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…
Chicken Liver Mousse
We can all agree this holiday season isn’t the merriest. Covid 19 has decimated the population, wrecked the economy, and generally wrought havoc in a shockingly short time. Offering up some fancy dish along the lines of foie gras feels pretty tone deaf…kinda like suggesting $600 is enough to help…
Greetings from your hostess…
Apologies for the radio silence. The IK has been contending with a protracted bout of ill health. (Not covid. Just her usual problems.) While a post is readied in the background, here are a few photos for your pre-holiday entertainment. It rained last week. With any luck, it will rain…
Stuffed Cabbage
Stuffed cabbage exists in numerous cuisines, but the French have turned this abstemious dish into a delicacy. Recipes for chou farci range from the simple pork-wrapped parcels in Lulu’s Provencal Table to Goose Fat And Garlic’s outrageously rich recipe calling for ham, heavy cream, and cheese. Then there are miques:…
Baps (Scottish Breakfast Rolls)
A bap, if you are wondering, is a Scottish breakfast roll. The recipe below comes from Elizabeth David’s English Bread And Yeast Cookery, published in 1977. David, never one to mince words, rails against the state of English bread. If your copy has American notes by culinary historian Karen Hess,…
Cornish Game Hens with Barley Salad
As I write, relief has given way to exhaustion. I can’t pretend I supported the outgoing political administration or the values they represent. But this is a food blog, not a political one, and if you’re here, you want a break from politics. So let’s talk game hens. And barley….
Pretty Pictures
I don’t know about you, but if I read the word “comforting” one more time in a culinary context, I may throw a daubiere. At the moment the very idea of stew, maraconi and cheese, polenta, or any other thick, hot dish of food makes me ill. I suspect many…
Apple Cider Muffins
Last year I was reading a cookbook that gave a recipe for baked apple cider doughnuts. Not fried, leaving you with gallons of used lard to somehow unload. Have you ever read a cookbook that told you what to do with used cooking oil? Me either. Anyway. My husband, he…
Dorothy Allhusen’s Potted Beef
As the world grows increasingly disorderly, I find myself seeking refuge in the past. By “the past,” I mean cookbooks. I don’t have a time machine. Let us turn to Britain between the wars. Built during World War II, but not in Britain. Shot several years ago. — It is…
