Paris - Perfume, Pink Champagne And Perfect Hot Chocolate

Forgive my absence, but it’s hard work trolling the streets of Paris in search of food, culture and ways NOT to spend the increasingly expensive Euros.

Too much to tell, not enough time.

I had a low key itinerary planned. I HAVE been in Paris when I’ve scheduled every single second, including a fourth museum of the day, in case 1, 2 or 3 didn’t work out. (That DOES take planning, especially on Mondays and Tuesday when most museums are closed.)

A, my great friend and best excuse for visiting Paris, is moving and so this trip was our last hurrah. We decided to do what we do best – wandering the streets, making a few planned stops and dilly-dallying, usually with rewarding results.

We had a quick coffee and went off to visit the The Fragonard Perfume Museum.

It was in a beautiful 150 year old building. I had hoped to learn the history of perfume making, but, unfortunately, we got there seconds after a HUGE tour from Eastern Europe(?) arrived and we had to hasten to get through the few rooms. Their website, though, is very instructive… 

Somehow the crowds didn’t stop me from purchasing a few items…

Next we were off to Fauchon, where we had intended to just check out the teas and confitures. I saw an amazing bottle of Framboise Vinegar Syrup, that I was quite excited about. The shop assistant heard us speaking English and, in the snottiest way possible, told us it was for decorating plates. The worst part about her highfalutin’ attitude was that SHE WAS AN AMERICAN. I actually remembered her from previous visits.

Unfortunately for Fauchon’s bottom line, I refused to buy anything from her, so THERE! (I headed over to Hediard later to buy fabulous Passionfruit and Guava Vinegars from a really cute and NICE guy.)



The Fauchon tea room had been closed for some time, so A was happy to see it newly renovated and reopened, so, pourquoi non?, we decided it was lunchtime. Happily, it was empty at 12:30 (and curiously remained so).

We chose a table overlooking the Madeleine and perused the menu while sipping our pink champagne. The setting in glossy silver and pink with black accents was perfect. The fine-boned, pink and black attired waiters attended to us beautifully. 


We split a croque monsieur, which was actually in the style of a panini - very different from others I've had, delicious though, and an artichoke and spinach salad. Very delightful. We had one chocolate meringue tart between us, which was as good as it looked.



After dejeuner, we ambled for a while and stopped in at a favorite shop of A's, La Vaisselerie, a dish and kitchen trinket shop on the rue Saint-Honoré, where I had previously bought a wonderful tomato knife that had the word Tomate cut out on the blade. This time I bought a few hors d'oeuvres knives and 2 adorable paring knives - one lime green and one purple. Really cute.

After more strolling, the weather turned on us and we decided another stop was necessary, so we ran to Angelina (226, rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris) - with the help of the metro - for a cup of their famous hot chocolate, L’Africain. It’s reminiscent of Spanish chocolate that’s served with churros, although not quite as pudding-thick, but perhaps even sweeter. It comes in a pot and is served with a bowl with fabulous unsweetened (thank goodness) whipped cream. The cafe itself is also charming with many Belle Époque features.

As beautiful as the cream was, I actually picked it off my chocolate and drank it au nature. After many glasses of water to cut the sweetness, out we went into the Paris late afternoon - A to do more packing and I to get ready for my next meal.

Giada Has Her Girl

Well, you know I must have been busy not to have posted the news about Giada's baby, born on Saturday, March 29 in LA. She was 5 lbs 13 ounces and her name (most of which we already knew) is Jade Marie De Laurentiis Thompson. (Good luck with THAT on a credit card or driver's license).

French posts coming right up...really...in French time...

Pinxo in Paris

The other night, we had dinner at Pinxo, a modern little restaurant near the Louvre. They serve everything tapas style or in individual little portions for each dish. They usually come in threes, but there were 4 of us, so they upped it.


The soup, which I initially resisted ordering as sounding boring, was delightful. Very fragrant and chock full of vegetables and tender large prawns.




The pumpkin cappuccinos were rich with the local pumpkin carrying the rich taste of chestnuts, topped with a delicious foam.

Other starters:

Notable entrées: The irresistable shrimp with coconut milk rice and meaty tuna with Belgian endive, which was cooked soft and twisted around the base of the fish.

The portions were large (especially for Paris) so we split 2 desserts, which was way more than enough.

The crépes were not what I was expecting but they were refreshing, while managing to pack a calorie laden punch.



The Tiramisu were beautiful and delicious - a real winner.




Pinxo
9, rue d’Alger
Paris 75001 France
Telephone: 01.40.20.72.00

Panama Canal, Schmanama Canal

Who needs the Panama Canal, when you can see one right in the heart of the Paris's 10th arrondissement AND have a fabulous lunch to boot? Yes, H and I are in Paris, just for a few days, he to work, me not.



My friend, S, showed me the Canal St-Martin, just down the road from the Place de la République. Imagine a canal on a residential street in a big city and that's what this was like. Buildings on either side and a walkway along it...the canal was amazing. And this wasn't exactly Amsterdam, so it was completely unexpected!

We walked beside it and then S had obviously arranged for a barge to come just as we were there. The good news is that we saw various locks opening and closing with the barge sinking in the water. The bad news was it was JUST at that moment that my camera failed. Luckily, I was with a gifted photographer.

Picture by S

The canal's locks were no joke. Warning arms came swinging down to close the streets that crossed the canal. The actual bridges swung to one side.

Picture by S

Gates closed. The bottom sluices opened to allow the lock to drain. It was very, very cool.



We followed our nautical adventure by lunch at

This is what we had:


Basically, it was a Greek salad; and a Salmon Turnover (Chausson) with all kinds of goodies on the plates.

We couldn't turn down dessert - cheesecake, garnished with framboise purée.

More food and fun to come...

A Lot Of Butter, A Lot Of Breakfast, A Lot of Lovin’ – It’s The Neelys

Down Home With The Neelys

Sunday Sleep In
Breakfast Trifle Grits
Nana's Cinnamon Rolls
Buttermilk Waffles with Homemade Strawberry Sauce
Lazy Sunday Mimosa

Two words about The Neelys: They actually cooked everything FROM SCRATCH this week. THIS is what they should have been doing from the beginning. I'm not saying it's healthy or even stuff that I would make. But, at least, we're learning about their cooking traditions without the reliance on boxes and pouches (except the one you get after breakfast at their house).

Gina starts the cinnamon rolls before Pat gets up. She doesn’t get very far, before he comes bounding into the kitchen, greeting her warmly. You may think their lovey-dovey shtick is over the top, but I'd like a little of what's he's serving. (Would it get annoying, though? I wouldn’t mind finding out.)

They proceed with the dough, using the dough hook in the mixer. Gina reminds us to use warm water with the yeast, saying, "Nothing cold activates anything”. Pat, down boy. The dough is very sticky, but between the two of them, they get it all mixed and kneaded and sitting in a bowl to rise.

To make the rolls, Gina sprinkles flour on the board, dough and rolling pin. Pat rolls it out and they both stretch it even thinner. They brush 1 stick of melted butter over and sprinkle over 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, 1/4 cup pecans and raisins if you with.

I would have mixed those ingredients together and then put them over the dough to avoid a glut of cinnamon in one bite and not enough sugar in another.

They roll it up from the long ends. They cut the ends off and cut it into 8 sections. The rolls go onto a buttered baking dish. They let it rise one hour. Now that's a good all-purpose homemade cinnamon roll recipe with nary a dough boy in sight (except Pat, just kidding...sort of).

They get to work making waffles. They separate 3 eggs and Gina beats them until stiff. Pat melts copious amounts of butter and mixes it with buttermilk and vanilla. The wet gets mixed with dry ingredients. They make rather short shrift of the waffles, so we never actually see Pat making them. Who knows if it took him 15 batches to get those perfect waffles or if he did it right the first time?

The cinnamon rolls go into the oven to bake. The waffles (finished during the commercial, outside of our prying eyes) go into the oven to stay warm (the SAME oven? That’s kinda hot).

Pat and Gina slice up strawberries for a strawberry sauce. They get mixed with sugar and lemon zest and brought to the simmer with a bit of cornstarch.

Pat starts on a recipe that I've never encountered before. It's a kind of trifle made with grits, eggs and sausage. Gina's family always made it with scrambled eggs; Pat's with hardboiled eggs. (I like the sound of Gina's more.)

Pat uses quick cooking grits. I give him a pass for that, because they are making quite a few things for breakfast. But, for all you grit aficionados, tell me if that’s sacrilege. He adds ½ cup of the quick stuff to 2 cups of boiling water.

He seasons with salt and pepper and one of them says (don’t ask me which one. As our daughter says about H and me, when we independently lecture her on the same subject - we share a brain), “Here in the south, we love butter in our grits”. Frankly, although I know there are exceptions, THERE in the south is the only place they eat grits…Now don’t be telling me about your grandmother in Milwaukee or uncle in Portland that loves grits – they ARE a dish mostly cooked by southern cooks, no matter where they live…

Oh, they add sugar too.

They’ve gone about boiling their eggs in that imprecise way that I detest: If the recipe starts with "Put eggs in cold water", I don’t want hear about it. What if you add too much cold water? It takes longer to come to the boil and then your eggs will have the same tell-tale overcooked grey-green line between the yolk and white that the Neely’s eggs do.

Try this, you’ll be a convert. Put your eggs in boiling water. Add a squidge of white vinegar to set the white instantly, if you have a crack. Bring back to the boil, simmer for eggsxactly (get it?) ELEVEN minutes. Plunge into ice water. Finis. Perfect eggs.

After Gina peels her eggs, she chops them up and puts them in the bottom of pretty glasses.

Pat fries up 2 sausage patties. I’m assuming Jimmy Dean isn’t involved. Gina grates some cheddar cheese. She gets the cinnamon rolls out and brushes over a quick powdered sugar glaze. Pat tops the hardboiled eggs with the crumbled sausage and spoons the buttery (remember they’re from the south) grits over. Just a little cheddar cheese and chopped tomato for garnish and voila you have…WHAT do you have? Breakfast Trifle Grits. That could be good.

Pat spoons the strawberry sauce over the waffles. And Gina sugars up 2 champagne glasses and makes a nice variation of a mimosa: blood orange juice, pineapple juice, champagne and Grand Marnier. I likey, so does Pat, but he’d like anything Gina serves up, and, this week, at least, so do I.

To One And All

Happy Easter!

Thanks to A.

A year ago today...The Broccoli Rabed All The Attention

Jamie And His Veg

Jamie at Home with Jamie Oliver

Winter Salad
Roast Carrot and Avocado Salad with Orange and Lemon Dressing
Winter Crunch Salad with a Mind-Blowing Sauce

Jamie is outside. It’s winter in England and very cold and windy, BUT he’s “still got a fair old bit of salad” in his garden. He slips on the railroad ties that divide up his beds, as he shows us his radicchio. He’s very proud of his treviso, lamb cress, lamb’s lettuce and mustard cress. Goodness, THAT would be an impressive haul in the middle of summer.

He’s determined to make exciting winter salads. Back in the shed-like kitchen, he boils carrots for 15 minutes and drains them. They go into a bowl. They’re pretty – yellow, orange and purple. He going to make a salad that he says will have a Moroccan vibe. SEE?!! I told you, Morocco is the new black.

Into a nifty looking red screw top container, he puts salt, pepper, red chili, and cumin (my FAVORITE spice). He tightens the lid and “gives it a good smash up”. He adds garlic and thyme and does it again. I didn’t know you could deal with garlic by just shaking it vigorously, but he seems to be doing just that. The mixture gets sticky from the garlic, Jamie says, as he adds enough olive and vinegar to make a paste. He shakes it one more time.

He pours it over the carrots and shaky shakes the bowl. He adds the carrots to an old roasting tin with a halved orange and lime. It goes into a 350°F oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Jamie peels 2 avocados telling us this dish is a marriage of avocados and carrots. He says most people aren’t used to eating COOKED carrots in a salad. He takes out the carrots. One of them looks like a sausage, it’s so deeply colored and crusty. (That's a good thing.) They go into a bowl. He cuts the avocados and adds them to the carrots.

On to the dressing, Jamie loves cooking the fruit, because it “jamifies” it and concentrates its flavor. Using tongs, he squeezes the orange and lime into a bowl, with the pulp too, if it falls in. He adds an equal amount of olive oil and some salt and a hint of vinegar to tart it up a bit.

He grabs 3 pieces of grilled 1 cm. thick bread (.39 of an inch, in other words, less than half an inch) and breaks it up over the bowl. It gives the salad something crispy and a nice charred flavor.

He pours the dressing over the salad. Jamie mixes the baby lettuces by hand and plates up a serving (by hand.) He says to put a bit of yuh-girt or sour cream over the top plus a sprinkle of poppy seeds or… did he say hempseeds? Are you allowed to do that? Oh, this is England, after all, they have much more liberal laws than we do. Kidding….I think you’d have to down millions of seeds to feel any effects. It looks sublime.

His next recipe is an interesting version of bagna càuda, which means hot bath. It’s a mixture of garlic, anchovies and olive oil into which you dip vegetables. Jamie is making his with milk, which is a different spin, but results in a much milder dish.

He puts 6 cloves of garlic in ½ pint of milk and adds 4 fillets of anchovies. It’s fine to get some of their oil in. He likes to have this with lots of raw vegetables. He cuts carrots in half and slices them super thin. Jamie loves raw beetroot, but tells us it has to be sliced REALLY thin. He does that. He also loves the yellow leaves of celery. (The green ones are bitter.) He slices the celery, making sure to include some of the yellow leaves. He says you can blanch a romanesco cauliflower, but he’s leaving it raw. He slices that up.

Jamie slices fennel like a machine. He exclaims at the size of his black radish. “This is one hell of a…look at the size of this radish.” (Men are always bragging.) He peels and slices it. He likes to use only crunchy vegetables. He grabs a celeriac and tells us sadly that he can’t grow it for some reason. He seems troubled by that. He peels and slices it.

The garlic makes the milk split, so he uses a hand blender to whirl it to smoothness. He drizzles in olive oil and adds a little vinegar. It looks like a thin custard. “Oh, my Lord, it tastes so so good.” He pours it into a bowl and surrounds it by the vegetables. That’s ONE way to serve it.

He prefers to serve it another way. He mixes all the vegetables together in a colorful tangle of crunch and crispiness. He says the way they do it in his restaurant is to serve the plate of vegetables, and the waiter (or waitperson) comes around and pours over the very hot sauce and you dress it yourself. Jamie says, “You won’t get a more incredible salad and if you don’t believe me, try it.” He drizzles over a bit more olive oil.

THAT is a really nice variation – bagna càuda made with milk. Centuries ago, we learned to degorgé our anchovies in milk. It made them sweeter and less salty, but you didn’t USE the milk after. This recipe is a mellower version of an oil-based bagna càuda. Think about the difference between cooking garlic in oil, where it would have a very robust flavor and cooking it in milk, which would give it a much more delicate flavor. Interesting, Jamie.

His last dish is a tuna ceviche. He describes it as “Modern, cool, refreshing, looks flashy.” He’s using beautiful blue fin tuna.

First he slices a thumb-sized piece of ginger. (I don’t like phrase, it makes me think of slicing off my thumb.) He cuts the ginger into tiny matchsticks. He slices cloves of garlic. The garlic goes into hot oil and he watches it carefully. He takes it out when it’s just browned and puts in on brown paper. (Even the paper in his kitchen has that organic look.) The ginger goes in for a bit more time.

Meanwhile he cuts the tuna in half with a thin-bladed knife, and continues to cut skinny slices. I just noticed he’s cooking the ginger on top of a wood burning stove, it looks like, while he’s seated. He plates the tuna. (Or use salmon.) He says he likes having a funky plate. Oh, he’s not talking about the china (it IS a big funky platter though), he’s talking about the DISH.

Jamie goes on rapturously about yuzu and how he can’t get it easily. It’s what those wild guys on Top Chef use all the time and it is on the menu of Jamie’s London restaurant. He says it tastes like a mixture of clementine, lime and grapefruit.

He’s going to make an approximation himself. He mixes together lime, tangerine and grapefruit juices. He tastes it and says it needs to be “sharper”. He adds more lime juice and salt. “It’s not as good as yuzu, but it’s not so far off.” He tops the tuna with sprouts, the garlic chips and ginger. It does look gorgeous.

Jamie’s done it again. On a cold winter day, he’s made fresh, flavorful salads from his garden. I guess the lesson is gorgeous ingredients make great dishes.

A year ago today...
Nigella, Nigella, Nigella

Top Chef - You Have To Buy The Premise

To Buy The Bit

It’s a beautiful day in Chi-Town. I’m not from Chicago, so I can say that, even if it does irritate Chicagoans.

Stephanie is lifting weights. I wonder if she’s doing that just for the cameras, she doesn’t look like she’s done it a lot before. (Of course, I know as much about weight lifting as I do about Chicago, so forget I just said that.) She and Valerie know each other from before…

The chefs have to meet up at the Farmer’s Market, where the Quickfire Thing-a-ma-jiggie will begin. They are instructed to prepare a dish with DUMDADUMDUM...only five ingredients.

OMG, they are horrified! They are held aghast! They are shocked and stricken at the mercilessness of this challenge. OH COME ON!!! This is dumb, really dumb. That’s not exactly what I call much of a challenge for a chef…or really anyone AND the five ingredients don’t include oil, salt, water…basic stuff like that.

Now work with me here. If YOU were told that you had to prepare a dish (not a meal, A DISH) with 5 ingredients, would you go into a tizzy? NO, you’d probably be relieved, because it would make things simpler.

I'm not saying there isn't pressure to have to think up a dish and find the ingredients within 30 minutes, but they were reacting to the initial challenge and it really just isn’t as gobsmacking as they made it out to be. When you think about it, don't you often prepare dishes with only 5 ingredients? ALL the time.

Anyway, Spiky Haired Guy, as opposed to “Spike”, got eucalytptus, Dale rejected meat, because it was frozen (I LIKE Dale. Wait, didn’t a talented Asian guy win last time? Does that mean that Dale won’t win this time? I sure hope not. He’s my pick.) Mark, after being quite snippy to the purveyors, forgot his bag of mizuna lettuce. Back at the kitchen they are introduced to guest judge Wylie Dufresne. Wow, THAT is cool.

Here’s what they came up with Wylie’s (even his name is cool) comments:

Richard (Oh, HE’S spiky haired guy)
Chicken soup with chicken – apples, apple cider, eucalyptus butter. W: “It’s not terribly strong eucalyptus” NOT what Richard was hoping for.
Ryan – lettuce, radishes, potatoes, sirloin steak, Dijon mustard. ”Properly cooked, simple, tasty, nice”.
Dale - mushrooms, shallots, radishes, eggs, butter. “Very nice”.
Valerie - seared rib eye, grilled peaches, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, arugula. “Refreshing, very refreshing.”
Spike - tenderloin tips, apples, bread, apple cider, rosemary. Wylie thought it should have been a steak sandwich.
Erik - pan seared lamb chop, baby carrots, potatoes, mint and garlic
“All right, thank you” (What does that mean? I don’t think it’s good.)
Mark - sirloin steak, turnips, mushrooms, peaches, butter. “Peach and the turnip is nice. Bittersweet.” AND he liked his sideburns.
Andrew - lamb chops, peaches, onions, mint, potatoes, balsamic vinegar. Uh-oh, anyone else spot the problem? Yup, he used SIX ingredients. He thought the vinegar was one of the givens. Wow, the caption says he’s a souschef at Le Cirque. What’s he doing here? Maybe it's one in Butte, Montana.

Is that right? Is that all of them? Who knows? I’m definitely missing Stephanie and a few others, oh well…Did they perhaps not show everyone’s dish?

These are the folks Wylie judged to be at the bottom: Spike - he should have been more creative: Erik - wasn’t much of a composed plate: Richard - Wylie was “pulling for” him since they “play in the same sandbox”, but the dish was oily and could have been more refined.

The winners – Ryan - his dish was moist and juicy; Valerie - “managed to pull a lot of flavor out of those few ingredients”; Mark – “the bitterness of the turnip played off the sweetness of the peach nicely”. The overall winner was Mark.

For the elimination, they divide into teams with animal names. The twist is that they have to prepare appetizers for a cocktail party with ingredients that their animals would eat. I thought they were going to judged STRICTLY on that criterion, but the judges didn’t even seem to particularly notice the specifics of the ingredients used. Here are the dishes with the people that made them, if I could figure that out.

Team Lion
Beet Salad with Yuzu, Ras el hanout (Are there a lot of lions in Morocco?) and Goat Cheese Foam. “Good” Wylie said .
Bison Tartare with Tarragon Coulis. Gail liked the spices.

Team Vulture
Mark - Marinated Anchovy on a Quinoa Croquette. Gail and Padma loved it.
Moroccan Spiced Lamb Meatball (Is Morocco the new black?), ricotta, pomegranate syrup and pistachio. ”Delicious”, somebody said.

Team Gorilla
Roasted Pear and Crab Salad with Celery Root. Wylie: ”This didn’t follow through.” I think that means he didn’t like it.
Valerie - Black Olive Blini with Fennel Mascarpone, Rutabaga and Beets. Wylie: “Sounds delicious.” Tom “SOUNDS.” Oh, that’s not good, plus if Valerie says BELL-INI one more time, I’m going to douse her with a bottle of champagne and some peach pureé.
Minced Lamb and Edamame in lettuce cups. (Ick.) Wylie: “Great.”
Banana Bread with Salted Caramel Sauce (even if she, whichever SHE it was, said carmel) and Meringue. (Why did they have so many dishes?)

Team Bear
Chimay Cheese and Honeycomb on Cranberry Pecan Bread. Gail and Padma love it.
Spike - Salmon a la Plancha on Lettuce Cups with Pickled Vegetables and Peanuts. Padma stuffs the entire thing in her mouth and looks disgusted.
After discussing the mushrooms endlessly, Nikki ends up serving them. Bad move. Spike’s not happy and didn’t think the mushrooms should have been served. Dale strenuously shares that view.
Mushrooms Stuffed with Blueberries, Walnuts and Pecorino Cheese. Wylie: ”The cheese kind of gets in the way.”

Team Penguin
Yuzu and Mint Glacier. They’re all proud of themselves for making that. We find out later that Wylie agrees.
Andrew - Squid Ceviche with Soy Balsami Tapioca. I don’t think that sounds good at all. Wylie “That’s nice.”
Lisa (Who’s that? I don’t even remember that name. Oh wait, there she is. There are too many folks. The women in white chef’s coats all look the same.)
Thai Shrimp and Crab Salad with Watercress. “Not Bad.”

At the judges table, The Vultures and The Penquins are on top. Andrew wins. Of course, he does, I hated his dish. What do I know?

The losing teams are The Bears and The Gorillas. The losing dishes are the mushrooms, the blini one and the watery crab salad.

The judges are not happy that Team Bear didn’t taste the mushrooms (Nikki’s dish) after throwing more cheese on them. The judges also didn't like that the blinis were made in advance, I’m just not happy with how Valerie (Team Gorilla) insists on pronouncing it.

But I think it’s going to be one of the Gorillas that goes home. No wait, it’s going to be Nikki. It better not be Dale.

Let’s pretend this is Project Runway and in my best Teutonic accent – Valerie and Nikki, Nikki and Valerie. One of you is OUT and one of you is whatever it is Heidi says.

I think it’s Nikki, no Valerie, definitely. It SHOULD be Nikki. Well??! It’s VALERIE. Valerie leaves. I think I liked her at the beginning. It just goes to show there’s no point watching this until the last half hour.

When there are this many contestants, we’re not seeing the actual cooking and we barely see the results. Plus, it’s no fun rooting for someone and then having them leave. Such is the heartbreak of reality television.

A year ago today…
Like Sands Through The Hourglass, So Are The Days Of Sem-Eye-Homemade Sandra Lee
and…
Anatomy of a Recipe Search: FoodNetwork.com vs. Epicurious.com

Food As Art – Is This Weird or Is It Wonderful?

Photographer Carl Warner has created these pictures from food. Working in layers, he has laboriously constructed landscapes using food, and then taken perfectly composed photographs.

The salmon as ocean works on so many levels, but the thought of it sitting there is kind of gross. How many days, I wonder, does it take him to complete a photograph?

What happens to the food as it’s waiting to be shot and perhaps shot again. Warner says that's why he composes the pictures in layers. He must have to work very fast to keep each item looking so perfect.

I think it’s weird AND wonderful. Take a look at his other pictures here.

A year ago today…
Emeril - If Only I Liked His Recipes Half As Much As I Liked Him

All In The Family – Giada Cooks With Auntie

Everyday Italian with Giada De Laurentiis

Cooking for Beginners
Fusilli alla Caprese
Black and White Cookies
Italian Fish and Veggie Pockets

Au­­nt(???) Carolyna has come over to learn how to cook. I’m not getting this at all. Aunt Carolyna is a lovely young woman, fresh faced and eager, but the moniker “Aunt” doesn’t seem to fit. She and Giada string and take the ends off sugar snap peas and they go into a bowl.

Giada gives her a pepper and she keeps one. She shows her how to cut the end off and cut the pepper into strips. Unlike Danny, she works alongside Carolyna. Oh, she explains the family connection. Carolyna is the daughter of Giada’s old fox of a grandfather Dino (her mother is Martha Schumacher). Even though they consider themselves cousins, Carolyna is actually her aunt.

She lets Carolyna pour a bit of white wine over and then oil. Auntie knows to roll the lemon to release the juices. Giada zests and Carolyna squeezes. Giada makes a flavored salt by mixing the lemon zest with salt. They also set aside 4 slices of lemon. She tosses the vegetables with the lemon salt. That’s a great way to give a lemon flavor, especially when you’re in a situation (not here) where you don’t want to add liquid.

They divide the vegetables onto 2 pieces of foil and put a salmon piece on top of each one. Giada sprinkles a bit of lemon salt over. They top each packet with 2 slices of lemon. Giada pulls up the sides and closes the foil around the fish and vegetables to make a completely secure packet. They go on a baking sheet and bake at 350°F for 15 minutes.

When Giada takes out the packets, she instructs the young one to open hers gingerly, because it’s hot. Giada slips hers perfectly onto a plate. Aunt C. had a little more trouble, but she got it on the plate. C lightly chops fresh mint and they sprinkle it over. They taste it and like it.

For the pasta recipe, Giada adds salt to the boiling water and then 1 lb. of pasta. Carolyna struggles to free a garlic clove from its head. It means it’s fresh, her niece tells her. Carolyna smashes the garlic like an old pro and chops it. Giada adds oil to a sauté pan and cooks the garlic just until it becomes aromatic. Carolyna halves a pint and half of cherry tomatoes and adds those to the pan. Then she dices fresh mozzarella.

Giada asks her about her boyfriend and the adorable Carolyna blushes. She seems so sweet, just beautiful. I wonderful where she gets that…

They both press the cherry tomatoes in the pan with a fork to make the mixture saucier. Carolyna chops basil roughly as instructed. That gets thrown in with the mozzarella. The pasta gets scooped from the water right into the sauté pan with the toms. Giada pours that into a big bowl and tosses it with the mozzarella and basil and some pasta water.

They taste right from the bowl, which is not recommended, unless you’re going to finish every last bit in one sitting. Obviously, neither of these two tiny gals is going to do that.

She moves on to some special cookies. Crappy fast food alert!!! Why is Giada using bought sugar cookie dough? If it’s because that’s what college kids do, that’s not a good reason.

I thought this was an opportunity to teach her young aunt to COOK, not to open a package and slice. If you have 7 kids, go ahead and use a slice and bake cookie, but IF you have a cooking show on the FN and are giving a cooking lesson to your adorable auntie, THEN make your own dough. Giada could have said you’ll find the recipe on the website or use your favorite one.

For the chocolate center of these cookies, Giada heats 1/3 cup cream. She chops 7 oz of bittersweet chocolate with a serrated knife. THAT is a good tip. It does a fabulous job at shredding the chocolate into small pieces. She stirs it into the cream, off the heat. When it’s nice and smooth, Giada transfers it to a bowl and refrigerates it for an hour.

To form the cookies, she has Carolyna slice half the cookie dough. She cuts each slice into quarters and then rolls each piece into a log. Giada takes a ¼ teaspoon measure and makes chocolate balls from the cold chocolate mixture. Why not use a melonballer, I wonder?

Okay, this gets a bit fiddly. They wrap the sugar cookie logs around the chocolate balls and roll in tons of sugar. They get placed on parchment paper. They look really pretty. Wait, they’re not done. Giada presses each cookie flat with the bottom of a juice glass. Nice.

They bake at 350°F for 15 minutes. Giada takes out the cookies and Carolyna’s itching to have one. Not yet, as Giada presents her with a basket of all kinds of cooking goodies. And yes, she can have a cookie, actually she can have all of them, along with all the other loot she scored from Giada.

They hug. Gosh, what a beautiful family! I have to rush out and get me some pink blush and pink lip gloss.

But what I will never get (and NEVER support) is mass produced sugar cookie dough in a roll. The plastic wrapping affirms what lies beneath - fake, factory produced, additive-laden, sweet AND salty dough. This is so much better made at home...with family, if you're lucky like Giada.

Note: I made the pasta dish the other night, and I wanted to incorporate Jamie's idea of slicing fresh lasagna noodles to give the pasta a homemade quality. I couldn't find any, so I used fresh linguine. It was really good.

I added 1/2 cup stock, instead of the pasta water. And I used 2 pints of cherry tomatoes, instead of 1 1/2. Plus, I did add just a smidgen of cream at the end, maybe 3 tablespoons. It would have been good with freshly grated Parmesan, but noone wanted to stop eating to get the cheese, so it went formaggio-less.

A year ago today...

Comfort Takes Many Forms

Top O' The Mornin' To Ya

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Okay, Emiline, here it is, my contribution to your St. Paddy's Day Pub Crawl Blogging Event! Enjoy it...goodness knows, I did. I’ve also prepared a little slide show for your enjoyment.

Baked Meringue Raft in a River of Eggnog Custard

Meringue
6 whites
¾ tsp. cream of tartar
¾ cup sugar
Add sugar when soft peaks form.

Preheat oven to 250°F. Butter and very well sugar a 2 quart soufflé dish. (The truth is you can use a bigger one and the meringue won’t rise high and mighty above the dish, but it doesn’t really matter, because it sinks anyway.)

Beat whites until frothy on medium speed. Add cream of tartar (according to Rose Levy Baranbaum’s formula of 1 tsp. cream of tartar per 8 oz. or 8 egg whites). Beat on high speed just until soft peaks form. Start adding the sugar by tablespoons, turning down the speed just as you add the sugar and then returning the mixer to high. Beat until very stiff and glossy.

Put into prepared baking dish. Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until skewer comes out clean. Cool on counter. Meringue will fall…a lot. Unmold and serve or cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Prepare custard.

Custard
6 yolks
¾ cup plus 2 tbls. sugar (see note)
3 cups milk (use whole, if you want it to be good)
1 cup heavy cream
¼ cup brandy plus 2 tbls. (6 tbls. in all)
2 tsps. peach or apricot liqueur
2 tsps. rum
freshly grated nutmeg

Bring milk and cream just to the boil.

Beat yolks and sugar until pale yellow in medium saucepan. Or beat in mixer bowl and transfer to saucepan. Add ½ cup hot milk mixture to yolks and whisk madly. Pour in remaining hot milk, whisking all the time.

Cook over medium heat, stirring all the time, until custard measures 180°F on a candy thermometer or until all the foam on the top has disappeared. Chill for at least an hour. Overnight is fine too.

To serve, unmold meringue. Run knife around edge and place serving platter on top. Turn over quickly and meringue will come right out. Cut into fat wedges. Pour custard into bottom of shallow bowl. Carefully place meringue over custard. Grate a bit of nutmeg over. Serve immediately.

Note: One cup of sugar is a bit too sweet. ¾ cups isn’t quite sweet enough, so this is 2 tablespoons shy of a cup.

A year ago today...Just How Many Artichoke Hearts Can We Eat? and...The Flavors Of Your Life and...The Steaks Are High

Can Rescue Chef Be Saved?

Rescue Chef with Danny Boome

Fried Chicken Cookoff
Spicy Fried Chicken
Raspberry Iced Tea Punch
Black Bean and Mango Salsa
Sour Cream and Lemon Honey Corn Muffins

There is no question that, Rescue Chef, is an almost exact copy of beloved Tyler’s and hunky Curtis’s shows, but that’s not even the major problem. The biggest issue is that it's simply not well done. The people don’t seem to be in any pressing need of culinary instruction and Danny does little to instruct them.

But on Saturday’s show at least, the recipes themselves may have been reason enough to pay at least a little attention to this athlete/chef. As far as Danny goes, I hate to throw the baby out with the bath water or the recipes out with the bad show.

The initial premise is faulty. Why does someone who cooks regularly against her boyfriend in kitchen challenges need help, anyway? And why is she going to DANNY in particular? And why, oh why, is she asking HIS help making FRIED CHICKEN…almost as ludicrous as his “instruction” of chicken tortillas last week.

There are no real answers to those questions and those no real reason to watch…except one, actually two this time. Two out of the three recipes he made (I'm not counting the dumb iced tea) were actually good, very good, including the fried chicken.

Take a look at this recipe. Spicy Fried Chicken. Danny marinates the chicken in buttermilk and chipotle. I love that idea. He dredges the chicken in equal amounts of flour and cornmeal. That makes it really crunchy. Good thinking. Notice I’m saying HE does this and that, because he still does most of the cooking himself. He also adds WAY TOO MUCH salt. He says TWO tablespoons in the show. The recipe says one tablespoon. Still too much.

I'm not as happy with the Sour Cream and Lemon Honey Corn Muffins. To me, the Indian Head recipe is a classic. It uses equal amounts of flour and cornmeal. Danny’s uses almost 3 times as much cornmeal as flour and again too much salt (2 teaspoons). Plus he uses 1/3 cup of honey. That’s too sweet. A quarter cup is plenty, And does honey even belong in a corn muffin, especially one accompanying fried chicken? The lemon zest (and juice) is weird too.

The last recipe, Black Bean and Mango Salsa, is a real winner. It’s got the standard - black beans, mango and red onion, but Danny takes it up a notch with roasted tomatoes. He adds plenty of cilantro (maybe a bit too much) and lime juice and zest.

Danny should have stopped there, but then he makes Raspberry Iced Tea Punch. I like the fruit macerating part, but Iced Tea WITH Prosecco? Nah, I don’t think so. Leave out the tea and it would be fine, OR leave out the Prosecco.

That’s kind of symbolic of what’s wrong with this show. They should leave out pretending to teach people how to cook and just let Danny cook. Why does everything have to have a gimmick? At least make it one that makes sense.

The only one that needs rescuing on this show is Danny...from the format.

A year ago today…Ina and Jeffrey Sitting In A Tree and…Lifestyles of the Rich and Frying

Top Chef - "Silly, Pretentious and Weak"

And Tony was only getting started.

Top Chef on Bravo

I really didn’t want to get roped into the new Top Chef season, especially from the beginning. These reality shows always start with 50 people and you have to remember too many names and stories and then by the end of the first episode half of them have left anyway. I would rather get involved further down the road, but someone asked me if I was going to be watching and I decided to check it out.

I had just read an interview with Padma and Tom. I was happy to learn that the ONLY thing the judges judged on was the food. They see none of all the nonsense that go on behind the scenes. All the shenanigans are for our benefit and they in no way impinge upon the outcome. I thought I remembered Tom in the kitchen occasionally in past Top Chefs, looking at what was going on and how the kids work together? Maybe not.

Anyway, they started at Pizzerino Uno in Chicago which led to a rather obvious, I thought, deep dish pizza challenge. I think that’s just dumb. The ability to make a deep dish pizza in no way signifies what kind of chef you are. In fact, it might just go the other way. I HATE deep dish pizza. I think it goes against everything that pizza stands for. The crust is bready, doughy and heavy and the filling is just gloppy.

There seems to be a surfeit of chefs from San Francisco. Two of them turn out to be a couple – Jen and Zoi. That partially explains the geographic density from that area.

Tom and the radiant Padma arrive and instantly send them into the kitchen for the deep dish pizza Quickfire Challenge. They have 90 minutes.

The contestants didn’t have to make the dough, which I would have thought might have been a legitimate test of their skills, but, of course. there was no time.

Okay, this is why I didn’t want to start watching. I have no idea who anyone is. Can’t they wear nametags?

After much pausing and rewinding, this is what they made.

Dale has a lot of energy and verve. I like him. He also is a sous chef from Buddakan (in New York, not Phillie), so I really liked him. His pizza: Sausage, pickled kohlrabi, scallions and sriracha sauce.

Valerie, nice Chicago girl: meat and potatoes pizza.

Manuel, a little full of himself. “Classically trained.” Eh! Who isn’t? Pizza with sopressata and rapini a la Siciliana.

Nikki, a nice New York girl, who doesn’t like deep dish pizza. You go girl! White pie with comté, ricotta and pecorino cheeses and mushrooms.

Mark is a Kiwi. He's really proud of himself for bringing Marmite. Doesn’t he know that Yankees think that’s really nasty? Pizza with chicken, zucchini and marmite “molasses”. Who calls it THAT?

Antonia, slightly brazen Italian. I like her chances. Pizza: burrata cheese, prosciutto, arugula and heirloom tomatoes.

Richard made peach taleggio pizza with sweet tea sauce. I don’t know what that means.

“Spike” or Evangelos, Greek and cocky, but I bet he can cook. Pizza a la Grec: onions, feta cheese, olives and sausage.

Lisa from New York. Pizza with Asian BBQ sauce, and duck. AWESOME! I like the sound of that.

One of them, don’t ask me which one, doesn’t grab a pizza pan fast enough and so he had to make his deep dish pizza in a cast iron frying pan. I think that is a good idea. Various pies get unmolded pretty badly, but it turns out not to matter, because they only have to present 2 single slices.

More pies and contestants are introduced during the actual judging.

Stephanie, Pizza with melon tomato sauce (no, thank you) prosciutto, olives and arugula.

Ryan, pizza with escarole, ricotta salata and butternut squash.

Andrew, pizza with smoked marinara (interesting), prosciutto, onion and cheese.

Jennifer, Harvest Pizza, with grape, bacon, fontina and rosemary. My favorite by a mile. I LOVE her choice of ingredients.

Nimma, Hunter Style Pizza with mushrooms, onions and stracchio cheese. Yuck. Looked bad and the judge said “missing salt”.

Please don’t ask me which pizzas Erik and Zoi made. I completely lost track…

The contestants bring their pizzas to this big house, which they think is the house of the judge. The guest judge turns out to be Rocco DiSpirito. Rocco is not one of my favorites, but he does seem a bit more sincere these days. Maybe the former Mrs. Eddie Murphy is having a good effect on him.

And, by the way, don’t these chefs know anything? Rocco doesn’t live in Chicago. The house is, of course, the big gorgeous house that they’ll be living in while on Top Chef.

The results of the Quickfire:
The losers- Andrew, Steph, Manuel, Lisa, Nimma, Valerie, Nikki and Zoi.
The winners – Richard and Mark (they LIKED the marmite).

On second thought, is it possible that this challenge was a good idea because it gave them a blank canvas on which to work?

Then it's on to the elimination, which is so friggin’ complicated. Each non-losing chef picks one losing chef. The losing chefs pick a classical dish from a list that each has to make. So each individual in the pair cooks the same dish, with their own spin to it, as they compete against each other.

The last two to choose, Zoi and Erik (what is it with unconventional spelling…unless Erik is from Norway…) had to cook soufflés, which the whole crew was nervous about.

Richard and Andrew made crab cakes. Richard (with spiky hair, that’s how I remember him) was going to town adding all kinds of exciting elements. Smoked mayo? What is that and how is he going to do that? He pulls out a miniature electric(!) smoker and smokes the spice, ras el hanout, for the mayonnaise. THAT is wild.

Antonia and Nimma made shrimp scampi. Nimma’s a completely depressive personality. How can her food be happy? She’s marinating the shrimp in PARSLEY. Huh?

Ryan and Valerie do chicken picatta. Jen and Nikki have to make lasagna. Nikki is making her own pasta, including making it by a hand on a big board. That’s impressive, but is she crazy?

Mark and Steph’s dish was duck a l’orange.

Dale and Manuel: steak au poivre.

The judges enter… Tony!!! Yay! He is so charismatic. I want to see him bitchslap Rocco. They ARE sitting at opposite ends of the table. Darn, Tony’s on his best behavior today!

Mark loses to Stephanie in the duck battle, although the judges like both. Tony particularly liked Steph’s.

They like both renditions of crab cakes with the win going to Richard. Too bad, Andrew.

Spike and Lisa’s Eggs Benedict go over well. Because they HAD to pick a winner, it was Lisa.

Valerie beats Ryan by a hair, with neither of them satisfying the judges with their knowledge of Chicken Picatta.

Zoi beats Erik in the weird name spelling category as well as with the soufflé. Neither of theirs resembles a classic soufflé. The judges are very unforgiving. Rightly so, most people know NOT to add potatoes TO a soufflé, as Erik did.

Dale beats Manuel. The judges didn’t care about his Mexican spin to the dish.

Antonia beats Nimma, which wouldn’t have been hard. I don’t know if Nimma was overcompensating for the lack of salt in the pizza, (NOONE mentioned that, strangely), but her shrimp scampi was inedible. Okay, if she doesn’t go home, this whole show is a sham. Her pizza was bad, her shrimp couldn’t be eaten, what part of that says she deserves to stay in the competition?

Goodness, just listen to me. I hate competitions. I want everyone to win. I think they should turn off the clocks, give them an unlimited budget and days to wander around a farmer’s market and then see what they can do. This is like believing that the SAT measures future success. The only thing it measures is how well you take a test, THAT test. Sorry…back to…

Nikki and Jennifer. The judges liked both lasagnas. But, for some inexplicable reason, Jennifer didn’t cook the rutabaga (WHY, Jenn, WHY?) The fact that Nikki made her own pasta was very impressive, so she walked away with the win.

The chefs face the judges. This really is so queer. They look like a firing squad (if they weren’t sitting). And the overall winner is…Stephanie, a loser in the Quickfire round, but her duck reigned supreme.

The overall losers were Ryan, Erik, Nimma and Mark. Rocco knocked Erik for the strange addition of potatoes to his soufflé. Erik said, “I made glorified nachos. I’m not proud of it.” Tony was amused.

Nimma made excuses, “The plastic wrap wasn’t as tight as I usually have it.”?!!?! That doesn’t excuse making it so salty it could barely be tasted. Tony was being kind when he said, “It was a weak dish.”

Mark’s duck was “silly and pretentious” to Tony. And Ryan’s dish was not only improperly made, Rocco called him dense (to the other judges).

Okay, there’s no question. It should be Nimma to go home. And it’s…Nimma. “Please pack your knives and go.” Isn’t there a more gracious way of saying it?

Nimma’s upset because now “no one will know I’m a very good cook.” I looked at her bio on the Bravo website. SHE went to the CIA? It really didn’t show. This is her interview video. She’s positively gorgeous, but not particularly fascinating talking about food.

I dunno, it was pretty good show. I didn’t want to commit, but now I may have to. I wish they’d get rid of 7 or 8 of them quickly, so we could cut to the chase much faster. This thing isn’t actually 16 weeks long is it? Oy!

A year ago today...The Contessa Goes Fearless and French