Melissa Cooks Gourmet

Some Conversations are Easier than Others

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:19:00 +0000

Readers, in this time of food prep, football, big meals and Black Friday scrums at the mall it's easy to let slip a golden opportunity to have an important conversation with your loved ones. With that in mind I'm giving over this post to the Engage With Grace team--a group of people dedicated to getting families to discuss end-of-life wishes BEFORE the end...which is so often co-opted by well-meaning hospital/nursing home policy.

So without further ado...

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Last Thanksgiving weekend, many of us bloggers participated in the first documented “blog rally” to promote Engage With Grace – a movement aimed at having all of us understand and communicate our end-of-life wishes.

It was a great success, with over 100 bloggers in the healthcare space and beyond participating and spreading the word. Plus, it was timed to coincide with a weekend when most of us are with the very people with whom we should be having these tough conversations – our closest friends and family.

Our original mission – to get more and more people talking about their end of life wishes – hasn’t changed. But it’s been quite a year – so we thought this holiday, we’d try something different.

A bit of levity.

At the heart of Engage With Grace are five questions designed to get the conversation started. We’ve included them at the end of this post. They’re not easy questions, but they are important.

To help ease us into these tough questions, and in the spirit of the season, we thought we’d start with five parallel questions that ARE pretty easy to answer:

Silly? Maybe. But it underscores how having a template like this – just five questions in plain, simple language – can deflate some of the complexity, formality and even misnomers that have sometimes surrounded the end-of-life discussion.

So with that, we’ve included the five questions from Engage With Grace below. Think about them, document them, share them.

Over the past year there’s been a lot of discussion around end of life. And we’ve been fortunate to hear a lot of the more uplifting stories, as folks have used these five questions to initiate the conversation.

One man shared how surprised he was to learn that his wife’s preferences were not what he expected. Befitting this holiday, The One Slide now stands sentry on their fridge.

Wishing you and yours a holiday that’s fulfilling in all the right ways.

To learn more please go to www.engagewithgrace.org. This post was written by Alexandra Drane and the Engage With Grace team. If you want to reproduce this post on your blog (or anywhere) you can download a ready-made html version here

Spanish-Style Oxtails Braised with Chorizo

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:18:00 +0000

This recipe is one of the recipes in the book that I was pretty sure I would never get to make, because really--how often do you go to the supermarket and see oxtails snuggled up next to the hamburger? Like, never. I have never ever seen them for sale and I was sure I'd have to special order them or drive into Boston to shop at one of the many Asian supermarkets.

But, there I was one evening browsing the meat department of our brand new Market Basket, and what do I see? Oxtails. Yes, this is the same store that had rabbit, and they have an offal section too so be prepared!!

It goes without saying that I've never cooked with oxtails. Perhaps you never have either. This is what they look like:

It never occurred to me that a package of oxtail would actually be one tail chopped up but that's clearly what it is. Hmm. I'm not a vegetarian anymore but it's hard not to see the source animal and feel sorry for it. Sorry cow! Thank you for being my dinner!!

There was a bit of a disconnect for me between buying the oxtails and looking at the recipe, so when I DID look at the recipe I was like, damn, this calls for 6 lb.s of oxtails and I only have one. Back to the store! And, no oxtails to be found! So I got some short ribs, figuring same basic idea (a lot of bone and some meat/cartilage). And I decided to cut the recipe in half since there were not 6 to 8 of us, just 2.

I was amused to note the amount of chorizo in the recipe. For six pounds of oxtails, the recipe calls for a mere 1/4 pound of chorizo. That ain't much, folks. There are more carrots than chorizo. But it looks good in the title, I guess!

Here is my 1/8 lb. of chorizo for my half recipe:

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The idea here is to sear the oxtails in an oven-safe pot, then set them aside while you make the sauce. OK, back to the chorizo. Grind it up:

...and saute in some of the oxtail fat with chopped onions, carrots, garlic and a bay leaf:

Add paprika and then some dry white wine and bring to a boil, deglazing the pot. Add the seared oxtails and chopped canned tomatoes so that the liquid is about half way up the meat, put the lid on, and then pop that baby in a 350 oven for 3 to 3 1/2 hours.

The recipe says this is best made a day or two ahead, and that's exactly what I did. I cooked this while we had something else for dinner, and the next day I was all about getting the fat out.

This is not as easy as it seems, because what you're looking at in the now-cold pot is something like meat islands in a sea of fat--it's all kind of integrated. My solution was this--I heated it up to boiling, then removed the oxtails (and ribs) and set them aside. The sauce at this point was pretty thick--not very liquidy, and I didn't want to solidify the fat and have it catch some of the tomatoes or carrots in it...so I knew I needed a) more liquid and b) a tall, narrow container to cool it down so the fat would be up high on top, far away from the veggies.

My solution? A blender. I added water to the sauce, put it in a blender and threw it in the fridge. Later that day, a nice fat cap that popped right off and went in the trash.

Here's the dinner plate:

Totally worth the wait! I have to say that knives and forks really don't suffice for this dish--it sort of devolves into a finger-food experience because of the odd shape of the bones. The flavor--fantastic. The sauce is rich and complex, and complements the meat beautifully.

Stay tuned for more dishes featuring offal--I have at least three in The Gourmet Cookbook: Sliced Calf's Liver with Golden Onions; Tongue with Mustard Horseradish Sauce; and Crispy Sweetbreads with Parsnip Potato Puree, Braised Endives, and Port Sauce.

Rabbit in Mustard Sauce

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:32:00 +0000

You know, there's a certain generation (or two or three) here in the US that thinks of rabbit as an exotic meat. I certainly belong to it--my exposure to rabbit has been pretty much through pet shop windows.

But lots of folks eat rabbit on a regular basis--in fact when I was contemplating serving it to my book group a member who was raised in Australia said she would "never eat rabbit again, ever". It's also popular in the UK--and if you've ever wondered where the term "rabbit punch" came from, that's how you kill a rabbit quickly and humanely--a sharp blow to the back of the head.

There go the vegetarians, if they even read this far. Sorry, vegetarians!!

Anyway, one of the many charms of Market Basket is that they have a kick-ass butchery, and now that there's a new one in Gloucester I've been cruising their meat aisles on a regular basis. One a recent trip I saw rabbit (fresh!) and made a mental note...yesterday went back and it was nowhere to be found. I asked one of the butchers and he led me to the sort of case where you get frozen turkeys-I guess they didn't move all that quickly so he froze them. We got a 3 lb. rabbit, took it home, and I used a warm-water bath to thaw it quickly.

I know, it is a little weird. If you've cut up chicken, cutting up rabbit is kind of the same except there's this long part in the middle they call the "saddle". I've actually only cooked with rabbit one other time and it was already butchered for me so I was busting out the heavy knives and the kitchen shears. The recipe asks you to divide it into 8 parts so I split the hindquarters and the saddle, then cut the forelegs away from the breast, which I also split.

The recipe, Rabbit in Mustard Sauce, is a French bistro classic according to the head notes. And the technique is very familiar to me, not so much from my cooking experience as my eating experience--this is the way my dad cooks--cooking meat stovetop and making a pan sauce.

Here's the searing part:

After you take the meat out you deglaze the pan with a knob of butter, and saute a few chopped shallots...then add dry white wine and reduce by half. Add chicken broth and rabbit, bring to a boil, and cook for 40-45 minutes.

Then take the rabbit out, whisk in mustard (equal parts dijon and whole grain) and a cornstarch slurry. Add chopped parsley and rabbit et voila!

The potatoes are my own addition--I had cooked them on the side but they were just begging to jump into that mustard sauce so I obliged.

Minor triumph--O'Malley and his girlfriend Li ate this and loved it. You never know with teenagers which way it's going to go! They kept saying it was just like chicken, which everybody says, and that's because it's true. I was actually surprised at how much the breast meat was the same--if you had just presented it to me on a plate I would have bet vast sums that it was chicken. And just as a side note this is the sort of thing that I project onto Top Chef--me in some sort of quickfire challenge, incorrectly identifying rabbit as chicken. Please tell me I'm not the only person who does that!!!

P.S. sorry for the crappy photos. I try to do better than that!

Two Cakes!

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:35:00 +0000

Readers, when I finished my final chicken recipe I got all excited and started looking around for other chapters I am close to finishing--and there are two where I am just a leap or two away from the finish line--Cakes, and Cookies, Bars and Confections. I guess you know where my true interests reside!

This excitement coincided with my book group--which always turns out well for them. I flipped through the cake chapter for the remaining recipes...

...Lemon Pound Cake? Too plain.

...Almond and Brown Butter Financiers? Too...muffiny.

...Passover Sponge Cake with Apples? Not big enough.

...Three-Milk Cake with Coconut and Fresh Fruit? Even more not big enough.

...Cranberry Cognac Trifle? With three embedded recipes in the recipe, too complicated.

...Nectarine Mousse Cake? Out of season.

...Lemon Blackberry Wedding Cake? Uh, no.

...Bananas Foster Cheesecake? YES!!! That's it, that's it!

I did have a moment of hesitation because when Teena and I met a few summers ago this was one of the recipes that she had had high hopes for but ended up not being so crazy about, if you'll excuse my fractured grammer. Or in other words she wasn't sure it was worth all of the effort--because it is a lot of effort, at least more than your average cheesecake!

Why? Here's why. For one thing, you don't just have a graham cracker crust, you line the edges with crisp ladyfingers. Here's my approximation, thank you Stella D'Oro:

Then the cheesecake itself is kind of like a layer cake--a layer of cheesecake filling (your standard cream cheese/egg mix plus banana liqueur):

a layer of bananas sauteed in brown sugar, rum, more banana liqueur, cinnamon and almonds:

then cheesecake filling on top of that, which you bake in a hot water bath in a medium oven. Here's my brilliant solution to no-baking-pan-big-enough-for-my-cheesecake-pan, which is to put it in my biggest skillet instead:

Tangential cheesecake gripe--no matter how many layers of foil I put around my pan, water always gets in. Enterpreneurial-minded people, make some kind of water-tight sheath that can go on the bottom of a cheesecake pan! I will buy it!

Tangential banana liqueur gripe--I went off to the liquor store hoping against hope that they would have some kind of smallish bottle of this stuff. No such luck. I am now the proud owner of a big-ass bottle of banana liqueur. Please either a) help me with drink recipes and/or b) come over here and drink some.

The cheesecake is topped with a "praline" topping, which had me worried that I'd be doing some candy-making, but fortunately it was just pecans mixed in with melted brown sugar and butter. I actually cooked it for a while, hoping to make it more candy-ish, but it never happened, and that's fine I guess.

How was it?!? Well, I thought it was pretty damn good. My book group lurved it, but they have notoriously low standards. The one part I didn't like so much was that decorative cookie border, but keep in mind that the recipe was designed after one found in a cafe (Cafe Vermilionville in Lafayette, LA) and it's a PERFECT restaurant dessert because the edges are decorative and sturdy--easy to serve and pretty to look at. Oh and also delicious!

Here's O'Malley eating what was left the next morning for breakfast. Notice the product placement of his favorite all-time book, Lord of the Rings. Actually that's the Fellowship of the Rings, now that I look at it. Anything Tolkien is his favorite.

Teena, I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on this one--I think it's a worthy dessert!

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Cake #2!

It was Don's birthday last week, and I wanted to make him a birthday cake, of course. I looked first of course in The Gourmet Cookbook, but my cake list didn't hold anything that seemed birthday appropriate, especially considering that we'd be at my sister's for a pre-Thanksgiving harvest dinner (which means lots-o-people).

So I looked (with great delight) through the Cakes chapter of Gourmet Today. Oh, the new green pastures of a new green cookbook! Which cake to pick?!? Would it be Chocolate Whiskey Bundt Cake? Devil's Food Cake with Marshmallow Frosting? Apricot Almond Layer Cake?

I decided to go with Walnut Meringue Cake with Strawberry Sauce because it looked unusual and yummy, and the shorter Active Time of 30 mins didn't hurt either.

People with celiac disease! This is the cake for you! Why? Because it's a layer cake with absolutely no flour of any kind whatsoever. Nothing. Nada. People with nut allergies, stay away. There are many nuts here--two cups worth!

So the idea is to take 8 egg whites and whip the bejeezuss out of them for a super long time, adding 2 1/4 cups of sugar bit by bit. Add a little vanilla extract and white vinegar (not sure why the white vinegar--bears some research, methinks) and then fold in the two cups of chopped walnuts. Bake in two 9" cake pans until they're puffed and golden, after which they will alarm you by falling dramatically and making you think you're a failed baker.

But never fear! All is not lost because what happens is that the meringue in the pan, although it falls and breaks on top, kind of melts together in the pan and creates one kind-of-coherent surface that you can handle. And these two unpromising looking layers combine to spectacular effect with whipped cream and strawberry sauce (or whole strawberries if you are lazee like me):

Look at my patient birthday boy husband back there with the empty plate while I take a picture. This cake was so delicious--really tasty and somehow rich and light at the same time. That's a good trick to pull off!

Here's a bonus pic of me with my cute mom--she loves it when all of her chickies are under one roof:

Hey I'm thinking that cranberry cognac trifle would be pretty good for Thanksgiving. Stay tuned!

Chicken with Cornmeal Dumplings, or, Melissa Cooks the Last Chicken Recipe!

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:15:00 +0000

Now, don't get overly excited. Notice I didn't say I had cooked the last Poultry recipe, which includes such as-yet-uncooked adventures like "Fragrant Crispy Duck" which asks you to 1. Marinate the Duck 2. Steam the Duck 3. Air-Dry the Duck 4. Fry the Duck and then (presumably) 5. Eat the Duck.

But still, the bulk of the poultry chapter is dedicated to chicken and there are no less than 30 recipes, all of which I have now cooked, Yay Me!!!!!

I've been waiting for the cooler weather to make Chicken with Cornmeal Dumplings, and the seasons have finally conspired to help me out. Chilly, blustery days with fall leaves skittering around? Perfect for this meal.

Although I can count on one hand (or maybe two) the number of times I've made dumplings, I always love them when I eat them. Surely they must be on a list somewhere of Comfort Food. Topped with a nice pan gravy--mmmmm.

This is a pretty easy recipe--I would say do-able for a weeknight if you're not in a super-hurry. Brown chicken pieces in a pan, deglaze with wine and shallots, then cook chicken til done. Take out the chicken (keep warm!) and use the cooking liquid as the base for a gravy, adding stock, flour and cream. Cook the dumplings in this for 15-20 mins--and the dumplings are just the usual suspects in the baking dept plus cornmeal and herbs. I didn't even bother with buying buttermilk--just soured my own milk with vinegar.

Good stuff, people!

So I'm looking back over these chicken recipes trying to pick a favorite...I remember being astonished that I didn't need toothpicks for Chicken Kiev...amazed at the complex richness of Chicken in Pumpkin Seed Sauce...expanded (in a horizons way, not a saddlebag way) by the flavors of Individual B'stillas (Moroccan Chicken and Almond Pie) and appreciative of the lean tastiness of Asian Chicken and Water Chestnut Patties. And also I'm remembering how very very very cross I was making two of these recipes, Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic, and Hunan-Style Tea-Smoked Chicken.

So, what do I have left in the Poultry Department? Here's what you can look forward to in the days, months, no doubt years to come:

Roast Turkey with Herbed Bread Stuffing and Giblet Gravy

Oyster Stuffing

Sausage Fennel Stuffing

Chestnut Stuffing

Grilled Turkey with Cranberry Gravy

Pistachio Turkey Ballottine with Madeira Sauce

Turkey Breast Stock

Bacon-Wrapped Cornish Hens with Raspberry Balsamic Glaze

Morrocan-Style Roast Cornish Hens with Vegetables

Fragrant Crispy Duck

Glazed Duck with Clementine Sauce

Spiced Roast Goose with Dried Fruit

Roast Capon with Chile Cilantro Rub and Roasted Carrots

Roasted Poussins with Cumin and Lemon

Roasted Guinea Hens with Whole-Grain Mustard and Herbs

Braised Pheasant with Red Cabbage and Wild Rice

Roasted Squab

Squab Salmi

Minced Squab and Pork with Rice Stick Noodles

Rabbit with Mustard Sauce

This should be interesting because I don't even know what half of those things are. And I should say it's what I have to look forward to because after all I'm the one eating them! Although please note that some of these feed many people so local folks you may be called upon to help us eat these delicious meals. Yay more dinner parties!

Creamy Slaw

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:58:00 +0000

Hey, doesn't that coleslaw look nice? I didn't make it! Somebody at Worldwide Gourmet did! Thank you Worldwide Gourmet for letting me use this picture without asking!

Why do I not have a picture of my own coleslaw? Because if you read the prior post you will see that I was in a big freakin' hurry to put this dinner together and so had no time for the niceties of photography, but don't we all love the internet where you can find all kinds of imagery, even imagery you're really not expecting. For example, I entered Creamy Slaw into the Google, and on the first page there were a few pictures of coleslaw on its own, and the rest were pictures of coleslaw on HOT DOGS. What is the deal with that? Everybody knows the only proper topping for hot dogs is sauerkraut because it's the best at masking the flavor of the hot dogs, especially if there is some really spicy mustard to go along with it.

Although it must be said that in Salem last weekend (home of Halloween wackiness this time of year) I had a pretty good hot dog--I was upsold to some kind of all beef hot dog which was truly the most hugely massive hot dog I've ever seen (I couldn't finish it--O'Malley did) and it was actually juicy, which is an experience I've never had with a hot dog. And now this whole post is making me uncomfortable because of the whole imagery thing and Jeez you people have dirty minds!!! Stop it!!

But back to the Creamy Slaw, believe it or not I still had some cabbage kicking around from earlier in the summer (hooray for veggies that have holding power!) and figured a) perfect opportunity to use it up b) because it's perfect with fried fish.

If you've made coleslaw before this will probably be familiar to you--this is the creamy slaw we all know and love from our childhoods. which is to say that it's pretty much equal parts mayo and sour cream w/ a little cider vinegar, salt and pepper. Best for me, NO SUGAR. I hatehatehate coleslaw that is sweet, which is why I usually eschew the coleslaw option from restaurants and supermarkets. What is wrong with people that they have to ruin a perfectly good salad with sugar?

I was also happy about this recipe because I got to use some late-appearing green peppers from some containers on our deck. Local cabbage AND peppers! How awesome is that?

Cheddar Pecan Crackers

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:35:00 +0000

Really, these were more like Cheddar Pecan Cookies. Why? Because as per usual when I'm throwing a dinner party I'm in a screaming hurry, working at top speed, and when I spotted the directions to flatten each ball into a 1 1/2 inch disc I said Feh and threw them in the oven instead.

Oh but let's back up...why the dinner party and wherefore?

So you'll remember I'm in this fish co-op, right? Like a farm share thingy but with fish? I was in it over the summer (you may recall me complaining about icky fish guts) and decided that all that fish every week was too much so I split my half share with my friend Elizabeth for the fall. But still, every two weeks, we get A LOT OF FREAKIN FISH...so, survey says, time for a dinner party!

This past week it was a gigantic pollack. You don't find out what the fish is until about two hours before you go pick it up, but I've pretty much decided that the best way to handle most forms of fish is to dredge them in a batter of cormmeal + potato starch, hot hungarian paprika + salt, mixed with either beer or lime seltzer water and then deep fry it. So by the way when I say I'm working at top speed it means besides all these recipe type things I am chopping up a gigantic whole fish. Well, not chopping it up. That sounds so inelegant. I mean I am (as they say in the business) breaking it down. And I have a fish rack (complete with head) cuddled up next to the ice cream in the freezer, even now.

OK, cheddar pecan crackers. People who eat at my house on a regular basis (you know who you are) know that I rarely bother with apps, and very often not dessert either. It's like--booze, and then dinner. With more booze.

BUT. In my quest to get people to help me eat this fish I happened to be communicating with somebody from work who helps me out A LOT and I said, hey, why don't you come help us eat this fish and bring your girlfriend too?

And then I thought, shit. There was much to-do when I first came on to my job about me being a chef, and these folks are going to be expecting something more than fried fish and coleslaw. I mean, I guess I have a reputation to maintain!

So I made a little game plan, which was roasted pepitas (which I had in the freezer), cheddar pecan crackers, a veg dish which Elizabeth was going to bring, creamy coleslaw, fried fish, cherry tomatoes and lemon semolina cake with raspberries. That's do-able, right? In 2.5 hrs?

Anyway, this is where you came in. Me in a screaming hurry, throwing un-flattened cheddar pecan crackers into the oven.

So let's talk about the actual recipe here. Epicurious has it, and you can see that it's got a nice short ingredient list with nothing too weird. You beat the butter and cheddar together until they're smooth (hooray, btw, for cabot x-sharp shredded cheddar)--this placed considereable strain on my mixer and I had to fiddle around a lot with speed and so forth. Finally I threw the egg yolk in there to loosen it up and that helped. I blanched a little bit at the 1/2 tsp. of cayenne but what the hey--throw that in with salt, flour and chopped pecans and mix it all up. If I were doing this again I would definitely use my Kitchen Aid with the paddle attachment.

Then they say "roll rounded teaspoons of dough into balls" Hahahahahaha--how about a little mini-scoop with a release bar instead? Sounds about right for the chef on the autobahn of food prep. In a calmer moment I might chill the dough and try the rolling/flattening thing--the warm dough is super-sticky.

And, these were really really good, even in their cookie-not-cracker state! Taste--awesome--sharp and spicy, and full of pecan. Classic taste combo--perfect for a party. Keep it in mind for the holidays, folks! And stay tuned for Creamy Coleslaw and Lemon Semolina Cake with Raspberries.

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Fran, I have not forgotten you! Busy composing a dirty limerick about cooking and blogging. Keep your eyes on the mailbox!

Jessica, send me your mailing address!!!

Mexican Hot Chocolate and....Contest Winners!!!!

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:01:00 +0000

OK, the exciting stuff first! Not that Mexican Hot Chocolate isn't exciting--it certainly IS, especially on a cold blustery day.

But who doesn't like a winner?!? And here we have not one, but two!

The Grand Prize Winner is Fran of Frantastic Food, who will be receiving a copy of the new Gourmet Today, and the first runner up is Jessica of The Joy of The Joy of Cooking, who will be receiving the mini-Gourmet Today that I got way back in the wintertime!

Congratulations, you two! If you send me your mailing addresses, I'll write dirty limericks in them and pop them in the mail post-haste.

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One of the most exciting things about Mexican Hot Chocolate (aside from drinking it) was the excuse to go out and buy an exotic form of chocolate.

I'd been hearing about Mexican chocolate for years, usually in the types of venues that also say things like "you can use regular oregano instead of Mexican oregano, but it won't be the same". So yes, this recipe suggests that you find some Mexican chocolate like Ibarra...and since I happen to have the spiffy food store Lula's Pantry right down the street from me, I trotted down there and bought some.

Of course I could hardly wait to open up this mysterious chocolate--with hints of cinnamon, it says!--and try it.

This is not your ordinary chocolate! For one thing, it comes in round tablets, and for another thing, it's completely mixed up with granulated sugar! See that whiteness on the edge of the break? That's cut sugar.

So here's the thing about all this sugar mixed in with the chocolate--it makes for kind of a chalky eating experience if you're just nom-ing it right out of the wrapper. BUT--all of that sugar, evenly spaced throughout all of that chocolate goodness makes for brilliant MELTING capabilities--super fast! Swiss Miss, who needs you when we've got Ibarra for our hot chocolate needs???

Here's the rundown for making Mexican Hot Chocolate, and I'm doing this from memory because it's not online and also my neighbor Don borrowed Gourmet Today to make an Indian dinner for our book group last week (OH MY LORD THE LAMB BIRYANI) so bear with me if I screw up.

First thing--whip some heavy cream with a dash of almond extract and a little powdered sugar. Then bring equal parts whole milk and half and half to an almost-boil (I think it was about 4 cups altogether) and add 5 or 6 oz of chopped Ibarra chocolate. Also add a pinch of cayenne. Whisk until smooth, pour in cups, top with whipped cream and chopped macademia nuts.

There, that sounds about right! Where is the sugar, you ask? In the chocolate. I'm telling you, Ibarra should be right next to all those crappy powdered hot chocolate mixes in the beverage aisles.

This drink was creamy and really satisfying, although for my tastes I would have added about twice the cayenne and also some cinnamon since the "hint" of cinnamon in the Ibarra was pretty much nonexistant for me.

And...I still have some of this in my fridge. I've been adding it to my coffee and THAT is another really amazing beverage experience. In fact I'm going to go get some right now.

(blogger's note--I went just now to find an image of a "satisfied woman" and aside from the expected and distracting and not-at-all what I was looking for pictures of naked women (though much could be said about sex and chocolate I guess), I found this one:

Hahaha--it has nothing to with hot chocolate but how could I not put this up?

Shock--Condé Nast to close Gourmet Magazine

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:06:00 +0000

You know, I heard this rumor sometime last year, but I never ever thought it could possibly come true. Axing Gourmet over Bon Appetit? And on the heels of not just one but two amazing cookbook releases? I can see how it could be considered in a devestated economy, but come on--the tide is rising again, slowly but surely.

But--this in the NYT today.

There is much to say here about corporate overlords, shareholders and profit margins vs. cooking, writing, art and love. But right now I'm thinking only about the hard-working staff of Gourmet and their families, and of course our Ruth, who is the front man for this band and is absorbing a lot of praise and criticism in the media right now.

Ruth. Our director? I'm thinking Tarantino.

Bellinis, and Shellfish Watermelon Ceviche, Take One

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:51:00 +0000

Oh, you were perhaps looking forward to Bluefish with Green Tomato and Watermelon Salsa? Well, so was I until I looked at the recipe again and saw that it called for sea bass, not bluefish. They don't taste anything like the same, so I cooked the bluefish with the Lemon Caper Brown-Butter Sauce from the Gourmet Cookbook. Mighty fine! But these green tomatoes aren't really going away very quickly so stay tuned--seriously.

So--I effed up the Shellfish Watermelon Ceviche. How, you may be wondering? Argh--really through my own arrogance, which is just so aggravating sometimes.

Here's what happened. Actually first let me tell you how it is that I first found out about ceviche--many many many moons ago at a friend's wedding I had ceviche for the first time. I was amazed when the technique was explained to me--the shellfish wasn't cooked with heat, it was "cooked" with the acidity from limes and lemons. I could go into a long explanation about denatured protiens but it's really kind of boring--the end result is something that has the same basic mouthfeel of fish that's been cooked with heat.

So, that's what I always thought--that ceviche was in essence, raw seafood cured with citrus juice, with some other stuff thrown in. And when I took a look at this recipe, I saw that it called for some poaching of shellfish--the scallops and the shrimp--and the lobster you've bought already cooked. The reason? It "eliminates any food safety concerns", according to the head notes.

Feh! I live in one of the most amazing seafood locations in the world, and I should have food safety concerns? I think not!

So I merrily chopped up my raw scallops and shrimp and mixed them in with the lobster and other ceviche ingredients, and waited for the magic to begin.

And waited.

And stirred the ceviche.

And waited.

And 24 hours later came to the conclusion that perhaps there might have been a reason why poaching is called for.

And did a little research.

And discovered (thank you o font of information, Wikipedia) that in every country where ceviche is served (think places with hot weather), the fish is put in raw, but the shellfish is poached.

Also, for those daring enough to drink the ceviche "juice", it's considered an excellent cure for a hangover.

Good to know! But that didn't really help me with my quandry, which is that I had a bowl of mostly raw shellfish, cooked lobster, and ceviche stuff.

Hmm. So I picked out the lobster, and put the bowl in the microwave...and zapped it for one minute, four times in a row, stirring each time and finally coming to the sad conclusion that perhaps it was time to admit defeat and start afresh at a later date.

So I did.

Here's a picture of what it will maybe look like, at this aforementioned later date--and thanks to Anna Williams, who took this picture that's on Epicurious:

Doesn't that look good? We'll get there, promise.

OK, on to happier subjects! Bellinis!!

So this is yet another tasty entry in the Drinks chapter of Gourmet Today, and it only has two ingredients--peach puree and Prosecco. Of course, you have to make the peach puree, and the recipe calls for white peaches but I had some super ripe local peaches that needed doing something with so non-white peaches it was.

Here's what you do--put three quartered peaches in a food processor with a crushed vitamin C tablet (seems weird but prevents browning, and if you think that's odd believe it or not I have a bread recipe that calls for vitamin C too) and some sugar and lemon juice.

You might not be surprised to hear that I didn't read the directions super-carefully and put everything in my blender instead...

...which, I know, does essentially the same thing but with chunky stuff the food processor doesn't mess around and with the blender there is much stopping and stirring and pushing down and trying again before you get enough liquid to really get the party going in there.

But finally I had a puree going...

If you're serving six you're supposed to put this (strained) puree in a pitcher and then the Prosecco (oh and by the way if you're wondering what Prosecco is, it's sparkling white wine from Italy), pouring gently to avoid volcanic foam action.

But if you're making individual portions, it's 1/4 cup per glass, and then the Prosecco. It sure does foam up!

When she was getting a refill, my friend Moira combined them backwards--Prosecco first and then a splash of peach puree--and...no foam. So if you try this at home, try it both ways, just for the sake of experimentation. Why not?

The taste! Well, what do you expect? If you like Mimosas, you'll surely like this--it would be a brilliant drink for a Sunday brunch.

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Hey, don't forget about my Win a Double Signed Copy of Gourmet Today contest! Right now Fran has it locked up because she's the only one who's entered. You're not going to let her get away with that now, are you? Give her a run for her money! Contest ends in two weeks so get your entries in!

Cantaloupe Cooler (Agua de Melon)

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:45:00 +0000

One of the things I love about both of the Gourmet cookbooks are the recipes that use ingredients or a technique that I've never heard of and never could have imagined. THAT'S when I feel my mind expanding and I get so excited I just can't keep my mouth shut.

As a result, a LOT of people now know about Cantaloupe Coolers. Why? Because the main ingredient isn't cantaloupe, as you might suspect, it's this:

Yep--cantaloupe seeds!

This is what you do: take the seeds of one cantaloupe, 1/3 cup sugar and two cups of water and whiz them up in a blender, like so:

Strain into something (I used a jar) and add a third cup of water:

And you're done! Well, not quite done. You want it to be cold, so put it in the fridge. The recipe says to use very cold water, but I just made it several hours before I knew I'd want it so it would be nice and chilled.

Ah, over ice, so refreshing! But being me I'm always thinking about how to make things even better, so I thought I'd add a little:

...but the Rose's overwhelmed the delicate flavor of the cantaloupe. So when my writing group came over, I suggested a squeeze of:

...and that was truly delicious! But THEN Ruth said, boy, I bet this would be good with rum. And I thought, aha. I bet it would be perfect with:

...which I just happened to have kicking around in a cupboard somewhere. A little teensy splash in each glass, and Let the Writing Group Begin!! Yes, I love my writing group, and not just because they are all perfectly fine with the idea of drinking Malibu rum in the middle of the afternoon!

This recipe can be found in the new beautiful Gourmet Today, and for those of you despairing that I'll never swim out of the Drinks chapter and into something else--fear not! I've got the ingredients for the bluefish recipe with the green tomato and watermelon salsa. So stay tuned!

Pesto, Colcannon, and Next-Gen Blogging!

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 11:59:00 +0000

Next-Gen Blogging? Quoi?

Yes. What that means is that my son, O'Malley, has decided to pick up the pen and dive into the world of cook-through blogging.

This may not come as a surprise to you (thinking, probably, genetics + environment), but it certainly does come as a surprise to me since I remember all too well about a decade + of my child refusing to eat practically everything that I cooked. I can't tell you how maddening it is to plan, shop and prepare a meal, only to have it rejected out of hand because it contains SQUASH. (missed that memo, apparently!) Or don't I know that he hates STEW?

Yes, it's a wonder I'm not bald. From pulling my hair out.

So about half a year ago it was with no small amount of amazement that I went to pick O'Malley up at his dad's so we could go to karate class...and found him making spring rolls. And then not too long after he informed me he was cooking dinner for his girlfriend's family...and he made pho. And then he called me on the phone to ask my advice about baking hamenatashen.

Do you notice all of these cooking adventures are taking place in places other than my house? Yes, I did too, and I protested vigorously (but MOM, he said, we already have a gourmet chef at your house!). But that night he invited his girlfriend over for dinner and in less than three hours produced not only a beautiful Chinese soup but dessert as well (Cherries in Snow)--recipes he just pulled off Epicurious and executed without thinking twice.

The next weekend (at my insistence) he cooked again, and this time from The Gourmet Cookbook, and tackled Pot au Feu.

It was right about in here somewhere that he started talking about wanting to do his own cook-through blog, and the book he wanted to do was one that he's already been cooking out of--Sundays at Moosewood.

This book has a lot of meaning for me because I consider it to be the book that really started me on the road to having the potential for being a chef.

Why?

Well, I was a vegetarian for 12 years, and had really explored what was on the shelves at the time for vegetarian cooking--which was pretty much locked up by Mollie Katzen and the Moosewood restaurant folks unless you wanted to access older tomes and go for the brown rice-stuffed zucchini boats and dense hockey puck-whole wheat bread of seventies vegetarian cooking.

So, The Moosewood Cookbook. And shortly thereafter, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. They were my companions and teachers, and when Sundays at Moosewood came out I cooked through that book just as ardently...and in the process learned about vegetarian cooking from every corner of the globe. It's because of that book that I know what injera is--and dashi--and I still think that the best trifle recipe EVER can be found in the British Isles section. I discovered rice noodles and ghee, and it's also because of that book that I confidently strode into the kitchen of a restaurant in Bar Harbor and told the chef (who was seeking help) that I would be just the person to assist him in his quest to put Japanese food on the table.

Now keep in mind all of this cooking went on before O'Malley was even born, and by the time he was a toddler experimenting with eating food I was on to other books--Fields of Green, for example, learning how amazing seared mushrooms are in a grilled cheese sandwich. And finally I gave the book away to a friend who wanted to cook vegetarian--it's filled with my notes--with nary a pang.

And yet, here it is again. O'Malley's dad bought a new copy at some point, and O'Malley has found it.

This will be fun for me. I can't wait for when he gets to the trifle. And you'll be able to find his blog here. Won't you stop by and welcome him to the ranks?

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Pesto! Colcannon! Italy and Ireland, since we're talking about round-the-world cooking today!

Actually, I asked O'Malley to make the pesto because I wanted to harvest the basil on the deck--and he jumped on it. This is a basic pesto recipe from the Sauces and Salsas section of the book, and it's nothing new--your standard basil, pine nuts, parm, garlic and olive oil blend. I thought it seemed a little loose but it will certainly be a luscious topping for the fish I'll be getting this week from the fish share.

The colcannon happened because I was searching for a cold-weather way to use cabbage--seems too chilly now for coleslaw. Boiled dinner seemed too BIG--stuffed cabbage rolls seemed too FUSSY--and colcannon seemed just right.

What is colcannon, you might ask? Basically, it's mashed potatoes + cabbage. And it's super easy--just boil you some peeled russets, and in another pot simmer 4 cups of chopped cabbage with a cup of milk and a stick (yes, a stick!) of butter. When they're both done, put them together and mash in a happy marriage.

My big surprise (and vexation) with this dish was discovering anew that even the tiniest cabbage contains far more cabbage than one would think. Seriously--the cabbage I used was about the size of a large grapefruit--let's say a pomelo. Four cups there, right? Even quartered and cored, it looks like it's gonna be four cups.

Start chopping, and baby, it's like clowns coming out of a clown car. My tiny cabbage gave me TEN CUPS of chopped cabbage. Forget the loaves and the fishes--I'll bet Jesus was making coleslaw.

Why is this vexatious? Because I'm trying to get RID of this stuff! And now I have more! Now what?!?

Gimlets

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:37:00 +0000

Another refreshing alcoholic beverage, courtesy of Gourmet Today! Oh Gourmet Today, with your luscious, lime-green cover, is there any need you can't fill? I await the next version, which perhaps will have a chapter on food and intimacy, and then I'll never have to leave the house again, except perhaps to resupply.

Gimlets!

A stunningly simple drink that is fantastically delicious if you love the components, which I do--gin, and Rose's lime juice. It's said this drink was invented by the British Navy in the 1800s as a way to convince sailors to take their daily ration of scurvy-preventing lime juice. Very innovative! Makes me look kindly on the British Navy, who also by the way preserved Admiral Nelson's body in a barrel of rum so they could get him home in shape for a state funeral. The things you can do with alcohol!

Should you be likewise inclined to prevent scurvy in your house, here's the recipe for 2 gimlets: 1/2 cup gin, 2 tablespoons Rose's lime juice. Shake shake shake in a cocktail shaker, and either pour over ice into a rocks glass or strain into a martini glass. Garnish with a lime wedge.

You may have noticed, by the way, that although I stated earlier that I'd be blogging about Drinks, Vegetarian Main Courses, and Grilled Dishes, I haven't really explored the other two. That's because when I come home at night I don't say, Man, I could use a Tempeh Burger!

But I will! I'll get there, it just won't be as quickly. Stay tuned!

Orecchiette with Cauliflower and Lacinato Kale

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:15:00 +0000

You know, I'm not really much of a pasta girl. I don't feel that I've ever fully understood it, or appreciated its value. I never order it at restaurants because the mountain of pasta that arrives seems ridiculous (and in fact according to a former co-worker, the serving size at the Italian restaurant he once cooked at was ONE POUND of pasta per person). I tend to enjoy it as a wrapper of things--like ravioli, or sandwiched in lasagne--but that's about it.

But I have always had this nagging feeling that I'm missing something, and I have a fantasy about going to Italy and eating pasta in small towns and saying OHhhhhhh--THIS is what you're talking about!

I doesn't help that the new book (Gourmet Today if you're slow on the uptake) has Ruth rhapsodizing about pasta in the intro to the pasta chapter. I mean, really showing some love, as in if she could eat one food only for the rest of her life it would be pasta.

That's serious appreciation. And it made me feel bad about neglecting the Pasta, Noodles and Dumplings chapter, which has (according to the labels on my sidebar) been cooked out of only 7 times during this grand and luscious cook-through experience of mine.

I chose Orecchiette with Cauliflower and Lacinato Kale because my farm share has lots-o-kale every single week. A read-through of this recipe is interesting, and since it's not on epicurious I'll just tell you basically what caught my eye.

One, it's based on a country dish that, although meatless, uses anchovies in the sauce. Two, it's Italian by way of Australia, where Thai influence led the chef (Karen Martini) to use fresh serranos instead of the more typical red pepper flakes. Since the dish is now by way of me, I used the jalapenos that were also in my farm share. Three, it calls for fresh coarse bread crumbs. A lot of them. Which made me wonder, but I pressed on anyway.

And just fyi, the recipe says that it takes 1 1/4 hrs to make, but it only took me about 40 minutes, mostly because I combined some steps.

So here's how it goes--you toast the bread crumbs in the oven until they're golden brown. Check.

Cook both the cauliflower and kale in boiling salted water for 8 mins til done. This is where I saved some minutes--instead of cooking them one after another for the exact same amount of time, I cooked them together. Der. Don't bother with the directions of pressing to remove water and the next paragraph will explain why.

Saute anchovies, garlic and chilies for about a minute, then put in the veggies, 1/2 cup parsley, and 2/3 cup reserved vegetable cooking water. Bring to a boil, season w/ s&p and take off heat.

At the same time presumably you're cooking your pasta (in salted water, please). Marry the pasta and the sauce in whichever pot is largest and stir in 3 oz grated parm and another 1/2 cup chopped parsley.

You may have been wondering where the bread crumbs come in, and it's now! You serve the pasta drizzed with extra virgin olive oil, and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

Really? Yes. Bread on top of pasta! And you know what? That was probably one of my favorite features about this dish--the contrast of the crunchy bread crumbs with the soft pasta, and that olive-y perfume from the oil.

As for the rest of it, it was good! It made a nice meal, and I've been eating it in small amounts as a side dish all week.

And Ruth, we'll have to get together and eat pasta someday. I still feel as if I need educating and I suspect you're the gal to do it.

Contest Announcement! Win a double-signed copy of the new Gourmet Today!

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:29:00 +0000

Double-signed? What's that, you may ask.

Signed by Ruth Reichl, and signed by me. Actually, I haven't signed it yet. I might do something more elaborate. Perhaps an essay. Or a dirty limerick! A dirty limerick about cooking...or blogging...hmmm.

There once was a blogger named ______

Who liked to put _____in her _________

But one fine spring day

She saw it THIS way

and since then has used it as ___________

Well, anyway.

There's a nice pretty copy of Gourmet Today here, and I'm holding a contest for it.

What are the rules? Boy am I tempted to hold a dirty limerick contest, but what I'm hoping is that you'll use it to write your own cook-through blog...and with that hope in mind I'm asking you to send me a blog post for a recipe that you've just done. Could be anything--pie, pot roast, lemonade.

And what I'm looking for is style, baby! Anybody can give a blow-by-blow--what I want is your writing voice shining through. Post your post in the comments section below, and I'll announce a winner on October 14.

Sharpen your pencils, and begin!

Spiced Milk Tea, or Stop Grousing about the Raw Weather and Get Warm

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 22:27:00 +0000

You know what? This is a tough time of the year for some of us.

I'm not talking about you people who suffer all summer long and thank the gods when the weather drops into the 60s and 50s.

I'm talking about people who tend to be chilly anyway, even in the summer. People whose feet are blocks of ice in bed, who complain about the air conditioning being too low, who press their cold nose into your neck and say OH YOU'RE SO WARM and sigh with happiness at being around somebody who is throwing off some heat.

Ring a bell?

I know many readers have found my blog (thank you google analytics) because of the post Curried Greens with Golden Onions and Cashews, or Melissa Gets Eastern and that means there is a lot of interest in ayurveda and how it relates to cooking--in fact that post is my second most popular of all time.

So I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about Vata, and how the fall is a BAD TIME for Vatas, and specifically how Masala Chai (Spiced Milk Tea) is freaking AWESOME for Vatas and anybody else who is feeling vulnerable in that department.

Out of the three doshas (that's body types), Vatas will usually be your wiry, thin folks--quick-witted, funny and creative. Vata can also be a secondary type, so you may be a Pitta (world-beater) or a Kapha (nurturer) but have a lot of Vata characteristics. When vata is unbalanced, a lot of things happen...dry, flaky skin; anxiety (or even paranoia); scattered energy/concentration; quick fatigue; constipation, insomnia, and cold hands/feet.

The fall season, with the temperature drop, the chilly winds and the increasingly raw weather is double trouble for Vatas, and by the way if you want to figure out what your dosha is, check out any of these sites and take a quiz: What's Your Dosha?, Deepak Chopra's Dosha Questionnaire, or Holistic Online.

So what to do if you're a poor Vata in the fall (and I don't mean a sunny apple-picking day, I mean a day like today when it's gloomy and raining and just really freaking depressing and your hands are turning white in patches because you can't get warm no matter how many cups of coffee you drink and your feet are cold and you have to go digging around for some warm socks).

Two things, Vatas. Exercise and spices. And fat. OK, three things.

Exercise gets the blood moving--especially into your extremities--and raises your energy levels. Fat...does some magical thing that warms you up. No, I don't mean by giving you a subcutaneous full-body insulating coat (though that does work too)--somehow it makes you warmer than low- or no-fat food. Feel free to explain the magic. And spice--well, that's a no-brainer if you've ever tried to eat kimchi or foods of that ilk.

So, you're asking, is this EVER going to turn into a discussion of Spiced Milk Tea?

Why yes, it is! Right now, in fact.

Spiced Milk Tea (Masala Chai) is Indian. You might have had it in an Indian restaurant, you might have had some variation at a coffee bar, you might have even had some from a supermarket box of tea. Masala Chai is AWESOME for a vata imbalance because it's hot, it uses whole milk (there's your fat) and it's SPICY. Here is how you make it for real, at home.

Ready?

Take these whole spices: 8 cardamom pods, 1 cinnamon stick, 4 peppercorns, a pinch of fennel seeds, and grind them in a spice grinder. I use our handy dandy Magic Bullet.

Bring two cups of whole milk to a simmer, and whisk in the ground spices along with a scant 1/4 brown sugar, a tiny pinch of salt and 1/2 tsp. ground ginger. At the same time, bring 2 cups of water to a boil and throw in 5 tsp. of loose black tea. I went hunting around in the market and actually found some, much to my surprise.

That's nice! Ever since I discovered whole leaf tea I can't believe that bizarre stuff in tea bags--ground-up powder of some sort.

Boil the tea for one minute, then strain it into the spiced milk, which is simmering for three minutes to get the full spice effect.

And that's it, baby.

I drank two cups of masala chai and was happy as a little fuzzy puppy, though I must warn you that the dregs of your cup will have clumps of spices--I decided to strain my second cup. Here is what is the most awesome about this recipe--the black pepper. The recipe actually calls for white peppercorns if you have them, and I didn't, but still--that element of heat just hit my stomach and radiated outwards.

And Vatas--here are a few fall menu tips from a paisano:

--leave off with the cold cereal and/or protein shakes and eat oatmeal or eggs. Any hot breakfast.

--in fact, leave off cold foods altogether until next summer. Trust me.

--stews and soups are your friend. Make a big pot and enjoy all week.

--grilled cheese sandwiches

--leftovers, heated. Forget the lunch salads for now.

--fat is OK. Go ahead and eat the chicken skin.

--hot drinks! Check back here for my reports on Spiced Milk Tea with Saffron and Pistachios, Mexican Hot Chocolate, Irish Coffee, Hot Buttered Rum and Mulled Red Wine.

--Spicy foods. Seriously--get fired up.

--and...if you are sitting in front of your computer, freezing your ass off, get up and move around--run around the block, do some pushups, go to a kettlebell class...the world is not going to fall apart if you detach yourself for an hour. And you'll be so happy! And warm!

Slow-Roasted Tomato Bruschetta, Classic Martinis and Something Cool about the New Cookbook!

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:05:00 +0000

What is cooler than Classic Martinis, I hear you ask?

It's this--here I was, sitting out on the deck, drinking black coffee and eating fried rice (thank you Ruth for that great suggestion, and don't be sad peeplz--it's not mysterious, it's just leftover rice w/ an egg, scallions, and dark sesame oil and it's great for breakfast) flipping through the new cookbook...actually really READING it instead of flipping through it, when this caught my eye:

Do you see that? A free subscription to Gourmet! I love free things! That's how I got into karate--two free months and now look at me--a brown belt, almost as dangerous to others as I am to myself. I have to admit I've never subscribed to Gourmet (I was always more of a cookbook gal) but how can I pass this up? I can't. And frankly I'm curious to see how it's changed under Ruth's editorship.

Cool stuff!

OK, on to the featured recipes...

My friend Elizabeth (she of the kittens and the Bombay gin) got even more ambitious with her backyard garden this year and added twice as many raised beds, and as a result has been awash with vegetables...some of which she has sold at the farmer's market, but many of which have found their happy way to my kitchen. And when we were invited to a Labor Day potluck, I thought--here's the perfect opportunity to help Elizabeth move some of those tomatoes out of there--every time I walk in to her house (hello kittens!!!) she has bushels and pint boxes and pie plates of plum and cherry and heirloom tomatoes hanging about--by making Slow-Roasted Tomato Bruschetta.

Lots o tomatoes!

Cut them up and distribute them on two baking sheets and drizzle with 5 tbsp olive oil + 5 minced garlic cloves, salt and pepper:

Roast in a 200 oven for 6 hours. Yup, six hours! When they're done, they'll look like this:

See that bread? When I took the picture I was toasting slices of it in the oven, which is how I served it at the party.

And people FLIPPED over this dish. So simple! I must have told ten people how it's made (including my mother, who called this morning to write down the instructions). And by the way, this is from The Gourmet Cookbook, not Gourmet Today, should you be looking for this one (it's not on Epicurious either).

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Next--Classic Martinis!

I told you last post that we couldn't decide between Gin Rickeys and Classic Martinis, and tonight we went with the martinis. In the intro to the chapter, Ruth writes that the food editors spent a ridiculous amount of time counting how many times they stirred drinks, testing different types of ice cubes, etc--only to discover that the devil really IS in the details or rather that very small differences make the difference between a good cocktail and a great one.

So I paid close attention to things like how much ice, noted that the martini was stirred, not shaken (sorry James Bond) and put the glasses in the freezer ahead of time to get them nice and chilled.

And, it was good! But I'm thinking that those bartenders at bars must keep some gin in the fridge or something--I would have liked it colder and ended up putting in some of the ice from the shaker. And I put a little olive juice in mine too, which makes it a "dirty" martini (not too long ago I had a Hot and Dirty Martini at Alchemy, which was a damn good martini!!)

I noted that the bruschetta was from The Gourmet Cookbook--the martini is obviously from Gourmet Today, the new book. I'm going to have to think of a way to state that elegantly in the future without going to the bother of typing out the titles over and over. Hmmm. Thinking....

From Gourmet Today: Cosmopolitans and Gin Rickeys!

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 18:53:00 +0000

You had to know it would only be a matter of days before I explored the Drinks chapter of the new cookbook! And before I embark upon this post I just want to make clear that it is NOT my ambition to add Gourmet Today to my cook-through blogging quest. Good lord. I MIGHT do the three subjects that aren't in the original book...grilling, vegetarian dishes, and drinks...but that's it. Well, I might do some of the cookies. And cakes. But that really is where I will be drawing the line.

Really. And don't say, Famous Last Words.

ANYWAY.

Being a cocktail enthusiast I had a hard time settling on which drink recipe I would try first. Something in the gin dept.? A champagne drink, perhaps? Punch for 50...don't need that right at the moment! Finally I just shut my eyes, flipped through the chapter, and pointed...and landed on Fizzy Sour Cherry Lemonade, a vodka drink that involves fresh or frozen sour cherries, which are not to be found right now. So I went to the recipe above, and the winner was...Cosmopolitans! Hooray!

Thursday also being CSF day (Community Supported Fishery) I invited our friends Elizabeth and Mark over for dinner to help us eat the fish and try out the Cosmos, and they were more than happy to say yes--impromptu dinner party! Hooray!

The notes for this recipe say that their version uses regular vodka rather than lemon-flavored (thank god, I think that stuff smells like cleaning fluid) and replaces lime juice w/ Rose's. Here's my mis en place...

Just so you know, I never use booze that's more than 80 proof, because anything more just knocks me on my keister. And I would like you to admire those lemon twists! Those of you who have witnessed even some of my many, many incarnations will not be surprised to hear that at one point I was a bartender, though that was a long time ago. Before Cosmos were invented in the mid-90's, so that should give you some idea.

Hello, cocktail shaker that I hardly ever use! Hello martini glasses which seem so appropriate now that we're finally watching Mad Men! Add ice, 1/4 cup vodka (THANK YOU whoever made the decision to translate ounces into cup/spoon measurements!!!!) 2 tbsp triple sec, 2 tbsp cran juice, 1 tbsp Rose's...shake shake shake shake shake shake shake, and.....

Isn't that pretty? Tasted great too! It's worth noting that as I was pouring I was saying, that's it? That's two drinks worth? If you are a habitué of bars where martini glasses are filled almost to the brim, now is the time to tell you are probably drinking two drinks worth of booze per glass. Super-sizing strikes again!

I'll confess to slurping two of those down before moving to wine halfway through dinner and I had a partner in Elizabeth--the guys declined Cosmo #2, finding it a touch too sweet for them. And the next time I try these, I might sub out the Rose's for regular lime juice, just for the sake of experimentation.

***********************************************************************************

Whenever Mark and Elizabeth go away and I take care of their cats, Elizabeth thanks me with a bottle of Bombay gin. So in return for having the privilege of cuddling two kittens last weekend, I got high-end gin...what a great deal! Mark and Elizabeth, go away any time!

So last night I asked Don if he wanted to try one of the gin recipes and although Classic Martinis were a strong pull, Gin Rickeys won out because neither of us had had them before.

This one was pretty simple--gin, lime juice and soda or seltzer. Again, the cocktail shaker! I love that thing! The only sad part of this drink-making experience is that I opened a small bottle of club soda and finished off the drink--only to realize belatedly that it was flat. Phooey! It must have been opened and closed, or it was really really really old. Probably the first one.

So I dumped a little out and poured in some Poland lime-flavored seltzer, which my husband consumes like crazy. I felt like I was cheating a little, but what are you going to do?

This is a really refreshing drink, and if you're one of those folks who would rather not taste the booze, just have the effects creep up on you, this is one of those. You feel the gin more in your stomach than taste it going down.

Is it weird to be so enthusiastic about drink recipes? I AM mindful that booze is a drug (legal, but still a drug), and with a 16 yr. old son we are certainly talking on a regular basis about the All Things in Moderation philosophy. But...I suppose the same thing could be said of food--not that it's a drug, but that it's best enjoyed with moderation. I guess what it all comes down to is how you approach it! Gosh, I could get all philosophical here but I think I'll save that for another day and instead I'll just say have a happy (and safe) Labor Day Weekend! Those of you who are actually laboring, we'll drink one for you. ;-)

Melissa Gets a Surprise!

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:23:00 +0000

Do not adjust your color settings, people--that pretty green cookbook is the younger sister of our dearly beloved Gourmet Cookbook!

Yup--hot off the presses and into my hot little hands and OH GOURMET WHY DIDN'T YOU WAIT TIL I HAD MASTERED SPACE AND TIME????? Not fair at ALL to come up with such a sexy book when I'm only half way through the first one--LORD I'll be cooking this stuff in the nursing home! I need to be able to bend three-dimensional reality to fit in all of my ardent desires so send me a manual next time, will ya?

Oh puleez, I hear you cry--stop complaining and get on with the descriptions already...ok, ok...here it goes:

Our new little sister cookbook has three new chapters, which is to say that basically the layout is the same (Adam/Teena/Kevin if you're still with us/Annie you too--you will recognize the chapters...grains and beans, fish and shellfish, fruit desserts, etc.)...but with a few additions. And they are:

The chapter I am possibly most excited about, Drinks! Yes, before I sat down to write this post I did a quick survey of our poorly-stocked liquor cabinet and a quick skim of the Drinks chapter and determined that I have NO INGREDIENTS (except for the basic vodka/rum/tequila/random liquor assortment) so you can be sure I will be remedying that in record time.

Grilled Dishes...and can I just say where were you Gourmet when we got our grill a few years ago and I embarrased myself charing hamburgers? Sheesh.

My friend Georgia! And Eve! And Leigh and Monique and Paula and May and all of you other dedicated vegetarians, look! A cookbook that has cocktails AND vegetarian food. The two are not always to be found in the same book, but here you have Fennel, Telaggio and Cardamom Tart...Buttered Barley and Onion Soup...Rolled Omelet with Arulula-Goat Cheese Filling...and cheek by jowl with Sangria and Gimlets and Bloody Marys. Really now...could life get any better? I think not!

What else about this alluring young thing...well, all of the recipes here are supposedly do-able in less than a half-hour of active time, and that will be a pleasant surprise for folks who are actually busy (and who among us is not?) Not tested one jot by me, and it behooves us to be skeptical so WE SHALL SEE...(bwah ha haaa)

But my real surprise? Was this:

and this!

How many of us can say that they got a note from Ruth Reichl saying, "From one cod to another" and "I hope you like this book as much as I like your rate!" ? Oh Ruth...it's ok...just don't try to do the Molly Katzen/handwritten cookbook thing or we'll all be wandering lost in the wilderness. And let us raise a glass to the gods of word processing...my glass which is filled sparsely with Mt. Gay and lime juice and ice, which really is not a bad way to toast those particular gods.

And a little birdy told me you were asking about my phone number which I assume is to discuss which director will direct our movie. Will it be Woody Allen (Woody is married to you, has an affair with me, we all sing about it)...Quentin Tarantino (you and I set up a secret espionage unit at Conde Nast and scalp certain executives who want to shut down Gourmet)...or perhaps Nora Ephron (a heartfelt movie about two women who make their separate ways through the world of food and food writing and find themselves and satisfaction with their lives and impact each other in ways neither could have imagined)?

Stay tuned, readers! Oh, and the book--get it!

Smoky Black Beans, or Melissa Takes Liberties (Again)

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:33:00 +0000

Well, it must be the season of j'en sais quois. Or perhaps it's the season of je m'en fous! Whatever it is, I have clearly thrown caution to the winds with my recipe following and have gone madly, madly astray.

Think I exagerate? Read on, ardent friend.

What better dish to bring to a summer picnic than Smoky Black Beans? It's not potato salad, it theoretically pairs nicely with steak and/or chicken, and this particular recipe seems pretty low key and easy to make.

Perfect!

Let me just note that the recipe on epicurious differs ever so slightly from the recipe in the cookbook, which is to say that our esteemed editors want you to use FRESH orange juice, and someday I will tell you all I know about supermarket orange juice and then you will never want to drink it again but for the time being let's just say TAKE THEIR ADVICE and cut open a few juice oranges for this dish.

So I know you, readers, you're looking at this recipe on epicurious and thinking, well, where could she really have gone that far astray? Vegetable instead of olive oil? White instead of black beans? It's a simple recipe, after all!

Here is where: see that point where it says take 1 canned chile in adobo, minced? And add it to the beans?

Well, I was doubling the recipe, and also understand that I really have an aversion to saving things in cans (or de-canning them and freezing them or whatever) and so instead of fishing out TWO of the chilis in adobo (it really is a small can, kind of a mini-can) I just decided to use the whole can.

And actually there were really about 8 chilies in the can. All told. More or less.

But at this point I had taken the bit between my teeth and was convinced that 8 chilies would be not so different from 2, but in retrospect actually that's not quite correct. 8 chilies are hot!! This is how hot they were, in the dish--they made me cough, which did not however make me not appreciate how good the flavor of the fresh orange juice complemented the whole thing.

So at this point, readers, I had to make a decision...I could scrap this as a potluck offering and bring it into work (many hungry peeplz w/ adventuresome taste buds), or I could give it a try at the BBQ (and the hour was growing late).

I opted for the lazy way out, and brought it along with MANY warning about the heat level...and was rewarded by seeing lots of plates left around with tiny little mound of beans on them.

Hey, what can I say...this is New England.

BUT--it was not a total loss, since my husband (Italian/Jew from Long Island) came home from work and devoured a plate of this stuff with sour cream. Granted, this is a man who brings hot sauce to the table so it's not that unexpected, but it still made me feel as if although I was immoderate with the chilies, perhaps the target diners were too moderate with their palates.

Maybe? Come on, help me out!

Coleslaw with Hot Caraway Vinaigrette

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:05:00 +0000

Yes--more salad! Anybody who thinks that salad means putting some tomatoes and pre-washed lettuce bits in a bowl (and who does that not include?) will find real salad recipes off-putting because they require more than 10 seconds of time to assemble. There is a certain casual charm to tomatoes and pre-washed lettuce bits, but they DO get old after a while so if you can just wrap your brain around the fact that you're going to spend half an hour or so on a salad you can lovingly approach it as a work of art.

So here we have Coleslaw with Hot Caraway Vinaigrette, and--full disclosure--right out of the gate I altered this recipe to substitute my ever-growing kohlrabi collection for the green and red cabbage this recipe calls for. DON'T JUDGE ME, PEOPLE--if you had a veggie drawer full of little green sputniks you'd be playing fast and loose with your own self-imposed cook-through recipe rules too.

Don't know what a kohlrabi is? Don't feel bad--hardly anybody does. Here's a picture:

See what I mean? Like a little green sputnik.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT SPUTNIK IS?!?

Hello? First satellite ever in orbit around the earth? Put up by the Russians? Kicked off the space race? Ask your parents and/or grandparents if this is not ringing any bells for you.

Anyway, back to kohlrabi--it actually IS a cultivar of the cabbage family, and it tastes kind of like broccoli stem (after you've peeled it). Wikipedia helpfully states that it's sweeter, and I guess it kind of is but it's also a little peppery too. Anyway, if you've ever had broccoli slaw you'll have no problems making slaw out of kohlrabi.

So this recipe is coleslaw without the mayo--if you don't like mayonaissey dressings (and I only like the ones I make myself because usually storebought coleslaw is waaay too sweet) you'll really love this one. And I see it's not on epicurious so I'll tell you what it is in case you too have lots of slaw material hanging around taking up real estate in your fridge.

So--make slaw. Easiest w/ a food processor with a grater attachement. Generally this means cabbage (or kohlrabi etc), carrots, maybe some onion, maybe some bell pepper. Toss it together in a bowl. This recipe serves ten so cut the dressing recipe below in half if you don't have that much.

This recipe then asks you to do the following--toss the slaw w/ five tablespoons white wine vinegar. Then heat five tablespoons olive oil in a pan until it's hot but not smoking, and put in 2 tablespoons caraway seeds and 1 tablespoon mustard seeds. Cover and wait until the mustard seeds have stopped popping--then take it off heat and drizzle over the slaw--toss with salt and pepper to taste.

I didn't quite understand why the pan needed to be covered until my mustard seeds actually started popping (and spitting oil out of the pan). 'Nuff said. What you get are basically fried seeds, which are wonderfully toasty and crunchy--and it's this taste experience that elevates the slaw into something different from what you've probably ever had in the slaw department.

You would think five tablespoons of oil would be oppressive, but it just vanished into the salad. And in spite of my grumbling about hand-peeling eight kohlrabi and also the agedness of my food processor (which sometimes goes off without me telling it to, thus startling me half out of my wits) I really liked this salad, though I was glad I didn't have any kind of dentures or bridgework with all of those seeds. People putting dentist's kids through college via these dental accesories, beware!

Salade Niçoise

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:41:00 +0000

I was flipping through the book a few days ago, trying to find some salads that would use up some of these ever-lovin' veggies I'm getting from the CSA (kohlrabi salad, anyone?)--and after about five minutes of browsing around I was thinking to myself, why am I not making these salads now, regardless of whether or not they use kohlrabi? It's hot and I want salads! It's just a matter of putting your attention in the right place.

So with that can-do spirit, I embarked on gathering the ingredients for Salade Niçoise.

Now, I've had this salad before and I knew it was (in general) cooked and chilled veggies + a hard boiled egg + tuna + a garlicky dressing. On lettuce.

This recipe is no different and the basics were in my pantry and fridge, with the exception of the star of the show, the fancy tuna canned in oil.

You might be wondering what the difference is between tuna that's canned in water and tuna that's canned in oil and if I were being flip I'd tell you ten bucks and 200 calories but actually I think it must be a dryness issue...only dieters can really choke down hunks of albacore tuna without a little mayo to ease the passage if it's been canned in water.

But here's the thing (and jeez, I'm really just skipping the whole recipe part aren't I and getting right down to my gripes) canned tuna in oil tastes and smells and feels like cat food.

Which actually is the problem I have with "light" tuna too, so I DON'T GET why people would pay $10/can for this stuff unless they are cats. If I were a cat I'd probably pay a million dollars for tuna canned in oil, if I had a million dollars which I probably would because I'd be such a cute cat.

And here's another question I have, which is how is it that canned tuna is SO DIFFERENT from tuna? I mean, real tuna? What do they do to it? It's like tuna from the seafood market is from one planet and tuna from the grocery store shelf is from another one. They shouldn't even be labeled the same thing. I think canned tuna is terrific for bomb shelters and during the apocolypse I will enjoy tunafish salad sandwiches but until then, for pete's sake, if you can get your hands on fresh tuna use that instead on your Salade Niçoise and you will love me (but your cat will hate me).

Have I talked about the actual recipe yet? No? OK, here's how it goes--make a dressing out of shallots, lemon juice, Dijon mustard and XVO + a little chopped parsley. Boil and cool new potatoes and green beans, and make some hard-boiled eggs. Toss the peeled potatoes, green beans and some chopped green bell pepper in with some of the dressing, and mound it on some like-wise dressed lettuce. Surround artfully with tomatoes, egg wedges, Niçoise (or other) olives, capers, and top off with cat food I MEAN TUNA PACKED IN OIL. Dollop a little more dressing on top to disguise the smell and wash down with ice cold beer. Mmmmmm m!

Cold Poached Chicken with Ginger Scallion Oil

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:12:00 +0000

It only takes a few days of hot, sultry weather to make New Englanders go out of their minds with irritation. Don't believe me? Try driving around on a day like today--90 degrees with 70% humidity--and you'll find out quick enough. I almost got clipped four times and at least one driver called me something that fortunately I didn't understand because I don't know any of those bad words and it's like a foreign language to me. And I just have two words for you, irritated drivers. AIR CONDITIONING. Get some. Ice water wouldn't hurt either.

If you, too, are irritated because of the heat and the thought of cooking dinner makes you want to likewise swear at somebody, like your stupid family for wanting food, don't despair! Cold Poached Chicken with Ginger Scallion Oil will make you want to send love notes to me for suggesting it.

This is how you do it. Early in the morning, before it gets hot, poach a few chicken breasts in water with a little fresh ginger and sherry (or sake) (or Scotch, says Epicurious, which is kind of weird but what do I know). Throw those babies in the fridge, and at your leisure at some point during the day mix together vegetable oil, fresh grated ginger, sliced scallions, and dark sesame oil.

When it's time for supper, pull out the chicken, slice thinly, and spoon the ginger scallion oil over the top. Serve with a salad (from all that freakin lettuce you have from the CSA) and you've got a nice, light hot-weather meal. A little sea salt puts it over the top--I'm mad about sea salt these days, even over lettuce.

My only problem at all with this recipe was something visual, and it's only evidence that I've done bad things to egg-based sauces, like overheat them so they break. If you look at the photo above, the ginger can be sort of visually construed as a broken sauce. Anybody who's broken a sauce knows what a tragic and frustrating experience it is, and the photo might make that person sad or anxious. And you think I'm being melodramatic, but when you're plating food that has to go out RIGHT THIS SECOND, brother, a broken sauce makes you want to yell bad words at people even if you have air conditioning AND ice water.

Oh, now here I've injected a note of melancholy into a nice happy post about hot-weather dining. How did that happen? Do I have Post Traumatic Sauce Syndrome? I think I might.

Leg of Lamb with Tomatoes and Garlic

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 12:40:00 +0000

Last Sunday I wanted to make something we could enjoy during the week for leftovers, but what? I didn't have anything in particular in mind...I thought of Teena's random number generator (by which she selects recipes in moments like this) but not having a mathematician's tools I went with just opening the book and cooking whatever was on the page, if I hadn't made it already.

So, hello Leg of Lamb with Tomatoes and Garlic! Perfect!

OK, not completely perfect, because lamb is not the cheapest meat in the world and I just had to pretend I didn't see the $30-something price tag. And if you too are trying to eat as organically as possible, you should know that 8 heads of organic garlic are also kind of pricey.

This is one of those beautifully malleable recipes. The roasting part is pretty straightforward--you start off in a hot oven, then turn it down after 15 minutes to reasonable and cook the lamb til it's 135. Let me speak once again of my love for my remote digital oven thermometer--if you cook large cuts of meat in the oven and you don't have one yet, for the love of peter sagal why not?!?

And what gets cooked with the lamb? Tomatoes, rosemary and garlic--the tomatoes can be fresh or canned (I went with a large can that we had in the pantry); the garlic requires only that you remove the papery outsides; and the rosemary is just draped across the top of the lamb.

That's it!

The results--delicious, as you might suspect. Roasted garlic is a treat, and it's a winner paired with lamb and tomatoes. We ate this all week long, mostly cold.

If you want to try this at home (and the recipe is not on Epicurious but it ain't hard, people) my suggestions would be to cut the garlic back to 3-4 heads (and that only if you lurv garlic) and instead of draping whole rosemary sprigs, take a little bit of extra time to mince the rosemary and rub it into the lamb with some oil. I say this because the sprigs just kind of burned--not sure they contributed much more than blackened decoration.

Thanks, Lisa! or, Melissa Gets Press!

mbpalladino@comcast.net (Melissa Bach Palladino) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 11:08:00 +0000

Many thanks to syndicated food columnist Lisa Messinger, who mentioned me and my blog (my blog and me?) in her recent article entitled "Updated Existing Recipes for an Easy Way to Innovate"! Not content to let her 2006 cookbook stand as the last word on superfoods, cook Jenny Jones is refining, refining, refining and she brings those recipe improvements to her website. Lisa lists many of those improvements, and mentions one of her own from her cookbook "The Tofu Book: the New American Cuisine"--a recipe for tofu chocolate chip cookies. (!) Who knows--maybe someday if Gourmet ever releases an updated edition of The Gourmet Cookbook they'll use some of the suggested improvements we Gourmet bloggers have mentioned in our exploratory fun-fest of cooking.