November 2010
6 posts
Fallternal Twin Soups
Kitchen sink pasta, an impromptu yet typical Sunday meal in our house is an informal medley and mixing of the week’s leftovers. Vegetable odds and ends get haphazardly tucked amidst fusilli, campanelle, gigli and the like, then dotted with chèvre and blanketed in Parm. This is an off-the-cuff, cleaning-fridge kind of meal that often bodes the biggest smiles and satisfied stomachs of...
Pumpkins are not merely a favorite fall canvas for carving funny faces and frightful scenes, first and foremost these blazing orange bulbs are food (!). If you can look past their use as spooky porch decorations, and (bien sûr) their excellent smashing abilities they are certainly among the tastiest of autumn squashes.
The recipe below calls for white pumpkin, but any...
Trick-or-Seeds
The sugar highs have calmed down but you still have heaps of soon-to-turn-soggy pumpkin seeds lying around the kitchen in forgotten bowls. Cut your candy cravings by baking up some crunchy homemade granola flecked with these autumnal bites. Pumpkins seeds are rich in iron, protein, Omega 3 and 6 fats, magnesium, manganese, as well as phytosterols (which help reduce cholesterol).
I find that...
October 2010
3 posts
Hunker Down and Butter Up: Chocolate & Pear Mini...
Autumn in New England penetrates the air at an ideal rate. Each day the mean temperature drops by roughly one degree, so that by the time mid-October rolls around we are all well acclimated to the brisk, rosy-cheek inducing temperatures. As a person and eater moved by the seasons I call this phase-into-fall period the “hunker down and beef up” time of year. This is a time when I know my bathing...
July 2010
4 posts
Sleepless in Spinasse
Unusually late in researching a nice dinner date-spot with Dad during a quick stint in Seattle, I was thankful to brush through the latest Food & Wine to find the “Best New Chef” edition, which featured the young and promising chef Jason Stratton of Seattle’s Spinasse. On short notice we were able to snag a rez at this ten-tabled treasure. Huddled amidst Seattle’s pig trotter-tasting foodies...
Turkish Delights
Turkish food draws influence from the country’s bubbling melting pot of cultures. A crossroads between the ancient and the modern, the east and the west, Turkey is its own. It wouldn’t be fair to compare this country to anywhere else as it holds its own eclectic mix of tradition and modernity, shambles and skyscrapers, lamb kebaps and lasagna.
Before traveling to Turkey I couldn’t spout off...
June 2010
2 posts
Belle's 21 Bites
Perhaps the most important drink order of my life
“A martini rouge with an orange twist, please.”
Red vermouth on the rocks. Simple, sweet, French– a quenching apéritif to whet my palate before an extraordinary meal at Le Bernardin.
No ID requested, which meant no awkward moment of dumb smiling while waiting for a brief judgment call on your honesty. The service at Le Bernardin is so sharp, if...
March 2010
3 posts
Beeting
My first memory of beets was being told they were dinosaur hearts. During an elementary school visit to the natural history museum, these gooey, dark, and certainly blood-colored vegetables mustered images of palpitating reptile organs in my juvenile mind. Needless to say, I wouldn’t go near the things for many years, let alone taste beets until I out-grew my nightlight stage.
If only I knew...
Run-of-the-Mill?
Even the entrance is a production. Through the flower arrangement-cloaked lobby, up a curved staircase dressed with red velvet carpeting and a bronze banister, down a pebble-embossed walled hallway, and in through the dense pine door, the astute, young doorman leads you into the pecorino-scented dining room of Il Mulino, Aspen.
You are greeted immediately by a legion of sharp, incisive...
February 2010
2 posts
Seasoning Snow
Snow is angelic. The winter is often perceived as a time of hibernation of life, but simultaneously it is a time that awakens the senses. Blanketed every things: trees, rocks, roofs, pavements, cars, and soil remind us, humans, to come alive, to burst through the veiling of white. When snow falls our manmade things and even nature recedes underneath a swathe of powdered sugar–when the whole...
January 2010
3 posts
Check out this website by an inspiring local boston woman who is both a physician and food writer. Her website and blog focus on healthy, yet very accessible recipes and tips: http://www.adoctorskitchen.com/about
PB&J M's
Both a nostalgic taste from childhood and a an ideal balance of the human tongue’s most beloved flavors of salty and sweet, peanut butter and jelly is just plain appetizing. Among the simplest combinations of ingredients out there, PB&J sandwiches boast a simple, nutritious snack at any age. I say at any age because even a quarter-way through my life, this rich, salty and sucrose-filled...
December 2009
2 posts
Seasons Greatings
Siena Farms, one of my favorite farm stands in all of Boston’s farmer’s markets, just ended its last week of production for the season. Named after the farmer’s daughter, Siena Farms is a 50-acre expansion in the Sudbury River Valley 25 miles outside of Boston. The farm’s owners also head up Belmont’s Sofra Bakery and Oleana restaurant in Cambridge, where the farmer’s wife, Ana is head chef. ...
November 2009
1 post
Frisée sans Fumer
Approximate date of discovery- December 23rd, 2007. Town: Maussane les Alpilles, Les Baux, France. Restaurant: La Place.
It was on this night that I remember really tasting the magic of what and egg and pan-fried pork fat can do to the senses. I had ordered a classic French frisée salad, not really remembering what the exact components of this entailed. What it did entail ended up being the...
October 2009
4 posts
I saw this beautiful honeycomb in an Italian deli the other day and had to get it. Produced locally by the Reseska family’s Boston Honey Company, the honeycomb came in a simple, clear, square box. A little treasure chest of sustainable goodness, local honey and organic beekeeping is a great way to maintain a healthy ecosystem for optimum agriculture and natural environments.
I coated the comb...
Happy Birthday to Me-at!
This past week I made beef stew. Twice. Which means I’ve eaten beef stew for exactly six meals out of the last eleven possible lunches and dinners, and I will once again have it for dinner (for sadly the last time) tonight. Sick of it you ask? –How dare you undermine the power of good red wine, grass-fed beef, and local root vegetables. But you’re right, if this past week wasn’t the perfect...
Fall-ing Roots
Quite possibly the best part of farmers markets is the discovery of new foods. Now I know, ginger root isn’t some completely foreign ingredient to most, but how many of you out there have actually seen ginger when it doesn’t resemble a bland, kaki, deceased wrinkled foot? Fresh ginger, on the contrary is yes, still in the shape of a warped foot, but in every other way un-akin to its...
September 2009
9 posts
Market Dinners for One (or Two)
Cold (or Swine Flu) Remedy
1 large sweet potato (or a few small ones), peeled and cubed
1 red onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
½ teaspoon each of smoked paprika, powdered ginger, and ancho chili powder
½ jalapeño seeded and finely minced
2 handfuls of cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1 can of garbanzo beans/chickpeas
1 tsp honey
1tbsp Dijon mustard (sounds weird, but is very very...
Green Sunny-Side Eggs Over a Crispy Potato Pinwheel
• Slice one small new potato into paper-thin rounds. In a small, oiled sauté pan, overlap the potato slices forming a filled circle lining the bottom of the pan. This will allow for the potato to seal together, forming a cohesive pancake. Sauté until crispy.
• Once cooked, remove the potato pancake and cook eggs in the same pan, top with...
Fresh Chicken and Corn ‘Dillas
Bake a bone-in, skinless chicken breast in oven for 40 minutes at 375°, or until internal temperature reaches 165°. Meanwhile, sauté fresh corn off the cob, garlic, green onion, and minced chili pepper. Shred chicken of the bone, place on warm corn tortillas and top with corn mixture, fresh tomato and cilantro.
8-Courses at Craigie's
I’m grabbing this moment while I can to finally write about an extraordinary meal I had last week. Amidst a hectic and lengthy week of moving into my new apartment in Boston and commencing in my junior year at Boston college, I can finally say I have a snippet of time to recapture a dining experience that may have been an obliterated memory if I kept it off paper for even just one more day. ...
August 2009
13 posts
Jim’s Tomatillo Salsa
1 qt ripe whole tomatillos pureed
2 whole anaheim peppers seeded, cored, and cut in quarters
6 cloves garlic
4 shallots halved
Juice of 1 lime
½ bunch whole cilantro
1. Simmer at low heat: tomatillo puree, peppers, 4 cloves of garlic, 3 shallots, and about 6 whole sprigs of cilantro in 1 cup dry white wine, 1 Tbl olive oil, salt and pepper. Remove cilantro when it starts to turn brown (about...
This delicious and very green (and I mean the color not the fad) recipe was passed on to me by my great uncle, Jim. It’s a must try this time of year when at least in Colorado the tomatillos are in the height of their ripening. Interestingly, When I was buying the ingredients for this recipe last weekend at the Boulder Farmer’s Market the man at the farm stand told me that tomatillos actually...
A Locavore's Feast: an evening of farm fresh...
Last Friday night my family and I had the pleasure to attend one of Boulder’s Meadow Lark Farm Dinners. What this company does is hold dinners in on the grounds of local farms throughout the summer. The dinner is composed of ingredients grown on the given the farm, cooked on the property in a school bus converted-to-kitchen, and then eaten by 35 or so guests on one long, white linen-laden...
Married to Marvelous
If Norma’s were a person, I’d marry them. Yep that’s right, this New York staple breakfast sanctuary and I could spend happy days with each other for the rest of our lives. The restaurant’s location in Le Parker Meridian Hotel in Midtown also boasts for a place that I could spend a long, pleasure-filled life.
I recall my very first ‘date’ with Norma’s– I was probably about 12 years old and had...
