Plain pasta
By Ann | March 21, 2008
I made spaghetti with garden vegetables from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics a few days ago, but have been putting off a post about it. Why? Well, I love garden vegetables, I love pasta, but this was pretty darn bland. Perhaps Martha feels similarly because I can’t find the recipe on her website (and thus am unable to post a link — sorry.)
Topics: Cooking the Books | 2 Comments »
Trading Tastes: The United States Regional Cookbook
By Ann | March 21, 2008
Welcome to another edition of Trading Tastes, in which guest bloggers write about their favorite cookbooks. Today, we are thrilled to welcome back ma belle-mere, bon vivant Victoria Klein (have you checked out her website yet? It’s gorgeous). She suggests:
The United States Regional Cookbook
Another vintage cookbook I had picked up at a library book sale is called, very straightforwardly, The United States Regional Cookbook, published in 1939. I would have assumed that the writer, or “editor” of the book to have picked up a smattering of assimilated versions of American regional cooking, but this book is actually an amazing document of very authentic recipes. The regions represented include New England, Southern, Pennsylvania Dutch, Creole, Michigan Dutch (!), Wisconsin Dutch (!!) and many, many more.
Topics: Trading Tastes | 2 Comments »
Mere coincidence?
By Ann | March 20, 2008
Did you watch Top Chef last night? I was struck by the Quickfire Challenge, which required contestants to prepare a dish out of five ingredients or less (with only salt, pepper and oil uncounted), a challenge that seemed suspiciously like… our very own Five Items! Could Top Chef producers be reading this blog?!
Topics: Five items, Uncategorized | No Comments »
When “grosseur” is gross
By Ann | March 20, 2008
There was an interesting article yesterday in the NYT dining section, The Fat Pack Wonders if the Party’s Over, which discusses the physical toll of being a gourmand. Are food enthusiasts killing themselves with their unbridled enjoyment of pork belly, butter, prosciutto and foie gras? In a word, yes.
Frankly, I’ve long wondered about guys like Mario Batali (described in the article as “The High Priest of Fat” and Emeril, or gals like Ina Garten and Paula Deen. That they are overweight (like the poor kitty pictured above) is obvious, but being chubby doesn’t always translate to ill health. Yet, if you read Bill Buford’s excellent memoir, Heat, which describes his adventures apprenticing at Babbo, you quickly learn of Batali’s love for lardo — “a white, dense slab… literally, the raw “lardy” back of a very fat pig, one he’d cured himself with herbs and salt” — and also drinking. Batali and business partner Joe Bastianich (also mentioned in the Times article) “had been known to put away a case of wine during an evening meal.” It is impossible not to fear for their livers, kidneys and hearts.
Gross? Yes. Yet, while reading I was also slightly envious of their ability to eat and drink without a single thought to their health. The article mentions several gourmands who believe themselves to be blessed with very good genes, and thus impervious to the rigours of a doctor approved diet.
Except, it’s all starting to catch up with them. For the gourmands in the article, diabetes, high cholesterol, soaring blood pressure are just a few of the byproducts of living large. Once again, that boring yet reliable concept, moderation, is key. They’ve started to blog about tofu, lentil soup and salad. I suppose their lives will be less colorful, but they will last much longer.
What do you think?
Topics: In the news | 3 Comments »
Dining Out and About: Sakana
By Ann | March 19, 2008
Took a night off from Martha for a sushi treat at Sakana, a Dupont Circle Japanese place that I found via my friends on Chowhound. Before I describe the meal, I’d like to take a moment to bemoan the state of restaurants in Dupont Circle. Why do people converge on only a small handful of favored restaurants? Take, for example, Sushi Taro — why is it always packed to the gills? The wait there is always an hour or longer — why don’t they start taking reservations? Alternatively, why doesn’t an enterprising restaurateur open up another sushi place on P Street and give Taro — which isn’t that good anyway — some competition?
Stepping off soap box now.
Topics: Dining Out and About | 2 Comments »
I’m not Irish, but I still like cabbage
By Ann | March 18, 2008
In honor of St. Patrick’s day, Cooking the Books dipped into the “side dishes” chapter of The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics and made a large, starchy dish of colcannon. What is colcannon? It’s an Irish dish of boiled potatoes mashed with leeks, cabbage, milk and butter. According to my favorite reference book ever, The Penguin Companion to Food: “the word ‘colcannon’ is from the Gaelic cal ceannann which literally means white-headed cabbage. However, the ‘cannon’ part of the name might be a derivative of the old Irish cainnenn, translated variously as garlic, onion, or leek.”
Topics: Cooking the Books | No Comments »
Currying flavor
By Ann | March 17, 2008
Apologies for brief hiatus — last week was not a good week in the kitchen, what with my cold and also guinea pig, er, I mean, husband, away, but Cooking the Books is now back with another edition of The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics! Today’s recipe is southern Indian chicken curry with mustard seeds, which Martha says was inspired by cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey’s lamb curry.
Topics: Cooking the Books | 1 Comment »
Did you taste your food?
By Ann | March 13, 2008
It’s back! I thoroughly enjoyed last night’s episode (though I did find myself getting a little weary during the introductory section – is it just me or are there too many contestants?). And, I’ll make a confession — I didn’t know what chicken piccata was. Yes, I knew about the lemon-butter-caper sauce, but I had no clue about the breadcrumbs vs. flour and egg. It’s all very odd because the Barefoot Contessa’s recipe, which I loved, clearly uses breadcrumbs — with no mention of Milanese. And I always thought the flour-egg coating was called chicken alla Francese.
Anyway, I thought Nimma’s departure was deserved and how cute was Stephanie when her duck a l’orange won the night? Looking forward to watching more delicious and disgusting dishes emerge this season.
Topics: In the news | 1 Comment »
Five Items: Tofu steaks
By Ann | March 12, 2008
Tofu is great, isn’t it? I won’t expound upon its healthful benefits (of which there are many), but will say that when I don’t feel like cooking meat (sometimes it’s just too slimy) a square cube of tofu (pictured above au naturel) is a perfect protein punch.
But how do you transform the bland, cool slab into something savory? Ah, whole cuisines have been built upon this challenge. For today, I’ll offer one of my own inventions: tofu steaks. I make these when I feel like eating something healthy, but don’t really want to cook. They’re great paired with brown rice and steamed broccoli drizzled with a little soy-lemon dressing.
Here are the five items:
Topics: Five items | 1 Comment »
When you don’t speak the language
By Ann | March 11, 2008
I’m feeling a bit under the weather and not in a very posty or foody mood. But thanks to a recent comment from Emigre on my post Rome vs. Paris vs. New York, I’ve been thinking about language, travel and dining.
About my opinion of less-than-stellar food experiences in Italy, Emigre writes:
“If you don’t speak italian this is your problem. You cannot go yelling around that Italy cuisine is the “worst, tourist-trappy meals of my life” just because you can’t speak italian and find a way to get out of the touristic low-level restaurants!
French are know for being mono-language people. Please don’t let me think of you as of such a persone. I like people who travels, who learn foreigner languages and don’t limit themselves to speaking just english or french.”
First of all, let me say that I totally agree with Emigre — travel and dining are much, much better when you speak the local language! Aside from English, I am lucky enough to speak Mandarin Chinese, which greatly enriched my experiences of living and traveling in China.
Alas, I cannot learn the language of every country that I visit. But how much should speaking the language count? Do you need to be fluent in the local tongue to eat well?
Not so much in Tokyo, I’d argue, where my guidebook led me to a gem of a sushi restaurant (photo above) in the Tsukiji Fish Market, Daiwa Sushi, which was packed with locals and serving the most sparkling bits of fresh fish. I don’t speak a word of Japanese, but no one tried to rip me off, and people even pushed me to the front of the line when a spot for one opened up at the counter.
In Paris, New York, and, yes, Rome, I’d argue that speaking the local language is more essential. But as a tourist, how do you find your way out of the “touristic low-level restaurants” — particularly when you don’t speak the lingua franca?
Topics: Dining Out and About | 1 Comment »