Two weeks ago, I got an email heralding 15 feet of new snow from the nearby ski resort. Today, it was 70 degrees here in the valley! Our first customers sat outside for lunch, which signals the beginning of a real change of pace around here. The kitchen will be hot as hell for a few months, and all of the windows and doors will stay open until we feel the sudden chill of autumn. Some days the wind will blow like mad and deposit dust all over the house! And we won't care at all, because it will be the soft, champagne air of summer! The sudden warm motivated me to trim, I mean really TRIM the droopy blue spruce in front of the house.
As soon as we closed, I got the big ladder and a saw. I didn't even take my apron off. I chose a level of branches to cut up to, and sawed away. Most of the branches were really big, heavy, large diameter. I did have to move them out of my way to get at other branches, but I didn't really look down there! I was happily sawing, and glad to see how the tree was getting lighter and more nicely shaped. I thought of how people have gotten stung on the head by the vicious sharp needles of those low-hanging branches, summer after summer. No more of that!
Gulp. When I finally really looked, the patio was covered with a mountain of branches. Um, I hadn't really worked out what the next step would be...the tree looks fantastic, by the way... Bianca called Blythe, at Labels Consignment Boutique across the street, and Blythe put us in touch with her brother, the landscaper...who declared me "kind of punk rock!" Sheesh!! This is how that "Biggest Little City" lifestyle works! He sent a truck right over. His crew picked everything up and drove off smiling, with glass bottles of Coca-Cola! That's it!
The patio is clean and breezy, ready for near-80 degrees tomorrow. The tulips are beginning to bloom. This year's new baby blue jays are already flying around so the big change in the blue spruce may confuse them at first! They'll have a bit further to fly when they dive-bomb your lunches this summer! And...it just might snow again before we can declare real spring! So it goes. XOXOXO
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Back to Death Valley
You may remember that I ran away spontaneously to Death Valley on Easter last year, with grandsons Harrison and Carter. With no time to plan, I managed to get a second night reservation at Furnace Creek and we camped the first night---in the most wicked wind storm. We filled the car with Easter candy, Mexican Easter buns, trail mix, juice and water...and were off. Spontaneity can be so joyful...or so much torture.
We had such a glorious time that Harrison and Carter have spoken of it, all year long. Carter went so far as to announce that if he had "all the money in the WORLD," he'd go to Death Valley! Well, I can make that happen! Without all the money in the world! We'll meet Emma and Dylan, the rest of the "big" grandchildren, in Lone Pine, and then drive in and revisit what we loved last year---Scotty's Castle, Devil's Golf Course, the charcoal kilns, Badwater---the kids are planning to ski the sand dunes...so we'll be packing skis, poles, boots, snowboards this year. The wildflowers are blooming like crazy after this rainy winter, and waterfalls should be flowing.
What I love most about living in northern Nevada, is that you can look out the window to the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. You can easily pick out individual aspen or pine trees. The other direction, you can see dry, low-growing chaparral to the horizon. The wildness is as close as a neighbor and there is no thought or planning to getting in the car to enjoy peaceful Mono Lake...or Death Valley...or Lake Tahoe...or vastness as far as you can see! You can drive 80 miles an hour, for days and only see vastness!
I know that Death Valley will be a joy again, this time with Emma and Dylan there to share the sunsets with us. I'm looking so forward to the crazy volume of four kids laughing and talking over each other, cooped up in the car or toasting croissants on a camp fire! I'm so looking forward to sun on my face! I'm so looking forward to embracing wild, open, western desert...and having it embrace me back!
We had such a glorious time that Harrison and Carter have spoken of it, all year long. Carter went so far as to announce that if he had "all the money in the WORLD," he'd go to Death Valley! Well, I can make that happen! Without all the money in the world! We'll meet Emma and Dylan, the rest of the "big" grandchildren, in Lone Pine, and then drive in and revisit what we loved last year---Scotty's Castle, Devil's Golf Course, the charcoal kilns, Badwater---the kids are planning to ski the sand dunes...so we'll be packing skis, poles, boots, snowboards this year. The wildflowers are blooming like crazy after this rainy winter, and waterfalls should be flowing.
What I love most about living in northern Nevada, is that you can look out the window to the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. You can easily pick out individual aspen or pine trees. The other direction, you can see dry, low-growing chaparral to the horizon. The wildness is as close as a neighbor and there is no thought or planning to getting in the car to enjoy peaceful Mono Lake...or Death Valley...or Lake Tahoe...or vastness as far as you can see! You can drive 80 miles an hour, for days and only see vastness!
I know that Death Valley will be a joy again, this time with Emma and Dylan there to share the sunsets with us. I'm looking so forward to the crazy volume of four kids laughing and talking over each other, cooped up in the car or toasting croissants on a camp fire! I'm so looking forward to sun on my face! I'm so looking forward to embracing wild, open, western desert...and having it embrace me back!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Pouding Alsacien
Julia Child and Simone and Louisette included this recipe in their "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." I feel like they are my dear friends! If you're daunted by the heft of the book, put your fears aside. The book is heavy but full of simple, lovely country recipes that stood the test of time through that weird jello/patio luau era of food in the 1960s. This recipe is the "little black dress," pearls, wingback chair...timeless, and comforting in elegance and familiarity.
This is the most beautiful cold weather dessert I know. I think of all those fictional heroines walking off their heartbreak on windy, icy moors! The stories always end those treks with the damp girls warming, cuddled in upholstered furniture beside a roaring fire that is the only light in the room! They eat steamy food and heavy bread with butter! This is THE dessert for such meals. It goes well with the dark heavy food of fall and winter, but is light and memorable. This is the dessert Jane Eyre would eat!
Pouding Alsacien
"Mastering the Art of French Cooking"
"This simple apple dessert is always better if prepared the day before it is eaten, as a good 24 hours are needed for a slow blending of flavors." Serves 6 to 8 people.
2 1/2 lbs firm cooking apples
Quarter, core, and peel the apples.
Cut into 1/4 inch lengthwise slices
(should have about 7 cups)
4-5 TB butter
10-12 inch skillet
saute apples, one layer at a time, in
hot butter till lightly browned and tender. As they are done, remove to lightly buttered 9-inch diameter, 2-inch deep baking dish.
3/4 cup plum jam
2 TB rum
Melt jam in the skillet with rum. Gently fold with the apples and smooth back into the baking dish
Preheat oven to 325 degrees
4 TB butter
1/2 cup sugar
3 egg yolks (keep the whites)
1 TB flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup fresh whole wheat bread crumbs
(whir wheat bread in a food processor)
Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg yolks, flour, cinnamon, and finally, the bread crumbs.
The 3 reserved egg whites
pinch of salt
1/2 TB sugar
Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form; sprinkle the sugar and salt in, and beat until stiff. Fold the whites into the crumb mixture and spread evenly over the apples.
Bake for 20 minutes; remove from oven and sprinkle with a thick layer of powdered sugar. Bake for 20 minutes more.
Cool, cover, and refrigerate for 24 hours.
*Delicious at room temperature too.
This is the most beautiful cold weather dessert I know. I think of all those fictional heroines walking off their heartbreak on windy, icy moors! The stories always end those treks with the damp girls warming, cuddled in upholstered furniture beside a roaring fire that is the only light in the room! They eat steamy food and heavy bread with butter! This is THE dessert for such meals. It goes well with the dark heavy food of fall and winter, but is light and memorable. This is the dessert Jane Eyre would eat!
Pouding Alsacien
"Mastering the Art of French Cooking"
"This simple apple dessert is always better if prepared the day before it is eaten, as a good 24 hours are needed for a slow blending of flavors." Serves 6 to 8 people.
2 1/2 lbs firm cooking apples
Quarter, core, and peel the apples.
Cut into 1/4 inch lengthwise slices
(should have about 7 cups)
4-5 TB butter
10-12 inch skillet
saute apples, one layer at a time, in
hot butter till lightly browned and tender. As they are done, remove to lightly buttered 9-inch diameter, 2-inch deep baking dish.
3/4 cup plum jam
2 TB rum
Melt jam in the skillet with rum. Gently fold with the apples and smooth back into the baking dish
Preheat oven to 325 degrees
4 TB butter
1/2 cup sugar
3 egg yolks (keep the whites)
1 TB flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup fresh whole wheat bread crumbs
(whir wheat bread in a food processor)
Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg yolks, flour, cinnamon, and finally, the bread crumbs.
The 3 reserved egg whites
pinch of salt
1/2 TB sugar
Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form; sprinkle the sugar and salt in, and beat until stiff. Fold the whites into the crumb mixture and spread evenly over the apples.
Bake for 20 minutes; remove from oven and sprinkle with a thick layer of powdered sugar. Bake for 20 minutes more.
Cool, cover, and refrigerate for 24 hours.
*Delicious at room temperature too.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Before the Party
Sunday morning and the house is hushed, waiting for the party to begin. It's been raining and snowing all night, so the morning dawned through gray. The rooms are in shadow with a peacefulness that I won't feel all day long. Sunday is our busiest day as people have made our brunch a family tradition. The tradition for me, is the special, homey meals my grandmothers would make on Sundays. Everyone worked like crazy all week, Saturday was a work day of sorts too---mowing lawns, fixing things, catching up, kids playing sports in all directions over town. Our Sunday brunches now, are my weekly tribute to those memories.
As the dining rooms rest in anticipation, the kitchen is screaming busy with meyer lemon coffee cake, tamales, sweet red pepper salsa, the slicing of thorny pineapples that will drip sweet and surprising on every plate, chipotle cheddar grits. I look from the bright light of the kitchen, over the dark tables gleaming out there and picture the scenes of the day...babies throwing food and being soothed with that pineapple...surly teenagers trying to pretend that they hate every bite...young couples in love, elderly couples who don't need to speak much, they know each other so well. There's the guy who doesn't like eggs, but eats them here in some form, week after week. There's the guy who comes with his Kindle, and eats whatever we are having, without question. There's the family with very unruly children, who snatch bites between outbursts and smile wearily and apologetically when they catch someone's eye. There's the little girl who is upset if some kid already has the booster seat she likes.
It's going to be noisy here today, and the house is quietly ready.
As the dining rooms rest in anticipation, the kitchen is screaming busy with meyer lemon coffee cake, tamales, sweet red pepper salsa, the slicing of thorny pineapples that will drip sweet and surprising on every plate, chipotle cheddar grits. I look from the bright light of the kitchen, over the dark tables gleaming out there and picture the scenes of the day...babies throwing food and being soothed with that pineapple...surly teenagers trying to pretend that they hate every bite...young couples in love, elderly couples who don't need to speak much, they know each other so well. There's the guy who doesn't like eggs, but eats them here in some form, week after week. There's the guy who comes with his Kindle, and eats whatever we are having, without question. There's the family with very unruly children, who snatch bites between outbursts and smile wearily and apologetically when they catch someone's eye. There's the little girl who is upset if some kid already has the booster seat she likes.
It's going to be noisy here today, and the house is quietly ready.
Monday, March 14, 2011
New Paint
So today is my birthday, and our one day off. I've spent it doing something I LOVE, that lots of our customers told me they'd hate me doing. I painted two of the dining rooms!
I can understand the misgivings, I had some myself. I chose the original milky cream color, for the way that it would stay there quietly in the background. I wanted the whole world to be the center of the table; for the faces of loved ones and friends to surround the food. For the laughter and conversation to be a moment in time that would be remembered when friends left here and went their separate ways---stomachs and souls full of lightheartedness! It's been four years though, and the place has gotten to looking battle-scarred. Happy battle scars, to be sure! When we have earthquakes here, nothing rattles out of place! Everything is so well settled from the motion and the excitement of people coming and going...it has the well-worn look of a well-loved, well-used home. I LOVE that people feel so comfortable and possessive, that they beg me not to change a thing!
So since I had to paint anyway, I wanted to make a change...that I know you will all love eventually too. The front dining room is the blue of the inside of a quail egg. I race through a lot of quail eggs at lunchtime, and can't help stopping at each one to peer at that glorious blue in there! I'm astonished and grateful to nature for being so wildly extravagant! This bluest blue is lavished on a little creature that doesn't even have eyes open! I'm sure there's some really good biological reason for the color but forget that. It just is breathtaking; the most enchanting blue I know!
The main dining room is now the color of dijon mustard. I test painted a patch last night and decided I'd need to take the paint back and have it doctored. It appeared to be an insipid lemony color...I have nothing against that shade of yellow, but here, where there's so much variety and movement, a color has to be alive and vibrant---as we and our customers are---just to keep up! In the morning light though, I saw that it is perfect. It's bright without shouting, it's an elegant and respectful shade of yellow. It is a perfect companion to the blue room and will be a vivid light to all of those people who shyly wait for their lunch partners to show up.
It's a gray and gloomy day outside but that mustard yellow dining room is shining full sun! I have one more dining room to go...dusty rose...I'll wait until next week, to let you all get used to this change!
I can understand the misgivings, I had some myself. I chose the original milky cream color, for the way that it would stay there quietly in the background. I wanted the whole world to be the center of the table; for the faces of loved ones and friends to surround the food. For the laughter and conversation to be a moment in time that would be remembered when friends left here and went their separate ways---stomachs and souls full of lightheartedness! It's been four years though, and the place has gotten to looking battle-scarred. Happy battle scars, to be sure! When we have earthquakes here, nothing rattles out of place! Everything is so well settled from the motion and the excitement of people coming and going...it has the well-worn look of a well-loved, well-used home. I LOVE that people feel so comfortable and possessive, that they beg me not to change a thing!
So since I had to paint anyway, I wanted to make a change...that I know you will all love eventually too. The front dining room is the blue of the inside of a quail egg. I race through a lot of quail eggs at lunchtime, and can't help stopping at each one to peer at that glorious blue in there! I'm astonished and grateful to nature for being so wildly extravagant! This bluest blue is lavished on a little creature that doesn't even have eyes open! I'm sure there's some really good biological reason for the color but forget that. It just is breathtaking; the most enchanting blue I know!
The main dining room is now the color of dijon mustard. I test painted a patch last night and decided I'd need to take the paint back and have it doctored. It appeared to be an insipid lemony color...I have nothing against that shade of yellow, but here, where there's so much variety and movement, a color has to be alive and vibrant---as we and our customers are---just to keep up! In the morning light though, I saw that it is perfect. It's bright without shouting, it's an elegant and respectful shade of yellow. It is a perfect companion to the blue room and will be a vivid light to all of those people who shyly wait for their lunch partners to show up.
It's a gray and gloomy day outside but that mustard yellow dining room is shining full sun! I have one more dining room to go...dusty rose...I'll wait until next week, to let you all get used to this change!
Friday, March 11, 2011
Still Dreaming of Food in France
I wrote this a year ago, when I was under the very heavy influence of French food! Actually, I still am, but I've been able to cook some of the things I ate there, and enjoy the memory and perspective that these foods are native, home, comfort.
I loved the regional quality of the food and realized that while there was a strict adherence to seasons, what resonated with me was the adherence to tradition. People have knowledge of when foods are at their best, at their peak. The best time may only last a week or two, but there is an embracing and an excitement in the joy of that food...that one food has everyone's attention...and has had, at that very moment of the year, for maybe thousands of years. So here then, is my outsider's food viewpoint on the regions we visited, and the stars of French winter cuisine:
Paris
What the heck can I say?!! Paris is the light of the sun! The air! The energy! The attitude! There is shocking confidence in a bowl of pureed vegetable soup, mache tossed with viciously expensive olive oil and salt, a plain fluffy omelet, bowtie pasta with truffle cream sauce...that I will think of for the rest of my life.
The food is pricey but the cafes are jammed day and night---not with tourists, but with locals intent on eating spectacular meals...every time they eat. They take no prisoners; they don't suffer excuses. I expect that churning out mediocre food here is a death penalty offense!
Alsace-Lorraine, Strasbourg
Strasbourg, in the Alsace-Lorrraine region, is a fast train trip from Paris to another universe. The area is rocky and densely wooded. Here, where it must be chilly all year round, sausage and boar and sauerkraut run true.
There's no messing around with soy milk/low fat/dressing on the side, please! Drapes are heavy, interiors glow, and a meal is a meal with all the parts. It seems that there is a rock-star-grandmother-cook in every kitchen and you're not going out to play in the cold until you've provisioned up on food so satisfying...that you could play in the cold of outer space. Without a jacket!
Normandy/Brittany
The salty seaweed Atlantic is the first flavor here. Farmhouses that have braced against storm for a few hundred years nestle in the centers of their green, green fields. Like stones in a river, all that could crack and break away is long gone, leaving the hardest, most enduring core behind.
The delicacy of food from the ocean meets the chill of life on land in oysters stewed in their shells with cream, garlic and herbs, prawns on a bed of dark, fresh, salty seaweed with heavy thick, tangy mayonnaise, fish baked in bream...The clear star of this show though, is an unusual omelet. The egg is whipped to froth, poured into a pan, and cooked over a wood fire. It is never flipped, but is so deep and thick that it browns very darkly on the cooked side. Folded onto the plate and served with lobster...the intense smoky flavor is an astonishing revelation.
OH! Provence!
There are so many fresh markets! It's bitter wintertime, but the view down a street would suggest spring or summer. Every vegetable, every piece of fruit is succulent and lovely. Is it true, or have I been mesmerized? Even the produce in the supermarket draws me in to fill a basket though I have no kitchen or refrigerator---I just want to possess those radishes and red currants! The ten year olds preach caution, but I can't help myself. Good thing it's cold because the rental car is my refrigerator now.
Dinner in a restaurant run by a chef who is a disciple of Escoffier, was an experience of worship. Each course was a masterpiece. Delicate cream of leek soup; tiny quail breast stuffed with golden raisins---then encased in a thin layer, a gelee of roasting juices; a "box" of mashed turnip filled with shredded roast beef and tender peppercorns; a roasted pear stuffed with hazelnut chocolate beside a poire William granita so delicately balanced in flavor that I kind of lost my mind for awhile.
I like to taste food in my head before I actually taste it. The sight and smell of food on the plate is thrilling as I think of how it was prepared and how it came together in this moment...this dinner though was so unusual, so surprising that I just enjoyed it without thought. I was overwhelmed, completely.
La Petite Dejeuner
The thread running through everyday was the boulangerie breakfast. We'd blunder into tiny shops and stand thoughtless and speechless in view of the array. Someone was always climbing over and around us to get their baguette and rush out! We'd stand there----unable to decide between almond or chocolate, something custard filled, apple or pear tart---or cherry or rhubarb! Plain bread,croissant, sweet bread, do we need some jam? Two weeks wasn't enough time to get routine about this---would it ever be routine? I just don't think so...my heart would pound every time I'd hear the door jingle open!
Our last Supper
Coming to the end of anything so sweetly intense is hard, but this experience had two tracks running. I had to separate from Emma and Harrison, and I had to give up eating and get back to cooking.
I'd been deep asleep every day, under a cozy down comforter, awakened by the smell of fresh coffee. Someone's gift to my morning---their creativity, their sensibility to how a comfortable day should look---smell---start. I wondered if people love what they smell and taste in my cafe as much as I love what other people prepared for me?
Our last breakfast was pastry, grabbed at the train station. We spent the day traveling to Paris from Avignon and then visited the catacombs and the Arc de Triomphe. Dinner was the meal that most mattered to me that day. We took a brisk evening walk along the Champs Elysees and a metro train to the coziest of the bistros on Ile St Louis. We had loved a late night pastry fest there, when we first got to Paris. French waiters are supposed to be so sassy and irritable...we'd only found sweet ones. This night though, our last, we had dinner while busy people hurried past on the sidewalk outside; a storm was approaching. Occasionally, they stared at us through the steamy windows...I think I saw envy on their faces!
For our last dinner, we had a country charcuterie/fromage plate (assiette). Ohmy. The plate was overloaded with several kinds of interesting cheese, salami, ham, terrine, cornichon pickles, and baguette slices. It was an inspiration to look at, and a blessing to eat! What a sweet life!
I loved the regional quality of the food and realized that while there was a strict adherence to seasons, what resonated with me was the adherence to tradition. People have knowledge of when foods are at their best, at their peak. The best time may only last a week or two, but there is an embracing and an excitement in the joy of that food...that one food has everyone's attention...and has had, at that very moment of the year, for maybe thousands of years. So here then, is my outsider's food viewpoint on the regions we visited, and the stars of French winter cuisine:
Paris
What the heck can I say?!! Paris is the light of the sun! The air! The energy! The attitude! There is shocking confidence in a bowl of pureed vegetable soup, mache tossed with viciously expensive olive oil and salt, a plain fluffy omelet, bowtie pasta with truffle cream sauce...that I will think of for the rest of my life.
The food is pricey but the cafes are jammed day and night---not with tourists, but with locals intent on eating spectacular meals...every time they eat. They take no prisoners; they don't suffer excuses. I expect that churning out mediocre food here is a death penalty offense!
Alsace-Lorraine, Strasbourg
Strasbourg, in the Alsace-Lorrraine region, is a fast train trip from Paris to another universe. The area is rocky and densely wooded. Here, where it must be chilly all year round, sausage and boar and sauerkraut run true.
There's no messing around with soy milk/low fat/dressing on the side, please! Drapes are heavy, interiors glow, and a meal is a meal with all the parts. It seems that there is a rock-star-grandmother-cook in every kitchen and you're not going out to play in the cold until you've provisioned up on food so satisfying...that you could play in the cold of outer space. Without a jacket!
Normandy/Brittany
The salty seaweed Atlantic is the first flavor here. Farmhouses that have braced against storm for a few hundred years nestle in the centers of their green, green fields. Like stones in a river, all that could crack and break away is long gone, leaving the hardest, most enduring core behind.
The delicacy of food from the ocean meets the chill of life on land in oysters stewed in their shells with cream, garlic and herbs, prawns on a bed of dark, fresh, salty seaweed with heavy thick, tangy mayonnaise, fish baked in bream...The clear star of this show though, is an unusual omelet. The egg is whipped to froth, poured into a pan, and cooked over a wood fire. It is never flipped, but is so deep and thick that it browns very darkly on the cooked side. Folded onto the plate and served with lobster...the intense smoky flavor is an astonishing revelation.
OH! Provence!
There are so many fresh markets! It's bitter wintertime, but the view down a street would suggest spring or summer. Every vegetable, every piece of fruit is succulent and lovely. Is it true, or have I been mesmerized? Even the produce in the supermarket draws me in to fill a basket though I have no kitchen or refrigerator---I just want to possess those radishes and red currants! The ten year olds preach caution, but I can't help myself. Good thing it's cold because the rental car is my refrigerator now.
Dinner in a restaurant run by a chef who is a disciple of Escoffier, was an experience of worship. Each course was a masterpiece. Delicate cream of leek soup; tiny quail breast stuffed with golden raisins---then encased in a thin layer, a gelee of roasting juices; a "box" of mashed turnip filled with shredded roast beef and tender peppercorns; a roasted pear stuffed with hazelnut chocolate beside a poire William granita so delicately balanced in flavor that I kind of lost my mind for awhile.
I like to taste food in my head before I actually taste it. The sight and smell of food on the plate is thrilling as I think of how it was prepared and how it came together in this moment...this dinner though was so unusual, so surprising that I just enjoyed it without thought. I was overwhelmed, completely.
La Petite Dejeuner
The thread running through everyday was the boulangerie breakfast. We'd blunder into tiny shops and stand thoughtless and speechless in view of the array. Someone was always climbing over and around us to get their baguette and rush out! We'd stand there----unable to decide between almond or chocolate, something custard filled, apple or pear tart---or cherry or rhubarb! Plain bread,croissant, sweet bread, do we need some jam? Two weeks wasn't enough time to get routine about this---would it ever be routine? I just don't think so...my heart would pound every time I'd hear the door jingle open!
Our last Supper
Coming to the end of anything so sweetly intense is hard, but this experience had two tracks running. I had to separate from Emma and Harrison, and I had to give up eating and get back to cooking.
I'd been deep asleep every day, under a cozy down comforter, awakened by the smell of fresh coffee. Someone's gift to my morning---their creativity, their sensibility to how a comfortable day should look---smell---start. I wondered if people love what they smell and taste in my cafe as much as I love what other people prepared for me?
Our last breakfast was pastry, grabbed at the train station. We spent the day traveling to Paris from Avignon and then visited the catacombs and the Arc de Triomphe. Dinner was the meal that most mattered to me that day. We took a brisk evening walk along the Champs Elysees and a metro train to the coziest of the bistros on Ile St Louis. We had loved a late night pastry fest there, when we first got to Paris. French waiters are supposed to be so sassy and irritable...we'd only found sweet ones. This night though, our last, we had dinner while busy people hurried past on the sidewalk outside; a storm was approaching. Occasionally, they stared at us through the steamy windows...I think I saw envy on their faces!
For our last dinner, we had a country charcuterie/fromage plate (assiette). Ohmy. The plate was overloaded with several kinds of interesting cheese, salami, ham, terrine, cornichon pickles, and baguette slices. It was an inspiration to look at, and a blessing to eat! What a sweet life!
Monday, March 7, 2011
Chicken in Riesling, for Nicky in New Jersey!
Nicky and her husband Scott, came in during Robert's birthday party on Friday night. Here on a ski vacation, they demonstrated their joie de vivre by agreeing (without any coaxing!) to try the birthday dinner! We enjoyed them so much! And they enjoyed our chicken in Riesling enough to ask for the recipe! Here it is, and I urge all of you to try it!
Chicken in Riesling
(from Alsace, a most comforting creamy dinner!)
(I'm not sure, but the recipe is from Gourmet or Bon Appetit
Serves 4
8 pieces of chicken (I mix half thighs and half breasts)
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp unsalted butter, divided
4 medium leeks (2 cups, finely sliced, white and pale green parts only)
2 Tbsp finely chopped shallots
4 medium carrots, sliced
1 cup dry white wine (preferably Alsatian Riesling)
1 1/2 lb (2 inch) potatoes
2 Tbls finely chopped flat leaf parsley
1/2 cup creme fraiche or heavy cream
Fresh lemon juice to taste
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Pat chicken dry and sprinkle with 1 tsp salt and a rounded 3/4 tsp pepper
Heat 1 Tbsp butter in wide, heavy, ovenproof pot and set over med-high heat until foam subsides. Brown chicken in two batches, turning once--about 10 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
Wash leeks and pat dry before slicing.
Cook leeks, shallots, carrots, and 1/4 tsp salt in the chicken pan, until limp and pale golden, 5 to 7 minutes
Add chicken and any juices, back to pan with leeks, carrots, and wine.
Boil until juices are reduced, 3 to 4 minutes
Cover pot and braise chicken in the oven until cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes.
While chicken is braising, peel potatoes, cover with water, and boil until tender
Drain, toss potatoes with parsley
Stir creme fraiche or cream into the pot with chicken and season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Add potatoes.
NOTE: I remove the cooked chicken and break it into bite-sized pieces. Also, I put the potatoes on the bottom of each serving plate, and spoon the chicken sauce over the potatoes instead of adding them into the sauce.
Chicken in Riesling
(from Alsace, a most comforting creamy dinner!)
(I'm not sure, but the recipe is from Gourmet or Bon Appetit
Serves 4
8 pieces of chicken (I mix half thighs and half breasts)
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp unsalted butter, divided
4 medium leeks (2 cups, finely sliced, white and pale green parts only)
2 Tbsp finely chopped shallots
4 medium carrots, sliced
1 cup dry white wine (preferably Alsatian Riesling)
1 1/2 lb (2 inch) potatoes
2 Tbls finely chopped flat leaf parsley
1/2 cup creme fraiche or heavy cream
Fresh lemon juice to taste
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Pat chicken dry and sprinkle with 1 tsp salt and a rounded 3/4 tsp pepper
Heat 1 Tbsp butter in wide, heavy, ovenproof pot and set over med-high heat until foam subsides. Brown chicken in two batches, turning once--about 10 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
Wash leeks and pat dry before slicing.
Cook leeks, shallots, carrots, and 1/4 tsp salt in the chicken pan, until limp and pale golden, 5 to 7 minutes
Add chicken and any juices, back to pan with leeks, carrots, and wine.
Boil until juices are reduced, 3 to 4 minutes
Cover pot and braise chicken in the oven until cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes.
While chicken is braising, peel potatoes, cover with water, and boil until tender
Drain, toss potatoes with parsley
Stir creme fraiche or cream into the pot with chicken and season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Add potatoes.
NOTE: I remove the cooked chicken and break it into bite-sized pieces. Also, I put the potatoes on the bottom of each serving plate, and spoon the chicken sauce over the potatoes instead of adding them into the sauce.
Behind the Scenes of a Big Deal Dinner!
A sweet friend/customer, Robert, is celebrating his 62nd birthday (happy birthday, darling Robert!). He wants to have a Friday dinner, so I start to plan. His guest list keeps increasing, so I multiply my shopping list many times! I've already been all over town, collecting what I need to start cooking. It's Friday afternoon and I'm feeling prickly! My heart is pounding and I have a headache! This is always a race, and I'm never sure I'll win...or not, till the very last minute. I've still been peeling potatoes when people were parking their cars! Cripe! What shrieking stress!
I've rented a movie so that Harrison and Carter can hole up upstairs with bowls of soup and enough interesting snacks that they won't be down to pester me. I've made all things ahead that I could, but the last minute things---most of the menu---are having to be prepared between orders and we've been very busy for lunch. I've got three pots on the stove with different things in them and it's hair-raising to remember which needs salt...which has already been salted. Parsley? Dill? Shallots! No, onions! NO! Shallots!
I race over to the school to collect the kids. They both need things to complete their science fair projects...by Monday. They need haircuts. They both have baseball practice...and no idea where their gloves are. No matter! Back to the pots.
I'm cooking a dinner of dishes that I love best. I've got a cream and Reisling wine chicken stew that is so memorable. It deepens and thickens in the oven like magic! Really, I hold my breath when I first lift the lid! I serve it over boiled red potatoes and no one goes away unchanged! We'll start with a Raclette cheese appetizer that requires several kinds of roasted vegetables (mushrooms, potatoes, red peppers and pearl onions). After the appetizer, we'll serve a mixed green salad with dill and fresh pressed garlic. The chicken stew is next, and then dessert. I decided to make Julia Child's Pouding Alsacien from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," so it has been chilling in the refrigerator overnight. It's very dense and sweet; perfect beside a light nut torte my mother often made for my birthday. The torte is two layers with strawberry jam in the middle, and is frosted with whipped cream, barely sweetened and thickened with powdered sugar...I'm just easing the nut torte out of the pans when guests start to arrive...gulp, 45 minutes early!!
We race to light candles and string sparkle lights the length of the table...to seat 20 people now! The champagne starts to pop, the appetizer goes out, I toss the salad...weight lifts off my shoulders, I can see and hear again, my headache is gone...phew! I won!
I've rented a movie so that Harrison and Carter can hole up upstairs with bowls of soup and enough interesting snacks that they won't be down to pester me. I've made all things ahead that I could, but the last minute things---most of the menu---are having to be prepared between orders and we've been very busy for lunch. I've got three pots on the stove with different things in them and it's hair-raising to remember which needs salt...which has already been salted. Parsley? Dill? Shallots! No, onions! NO! Shallots!
I race over to the school to collect the kids. They both need things to complete their science fair projects...by Monday. They need haircuts. They both have baseball practice...and no idea where their gloves are. No matter! Back to the pots.
I'm cooking a dinner of dishes that I love best. I've got a cream and Reisling wine chicken stew that is so memorable. It deepens and thickens in the oven like magic! Really, I hold my breath when I first lift the lid! I serve it over boiled red potatoes and no one goes away unchanged! We'll start with a Raclette cheese appetizer that requires several kinds of roasted vegetables (mushrooms, potatoes, red peppers and pearl onions). After the appetizer, we'll serve a mixed green salad with dill and fresh pressed garlic. The chicken stew is next, and then dessert. I decided to make Julia Child's Pouding Alsacien from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," so it has been chilling in the refrigerator overnight. It's very dense and sweet; perfect beside a light nut torte my mother often made for my birthday. The torte is two layers with strawberry jam in the middle, and is frosted with whipped cream, barely sweetened and thickened with powdered sugar...I'm just easing the nut torte out of the pans when guests start to arrive...gulp, 45 minutes early!!
We race to light candles and string sparkle lights the length of the table...to seat 20 people now! The champagne starts to pop, the appetizer goes out, I toss the salad...weight lifts off my shoulders, I can see and hear again, my headache is gone...phew! I won!
Legacy of Paint
I remember my dad painting inside when I was very small. We were in Ohio and as a bricklayer, he had long winter months of keeping to the house. I was fascinated by the transformation of rooms! It took so short a time to brighten and freshen and completely change the feelings of the house! I'd play with my mother's jewelry...and lipstick...and my dad would move from room to room splashing blue and yellow, green, and creamy milk white.
We were a young family, so lived with my great-grandparents in their huge three-story family home. While painting was my father's wintertime recreation, my great grandfather (my Croatian "Dedo") tackled the job of painting the outside of the house, every summer. A screen was removed from an upper story window so that I could reach out and pick cherries from the tree. I remember him on a ladder just outside that window, painting and smiling so sweetly at me!
These two memories drifted into my heart and I am moved to treat the cafe to a fresh cold-weather coat of paint! The walls are now a lovely cream with white trim. I love it still, with all of the dark wood furniture. But, it's snowing like crazy this morning and I am giddy to imagine the large dining room glowing with a mellow elegant yellow...the adjoining dining room will be wedgewood blue. Before I consider the tedium of moving furniture and wall photos...unscrewing outlet and switch covers...my imagination moves at dizzy speed to the hallway...softest pink, I think! The tiny dining room on the other side of the hall should be a moss green to emphasis the old red farm kitchen cabinets from my San Diego house.
At this stage of things, I feel that my plan is smooth and easy. I can see it finished and am delighted with how it will look as the backdrop to so many happy family meals! The birthdays! The engagements! Anniversaries and announcements of a baby-on--the-way! I'm going to buy all of the paint so that I can't back out! I'll paint in my "spare time" and think sweet thoughts of my Dad. And for my Dedo...I'll paint outside this summer...
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