From the Land

Lamb Meatballs with Fava Hummus

A few weeks ago, the Frenchman and I went out to dinner with a friend who was in town for a visit. Despite an après-dark temperature of 100°, we decided to sit outside. Apparently we like to be uncomfortably hot. We split a selection of small plates, and ran through more than one carafe of chilled red wine.

This friend (let’s call him Monsieur Macaroon, as he’s quite skilled at making them, and I’m still holding out hope he’ll teach me his methods) told a story about a recent, unpleasant trip to the French embassy. While MM does not have a classically French name, he does hold a French passport and birth certificate. As a result of his ‘foreign-sounding’ name though, the person behind the desk demanded further, written evidence of his Frenchness, before they would proceed with his paperwork. Read more »

Cold Sirloin Sesame Noodles

I’ve developed an unfortunate habit. It’s quite embarrassing, really, but still I persist:

I want your bones. All of them. The bigger the better. I will probably ask for yours in public. Please don’t try to fight it.

Perhaps I should explain.

In the last few months, I’ve formed a tiny obsession with homemade stocks. The understanding that bones + water + vegetables + herbs + time = liquid splendor has been revelatory. I don’t fuss over details: I use the bones, herbs and vegetables I have on hand. This way, each batch is slightly different, but always wonderful. I freeze the results in ice cube trays, and use what I need for soups, pan sauces, risotto, rice. Good stock gives new life to vegetables, mashed potatoes and leftovers alike. Read more »

Lamb and Saffron Rice with Spring Vegetables

Rice and me, we aren’t quite simpatico.

For starters, I didn’t grow up eating it; the starch of choice in my parent’s house was pasta. Personally, I have an ongoing love affair with potatoes of all stripes. I was, at best, ambivalent about the grain, until I got to culinary school.

In French culinary school, you are taught to make rice the old-fashioned way: in a pan, covered with a perfect wheel of parchment paper. (My “wheels” looked more like drunk hexagons, but I digress.) Read more »

“Doggy Bag” Chicken Soup

If you ask the Frenchman, he’ll tell you I only ever order one dish when we go out to dinner: chicken. This isn’t true of course, but I will admit that chicken is my backup dish, my reliable mainstay amongst the flotsam and jetsam of an uninspiring menu. (It doesn’t hurt that chicken dishes typically arrive with some kind of saucy vegetable and potato arrangement, but that is neither here nor there.)

Last week we had friends visiting from France, and so I used the opportunity to knock a restaurant or two off my Must Try list. (It’s a long list, alas.) One evening, we dined in a restaurant where every hostess was certainly a model. I’d read an article about the owner; he raised chickens (well, not he, but people he employed) on a devastatingly bucolic farm somewhere upstate in order to supply the restaurant with high-quality poultry. This kind of information is like catnip to me; of course, I had to try it. Read more »

Maple Turkey and Duck Bacon Club

Every Sunday, I try to visit the small, varied and excellent green market in Carroll Park. It’s an easy bike ride from my apartment, and I get to sort through purple lettuces and spicy links of chorizo and dirt-flecked mushrooms. Then I pedal home and make lunch. It is my very favorite weekend activity.

This past week, I found some slender cherry blossom branches. All the buds were closed at first, but almost as soon as I put them in water, they started blooming. Now my apartment is full of little pink flowers. Despite the cold snap in New York this week, it is spring in my apartment. Read more »

Research Chili

The fact of the matter is, I have never made chili before. Not really. I didn’t grow up in a “comfort food” household, and I do not spend my days herding cattle. I have no hockey team to feed. And since you can’t exactly whip up a single portion of chili, it never occurred to me to throw together a pot full. (A silly notion, considering how beautifully chili freezes.)

As a result of my chili ignorance, I was only vaguely aware of the rules surrounding the dish—beans vs. no beans, what cut of meat to use, what variety of chili pepper….and so on. I arrived at this recipe the same way any self-respecting nerd would have: I read everything I could get my hands on. Read more »

Pork Loin with Cider-Braised Leeks and Apples

Like all the best recipes, this pork looks like more effort than it actually is.  There are no fancy techniques here, no sudden movements. This dish will forgive you if you get distracted and walk away from the stove for a minute. Still, it looks pretty nice all plated up, either family-style on a serving platter or on individual dishes.

The best part? The whole thing is done in an hour, so it’s certainly manageable on a weeknight. You can use the final 20 minutes of cooking to throw together a salad, some potatoes or some other tasty root vegetable. Or you could pour yourself a glass of wine. Why not? It’s cold outside. You deserve it. Read more »

Foie Gras au Gros Sel

My boyfriend and I are currently spending our second Christmas together at his family’s seaside home on the western coast of France. (I know, I have a really terrible life). We have only been here one day, but already I find myself one luscious recipe richer. Tonight we leave for his grandmother’s house, where I am hoping even more recipes await. Oh, they joys of Christmas!

While it might be shameful to admit, before last night, I never considered that one could prepare foie gras at home. I thought surely it was one of those things rendered by magical elves with fantastic meat-related powers. Surely it required chicken wire and microscopes and a secret family formula jealously guarded over five centuries. Read more »