Chicken with Mustard Crust

As I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve come to regret my “Welcome” post. I suspect this is normal. But as I think through the list of people and publications that I like, I’ve realized that there were several glaring omissions. For one thing, I completely forgot about Serious Eats, which is a website I check and use all the time. Although its mission seems to have shifted somewhat—it seems to me that it is less focused on home cooking and more focused on restaurants over the past year—it’s still a great resource.

But the true glaring omission from that first post was Jacques Pépin. I have multiple Pépin books, and they are uniformly wonderful, with interesting recipes that always work, in my experience. As much as I adore Julia (which is a lot), and as much as I admire her works for bringing the traditions of French cuisine to the United States, I think that Pépin has really taken that tradition and updated it in some really creative and interesting ways; he can definitely do the classical French, puff-pastry-and-hollandaise sort of thing, but he is also able to streamline and modernize French cooking with ingredients and techniques from (gasp!) other cultures.

Existential Crisis, Lunch-on-the-go Edition

Jamba Juice Employee: You're lucky, you got the last of the carrot juice.

Me: DEAR GOD WHAT HAVE I BECOME???????????

Seasonal Drinking

Please note that the season for cloying, pumpkin-flavored beverages has now officially ended. The season for cloying, peppermint-and-chocolate-flavored beverages has begun.

Chocolate Pots

We return to the works of Nigella Lawson today, with a sublime little dessert she simply calls “Chocolate Pots.” You could, of course, call them “Pots de crème de chocolat” if you were a Francophile, or just call it chocolate pudding if you wanted to be Molly-Bloom-ish about it.

Nigella does have recipes that do not involve chocolate, although you wouldn’t know it by reading this blog. We will address some of her other, non-dessert preparations at some future date.

Sesame Noodles

Chefs Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger are best known nowadays for their expertise in Latin American cuisine, especially that of Mexico. Their Los Angeles restaurants—Border Grill, and later Ciudad—were among the earliest purveyors of what might be called “haute Mexican” (alto Mexican?) cooking in the United States.

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about.

Lentil Salad, Cook’s Illustrated, and the Perils of “Foolproof”

Let me say up front that the inspiration for this dish—my contribution to Thanksgiving this year—came from Cook’s Illustrated magazine. As I noted in my first post, this is a publication with which I have a love/hate relationship. I admire the thoroughness and precision that they bring to their recipe testing; you can peruse the archives on their website and find numerous good recipes, especially if you are looking for American standards like pancakes, apple pie, pot roast, and so forth. However, the CI cooks are often so intent on making a recipe “perfect” and “foolproof,” that they bend over backwards to avoid every possible negative outcome, no matter how unlikely such outcomes may be. And although that might be helpful for beginners, I don’t think it is helpful or useful for those of us who have been cooking for a while and are reasonably confident at the stove. And indeed, I suspect that it might be counterproductive for novice cooks in the long run, since it implies that any deviation from the recipe will result in disaster. The fact that CI once felt it necessary to give a recipe for the “perfect” grilled cheese sandwich suggests that from CI’s perspective, cooking without a recipe, even for the simplest dish, is tantamount to driving on the autobahn while blindfolded.

La Child at the height of her fame

http://www.avclub.com/articles/enjoy-the-sensual-delights-of-cooking-with-10-epis,88932/

Can You Make an Authentic Twinkie?

Guys: I promise, Twinkies™ are not going anywhere. Calm the f*ck down. 

Crab and Saffron Risotto

Risotto is an odd food for me. It is very much a comfort food, something that I make to console myself, especially during the winter. And yet unlike many comfort foods, it has no connection whatsoever to my youth. I'm not sure how old I was when I first had risotto, but I'm reasonably certain that I was past 25. Curious, then, how my brain files it under "Comfort Foods—cf. cozy, domestic."

Pesto Trapanese

A quick post on something I made over the summer—a Sicilian variation on pesto from Lidia Bastianich. And yes, it is now November, so some of the ingredients are no longer in season. However, cherry tomatoes are available year-round, and somehow manage to be flavorful year-round. If you're a locavore, look away now.

Chocolate Hazelnut Cake

Here’s my first, fumbling attempt at one of those here’s-a-recipe-I-made-with-pictures-I-took-during-the-process posts that all food blogs seem to do these days.

Thoughts on a Puritan Feast Day

I should preface this post by saying that I have been both honored and fortunate to spend Thanksgiving with wonderful friends for many years now, and for that, I am, well, thankful. They have opened their homes to me, in a fine example of kindness and generosity, and I have very much enjoyed being a part of their celebrations.

But Thanksgiving is a very strange holiday.

For one thing, as the title of this post indicates, it is a feast day allegedly established by and commemorating a bunch of religious ascetics. Their stark, unsparing, and largely humorless world view stands in stark contrast to the bounty of the standard Thanksgiving feast. And the fact that said colonials would have almost certainly perished were it not for the help of the native inhabitants just adds to the strangeness; it’s as if Thanksgiving is the culmination of an autumnal “Exploitation of America” festival that begins on Columbus Day.

Catalog Deconstruction

Drew Magary's brilliant takedown of the Williams-Sonoma Holiday catalog.

http://deadspin.com/5959212/the-haters-guide-to-the-williams+sonoma-catalog

Welcome

This is a blog about food. More specifically, it’s about foods that I have cooked and/or consumed. Poor-quality photos may accompany some posts. If we’re friends on Facebook, you may be seeing some photos that you have already encountered in the past—sorry about that, but

By way of introduction (culinary-wise), here is a short list of chefs and food writers whose works I find useful, influential, and well-written:

• Julia Child
• Nigella Lawson
• Lidia Bastianich
• Sara Moulton
• Deb Perelman (author of Smitten Kitchen)

Here is a list of people and publications that I have a rather love-hate relationship with:

• Cook’s Illustrated
• Alice Waters
• The Silver Palate Cookbook
• Anthony Bourdain
• Alton Brown
• Ina Garten (aka Barefoot Contessa)

And here is a short list of food personalities who make me reflexively change the channel:

• Sandra Lee
• Paula Deen and her extended family
• Fanny Cradock (she terrifies me; search on YouTube if you want a good scare)
• Guy Fieri

As we go along, I’ll be mentioning success and failures in the kitchen, my various and idiosyncratic food likes and dislikes, and other stuff that happens to cross my mind. Bon appetít, y’all.