Month: May 2008

May 30, 2008

I read recently about cooking vegetables sous-vide; evidently 83˚ C is perfect for breaking down starch but leaving the pectin intact for the ideal combination of creamy yet firm. So I sliced some sweet potatoes and vacuum-sealed them with a little salt and dried sudachi zest and dropped them in the bath. Milo likes to grab eggplants and grapefruits when we shop (because they’re big and beautiful) so I split and roasted the former and…

May 29, 2008

I spent all day in the woodshop building crates for a couple of pieces destined for Chicago, so my lovely wife obligingly made a perfect dinner for us. It was pretty incredibly great to have dinner ready when I came down from showering. Honestly, I have to say that she roasts a better chicken than I do; she does the thing where she stuffs garlic and herbs under the skin- as well as in the…

May 28, 2008

Chick peas soaked and simmered with coconut milk and spices. Roasted potatoes with thyme and garlic. Fresh-picked kale wilted with shallots and lemon juice. Cucumber salad with baby shiso. Humble, cleansing food that encourages reflection. I enjoy these meals as much as I do the decadent ones; it’s important to pare down sometimes and appreciate the basics. As fun as it is to get complicated and fancy, I need to be reminded sometimes that this…

May 26, 2008

The family picked me up on Friday and we went to Vermont- only an hour away- for the weekend. On the way up, and for much of the preceding week, we had been excitedly talking about Pascal’s sausages: the trademark culinary treat of all recent Vermont trips. Our favorites include his merguez, cabbage and bacon, chicken and blueberry, and his crepinettes of duck with green peppercorn and rabbit with figs. These sausages are so good…

May 25, 2008

I spent the second half of last week doing the first part of a residency at a sculpture park upstate. It’s a great, big, funky old farm just gearing up for the fourth season in its new incarnation, so there are lots of appealingly rough edges to the many buildings and facilities. The people are great, and everyone takes turns cooking a big communal dinner. Despite the serious physical exertion of getting my piece made,…

May 20, 2008

One of the advantages of cooking meat sous-vide is the ability to get a bunch of other things done without risking overcooking- especially since I like my meat on the rare side. So I took a NY strip steak of Piemonte beef, seasoned it very simply with salt, pepper, oregano, and garlic, sealed it, dropped it in the bath at 54˚ C and forgot about it until it was time to serve dinner. While it…

May 19, 2008

Sometimes a simple jumping-off point can become pretty complicated. Especially if you’re hungry, and have a lot of interesting leftovers in the fridge. So what began as an idea for an easy chicken and veggie curry quickly spiraled out of control and ended up as four dishes. It really came down to my desire to let certain things retain more of their individual identities, and my love for having lots of plates of Indian food…

May 18, 2008

Yesterday would have been my Mom’s 63rd birthday, and coming as it does on the heels of Mother’s day, it makes this time of the year hard to deal with. But I’ve got her Grandson to distract me, and watching him help me dig in the garden is as fitting a tribute as I can imagine. Our lilacs are out in full force, and the wet breeze yesterday was intensely perfumed with memory-inducing smells of…

May 17, 2008

We came back from Boston pretty tired and glad to be home. I planted the potatoes that had arrived on Friday and thinned a salad of galia endive. There was some ground lamb in the fridge, and some big sweet potatoes that needed eating, so I stood in the kitchen for a while staring at everything like a dummy and eventually figured out what I wanted to make. Sometimes it’s hard, but eventually the wheels…

May 15, 2008

Today I had to keep it simple; it’s getting into crazy time with the number of projects looming on the near horizon. Today was rainy, but warm- another sign that we’re into the next season- and the temptation is always to rush into the summer flavors even though they’re not actually here yet. So I tried to focus on what is here, and make it as good as possible. I find it frustrating, though, since…