Some nights you just need a little detox, a light dinner to take the edge off days-in-a-row of too much rich food, or a little too much imbibing. OJ calls…
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Book Reviews
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This week, I've been in overdrive catching up on Mad Men so that I'm up to speed for season 5. And now I've got '60s-era food on the brain. But rather than torture myself with some kind of terrible aspic with vegetables in it, I decided on a date cake. Flipping through some of my vintage cookbooks I discovered we used to eat a lot more date cake and date bread than I realized. It's even in an episode of Mad Men, one where Don Draper is having a tete-a-tete with Sally's teacher in season 3. She's made three loaves of date nut bread for a school bake sale.06
Getting more whole grains in your diet is easier than ever with the wide availability of bulghur, quinoa, barley and spelt, but it's also easy to fall into a rut with the most basic preparations for these grains. My regular bulghur pilaf is pretty simple, relying on onion, crimini mushrooms and chicken stock for its flavor. That simplicity makes it a great side dish when your main, say baked chicken, has a more dominant flavor profile. But why should a side dish have to take a back seat?15
It felt good to be back in the kitchen this week. And it felt good to switch gears and really get into some cool-weather cooking. We're already in our pattern of rainy (or overcast) days and we're barely getting into the 60s. But I can't complain, it's time to break out the sweaters and turn on the oven. That's why this week's project was Lisa Fain's Coffee-Chipotle Brisket from The Homesick Texan Cookbook
. I can already tell this book will get a place of honor in the kitchen and that some other is going to get kicked down to our bookcases downstairs.
. I can already tell this book will get a place of honor in the kitchen and that some other is going to get kicked down to our bookcases downstairs.14
About 10 years ago there was a PBS reality show, Frontier House, where a bunch of modern day Americans were taken out to Montana to live as frontiers-people did in the 1880s. And other than the guy who built a house from the ground up for his bride, the woman I remember best was a baker. If there's a skill that's valuable and will keep an early settlement going (other than building shelter!), it's being able to grind wheat into flour and bake loaves of bread by feel, by memory. I'm not a baker by instinct, I'm a baker by following instructions, particularly when it comes to breads. Wolf has always been the baker around our house. I've found myself better at biscuits, my patience suited to a quick knead and cutting out biscuits.13
Paging through Lisa Fain's The Homesick Texan Cookbook, I immediately thought, I'll just start at page one and cook my way through...but then I caught sight of the coffee-chipotle brisket...which bakes in the oven for 6 hours and then is slathered in coffee-chipotle barbecue sauce. I mean, does it get better than that? I'll go back to the beginning another time.
, I immediately thought, I'll just start at page one and cook my way through...but then I caught sight of the coffee-chipotle brisket...which bakes in the oven for 6 hours and then is slathered in coffee-chipotle barbecue sauce. I mean, does it get better than that? I'll go back to the beginning another time.22
If you like coconut, there's almost no better use for it than macaroons. It's such a pure coconut experience, colored only by maybe a little almond extract or in my case, a good dose of lemon zest. But after spying this chewy chocolate macaroon recipe in Terry Walters' Clean Start, those pure thoughts went by the wayside. There seemed no reason not to go full bore, mixing in a good bit of chocolate, rather than just doing a dip.
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I must have looked for David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop for almost 6 months at my fave used bookstore, thinking a copy would turn up eventually. It never did. And now I know why! You'd be crazy to give up this book! Covering ice cream, gelati, sorbetti, granitas and a full spectrum of accompanying sauces, The Perfect Scoop offers a mix of more traditional (chocolate & peanut butter, rum raisin, chocolate sorbet) and not-so-traditional flavors (orange-Szechuan peppercorn, pear-pecorino, roquefort-honey). If it tastes great on its own, why not in ice cream? The book is a must for anyone who likes frozen treats, dairy or non-.
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I have a love/hate relationship with restaurant cookbooks. On the one hand, I'm thrilled that one of my favorite restaurants is sharing its recipes, but on the other, the dishes don't always seem to measure up to the versions I've had when dining out.
We loved A16 in San Francisco under Nate Appleman (who's since moved on to consult for Chipotle) and had a number of wonderful dishes there -- from the burrata to the housemade salsiccia pizza w/ spicy chile oil to the chocolate budino. The A16: Food and Wine cookbook delivers on those dishes and more. It was the A16 cookbook that introduced me to "00" flour and the overnight rise for pizza dough. The ricotta gnocchi is good, and even better in brodo with spicy pork meatballs, and the chocolate budino...well, what can you say about that other than "Mmmmm."
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