I have not been feeling it in the kitchen- and by extension, here- at all lately; it’s pretty much the norm when I have momentum in the studio (and I have a lot right now.) So on Saturday I ground gears pretty badly trying to get from studio mind to kitchen mind in time to make dinner for Liz and Duncan. It all came together, which was kind of a surprise given the haphazard approach…
Category: Fancy
My plans for our new year’s eve dinner proved to be more lavish than our appetites, so I reined it in after two courses. I went out to grab some provisions, though it was snowing pretty hard, and came back with some good salmon, three little Cornish hens, and a little rack of six lamb chops. I had visions of super-luxe yet homey three-course dinner (plus dessert) dancing in my head as I deftly avoided…
We kept it very simple this year, with no travel and no guests. It’s a pretty nice way to do it, actually, especially given the weather-related mayhem all over the place. Yesterday Milo and I walked into town to see Santa arrive, and then came home in time for me to finish dinner. Sous-vide is genius for this, because I was able to leave the meat in the bath while we were out with no…
I was in the city for the weekend, doing a bunch of errandy things, and having a nice dinner with Kris & Ken. They very kindly gave me the Alinea cookbook as a late birthday present, and I was overjoyed. Other weekend highlights included picking up a whole lot of wine- details to follow shortly- dropping off my La Pavoni to get fixed, and, best of all, finally getting the bug Milo had last week…
After three days of work, occasional stress, and a couple of failures (this molecular gastronomy thing is not an improv-friendly medium) the day arrived and I threw down another eleven course meal- although with a very different feel than last year. The number eleven was coincidental, though now it’s probably going to have to become a tradition. Lucky me. The more casual and homey vibe was the direct result of my markedly lower level of…
Normally I avoid featuring the same ingredient twice in a row, with the exception of no-brainers like summer tomatoes or corn. But I just couldn’t get the lamb idea in its original form out of my head. It loitered, obdurate, mocking me, and demanded satisfaction. Fortunately, Fleisher’s was open, and I had an appointment at the gallery, which is only a mile away. So I chatted with Josh, and bumped into two friends (I love…
The New Yorker came today, and in it is a profile of Grant Achatz, molecular gastronomy wunderkind and chef at Alinea in Chicago, and his work and dramatic struggle with tongue cancer. Christine and her Mom go to the city tomorrow, so I wanted to make something a little fancy to send them off. And there were some nice new ingredients that she bought; when somebody else does the shopping there can often be unexpected…
We finally had a chance to get together with Chris & Sirkka after much too long; between his touring schedule and both our kids getting colds, it has been a while since we got to have dinner together. I had already roasted beets and made blue potato gnocchi, and there was kabocha purée, so I defrosted our last venison steaks that our neighbor Kenny had given us last fall after he and his brother killed…
So herewith the tardy Valentine’s dinner: I tried to combine decadent pleasure with some of the things already in the fridge to make good use of some of the nicer leftovers. The first course was kind of a riff on peanut butter and jelly; seared foie gras trimmed into heart shapes on raisin toast with homemade grape jelly and some of the peanut soup underneath, garnished with Indonesian long pepper. We had a glass of…
John and Debi brought Tim (up for the weekend from FL) for a decadent dinner. I made the food; John brought the wine. That was the deal. Normally with multi-course meals I can see the dishes in my head beforehand, but in this case they were a little blurry until just a few hours before dinner. Most of it came out pretty well, though I had to scrap one course and I forgot to add…