacks"--pan-sized pancakes cooked in bacon fat). Either way, I felt it was a fitting main course for our mother's day brunch. Other dishes, which were all delicious, included scrambled eggs with cheddar and dates, homefried potatoes, parsnips, and onions, and breakfast sausage from the Washington County-raised pig my friends and I bought half of. But the waffles were my favorite.

To make them, I used the Bisquick box recipe--my mom's stand-by. Mom had to help quite a bit as I tried to learn learn the finer points of waffle-making on our ancient, often-malfunctioning, Black Angus waffle maker--how much batter per pour, how long on the iron, etc....After producing a passable batch, I put the finishing touches on--a generous scoop of Morse Farm Maple Cremee (for those of you not familiar with the Vermont vernacular--a "cremee" is soft-serve ice cream) now being sold in the pint! Maple cremees are one of the best things about living in Vermont and Morse Farms's are hard to beat.

Hot crispy waffle, cold ice cream, and sticky-thick maple syrup--there is no better fork-full of food on this earth. With every bite, I will think of my mom and how lucky I am to be her son.

Indian Food in Queens

2009-04-30T18:05:00.000-07:00

Some of the offerings at the Jackson Diner's All-you-can-eat lunch buffet

It's hard to maintain award-winning-eater status without making at least one trip per year to New York City. Restaurants and food markets of all shapes, sizes, specialties, and hours of operation abound. Over the years, I've been fortunate to have many Big-Apple-based friends who've helped me seek out new alimentary adventures. Of these, my college friend Kathleen, her husband Loren, and their adorable daughter Clementine (pictured below eating jasmine rice with the ridiculously oversized spoon) have especially relished the role of culinary tour guide.

When we visited in March, Kathleen had done her homework on ethnic eateries in the boroughs. I was very intrigued by her suggestion that we head to a place known for its delicious herring in the Russian enclave of Little Odessa on Coney Island, but I decided that the Indian food option she floated was a safer bet for Joslyn's vegetarian diet.

Though we'd never been led astray on past eating excursions, I was a bit skeptical when Kathleen told me we were heading to the "Jackson Diner." The word diner usually connotes two eggs, bacon, buttered toast and an endless cup of coffee served all day, not chana masala and pakoras. My skepticism faded, however, when we pulled into the Jackson Heights neighborhood in Queens. The streets were lined with clothing and jewelery stores displaying colorful saris and elaborate jewelery that you'd see on the set of a Bollywood movie production. Inside the diner, most of the tables were occupied by folks who, in dress and complexion, looked like eating authentic Indian food was an everyday affair (this is my politically correct way of saying that there were a lot of Indians in the joint).

The buffet includes made to order potato and chickpea crepes

I love Indian restaurants at lunchtime b/c most of them offer all-you-can-eat buffets. Jackson Diner was no exception. The plate below was my third helping. In the corner you see a delicious rendition of saag paneer, the deep green combination of curried spinach and mustard greens mixed with mild but toothy chunks of "paneer"--the Indian equivalent of cottage cheese. Resting just on top of that are three deep-fried chickpea fritters whose name I did not catch (they were nothing like falafel). They were deep-fried so it goes without saying that they were delicious vehicles for the tamarind and mint-yogurt dipping sauces barely visible in the upper left-hand corner of the picture. Because I was slowing down at this point after having consumed a very large helping of the goat curry on plate #2 (tastes like lamb, but slightly gamier--in a pleasant way if you like gamey tasting meats), you'll note that I went for a large helping of the tandoori vegetables.

I've been to a lot of Indian places specializing in offerings from the tandoor--the high-dry heat clay oven from which naan and other Indian/Pakistani delights emanate. This was the first time I have ever seen tandoori vegetables on offer along with the typical chicken, beef, and lamb. The veggies were dry-rubbed with a mixture of spices--my tongue sensed some sort of yellow curry and turmeric, but I am sure there were other ingredients known only to the chef at Jackson Diner. The tandoor imparted taste and texture--slighlty charred, but still bursting with juices--that improved typically bland restaurant veggies like zucchini and yellow summer squash. The tandoor also improved the tenderness of broccoli stalks--a delicious and nutritious part of the floret-topped veggie too often cast aside in our wasteful culture.

Because this meal was some months ago, my memory is a bit foggy on the rest of the delectable details. One aspect of our meal was, however, hard to forget: the smell. When you walk into an Indian food restaurant that aroma of baking breads, cooking meats, veggies, and exotic spices is mouth-watering. Not so much when you walk out of the restaurant with a belly full of those spicey delights rumbling around. In this case, I couldn't wear the jacket I brought into the restaurant for the rest of our trip and it took a very long shower with a lot of soap before I felt ready to head to the wedding we were attending later that night. So in closing, I strongly recommend checking out the Jackson Diner, but if you might consider wearing clothes that are already slated for laundering in the near future...

The King's BBQ Burgers

2009-03-21T18:26:00.000-07:00

I am sure Elvis would have approved of the bacon burgers we dressed with some of his special recipe BBQ sauce left over from the ribs and tempeh dinner.

The organic burger meat came from Maple Lane farm in Cabot, Vt. It is our go-to ground beef in this part of the world. The bacon was from the 1/2 pig share I bought with several friends from our friend Becca's sister who raises pigs in Fayston, Vt. and who is also a teacher. She raises a very tasty pig...

We mixed bacon bits into the ground beef before making patties, brushed on the sauce as the burgers cooked, and topped the burgers with two strips each under the layer of shredded cheese. While this recipe was our own creation, eating crunchy, salty-sweet artery-cloggers like these probably contributed to the King's puffier profile in his final days...

Photo credits for the burger shots go to Sarah Hinckley.

Barbeque with Elvis

2009-03-03T19:12:00.000-08:00

This week, I added a real gem to my postcard collection courtesy of my friend Allison: my first postcard with a recipe (and for that matter my first postcard from Graceland). The postcard inspired Sunday night's dinner with both a meat and vegetarian option featuring Elvis Presley's own "Special Barbeque Sauce."

With help from Clancy as sous chef, we whipped up a double batch of the King's special sauce. I am sure the King would have approved of our pairing his sauce with two pounds worth of succulent country-style pork ribs from Winding Brook farm in Stowe. Whether he would have been all shook up over my decision to slather organic tempeh and veggies with the spicy-sweet stuff we will never know, but the resident vegetarian sure did enjoy the dish as did the carnivores who grabbed some on the side.

I've always loved BBQ sauce. One time, when I lived in Florence, Italy I tried to make my Italian host family an all-american dinner featuring BBQ chicken. I heard that passable BBQ sauce was easy to make by simply mixing ketchup and brown sugar...WRONG. Until Allison's postcard arrived in the mail, the thoughts of that earlier botched batch left me with a suspicious mind when it came to the idea of homemade BBQ. Ok, I know I'm forcing the Elvis references and it's not working so without further adieu...the King's surprisingly easy and very delicious recipe (verbatim from the postcard):

4 medium size cans of tomato sauce

1 Tbsp. soy sauce

1 Tbsp dried mustard

1 Tbsp chili powder

1/2 cup vinegar

2 slices lemon

1 Tbsp. brown sugar

2 Tbsp. honey

1 Tbsp. red pepper

1 Tbsp. pickling spice

Mix all ingredients together and cook at low heat for thirty minutes

As with any recipe, we deviated a little here and there (no disrespect to the King) and I encourage you to do the same. I'd note that the longer you cook the sauce the thicker it gets.

I won't go into detail on the ribs b/c it's pretty straightforward.

For the veggies and tempeh, here's the combo I used that went well.

Green beans

potatoes (diced in 1/3 inch cubes)

garlic (rough chop three or four cloves)

onions

white button mushrooms (rough chop)

zucchini (rough chop)

Preheat an oven to 350

In a deep skillet or wide-bottom sauce pan, steam saute beans, mushrooms, zucchini, and onions until they begin to soften (I used olive oil as my fat, but I am sure butter works just as well).

Add the potatoes and garlic and cook stirring often at first so the potatoes don't stick.

Add about three cups of BBQ sauce to the pot and stir to coat all veggies

Cover halfway and allow to simmer on medium low heat until the sauce clings to the veggies (stir often enough to prevent the veggies from getting stuck to the bottom of the pan)

In a baking dish, place one package of tempeh cut along the width into 1/2 inch strips

When the oven is ready, dump the veggies into the baking dish covering the tempeh fully and then distribute the veggies evenly about the dish.

Pour another 1/2 cup to 1 cup of sauce into the dish and cover with foil

Bake for about 15 minutes covered and then for another 15-20 minutes uncovered until you see that the sauce has really thickened up and the potatoes are cooked through.

Remove from oven and serve hot

It's just an idea and I encourage you to dabble with your own ideas. The main point is that Elvis' homemade BBQ sauce goes well with more than just meat.

If you hit on any other combos that work really well, be sure to send along your ideas.

In Search of Celebrity Chefs at the Super Hunger Brunch

2009-02-19T23:21:00.000-08:00

My Dad and James Beard Award-winning Chef Jody Adams at Rialto

Belinis at Mom's Birthday Brunch at Rialto

As an award-winning eater, people often ask me who some of my influences are. For me, it starts with family. I was born into a food family with many great cooks and eaters. Of these, my Dad best exemplifies someone for whom the culinary world holds endless fascination.

For example, my Dad was way into cooking shows long before the Food TV Network had aired its first episode. I've spent many a Saturday morning with my Dad glued to the couch as we drooled our way through the PBS cooking show lineup with solid Italian chefs like Maryann Esposito and Nick Stellino. What they lacked in production-value niceties (e.g., scoop-necked blouses--see, e.g., Giada DeLaurentis--and stadium kitchens) they more than made up for with solid technique and authenticity.

And of course through the years, my dad has subscribed to all the great food rags: Gourmet, Food and Wine, Cucina Italiana, Bon Appetite. He also amassed a small library of cookbooks.

Drawing inspiration from these sources, my Dad has made some meals that family and friends still talk about with reverence.

But at some point, my dad decided that it was not sufficient to just watch chefs on TV and read about them in books and magazines. They were real people out in the world; why not meet them and eat their food? So over the years, my Dad has managed to meet-and in some cases cook with-a few of the big stars in Boston's crowded culinary galaxy.

My dad once took a cooking class from Daniele Baliani, a veteran of New York's famed Le Cirque. You might also recognize Daniele's face and name from the Freschetta box in the frozen pizza section in the grocery store--he is a member of Freschetta's culinary council. Back then he was wowing diners with a creative take on Italian at Boston's once-great Pignoli. After a few classes, my dad worked up the courage to invite the chef over to lunch at our house. I remember Chef Baliani being very intrigued with my dad's potato skin, spinach, and romano fritatta--a hearty italian-style egg dish that I enjoy making and eating to this day.

On another random occasion, my sister and I were unwittingly but quite happily roped into his quest to meet yet another rising star in the food world. My dad had come into Boston--perhaps to drop something off to my sister at college--and she and I ended up in his car driving out to West Newton for dinner. Unbeknownst to my sister and I, my dad had just finished reading about Michael Leviton and his new restaurant in Food & Wine's Annual "Best New Chefs" issue. It is quite possible that my father had planned the whole errand to Boston as a pretense to check out Leviton's newly-opened Lumiere--which would eventually be labeled as the "Best Restaurant in America 2002" by Gourmet magazine.

My sister and I had a sense that the place was a little fancy for a quick bite to eat with the kids, but our suspicions weren't fully aroused until we noticed that dad was constantly craning his neck for a view into the kitchen. Eventually, he called the hostess over to ask if Leviton was cooking that night. Turns out that the hostess was Leviton's business partner and significant other. Fortunately for us, she was somewhat charmed by my dad's disclosure that he had come in search of the star chef. Next thing we knew, she had sent for the chef even though dinner service was getting cranked up and we could see that he was firing on all burners. He granted my dad a gracious if somewhat brief table-side audience. Thanks in part to the homage my dad had paid him and also to the fact that the hostess said one of the sous chefs had taken a shine to my sister, the kitchen sent out some tasting plates to compliment the meal we ordered. While I cannot remember exactly what we ate, I do recall that the food--mostly french influenced--certainly merited the accolades it had garnered. This was one of the most delicious episodes I recall in my dad's search for celebrity chefs.

Several weeks ago, my dad added another culinary autograph to his collection: James Beard Award-winning chef Jody Adams of Harvard Square's Rialto. We went for an early celebration of my mom's birthday to coincide with the annual Greater Boston Foodbank's Super Hunger Brunch.

The Hunger Brunch is a great tradition that our family has participated in for several years. The top restaurants in greater Boston open their kitchens and cash registers, serving up delicious fixed price menus to diners with all proceeds going to the Foodbank. It was a fitting way to celebrate my mom's birthday because as children she taught my sister and I to value our ready access to delicious and nutritious food in part by bringing us to stock the shelves at the local food bank. Not to be too somber with this digression, but the statistics recited by representatives from the Foodbank at the brunch were very sobering. More people than most of us realize depend on foodbanks for their daily sustenance...If you are not one of them I urge you to give generously of your money and time.

Anyway, my dad's telltale neck craning signaled that he'd begun scanning the open kitchen to see if the chef was in the house. Midway through our bread basket (filled with moist, sugar-glazed chocolate and citrus mini-scones and a few other less memorable baked goods) as my parents sipped belinis, my dad exclaimed happily "there she is."

In some ways, my dad had already bonded with Chef Adams--she had actually sold him a KitchenAid standing mixer. Well, she hadn't sold it to him directly. He purchased it after watching chef Adams demonstrate its many functions on an early-morning infomercial my dad watched while waiting for real cooking shows to come on one day. Before my dad could introduce himself to the star of Rialto's kitchen, our attention turned to the plates of food that had just arrived.

I was delightfully surprised when the truffled scrambled eggs I ordered arrived speckled with bits of real black truffle. I expected that they would be cooked in truffle oil--a much cheaper way of infusing the earthy aroma--but often not a very strong flavor--of this powerful and much sought-after fungus. Well-browned, roasted potatoes--crispy on the edges but firm in the center--flanked the eggs. Most of our party ordered this dish.

Meanwhile, my dad ordered the Gypsy Eggs. Last week, I asked him to provide a review for the blog and this is what he remembers of the dish: "roasted egg on a bed of polenta flavored with Parmiggiano spicy ham (a touch picante) and tomatoes" He must have been too busy to wax rhapsodic about it over email, but I seem to recall him enjoying the dish quite a bit while he was eating it. Another diner documented the dish with his iPhone that day so follow this link if you care to see how Chef Adams chose to present her twist on this Spanish classic.

Though thoroughly enjoying his dish and the family company, you sensed that my dad had not forgotten his other mission. And lo and behold on the way out the door my dad introduced himself to the Chef who was overseeing the dining room and bar. After a very pleasant chat, they posed for a photo that records yet another of my father's encounters with and enjoyment of culinary greatness.

P.S.--There are a few more chapters in my dad's celebrity chefs story. Thanks to my mom for filling in the details in the comments section.

This is Why You're Fat

2009-02-10T06:02:00.000-08:00

My friend Alex forwarded me a web site this morning that celebrates(?) America's obsession with utterly gluttonous servings of very unhealthy food. The web site is http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/ It features pictures of such treats as a "french-fry encased hotdog," the "deep-fried mars bar," the "corn-dog pizza," and of course a "turbaconducken"--the unholy marriage of sow and foul. The latter dish is an artery-clogging, bacon-encased twist on the "turducken" (a chicken cooked inside of a duck, cooked inside of a turkey).

Sorry to say there are no recipes for any of these frankenfoods, but there are pictures. Warning--if you work at Weight Watchers, then these pictures are definitely not safe for work.

Memories of a good day eating in Montana; August 9, 2007

2009-02-06T19:43:00.000-08:00

We stumbled across an old notepad with a pack of travel playing cards that we hadn't used for a while. The top sheets in the pad contained a forgotten one-day food diary. Joslyn wrote it on a very memorable mid-August eating day in Bozeman, MT.

We flew in en route to my friend Matt and Carlie's wedding near West Yellowstone, Montana--a couple hundred miles away from Bozeman. We plotted our route down through the Paradise Valley to enter Yellowstone National Park through the northern entrance. From much time spent in Colorado and Utah, we expected unforgettable Western vistas and mediocre Western food.

As Joslyn's notes remind me, we were pleasantly surprised by the delicious meals we ate that day:

John Bozeman's Bistro
--Ginger squash soup

Chico Hot Springs
--on the way to Yellowstone nat'l

hike up to the trout pond

amazing dinner

baked brie en croute--double cream--Montana huckleberry coulis

hummus and organic falafel with marinated mushrooms

flambe

I regret that I cannot fully convey in words the delicious memories these spare notes conjure up for me so I won't try. But the "famous Orange Flambe" from Chico Hot Springs deserves a few words. This is a dessert experience. The orange is filled with citrus-infused ice cream, topped with frozen frosting, and then enveloped briefly by a fast-burning blue flame set alight by the server who touches a long match to pooled liquor on the plate. The flame dances around the rind and caramelizes the exposed ice cream and frosting layer at the top. It's dazzling as well as tasty.

It was a great trip and I am thankful for this evening's chance reminder of the good day eating we had.

Supping for the Super Bowl

2009-02-03T20:33:00.000-08:00

As January comes to an end, the resolve that’s contained your eating excesses since New Year’s Day starts to waiver. Your slightly smaller stomach goes through withdrawal from holiday-party-style eating that was your modus operandi only one month before. This yearning so many of us feel for a brief reprise of the food-focused party eating that spans the period from Turkey Day to New Year’s brunch explains the popularity of the Super Bowl. Gathering to watch sometimes-clever and always-insanely-expensive advertisements, over-produced halftime shows with wardrobe malfunctions or aging rockers, and of course a football game, we find an outlet for this hunger.

This year, we feted football’s biggest day in low-key fashion at the home of two friends Todd and Lauren who were, in true Super-Bowl-Sunday-spirit, determined not to send us away hungry. Upon arrival, I was delighted to see a generous supply of the obligatory tortilla chips, salsa, and guacamole that I would enjoy as appetizer, intermezzo, and dessert before the evening was over. To this, Joslyn and I added hot artichoke dip on the seeded baguette from Red Hen Bakery (that like the Green Cup Café, earned high marks from the New York Times’ Mark Bittman). Watching the gridiron drama unfold, we four slathered the dip on our rounds of baguette as the teams traded scores late into the second half. The tangy crunch of the dip’s oven-browned parmigiano and mayonnaise top layer connected perfectly with the sweet licorice flavor of the fennel-seeds on the bread’s crust. Then it was on to Misty Knoll Farm drumsticks (they were, not surprisingly, out of wings at the store that morning) charred nicely by Todd on an outdoor grill and then doused in buffalo sauce (I had three). I followed that up with a big bowl of Lauren's hearty, vegetarian corn and sweet potato chowder. Its warm, milky base chased away any residual chill from the day’s long snowshoe. On any other day, the chowder or the chicken alone would have been substantial meals unto themselves as would the copious amounts of bread, chips, and dips I had already consumed. But this being Super Bowl Sunday, my host followed up the chowder with a 1/3 lb. cheeseburger from beef he purchased from local farmer Dan Smith and a side green salad. Instead of the apple pie on offer, I opted for more artichoke dip and chips and salsa. All and all, we managed to mangia from kickoff around 6:30 until a little past Mike Tomlin’s triumphant Gatorade (er, “G/lightning bolt”) shower.

This experience in satiating excess certainly didn't help my chances in the office weight-loss derby. For the first time since we began our weekly tipping of the scale, I held steady not losing a single pound. But oh was it worth it!

In tooting my own horn for the delicious artichoke dip I brought, I must give credit where it’s due for the following recipe taught me by my good friend Lily Wies.

You’ll need
2 cans artichoke hearts
2 cups finely grated parmigiano reggiano cheese (don't you dare use the Kraft crap sold in the green shaker cans)
1.5 cups of mayonnaise
one to two medium cloves of minced garlic (the finer you mince the garlic the stronger the garlic flavor will be so keep that in mind as you mince)

1 medium-sized square/round baking dish
1 medium-sized mixing bowl

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Drain the artichoke packing water and pat the hearts dry
3. Give them a rough chop
4. Toss all the ingredients into a mixing bowl and combine thoroughly
5. Spread the mixed ingredients evenly in the baking dish
6. Place the dish uncovered in the oven and cook until the top begins to bubble and brown slightly on the edges and into the center (this can take anywhere between 20 and 45 minutes depending on your oven so be sure to check in on it periodically)
7. Remove from oven, allow to cool slightly and then devour

For a rough idea of how much this makes, consider that four people ate an entire baguette’s worth of dip and still had several helpings left over.

Buon appetito!

Nacho Fricco

2009-01-31T18:43:00.000-08:00

You don't often see recipes for nachos. It's a pretty basic snack food that most trained monkeys could figure out how to put together without the need for step-by-step instructions. But every once in a while an innovator comes along and adds a wrinkle of texture or flavor that's worth noting. Last night, Rory Malone was that innovator and this award-winning eater is taking note.

The result of his particular technique yielded a layer of nachos whose texture resembled that of fricco. Basically, fricco is a crispy wafer made by frying roughly grated cheese on a hard nonstick surface. CRISPY CHEESE! What's not to love?

Rory topped his nachos with the standard veggies--black beans, onions, pepper, and maybe there were olives too maybe not. The veggie toppings were nice, but I was 100% focused on crispy cheese.

Now to a certain extent, you always get some crispy cheese when you make nachos. The determined eaters among us can usually manage to scrape a good bit of nearly-burned cheese from the baking sheet after all the nachos have been plated. The difference here, however, was that the crispy cheese was not a byproduct of the nacho-making process that gets left for people like me to fiend over well after all the nachos are gone. No, this crispy cheese was a central part of the dish itself--the result of patience and planning by someone skilled in the art and science of oven cooking.

How did he do it? How did he manage to bind chip and cheese so cohesively that I could lift a six-inch long portion from my plate and hold it straight out above the table without having one loose chip fall from the fold? And though crispy enough to fight off this gravitational challenge the cheese was not brittle or overly dry. Perfection.

I spoke to Rory this morning and we tried to puzzle out how to replicate this delicious result. Here are the two key factors we identified.

1. Bake your nachos in a lasagna dish instead of on a baking sheet. Rory used a 14" La Creuset enamel dish which is about 2" deep, perhaps 3". The enamel finish gives it somewhat of a nonstick quality. We speculate that dish cooking encourages the cheese to pool up in a thicker layer while melting. So instead of melting out the sides of a nacho mound stacked on a sheet, the walls of the dish contains the cheese and push it back up through the interstices in the chip stack as it pools.

2. Bake your nachos in layers. Rory revealed that he put one layer of nachos, veggies, and grated cheese (I think he used cheddar and jack) into the bottom of the dish and then baked it for a while on lower heat until the cheese had just melted. Then he added another layer of nachos, toppings, and cheese and put the whole dish in at higher heat. Over time, the initial layer of cheese actually begins to fry in its own oil on the bottom of the pan thus creating the fricco texture while the top layer, which is cooked for less time and doesn't really come into contact with the hot pan surface, retains more of a soft-melt character. It takes a little longer, but good things come to those who wait.

Granted, there are many who like their nachos cooked so that all the cheese is in the stringy-gooey range. If you are one of those people, this method is not for you.

If, by contrast you are like me and you love crispy cheese in all its glorious forms then consider employing this nacho-tech next time around.

Buon appetito!

Quick bites

2009-01-24T10:30:00.001-08:00

After an absolutely frigid Saturday morning on the slopes at Mad River Glen, we popped into the Green Cup Cafe in Waitsfield for a delicious lunch. We split a substantial slice of potato, roasted red pepper, and goat cheese frittata accompanied by a slice of pineapple, grapefruit, and orange. Then it was on to the grilled sandwiches served on lightly oiled Red Hen Bakery bread. I opted for one topped with the grass-fed roast beef, maplebrook mozzarella, and caramelized onion, dressed with a tangy dijon mustard. I think I also tasted some fresh basil in there. The roast beef was shaved paper thin--the perfect texture for this $6.95 offering which was also accompanied by the trio of fruit slices mentioned with the frittata. My only complaint was that there were too few onions and the onions weren't very strong in flavor or sweetness. Then it was another rapturous encounter with the coconut cake (see my earlier post for more details). Joslyn and I decided to split a $7 slice (come to find out you can order a half slice for $3.50). Again it did not disappoint--it is the cakiest cake I have ever tasted. All in all, not bad for a three course lunch.

While hanging around in between our sandwiches and cake, we had a chance to converse with our friend Johnny, brother-in-law of chef Jason Gulisano. I watched Johnny scrape ruby-red tuna from the skin and heap it on a pile in anticipation of the tuna tartare that would be offered as part of the evening's dinner service.

I wish I could say something as positive about Friday night's after-dinner snack followed by dessert at Ariel's on the River in Montpelier. All started off well as we were greeted by the jovial but slightly too friendly proprietor and promptly shown to a high bar table. The dessert menu featured a trio of "tarts" for $3.50 each of 3 for $9.00 Because we are good eaters, we ordered our dessert and an appetizer portion of arancini to arrive at the same time--the arancini being our after-dinner/after-dessert snack.

I opted for the bourbon pecan "tart" and Joslyn for key lime version. The tart shells were dry and flavorless, giving the impression that they are delivered pre-made by the gross from Sysco. I'd liken them to crumbly cardboard. I anticipated that mine would be filled like a pecan pie. Instead, all I got were candied pecans layered whole on top of each other. I guess the candy coating was made from a bourbon reduction. Very underwhelming and lacking totally in the butteriness we long for in a tart. Joslyn liked the filling in her key lime tart, but it too was nothing special and it couldn't save the dish from the shell's shortcoming.

We were similarly disappointed by the arancini.

For those unfamiliar with this Southern Italian treat, they are breaded, deep-fried balls of risotto typically filled in the center with a chunk of cheese and sometimes meat. Usually, they are made with day-old risotto which tends to hold together well. The names comes from the Italian for orange--arancia--because when fried properly, these little balls of goodness resemble oranges. We were very much hoping that Ariel's version would be as good as the appetizer portion we ate in Boston's North End at a restaurant called Bacco. Alas, they were not even in the ballpark.

The test of an arancino is its texture. The Ariel's version made with a mushroom risotto was far too loose and barely held together once penetrated with a fork. I surmise that the risotto was made that evening and then formed into the arancini--thus explaining the looseness. Too bad, because it'd be nice to have a local source of these deep-fried delectables...

Buon appetito!

An empty-stomach tribute to holiday cookies

2009-01-14T19:34:00.000-08:00

Homemade caramel!! Recipe below

My coworkers and I had weigh-in Monday. Three of us are carrying on a time-honored tradition. Like millions before us, we begin a new year having resolved to achieve individual weight loss goals. So far so good for me. 4 lbs. last week. Of course, it's only January 15.

After the holidays, the first pounds are easy. There are fewer parties. Egg nog slowly disappears from the supermarket shelves. The Christmas dinner left-overs are long gone. You've licked all the crumbs out of the bottom of the holiday cookie tin, and eaten all the candy you got in your stocking (this year I got an organic black licorice whip from Italy, dark chocolate Ferrero Roche, mentos, and cherry and raspberry Pez). You've lost the "oh what the heck, it's the holidays I might as well have another helping/glass of _____" excuse. And at a certain point, you just get tired from all the eating and drinking (maybe you even feel the symptoms described in the "balanced gluttony" post). So naturally, the weight comes off quickly while you moderate consumption or even overcompensate with some form of rigid diet.

In hopes that my new year's resolution remains resolved through the first quarter of the year, I've chosen, among other things, to moderate but not totally abstain from eating desserts and candy. For example, instead of buying a full box of candy at the movies last night, I had 25cents worth of Mike and Ike's from the gumball machine. If I know I am going to a party where there will be dessert, then I'll refrain from eating any sweets earlier in the day and I'll limit myself to one dessert. Though the year is young, I've been tested many times. Twice I have sat through hours-long meetings while being tantalized by full plates of chocolate chip cookies and brownies sitting right in front of me and I've held off (ok I had one of the brownies, but they were bite-sized).

Who knows how long I'll be able to maintain such restraint. After a day without any sweets, I am, however, starting to fantasize about the aforementioned holiday cookies...

I was lucky enough to be born into a family of great holiday cookie makers.

My Mom's pizzelle are a real treat that come around during the holidays. If you're lucky you might get a one-off batch at your birthday or otherwise be in the kitchen when she's making someone else's birthday batch that you can sample. These round, flat, straw-colored cookies hint at our heritage as descendants of Italy's Abbruzzo region. You might know them as waffle cookies. Some batches come out airy and soft and others come out crispy and wafer-like. I'm not sure what makes the difference, but I am a fan of both textures. The best batches have a strong anise and/or vanilla flavor. They are made by pouring batter into a hot iron with patterned grooves in the shape of the pizzelle . My mom uses an electric iron and she has for as long as I could remember.

When I was a kid our kitchen closet held an old-fashioned pizzelle iron that I used to play with all the time. It was a one-cookie iron meant to be used over an open flame. It had long metal arms protruding from two heavy, round discs on a hinge. To make the cookie you poured the batter onto the bottom disc, clamped together the arms pressing the two plates of the iron in around the batter. I'll have to ask my parents where that went--pizzelle by the camp fire anyone? Maybe I can even get my mom to share the recipe...

Lemon cookies are another mainstay of my family's holiday cookie diet. We are blessed with two bakers who have mastered this recipe: my aunt and godmother Rowie and my Aunt Carol. This is a moist, cakey, dome-shaped cookie covered with icing and then garnished with a generous amount of tiny, round, mult-colored sprinkles. My godmother has also been known to color-coordinate the sprinkles with the holiday (green and red at Christmas/yellow and pink at Easter). Once you start eating them, it is very difficult to stop.

In recent years, my cousin Jessica has also been serving up a delicious white-chocolate-chip cookie. She has an uncanny knack for consistently crispy edges with a nice butter flavor, soft middles, and liberal use of the chip.

As an award winning eater who grew up with great holiday baked goods, baking ability is a trait I value highly in friends. My friend Debbie has added joy in direct proportion to inches on my waist line over many holidays with her fudge-like macadia nut brownies that arrive individually wrapped and adorned with stickers of reindeer, holly-leaves, and snowmen. For the first time in five Christmases, I did not get any made-from-scratch peanut-butter candy that Rory usually distributes in half-dollar-wide 12" rolls wrapped in parchment paper--another ridiculously addictive holiday staple that he only really makes once a year. Here's hoping they make a comeback next year. Fortunately, however, several new cookie and homemade candy varieties came our way thanks to our friends Sarina and Scout.

In my last post, I told you that Sarina comes from the kind of family that good eaters like to know. As proof, I've included a photo so you can get a look at the cookies and candies she made from scratch and gave out in Christmas tins--there were at least ten varieties. Sarina had a difficult task filling the gift cookie tins while also trying to prevent me, Joslyn, and Scout from eating them before they could be distributed. Scout put away an impressive amount of cookies--she's definitely aspiring to award-winning-eater status.

We were particularly fond of the caramel that came in our tin. Sarina was good enough to give us the recipe which I have been cleared to share with you providing that due credit is given to Sarina's Aunt Carol. I guess you might call it Carol's Caramel.

1 cup butter

16 oz brown sugar

a dash of salt

1 cup light corn syup

14 oz condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla

Melt the butter over medium high heat.

As soon as the butter melts, immediately add the salt, sugar, and corn syrup and stir until well combined

Gradually and slowly add the condensed milk

Stir constantly for about 15 minutes

The mixture should get darker, bubble rapidly, and foam

Be sure to use a spatula designed to handle high temperature

Using a candy thermometer while still stirring to avoid burning, begin checking the candy mixture until it reaches 225 degrees

Pour the mixture on to a high-sided, greased cookie sheet and place in the refrigerator to cool

Once cooled, remove from the fridge and allow to come back close to room temperature.

After they've come to temperature cut into desired shapes.

To coat some in chocolate, melt semi-sweet chocolate chips in a double boiler and dip the caramels into the melted chocolate coating evenly. Place on wax paper and allow to cool.

If you've made a new year's resolution that wouldn't preclude you from having a batch of delicious home-made candy lying around the house, give this fun recipe a try.

I'm off to Montreal this weekend for to a conference that is really just an excuse for Vermont lawyers to get some decent ethnic food. Tomorrow night we're going for Ethiopian. My sister lived in Ethiopia for several months and she's told me to keep an eye out for shiro on the menu. She highly recommended it...I'll be sure to let you know what I think when we get back.

Until then, Buon Appetito.

Roadkill Chili and Green Cup Coconut Cake

2009-01-11T05:51:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed a real treat last night at a friend's dinner party: Moose chili. For those who have not tried it before, moose meat is a delicious very low-fat red meat. Cut into bite-sized chunks, it was a perfect substitute for beef in what was an otherwise straightforward and very-well crafted beans and pepper chili just spicy enough to accent but not mask the flavors of the star meat and vegetable ingredients.

Moose is also something of a local delicacy because it is very hard to get. Unlike venison or elk, moose is not farmed. Hunting permits--issued as part of an effort to manage the population of estimated 5000 moose roaming the Green Mountain State--are given out by lottery and most contestants don't win a permit. Even those who get licenses often come away empty-handed after the October hunt. So usually the only people who get a taste of moose meat are the lucky hunters who beat the odds and the friends and family who share in their bounty. Because of the costs of moose hunting, one web site labeled moose as "Vermont's most expensive meat"

The meat in last night's dinner was not, however, provided as a result of a skilled hunter's dead aim. Sadly, most moose killed in Vermont die accidentally in collisions with cars. Our dinner was made possible by one such collision. To ensure that the majestic creatures don't die in vain, the state's fish and wildlife service collects the roadkill and butchers it for sale at very low cost (less than $2 per lb.) to its employees. Our host last evening is one of the fortunate few who have access to this supply.

I realize this may gross some folks out. As long as the meat is dressed properly soon enough after the animal's passing there's very little difference between meat taken by a thrity-ought-six or a subaru outback. Waste not, want not.

On our way to dinner we stopped at Waitsfield's Green Cup Cafe, run by Chef Jason Gulisano (check out its web site) to pick up dessert . For very good reason, the Cafe has generated a lot of buzz lately thanks to very positive write-ups in the New York Times ("Dazzling Fare Heats up Backwoods Vermont" Mark Bittman Dec. 28, 2008) and another two-page full color spread in the Burlington Free Press' weekend magazine ("Waitsflied's Green Cup is Worth the Drive" Sally Pollak Jan. 8, 2009) As the Free Press Article explains, the restaurant is a family affair. We are lucky enough to be friends of the family through Jason's sister Sarina--head of dinner service--and her husband Johnny who raises the hens that provide eggs for the Cafe and milk-fed chickens that grace its dinner plates (more about this family in a future post--friendship with this food-oriented family is a Good Eater's dream come true). Hence, we've known about the Cafe's gourmet offerings since day one (we were among the first tables served and I celebrated my last birthday there in June with a table of friends). I can attest to the fact that the food is in fact worth the drive.

Though we've patronized the Cafe for dinner many times, we were compelled to stop in last night in search of a dessert that we had yet to try: coconut cake. The Times called the cake "stunning, unbelievable" and the Freeps included a picture. Would it live up to the hype?

We bought two very generous slices and a slice of chocolate cake to be shared among the other guests at the party (there were 9 of us and the cake was so rich we all got our fill from the three slices). I am happy to report that the cake lived up to its advanced billing and judging from the oohs and ahhs I can safely say that the other diners would agree. The two-layer yellow cake was moist and somehow both dense and light at the same time time. The rich, creamy frosting is what makes the cake. It was so tangy that we guessed the frosting contains a cream-cheese base. A substantial band of frosting separates the top and bottom layers on the cake's interior and a thicker layer blankets the cake's exterior along with an evenly generous amount of the shaved coconut that gives the cake its name. DECADENT!

Buon appetito!

Flint Brook Farm Tenderloin Medallions

2009-01-09T18:04:00.000-08:00

It's been a great day of eating, but I've got to start with dinner. Clancy and I collaborated on an American classic: meat and potatoes. Photo and photo editor credits go to Clancy who provided the cell-phone pictures you see posted. Two roughly half-pound portions of grass-fed Flint Brook Farm tenderloin steak from Roxbury, Vermont were the inspiration for this meal. Clancy bought the beef directly from farmer Steve Twombly.

Because we're getting a blast of insanely cold arctic air, we decided not to use the WeberQ grill tonight. Instead, we opted for a technique that yields very even cooking. Clancy cooked the steaks to juicy perfection by executing the following steps:

Start with an iron skillet large enough to cook lots of small pieces of meat at once (ours was 14" and it was seasoned with the bacon grease from a pig that we bought in shares from our friend Becca's sister who farms in Fayston, Vermont.)

Heat the skillet to medium-high heat.

Season the steaks with salt and pepper on all sides

Brown lightly on all sides (3-4 minutes on the broad sides, half as much on the edges)

Remove from the pan to a cutting board and slice into medallions of desired thicknesses; try to cut medallions of uniform size so they will cook evenly

Reduce heat in the pan to medium

Season the newly exposed centers of the medallions with salt and pepper

Return the medallions to pan placing the rare sides on the skillet.

Cook each rare side for 2-3 minutes, remove from the heat and let rest for 2-3 minutes before eating.

This yielded a juicy buttery-tasting medium-rare/medium for us. Cooking times will vary and with the medallion you can pull one out of the pan and slice it open to determine whether it is cooked to your liking. Remember that the meat will continue to cook even after you take it from the pan, so you want to pull them off the skillet just before they reach the desired level of doneness

For an accompaniment, I pan-roasted two medium potatoes, two small ribs of celery, two small onions, one medium carrot, and three large button mushrooms. It was a clean-out-the-fridge side dish. I threw in several sprigs of fresh thyme and added some leftover oil from caramelized onions that Joslyn made for a different dinner she was going to. Toward the end I tossed in strips of roasted red peppers that were bathing in spicy-pepper vinegar for a bit of nice kick.

As the pictures show, it all made for a nice plate of food. Farmer Twombly did an excellent job. We thank him and the happy grass-fed local cow and the Vermont rain, sun, and soil, that graced us with such delicious steak.

P.S. There was a helping of the pan-roasted veggies left over on the stove when Clancy's roommate Sarah came home. She converted the leftovers to a topping for a Maple Lane burger (Cabot, Vt.--our go-to ground beef ) which she enjoyed on focaccia bread with Inglehoffer "thick and creamy" horseradish sauce and grated cheddar cheese. The veggie melange proved to be quite versatile.