Thanksgiving

A Canadian friend was discussing her Thanksgiving plans. Right! They do the whole thing earlier.

But now I’m wondering, where will we have Thanksgiving? What will we serve?

Last year, we brined the turkey. Not sure it was better. At least not when it came to gravy making.

Any firm Thanksgiving menu items on your list so far?

Pomme Frites

The No. 1 destination for us on our last trip to NYC was not a museum, or a shop, or a tourist attraction. No, it was Pommes Frites, a Belgian french fry place that we’d heard about and put at the top of our must-do list. As we wandered around with our kids through the East Village, it was a trip down memory lane. So many places seemed the same from our 1980s memories. But the nostalgia came to a halt when we spotted the tiny storefront and the line snaking out the front door.

At Pomme Frites, they make your fries to order. Should we get a large or small cone? Should we stick with naked, salted and a little ketchup? Or try one of their dozens of exotic sauces, including peanut satay, cheese, curry, mustard and so on? We chose to go plain for our first visit, and we watched as they threw the potato slices into the hot oil.

Then they drained the fries and put them in a bowl.

Finally, finally, they hand us our cone of salty, barely greasy, heavenly fries. They were crisp, but not dried out until no potato texture or flavor remained. They were perfect, just the right amount of salt, the right amount of crunch, the right potato flavor…

As we wandered the streets, people stopped us to ask where Pomme Frites was. They recognized the cones, were searching for the fries, but it really is tiny and easy to miss.

We loved it. We’ll be back. Because we think fries are the food of the gods, and Pomme Frites makes some of the best we’ve ever eaten.

Holiday Cookbook Gift Lists

It’s that time of year, when a bunch of new cookbooks are available, and yay, we can put them all on our Christmas and Chanukah wish-lists.

Here’s what we’re craving:

Fat. This is less of cook book (although it has recipes) and more of an ode to fat, much maligned but also good for our health and for flavor and for adding thickness and shine and pop to some of our favorite dishes.

Yquem. Well, we happen to love the complicated, sweet richness of Yquem wines. We have collected them and received them as gifts for years, and we’ll never forget a Christmas dinner in the late 90s when we sampled a really old bottle that our dad had found cheap and abandoned in a Kansas City liquor store. It was dark, not pale yellow…would it be spoiled? No…it was butterscotch and rich and we all sipped in quiet bliss….So what better than this gorgeous book that gives the wine’s history, which goes back to the 1700s when Thomas Jefferson bought it by the caseload to share with George Washington?

A Platter of Figs. We’ve heard great things about this book, seen great reviews, so we’ve added it to our list.

The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook. We love southern cooking. We love southern food. Seriously, pecan pie? Gumbo? And we love that this book has Sunday versions of recipes, which are complicated, and also Tuesday versions, which are faster. The book is getting rave reviews from the likes of Bobby Flay and Mario Batali, so we figure we ought to check it out, too.

The River Cottage Family Cookbook. As our readers know, we are always cooking with our kids and trying to find non-disgusting (Sandra Lee) cookbooks to use with them. Well, this book is not only non-disgusting, it’s being revered as an excellent book for families, with homey recipes, photos of misshapen but yummy-looking results, and lots of answers to the “whys” of cooking.

Chanterelle: The Story and Recipes of a Restaurant Classic. A few years ago, we bought David Waltuck’s book, Staff Meals, in which he gave home-chef versions of the recipes his kitchen uses to feed his staff. Yummy, homey, fantastic recipes, to the point that the book became our go-to for nights when we were bored and uninspired. This book sounds a little more up-scale, but we can’t wait to check it out.

On the Line. We have nothing but awe and admiration for Eric Ripert. He took over Le Bernardin at age 29 after the founding chef died suddenly. He earned three Michelin stars and kept the place in top form for two decades. This book, which we hear is amazing, takes a look behind the scenes, at inventory lists and dialogue amongst the chefs…We love those sneak peaks. We can’t wait.

The Complete Robuchon. We love French cooking and can never have enough cookbooks to tell us how to make a good pot-au-feu. We can’t wait to check it out and compare to other books we use and love.

The Big Fat Duck Cookbook. We’ve never eaten at Fat Duck, or tasted Chef Heston Blumenthal’s food. But he’s earned three Michelin stars, is called a culinary alchemist, which let’s face it, has a certain Harry Potter-esque intrigue about it, and apparently, this is the foodie book of the season. Reviews say the book tells of his history, his recipes, and the science, and it looks gorgeous as well.

Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide. If you haven’t heard of sous-vide, well, you haven’t eaten in NYC lately, or watched Top Chef or the Next Iron Chef, or maybe you’ve been hiding under a rock? We actually are divided in our house about the greatness of sous-vide, a way of gently cooking in precise, not-quite simmering temperatures. On the one hand, we once had a sous-vide chicken breast that was great-tasting but looked raw and soundly unappetizing. On the other hand, we are always interested in ground-breaking techniques, and this book will surely explain a lot and give wonderful recipes. We’re huge fans of author/chef Thomas Keller, so we say, yes please! to Sous Vide.

A16: Food + Wine. What is A16, we wondered. Well, it’s a road that cuts across Italy, for one, and it’s a hot new restaurant in San Francisco, for two. Sigh, we miss our days in San Francisco, when dates at the hottest new restaurants were always on our diaries. We’ll have to settle for this cookbook, which gets great reviews and accolades for the recipes’ little surprises, like tangerine added to an arugula salad.

Dear Santa:

We’ve been, very, very good this year…

Macarons

We invited friends over for a double-header of college football. We promised a hearty, plain meal, some red wine and lots of switching between the USC and Mizzou games.

However, we were inspired to make the hearty meal a little less plain, and we pulled out the Bouchon cookbook. We had a great lunch there in Napa this summer, and we wanted to tackle, finally, some Thomas Keller recipes.

The beef burgundy was amazing; as was his lemon tart. But the most fun and popular recipe was for macarons.

We were a little concerned about trying a complicated baking project. Since we moved to the beach, many of our old stand-by baking recipes have failed us. We suspect it’s the humidity or salty air. So we reached out to the cookbook co-author, Michael Ruhlman, and also a blogger we greatly admire, Carol of French Laundry At Home.

Carol wrote back right away and told us she didn’t know, and that a pastry friend chef warned we could in fact have problems. But, she encouraged us to go for it.

So we did.

First, we had to buy 20 ounces of slivered almonds, which we had to convert into almond flour. This was done in batches with a blender, carefully as to not create almond paste. We had to strain the nuts and made quite a big mess with almond dust everywhere.

Then, we used the food processor to give the powdered nuts a last whirl. Then we added powdered sugar, almost six cups, and food processed that all together, too.

The recipe then called for egg whites to be beaten, and then a pinch of this and that. Two vanilla beans. Then we folded it all together and were ready to go.

Now, we are not known for cake decorating. We had a pastry bag, but tried in vain to find a half-inch plain pastry tip. We settled for a quarter-inch version, filled the bag with the batter and were ready to go.

The recipe had been very precise about how to form the cookies. Take four cookie sheets and line them with measured parchment paper. Take two-inch circles and trace them in rows of four, then three, and so on, for 18 cookies on a tray. Flip the paper so the ink shows through but won’t taint your cookies.

Then take the filled pastry bag and hold it above the circles and squeeze…until the circle was filled.

Then you bake them ten minutes, switch them around and do ten more minutes. Then cool them by transferring paper and all to wire racks.

We were so proud of our perfect-looking cookies, but there were problems. They were very fragile indeed, and they stuck to the paper. Did we not bake them long enough? Were they too big? (We also had six empty circles because we ran out of batter.) Or was it the humidity?

In any case, they tasted great. And then we mixed up the butter cream and piped that on a cookie, then added the other cookie to make the sandwich.

Our guests were so kind. Just like being in Paris, they said.

It was definitely a recipe we would try again. I’m curious about the problems, and how to fix them.

But mostly, it was fun to tackle a recipe from such a complicated book that always seemed far too advanced for us amateur home cooks.

Pardon Our Interruption

Our travels got the better of us, all that time without Internet access. But we will be back this week with some posts from our travels and some of our observations about the food world we live in.

Here’s a preview of what we are working on:

Margaritas in Santa Fe: Is a four-page menu overwhelming to you?

Santa Fe Restaurants

Pistachio Orchards

Landmarc restaurant in NYC: Is it the new JUdson Grill?

Prune: Our Favorite New York Spot

Gramercy Tavern: A night out with kids? Were we crazy?

Pommes Frites: French fry heaven

Friendly’s: Connecticut’s Heaven on Earth for Kids

Cooperstown: Fine dining?

Nickel & Nickel Wine Tasting

Bouchon Napa: Thank You, Thomas Keller. Thank You!

What We Made With Our Friends in Napa

Fun Times or Hell on Earth: Playing Iron Chef at Home

Copia

American Legion: The Worst Sandwich Ever (But the View was Mighty Nice)

Blanca: Are you open or closed? And is your fish…fresh?

Packing School Lunches

Cupcake Wars: Are They Kidding Us? Cupcake? Wars?

F%#{ you again Keller

Does the Donald’s water taste better?

Not really, but it is free, at least the first 2 bottles.

F#%£ You Keller

Day One: Bad Traffic and Fast “Food”

We didn’t expect day one of our road trip to do much for us on the dining front, after all our primary goal was to push hard to Las Cruces New Mexico, a trip of about 750 miles.  However, we had high hopes.  We had picked out a few spots in Yuma, AZ for lunch (worst case In n Out Burger) and a New Mexican spot in Las Cruces that looked promising.  But then Vons and their meat truck intervened.

According to our conversation with the CHP, a meat delivery truck from Vons grocery slammed into a disabled vehicle on the 5 freeway south and essentially shut it down.  After an hour and 2 miles progress we did a U-turn and headed back north and rerouted ourselves to the 10 freeway (and a beautiful drive on through the Cleveland national forest) and began to pick up steam.  Unfortunately since we lost so much time in the delay, we had to forgo our meals.  Instead, we hit a roadside burger king for lunch (not worth the bytes to comment on) and Papa John’s pizza delivered to our hotel room for dinner.  Pizza actually not bad, not good, but after over 12 hours on the road, not bad.  Also the tequila chaser didn’t hurt.

Today, our choices are looking up as we head for White Sands National Monument and Alamogordo and Ruidoso where our choices are much more varied and we won’t be time pressured.

“How Many Times A Day Can We Eat?”

Imagine our happiness at our newest travel partners, a family joining us for a driving tour of New Mexico, when they sent an email about restaurants in Santa Fe. “How many times a day can we eat?” they asked.

We agree mightily. We hope to end up in Las Cruces tonight, where we thought we’d check out Nopalito for dinner.

Tomorrow, who knows? We plan to see White Sands, then perhaps stop at Eagle Ranch to buy pistachios from their farm. Then we might head up to see the Smokey Bear memorial (he was an actual bear from this part of New Mexico, rescued as a cub from a burning tree) and tour all of Billy the Kid’s old haunts. We read about a place called Roy’s, where we can get an ice cream cone from this 1905 drugstore.

Santa Fe, well, we have tables reserved at Maria’s, and at Santacafe…

We plan to up the frequency of our blogs as our eating gets more interesting. Also the shopping. We think Santa Fe is the go-to place for western table linens and dishes and so forth.

Now we’re going to pack the car. We have a six-pack of wine, some vodka and tequila. Snacks for the kids.

Here’s to a trip without fast food, safe and satisfying!