The Mediterranean region provides inspiration for many of the things I make with almonds. In that almond-growing region, there is a tradition of eating immature fruits and nuts that we don’t hear too much about in the U.S. let alone the Northeast where I live. (Although Turkeywood Farms in Mystic, CT is distilling shagbark hickory to make a sweet syrup I love.) This is my signature spirit, Digestivo Mandorlato – Priscilla’s Green Almond Liqueur Think of
Tuesday, February 10
Potage Ménagère – French Homestyle Vegetable Soup
Potage à la Ménagère is a simple puréed vegetable soup, not a recipe you’ll find in Escoffier. (I checked.) Rather it’s housewife soup that speaks of French frugality. Eating it transports me to a scene in a 1930’s black and white film by Réné Clair. There, in a country kitchen at a wooden table set with enormous spoons, a family sits quietly eating soup with thick slices of crusty bread. Potage Ménagère – French Homestyle Vegetable
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Thursday, December 11
Start Your Ovens
December means baking for many of us, me in particular. (Start Your Ovens I whisper to myself.) I have systems for managing to produce the food, savory snacks and desserts for at least four or five events around the holidays but this year I am a little late to get started. Then I came upon my own best advice published by Rebecca Ffrench on her web site Sweet Home. (“Congenitally overambitious” I said about myself, not this
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Saturday, December 20
Crispy Chocolate, Fruit and Ginger Rochers
Who doesn’t love the taste experience of eating silken chocolate and a crisp cookie or puffed cereal? Chocolatiers incorporate feuillantine (finely crumbled wafer cookies), puffed cereal, toasted nuts and seeds to add texture to their bonbons. Using quality couverture chocolate, you can make these Crispy Chocolate, Fruit and Ginger Rochers at home. They are a pretty good facsimile of a candy popular with professionals. Rocher means rock in French. These rocher candies look like craggy pieces from
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Tuesday, September 30
Hook and Shadows
The light that comes in our front window tells me the season. In August, the sun casts a long shadow as it rises in the east. A whitesmith forged the handle on the hook in this photo. It attaches to a wide copper-clad pan that sits under a fireplace spit jack from Bruce Frankel. Bruce created Spitjack.com, where he sells everything one needs for cooking with a live fire. Here he is tending a whole lamb for a party
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Wednesday, August 06
Wild Mushroom Risotto
We’re fortunate to find many edible varieties of wild mushrooms where we live, and we use them to make Wild Mushroom Risotto. The dish is something we make to celebrate the rich variety of mushrooms in the Northeast. And every time I make it I say merci to our dear friend Gerry Miller, mycologist, artist and shaman who taught me everything I know about foraging. With his harvests every year, we were able to offer
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Wednesday, June 18
Salade Lyonnaise
Want to start eating local? Foraging in your own back yard? Unless ChemLawn makes weekly visits, front lawn dandelions are delicious. Early spring through the fall, Salade Lyonnaise, a dandelion salad is a perfect meal. A few years back I toured the old city of Lyon, France with Lucy Vanel, a talented writer, photographer, baker and cook leading a flavorful life in Lyon, France. That city holds a special attraction for me. It was one
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Wednesday, May 14
Better from Scratch: Almond Milk
If you drink neither bottled fruit juice nor canned soup, why would you purchase almond milk in a carton? It is just too delicious and easy to make at home. I call this Better from Scratch: Almond Milk. Drink it alone on a hot day, in your coffee, on cereal, soups and in smoothies. Bake with it, cook with it. Enjoy it. The market for “alternative dairy beverages” is more than 23 billion dollars as
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Monday, April 07
Cookbook Cleanup
If your shelves bulge with cookbooks yet there is nothing to eat, Eat Your Books to the rescue. They specialize in cookbook cleanup, helping recipe hoarders and collectors alike take advantage of their collections. Cookbooks occupy a wall in our office and a corner of the living room. Medieval elixirs to food truck kimchee, we’ve got the recipe. On humid days, some of our cookbooks exude the smell of old kitchen grease reminding me of
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"Let no man fancy he knows how to dine Till he has learnt how taste and taste combine."
-Horace, Satires, 2.4They're here!
