Month: July 2010

Sweet and tart — the Shaker take on lemon pie

Posted on by Pat
The Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, is one of my favorite Shaker sites to visit. Although it hasn't been a working Shaker community for decades, it's the largest preserved Shaker village in the country. Moreover, it is the only one that offers both overnight lodging and a good restaurant. I wrote about it last week in the Boston Globe's Food section in a piece called "A menu that reflects Shaker simplicity." The article deals with the new chef Patrick Kelly's "Seed to Table" program. His menus in the restaurant feature food from his kitchen garden and from farms in the adjacent bluegrass country near Lexington. Not only is the program in keeping with the locavore trends in contemporary dining, it also echoes the Shaker...Read More

Burgundy eggs in red wine sauce

Posted on by Pat
Of all the wonderful food in Burgundy, I have a special soft spot for the bistro staple known as oeufs en meurette. The dish is hearty and warming on a cool autumn night and it is a classic in the region. Maybe I like it so much because sauce meurette is very similar to the sauce in coq au vin. Despite its rich flavors, French cooks usually pair meurette with mildly flavored proteins, like poached eggs or a poached fish. Restaurants in Burgundy often feature this dish as a first course (one egg per person) because everything but the eggs can be prepared ahead and re-heated, making it a quick dish to assemble. POACHED EGGS IN RED WINE SAUCE Most of the ingredients for this...Read More

The tang of Burgundy’s other signature taste

Posted on by Pat
You literally walk on wine in Beaune, the center of Burgundy's wine trade, because the town is honeycombed with cellars dug by the monks who were Burgundy's first vinters. Millions of bottles sleep their way to perfection under the cobbled streets, and millions more are tucked into the cool, dark recesses of the town's 15th century fortified walls. The rough streets, old stone buildings, and a profusion of statues of the Virgin Mary (including one where she holds the infant Jesus in one hand and a bunch of grapes in the other) make Beaune undeniably picturesque. But it's even more fun to taste Beaune than to look at it. As close as I can tell, there are no statues of Mary hefting a bag of...Read More