Margarita weather

With the temperature near 80 and the weather more like summer than spring we mixed the first margaritas of the season on Friday. Using the last of the Cointreau (hard to go back to Triple Sec after you've had the real thing) and the Stirrings mix I picked up last week, we had our margaritas with Whole Foods made-in-store guacamole and chips.

To complete the theme and to take advantage of the beautiful grilling weather, we had some Southwest chicken kebabs from Cheryl and Bill Jamison's The Big Book of Outdoor Cooking. I've never done too much with skewers, I guess because it's more work, but they have some good recipes and I'm willing to try some more.

This has the colors of the Mexican flag and makes for a very nice presentation. The actual skewers consist of the marinated chicken chunks alternating with orange bell pepper, red bell pepper, lime slices and chunks of orange.

The 1-inch chunks of boneless skinless chicken thigh get marinated just for an hour in a paste made up 1/3 c. tequila, 1/3 c. fresh lime juice, 1/3 c. pickled jalapenos w. 2 Tbl of liquid from the jar, 3 Tbl. vegetable oil, 4 scallions white and green parts coarsely chopped, 2 or 3 peeled garlic cloves, and 1 tsp salt, all purreed together into a paste. You stir in 1/4 c. fresh orange juice and/or 2 Tbl Triple Sec (I used just OJ). Pour in with chicken in a ziploc bag and refrigerate.

For the skewers, you cut 3/4-in. dice of the red and orange bell peppers, 1/4-in. rounds of 2 limes, and 1 big orange cut into chunks, each with skin on it. I actually alternated 2 chicken chunks with the other stuff, and ended up with one skewer that had no fruit and leftover bell pepper. Brush the skewers with melted butter and grill on medium heat (4 to 5 second hand test) for 8 to 10 min., turning to cook all sides (I actually took 12). Optionally, you can brush again with melted butter after you take them off the grill (skipped this, too).

We ate with warm flour tortillas and the kebabs were delicious. Chicken thighs have lots of flavor anyway and the marinade added to it. I used mild jalapenos; hot or a mix of hot and mild would kick up the heat. They were good as is but if you dressed up with sour cream and salsa they would be a big hit with company.

Palena

We have been meaning to go to the formal dining room at Palena for some time and try the prix fixe menu there. So for a special occasion this week we went to test just how well Frank Ruta's famously meticulous and exacting standards worked in practice.

It was fabulous. The best food we have had since Paris. We opted for the more expensive six-course tasting menu and there was not a false note in any of the six courses (nor in the two amuse-bouches, the palate-cleansing sorbet, or the coffee sweets). Everything was fresh, refined, cooked just exactly right, and aesthetically enticing. In addition, the decor and service were just right, very professional but never stuffy, and enhanced the overall dining experience. Despite the high price, it is a great value proposition, given the quality.

Our menu started with a crudo of striped bass on lime creme fraiche. There was the subtlest taste of sea in the fish, not obscured by citric acid, but nothing that would offend those who don't like a fishy taste. The pan-seared sea scallop with pancetta and mushrooms that followed was just superb; you can hardly do scallop like this at home. The rabbit ballotine was a delicate concoction that magically combined the heartiness of the rabbit with the lightness of a ballotine. But it was the gnocci with goat cheese that virtually stole the show; exquisite, full of butter without tasting heavy or greasy.

The main course was roasted chicken breast, which may sound pedestrian to some for a gourmet tasting menu, but this was tender, with a pure real chicken flavor and a light crisp skin and may have been the best chicken breast I've ever eaten. The dessert medley contained a chocolate mousse and an olive oil ice cream, among other delights, but perhaps because it was at the end of such a big meal, we had trouble figuring out what was which -- but they were all good!

I also ordered the wine pairings and they were fine, but six half-glasses for $51 was not a great value, and I would pass in favor or ordering by the glass or the bottle. A half-glass served with each course simply does not make for relaxed sipping between the courses.

The restaurant was just half full on a week night, which was great for us because it was lively enough but not noisy or hectic. I presume Ruta can meet his fixed costs with the expanded cafe operation, where we have often enjoyed the hamburgers and other more mundane offerings. The prix fixe is clearly a labor of love and a standard-setter for DC. I highly recommend this gem to residents and visitors.

Marcella Hazan comfort food

Julia Child certainly pioneered gourmet cooking for our generation, breaking down the complex dishes into easy steps. But Marcella Hazan injected the fun of simple, easy Italian dishes into the equation with The Classic Italian Cook Book, and nowadays it is her recipes we go back to while it's rare that we still do Julia's.

Two perennials that we do every year at least once, though rarely on the same weekend as we did this year, are the pork loin braised in milk and the sauce bolognese. Both dishes apparently come from Bologna, the capital of Emilio-Romagna, generally considered the epicenter of Italian cuisine. Both combine meat and milk in a very un-kosher fashion. Both are incredibly simple and delicious.

For the pork, you take a 2 lb. tied roast, brown it in 2 Tbl. each of butter and oil, salt and pepper, add 2-1/2 c. milk and let it cook for 1-1/2 to 2 hours, turning the pork occasionally and basting it. Add more milk if necessary. When pork is tender, remove and drain fat from pot, add some water and boil quickly to loosen cooking bits. Slice the pork and drizzle the pan juice and brown milk curds over the slices. For the first time, I actually followed Marcella's suggested accompaniment of fried artichoke wedges and they were terrific with the pork.

The sauce bolognese is almost as easy. You soften 2 Tbl chopped onion in 3 Tbl each of butter and oil, add 2 Tbl each of chopped celery and chopped carrot and cook gently for 2 min. Add 3/4 lb. ground beef, breaking it up and cooking over medium heat only to color it. Marcella makes a point in her head not of how important it is not to brown the meat, so that it can get sweet and velvety in the subsequent stewing. She calls for 1 tsp. salt in with the meat but we find that too much and reduce it to 1/2 tsp. Then add 1 c. white wine and cook over medium high heat until evaporated. Then 1/2 c. milk and cook over medium until evaporated. Then 2 c. canned Italian tomatoes, roughly chopped, with their juice. When the tomatoes start to bubble, turn down heat to simmer for 3, 4, or even 5 hours.

Often I do a double portion and freeze some, but since it is already spring I just did the recipe portion (which she optimistically lists as 6 portions). Every time we have it we agree we should have it more often.

Shad roe

Shad roe has always held a particular appeal to me because it was a favorite dish of Nero Wolfe, the fictional detective who got me interested in both food and mysteries. I suppose author Rex Stout picked on shad roe because it is an esoteric gourmet delicacy. Or maybe he just liked it himself.

It is certainly an acquired taste. Like sweetbreads, shad roe is vaguely repulsive-looking in both its raw (see below) and cooked states. I've not always been happy with my efforts at cooking shad roe. I think it's a bit tricky and I haven't had enough shad roe cooked by others to really know how I measure up.

I wandered into The Fishery yesterday because I was solo for supper. Shad roe has a short season in the spring and, like everything else this year, has arrived early. I bought one pair, which cookbooks tell you is enough for two people, but I don't think so. Total weight is 6 to 8 oz., and even though it is rich, half of that is a pretty small portion.

I turned to Mark Bittman's useful primer, Fish, for a basic recipe and settled on the variation with garlic butter, partly because the roe gets floured before sauteeing. So I dusted the roe in flour, sauteed 3 to 4 min. on each side in 2 Tbl. butter, removed and kept warm, put 2 more Tbl. butter in skillet, softened 1 tsp. minced garlic and squeezed in 2 Tbl. fresh lemon juice and drizzled over roe. I accompanied with boiled potatoes.

The roe had a nutty, subtly fishy taste that I liked. I may have slightly overcooked them because I think the texture could have been a little less dry. I may experiment again before the season is over.

My farmhouse kitchen

One of my dreams is a farmhouse kitchen. In Hamburg, I had an apartment with an old tile stove, complete with brass rail, that I outfitted with a modern gas range, and then got an old pine hutch to complement the rustic look. The renovated barn that I had in Princeton had great rustic cabinets made from the original wood from the stalls and I acquired an (overpriced) farm table to go along with it.

We talk about renovating our kitchen here one of these days in the style of an Italian farmhouse, and maybe one day we will. My dream is about that idyllic picture of a kitchen that is the center of meals and gatherings. It usually goes with an outdoor table with lots of friends and family sitting down to a feast. In Umbria, for instance, when I rented the house outside Perugia, there was that atmosphere of a comfy kitchen giving on to a gravel terrace with every meal taken outdoors.

But I've decided that a farmhouse kitchen is a frame of mind. I'm really quite happy puttering around in my half-updated conventional kitchen even though it will never appear in House Beautiful. What makes the kitchen comfortable is not the decor or the equipment, but what you're doing there, how you feel about cooking and how good the result tastes. I realized in France that it's not the size or charm of the kitchen that determines what kind of meal comes out, but the cook. Here, too, what counts is that I enjoy what I'm doing, that I take the time for it and that it's relaxing.

It is good food and the company that creates the atmosphere, not a picture-perfect setting. If I lived in a village I grew up in, yes, I would have family and friends dropping by for informal meals. But I live in a semi-suburb in DC and all my friends are very, very busy, so "dinner parties" are scheduled weeks in advance. I'd like to have more frequent, informal meals with friends, and maybe I'll hit upon a way to arrange that. But in the meantime, I'll just go on making plans weeks in advance. It's still a lot of fun.

Za'atar chicken

I bought some Za'atar spice mix some time ago because Sara Jenkins said she liked it, so I've been wanting to try this roast chicken. She explains that it is a mix of wild dried thyme, sesame seed, sumac and salt. For this recipe, you take 2 Tbl. and mix with 3 Tbl. of butter at room temperature and 4 finely chopped garlic cloves. You smear the butter mixture underneath the skin of the breasts and thighs on a whole chicken. You rub olive oil over the chicken, salt and pepper. You put 1/2 a small peeled onion in the cavity with 4 springs of thyme and a 2-in. strip of lemon peel (skin only, no pith), and more salt and pepper. Tie the legs together and put the chicken on a rack in a roasting pan and pop into a 425-degree preheated oven. Turn the heat down to 350 degrees after 15 min. Baste the chicken with pan juices every 20 min. and roast for 1 to 1-1/4 hrs. (165 degrees internal temperature). Let it sit 10 min. before carving/serving.

The chicken was delicious. It staid very moist. The spice flavor was very subtle -- the mix might be a little old. I had expected more of a Middle East flavor, but the overall effect was so good, that's not really a complaint. I served it with couscous and a braised fennel and tomato recipe from Patricia Wells.

I've gradually come to the conclusion that Patricia Wells is not that great a cookbook author. I met her a couple of times long ago in Paris when I worked for her husband, Walter, at the Herald Tribune and have dutifully collected a number of her books over the years. The Food Lovers' Guide to Paris, which made her fortune, is a nice book and she is a better food writer than cookbook author. I've rarely had anything of hers come out really great, and this fennel recipe from her Provence Cookbook was no exception.

I'm probably just spoiled by other, better writers (Sara Jenkins!), whose instructions are totally reliable and who anticipate any deviations or possible mishaps. In her recipe, Wells has you trim and quarter 2 lbs of fennel bulbs (this was only 2, no surprise), and peel and quarter 2 large onions (I used 2-1/2 medium onions, had 1/2 onion left over from chicken above). You sweat the onions in 1/4 c. olive oil in a covered skillet for 5 min., then add the fennel, cover and cook for another 10 min., add the six peeled and halved cloves of garlic and 1/2 c. white wine and reduce for 5 min. Then add a 28-oz. can of plum tomatoes and cook for 30 min.

This is where the trouble begins. She says to crush the tomatoes to break them up; that doesn't really work. Why not chop them or just get the chopped tomatoes? The sweating had made the onions somewhat tender, but the fennel remained firm and crisp and 30 min. of simmering didn't change that too much. Were these bigger, more mature fennel bulbs than Wells gets in her market in Provence. Perhaps, but a word of warning would have been nice. It's nothing a little more cooking won't fix, but it throws your meal timing off. Also, while you can hardly go wrong with these ingredients, this recipe could use a little pepping up with a herb. I'm hopeful that warming it up and cooking it some more will make it a good second-day dish.

So I'll continue to use her books (I have so many of them!) but will treat her recipes with more skepticism.

Roast chicken with Dijon mustard

It may be that no one has done a cookbook on roasting before because it's so simple. I've always admired cookbook authors, however, who are not afraid to put in simple recipes. It was one of the things that drew me to Marcella Hazan. Those of us who haven't really learned in a cooking tradition can benefit from descriptions of the simplest techniques.

So I appreciate Molly Stevens filling her All About Roasting with simple recipes. This one involves taking chicken pieces -- she recommends cutting up a whole chicken but you can use any bone-in, skin-on pieces -- and massaging them in 1/3 c. Dijon mustard, salt and pepper and leaving them in the bowl covered with plastic (outside the fridge) for 1-1/2 hrs. (alternatively, 4 hrs. in the fridge). Then you put them into a baking dish where they're not squeezed or overlapping (9x13), put a dollop of creme fraiche on each piece (1/4 c. altogether), and pour 1/4 c. white wine or vermouth around the pieces (not over, or  you'll wash off the mustard), and pop them in a preheated 375-degree oven for 45 min.

When done, remove the chicken pieces to a platter and cover loosely with foil. Pour sauce into saucepan and reduce by half for 4 to 8 min. Stir in 1 to 2 Tbl. lemon juice and 2 Tbl. chopped herbs (tarragon, chervil or parsley) and ladle sauce over chicken pieces. Serve with rice or buttered noodles.

Whole Foods had a great Friday special on whole chickens so I got one and used this recipe. It was really very good -- the chicken stayed very moist and had a lot of flavor from the mustard (though not sharply mustardy) and the sauce had a wonderful chicken flavor from the rendered fat. We had the buttered noodles and they soaked up the sauce nicely. I had parsley on hand, so used it, but this would be divine with tarragon.

Chick peas

I'm a fan of chick peas in all its forms -- hummus, falafel, cooked, purreed -- and just hit the indexes the other day to find a recipe. Came up with Garbanzos a la Catalana (chick peas with tomatoes, fresh sausage and peppers) from an early Paula Wolfert book, Mediterranean Cooking. She says it's very popular in Barcelona, where they use a special Catalonian sausage.

Very simple in concept, though a little labor intensive, you soak the dried chick peas overnight, then cook for 1 hour or until tender, and drain, reserving 2 c. of the cooking liquid. You prick and brown a mild pork sausage -- I used Whole Foods mild Italian -- and then cut it into 1-in. chunks. In the grease, you saute 1 c. chopped onion, 1 tsp. minced garlic, and 1 c. diced green pepper along with 5 oz. of slab bacon or lean salt pork that you have simmered in water for 10 min. Then you add 4 large peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes, grating of nutmeg, 1 tsp. ground thyme, salt and pepper, cover and cook for 10 min. Then you fold the sausage chunks into the tomato sauce, put the chick peas into a 13-in. wide, 2-in. deep baking dish, spoon the tomato sauce over it, "moisten" with the cooking liquid, cover with aluminum foil and put into preheated 375-degree oven for 1-1/2 hrs., stirring occasionally.

This was a quick pre-bridge dinner for us, but you could dress it up with some bread and salad. If you like chick peas at all, this an easy, tasty recipe.

Duck legs braised in port and dried cherries

I knew if I kept searching I would find duck legs one of these days. I had a chance to swing by Balducci's in Wildwood Shopping Center and found a package, conveniently enough, of exactly the four moulard legs weighing 3-1/2 lbs. called for in this recipe from Molly Stevens' All About Braising.


It seemed perfect for this week's special event (which we don't celebrate at a restaurant). You start the day before by grinding 1 tsp. lightly toasted coriander seeds with 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns and 1/2 tsp. allspice berries, then mix that with 1 Tbl. chopped thyme and 1-1/2 tsp. coarse salt. You rub this spice mix over the duck legs, which you have trimmed of fat and skin flaps, and refrigerate overnight. Also, you take 1/2 c. (3 oz.) of dried, unsweetened cherries and "plump" them overnight in 1 c. tawny port.

The next day you brown the duck legs in a cast iron skillet, putting them skin side down over medium heat and not moving them for about 7 min. Check that the skin has crisped then turn over to brown flesh side for 3 or 4 min. No need to add fat because the legs render fat quickly. Drain off the fat from the first batch and repeat with second batch. Keep 2 Tbl. of fat to saute 1 large, thinly sliced shallot for 1 or 2 min., then add the cherries and port and reduce in half for 4 or 5 min. Add a bay leaf and 1 c. chicken stock, and reduce in half again, for about 8 min.

Place the duck legs in a 4 to 5 qt. braising pan, pour over the braising liquid, cover with parchment paper, pushing it down towards the legs and leaving an inch or so around the outside, cover tightly and put into preheated 325-degree oven. Check after first half hour that liquid is not simmering too fast. After 1 hr. cooking, turn legs over. Cook for 2 hrs altogether.

Remove the legs to a sheet pan and pour braising liquid into saucepan. The legs will have rendered a lot more fat, so skim that off the top and reduce the liquid to a syrupy sauce. Check for seasoning and keep at a low simmer. Meanwhile, turn the oven heat up to 475 degrees and put the legs in skin side up to crisp, for 8 to 10 min. Put on a platter and ladle the cherry-port sauce over it.

Now I like duck, and braised duck in particular, and this was pretty spectacular. Following Stevens' suggestion, we accompanied with creamy polenta and a California Zinfandel and it was truly a special meal for a special occasion.

Jerusalem artichokes

I'm sure it's my fault but I'm always a little disappointed with Deborah Madison and the other folks from Greens. We have three of the cookbooks from Greens and about all I ever use them for is techniques for grilling vegetables (which are quite good!). I bought Madison's Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmer's Markets when it came out precisely so I could go to the farmer's market, buy whatever looked good, and come home and find a nice recipe for it.

It hardly ever works out that way. I find generally that, as in the other books, the recipes are just too complicated, requiring too many other ingredients, and designed more to be a vegetarian meal rather than a vegetable dish. That may be great for vegetarians, but, while I don't mind the occasional vegetarian meal, I generally want vegetables as a side to a meat dish.

Anyway, the Sheridan School farmer's market had Jerusalem artichokes, so I bought some and looked for a recipe in Local Flavors. There was one for Jerusalem artichokes, artichokes and lentils that I decided to go ahead with and just leave out the artichokes. It calls for only 1/3 cup black or green lentils, which you cook for 25 min. in 2-1/2 c. water with 1/2 tsp. salt. Drain and reserve the liquid.

If you have artichokes you trim and quarter them, then dice them, and put them in a bowl with lemon juice to keep them from discoloring. You scrub the Jerusalem artichokes (don't need to peel them) and slice them into 1/3-in. slices. You put both vegetables in a skillet with 1-1/2 Tbl. of olive oil and 4 shallots, peeled and sliced into 1/3-in. slices. Sautee all this for 4 to 5 min. and season with 1/2 tsp. salt and some pepper, add 3/4 c. of the reserved lentil broth, cover and simmer for 20 min. Then add the lentils and 2 tsp. chopped tarragon or marjoram and cook for 5 min. Stir in 2 Tbl. butter and sprinkle 1 Tbl. chopped parsley over it. Madison says to serve with a small dried pasta or as a side to roast chicken or duck. We served with gnochetti sardi.

This was tasty enough, though fairly sluggish looking (not great for presentation at a dinner party, for instance). It would have helped if I added some lemon juice even without the artichokes (no doubt the artichokes would have helped, too, but they wouldn't add any color) and had a fresh herb instead of dried tarragon. It was just not compelling enough that I would ever do it again.

Perhaps it is just the fate of Jerusalem artichokes to be part of fairly dull-looking dishes. I found fewer recipes than I thought I would when I actually brought them home (you know how it is, you see nothing but Jerusalem artichoke recipes until you finally have some and then you can't find one to save your life).

Persimmon

Ever since some friends introduced us to the art of sitting at the bar at Persimmon and making a meal out of their ample starters -- the lobster roll and fish tacos are our favorites -- that has been the way we visit this longtime Bethesda restaurant.

But the bar was full the other night and a table opened up just as we arrived, so we sat in the main dining room and decided to go whole hog by ordering entrees. The food was very, very good, on a par with Matisse and certainly not any more expensive.

We split the fennel and arugula salad, which was fresh, crisp and perfectly dressed, with delicious shavings of ricotta. I had the roasted magret of duck with a celery root galette and hash of sweet potato, bacon and duck confit. It was all stacked attractively in a small pillar with a thick, dark sauce and it was excellent. Andrea got the pan-seared salmon with artichokes, mushrooms and basil risotto. She reported it was tasty but noted that the salmon portion was too small at something like 4 oz.

We'd always had reservations about the noise level in the main dining room, which is quite small. And it was indeed very noisy. But the warm ambiance, the full panoply of tablecloths, silver and all that stuff, as well as the quality of the food, made it all bearable. The server was a little stressed and let it show; the bar, ironically, was extraordinarily slow in getting our drinks out. In short, we will probably still opt for the bar seats first, but we might be more venturesome in our ordering.

Beef stew with juniper berries

In her Glorious Soups and Stews of Italy, Domenica Marchetti helpfully has the recipes divided into the four seasons and I had long since earmarked this one to have sometime in winter. It gets a lot of flavor from a marinade that uses a full bottle of wine. It was delicious with beef, though she says it can also be used with boar or regular pork.

The recipe calls for 3-1/2 lbs of boneless chuck, trimmed and cut into 1-1/2" cubes. The cut I got was marked "local beef" at Whole Foods and was very tender for chuck. It was easy to cut into cubes though there were a couple of slabs of fat to remove. You put the meat cubes into a Dutch oven and throw in 1 small thinly sliced yellow onion, 1 peeled and coarsely chopped carrot, 1 large coarsely chopped rib of celery, 4 small sprigs of fresh rosemary, 6 fresh sage leaves, 2 fresh bay leaves (I used dried), 4 sprigs flat-leaf parsley, 1 Tbl slightly bruised juniper berries, 1 tsp black peppercorns. Then you pour in the bottle of red wine (she says Chianti, I used a California blend), stir things around gently, cover and refrigerate for 24 to 48 hours (I did 22).

To cook the stew, you extract the pieces of meat from the marinade and pat them dry. You strain the marinade into a bowl and throw away the solids, saving the liquid. You brown the meat in 2 Tbl of olive oil, about 5 min. Add more oil if necessary and saute 1 large or 2 medium chopped yellow onions and 1 peeled and finely chopped carrot for another 5 min. Then add a paste made from 1 clove of garlic pressed through a garlic press and 1 tsp salt, cook for another minute or two. Return meat to pot, add a new sprig of rosemary and 1/2 tsp juniper berries, and pour in the reserved marinade liquid, adding water if needed to cover the ingredients. Bring to a simmer and cook for 2-1/2 to 3 hours.

Since she recommended a saffron risotto as an accompaniment and I want to improve my risotto technique, that's what I fixed, though it's somewhat extravagant for a weekday meal. I did better this time, but it still needs some work. Following Marchetti's directions, I sauteed another chopped onion in butter and oil, sauteed the rice (carnaroli this time), and ladled in the broth a half-cup at a time. Halfway through I added in 1/2 tsp chopped saffron threads dissolved in a half-cup of the broth. She said 20 to 25 min. at medium heat, and I think this is too fast and too hot. I checked Marcella Hazan afterwards, and she says regulate the heat so that the rice cooks in 30 min. My problem is always that it cooks too fast, so I think I need to lower the heat. Also, Marchetti specified 3x liquid to rice but Marcella has 3-1/2x ratio. So a little more time, a little more liquid, and a little less heat next time! Added butter and parmesan at end, of course. A very nice meal with plenty of leftovers.

Pan-to-oven pork chops with garlic

The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is one of those books I love having, but I can't say I've been able to use it much. Partly because it is really a very pedagogical book about meat, written with English style and wit, but many of the lessons are specific to the British context they are written in.

Still, I'm sure there are many wonderful things in it if I can find them. This particular dish is really more of a technique than a recipe and Hugh (I hesitate to use the hyphenated surname) suggests some interesting variations.

The operative word here is garlic. You take one large head or two normal heads and "release" all the cloves without peeling them (anyone who remembers Gerard Depardieu in "Green Card" knows just how to do this). Crush them slightly with the blade of a knife, but the peel will keep them from burning. Now, embarrassingly, I had closer to one normal head of garlic because I thought wrongly there was more on hand, so we probably missed out on the full impact of this recipe.

You place an ovenproof dish that can hold 4 pork chops in the oven and heat it to 425 degrees. Then you heat "a little" olive oil in a skillet and fry the garlic cloves there for a few minutes. Add the chops and brown them just one minute on each side, seasoning as you turn. Remove the chops to the ovenproof dish, scoop out the garlic cloves with a slotted spoon and distribute over the chops, and deglaze the skillet with 1 c. white wine. You reduce by half and pour over the chops. Hugh makes a big point of having the "bony end" of the chop sticking up in the air so it will get crispy while the meaty end stays in the braising juices, but none of my chops had a protruding bony end. You return the dish to the oven and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, basting the chops halfway through. He suggests serving with mashed potatoes and steamed greens, though we had risotto cakes left over from Henry's Super Bowl party.

The technique works for any kind of chop, Hugh says. He offers suggestions for veal with lemon and capers or lamb with garlic and anchovies, but those will be for another day.

The Vineyard at the End of the World

My review of The Vineyard at the End of the World: Maverick Winemakers and the Rebirth of Malbec by Ian Mount appeared today in The Washington Independent Review of Books:

Aficionados will lap up this history of the Argentine wine industry and its signature grape, Malbec. Writing in a lively, journalistic style, Ian Mount combines colorful vignettes and extensive interviews of the key players with a wealth of information to provide the definitive word on what has become a mainstay of New World wine.

Mount writes authoritatively about wine. His deft descriptions explain why it’s important how vines are planted, how the grapes are picked, how high the pH level should be, why oxygen must be avoided at all costs, how modern equipment and techniques have improved the product, and how revolutionary the last three decades have been in creating a wonderful new world of wine.

The story he tells is truly astonishing. Argentina has a tradition of wine growing and production dating back to the conquistadors. Waves of Italian immigrants well-schooled in Old World vineyards gave the country a robust wine culture. But Argentina often remained mired in autarkic economic policies, at times a political and economic pariah in the world community. Through much of the country’s history, Argentine vintners produced a cheap, substandard wine, (“plonk” is one of Mount’s favorite words) suitable only for domestic consumption.

It was only as the wine revolution in Europe and California was under way that a handful of intrepid Argentine winemakers brought in these foreign consultants to study the challenges posed by the hot, dry climate of the country’s western wine-growing regions. Hoping at first to compete in a global market dominated by Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, they developed Argentine versions of these varietals that gave them their first export products.

Through trial and error, patience and skill, the winemakers and their foreign consultants eventually came to the realization that the Malbec grape, one of the original constituents of fine Bordeaux wines that had survived as an ugly-duckling varietal in the New World, offered the best opportunity to create a distinctive, world-class wine. With its dark, inky color and fruity flavor, Malbec previously had been used to lend body to thin clarets. By adapting the grape to the Argentine terroir and using modern techniques, a new generation of winemakers was able to create a wine that could not only stand on its own but enrich what had become a truly global market.

Mount tells the story with verve and distills a great amount of research and reporting into his book. But he makes the reader work a little harder than necessary by failing to mold the story into a tight narrative. The wine connoisseur will relish every detail, but the general reader and casual wine consumer may not have the motivation to read through the early chapters about the settling of western Argentina and the often extraneous details about some of the colorful characters involved.

Without a strong narrative arc, the book, even though it is roughly chronological, emerges as a somewhat disjointed series of anecdotes, vignettes, snatches of historical research and a textbook on wine production. Rather than plunging us immediately into the historical beginnings of the Argentine wine industry, Mount could have made it easier for the reader by starting with the success of Malbec — this is what we’re most familiar with — and then going back into history to explain where it all comes from after he had us hooked.

When Mount does get to the series of events that brought the new Malbec wines to the world, even though he clearly has talked to numerous sources on three continents, his account seems to rely heavily on Nicolás Catena and the role of his family company. However crucial Catena’s contribution might have been, the book at times reads almost like a corporate history.

Nonetheless, Mount does not gloss over Catena’s failings, describing him at times as Machiavellian. The author presents both sides regarding Catena’s final break with his longtime consultant, Paul Hobbs, but the parting was obviously acrimonious because of competing claims about who should get the credit for discovering Malbec.

In any case, The Vineyard at the End of the World is a great read for anyone caught up in the romance of wine (or, for that matter, the romance of Argentina). It is amazing in retrospect that the breakthrough for Malbec and for Argentine wines in general took place in the mid-90s, less than two decades ago.

For expert and casual consumers alike, the dazzling array of wine choices now available at affordable prices has reached Bacchanalian proportions. Ian Mount’s book, focusing on this one important location, helps us appreciate the history, the talent and the hard work that has gone into making that possible.

Darrell Delamaide, a Washington, D.C.-based writer, has visited vineyards on four continents. His latest book is The Grand Mirage, a historical thriller.

Lamb and lettuce stew with Avgolemono sauce

I'm so impressionable that as I was reading Murder in Mykonos I was getting "homesick" for Greece. Granted, my five-week visit to the Peloponnese and several islands decades ago hardly makes Greece a second home, but it left a powerful impression on me. In any case, author Jeffrey Siger's great descriptions took me back and prompted me to break out the ouzo for an aperitif and rummage through Andy Harris's Modern Greek for this recipe. It's very simple, ideal for a weekday and delicious. The lamb is a bit of a splurge, but it's still cheaper than going out for a burger these days.

You take 3 lbs. of boned leg of lamb, trimmed and cubed and brown it in 3 Tbl. of olive oil for 10 min. Then you add 2 "heads" of Romaine lettuce (I used 2 of the Romaine hearts that are now sold in packages), finely shredded; 2 bunches of green onions, finely chopped; and a small bunch of dill, finely chopped, and cook, stirring, for another 10 min., until the greens are thoroughly wilted. Then you add salt and pepper, and water to cover (I only needed 2 c.) and simmer for 1 to 1-1/2 hours, until meat is tender (only took an hour).

You let it cool some before whipping up the Avgolemono sauce. Now Andrea rolled out that word like she was born in Greece, though she admitted she'd never made it, but while I'm pretty sure I've had it in Greek dishes, I'd never encountered it in a recipe before. Anyway, very simple. You lightly beat two eggs, whisk in the juice of 1-1/2 lemon, whisk in a ladleful of the broth from the stew, and then stir it all into the stew and cook over low heat a few minutes for it to thicken. Serve with bread (I used ciabatta in the absence of a decent hard-crust bread).

The lettuce had disintegrated to the point that Andrea asked whether the sauce had been purreed. Nope. A nice, different flavor and a great light stew.

14th Street NW

The bustling 14th Street corridor is also adding some interesting food stores and my intrepid neighbors venture across the park to explore them.

Smucker Farms, located in the Amish country of Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, has opened an outlet at 2118 14th St. (at V), which carries meat, dairy and baked products from the Amish farms, and the usual assortment of jams, pickles and other farmer's market products. I got some uncured bacon, a slab of ham, and other goodies for a surprisingly high tab. I'm sure the quality is good, and I know you have to pay premium prices for these small-production foods. But I do have a bit the feeling, as I do at the Dupont Circle farmer's market, that the vendors are testing the upper limits of what they can charge. We'll see how prices develop here as time goes on.

There is also a nice little bakery, Le Caprice, at 3460, worth further exploration.

It is of course in these gentrifying neighborhoods that interesting new shops will spring up. It certainly bears monitoring.

I'm still waiting for a real butcher -- someone who displays the meat in the case and to whom you can talk about getting odd cuts. For instance, Molly Stevens has a porchetta recipe that calls for a boneless pork loin with the belly flap attached and the skin on. She readily concedes you can't get this from your normal supermarket butcher, and I'm betting that this is yet another test Wagshal's will flunk. Nor have I been impressed by the two "butcher shops" in Alexandria. There is a meat renaissance going on in the real food meccas but it looks like we still have to wait here in poor old DC.

Penne with red and yellow pepper sauce

From The Italian Farmer's Table again, super simple: Brush 2 red bell peppers and 2 yellow bell peppers with olive oil and roast 30 min. in 425-degree oven. Put in plastic bag for 20 min. and peel and cut into strips. Saute 2 peeled garlic cloves in 2 Tbl olive oil until golden then add pepper strips for 5 min. Put all in blender to purree. Return to skillet and add 1/4 c. heavy cream, salt and pepper and warm through. Cook and drain the pasta. Drain and toss with the sauce, adding 1/4 c. parmesan and topping with 1 Tbl. chopped oregano.

Blue44, Take 2

At a neighbor's insistence, we tried Blue44 again and I have to say the neighbor was right. It deserved a second look after a rather desultory experience last spring when it first opened. Perhaps it is the new chef, or simply hitting their stride.

The menu had a number of appealing items on it, but I started with something that does not appear on the menu and which was really terrific -- the gumbo soup. The chef is from New Orleans and this is a flavorful, spicy concoction with big chunks of chicken and andouillet, hot peppers and onions and, presumably, gumbo filet. It is offered, when available, as a soup of the day, and that's one diem that should be carpe-d at every opportunity.

Then the dilemma of what to do next, because it is a filling starter. One in our party who also had the gumbo wisely chose another starter, a homemade merguez on baguette. It was a modest portion but looked very tasty. Another gumbo eater wisely chose the half-sandwich option available only for the grilled cheese of the day -- in this case with braised beef as well as cheese between the toasty bread. This looked more ample and surely would have completed a meal for a normal appetite.

I rather unwisely, from the point of view of quantity, chose the black velvet chicken, a sandwich so named because a breaded chicken cutlet is topped with a truffled goat cheese and a fig jam on baguette. The chicken needed salt -- and this is hard to correct on a sandwich -- but it was a great combination and I managed to do it justice by leaving some of the bread. I will say that the baby back ribs ordered by another in our party, smoked with a dry rub and glistening with a non-tomato sauce, looked very tasty -- and were devoured with great relish by the lucky recipient. It means that I will have to go back again soon to try them.

It was rainy Saturday lunch so that even though the restaurant was surprisingly full, it was not overcrowded or noisy. The decor and ambiance are pleasant. There is a certain amount of distraction and noise that will be unavoidable in a family-friendly neighborhood restaurant, but I think it can be a good target late on weekday evenings or for this type of Saturday lunch. The quality can compete with Buck's and the menu offers a great deal more variety.

Risotto with caramelized onions and gorgonzola

This was another recipe from The Italian Farmer's Table, also simple enough for a weekday. It is a rich risotto and very tasty. The trick is to caramelize red onions by taking 3 thinly sliced red onions and putting them into a skillet with 3 Tbl melted butter, coating them and letting soften over medium heat for 5 min. Then you add a pinch of salt, reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for about 30 min., stirring occasionally. Then you raise the heat to medium high, add 1 c. ruby port and let the onions simmer for another 25 min. They reduce quite a bit in volume and the liquid completely evaporates.

During this last part, make the risotto. This recipe has you saute 1 finely "diced" medium yellow onion in 2 Tbl of butter in a 12-in. saute pan for 8 to 10 min., then add 2 c. arborio rice and cook for another 2 to 3 min. You then pour in 1/2 c. dry vermouth and let that evaporate before you start to add the 1 qu. chicken broth, ladle by ladle. I don't do risotto often enough and my technique still needs some work. The rice was cooked al dente but too dry; I needed to add more liquid to keep it creamy at the end.

To finish, you stir in 1 more Tbl butter, 1/4 c. parmesan and the caramelized onions. You serve and top with 4 oz. crumbled gorgonzola. It's a great dish if you like caramelized onions and risotto (and gorgonzola!) as much as we do.

Roasted pork tenderloin with grape sauce

Pork tenderloin has got to be one of the easiest, best-tasting cuts of meat to cook, but acquiring it has become something of an art here. Whole Foods gets its delivery on Wednesday, but, as one of their butchers patiently explained to me some time ago, the relatively small shipment of pork tenderloin has to be allocated among all the WF stores in the city.

As a result, the tenderloin is almost always gone by the weekend. This effectively means that if you want tenderloin, you have to shop for it on Wednesday or Thursday. Last weekend, for instance, our first choice was tenderloin, but no dice, so we had to settle for rack of lamb (sigh).

So when I was shopping Thursday I got a single tenderloin for us and tried a simple little recipe from The Italian Farmer's Table by Matthew Scialabba and Melissa Pellegrino, which purports to have gathered home recipes from farms in Northern Italy that host paying guests.

I actually used the roasting technique from Molly Stevens' Roasting, which is the recipe that caught my eye last weekend. She browns the tenderloin on all 4 sides over 8 minutes and puts on a sheet pan to roast at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 min (she actually says 13 to 18) or to 140 to 145 degrees. The other book has you brown it on one side, then turn over, put two pats of butter on the cooked side, and stick the skillet in the oven. Six of one, etc., but I liked the idea of actually browning it on all sides. Scialabba and Pellegrino specify grapeseed oil for the browning and since we had a small bottle tucked away in the pantry, I used that.

In both cases, you salt and pepper beforehand. Stevens even recommends seasoning several hours beforehand, but I didn't manage to do that. Let me parenthetically add that I've become a true believer in sea salt (as opposed to kosher salt) and believe it truly does enhance the flavor. It was Sara Jenkins who made this point forcefully in Olives and Oranges. There are some people who think it doesn't make any difference, but I'm pretty sold on it.

What I liked about the Farmer's Table recipe was the grape sauce. You take 1 c. of grapes (red, green or mix) and put them in the skillet with a little salt for 3 to 5 min., until they start to give up their juices, then you swirl in 1 Tbl honey mustard, 1 Tbl warm water and 1 Tbl chopped thyme and cook together for 1 min. When the tenderloin is done, you let it rest a few minutes, then slice and spoon the sauce over the slices.

The photo in the book (I often start using a new cookbook by taking the ones that are photographed first) showed what looked like sauteed apple wedges on the plate as well. I could have just sauteed some apple wedges but I sneaked a quick peek at a tenderloin recipe in Anne Willan's Regional French Cooking, which she accompanies with caramelized apple rings. You don't peel the apples, but just core them and slice into thick rings. You dip one side in 2 Tbl of sugar and put into a skillet with 2 Tbl butter, cover and cook at high heat for 3 to 5 min., then sprinkle the top side with more sugar, turn over, cover and cook (be careful, the second side cooks much faster and mine got a little dark).

We had with a green salad and a Mondavi fume blanc.

Chicken baked in yogurt with spinach

I haven't done too many specifically Greek dishes and I'm not sure Modern Greek by Andy Harris is as kitchen-tested as some of the bigger names in cookbook writing, but this was a pretty good recipe.

It calls for 4 bone-in chicken breasts (meaning halves of course) that you brown in a skillet where you have sauteed 2 sliced onions in 2 Tbl. olive oil and removed them with a slotted spoon. You put the browned chicken breasts with the onions into an oven proof dish and cover that with a yogurt mix.

Now Harris either has runnier Greek yogurt that I got at Whole Foods or he has cheesecloth that's much more porous, because I got nowhere with his direction to strain 2 lbs (4 c.) of Greek yogurt through a cheesecloth. I don't think a steamroller could have gotten that stiff yogurt through the cheesecloth. I finally was able to strain it through a sieve (and not my finest sieve), though since he gives no explanation of why you strain it I'm not sure what it achieved. Just beating it would have smoothed it and made it more fluid, if that was the objective.

So anyway you add 2 cloves finely chopped garlic, 3 Tbl. all-purpose flour, 2 tsp. dried mint, 1 tsp. ground cumin, salt, pepper, and 2 lightly beaten eggs to the yogurt and mix well. This is the mix you spread over the chicken and onions. You sprinkle 2 Tbl. of grated parmesan (or kefalotiri if you happen to have that) and pop it into a 350-degree oven for 40 min.

As always, these breasts from WF were huge, so I left the chicken in the oven nearly an hour and the yogurt mix was just set and browned. I could only guess how much salt to use in the yogurt mix and I erred on the low side; next time I think I would just salt and pepper the chicken directly after browning. My mint flakes were evidently 10 years old because they contributed nothing.

The recipe also calls for 2 bunches of steamed fresh spinach as an accompaniment. This was great and we had a green salad, too.

Roasted rack of lamb with spiced honey glaze

What a special treat! We liked the double rack pork rib roast so much we wanted to try another recipe from Molly Stevens' new book, Roasting.

For this one, you combine 1/4 c. honey, 2 Tbl. butter, 1 tsp. paprika, 1 tsp. cumin seed (toasted and ground), 1/4 tsp. ground ginger and a pinch of cayenne. You sprinkle the 2 1 to 1-1/2 lb. racks (8 ribs each) with salt and pepper, brush half the glaze onto the racks and put into a 425-degree oven. After 10 min. baste with the drips of glaze and check temperature every 5 min. to get to about 135 for medium rare.

Add 3 Tbl. lemon juice and 2 minced garlic cloves to the remaining glaze in a saucepan, bring to a simmer and reduce to a syrup, season. Rest the racks of lamb then carve and dribble with glaze syrup and sprinkle with chopped mint. I carved double chops and used chopped parsley because I couldn't find mint.

This was a very special meal, which we paired with her vegetable suggestion, quick-roasted sugar snap peas with sesame salt.  You take 1 lb of the sugar snap peas, pull of strings as necessary, spread on sheet pan and toss in olive oil. You roast them about 12 min. in a 475-degree oven, until blistered and blackened in part. You prepare the sesame salt by toasting 2 Tbl. of sesame seeds in a skillet, mixing with 1/4 tsp. sea salt and grinding to a coarse mixture. When peas are ready, put them in bowl and sprinkle with the sesame salt.

For wine, we had a very nice Bordeaux I had been saving for a special occasion.

Chicken Thighs with Pineau des Charentes

I first discovered Pineau des Charentes during a camping trip through Charente-Maritime. It is a mix of cognac, the famous product of the region, with lightly fermented grape must and can be drunk either as an aperitif or a dessert wine. To my surprise, Paul's actually carries it and they kindly offered a discount.

This lovely little recipe is from a newly acquired Paula Wolfert cookbook, The Cooking of Southwest France. While it may technically be part of the Mediterranean region, SW France seems to use more animal fat and dairy products than olive oil. In any case, this recipe, with its abundant amounts of butter and cream, would be right at home in Normandy, too, though probably with Calvados instead of Pineau.

You start by crumbling 1/2 oz. dried porcini in a strainer and rinsing with cold water, then put the pieces in a bowl covered with 1 c. hot water and let sit at least 30 min. Then you take 6 to 8 chicken thighs, about 2 lbs, and put them skin side down in a large skillet where 3 Tbl butter have melted and come to a sizzle. You sprinkle with salt and pepper and brown them, not turning, for 5 min. or so. You drain off most of the fat, add 1 c. of Pineau and quickly light it while it's warming up. The flames lasted a good minute, a testimony to the alcoholic content of the Pineau! Once they have subsided, add 1 Tbl of chopped shallot, cook for 1 min., turn over the chicken pieces (there's still a considerable amount of liquid), cover and cook over moderate heat for 25 min.

Meanwhile, clean and quarter 1 lb. of cremini mushrooms and drain the porcini through a coffee filter and strainer, reserving both the porcini pieces and the soaking liquid separately. When the liquid in the skillet has reduced to a glaze and the thighs are cooked through, turn the chicken once again to glaze the skin side and remove to a plate. Wipe out the skillet (I actually had to use a new skillet because my nonstick skillet was too encrusted), melt 2 Tbl butter and sautee the mushrooms and porcini for 5 min. Add the reserved soaking liquid and cook for about 10 min until that reduces to a glaze, then add 1/2 c. heavy cream and cook for another 5 min. to reach a sauce consistency. Put the thighs back in, skin side up, partially cover skillet and gently reheat. Sprinkle with chopped chives and parsley to serve. We had noodles and green salad with it. It's quite a spectacular little dish, for being so cheap and easy.

Oddly enough, Whole Foods was selling its thighs with a back portion attached. What is the use of this? Is it just a way to increase the weight? I removed the back portions and froze them for my next batch of stock but it's a step I could have done without.

Mourayo

The new-fashioned Greek restaurant opened a few years ago at Dupont Circle and has doubled in size since my last visit there. I've been wanting to get back and a business dinner presented the perfect opportunity. It turned out to be ideal -- the charming mahogany decor was warm and welcoming on our first snowy day. Mourayo means "safe harbor" and the decor, they say, is inspired by the inside of a Greek yacht. The weather kept the Restaurant Week crowd at bay so that the place, which is probably not too noisy even when busy, was quiet for a conversation, even though a birthday party of 9 or 10 came into our corner midway through.

The food was great. I remembered they imported their own Greek olive oil and was eager to taste it again after learning so much from Extra Virginity. It had that bitterness, fruitiness and peppery taste a really good oil is supposed to have. I had one of the three ouzos they import (no flights this time!) and we had a bottle of Santorini white (it might have been the Sigalas, I didn't order it) with the meal.

My starter was grilled octopus and it was plenty fresh, sitting nicely in an inky sauce and accompanied with humus. I also took the opportunity since we weren't in a hurry to get the whole fish baked in salt. It was branzino and it was delicious. The waiter expertly broke open the crust and filleted it at the table, so it was warm and moist and flavorful (I drizzled some of that olive oil over it). I had some nicely roasted potatoes (hot!) and fresh cooked spinach as sides. My companion ordered the duck moussaka and raved about it.

To finish, we split their jarred feta with what was supposed to be honey, though it tasted more like jam to me. It was a nice way to round out the meal but nothing special. They actually were able to muster up a decent Greek coffee and we tried the mastic liqueur from Chios as a digestif (a little too sweet and masticky for my taste -- I'd try their "marc" after dinner drinks next time).

El Centro DF

Had a very nice time at this new Mexican on 14th Street. Sitting at the bar waiting for our table and watching the food come out of the open kitchen, I fell in love with the Chicken Zarape, a moist chicken breast blanketed with chipotle sauce, topped with a sprinkling of cheese and accompanied by creamy rice and refried beans. It just looked great and I was not disappointed when I actually tasted it. I rarely order chicken in a restaurant but this was well-justified exception.

The grilled skirt steak huaraches and shrimp ceviche appetizers we shared at our table were both good. The churros were a big disappointment, heavy and clearly not freshly made, but the accompanying chocolate and caramel sauces were fine.

What threatens to steal the show at this place is the tequila selection. On the helpful recommendation from our waiter, I got a "vertical tasting" flight of Corzo tequilas. His reasoning was that you can get Don Julio and Herradura everywhere, but Corzo is a little known producer of very fine tequilas, he said. I can't disagree. The tastings of blanco, reposado and anejo were all excellent, though, as is the nature of these small servings, left me wanting more. Another time!

Broiled salmon with bacon and peas

From Jenkins' Olive and Oranges: Her tip is to broil the salmon fillet skin side up after salt and pepper on flesh side and then brushing skin with olive oil and lightly salt and pepper that side too. It takes about 10 min. until skin is blistered and black in parts and flesh is done through.

For the accompaniment, you render three strips of thick cut bacon at low temperature (in what seems to be a rare mistake, Jenkins gives no direction to cut the bacon cross-wise into strips, though this would be the only sensible way to do it for this dish). After 10 min. add 1/3 c. minced onion and render it for 10 min. You can stop here. When ready to broil fish, add 1/2 c. water, bring to a boil and add 1 lb. sugar snap peas (snow peas) and cook until tender, about 8 min. Stir in 1 Tbl. butter and 1/4 c. chopped mint (I used parsley). Spoon over pieces of broiled fillet.

This was totally delicious and easy to fix for a weekday. You can also use regular fresh peas and I was ready to use frozen peas.

Mediterranean Diet

I'm using diet not in sense of a weight-loss program but in the more general sense of a type of eating. Inspired by the virtues of olive oil extolled in Extra Virginity, and author Tom Mueller's general remarks about the healthfulness of the Mediterranean diet, I thought I would make an effort to focus on this cuisine in the next couple of months.

Not surprisingly, I have a couple dozen cookbooks on Mediterranean cuisine from all the leading authors -- Paula Wolfert, Joyce Goldstein, Claudia Roden, et al. The books range from general "Mediterranean" to Jewish to Middle Eastern and to specific national cuisines like Italian, Spanish, Greek, Moroccan, Turkish. I'm not sure how much of French cooking belongs in this category. And of course there are a number of other trendy cookbooks with Mediterranean-inspired dishes.

I won't be too strict about it anyway. I'll also be doing dishes from other types of books. But I will post these dishes under the "Meddiet" label just to keep track of them.

Extra Virginity

My review of Tom Mueller's Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil appeared today in The Washington Independent Review of Books:

It’s everywhere. In recipes, on supermarket shelves, in restaurants — everywhere you turn you encounter extra virgin olive oil. In fact, you virtually never see any kind of olive oil except extra virgin. What seems even better, it’s cheaper than ever. You can now get a big bottle of EVOO (as it is known to its friends) for less than $10.

All this is not necessarily cause to celebrate, as Tom Mueller makes clear in this fascinating book, which somehow manages to be magisterial in a very compact space. The oil you buy with the extra virgin label may very well be the high-quality oil produced solely by mechanical means from fresh olives that it is supposed to be. But in an industry in which standards are vague and enforcement is lax, it may well not be.

In fact, Mueller concludes, extra virgin olive oil you buy in the supermarket has a good chance of being cut with refined olive oil (produced with solvents and/or heat and chemically “deodorized” to remove defects) or even with seed oils produced by these same chemical methods.

Mueller, a writer for The New Yorker and other publications, in effect tells us that we have to spell “caveat emptor” in capital letters when it comes to buying olive oil.

First of all, ignore the “extra virgin” in the label — it has become ubiquitous and so lost any meaning. Second, forget everything you ever heard about “first pressed” or “cold pressed.” These terms have become obsolete as most producers have switched from presses to centrifugal means of production.

The only sure-fire way of knowing whether the oil is truly extra virgin is to taste it. But here comes the biggest surprise of all — you are looking for tastes that may seem counterintuitive to your idea of what makes a great olive oil.

The truly good, high-quality extra virgin oil should taste bitter — this signifies a high level of antioxidants, one of the qualities that make olive oil so healthful. The other two taste characteristics of premium oil are “pungency,” indicated by a peppery taste, and fruitiness. (By the way, don’t look to the color of the oil as an indication of fruitiness; at tastings, the oil is often in tinted containers so participants don’t even see the color.)

Many of us may have found bitterness and pungency off-putting in an oil and preferred a milder, blander, if still fruity, version. In fact, one purveyor of supermarket oil advertised its product with these qualities, implying they were the signs of truly fine oil. Not so, our author tells us, and there is every chance that these milder oils are not pure extra virgin.

Extra Virginity is a passionate book. Mueller, who lives in Italy outside Genoa, preaches the gospel of olive oil with the zeal of a convert. He interviews some of the leading figures in the olive oil industry, whose own enthusiasm is infectious. The author’s blend of historical tales and reporting on contemporary innovators in oil production and marketing makes for a heady blend of oil euphoria.

Mueller sees hopeful signs as well as clouds on the horizon. New producers are making finer oils than ever and consumers from Italy to California are developing new appreciation for high-quality oil. But massive fraud in production of substandard oils that do not merit the “extra virgin” moniker are driving down prices and forcing producers of true extra virgin oil out of business.

“Are we witnessing a renaissance in olive oil, or the death of an industry?” the author asks. “Will extra virgin olive oil become the next premium food phenomenon … or will it sink into the anonymous mass of fat that is the legacy of our post-industrial food supply?”

As a reporter, Mueller does not answer that question, which is anything but rhetorical. Despite the advent of oil bars, the growth of New World production in California and Australia, and the effort of traditional producers in Italy and Spain to adopt innovations and maintain premium quality, the battle for good oil is far from won.

In the end, Mueller suggests, it is the consumer who will supply the answer. Only if consumers are educated as to what constitutes good oil and are willing to pay premium prices for a premium product will non-fraudulent producers be able to stay in business.

The author provides a “buying guide” as an appendix, but don’t expect a list of labels you can go out and look for. Rather, he says, the best way to buy is at a place where you can taste the oil and learn where, how and most important, when it was made, because olive oil deteriorates rapidly in quality with age.

Mueller also advises that it is better to buy a bulk oil that has been kept in proper conditions, or failing that, oil in dark bottles (light hurts quality) that has the harvest date, not an expiration date, on the label. The author provides numerous sources of research and information where a devoted consumer can keep up with where and how to find good oil. He also has a website, www.extravirginity.com, though for some reason, this was still largely under construction when the book was published in December.

This may require more commitment than many people are willing to make. But for anyone who has developed a taste for the fabulous Mediterranean cuisines, or who loves cooking these flavorful and healthful dishes, or, indeed, anyone who reads this book, with its passion for the history and benefits of genuine extra virgin olive oil, the choice to help support that renaissance will be easy.

Darrell Delamaide, a Washington, D.C.-based journalist, took courses at Cordon Bleu and other cooking schools when he was stationed in Paris. He is the author most recently of The Grand Mirage, a historical thriller.

Honor Guard pork rib roast

The first big recipe out of Molly Stevens new book, All About Roasting: A New Approach to a Classic Art, was out of this world. For a festive Christmas dinner for the family we tried her honor guard version of bone-in pork rib roast. It is her alternative to the crown roast, which she says never cooks properly and is difficult to carve. No one can argue with her result, which lent itself to a dramatic presentation and a truly superb flavor.

I went to Whole Foods to order the roast ahead of time and was sent to the holiday order desk staffed by someone whose sole qualification seemed to be that she knew nothing about meat. Crown roast was on her computer and beef rib roast (which is what she completed an order for but we caught at the last minute), but not what I wanted. So I went back to the butcher counter (at Friendship Heights) and convinced Andres to take the order for two bone-in center cut roasts, eight ribs each, chine bone remove and ribs Frenched. He came through and tied two beautiful roasts for me, exactly according to specifications, weighing about 5 lbs. each.

The roasts are each brined in 5 c. cool water, 1/3 c. kosher salt, 2 Tbl. brown sugar, 1/4 c. honey, 3 sprigs fresh rosemary, 2 garlic cloves smashed and peeled, and 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes. You dissolve the salt and sugar solely by stirring, no heating. I put each with its brine in a ziploc bag and "refrigerated" (outside on the screen porch) for a little less than 24 hrs. I took the roasts out of the brine, patted dry and let sit for an hour at room temperature.

Then the fun begins. Each roast gets seared on the fat side, about 5 min. Then you set them parallel to each other in a roasting pan, fat side out for each, so that the ribs interlace with each other in the way an honor guard will interlace their rifles over someone passing under. You tie them together this way (don't squeeze) and put the pan into a preheated 325-degree oven for about 1 hr 45 min, until the internal temperature reaches 140.

What comes out is a spectacularly beautiful golden brown roast that we presented to the assembled diners, rested 15 min., and then carved, one beautiful thick chop for each place (I used her dressing with dried apricots and rosemary as a cushion as she recommends.) This Niman Ranch pork had a marvelous flavor wonderfully enhanced by the brining and roasting, was totally tender and juicy and was a tremendous hit among all the pork fans.

The whole dinner was very festive. We had two kinds of shrimp as appetizers -- the shrimp seviche from the Barcelona cookbook and a very nice shrimp in North African spices (got to use my Aleppo pepper!) from Olives and Oranges. To accompany the pork, we had, along with the dressing, a potato-celery root gratin and roasted brussels sprouts in brown cranberry butter, with a lettuce avocado salad to follow. Dessert was a stunning stompe de noel, like a bouche, only a tree stump instead of a log, which was beautiful and very tasty.

Braised pork belly and glazed turnips

Finally normal supermarkets are carrying pork belly regularly, so I bought some when I saw it at Whole Foods and found a nice recipe in Molly Stevens' All About Braising. There's a lot of steps, but it's basically a simple recipe and I fixed it for us during the week.

You toast 1 tsp of coriander seeds (and 1/2 tsp of dill seeds if you have them, I didn't) and crack them in a grinder with 1 tsp black peppercorns then give it another pulse with 1-1/2 tsp coarse salt to make a rub for the pork belly. You apply the rub and wrap in plastic for a day or two.

When ready to cook, you brown the pork belly in olive oil, pour off some fat, then sautee chopped onion, celery, carrot for 10 minutes, add chopped garlic, 2 bay leaves, 4 cloves for 1 min., deglaze the pan with 1/2 c. white wine add 1 c. stock, bring to a simmer and put the pork belly back in. You put braising pan in a preheated 325-degree oven and cook for 2-1/4 to 3 hours, basting and checking every 45 min.

Then you let the pork belly cool in the braising liquid before removing. You score a cross-hatch pattern on the fatty side and cut into serving pieces (the recipe calls for about 2 lbs for 4 people and I had a little over 1 lb for 2). You strain the braising liquid and reserve 1/4 c. for the turnips (and if you can skim off any fat, use that for the turnips, too -- I couldn't).

To finish, you put the pork belly into a 425-degree oven to brown for 20 minutes. In the meantime, you take 1-1/2 lbs small turnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch wedges, and put into skillet with 1 Tbl butter (or pork fat), 1 tsp sugar, and the 1/4 c. reserved braising liquid and cook 10 to 12 min. until tender.

It all comes out pretty spectacular in a homey way and is delicious. Stevens' book has been consistently great and I'm looking forward to using her new cookbook, All About Roasting.

The connoisseur syndrome

It started, I think, with wine. The boomer generation traveled through Europe, learned to appreciate wine, and created demand for a vast and diverse assortment of wine. Now everyone is a connoisseur. Go into any wine store on a Saturday morning, and you will find scores of gray-haired, balding, slightly pudgy but prosperous looking men talking knowledgeably to attentive sales people about the respective benefits of wines from every corner of the globe.

We truly live in a golden age for gourmets and connoisseurs, with so many kinds of food and drink now readily available. But I worry it goes too far. I worry about my own penchant for getting enthusiastic about selecting the very best of everything.

In addition to wine, you can become a connoisseur of single malt Scotch and small-batch bourbon. Now you can also choose from a selection of finely crafted gins and vodkas, as well as tonic water and bitters.

The same holds true for coffee and tea, for salt and pepper, with vast new categories of special products becoming available. I'm currently reading and enjoying a book about olive oil, Extra Virginity, to review for the Washington Independent Review of Books, and I'm sure it will stimulate me to pay more attention to oil provenance and cultivars (the equivalent of varietals for olives).

Where will it end? Will it ever be possible just to have a cup of coffee, without knowing which bean it is, where it comes from and how exactly it was roasted? Will we ever feel free just to salt and pepper our food without knowing what sea basin or pepper tree they come from?

I'm supposed to pay attention to where my meat was raised, what it was fed, how it was slaughtered and how far away all this took place. I have to decide whether I want ultra-pasteurized organic milk or non-homogenized raw milk and whether I buy it in a carton or a glass bottle with a deposit. I buy heirloom beans with exotic names in amazing shapes and colors.

Yes, it's all fun, kind of a game, really. But I think it's easy to get carried away and perhaps a little too precious.

Coffee

For a long time, I drank only decaffeinated coffee because there was a bad chemical reaction in me between whatever chemicals stress releases in the body and caffeine. Now that I'm older, mellower and working at home in a much less stressful situation, I'm increasingly drinking more regular coffee. Although decaf has improved, regular still tastes better and there are many more choices.

I've grown to abhor Starbucks coffee. They have convinced people that over-roasted mediocre coffee is the way it's supposed to taste. No wonder they have to have so many gunky drinks to hide the flavor of their coffee. Although I will drink a cup of coffee there to be sociable, I've decided to simply not get their packaged coffee. I've ended up throwing out the crap I bought a couple of times when I wavered in my resolve and gave them another chance.

Oddly enough, my favorite local coffee is not some trendy micro-roaster, but the old-line M.E. Swings Co., which used to have an iconic shop on 17th St., across from the Old Executive Office Building. David Pursglove took me there once when it was still open, praising the quality of the coffee. Fortunately, Swings is still recognized for its quality and has fairly good distribution around town. I can get it in packages at Broad Branch and in bulk at Rodman's. Bought some Decaf Colombian at Rodman's and ground it there, though my favorite is the regular Mesco blend.

Mayorga is another good local roaster, and distributed through Marvelous Market, though the choice isn't always great. Quartermain I avoid because they have adopted a dark roast policy, hoping, I guess, to capture the crumbs from Starbucks' table. They have retrenched and I expect them to go out of business. Other trendy micro-roasters tend to fall into the over-roasting trap -- perhaps they are compelled to because people think that's what coffee should taste like.

My brother, surprisingly, while he would not call himself a coffee gourmet, has a flair for finding flavorful coffees. He has determined that the Eight O'Clock coffee available at Costco has great flavor, and sent me a sampler from Old Bisbee Roasters in Arizona as one of his thoughtful Christmas gifts (the other was BBQ from Jack Stack in KC). They are deliciously fresh-roasted and I've liked the two I've sample so far. I'm sure I'll end up ordering some, too, though obviously it's not locavore.

Eating is not always about the food

I like good food and don't like to eat bad food, let alone junk food, particularly when I go to a restaurant. But sometimes there are other priorities than just the food. I meet regularly with a couple of groups of writers and it is the company rather than the food that makes the meeting worthwhile. In fact, the food takes a decidedly back seat, and we trade the comfort and convenience of some oldline eateries for fancy fixings.

The one meeting is with a group of about 70 published authors in the DC area convened a couple of times a year by Dan Moldea. It's a group that fits with a little squeezing into the Rathskeller at Old Europe, a Washington standby that hides its Bavarian identity behind a European facade. Dan has a deal with the restaurant for a prix fixe menu at $25, with a choice of pork schnitzel, trout, chicken or steak in the entree, preceded by salad and followed by apple strudel for dessert. This is not award-winning cuisine and if it is Zagat-rated, I'd probably rather not know the rating. But I like a breaded pork schnitzel and the cottage fries and red cabbage that go with it and it's the chance to mingle with a group of writers that counts.

More recently, a smaller group of us, a kind of subset of the Moldea group, has begun meeting for lunch on a monthly basis. The initiator of this group picked Hamburger Hamlet, a pre-franchise hamburger joint on Old Georgetown Road. It is the kind of place where only the brave venture any dish besides the namesake hamburger, which is pretty good, has all the fixings and decent fries. Someone else suggested a Portuguese restaurant which has white tablecloths and a more sophisticated menu, but he was voted down, unanimously.

An earlier writers group I belonged to met regularly at the Democratic Women's Club, an historic building at Dupont Circle, which served a hot meal buffet style for just $16, but they had to shut down their kitchen operation and the group itself is fairly moribund.

Bottom line is that for some meals, even when the creative muse is involved, humdrum food can fill the bill. It's easy, quick and doesn't distract from the purpose at hand.

Pasta and beans

The weather is still mild but autumnal enough to make us seek comfort in these Italian dishes. After all the turkey and stuffing, a pasta e fagioli dish from Domenica Marchetti's The Glorious Soups and Stews of Italy was just the ticket.

This recipe, in her winter section, used the heirloom Christmas lima beans I bought recently at La Cuisine in Alexandria. She just calls for the soaked beans to be dumped in the pot along with the finely chopped onion, chopped pancetta (though I used some leftover ham steak), chopped celery, and a paste of three garlic cloves and rosemary -- no sautéeing or anything -- and then 1/2 c. olive oil and 8 c. water.

You cook this for a couple of hours, then purrée half the soup, bring it to the boil again and add 8 oz. spaghetti or fettucini (had a package open) broken into 1-inch pieces and cook for another 20 minutes. You drizzle "your finest olive oil" over the soup when you serve it.

The dish was delicious, though I would make a couple of adjustments next time. I used too little water because I was afraid it would be too watery (and my package of beans may have been more than the 2 c. called for, I forgot to measure). The pancetta would probably add more flavor than my ham substitute. And I would try it without purréeing any next time. The beans themselves are prettier, even when cooked, than the mushy purrée and it would be soupier.

Other recent dishes have included two great standbys from Marcella Hazan -- the cauliflower with penne, where you break up the cooked cauliflower in oil and dress the pasta with that, along with red pepper and parsley (she uses anchovies as well but they are banned in our household); and the ever-good shell pasta with ricotta, bacon and peas.

Cast iron skillet

A couple times this week I've pulled out the trusty old cast iron skillet and been able to make such tasty meals I wonder why I don't use it more often. Maybe it's the pulling out part, from the cabinet underneath the range.

The first time was our second go at the lovely chicken with apples and escarole, this time substituting endive for the unobtainable escarole. The whole point of this recipe by Sara Jenkins is to let the flavors accumulate by cooking everything in the same skillet, and I think they accumulate much better in the cast iron skillet.

The next day was simply to fry some hamburgers. First, however, I sauteed onions in the skillet and then transferred them to a smaller skillet for reheating and fried the hamburgers in the same skillet. I used a couple of James Beard's tricks -- flavoring the oil with a crushed garlic clove and folding some creme fraiche into the center of the patties. With a little salt and the onion and garlic flavors from the skillet, the hamburgers came out delicious, served with the onions on a toasted bun with ketchup. Hard to beat.

America Eats Tavern

What's happened to Jose Andres? This blatantly commercial attempt to gussy up American classics is too precious by half. The food tastes good -- Andres would not serve bad food -- but who needs overpriced Buffalo Wings seen through the eyes of a Spaniard?

After seeing the price creep at Jaleo, the mediocritzation of Oyamel and now this pretentious act of hubris, one can only conclude that Andres has sold out. They want $6 to have some of their precious bread and there are very few wines on the list under $100 a bottle. Who but lobbyists on expense account are going to spend $386 for a half bottle of Chateau d'Yquem with their dessert.

We spent $100 for two people and got at best what could be described as a light supper. Thanks but no thanks. We'll explore other eating options.

Catering a book party

Andrea and her brother Henry operated a catering service for a couple of summers in Rehoboth, back in the day when they could name their service SABU for spinster aunt, bachelor uncle. Both are happily married now, but they revived their collaboration to cater a book party for my new novel, The Grand Mirage, and the food was terrific.

Andrea baked hundreds of small biscuits, only about an inch in diameter, that were flaky and buttery and light. She sliced each one in half and Henry put on some cranberry-pear chutney with roast pork tenderloin on half of the biscuits and a mustard sauce with roast turkey breast on the other half to make delicious little sandwiches.

Henry also experimented with grilled skewers of winter vegetables -- Brussels sprouts, beets, parsnips, shallots and others -- to make a refreshingly different vegetable finger food. Andrea made some light, buttery tuiles that she topped with a smoked salmon tartar and creme fraiche. She also made a goat cheese galette that resembled a small pizza with a great crust and a white cheese mixture that included ricotta and mozzarella with the goat cheese, then cut into thin slices. For light snacks, she had savory biscotti with aged gouda and shallots, spiced almonds and dates stuffed with blue cheese.

Did I mention that the food was terrific? Virtually everything was gone at the end except some of the biscuit sandwiches because they had made truly a boatload of those. As Andrea said, if every guest had eaten just one more biscuit, they would be all gone.

For the wine, I experimented with Paul's and was very happy with the 2007 E. Guigal Cotes du Rhone and the 2008 Macon-Villages that we got from there. We also had some wonderful fresh apple cider from the farmer's market and chilled San Pellegrino. Simple and perfect for a fall afternoon.

Still grilling

As the days get shorter and the weather gets colder, it's clearly less inviting to grill something up for dinner. Usually about this time of the year, I swap out some of the grill cookbooks on the kitchen bookshelf for those focused on braising, slow cooking, stews -- the good winter stuff.

But we enjoy grilled food so much -- whether it's the pork chops from our 1/8 of a pig or salmon fillet from The Fishery or asparagus or eggplant -- that I still find myself out there once or twice a week. Last year, I covered the Weber and Big Green Egg ahead of a snowstorm and they stayed that way for a couple of months. We'll see what the weather brings this year, but maybe we'll be grilling in January!

An 1/8 of a pig

It sounds like a lot, but it's not really. Blue Rooster Farm, which started selling its meat at the New Morning Farm market in DC a few months ago, emailed customers with an offer to buy 1/8 of a pig in late September. The haul is a collection of pork chops, bacon, sausage, Boston butt, cured ham slices and a couple of other cuts. Some cuts aren't included and are presumably sold separately. It is essentially a big shopping bag of frozen meat that fit easily into our limited side-by-side freezer.

So far, as with all the other meat we've gotten from Blue Rooster, the pork has been terrific. These are Berkshire pigs grown only to a year old and a hundred pounds. The bacon and ham have been flavorful and juicy (saftig in the German sense), the sausage fresh and mildly flavored. It's not that it's a big savings buying in "bulk" like this -- it's only a 10% discount from buying each cut retail -- but that you get it at all and you get it all at once so you have a nice store in your fridge.

When I picked up my 1/8 pig I jokingly told Julie Hurst from Blue Rooster that I've decided to regard buying meat frozen as a plus. For a long time, I resisted buying frozen meat at farmers' markets. I longed for the markets in France where refrigerated counters display the fresh meat openly. That's just not the way it's done here, and these vacuum-packed fresh frozen meats don't lose any quality over what you buy in the supermarket, even WholeFoods. After all, how does that lamb get here from Iceland and New Zealand?

The advantage is you get local farm-raised meat, butchered by local butchers, that is healthier, fresher, and as a rule tastier. Blue Rooster's lamb and beef are also delicious.

I'm  not quite there yet but I don't exclude the possibility of getting a deep-freeze in the basement to store a side of beef or a 1/2 pig. Once growing up, we bought a side of beef and stored it in a rented freezer locker. I thought it was pretty cool at the time to take a trip to the locker and pick up some steak and ground beef. It seemed like free food, though of course it wasn't. My mother grew up on a farm and I think for her it was a small way of recapturing that feeling. Maybe I have that gene.

e-Cookbooks

The New York Times had a story last week about how Julia Child's pathbreaking Mastering the Art of French Cooking was now available, finally, as an e-book. The article discussed the particular challenges of putting a cookbook onto an e-reader, from the often complicated layout and color photos to the concern about splattering grease onto your Kindle or iPad.

Now apparently technology has advanced enough to have column formats in e-books, and new readers like iPad and Kindle Fire have all sorts of color. As for the grease, I have experimented with downloading a Kindle single by Mark Bittman on grilling and using it. I usually keep the recipe across the kitchen on the table anyway, so the real danger, especially with a touch screen, is having dirty or greasy fingers when I want to consult it.

What would really be cool and would get me to take the plunge immediately is if somehow your entire cookbook collection would be searchable (or even your entire Kindle library because the search terms would be specific enough). The big plus of Epicurious, of course, is that you can search by ingredient or technique. This is virtually impossible to do with the hard copies, because you pick a likely book, check the index, are invariably disappointed, check another index, and so on, and usually end up at Epicurious anyway.

The only way I can navigate my print cookbooks is to pick one arbitrarily at random and leaf through it looking for likely prospects that use seasonal agreements. It would be more satisfying to go to the store or market and simply pick what looks good, then come home and easily find the right recipe.

Nonetheless, I may experiment. Paula Wolfert has a new cookbook out, The Food of Morocco, and it will be available in a Kindle edition on Nov. 15. I love Paula Wolfert's books and we have been on a real Morocco kick, so I will get one edition or the other. The hardcover print edition is just $27 on Amazon, and the Kindle edition, at the insistence of the publisher, will be $20, so it's hardly competitive given the uncertain performance of a cookbook on an e-reader. We'll see what people say.

Chicken with escarole, apples, and potatoes

Sara Jenkins has done it again. A delicious, simple, elegant dish for a weekday that is really something special. The trick here is that everything gets cooked in the same skillet, so the flavor accumulates.

You boil 12 oz. of new potatoes until just tender (7 min.), let them cool and flatten them a bit. You season 4 8-oz. boneless chicken breasts with skin with salt and pepper. WF doesn't have boneless breasts with skin so we deboned regular breasts -- the skin adds a lot of essential flavor in this dish. You cook the breasts in 2 Tbl. oil until skin is golden and then turn over for another 3 min. Transfer to baking pan, cover with foil and put into preheated 250-degree oven. Drain oil and melt 2 Tbl. butter in skillet and cook apple sections (2 tart apples, peeled, cored and cut into eighths) in single layers. Add more butter and saute the potatoes. Add a garlic clove smashed and peeled and escarole leaves (WF had no escarole so we used spinach). Wilt and add 1/2 c. wine to finish cooking. Put apples back in to warm through. Assemble on plate with potatoes, chicken breast, escarole and apples. Syrupy, buttery, flavorful, rich and satisfying. Drink white or red wine with it.

HalfFoods and other disappointments

WholeFoods has been at pains to expand its prepared food offerings -- it's a shame they don't take a little more pride in it. I was astonished to see how unappetizing all of it has become by the late afternoon since I'm not often there shopping for dinner. The hot food was dry or mucky looking, the deli counter dull beyond belief, the kabob station offered nothing enticing. Went to the meat counter and got a ham steak packed in cellophane. What a half-a***d approach to food service!

We've had other disappointments lately in the DC food scene. Brunch at the Poste restaurant in Hotel Monaco was no culinary delight. An uninspired menu and half-hearted execution made it truly lackluster. We had an out of town guest so brunch was not just about the food and we had a good time, but it's sure off our list for the future.

An even bigger disappointment was Oyamel, which we always treasured for its fresh, inventive rendition of Mexican cuisine. It seems to have fallen into some sort of rut. The food was just all right, but these small plates seem to have gotten even smaller -- and way to small for $10-11 a pop -- so it's kind of hard to tell with what you actually get to eat. If the food isn't magic you notice much more how loud and unpleasant the ambiance is.