Goulasch

Eating is a great way to make new discoveries. When traveling, whether in southern Spain or southern U.S., trying new foods and cuisines gives you a connection to the local culture.

But it's also a way of recalling, even revisiting, the past. When I lived in Europe, particularly in Germany, Hungarian goulasch was a common item on menus and it was something I cooked often at home.

I've been puzzled since coming back to the U.S. that it seems hard to find a recipe for goulasch, and winters come and go and I pine for my goulasch. I thought I had finally discovered one in an old edition of the New York Times Cookbook, the old Craig Claiborne version. There was a recipe for Prague three-meat goulasch that I thought would be similar to the one I used to make. But, shockingly, it was a recipe that didn't include paprika -- the quintessential ingredient for goulasch!

So I decided to wing it. I pulled a couple of other (incomplete) recipes from Epicurious to get a better idea of ingredients and proportions and had a go at it. I remembered the essential thing, besides the paprika, was to have almost an equal amount of onion and meat.

I got about 2 lbs of pork shoulder, beef chuck, and veal stew meat, cubed, and sliced 1-1/2 lbs of onions (more onion would not have hurt it). I browned the meat in vegetable oil and set it aside, then sauteed the onion in a little more oil. Oddly, I was out of garlic, otherwise I would have added a couple of crushed garlic cloves. When the onion was soft, I added 2 Tbl of Szeged Hungarian sweet paprika, and 2 tsp. of hot paprika we brought back from our trip to Budapest 3 years ago (I know, not exactly fresh; it could have taken a little more so maybe it just wasn't so hot anymore). I also added a Tbl. of flour to thicken the sauce and 1 Tbl of tomato paste diluted with a little water. I cooked that for 5 min. or so then added back the meat, 1 Tbl. of marjoram, a bay leaf, and 2 c. of chicken broth. I simmered it for 1-1/2 hours. It seemed a little soupy but we saved it for the next day and by then the sauce had thickened further and it was just right. I got a box of Knorr spaetzle at Whole Foods and of course it was nothing like real spaetzle, but it was edible. Next time I would just use noodles.

The goulasch was great! Some recipes call for mushrooms and I think I would try that the next time. Now goulasch can takes it place among the dishes we cook every winter, along with chili, sauce bolognese, short ribs and brisket.

Braised turkey thighs

Molly Stevens said in her All About Braising that stores now sell turkey parts and when I checked at Whole Foods, they do indeed carry turkey thighs, though only intermittently. So I picked up a couple when they were there to use in Stevens' recipe for braised turkey thighs with onions and butternut squash.

I won't go through the recipe in detail. Suffice it to say, the turkey is braised separately and the squash and onions are sauteed separately then braised in the turkey braising juice. The thighs are browned in rendered pancetta fat (the crisp-cooked pancetta is crumbled over the dish at the end), and braised with aromatics, herbs, orange juice and broth.

The thighs I got were bigger than specified in the recipe so I probably should have cooked them longer than the 1 hr 15 min in the recipe and let them get a bit more tender. But the dish was great and made up for us not getting any dark meat at Thanksgiving (for reasons too complicated to explain).

Montalcino in DC

Montalcino, according to Dean Gold's email, is the highest hill town in Tuscany and the inspiration for a special menu at Dino. We bit and really enjoyed one of the best deals in town.

The menu, served family style, starts with crostini -- with white bean, herbed ricotta, and wild boar salami. Then comes the ribollita -- a vegetable soup with bread, a nice broth with some winter vegetables perfectly suited to warming you up and whetting your appetite. This was followed by a second primi, Pappardelle all'Aglione, house-made pasta tossed in a tomato essence they cooked up this summer with roasted garlic and herbs and which is truly delicious. The main course is a stew, scottiglia, that includes three meats braised separately -- pork, wild boar and duck. It's worth hearing Dean's description of the stew in full to get an idea of the care in sourcing and cooking that this restaurant takes.

"Our version is based on Angela Costanti's: the meats are stewed and then served separately....Our scottiglia is made from a trio of meats via slow braising with red wine and just a drop of tomato. Our pork from EcoFriendly Foods is grown by a family of farms from a cross of heritage breeds using open pasture when Virginia's weather permits. This results in a silky pork rich with flavor and luscious, mature fat. We use lean cubes for the scottiglia; and all the meats have a little pork belly mixed in. Second is wild boar from Texas. We use a wild gathered product. Wild boar used to be thought of as simply a nuisance to the ranchers of Texas. But some forward looking folk saw them as a resource to be managed. Now the boar are a source of income to the farmer; and the ecosystem is better off for it. Plus, we get to enjoy this wonderful, lean meat. The third is the leg and thigh from Dr Joe's ducks. These are grown on small farms in Pennsylvania from breed stock developed by Dr Joe, a duck fanatic & former veterinarian. They have a rich and almost spicy flavor: a superb duck."

The menu -- all this for $30 -- includes a dessert (I had a delicately creamy tiramisu, not usually my favorite dessert but this was delicious) or a choice of two cheeses. We also ordered a bottle of Mastrojanni Rosso di Montalcino 2008 because Dean listed it as using a more "modernist" method of winemaking and that the vineyard had been revived by the Illy (coffee) family, and it was very nice despite being young -- fruity, smooth and indeed modern.

Whole Foods

Whole Foods is of course a wonderful place, an emporium of high-quality, politically correct food that is a mecca for those of us lucky enough to have the discretionary income to pay their prices. We live here and now in an amazing food age, where the world is truly our oyster in terms of seeking out global cuisines and finding the ingredients to make an unparalleled range of dishes. Publishers pump out a neverending stream of ever more beautiful cookbooks with recipes our parents never dreamed of.

Often you can find the ingredients these recipes call for at Whole Foods, and often you can't. Sometimes this is surprising, and you discover the flip side of Whole Foods becoming such a dominant supplier with all the constraints of a big business.

For instance, a number of duck recipes call for "duck legs" -- presumably the leg and thigh, though I wouldn't know, because I've never found them at Whole Foods or anywhere else. When I inquired at the new Friendship Heights WF, I was told they don't carry duck legs because their former duck supplier, who provided duck legs, violates company policy by also selling foie gras, and their new supplier, Bell and Evans, doesn't provide duck legs. If I were willing to trek out to the suburbs to find a good Oriental market, I'd probably have a better chance of getting this ingredient, but I won't find it at Whole Foods.

Something much simpler -- stone-ground grits. This is the age of authenticity and stone-ground grits are in, but not at WF. When I finally found a grocery clerk who knew anything about it, after being sent on a number of wild-goose chases through the store, he explained that Arrowhead Mills, which had supplied their grits in the past, for some reason no longer met WF's very high quality standards. He was waiting for an email, he said, from a different supplier, in the hopes that they would be in conformity. "It makes us look bad," he said guiltily, "because other stores have it."

It's clear that a big nationwide business like Whole Foods has to have high standards, especially since that underpins the high prices and profit. If the chain dared to carry duck legs from a provider that sold foie gras, it could face a boycott from zealots who think that is evil (the pros and cons of foie gras are too much of digression here, but I don't think it's an open and shut case).

It's a natural result of WF expanding aggressively, taking over most of its competitors and pushing many of the others out of business. WF sets and enforces the standards, and consumers are left with little choice. I remember in Princeton, my landlady's natural foods store was threatened when big, bad Wild Oats came to town, though that huge chain was subsequently swallowed up by WF, after it digested Fresh Fields and any number of other former competitors. And yet, as the homely little photos plastered on the wall at the Friendship Heights location show, WF too had its humble beginnings in Austin, much like my landlady's little store in Princeton.

It's a reminder to me, once again, that as seductive as Whole Foods is, it's import to support its competitors whenever possible, from farmers' markets to the Grubb Road co-op to Safeway. Perhaps the new Georgetown Safeway or the other new one going up in Bethesda will start offering some big-chain competition to WF.

Cauliflower and fennel cazuela

This dish is delicious but that has as little to do with the vegetables as lobster bisque has to do with crustaceans. Chefs joke that restaurant patrons love bisques because they're 95% cream. The authors of The Barcelona Cookbook disingenuously claim that cauliflower is surprisingly popular because this dish flies out of the kitchen. You'll see why.

You blanche a cauliflower cut into florets for 7 min., plunge in icewater and drain, then blanche a fennel bulb, trimmed of its fronds and cut in half, in the same pot of water, icewater, drain. Then you rub the fennel bulb halves with olive oil, salt and pepper and put under the broiler (or grill, weather permitting) for 5 to 7 min., then cut into 1/8 to 1/4-in. strips. Heat 1/4 c. olive oil in a large skillet and saute a thinly sliced onion for 10 min., add 4 cloves chopped garlic and cook slowly another 8 to 10 min. Add the blanched vegetables, salt and pepper, and cook slowly 15 to 20 min. Then add 1-1/2 c. heavy cream (!), 3/4 c. panko bread crumbs, 2 tsp. lemon juice, 3/4 c. grated Manchego cheese (!), 2 tsp. chopped parsley, 1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme, check seasoning, then set aside.

Then you make a bread crumb topping warming 1/2 c. olive oil in a saute pan, then add 10 cloves of sliced garlic (my cloves were so big I used 5), and cook 5 to 7 min. until garlic is "honey-colored." Then add 3 c. panko crumbs, salt and pepper, and cook for 7 to 10 min., taking care not to scorch the bread crumbs. Add 3/4 c. grated parmesan, 2 Tbl. chopped parsley, and 2 tsp. chopped thyme. Spread topping over vegetable mixture in a casserole (or individual cazuelas) and put in 400-degree oven for 15 to 20 min. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle chopped chives over top and serve.

Now this was really scrumptious, but what you taste is the cream and cheese and oil. The fennel and cauliflower I sampled during cooking were quite good, and presumably those flavors are somewhere in there. But this could have been macaroni and cheese. I served a couple of slices of cold ham with it and it was a delicious dinner. I had planned to use my big cazuela for the final assembly, but it was too big, so I just used a regular oval casserole. I would do it again for company, but it's too much work for a weekday meal and there are presumably ways to cook vegetables where you taste the vegetables.

Addie's

Got back to Addie's for lunch for the first time in a couple of years and it's still great -- what a hidden gem! After some negotiation with the hostess, got a table in the outer wing with windows on three sides, which makes it bright and cheery (instead of stuck in the little passage-way where they first tried to seat me).

I had the shrimp and grits for the first time there, and it was delicious. Plenty of good-sized shrimp, plump and cooked just right with a nice tomato-onion sauce. The grits were excellent -- creamy, cheesy, gone in a flash. My companion wasn't even half-way through his more voluminous po' boy sandwich with fries.

Everything I saw -- the po' boy, the steak-frites, the risotto of the day -- looked very appetizing. I was encouraged enough to order the dessert special -- a goat cheese cheesecake -- which was light and just the right touch for a lunch dessert.

Addie's comes into its own in the summer, with extensive terraces in front and back, but this cheery little winter lunch was just right.