Archive for July, 2007

Littleneck Clams Gone to Glory

Monday, July 30th, 2007

A more devoted blogger would have taken a picture of a bowl heaped with tonight’s pasta with clams, but I’m annoyingly obsessive about eating pasta while it’s piping hot, so I didn’t even look for the camera until the clams were a delicious memory.
J. is reading Bill Buford’s “Heat” and decided [...]

Tags: Babbo, Bill Buford, Mario Batali

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Retro-souffle

Saturday, July 21st, 2007

I’m off at an ungodly hour tomorrow morning for the East Coast and two weeks “down the shore.” Although our menus will revolve mostly around hamburgers, corn, Jersey tomatoes, Jenny Lind cantaloupes and peaches sweeter than any ever found in Georgia, I’ll also be fixing this sort-of souffle. The recipe sounds awful, but the results [...]

Tags: cheese souffle

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Roasting Lamb; Eating Crow

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

I said: “We absolutely are NOT going to cook a whole lamb. On the beach. With 35 people coming for Bastille Day dinner.”He said: “Yes, we are.”I said: “The meat will be burnt in some parts and raw in others. And every dog in Santa Cruz county will be racing down the beach [...]

Tags: cooking whole lamb

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Whisk to the Rescue

Thursday, July 12th, 2007

Browning butter: it sounds simple but the task often frustrated me. Let us not enumerate the pounds of butter I watched turn from pale tan to bitter black. Let us further not enumerate the attendant curse words. When I discovered an article in Gourmet in which the author suggested watching for the butter to [...]

Tags: browned butter, Dorie Greenspan, financier

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It’s All About the Garnish

Saturday, July 7th, 2007

After only a few bites of this luncheon entree at Le Fumoir in Paris, I wrote in my travel diary: “fresh thyme: terrif. with zucchini” and “artichoke fritters as side dish.”The couscous-stuffed zucchinis were napped with a thyme-filled foam. I’m not usually a foam fan, but here it added a lightness often missing [...]

Tags: Angela Hartnett, Le Fumoir, Paris restaurant

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