recipe

Beyond chile peppers: the nuanced Santa Fe cooking of Estevan García at the Tabla de los Santos

Posted on by Pat and David
We had the pleasure of spending Spanish Market in Santa Fe last July at the Hotel St. Francis, a luxury hotel that strongly resembles a monastery. And while we were there, we enjoyed the cooking of Estevan García, one of the pioneers of refined Southwestern cooking from his days in Los Angeles. A one-time monk himself, he seems right at home at the St. Francis. His cooking is as straightforward and unpretentious as it is subtle and delicious. We wrote about him for the Boston Globe's food section. The piece appeared on May 9. You can find it online here. The article also included García's recipe for this incredibly rich goat's milk flan: GOAT'S MILK FLAN Serves 6 The goat's milk adds a slight tang...Read More

Sweet on grandmothers

Posted on by Pat
When it comes to sweets, even the most adventurous chefs seem to have soft spots for their grandmothers' homey favorites. When Josh Moore, the executive chef at upscale Italian restaurant Volare (volare-restaurant.com) in Louisville, Kentucky, was tapped to prepare the dessert course at a recent taping of the TV cooking show “Secrets of Louisville Chefs Live,” he decided on his grandmother's recipe for Kentucky Jam Cake. “It's very simple,” he told the studio audience. “Mix the wet ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients. Then combine them.” Moore's grandmother added applesauce for moistness. She also made a decadent caramel frosting. As Moore beat together the butter, sugar, and cream in a stand mixer, it was all I could do not to stand up and ask if I...Read More

Everyday squid in Basque country

Posted on by Pat and David
Those of us who aren't Basque have a hard time imagining just how well they eat. Good food and a love of cooking seem to be central to the culture. When we sat down with Elena and Juan Marí Arzak for the Robb Report story about the seasonal special dish of angulas (see the Dec. 21, 2011 post), they emphasized that love of good food was a Basque birthright that extends to every meal--not just special occasions. That certainly seems to be true. When we later met professional guide Ana Intxausti Gardeki, she took us to the San Sebastian market and told us all about the various kinds of fish available. (She had worked for a seafood broker before changing careers.) She even gave us...Read More

Montreal bargain lunches

Posted on by Pat and David
Of all the guidebook series we work on, the research for the Food Lovers' series may be the most fun. Our most recent published volume was on Montreal, but we didn't spend all our time eating foie gras or dining at innovative contemporary restaurants. We're always on the lookout for good values, and we found 10 great lunches for about $10 where we could tap into various strains of Montreal culture. We recently published that roundup in the Boston Globe. You'll find the results as a pair of PDFs on our Sample Articles page. We are just about finished writing our next volume, Food Lovers' Guide to Vermont & New Hampshire, and have a refrigerator full of artisanal cheese, cured pork products, and storage vegetables...Read More

Gordon Ramsay in the Powerscourt kitchen

Posted on by David
Superchef Gordon Ramsay has 19 restaurants in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Qatar, and the U.S., but only one in Ireland. It's at the plush Ritz-Carlton Powerscourt outside Dublin, where I visited in the spring when Ramsay was on hand to mark the restaurant's re-launch. I have to admit I didn't know what to expect from the flamboyant TV personality. But Ramsay was on his best behavior and only let an occasional profanity slip, and always with a wink. Perhaps the gracious setting had a mellowing effect, or perhaps the broadcast persona is just that. At any rate, the Powerscourt Estate is truly magical. It was established in 1169 as one of the grand medieval properties forming a defensive ring around Dublin. (See ''The Eyes...Read More
Cooking in Marrakech with Souk Cuisine

Cooking in Marrakech with Souk Cuisine

Posted on by Pat and David
The Boston Globe recently published our abbreviated tale of taking a cooking class with the wonderful Dutch and Moroccan folks of Souk Cuisine in Marrakech. You can find the piece on our Sample Articles page. It was some of the best cooking instruction we have experienced because it enabled us to get intimately involved in the life and rhythm of the city and its inhabitants. Even if your goal is to bargain your way through the souks (Pat was told she bargained like a Berber), it is hard not to work up an appetite when you keep encountering vendors like the back-street fruit man (above) or the citrus juice truck that stands on the main square, Jemaa El Fna. Everywhere you look, there is food....Read More

Mountain View Grand’s tomato-cilantro cooler

Posted on by Pat and David
Every cook has a different way to cope with the end of tomato season. In June, Brian Aspell was lured away from the Equinox in Vermont to bring his brand of culinary passion to the Mountain View Grand in Whitefield, N.H. He was still getting his feet under him when we visited in August, but on very short notice he managed to whip together a chef's tasting menu that swept us away. It was a harbinger of great things to come at this grande dame of the White Mountains. (The fall menus will be pure Aspell.) The opening salvo of the dinner was an amuse-bouche of a New England gazpacho. Aspell served our portions in tall shot glasses, but on a warm day we could...Read More

Buried in tomatoes? It’s time for tomato jam on burgers

Posted on by Pat and David
When we were working earlier this summer on a New England burger roundup for the Boston Globe (see Sample articles), we had no idea that we would discover a partial solution to the late-August glut of tomatoes. When we dug into the basic hamburger served at Christie's in Newport--the casual restaurant of the luxurious Hotel and Marina Forty 1º North--we just knew that chef Kim Lambrechts' tomato jam was the perfect complement to the rich beef burger. With a little cajoling, we found out how it's made. TOMATO JAM Chef Kim Lambrechts is the director of all food and beverage operations at Hotel and Marina Forty 1º North in Newport--including the casual restaurant, Christie's. He serves this brilliant ketchup substitute on beef burgers. We find...Read More

Watermelon steak from José Andrés

Posted on by Pat and David
When we first tasted this at Cayman Cookout on Grand Cayman Island in the middle of January, it was hard to think about watermelon. But José Andrés was thinking nothing but—demonstrating eight recipes for watermelon in an hour-long session. Andrés is perhaps the best ambassador of Spanish cooking to America. His Washington, D.C., restaurants include Jaleo, Zaytinya, Oyamel, Café Atlantico, and minibar by José Andrés. His grand Bazaar at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills has taken Los Angeles by storm. We always think of watermelon as the most juvenile of summer fruits, but José showed just how sophisticated it can be. The preparation that stuck with us was his version of bistec de sandia, or watermelon steak. As every calorie-counter knows, watermelon is actually...Read More

Stuffed tomatoes from Roman pizzerias

Posted on by Pat and David
Like many Roman visitors (and many Romans, for that matter), we took advantage of the city's many pizzerias for quick meals or snacks. Once our Zone 6 garden swings into production around mid-July, we hope to revisit the subject of Roman pizza for the myriad of vegetable versions. But it was in the pizzerias that we stumbled onto another quintessentially Roman dish: stuffed tomatoes on a bed of roasted potatoes. Tomatoes stuffed with rice are a standard dish in a lot of parts of Italy, but Rome was the first place where we had seen them served with a big batch of potatoes. The simplicity of the single combined dish appealed to us, as it clearly does to many Romans getting an inexpensive casual meal....Read More