recipe Archives - Page 13 of 30

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Drink Progressively at Harvest in Cambridge

Posted on February 5, 2018February 22, 2018 by Pat and David

One of the pioneers of New American Cuisine, Harvest restaurant (44 Brattle St, Cambridge, Mass., 617-868-2255, harvestcambridge.com) continues its innovative ways with contemporary New England fare from chef Tyler Kinnett. “The Book and the Cook” dinner series highlights recipes from a new cookbook—usually with the author appearing to explain the food and the approach as well as to guide the Harvest staff in the kitchen. The series kicked off 2018 with Urban Grape's Drink Progressively, by Hadley and TJ Douglas with recipes by Gabriel Frasca, the accomplished executive chef of Straight Wharf (straightwharfrestaurant.com) on Nantucket. As you can see from the photo at top, all three showed up for a great dinner and book signing. This was an unusual event in the series, since the...Read More

Trimbach Pinot Blanc sparkles with Alsatian flatbread

Posted on January 30, 2018February 22, 2018 by Pat and David

Wine preferences are a funny thing. Most wine drinkers name the grapes of Bordeaux and Burgundy as their favorites—irrespective of where they are grown. Few name Alsatian wines, yet we think they are the very model of magnificent cold-climate viticulture and winemaking. When we first met, we drank a slew of Rieslings, Gewürtztraminers, and Pinot Gris from many of the great names in Alsace. You could say we got to know each other over glasses of spicy, sophisticated, dry whites. So we were pleased to see a Trimbach Pinot Blanc in the mixed case from Esprit du Vin (edvwines.com). It was like running into an old friend. The Wine: Trimbach Pinot Blanc 2015 Pinot Blanc isn't usually the first grape that comes to mind in...Read More

Ogier Reine Jeanne spices up fennel and sausage

Posted on January 27, 2018February 22, 2018 by Pat and David

As one of our California-born, Europe-based readers pointed out in response to our last pizza post, Americans often drink soda or beer with pizza. Europeans almost always drink wine. We're happy to choose the evening wine and then decide what to eat with it. Having a 2015 Châteauneuf-du-Pape on hand suggested a bold pizza. And since fennel is one of the dominant flavors of southern Rhône valley cuisine, we naturally gravitated to roasted fennel and a limited amount of Italian sausage with fennel seeds. The Wine: Ogier Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2015 As the photo above shows, the wine was the 2015 Antoine Ogier Cuvée Reine Jeanne, one of eight different versions of Châteauneuf-du-Pape from Ogier. It's named for Jeanne of Naples, the Countess of Provence who sold...Read More

Bouillabaisse without fish but full of ceremony

Posted on January 18, 2018February 23, 2018 by Pat and David

If there's one subject more contentious in Marseille than the sanctity of the Olympique football team, it's the proper recipe for bouillabaisse. Some sources argue that it's a poor fisherman's stew made up of bycatch, while the charter of the Marseille Bouillabaisse organization specifies at least four kinds of fin fish and two optional shellfish. That the dish is usually served in two courses and spiced with pricey threads of saffron argues that maybe it was always a dish for the wealthy. Most of those fish species are expensive imports where we live, so we're always happy to find another way to enjoy the dish. Nina Olsson, the force behind Britain's NourishAtelier.com, has provided a really striking vegetarian alternative for bouillabaisse in her recent cookbook,...Read More

A Dalí-ance in Catalan gastronomy

Posted on January 12, 2018February 23, 2018 by Pat and David

When we visited Salvador Dalí's home and studio in Port Lligat, Spain, late last year, we didn't know that the cookbook by the most surreal of Surrealist artists had been re-published in 2016. But we knew he loved to eat. Dalí and his wife and muse, Gala, spent a lot of time in their house-studio in the fishing cove of Port Lligat, about a mile away from Cadaqués near the Spanish border with France. The property began as a fisherman's shanty when Dalí bought it in 1930. Over the next 40 years, the house accreted new rooms and wings and gardens and statuary and.... Well, Dalí was prone to excess. That's a photo of the building at the top of this post. It perches above...Read More

La Forge Merlot cozies up to ratatouille pizza

Posted on January 9, 2018February 23, 2018 by Pat and David

We always thought drinking good wines with pizza was our dirty little secret. But then we found that great pizza is a given in California's Sonoma wine country. We were especially taken by the pizza-wine pairings at Comstock Wines. Unlike us, the Sonoma folks couldn't enjoy pizza and wine while the New England Patriots. As football season begins to wind down, we're exploring a wider world of wine with pizza. As we learned from pizza guru Rosario Del Nero of Bertucci's, pizza can support an infinite variety of toppings. Just show restraint. “When it comes to toppings, less is more,” Del Nero cautioned. “You don’t want to overwhelm your pizza.” A mixed half case from wine distributor Esprit du Vin (edvwines.com) arrived at the end...Read More

Darina Allen takes food from seed to plate

Posted on January 7, 2018February 23, 2018 by Pat and David

Talk about good timing. When it gets cold and snowy here in New England, we pull out the seed catalogs and start planning our summer garden. Right on cue, GROW COOK NOURISH (Kyle Books, $45) by Darina Allen arrived in the mail. It's the 16th book for the Irish chef and co-founder of the Ballymaloe Cookery School (Shanagarry, County Cork, Ireland, +353 21 464 6785, cookingisfun.ie). In a bit of understatement, Allen terms the thick volume a “kitchen garden companion.” It's truly a guide to growing, preparing, and sometimes preserving vegetables, fruits, herbs, and edible flowers. She covers pretty much every fruit and vegetable we've ever heard of and many that we haven't. We were so impressed that we arranged to speak with her by...Read More

Jordan captures the luscious bounty of Sonoma

Posted on December 28, 2017February 24, 2018 by Pat and David

You can be forgiven if you rub your eyes at first sight of Jordan Vineyard & Winery (1474 Alexander Valley Road, Healdsburg, 707-431-5250, jordanwinery.com). It looks like a mirage. Tom and Sally Jordan established the 1,200-acre Alexander Valley estate in 1972 as an homage to Bordeaux. True to their vision, the ivy-covered manse overlooking gardens and vineyards appears to have been transported whole from the gently rolling hills of Entre-Deux-Mers. Now their son John Jordan (above) continues the tradition of crafting Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and Russian River Valley Chardonnay in the Old World style. Producing two superb wines—one modeled on Bordeaux's Saint-Julien, the other on Burgundy's Montrachet—gives Jordan Winery a clarity of focus. But following the model of Napa, Jordan is a destination winery....Read More

Barnsley’s Rice House cooking exalts Southern tradition

Posted on December 14, 2017February 24, 2018 by Pat

About 30 years ago, a farmhouse from the Rice Plantation in nearby Rome, Georgia, was dismantled and moved to the Barnsley estate. Carefully rebuilt and restored, the Rice House is now the setting for Friday and Saturday night dinners at the Barnsley Resort (597 Barnsley Gardens Road, Adairsville, Georgia, 877-773-2447, barnsleyresort.com). The meals celebrate the rich tradition of Southern cooking. “Southern cuisine is much more than fried chicken and lots of butter,” says Aaron Stiles, the resort's director of food and beverage. “You never hear people brag about discovering this really great Northern restaurant.” With its stone fireplace big enough for some hearth cooking, the Rice House feels a little bit like stepping back into a Southern grandmother's kitchen. And that's just as it should...Read More

Sonoma Cider stands out in heart of wine country

Posted on December 10, 2017February 24, 2018 by Pat and David

The 20 or so downtown wine-tasting rooms in Healdsburg are almost an embarrassment of riches. Sometimes there's just too much of a good thing. That's what the folks at Sonoma Cider thought when they opened Taproom (44F Mill Street, Healdsburg, 707-723-7018, sonomacider.com) in a former warehouse about a block south of the plaza last October. There's a no-nonsense air to the building that houses several 3,000-gallon and 6,000-gallon fermentation tanks, a bar with a giant screen TV, and a casual restaurant. Father/son duo David and Robert Cordtz launched Sonoma Cider in 2013. They take their cider seriously, but Taproom is free of pretense. “This is less upscale than wine-tasting,” says Taproom manager Kole Christen. “People can try something crisp and fresh. This is a place...Read More