A Cooking Life

Notes on Thanksgiving

I cooked Thanksgiving here again this year, and had some great successes by doing a few things a little differently: I mostly boned the turkey and roasted it flat, fiddled with the creamed onions, and figured out how to bake a custard pie without a soggy bottom crust (and perfected a buttermilk pie while I was at it). I just wanted to write up some notes for posterity.

Apple Custard Tart

Given the current economic climate, I count myself beyond lucky to be so loaded down with work. I've even undertaken the unthinkable: training someone to take up some of the slack. This is not an easy proposition for so controlling meticulous a person; it's much simpler to do everything myself. But I've found someone with a suitable skill set, and having a helper will spare me having to let whole projects go to another supplier.

I miss blogging. And I've let inertia keep me from it more than is necessary. C'est la vie. I'll blog when I can, and hope that I still have an audience.

None of this means I've stopped cooking. It's been canning season, and I've put up plenty of good stuff from the garden. TJ and I together have been getting the hang of smoking (with the Weber Bullet), and we've had some great successes with it. And with houseguests here and gatherings there, I often enough have a requirement to make something a little special.

Portuguese Almond Tart

This lovely, simple tart has a rich, buttery base, somewhere between a butter cookie and a very dense pound cake. The topping is caramelized, crunchy and nutty. It's an excellent dessert for those who like their sweets rich but not cloying. And it pairs beautifully with some of the golden dessert wines; I’ve loved it with Muscat de Beaumes de Venise and Trockenbeeren Auslese.

Chocolate Chip Cookies for Grown-Ups

Who am I kidding? Most of the grown-ups I know would eat any chocolate chip cookie that happened to find its way into their personal airspace. Given a choice, though, most will express a firm bias on a number of variables, chewy vs. crisp being the most hotly contested. Secondary considerations include whether or not to add nuts, the supremacy of milk chocolate over dark (or vice-versa), the tyranny of including oatmeal, the imperative to underbake, size mandates, eat them warm? Serve with milk?

My personal preference is for a nicely-browned cookie with a satisfying crunch, nuts included, ample but not super-sized, and a little on the salty side. With bittersweet chocolate chips. To my taste, chewy chocolate chip cookies are tantamount to raw cookie dough. Nothing wrong with it in small doses, of course (a fingerful while mixing, licking the beaters & spoons), but it's not a food in and of itself (and don't get me started on the grotesquerie that is raw cookie dough ice cream).

Happy Anniversary, My Sweet

Six years ago, on a cold Monday night in February, TJ and I stood in front of the woodstove in our living room and, certified by a local Justice of the Peace and witnessed by my best friend, pledged to one another our troth. We were both wearing jeans. Afterwards (and after signing the required documents) we shared a bottle of champagne with the JP and my friend. When they left, I made a simple risotto for our dinner.

The following weekend, when the kids were down, we invited about 20 friends over and TJ cooked up a paella and we all drank and toasted. Later, that summer, when family and friends were freer to travel, we rented a big white tent and had about 100 of our nearest and dearest here for tapas, paella (3 of them, tag-teamed by TJ and his Dad and uncle), and wedding cake (and lots of beer, wine, and sangria). I've never in my life understood the mania surrounding weddings and luckily, neither had TJ. So we married in a way that was simple and true to ourselves. To all the women who insisted I would forever regret not wearing a dress: I haven't yet and surely never will.

Yesterday was our anniversary. We usually go out to dinner, but I was in a cooking mood.

Building a Better Chicken Pot Pie

My schedule has calmed down, some – not as much as I'd hoped, but at least I'm finding time to cook. For a variety of reasons, my workload is going to be fairly heavy for the foreseeable future. Not a bad thing in this down economy.

Back around and before the holidays, when TJ and I were both flat out and nobody had time to cook, we relied heavily on a number of local prepared food outlets, and ate through many pots of beans – Rancho Gordo's, of course. Fior D'Italia in Manchester makes a variety of excellent frozen ravioli – quick to cook and easily sauced, even if it's just with garlic, butter, and Parmesan. Al Ducci's Italian pantry (also in Manchester) makes a number of heat & eat dinner items – lasagna, eggplant parmigiana, chicken Florentine – all of them delicious.

And then there were the chicken pot pies from Grandma Miller's – not half a mile down the road. Good as homemade. Or...are they? It occurred to me midway through a slice one dinnertime that I've never made a chicken pot pie. I found myself with some free time on Saturday, and a hankering for chicken pot pie got me busy.

Goodbye Again (A Farewell Dinner)

My good friend and mentor, Pierre, is moving away from Vermont – again. Pierre is the chef under whom I served as sous chef in my only restaurant cooking gig. He took a chance letting me into his kitchen; I met the challenge and he taught me well. It seemed only right to send him off with a fine meal in the company of close friends.

Hot Tomato

Jaune Flammée d'Orange. It's the name that does it. Or maybe its flawless beauty. Or maybe its perfect tomato taste. Put them all together, and this tomato gets my vote for The One Tomato I'd Grow If I Could Grow Only One.

A Whole Lot of Baking Going On

Memorial Day weekend marked the opening of the West River Farmers' Market, where I am a vendor; I make and can a variety of preserves and condiments. (You can read about the trials and tribulations – and successes – of my inaugural season here on Mouthfuls.) I also like to include some baked goods to round things out. In gearing up for opening day, I baked two dozen Prune and Armagnac Tea Cakes and several hundred Coconut Cookies.

Both freeze very well, so those quantities could be expected to carry me for a few weeks.