String Beans Provencal
The word “Provencal,” like “Tuscany,” sets off a chain of associations: sweeping vistas, weathered farmhouses, trestle tables laden with oozy cheeses and ripe figs. In lieu of such wonders, I give you our back yard, two weeks ago, when the wild roses were blooming . The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook…
Spinach and Potato Tian
Elizabeth David, writing in Is There A Nutmeg In The House, describes a tian as “an open earthenware casserole or gratin dish called in the Provencal language a tian….” David goes on to say there is no fixed recipe for a tian beyond using “a certain proportion of freshly cooked…
Winter Pate
You’ve made meat loaf, right? You’ve eaten cold meat loaf, yes? Then you’re halfway to being a an ass-kicking, name-taking charcutier. “Ooooh…pate, I don’t know.” Please. Campagne means “country” in French–which means even your country-ass can make it. Anthony Bourdain (who else?) Les Halles Cookbook Today’s recipe came about after…
Pork Chops with Mustard Sauce
Also known as Cote de Porc a la Charcutiere. (The ability to add accent marks appears to have vanished.) Do know this recipe is French, and comes from the late Anthony Bourdain’s Le Halles Cookbook. Pork Chops with Mustard Sauce is all about the sauce, which is made from butter,…
Braised Artichokes
In this Julia Child recipe, braised artichokes are slowly cooked in chicken broth seasoned with white wine and butter. Child uses a classic mirepoix of diced carrot, onion, and celery. I had no celery and am married to an onion hater. I therefore used carrot, leek, and a little garlic….
Pate IK
Anthony Bourdain, ever irreverent, has this to say of paté-making: You’ve made meat loaf, right? You’ve eaten cold meat loaf, yes? Then you’re halfway to being and ass-kicking, name-taking charcutier. ‘Oooh…paté, I don’t know.’ Please. Campagne means country in French. Which means even your country-ass can make it.” Les Halles…
Chicken Livers with Rice
I was well into adulthood before learning chicken livers are considered offal. When I think of offal, I think of lungs and testicles, ears and eyeballs, tongues and tripe. Clearly I am in the minority. Determined to defend the delights of chicken livers, or at least get to eat some…
Cottage Pie
In How To Eat, Nigella Lawson describes the British traditional Sunday lunch thus: Proper British Sunday lunch is everything contemporary cooking is not. Meat-heavy, hostile to innovation, resolutely formalized, it is as much ritual as meal, and an almost extinct ritual at that. With their military vocabulary and timetables, my…
Deconstructed Cabbage Cake with Sausage
Just as some people marvel at flour, water, and yeast becoming bread, I never cease to be amazed at the transformation that occurs when cabbage, some sort of pork product, and fat encounter a pot, low heat, and time. This decidedly dour vegetable softens into tenderness, its fumes turn…
Pot Au Feu revisited
Pot-au-feu is one of the big classics. As such, it never goes out of style. I’ve yet to hear of attempts to veganize it, keto it, or substitute cauliflower for the meats and call it “clean” (this is not a suggestion. Food is not dirty unless you drop it on…