Savory braised chicken with aromatics

This is the first recipe I've tried from Niloufer Ichiporia King's My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking, and it's a good reason to try more.

Parsi refers to the descendants of the Zoroastrian Persians who came to western India more than a millennium ago, settling in Guajarat and spreading out from there. Robert Kaplan talks about them in his book Monsoon, which was the first selection of my new book group. I had bought this cookbook some time ago, but was daunted as I am by most Indian cooking by the need to find garlic and ginger purrees. However, I discovered a jar of each in the pantry, purchased at some point at an Indian grocery store and forgotten about. I will probably get around to making my own some day but these store-bought versions seemed a good way to get started.

The recipe is simple and worked well for a weekday. This is one of those talky cookbooks -- which is fine -- but I almost missed her note that it is better to brown the chicken thighs separately because those we get in the U.S. are relatively fatty. Otherwise, they are browned in the skillet after you sizzle the cinnamon stick, 5 cloves, 3 cardamom pods and 3 dried red chiles in 3 Tbl of vegetable oil.

The dish is called khari marghi, and the variation that seemed most appealing to me was the pateta ma marghi, which adds potatoes to the simmering chicken. Also, in the case of fried potatoes, King suggests using coconut milk or milk as the braising liquid to make a good gravy. I had a can of coconut milk in the pantry, so I lengthened it with a bit of milk and added it to the skillet with the aromatics and browned chicken to simmer for 30 to 40 min.

For the fried potatoes, I found a nice technique at Simple Organized Living. I peeled and quartered the California Golds, dried them and then -- this was the nice innovation in this version -- put them in the microwave for 3 to 4 min. so that the interior would have a chance to pre-cook. Often recipes have you parboil the potatoes to get this result, but this was an easy alternative. Then I fried them in a good amount of oil, drained them and added them to the braise about 15 min. before the end.

My execution was not flawless and I had problems here and there with the seasoning, but that was easily fixed and it made for a very nice dinner. I had a salad and an Umbrian Merlot to go along.

Braised pork belly with glazed turnips

Another easy Molly Stevens recipe. I got the pork belly from Blue Rooster farm at the Sheridan Farmer's Market a few weeks ago and picked up the turnips at the Bethesda Farmer's Market on Sunday.

Pat the 2-lb pork belly dry and put on a rub of black peppercorns and toasted coriander seeds chopped not too fine in a spice grinder and then whirred again with coarse salt to mix. She also wants dill seeds chopped too, but since I could only find dill weed I mixed some of that into the rub. Rub all over and cover with plastic for a day or two.

To cook, pat it dry again, brown fat side down in olive oil for 8 min or so, remove and saute coarsely chopped carrot, celery and onion for another 8 min or so. Add chopped garlic, 4 whole cloves and 2 bay leaves for another minute, add 1/2 c. white wine, boil down and add 1 c. chicken stock. Bring to simmering, put the pork belly in fat side up and put in 325-degree oven for 2 to 3 hrs. Let cool in braising liquid, remove, make cross hatch in the fat, degrease and strain braising liquid and keep 1/4 c. for the turnips, and return pork belly and braising liquid to pan and put in 425-degree oven for 20 min.

For the turnips, peel and cut into 1-in. wedges, put into skillet with some fat, 1 tsp sugar and the reserved braising liquid, bring to simmer, cover and cook 10 to 12 min., then remove cover and let liquid evaporate.

The pork belly had a wonderful flavor but was very fatty and rich. The turnips almost scorched because it is too little liquid but they were very tasty and it was a perfect combination. Served with a salad.

Wines of Italy

After living in Paris for 11 years, I felt pretty comfortable with French wines. I have a feel for the various regions and labels and for the most part understand what I am getting. Italian wines, by contrast, have been a terra incognita, with the obvious exception of Chianti Classico. Italian labeling was never as systematic as the French and in any event Italian winemaking lagged the developments elsewhere, often giving them a fusty air of mediocrity.

That's all changed now, though the bright new designer labels don't really give you the same kind of information as French labels. In his How to Love Wine, NY Times critic Eric Asimov suggests a self-tutorial as a way of getting to know wines. Buy a case of different wines, he says, and systematically try them, with food as rule, and make careful notes as you go along.

So as part of my new Italy fever, I've embarked on a self-tutorial on Italian wines. Addie Bassin's, it turns out, displays their large collection of Italian wines by region anyway, so it was fairly easy for John, who assisted me, to select 6 wines in the $15 to $20 range (which Asimov says is the sweet spot for good value) from different regions. I already had a little notebook for recording wines -- I briefly tried to record them all but realized that was pointless because I would rarely buy the same wine again -- and it has now been re-purposed for this self-tutorial. As a further study aid, I'm using Google Maps tools to customize a map and locating each wine as it is consumed. In my map searches, beautiful photos of vineyards kept coming up, so I created a pinboard for these.

Much like learning the language itself, it will be a slow process requiring some patience. But the reward presumably is that I will be much more conversant with the world of Italian wines. According to Asimov, you can drill down further in subsequent stages. For instance, if you find that you like the Piedmont wines best, restrict your tutorial to those wines, and then to a particular terroir in Piedmont and so on.

Coffee grinders

I scoffed, I'll confess, when I read that coffee aficionados nowadays insist on having a burr grinder to prepare acceptable coffee, taking it as a simple ratcheting up of the fetishism that overtakes so much in our pursuit of food today.

However, as I read more, I began to wonder if there was something to it. The argument is that a blade grinder, like my trusty old Krups, chops and chops at the beans over and over again, resulting in uneven chunks and, when continued for enough time, a slight burn taste as the machine heats up. A burr grinder, by contrast, touches the bean just once, theoretically grinding it evenly as it passes through. The speed of passage governs whether it is a fine or coarse grind.

But when I saw the large, clunky grinders at Williams Sonoma I thought I'd never get one because they take up too much room. At Sur la Table, however, they had the Capresso Infinity grinder, which is much more compact. Two different salespeople there on separate visits claimed they had that grinder and used it and loved it. The coffee really is better, they insisted. It was an Amazon reviewer who finally tipped the scale, though, because he said he had tried a different coffee maker (check), a different filter (check), filtered water (check), but it was finally the burr grinder that made the difference in getting a really good cup of coffee.

So I took the plunge, and yes, the coffee does indeed have a cleaner, brighter, fuller taste. In fact, it's pretty amazing how much better it tastes. The new grinder fits right in the spot where the old one was and is in fact much easier and neater to use. At this point, I'm totally happy with it.

Chicken noodle soup

Two points to make about a delicious soup that we ate for days nursing a cold: 1) it marked one of my rare attempts to cook something without a recipe; 2) it was the fruit of my alternatives to WF campaign.

It's surprisingly hard to find a recipe for this classic -- not even Joy of Cooking has one. Also, I wanted to make it on the basis of the chicken stock I cooked according to Sara Jenkins' recipe, so I wasn't making soup from scratch. I made the stock from a "soup chicken" from Mick's Chicks at the Sheridan School farmer's market, plus an extra carcass he sells for stock and the usual aromatics, simmered for 4 hours and strained. Most of it I froze into ice cubes and stored in the freezer but I used some of it for what was essentially a deconstructed chicken soup.

The stewing chicken was useless after 4 hours so I bought 2 of the humongous skinless boneless breasts from Broad Branch and poached them in water with sauteed mirepoix. I shredded the cooked chicken into some of the stock and added the poaching liquid and mirepoix. I also added back some of the fat I'd skimmed off the top of the stock after it cooled. I boiled the Mueller's dumpling noodles separately, then added chicken and noodles and poaching liquid until I had the right balance in the soup, and stirred in some chopped parsley. It had, needless to say, a wonderful chicken flavor. I kept it going through the week by adding more of the chicken or noodles as needed.

So, yes, how hard can it be to cook this without a recipe. I feel like I left something out (cloves? bay leaf?) to round out the flavor, so will pay more attention the next time I do have a soup recipe. None of the ingredients came from WF.

Braised root vegetables with lentils

This vegetable extravaganza from Deborah Madison is perfect therapy for someone like me who cooks in order to something with their hands. There is a ton of peeling, slicing, chopping, mincing, boiling, sauteing, braising, mashing -- but the result is a rich, earthy stew that is perfectly satisfying.

Rather than duplicate the long and complicated recipe here, this time I will just refer to Madison's Local Flavors. There are 4 separate steps to produce this assembled dish. The first is make a red wine sauce with dried porcini, mushrooms, onion, carrot, celery, parsnip trimmings, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, rosemary, salt, pepper, flour, tomato paste, red wine, mushroom soy sauce and butter. Then you make the braised vegetable dish with red pearl onions, those parsnips you trimmed, carrots, mushrooms, olive oil, butter, and more more salt, pepper and aromatics and some that red wine sauce. Separately, you make a potato and rutabaga puree and in another separate pot, cook the lentils, either black "caviar" or French green. To assemble, make a mound of puree in a deep dish, spoon in the braised vegetables and the cooked lentils with more of the red wine sauce and top with chopped parsley. The red wine and aromatics give it a French country flavor. The root vegetables hold up well as leftovers.

Shrimp, fennel and quinoa pilaf

We liked the quinoa pilaf in this recipe from Rebecca Wood a lot and the shrimp is a good pairing but we felt the shrimp needed a little more flavor. Rather than let the shrimp cook by steaming in the baked pilaf once it's removed from the oven -- which is cute, economical and healthy but leaves the shrimp bland and unadorned -- we would probably saute the shrimp with some oil and garlic and add to the pilaf that way.

The pilaf is easy. Chop 2 fennel stalks (why 2?) and their fronds separately. Chop an onion and mince a clove of garlic and saute in olive oil with 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper for 10 min. Add the fennel and 1 to 1-1/3 c. washed quinoa (Wood distinguishes between imported and domestic quinoa and I forgot to look) and saute another minute or two. Then add 1 peeled, chopped tomato, 2 c. of stock or water (I used half chicken stock and half water), 2 Tbl Worcestershire sauce, and 1/2 tsp salt, bring to simmer, cover and put in 350-degree oven for 25 min. Remove from oven, fluff up the quinoa, put 1 lb peeled, deveined shrimp in and cover for 10 min. Sprinkle the chopped fronds and grated nutmeg on top of each serving.

We got medium shrimp from the Fishery and as always they were plump, fresh and shrimpy. Cooking by the pilaf steam alone did not quite finish it, so I popped it back in the oven for an extra minute or two. The pilaf had a nice little kick from the cayenne. I accompanied with Sara Jenkins' shaved fennel salad (using the bulb from those stalks) -- slice the bulb on the mandolin lengthwise on narrow side, toss with parsley leaves, then toss with lemon juice, olive oil and salt. A white Bordeaux went really well with it.

Deborah Madison

Deborah Madison, who helped start the Greens restaurant and now writes cookbooks in Santa Fe, has become our cookbook author of the month as I focus on shopping at the farmer's markets. We actually had three meatless meals last week, relying primarily on her Local Flavors.

The pasta with golden fennel was easy. Trim, quarter and (vertically) slice the fennel, saute it in butter and oil,  then add salt, toss with the juice of 1 lemon, add a cup of water and braise, adding water by the 1/2 c. until fennel is tender. Boil and drain the pasta (we used fettucine), stir it in the fennel and added a mix of minced garlic, chopped fennel greens and lemon zest. Ours came out very lemony because I used a big lemon, but it makes a nice refreshing meal.

The superstar of the week was the celery root and wild rice chowder. Boil 1/2 c. wild rice separately. Trim and peel celery root and chop into bite-size pieces. Saute in butter with the chopped white parts of 2 leeks, a diced celery rib, a thinly sliced russet potato, 1/4 c. chopped parsley, a bay leaf, a thyme sprig. Add 2 c. vegetable or chicken stock and simmer for 20 min., then add 2 c. half-and-half or milk (guess which one I used), and cook until tender. Purree 1 c. of soup and stir it back in. Serve in bowl with a mound of wild rice topped with chopped parsley and a drizzle of truffle oil. Heavenly.

We also used the endives baked with Gorgonzola from her earlier cookbook, The Savory Way, to accompany a festive steak dinner, and a recipe for winter squash and quinoa soup from Rebecca Wood's The Splendid Grain (just OK, there are better butternut squash soup recipes).

Chicken breasts braised with hard cider and parsnips

Mick's Chicks at the Sheridan School farmer's market offered bone-in skin-on chicken breasts so I ordered some of those. It turns out they were huge; I generally prefer chicken breasts that aren't so big. The 2 half-breasts weighed 2.6 lbs together, almost the 3 lbs called for in Molly Stevens' recipe for 4 halves. I also got the parsnips at the farmer's market.

This is a great recipe for parsnips and creates a nice, wintry sauce that keeps the breasts from seeming too dry. I did overcompensate too much for their size and kept them in the oven a bit too long. They were a bit tough, though I attribute that in part to their size. But these are quibbles -- the meal was delicious.

Very simple: Fry 4 slices of thick-cut bacon cut into 1/2-in strips in 2 Tbl olive oil until just crisp, about 6 min. Remove with slotted spoon and drain off all but 2 Tbl of fat. Salt and pepper the chicken breasts and brown, starting skin side down, for 4 to 5 min on each side (and a further 2 min on the fat end for big ones like this). Remove and set aside. Saute 1 large minced shallot for 1 min and add 2 c. hard cider. Deglaze and reduce to 1/2 c. Add 1 Tbl chopped rosemary and a further 1/2 c. cider and reduce to 3/4 c. Then put in 1 lb parsnips, peeled and cut into 3-in x 1/2-in sticks (cut out woody core), spread bacon pieces over that, place chicken skin side down, cover with parchment paper sticking out over pan, cover and put in 325 degree oven. After 25 min., turn chicken pieces and braise another 20 to 25 min. until breasts are cooked through. If parsnips are not tender or sauce is too soupy, remove chicken and cook further on stove.

Kabob Bazaar

I had a craving for kabobs so we tried this place in Bethesda. The kabobs were actually pretty good and the atmosphere, if not exactly cozy or ethnic, was comfortable enough. Service was good, there is a bar with wine and beer. We had a nice eggplant confection as a starter and I had the whole Cornish hen kabob, which had a very nice flavor. It's easy, quick, close, cheap and has free parking in the back, so it could become a standard in our repertory. It beats Cafe Divan on all those counts and is quite superior to Parthenon. Unlike Moby Dick or Cave Mezze Grill, it is a real sit-down restaurant.

Alternatives to Whole Foods

In the wake of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's latest idiocy on the subject of Obamacare, I'm giving some thought to an experiment -- a couple of weeks or longer shopping exclusively at alternatives to Whole Foods.

Most immediately it would mean shopping regularly at the Co-op, which I visit only infrequently, and Chevy Chase Supermarket, which I virtually never visit. It would also mean buying more stuff at Broad Branch Market and to look more often at the Brookville Market. And it would mean being more consistent about shopping at farmer's markets, not only Sheridan School but Silver Spring and others.

It would probably mean more planning. It's easy for me to hop in the car at lunchtime, buzz down to WF and grab lunch at the salad bar and pick up whatever I decide on the spur of the moment for dinner that night. If I were to shop in different places for the things I get in one stop at WF -- vegetables, bulk items and health products at the Co-op; meat, dairy and supermarket items at Chevy Chase; meat and prepared foods at BB -- then I would have to make one trip a week to each place do.

That's why it's an experiment. The main drawback would be staying away from the salad bar at WF and the other prepared food counters. Cheese might be a problem, too, since we can hardly chase down to Cowgirl Creamery everytime we want cheese. So it's not a boycott so much as an expression of dissatisfaction with WF -- not only because Mackey is an ignorant bigoted idiot but because any chain that size has a pernicious effect on the type of food culture we need to work towards in this country.

When I lived in Princeton, I rented an apartment from a woman who ran a local health food store. She was hit by the arrival of Wild Oats, one of the health food chains that originally pioneered the idea before WF gobbled them all up. I also shopped at two family-owned supermarkets -- McCaffrey's and Pennington. I bought eggs from the farmer down the road and signed up one season for the local CSA.

So I need to give more support to local independent stores, too. There are others -- Vace's, the Women's Farmer's Market in Bethesda (some cheese there), A&H Gourmet, the Fishery. Wonder if I could go a full month with the experiment to really test it? Will update.

Prosciutto-wrapped pork loin roast

Sometimes a meal comes together just perfectly and that's what happened with this dinner that started with a smallish (2 lb) pork loin roast that we got from the Blue Rooster Farm stand at our farmer's market on Saturday. I found this nice recipe in Molly Stevens' Roasting. It actually is "with rhubarb and sage" but she notes that when rhubarb is not in season (which is most of the time) you can substitute plums or apples. The latter, of course, always go great with pork. I had a vague memory that Julia Childs has a recipe for creamed Brussels sprouts and thought that would be a great accompaniment.

The pork recipe is very easy. With the mortar and pestle, you make a paste of garlic, chopped sage, orange zest, salt and black peppercorns then stir in 2 Tbl olive oil. Spread this over the pork; you can do this ahead of time but since I had to let the roast thaw out I didn't have time for this. Then drape 3 or 4 thin slices of prosciutto over the roast, tucking the ends underneath. Drizzle with olive oil and pop in a 325-degree oven. After 45 min., spread the apples (or rhubarb) -- peeled, trimmed and cut into 1/2-in. pieces, tossed with brown sugar, a little more minced sage, optional ground pink peppercorns (I had some so I used them), a pinch of salt, and 1 more Tbl olive oil -- into the roasting pan with the pork. Roast another half hour more or less until a temperature of 140 to 145. Let it sit for 10 or 15 min before slicing. The pork was tender, moist, delicious and had an extra little zing from the orange zest. The apples were great with it.

Julia actually has a couple of recipe for creamed Brussels sprouts -- one where you leave them whole and bake them in the oven that she says is good with fowl and the other where you chop them and simmer them in cream on top of the stove, which she decided in her wisdom was preferable with veal and pork. So of course that's the one I used. I blanched 1-1/2 lbs of trimmed sprouts for just 5 min (Julia uses a lot of water and salt for blanching and I can't argue with the result. Drain, cool, roughly chop, then melt butter (needless to say she uses lots, so I cut it back a bit) in the skillet, shake the chopped sprouts around, add 1/2 c. heavy cream and simmer 8 to 10 min. Finish with a little more butter and chopped parsley. The Brussels sprouts were heavenly. They were organic sprouts from WF -- the only ones they had and I got the last two 12-oz. packages -- and turned out to be terrific.

As part of an effort to use up some of our accumulated vinegars and new olive oils I did fix up a quick salad, even though we usually skip that for weekday meals. All in all, it was real feast for a weekday and plenty of leftovers.

Olio2go

It's one thing to read about the worldwide renaissance in artisanal olive oils in Tom Mueller's Extra Virginity, and another to try to find some of the great oils he describes on this side of the Atlantic. But Luanne Savino O'Loughlin has brought Italy much closer with Olio2go, an online store with an enticing retail outlet in Fairfax.

Olio2go offers a dizzying array of Italian olive oils from every region. In an age when bulk olive oil emporia are proliferating -- the DC area has new stores in Bethesda, Alexandria and Frederick -- Olio2go adopts a different philosophy of importing only estate-bottled oils. Luanne's argument is that bulk transport means the oil goes through a number of containers before it gets to those pretty stainless steel containers in the store and then into the bottle you take it home in. Even if you believe in the integrity of every middleman involved -- and this is the last thing you believe in after reading Mueller's book -- the risk of accidental contamination or dilution is high.

There is apparently something of an argument going on among olive oil purveyors on bulk vs. bottled, but there's no arguing with the quality of the oils you can taste at the store if you are able to make the trek to the small strip just off the Beltway. We were able to taste a baker's dozen of 2011 and 2012 oils, along with some balsamic vinegars and other gourmet products. We managed to narrow our selection and bring a good sample home. We picked the ones we liked but found afterwards that two of the three oils we bought, Capezzana and Laudemio, were the first-named favorites listed by Sara Jenkins in Olives and Oranges. The third, a 2012 Sicilian oil from Frantoi Cutrera, also impressed us.

Italy is still the standard-setter in olive oil, but of course many other countries, including the U.S., produce great oils. To paraphrase, so many oils, so little time. But it is an incentive to eat more salad to dress with these great oils, or to serve ourselves some oil as an appetizer just as so many restaurants do. We like McEvoy's, a California oil sold at Cowgirl Creamery, and I will certainly try other American oils. But Olio2go is a great way to get some of the finest Italian oils and I look forward to making regular trips there.

Carbonnades a la flamande

This Julia Childs standby was a favorite of mine in Europe but I hadn't made it in a long time and it seemed perfect as cold weather comfort food. It was better than ever! Whenever I compare Julia's version to others floating around, I always come back to hers. Some cut the beef into chunks and dredge it with flour, add a carrot or other aromatics. Julia's recipe gives you unadulterated beef and onions braised in beer.

I used a 3-lb chuck roast, which wasn't easy to cut into uniform 2x4x1/2-in slices as called for in the recipe, but the odd, ragged pieces were fine, too. Brown the beef in a film of oil and set aside. Add 1-1/2 lbs of sliced onion to the skillet and cook about 10 min., until lightly browned. Remove from heat, add salt and pepper and 4 crushed garlic cloves. In a casserole, place a layer of beef sprinkled with salt and pepper, spread a layer of onion, then repeat. Heat up 1 c. of beef stock in the skillet and add to the casserole. Pour in 2-3 c. of lager beer until meat is just covered, add 2 Tbl of light brown sugar and a herb bouquet of parsley, thyme and bay leaf. Bring to a simmer on top of stove, cover and put into preheated 325-degree oven for 2-1/2 hours, taking care to keep liquid at a gentle simmer. When the meat is tender, drain the cooking liquid into a saucepan, degrease it, and stir in 1-1/2 Tbl arrowroot or cornstarch mixed with 2 Tbl wine vinegar and cook 4 to 5 min. Pour the sauce back over the meat and heat up together when ready to serve.

The first night we had buttered tagliatelle with the carbonnades and the second night, parsley potatoes from the farmer's market. The WF chuck was super tender and the rich, oniony broth set off by the vinegar and herb bouquet gave it a different flavor than a traditional brisket recipe. We had a very nice Rioja with it.

Black's Bar and Kitchen

One of our favorite small bites is to sit at the bar at Persimmon and order the fish tacos appetizer and a glass of wine. But it turns out Persimmon is closed for renovation, so we made a return trip to Black's Bar and Kitchen nearby in Bethesda.

I'm glad we did -- the food was great and a weekend night during a holiday was uncharacteristically mellow and nice. I ordered the grilled whole fish, branzino, and Andrea ordered the salmon, so we got our fish fix. My fish was perfect -- moist, tender, with the delicate branzino flavor (and presumably a good dose of butter). I ordered a side of the brown butter cauliflower with my unadorned fish and it was very nice, with some fennel stems mixed in. Andrea was very happy with her salmon.

It was a reminder of the consistently high quality of Jeff Black's restaurant group. Addie's we always like, though it's something of a schlepp. Ditto for Black Market Bistro in Garrett Park. Black's Salt is good, but a bit pricey and we'd just as soon spend the money at Pesce as a rule. But this Bethesda Black's is convenient and this will encourage us to go more often.

Pork and green chile stew

This recipe from the Pink Adobe cookbook was a big hit at New Year's when we served it with corn sticks. Because we were serving a lot of people -- I tripled the recipe -- I toned down any chance of heat. I had to use canned green chiles and got the mild chiles, and used only a fraction of the fresh jalapeno called for. So there wasn't much heat, but the meat really did melt in your mouth and the broth, based on my homemade chicken broth, was rich and delicious.

The recipe calls for 2 lbs of boneless pork cut into 1-in cubes. I used Boston butt, which is pork shoulder. The cubes are browned in 2 Tbl of olive oil, then add 1/2 c. chopped onion and 1 minced garlic clove and stir in with the meat. Add 1/4 c. flour and stir to cook for a couple of min. Then add 2 c. chopped tomatoes (I used canned, diced tomatoes) and 2 c. chopped green chiles (I used Hatch mild chiles from Amazon), 1 chopped jalapeno, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, and 1/2 tsp sugar. Mix all this together then add 1 c. chicken or beef broth. Cover and simmer for 1 to 1-1/2 hours until meat is tender. The recipe suggests serving with flour tortillas. The recipe serves 6, so tripling it gave us plenty and provided some nice leftovers. I made it a day ahead and degreased it after the fat had congealed at the top.

Keeping with the Mexican/Southwestern theme, we offered tequila shots and sangrita in addition to champagne and wine, and a velvety Mexican chocolate pot de creme for desert, with a dab of creme fraiche mixed with heavy cream -- very cinnamon-y and chocolatey.

Eggnog

We had a delicious homemade eggnog over the holidays using the recipe for making it in quantity in Joy of Cooking. I've used this before but it was particularly successful this time for reasons that escape me.

I halved the full recipe, which calls for 12 egg yolks beaten until light in color, then beat in gradually 1 lb. confectioners' sugar and 2 c. of liquor (dark rum, brandy, bourbon, rye or a mixture of these -- I used bourbon). Let this mixture stand, covered, for 1 hour "to dispel the 'eggy' taste." Then beat in 2 to 4 c. more of liquor, 2 quarts heavy cream and an optional 1 c. peach brandy. I had some old peach brandy in the cabinet but it tasted musty and got thrown out so I did without. Cover and refrigerate this mixture for 3 hours. The final step is to beat 8 to 12 egg whites "until stiff but not dry" and fold this into the egg mixture. I grated fresh nutmeg over the individual servings.

This was of course very rich and creamy. Everyone who visited and tried it loved it. The liquor component might be too strong for some people even using the lower range specified. I beat everything, including the egg whites, by hand and that certainly worked well. What was nice this time was that it remained creamy and frothy over 3 days (even a half portion was a lot to drink). Other times I've tried this it separates out a bit into a frothy top and a more fluid eggnog.

Hemingway 51: Green Isaac's Special

I was surprised at Philip Greene's presentation last month when he said Hemingway was way ahead of the trend for coconut water, because I had never heard of it. But sure enough, it is now a very trendy drink and Whole Foods has a whole shelf full of coconut water, so I tried out this cocktail from Islands in the Stream.

It starts with 2 oz. of gin, mixed with 4 oz. of coconut water and 1 oz. of lime juice, along with 2 to 4 dashes of Angostura bitters, shaken and poured with ice into Collins glass, and garnished with a lime wedge. It was eminently drinkable, though something of an acquired taste that is probably acquired much more easily on a hot day in the Caribbean than in a Washington winter. It is refreshing (coconut water is supposed to restore those elusive electrolytes), though not immediately competition for a gin and tonic. I'll try it again in the summer.

Greene notes the drink is also called a "Tomini" and in another place a "Tom Collins" with the ingredients specified.

Al Dente

Zagat sent out a helpful post this week about a dozen new popular restaurants and this casual dining place by chef Roberto Donna was one of them. It's located in the old Sutton Place Gourmet on New Mexico Avenue in the same complex as Chef Geoff's and we were able to get a reservation for a bar seat.

The food was quite good. My roast veal with porcini sauce and potato tart was tasty and a nice dish for the price ($19). Andrea's "Del Plin" pasta -- a fresh, short pasta -- stuffed with potato and leeks and topped with a crumbled sausage called cotechino (and butter and parmesan) was outstanding. The pasta was warm and yummy and the sausage very flavorful; it was served in a broth that combined all the flavors. The Caesar salad we split as a starter was plentiful and fresh. Bread was a nice hard crust and the wines -- a Soave and a Barbera -- quite smooth and moderately priced.

The ambiance, however, is not great. The decor is what I would call early Euro trash, made more garish by the bright neon lighting. It looked more like a truck stop in Belgium, or Italy, than a warm and cozy restaurant. A former gourmet foodshop with big plate-glass windows may not be an ideal location for a restaurant. The music when we arrived, somewhat on the early side, could only be described as horrid, a loud rap that might have appealed to the bar crowd over at Chef Geoff's but hardly to the clientele of families and middle-aged couples we saw here. They transitioned later to Christmas crap as the restaurant filled up. A final, niggling complaint -- the parking attendant neglected to observe the validation and failed, as we only realized later, to give us the proper discount on parking.

All that said, the food will certainly bring us back. Prices are on a par with Arucola and the quality is a step or two up.

Braised 'fresh bacon'

Tom Colicchio couldn't  help bragging that GQ voted this recipe their favorite meat dish of the year, but only after debating whether to call it "fresh bacon" or "pork belly." I prefer the traditional name. Fresh bacon is a bit pretentious, though it does establish the link between this fatty cut of pork and the streaked bacon you buy.

This is one of the recipes he uses to demonstrate braising and it is excellent. It takes a long time, but is very easy. Put the 2 lbs of pork belly in a skillet with 1 Tbl of peanut oil, fat side down, and cook for 15 min over medium heat. Remove pork and drain off all but 2 Tbl of fat. Add 1 chopped onion, 2 chopped carrots, 2 chopped celery stalks, 2 peeled garlic cloves and sautee for 20 min, until vegetables start to turn brown. Put pork back in, fat side up, with 2 c. chicken stock (he calls for his brown chicken stock where he cooks a chicken stock a second time with brown chicken pieces but I just used store-bought). Bring to a simmer and put in 350-degree oven. After 1 hour, add another cup of stock and cook for another hour. Let it cool in braising liquid. Remove pork (take off skin if you were lucky enough to find pork belly with skin on), cut into 4 serving pieces and make cross-hatch pattern in the fat. Strain braising liquids, discard solids. Bring liquid to simmer and skim off fat. Return pork to pan and put it in 400-degree oven for 20 min. Serve in shallow bowl with some braising liquid. I served tiny boiled purple potatoes with it which you could mash in the bowl and soak up the liquid.

The meat has an intense pork-y flavor not at all like bacon but more like a juicy bit of braised shoulder. It is of course super-tender after all this cooking and the braising liquid is flavorful and surprisingly light.

Roast chicken

I'm delving into Tom Colicchio's Think Like a Chef with his simple technique demonstrations. I usually find chef cookbooks too complicated and precious for home cooking, but this stuff seems harmless enough.

His technique for roasting a chicken has two unusual twists. The first is to brown the chicken in the skillet on top of the stove. You put the chicken "on its side" and brown for 7 min. then turn it over to the other side for 7 min. Then set it breast side up and put the skillet in a 375-degree oven. The chicken was washed, patted dry, salted and peppered, 2 sprigs each of rosemary and thyme in the cavity and trussed before being browned in 1 Tbl of peanut oil.

The second twist is to add 2 Tbl butter to the skillet after the first 20 min of roasting, then roasting another 30 min., basting every so often. When done, let the chicken rest for 15 min., carve and sprinkle coarse sea salt over the pieces. The chicken was very flavorful, and the browning and butter gave the skin a nice taste, while the basting kept the breasts moist. The thighs had a bit of that burnt grease flavor that using a roaster grid is designed to avoid, but I don't mind that.

'Ask your butcher'

One of my pet peeves about cookbook authors is their pretense that we all live in a world with a friendly neighborhood butcher who is waiting behind the counter with every conceivable meat product ready to carve and cut it to my exact specifications.

What world are they living in? I don't think even most residents of New York or San Francisco have a butcher like that, let alone the rest of us in industrial foodland USA.

Tom Colicchio -- who is not necessarily the worst offender, only the most recent -- says in a recipe for pork belly "to be sure to have your butcher leave on the skin."

Me, I'm just happy that Whole Foods has started carrying pork belly regularly so that I don't have to chase around to a Korean supermarket to find it. Here's how the dialogue goes with the person who happened to be behind the WF meat counter yesterday as he put two slabs of pork belly with no skin onto the scale for me:

Me: "I don't supposed you have any pork belly with the skin on."
Him: "Naw, we don't sell it that way. Anything else, today?"

End of conversation. What next, Tom? Whole Foods is one of two places where I can conveniently shop for high-quality meat. A computer decides what cuts they are going to offer based on which product moves the most through the store. Truth be told, there was one meat-cutter at WF who I could talk to about things like my pork rib roast "honor guard" last year, but I haven't seen him for months and there is no discernible continuity in the people behind the meat counter. Only the expensive cuts are displayed in the case and everything else is packaged in cellophane in another meat case. What you see is what you get and I've not found them in general to be responsive to requests.

The other place where I regularly buy meat is Broad Branch Market, which obviously has a very limited selection of just certain cuts, and the kids behind the counter serving you don't know the difference between a strip and a ribeye. Lots of people like Chevy Chase supermarket, but everything there is pre-cut and wrapped in cellophane, which of course is the way most supermarkets these days handle meat.

More specialized butchers are few and far between. Wagshal's is too far and more often than not service there has been surly when I do venture to make the trip. Some the new boutique butchers springing up in Alexandria and other snob locales basically seem to be adjuncts to restaurants, to off-load what chef doesn't sell, so you can get what they have or of course special order it a week in advance.

Which is the way it is, but it would be nice if cookbook writers could abandon their fictional bubble and talk to people who live in the real world. For instance, Colicchio could have said: "In this recipe, leaving the skin on enhances the flavor if you can find pork belly like that, but otherwise it tastes fine with the skin removed."

Hemingway 52: Cognac and Benedictine

This was actually the second drink we had at the Last Exit when author Philip Greene was guest-bartending. He found this straightforward combination, served in an Old Fashioned glass with ice and a lemon peel, in an unpublished short story of Hemingway's, "The Mercenaries: A Story." Hemingway had just returned from ambulance service in World War I and his narrator meets some professional soldiers in a dive in Chicago. They introduce him to this drink, which they first tasted in Sicily, even though it combines two French cordials.

Greene says Martell's is the cognac called for and it's clear you don't want a really good one to mix in a drink. It tastes a bit like a stinger -- brandy and white creme de menthe, also served over ice -- without the cloying sweetness of the creme de menthe. Instead, there is the herbal smokiness of the Benedictine, redolent of monastic incense. As Greene notes, you can now buy B&B in a bottle all its own.

I have a fondness for these herbal liqueurs, Chartreuse being the most representative. Perhaps it is an acquired taste, because I know many people are repelled by them. I had ordered this drink for Andrea, thinking she wouldn't like the Jack Rose, but it turned out she preferred it to this one, so I finished it.

I don't regularly keep any of these liqueurs and haven't had one since the last bottle of Chartreuse ran out. But I may get some Benedictine as the next herbal cordial to have on hand.

The vintner's wife's pork chops

I'm grateful that many cookbook authors don't hesitate to include even very simple recipes because it helps turn a quick weekday meal into something tasty and different. This recipe from Susan Herrmann Loomis's Cooking at Home on Rue Tatin is basically just a fried pork chop, sauteed 3 to 4 min on each side and then cooked with the skillet covered for another 7 min. Remove the chops and cover with foil to keep warm. Add 1/2 c. water to the skillet and a finely chopped shallot and garlic clove. Stir to deglaze the pan and reduce the sauce. Add 4 chopped cornichons and then 1 Tbl Dijon mustard, stir to combine and pour sauce over chops. Sprinkle minced parsley over them.

Though attributed to a vintner's wife, there is no wine in this recipe, but the combination of mustard and shallots makes a hearty red wine appealing and I had a southern Cote du Rhone.

Among the minor marvels at Broad Branch Market is their tub of cornichons for 4.99 a pound -- which gives you a nice pint for less than 3. They are real French-style cornichons and I usually have a tub in the fridge.

Salmon fillet poached in olive oil

We liked Paula Wolfert's Pork coddled in olive oil so this seemed like a good simple recipe to try for a weekday meal. Sprinkle a 1-lb center cut salmon fillet (skin removed) with salt an hour before cooking and put back in fridge. Meanwhile, heat 2-1/2 c. (!) olive oil in a skillet just big enough to hold the fillet to simmering point with 3 sliced garlic cloves and a sprig of thyme and cook until garlic turns golden brown. Turn off heat and let stand until ready to cook the salmon. After an hour, rinse the salmon and pat it dry. Remove the garlic and thyme and heat the oil back to 155 degrees (using a candy thermometer to measure), put in the salmon, adding more oil to cover if necessary, and poach for 12 min. at 145 degrees. Turn off heat and let it cook further in the oil until it is opaque and flaky.

The fish came out silky and tender -- not at all oily! -- gently infused with the thyme and garlic flavor. It was heavenly. Yes it's a lot of olive oil and a bit of an extravagance since we are not likely to be able to re-use the oil, but it's a very nice way to cook salmon for a change of pace.

Wolfert suggests a salad of arugula with shaved rhubarb and cucumber to accompany. Obviously there's no rhubarb available this time of year, so I just left it out. The peeled cucumber gets sliced on a mandolin, then tossed in salt and left for 10 min. Rinse and drain the cucumbers, add to a couple handfuls of arugula, toss with lemon juice and sprinkle shredded mint leaves over the top. The wonderful tangy taste of the arugula comes through unadorned and sets off the salmon very nicely.

Hemingway 53: Jack Rose

As part of his unceasing efforts to promote his book on Hemingway's cocktails, Philip Greene worked as guest bartender at the Last Exit in Mount Pleasant one night this week offering various versions of the Jack Rose cocktail. There is the bar's version, made with Calvados; the classic version with just Laird's applejack, lemon juice and grenadine; and the more elaborate version he attributes to Harry MacElhone of Harry's New York Bar in Paris and which he thinks is the one Hemingway meant when he referred to the drink in The Sun Also Rises.

I went straight for this version, which adds gin, red and white vermouth and orange juice to the original ingredients. It was very good -- refreshing with a good kick to it.

I was curious about the drink since the Jack Rose bar in D.C. is one of my new favorite places. Oddly, there is no whiskey in the cocktail that lent its name to this fabulous whiskey emporium but it's a catchy name in any case.

Harry's Bar was a favorite of mine in Paris. One of its claims to fame is that the Bloody Mary was invented there (there are other claimants as well). One day I was there and Harry's son, Andy MacElhone, was explaining to a TV crew that the original Bloody Mary never had celery in it as they filmed one of the crack bartenders mixing up a sample.

The bartender put the finished drink on the bar with a flourish, MacElhone finished his explanation, the TV crew turned off their spotlights and began packing up to leave. So I said, "What's going to happen to this drink?" MacElhone laughed and said, "Give it to him, he thought of it first."

Palena Cafe

When some friends suggested going to a wine-tasting at Weygandt's with Eric Asimov I took advantage of the expanded Cafe Palena's ability to take reservations and booked us a table there afterwards. I was keen to finally try Frank Ruta's signature roast chicken and it lived up to all my expectations and more.

As one of our friends said, "This may be the best roast chicken I've ever had." Crispy, browned skin, moist interior just cooked through, piping hot from the oven, with just a garnish of braised greens, it was simply delicious. There's a lot of speculation online just how he does it. There seems to be more flavor than just the lemon and lemon zest Ruta gives in a roast chicken recipe in Food and Wine, but maybe something short of a marinade. The chicken is undoubtedly organic and spends time in the fridge to dry out the skin so that it roasts crispy. It is prepared completely on order and takes a good 30 to 45 minutes (though waiting with a perfect Sazerac, Palena's delicious selection of bread and good company is no hardship).

My already favorable impression of the Cafe soared. Everything was just right -- the service was impeccable and friendly, the bread was oven warm and tasty (the bread sticks were fabulous), the butter was soft, the Sazerac -- did I mention? -- was perfect, the Caesar salad Andrea and I split was like a Romaine wedge with parmesan, the glass of Cote du Rhone was smooth, the coffee was fresh and robust.

It's not particularly cheap -- $21 may strike some as high for chicken, but it's a full half and a bargain at this price; there is a token extra charge for the bread and there was even a charge for splitting the salad. But, hey, you're getting the full quality of the prix fixe restaurant for a fraction of the price.

Birch & Barley

This restaurant at Logan Circle has an upstairs bar, the Churchkey, featuring 50 craft beers on tap and another 500 in bottles, so I've been meaning to try it out and finally did this week. I hit a day when they were having a special event celebrating 21 years of the Schlafly brewery, a craft brewery in St. Louis, with 21 of their beers. This was fine with me, since I grew up in St. Louis and I'm glad that the city of Anheuser-Busch and Falstaff is also a leader in the craft revolution.

I started with the 2 oz. samples and liked that so much I stayed with it instead of picking a beer to have a full glass of. Keep this in mind as I rattle off the beers I tried, all 8 of them, because it is only 16 oz. of beer, or the same as one normal pint. The bartender recommended going just two at a time to keep them straight, so I started in the "crisp" category with Schlafly Pilsner and Oktoberfest. Both good, with the Oktoberfest a little spicier. Then two pale ales from Schlafly: the dry-hopped American pale ale and the Tanzanian IPA. Both good as pale ales but I like pilsners better. I took a break from Schlafly to try two cask ales: Oxbow and Winter Storm. Oxbow had a murky, new beer look and I didn't much care for it; Winter Storm was very spicy in a pleasant sort of way. I finished with two dark beers from Schlafly: the Porter and the Reserve Stout. I find most of these dark beers too raw -- can anyone really beat Guinness? -- so the smoother Porter was my preference here.

I'll suspend judgment on the food -- the bar has its own menu of bar-type food while the downstairs restaurant has a more ambitious menu. I tried the signature "brat burger" -- which adds some pork and sausage spices to a hamburger -- and was not impressed. It was supposed to have sauerkraut on it but the amount was small you could hardly taste it. Why get fancy? Serve brats, for god's sake. Also the ubiquitous and detestable coated fries accompanied it. They get good marks for grilled cheese and other simple fare, so will try that next time.

The beer is great, super-fresh, with a lot of attention paid to temperature and a studied array of glasses to serve the various types in. Arriving at 5:30, I got a bar stool, but when I left an hour later it was three deep at the bar.

Small plates

Various dishes for lunch and dinner that have been successful:

Eggplant parmesan: This Marcella Hazan recipe is an old favorite of mine that I hadn't tried in a long time. It's very simple and sinfully delicious. So even though it's hardly eggplant season, I cooked it over the weekend to accompany some lamb chops from Blue Rooster Farm.

Peel and slice the eggplants vertically into 3/8-in. slices, salt in colander and let stand for at least 30 min., pat dry. Fill skillet to 1 in. with vegetable oil and fry slices in repeated single layers until they are golden brown, drain. I have to say, whether it's because I used a cast iron skillet or that I finally did pour in oil up to 1 in., this was the best success I ever had with this step. The eggplant slices absorbed very little oil and came out light and fluffy. Layer the slices into a greased baking pan alternating with a layer of coarsely grated mozzarella and chopped can tomato with a Tbl of parmesan and a pinch of oregano and salt. End with a layer of eggplant, sprinkle with parmesan and dot with butter. Put into a 400-degree oven for 20 min., check for excess liquid and bake another 15 min. Let cool a bit before serving. I only used 1-1/2 lbs eggplant instead of the 3 in the recipe (which somehow she gets from 2 medium eggplants), so I only had 2 layers of eggplant with one layer of cheese and tomato in between. Scrumptious.

Pan-roasted red snapper with Old Bay: I adapted this from Steve Sando's bean book to go along with a batch of his flageolet beans. I got a nice small filet from A&H, and coated it in a mix of flour and Old Bay (a new tin as part of my effort to use fresher spices), then fried on top of stove before putting briefly in 400-degree oven to cook through. It was delicious with the beans.

Bean and tuna salad: Another adaptation from Sando, using some of the flageolet beans again. I got some expensive Spanish canned tuna from A&H -- it really does taste a whole lot better than the Whole Foods brands -- mashed it in a salad bowl, then added sliced onion and chopped parsley (didn't have the celery that Sando adds), the beans (slightly warmed), oil and vinegar and salt and pepper. Toss. Great lunch!

Hemingway 54: Whiskey and soda

Continuing the countdown of Hemingway cocktails in Philip Greene's To Have and Have Another, this week's featured drink is whiskey and soda, which may not seem too exciting but was a staple for the writer and a good everyday drink for yours truly.

As whiskey aficionados seek to outdo each other in finding obscure single malts and Johnny Walker continues to add new colored labels, workaday blended Scotches appear old-fashioned, especially mixed with ice and soda. But it still works and for this countdown I retrieved the bottle of Dewar's White Label, mentioned by Greene as one of Hemingway's favorites, from the back of my cupboard and had one, then another.

When I first turned of drinking age (a youthful 18 in those days), I was told that if you drink Scotch, you should drink a good one, and if you drink a good Scotch, you shouldn't sully it with anything other than a splash of water. So I was surprised sitting on one of my early transatlantic flights when a young Scot sitting next me ordered some ginger ale with his Scotch. "Surprised?" he said, shaking his head. "Americans think you should never mix anything with Scotch but we think it tastes good with ginger ale." I tried it, and it did taste good, but I can't say it changed my thinking or my drinking habits (in fact I rarely drink ginger ale at all).

The short story mentioned in this chapter is "Night Before Battle," set again in Chicote's bar in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, when the narrator meets a tank commander who's convinced he will die in the next day's battle. It's an interesting story, and has this great line about drinking (NOT quoted by Greene), as the narrator mulls over his day's effort to film a battle: "When things are all right and it is you that is feeling low a drink can make you feel better. But when things are really bad and you are all right, a drink just makes it clearer." Needless to say, he concluded that the latter applied to this particular day.

Ripple

Of course the big joke about the name of this restaurant for people my age is that before the wine revolution in this country, Ripple, a rotgut sold in plastic bottles, was probably the best-known wine in the country.

The wine here is certainly not rotgut, though the offerings by the glass are extraordinarily expensive, in the 12-15 range. Maybe that's what the Cleveland Park after-work market will bear. It is a bright and warm restaurant with a long, inviting bar made of colorful segments of polished tile. We came early, sat at a bar table and watched the place fill up.

We split a cheese plate for starters. Like cheese plates everywhere, the portions were very skimpy but the cheeses were good. I had the venison, which came with things like apple tahini and salted beef stems. It was tender and tasty, cooked to a nice medium rare with the emphasis on rare. Andrea had the stuffed lamb shoulder, which was also good though a little mushy for my taste. The entrees without extra sides make for a meager meal, but we like to pretend we're on a diet so that was OK.

An overall positive experience but probably overpriced for what you get. I'll go again, but won't rush back.

Hemingway 55: Gin & tonic with bitters

To paraphrase Julie Powell's year-long effort to cook all of Julia Child's recipes -- "365 days, 524 recipes" -- how about this: 52 weeks, 55 cocktails!

Philip Greene discussed his new book To Have and Have Another: A Hemingway Cocktail Companion in a presentation at the Washington Club last night that included an open bar and hors d'oeuvres. Greene, a scion of New Orleans' Peychaud family and a founder of the Museum of the American Cocktail there, has chronicled the various drinks in Hemingway's life and works. His engaging book devotes a chapter each to the 55 cocktails he tracked down (and one other chapter on a good way to drink cognac).

It seems to me to be a fairly easy challenge to have one or two of these cocktails each week for the next year. Few of them are new to me, but some are. This version of a gin & tonic is different, but actually quite pleasant -- it's the drink I got at the open bar last night. Hemingway seemed fairly fond of bitters in general (and Greene of course is not going to leave this out).

The two dashes of bitters rounds out the flavor of the drink. Bitters are a bit old-fashioned, of course, and the authentic Hemingway version with Gordon's gin and Schweppes tonic water may seem dated in this age of craft gins and homemade tonic, but it's hard to beat a classic. While I always think of gin & tonic as a hot weather drink and usually have it only in the summer, the addition of bitters helps make it palatable in cold weather as well.

Greene quotes liberally from Hemingway's work and the chapter on this drink features Islands in the Stream and the short story "The Denunciation," neither of which I've read. It would truly be a challenge to read the works cited each week but I won't commit to that.

It was quite a surprise when Greene said in answer to a question that his research had not taken him to Paris, which was a very long chapter in Hemingway's drinking life. You can't escape the writer if you go out drinking in Paris. I once met a prospective employer in the Hemingway Bar at the Hotel Ritz on Place Vendome. Harry's Bar, Closerie des Lilas, the Dome all have their memories of Hemingway.

During my own brief flirtation with bartending a few years ago (bartending school, two bartending gigs), I began a card file of drinks mentioned in literature just for the fun of it. I didn't get very far, but Greene's book appealed to me immediately for that reason. It turns out that Greene, who is an attorney at the Pentagon, is actually a neighbor here in Chevy Chase, and occasionally does guest bartending gigs in local venues, so chances are good I will run into him again as I count down the Hemingway cocktails.

Update: Perhaps reading the short stories is not too big a commitment. I found my Complete Short Stories and put it in a handy place. "The Denunciation" is pretty much as Greene described it. What struck me was how well Hemingway conjured up the bar, not only in its physical detail but in the esprit that inhabited it. As Greene says: "Here's hoping you've known a place like Chicote's in your life." It is a bit of a "Cheers" phenomenon -- you feel comfortable, everybody knows your name. The closest I've come, I suppose, is the Cafe de l'Esperance, my neighborhood cafe in Paris, but it was more of a cafe really than a bar. In terms of bonding with the proprietors and their longtime waitress, however, it had something of the same meaning for me.

Guinea fowl with marscapone

I keep coming across recipes for guinea fowl so I resolved to bring home one of these pintades whenever I saw them on sale. Perhaps because of the holidays, WholeFoods had a big case of diverse poultry the other day -- goose, duck, pheasant, turkey of course, and guinea fowl -- so I finally got one.

There were a couple of recipes for guinea fowl and savoy cabbage but I went instead with Anna Del Conte's recipe from Lodi in the Lombardy region. It appealed to me because of marscapone in the cavity and a combination of white wine and white rum as braising liquid. The recipe is simple -- put 4 Tbl (!) of butter, a cut up carrot, a cut up onion, and 2 cut up celery stalks and 4 whole cloves in the pot; spoon 2 Tbl marscapone into the cavity of the bird, salt and pepper, place in the pot on top of the vegetables, pour over 4 oz wine and 2 Tbl rum, bring to a boil, cover and put into 400-degree oven for 1 to 1-1/4 hours.

Though the recipe didn't call for it, I turned the bird halfway through since I had to put it in the pot sideways. When the bird is tender, remove and cut into 4 serving pieces. Remove the cloves (if you can find them) and purree the cooking liquid and vegetables into a sauce.

Guinea fowl, needless to say, tastes a lot like chicken. I find it a bit gamier, with a texture and color somewhere between chicken and duck. It doesn't have nearly as much fat as duck or goose. This came out tender and moist because of the braising and the marscapone. If you find yourself gravitating more and more to the dark meat in chicken and turkey, you will like guinea fowl. The sauce came out a surprising color of yellow and was delicious on the meat.

I toyed with the idea of serving Grunkohl, which I'm belatedly realizing is green kale, prepared in the German fashion (blanched, chopped and braised in onion and broth), but opted instead for a separate Anna Del Conte recipe for -- savoy cabbage! This recipe is from the Veneto region and starts with a soffrito of 4 oz. of pancetta, an onion, 1 Tbl rosemary needles, 1 garlic clove all chopped up together in a food processor then sauteed briefly in 2 Tbl. of olive oil. Trim and cut the cabbage into quarters, remove the core and cut into half-inch strips, add to pot and wilt, add 6 oz. white wine, cover and stew for 1-1/2 hours. It goes really well with guinea fowl.

I used a nice sauvignon blanc for cooking and accompanied the meal with the great Alsatian riesling we got at Iron Bridge, which manages to be bone dry and fruit forward at the same time. A bit extravagant for a weekday meal, but very nice.

Spices

I like to celebrate the fact that we are in a privileged place and time where we can cook virtually any world cuisine we want and fix a wonderful variety of dishes at home. I'm realizing belatedly that one drawback to all this diversity is that some of the staples used in cooking -- particularly herbs and spices -- are not as fresh as they would be if we stuck to one or another cuisine.

In Mexico or Morocco or India, the home cook would constantly use the same spices and these would be used up and replaced often so that they generally would be fresh. That's not the case for me, cooking different types of food just a couple of times a week for two people. With all the food habits I've changed in pursuit of good eating, there is one bad old habit I haven't shaken: I somehow think that I should be able to buy a spice or dried herb and keep it on my shelf for months, and often years, and that it remains a legitimate ingredient.

But it's not! Why should I think that I can be spared the expense of regularly replenishing oregano, for instance, that costs $6.95 in the little supermarket bottle or much less in bulk, when I routinely spend much more for fresh ingredients, including fresh herbs, for just one dish?

I went to make a tagine recipe calling for ras-el-hanout this week and ended up concocting an approximation of it from spices I had on hand. But I'm fairly certain none of them was fresher than 6 months and most of them were much older than that. So the dish lacked the zing you might expect from exotic spices -- big surprise!

I was proud of myself last year when I reorganized my spice shelf with generic bottles so I could buy spices in bulk. Two local stores at least, Broad Branch Market and the Silver Spring Co-op, sell spices in bulk and you can fill one of these little bottles with a $1.50 worth of spices. I vaguely thought of labeling the spices with a date and throwing them out after 6 months or a year, but I never followed through on that.

But I think I will make more of an effort. It would mean throwing out virtually all the ground spices and dried herbs I have. One approach would then be to buy ingredients only as needed, label them with the date, and replace them the next time I used them if they were no longer sufficiently fresh. I've ordered Herbs & Spices: The Cook's Reference by Jill Norman and will see what kind of suggestions she has about how fresh individual spices should be.

Beef tagine with sweet potatoes

I love turkey and we had our usual splendid Thanksgiving feast this year with Andrea's family. But after the wholesome American flavors, it seemed like some exotic food would be the perfect change of pace. Over the weekend we went again to Masala Art and had some of their sumptuous Indian food, and yesterday I dusted off my tagine and tackled this recipe from Ghillie Basan.

The full title is "Beef tagine with sweet potatoes, peas, ginger and ras-el-hanout," and clearly the key to whole recipe is the last ingredient, a Moroccan spice mixture. I thought I had found a bottle somewhere but it wasn't on my shelf, so I went online to find various recipes for the mixture, usually with only 10 spices, compared to the 30 or so in the real mix, which includes some ingredients not readily available here.

Not a big deal except it brought me to the realization, which I will discuss more in my next post, that my spices are not really fresh. Using Urban Accents Moroccan Road mix as a base -- according the website it is just coriander, cumin, cinnamon and mint -- I added an assortment of other spices -- turmeric, clove, white pepper, aleppo pepper, piment d'esplette, ginger, black pepper and maybe one or two others -- all in minuscule amounts to total the 2 tsp. called for in the recipe. It was fine, but lacked the exotic zing that fresh spices would have brought to it.

Tagines are a great weekday meal because the pot does the work. I sauteed chopped onion and shredded ginger in ghee, then added 2 lbs lean beef (I used chuck) in bite-sized chunks and browned it, stirred in the 2 tsp of spice and covered with water, covered the pot and simmered for 40 minutes. Then I added 2 cubed sweet potatoes and cooked for another 20 minutes. Then 1 lb of frozen peas (a lot!) and 3 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped, for another 10 min. It gets topped with chopped cilantro and preserved lemon (which I forgot). It worked great as a beef stew, producing a nice broth, but was missing that taste of the bazaar.

Iron Bridge Wine Co.

This place outside Columbia pretty much in the middle of nowhere looked like fun when our friends suggested meeting there and turned out to be even better than we anticipated. It certainly confirms my belief that the food revolution has penetrated deep into rural corners you wouldn't expect. We decided that it would be hard to find a place that combined the high quality of food with the energy of an unfussy ambiance anywhere in Bethesda.

Our friends had snagged one of the best tables, in the corner behind the fireplace, so that we benefited from the hubbub but could still carry on a conversation. The food looked so appetizing, we went whole hog with drinks, appetizers, main course, dessert and coffee -- and of course a bottle of wine.

Three of us took the special of the day -- braised lamb shoulder with Swiss chard and mashed potatoes -- and Andrea got the duck breast. I had the buratta with tomato and fennel jam as a starter, and it was very fresh and creamy with a slight tang set off well by the jam. The lamb was incredibly tender and very flavorful and perfectly complemented by the sides. Andrea's duck was also very good, tender and moist, and her house-cured salmon starter was excellent. The desserts were all good -- my bourbon pecan tart, Andrea's cranberry bread pudding and the flourless chocolate cake and creme brulee ordered by our friends. I tried the old-fashioned with bacon-infused bourbon -- not the most successful experiment -- and we ordered a bottle of Descombes Nouveau Beaujolais in honor of the season, and it may have been the best NB I've ever had.

The restaurant, which has a sister location in Warrenton, is also a wine retailer with an excellent selection (and the markups at dinner are quite minimal). We got some of the Beaujolais and an Alsatian Riesling to bring home.

It was such a pleasant surprise to find all this in what we tend to call BF Maryland that we resolved to meet our friends again soon in another such location. They live in Baltimore and have made a practice of exploring the hinterland for these hidden gems. Our next venture will probably be to the Bistro Blanc, a new restaurant started nearby by the former chef at Iron Bridge. Others on the list are Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore and Tersiguel's in Ellicott City.

Ici Urban Bistro

This relatively informal restaurant in the Hotel Sofitel provided what I wanted -- a place downtown that's easy to get in and out of but civilized enough to have a conversation. I was meeting an old friend from London who wanted to grab a quick bite before catching his flight and, since we were in Paris together, this French-type place filled the bill.

That said, I don't think I'd go here for the food. The menu was quite limited and it may be that both the ingredients and preparation are fresh but it would be hard to prove it by my baked red snapper, which was a tad overdone and not the freshest fish I've had lately (for instance, not nearly as fresh as the snapper I had at the Big Fish Grill just the week before).

The wine was good. My friend ordered it, so not sure what it was beyond that it was a crisp French white. The ambiance was pleasant enough, though it couldn't help feeling like International Hotel in the middle of anywhere. Le Bar next door is very popular and the foot traffic outside at the busy intersection of 15th and H supplied a certain energy and bustle.

Poached halibut with mustard sauce

I've had a hankering for halibut for several weeks. When we went to Pesce a few weeks ago, I was dreaming of the poached halibut they serve there, but it wasn't on the menu that night. When we visited friends at Beach Haven in September they said their fishmonger was bringing them halibut from the market on Long Beach Island, but he came back with grouper instead. At Rehoboth over the weekend, the restaurant where we had dinner had a halibut special but I didn't like the accompaniment (and someone who ordered it left the sides on the plate).

It turns out it's not that hard to poach halibut and this recipe from Mark Bittman fully satisfied my craving. Although he says this Dutch recipe works for any North Atlantic white fish, he thinks poaching is the best way to cook halibut to keep it from drying out. This comes out creamy and delicate and the understated mustard sauce does not overpower the sweet fish flavor.

For some reason, Bittman always specifies halibut steaks for his recipes, whereas we prefer fillets and that's what The Fishery sells. So I got a nice piece of fillet with the skin on and used the recipe's third option for poaching liquid -- 4 c. of water and white vinegar on an 8:1 ratio (the other two options were Court Bouillon or Fast Fish Stock). It did the trick and is a great option for a weekday meal. Bring the liquid to a boil in a skillet just large enough to hold the fish, put the fish in, adding more liquid to cover if necessary, and simmer at medium low until opaque throughout.

The fillet was not the same thickness and my skillet was too shallow for the thickest part, so I had to carefully turn the fish as it cooked. But this gave me a chance to remove the skin.

For the sauce, cook 1 Tbl flour in 1 Tbl butter for 3 or 4 min until brown, then add 1 c. of the poaching liquid. Cook and thicken for another 4 to 5 min. then add salt and pepper and 1 Tbl Dijon mustard. Serve the sauce over the halibut and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Bittman recommends boiled potatoes to accompany (it is a Dutch recipe, after all), but we had lentils. I used a preparation I found in an Epicurious recipe (from Gourmet) for Sauteed Cod with Lentils. It calls for French green lentils, and we used the Zursun Idaho heirloom lentils that we bought at La Cuisine in Alexandria. Bring 1 c. lentils to a boil and cook 12 to 25 minutes until tender, then drain, reserving the liquid. Cook 1 c. chopped onion and 1 chopped garlic clove in 2 Tbl. butter in a covered pot for 10 min., stirring occasionally, then uncover and cook another 5 or 10 min. Add the lentils and 1/4 to 1/2 c. of their cooking liquid to moisten, heat through, then add 1 Tbl. lemon juice, 3 Tbl. chopped parsley and 1 Tbl. olive oil. Lentils were delicious and paired perfectly with the halibut.

Big Fish Grill

I may have visited this Rehoboth institution once before but too long ago to remember. Our lunch there this weekend with a group of 10 was very enjoyable. We sat in the annex where the bar is rather than in the main dining room and had a large table at bar-stool height. The favored option was one of the fish of the day on a salad and I got a grilled red snapper on a chophouse salad. The fish was great -- fresh, grilled just right, and the salad with a garlic ranch dressing was a perfect fit.

The Big Fish Grill is on Highway 1 just down the street from our host's house, so it was a convenient spot for those of us who had convened for the weekend. In a thoughtful move, given that most of the better restaurants were closed for off-season, our host thought it would be fun to eat dinner at the Boardwalk Plaza Hotel, where the dining room is right on the boardwalk. Though the faux-Victorian decor inside was a bit over the top, the view was very nice -- even in the dark since floodlights illuminated the boardwalk and dune grass -- and the food, while not imaginative, was quite good. I had the New York strip with wild mushroom risotto and roasted asparagus -- hit the spot! Several bottles of wine made the whole meal quite convivial.

Chicken in piquant tomato sauce

Another stewy, tomatoey dish from Italy, this time courtesy of Domenica Marchetti. It benefits from the rich, hearty flavor (and economy) of chicken thighs, though I think I inadvertently downplayed the piquant part.

The recipe calls for 10 thighs to serve 5 or 6 people. My value pack from WF actually had 11 bone-in, skin-on thighs of various sizes. The chicken gets browned in two batches, starting skin side down for 5 min., then flipped over for another 5 min. Marchetti says to drain off all but 2 Tbl. of the rendered fat afterwards and then saute 1 big or 2 medium chopped onions for 5 min., add a clove of minced garlic for a couple of minutes, then sprinkle 1 or 2 Tbl of flour over it and pour in 3/4 c. white wine. Boil this down for a while, then add 4 chopped anchovy fillets and a pinch of red pepper flakes.

Here's were I downplayed the piquancy. The recipe calls for Rizzoli anchovies packed in a piquant sauce or any other anchovy fillets. So of course I got any other, and didn't think about compensating for the lack of piquant sauce by adding more red pepper flakes. So the sauce wasn't too piquant, but still very delicious.

The final ingredient is a 28 oz. can of whole tomatoes, mashed up to crush. Add the thighs back to the pot. Marchetti recommends taking off the crispy skin, arguing that it has made its flavor combination and that if you leave it on it will just turn flabby and make the sauce fatty. So I did and I think she's probably right. (Cook's bonus: Crispy chicken skin tastes really good.) Put the covered pot into a preheated 350-degree oven and after half an hour take the cover off and cook for another hour. It looks quite outstanding when it comes out (alas, I neglected to take a picture). Serve over polenta. So easy and cheap for a hearty weekday meal, with, obviously, plenty of leftovers.

Pork stew with paprika

This northern Italian version of goulash is easy and delicious and gave us several good meals. I used pork shoulder (Boston butt) to cut into stewing chunks, rather than the "pork steaks" called for by Anna Del Conte. Also, tomato passato is apparently something you can find in Europe but not here, so I used crushed tomato. In any case, the stew was meaty with a rich tomato sauce.

My pork weighed in at somewhat more than her 1-3/4 lbs so I increased the other ingredients proportionately. I had no luck finding smoked pancetta so I used guanciala, which is probably a little fattier. The recipe calls for 4 oz., which is cut into cubes and sauteed in 2 Tbl. butter for 5 min. Then you add 8 oz. sliced onion and cook for 20 min. Then mix in the pork and brown for 10 min. before sprinkling in 1 Tbl. paprika (I always use sweet unless the recipe specifies hot) and 1 Tbl. flour. Cook for another minute then add 7 oz. wine and bring to a boil and cook for a couple of minutes before adding 10 oz. of the crushed tomato, a dozen fresh sage leaves snipped into pieces and 2 bay leaves. Cook for 1-1/2 to 2 hrs. Del Conte recommends serving with polenta, but we accompanied with creamed purree of cauliflower.

Mushrooms, beans

More by coincidence than anything else, our dinners this week have been vegetarian. I was attracted to the Creamy Porcini Soup in Domenica Marchetti's The Glorious Soups and Stews of Italy because it gave me a chance to use some of the chicken stock I made last weekend when I cleaned out my collection of frozen chicken parts.

I used Marchetti's recipe for the stock as well, though it is the same as most -- simmering the chicken with carrots, onions, celery, parsley, thyme, garlic, black peppercorns (she also calls for fennel stalks but I didn't have that), then straining.

The soup recipe calls for 1 oz. of dried porcini and a bunch of fresh mushrooms in lieu of the fresh porcini available in Italy. Unfortunately, WF has gotten so spotty in its stocking, they had no porcini, so I got dried chanterelles and ended up making creamy chanterelle soup. The recipe uses 1 lb. of cremini and white button mushrooms to make a soup base, and then another pound of mixed portobello and shitake mushrooms to saute and add separately.

The first batch is cooked in oil, butter, onion and garlic until their liquid has evaporated and they are tender. Then you add the soaked and drained dried mushrooms and 3/4 c. white wine and boil that away. Let the cooked mushrooms cool, then purree with some of the strained soaking liquid from the dried mushrooms. Sprinkle the purree with 3 Tbl. of flour and then gradually stir in 5 c. of chicken or meat broth. Saute the sliced portobello and shitake caps separately, stir into the soup, whisk in 1/2 c. heavy cream and 2 Tbl. of cognac and serve the soup with chopped parsley.

After Andrea pointed out that a mushroom soup, even if rich and hearty, is still just a soup, I scrambled to find something to accompany and found a recipe for skillet cornbread on a website called "The Pioneer Woman." It was super-easy, delicious and doubtless a keeper. Mix dry ingredients -- 1 c. cornmeal, 1/2 c. flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1 Tbl. baking powder -- in a bowl. Mix liquid ingredients -- 1 c. buttermilk (she helpfully reminds you that if you don't have buttermilk just add a splash of white vinegar to milk), 1/2 c. milk, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp. baking soda -- and combine with dry ingredients. Stir in 1/4 c. melted shortening, then pour batter into cast iron skillet with 2 Tbl. shortening. Cook for 1 min. on top of stove, then put into preheated 450 degree oven for 20 to 25 min. until golden on top and crispy at the edges. Worked perfectly.

The bean dish from Deborah Madison's Local Flavors was also based on shopping at the farmer's market, because it calls for redbor kale and Sheridan School had a great selection of kale. I used the Rancho Gordo Rio Zape beans (a type of red bean) I had in the cupboard, soaked for several hours and then cooked for 1-1/2 hrs. with a diced onion, 2 bay leaves and 1/2 tsp. thyme leaves. The kale was stripped from the stems and cut into pieces, boiled in salted water for 5 to 7 min. and drained. Then 1/2 c. chopped onion held back from that whole onion used in the beans is sauteed in olive oil with 1/2 c. chopped cilantro until the onions are soft, and then the beans and kale are added and cooked together for 10 min. or so to blend the flavors. Serve with more chopped cilantro, crumbled feta cheese and a drizzle of olive oil. We had leftover cornbread with this dish for another great meal!

Both of these cookbooks are organized by season, so it's particularly easy to locate the recipes that match well with what's available at the farmer's market.

Eat Rome

Some friends just returned from a week in Rome and regaled us with stories of a wonderful food tour they took with Elizabeth Minchilli, an American food writer who lives in Rome. They took the Campo de Fiori and Jewish Ghetto tour you can see under the Food Tours tab at Minchilli's website. Their description was mouth-watering as they ate and drank their way across Rome through markets, cafes, butchers and bakers, and prompted us to move Rome up near the top of the list of our next trips.

Minchilli also has a blog that you can subscribe to by email and the EatRome app for iPad and iPhone ($2.99) that lists great places to eat all over the city (including an interactive map that informs me, sadly, that I am currently some 7,400 km away from the restaurant). There is also an app for Florence.

I have spent some wonderful times in Rome and had some great food, from a hostaria I literally stumbled into and ate their delicious menu du jour to an elegant restaurant with a patio overlooking some of Rome's hills where I had my first sole filleted at the table. One of the nicest meals I had was at the home of some American friends in Rome who I was visiting over Christmas, because good food and the good cheer that goes with it is not confined to restaurants.

There are many other reasons to visit Rome -- art, architecture, history, shopping, and for many, a pilgrimage to the Holy See. But I'm fairly certain that our trip to Rome will put a top priority on a food tour from Elizabeth Minchilli if it can be arranged.

Sauteed sweetbreads with lemon and parsley

Another happy encounter between Anna Del Conte and Blue Rooster Farm, which offered both "beef" and lamb sweetbreads at their last visit to Sheridan School. I'd cooked sweetbreads two or three times before but fortunately Del Conte takes you through all the steps -- the soaking, the blanching, removing the membrane, etc.

It's not hard, but important to follow. The blanching is done in water brought to a boil with a small stalk of celery and slice of onion in it, then add 1 Tbl. wine vinegar and salt and put in the soaked and drained sweetbread for just 5 min. or so, and then remove the membrane. Del Conte emphasizes the two different parts of the sweetbread (the thymus gland of a young animal, which is why "veal" or "calf" is more appropriate in describing it) -- the heart, a big rectangular shaped piece, and the throat, several smaller pieces. So for the heart piece she recommends slicing, breading and sauteeing, whereas this recipe is the one she recommends for the throat pieces.

Realistically, we're not going to cook the different parts for different meals and were not going to do two recipes for the same meal, so I opted to cut the heart piece into slices for this one. You coat the pieces in flour and put into a skillet with lots of sizzling butter and a "bruised" clove of garlic, flip the pan a few times to get them browned all over, and then, according to the recipe, add 5 Tbl. of meat broth for another minute then toss with the juice of a lemon and 3 Tbl. chopped parsley. I doubled the times since I wasn't sure about how long the heart slices would take to cook -- so I browned the pieces for 4 min. and cooked in the broth for 2 min., and I don't think they were overcooked.

We accompanied with the polenta left over from the previous day, cut into strips, brushed with oil and put under the broiler until a bit crispy on the outside, and a nice, crunchy green bean and red onion salad from Broad Branch.

Lamb stewed in wine

This delicious dish was the product of a perfect storm in home cooking -- a great recipe from my cookbook of the month, Anna Del Conte's The Classic Food of Northern Italy; a lamb shoulder roast from Blue Rooster farm in Pennsylvania, which sells its own meat products once a month at our Sheridan School farmer's market; and the simmer burner on our new Bosch gas cooktop, which truly does allow a slow simmer.

Almost any lamb stew is going to taste great, but this soupy stew from Tuscany is a real winner. The 2-1/2 boneless lamb shoulder was tied up as a roast but of course is ideal for stewing. I trimmed out most of the fat and cut into small chunks. The recipe calls for "lamb neck fillets" but Anna Del Conte clearly lives in a different world than I do, where your choices at supermarket butcher counters are limited to lamb chops and leg of lamb. You heat up olive oil and briefly flavor it with peeled garlic cloves, removing them when you smell the garlic, then brown the meat, in batches if necessary, and salt when done. Pour in 2 c. of dry white wine to cover and add the unpeeled cloves from 2 heads of garlic and 2 or 3 dried red chiles soaked in warm water and broken up into pieces (I used New Mexico chiles I had on hand). Simmer for half an hour then add 2 Tbl. tomato paste and 1 Tbl. chopped rosemary and simmer for another hour. Del Conte seems worried that the stew might dry out and you'd need to top up with boiling water, but I don't think that's possible with as much water as meat today gives off. In any case, my stew remained very soupy.

The meat was incredibly tender and the flavor intense but well-balanced. I served it with soft polenta, baked in the oven without cheese according to Paula Wolfert's great technique. A nice 2009 Bordeaux to accompany and you've got a great meal -- on a weekday!

Typically, and what makes this cookbook so wonderful, Del Conte got this recipe from an innkeeper in the little town of Pitigliano, where the dish appears on the menu as Buglione dell'Albergo Guastini.

More whiskey

Went back to Jack Rose to sample more of their whiskeys. I asked the bartender about the Island single malts and he said they tend to have a tangy taste because of their proximity to the sea, a bit like oyster brine. That sounded appealing so I ordered an Arran bourbon cask and found it very nice -- indeed tangy/briny. I was less happy with the Ledaig hogshead from Mull because that tanginess was missing. I would definitely buy a bottle of Arran if I see one in a store.

Switching to bourbon for a change of pace, I tried an Evan Williams single barrel that had a nice complexity and strong vanilla notes. Back to single malts, Speyside this time, I tried an Auchroich Chieftain that seemed a little thin to me, though it had nice flavors. My drinking buddy had a Benromach 18 yr that I tasted and found, by contrast, very full and rich.

These trips are undoubtedly fun but it is a hugely expensive hobby. You can sample more with the 1 oz. pour, but that is ultimately a little unsatisfying. Whether 1 oz. or 2 oz., however, you pay an average $10 an ounce. Clearly, I will have to space out my trips.

The two whiskey consultants are Aaron and Roberto, though this time we just relied on the bartender.

Chicken with cream and mushrooms

I recently ran into the friend who originally recommended Anna Del Conte's The Classic Food of Northern Italy, and she related that she had used it for a period to cook her way through several Italian regions. This reminded me that I had hardly used it even though I had not long ago promoted it to the cookbook shelves in the kitchen.

So I used her recipe for this classic flavor combination and it was very good. She calls for a chicken cut into 8 pieces (I actually did something I rarely do and bought a cut-up whole chicken so it was 10 pieces, following her direction to cut each breast in half). Then you remove the skin and rub the meat with cut lemon, brown the chicken in olive oil and put it in a casserole. Saute a finely chopped onion in butter, then add dried porcini reconstituted by pouring in boiling water and soaking for an hour, cut into small pieces. After 5 min. add about half a pound of chopped brown mushrooms. Finally, ta-da, add 10 oz. of heavy cream and some of the porcini soaking water strained through cheesecloth. Pour this mixture over the chicken and put casserole into a 350-degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes.

Great earthy mushroom flavor. We had just with sauteed broccoli, though leftovers will be served with brown rice. I'll be doing more of these recipes!

Mr. Coffee

I bought a Mr. Coffee coffee maker when they first came out and drip brew began to replace percolators. They seemed primitive and after I went to Europe and had a succession of Krups and Braun coffee makers, I thought I'd left this cheap American product behind.

My favorite in Europe was a coffee maker whose manufacturer I can no longer remember. It was said to be designed according to Norwegian specifications -- they are the biggest per capita drinkers of coffee in the world -- and what distinguished it was that it flooded the coffee with water, much as brewing by hand does, so that the grounds steep a bit.

In my latest search for a machine that makes a clean, crisp pot of coffee, I did come across a coffee maker that sounded similar but it was out of stock and no guarantee it would ever be back in stock. So I bought a Melitta with a thermos carafe. It cost a sufficient amount of money to make me think I was getting a solid product and I was curious to try a thermos.

I didn't much like it, however. It was not handy and the thermos was heavy and hard to use. The worst part was that it appeared to build up some muck in the cap of the thermos, which of course has some tricky design to open up for the brewed coffee to enter but close to keep it warm. After a couple of days, the coffee tasted muddy and I had to run an "empty" cycle to clean it out.

Back to the drawing board. I was tempted just to get the Cuisinart, which seems to be the current favorite. When I went to Macy's, Cuisinart was running a promotion that had literally pushed all others brands off the shelves. But in Beach Haven the weekend before, the rental house had a Mr. Coffee model which looked fine and brewed a pretty good cup of coffee. That particular model is no longer available, but I got the model they had at Macy's for $30.

Guess what -- at least for the moment I'm getting that clean, crisp pot of coffee. I didn't need the water filter because I now filter my own water. I'm beginning to suspect that the "cupcake" filter might actually be better than the cone. It's a trade-off having the glass carafe on a hot plate instead of the thermos, but it suits my coffee drinking habits. So until I find that perfect coffee maker, it looks like good old Mr. Coffee is going to do the trick.

Winter squash

The nature of the seasons is such that you have time to forget what a nuisance it is to fiddle with winter squash and how little rewarding it is by the time it is in season again. If you put enough butter and cream and salt and pepper into a butternut squash soup, of course it tastes good, and I will probably go that route soon. But Deborah Madison let me down with a recipe for winter squash that came out flat and insipid, and I don't think it was due to faulty execution.

It sounded great -- winter squash braised in apple cider. We got the fresh apple cider and some very fragrant rosemary from the farmer's market, and the butternut and delicata squash called for in the recipe. I laboriously hacked the butternut into cubes and the delicata into rounds as specified. I melted the butter and flavored it for 3 min. with the chopped rosemary, than added the squash and cider and water to cover and cooked until the squash was tender. However, the liquid did not boil down into a syrupy coating but remained in great abundance that not even the recommended fix of boiling it down at higher heat could not dent. The squash would have been total mush if I had continued, so I removed it with a slotted spoon. As a result, however, there was very little buttery, rosemary or cider taste, but just watery, bland squash. It would have no doubt helped if I had used a skillet instead of sauteuse, which probably just held too much liquid, but I can't imagine this really turns into syrup if you actually cover the squash with water.

Society Fair

In my constant hope to find a decent butcher in the metropolitan area, I trekked out to Alexandria to Cathal Armstrong's Society Fair after getting an email about if from CityEats. It's billed as Epicurean Emporium "Devoted to Food."

Another disappointment. It is a small, precious store that looks like a dollhouse version of a real market with a tiny bakery stand, a tiny butcher counter and a cheese display so lame you wonder why they bother. Cheese and meat both are packaged up in cellophane in such small portions they seem designed for a dieting single person. There was a fair selection of meat cuts in these miniature, package portions and we brought a couple home.

The biggest disappointment was that the premium product -- and premium prices -- were not matched by premium service. I had hoped this might finally be Washington's first beachhead in the new butcher movement because the website boasts that "we love to talk meat." The butcher who waited on us was not at all interested in talking meat with us. I had the impression we were an unwelcome interruption to his important work in the back cutting up teeny portions of tri-tip and sealing them in cellophane.

I was still hoping in spite of the unappealing nature of the store to establish a relationship in order to pre-order hard-to-find cuts for a Saturday morning pickup. This guy told us that tri-tip is too small to use for roasts (surely news to Molly Stevens, who devotes several pages to it in her roasting cookbook and to Andrea, who distinctly remembers tri-tip roasts in California) and that leg of lamb is preferable to lamb shoulder for stewing. Thanks, I can get all the leg of lamb I want at WF.

We're not buying much in the way of bakery goods these days, but we couldn't help but notice there was no bread at the bakery counter. Oh, we were told as were leaving at about 11, it will be coming out shortly. Lame, lame, lame.

Update: Regarding the meat we bought, mixed reviews. The Toulouse sausage, which we ate with pepper and onions, was quite nice, though the thin membrane burst during cooking. The pate de campagne was very good, too. The roast "beef," however, this Randall Lineback cut between veal and beef, had a funny off-taste, which may have been due to its being neither fish nor fowl, or to the skimpy bacon covering it, or to being wrapped without air in two layers of cellophane (for too long?). It was tender, but the taste was not good. Won't rush back.

Ristorante Tosca

I'd heard for some time that the pre-theater menu at Tosca was one of the best restaurant deals in town and we finally got a chance to test it late last month when a group of us met for an early dinner before some went to a performance downtown.

It's true! For a prix fixe of $38 you get three full-sized courses of really excellent food. I had the carrot-flavored pappardelle with rabbit ragu for a starter and the braised veal cheeks with polenta for a main course, ending up with the warm chocolate cake. It was all delicious, but the real show-stopper was the truffle risotto one of our group ordered and we all tasted -- out of this world (no longer showing on the new October/November menu).

The decor is bland but sophisticated and our waiter -- who afterwards talked with us about his hometown of Dubrovnik -- was excellent. The wine list, predictably, was a little pricey, but we had an excellent Tuscan Sangiovese, 2009 Rosso di Montalcino "Casanova di Neri," that was moderately priced at $60.

I would not hesitate to return for this menu again (cut-off time is 6:30) and would grab the truffle risotto if it was available.