Passe Rose

As usual, I find that, when it comes to booze, I'm right on trend. Rose is so yesterday. When Bon Appetit - a wonderful magazine, but not crazy edgy - says so, you know it's true. (Like BA, I am also not crazy edgy...which is why I am not ahead of this curve.)

This is not to say that I have not been drinking any rose this summer. Oh, I have. But between the grapefruit beer and the specialty cocktails, my pink wine consumption has slipped a bit. Honestly, it's been good for my head. As in, fewer headaches.

In the linked article, BA editor Adam Rappaport makes a few suggestions for what to drink instead of rose. My favorite pick? Vinho Verde. On this, I am trendsetting! (Not that VV is all that new of a US drinking trend - but it never did explode the way rose did.)

Rappaport describes it as "the Sierra Mist of Portugal." It's funny because it's true.

And that has summer written all over it.

Rosy Future

The July issue of Bon Appetit is absolutely killer. It's worth buying for Francis Lam's dry-aging article alone. Great writing on a topic that I didn't know I'd find so interesting.

Here's something else that caught my eye: David Lynch's piece on rose. I can't find it online, but it's a two-pager that summarizes what rose is, how to best drink it and a few key types of rose.

Rose isn't a super new topic - at least not around our house, where I have been enjoying it liberally for more than a few years. (Sometimes too liberally.) But as much as I drink, I still learned a few new things from Lynch's article.

Most notably: ramato. Here's Lynch:

Here's another word to look for: ramato. It means "coppery," and it's typically attached to Northeast Italian Pinot Grigio that's taken on a deeper shade and tangier flavor as a result. It's the training-wheels version of the more robust and buzzy "orange wines."

Not that I need training wheels (Am I bragging about my capacity for rose? Not intentionally, but maybe.) - but I like the sound of this as a summer wine. Easy, tangy and new (to me).

Sign me up! (And buy the issue!)

Last Week's Dinners: Pho, Pork & Shrimp

I've been work-busy lately, so I haven't been cooking nearly as much as I'd like. 

Fortunately, my schedule is starting to even out a bit, so last week, 

I got myself back in the kitchen. And this is what happened:

Left to right, from most recent to least.

Friday: I wasn't feeling 100%, so I scrounged up an old chicken pho recipe

from the September 2005 issue of Food and Wine. It took a million years

to cook, but the house smelled great and the flavor was worth it. 

And now I feel (mostly) better.

Thursday: Dinner out. Can't cook every night.

Wednesday: I made lasagna for the first time ever. Made up the recipe, too.

Not enough sauce, not enough flavor. And not interesting enough to photograph.

Tuesday: Pork medallions with onion marmalade. Originally published in the 

May 2001 Food and Wine, this recipe was reprinted again in the March issue.

Admittedly, the involvement of raspberry vinegar feels pretty old-fashioned, 

but the pork and its sauce were both fantastic. That said, it took

waaaay longer to make than the magazine suggested. 

And I burned the onion marmalade. But that's nobody's fault but my own.

Monday: Shrimp-fried rice from the March Bon Appetit. Light, easy to make,

pretty healthy, super tasty. As much as I love F&W, I have to admit that BA

just kills it when it comes to easy weeknight recipes. Dixon might even have 

accidentally eaten some vegetables during this dinner, so that's an added bonus.

So that's it: last week's menu chez Pollard. Thumbs up across the board. 

(Except for my lasagna. Sigh. Clearly, I am not Italian.)

Cook the Mags: Recent(ish) Weeknight Dinners

We go out to dinner a lot these days - thanks, Baltimore Sun! - so when we're at home,

I try to cook dinners that are a little interesting, without being crazy complicated.

I have a zillion cookbooks, but I end up relying more on Food and Wine

and Bon Appetit for inspiration. They keep it interesting.

These three dinners were some of our recent favorites

(that also happened to be easy weeknight meals).

From the March issue of Bon Appetit, this

 parmesan-crusted chicken and roasted Caesar salad have "regular weeknight"

written all over them: They're not fancy food.

But the dinner was super easy to make, not expensive at all, and had tons of flavor.

This shrimp, sausage and lima bean stew from July's Food and Wine was a little

more time-intensive, and a little less healthy, than the chicken -

but it was still a good weeknight meal. If I made it again,

I'd peel the shrimp before cooking, reserving the shells to make

a quick shrimp stock to use (maybe in place of half the chicken stock).

Peeling the shrimp at the table was a pain.

Pain or no, it was very tasty - and a nice change of pace from the usual weeknight dinner.

Again: easy, cheapish, quick, not terribly unhealthy. This grilled chicken salad from the

May issue of Bon Appetit is light - nice for a hot weeknight -

and thanks to 20 cloves of garlic, it's full of flavor. The dressing is fantastic -

I'd use it on a ton of stuff.

I scrapped the olives from my plate (but included them in Cooper's) -

I didn't miss them. Then again, since I don't like olives, I wouldn't really miss them, would I?

All highly recommended!

Recently Learned Chez Pollard

1. Gougeres out of a box can be pretty good:

The mix came from Williams Sonoma and yes, it did cost $14, which is a lot for cheese puffs, but I'm not very good with pastry and these were easy and also delicious. So I would totally buy it again.

2. I need to remember that I bought myself some fennel pollen:

A few weeks ago, I went on an Amazon tear, and one of my purchases was a small tin of fennel pollen. Since it's arrival, I've used it exactly once - I sprinkled it on goat cheese for a salad - and it was good, but not earth-shattering. I get the impression it's a bigger deal when paired with meat...so I need to remember to pair it with meat. Also learned: I'm a sucker for trendy ingredients.

3. Ceriello makes a perfectly serviceable cold octopus salad:

While it's not as incredible as the grilled octopus appetizer at The Black Olive (my gold standard), it's got tons of flavor...and it's available 2 miles from my house.

4. Cooper makes a nice sun tea:

He's been adding basil and mint (WOW do we have a lot of mint) and it's delicious. Also learned: Mary really, really, really likes sun tea. She's had more of it than I have.

5. Cooper also makes some nice ribs:

Ribs are pretty ugly - they definitely don't photograph well. But they do taste good.

6. Jamie Oliver knows what he's talking about:

Over the weekend, I reread Jamie Oliver's The Naked Chef, which was the very first cookbook I bought when I decided to learn to cook, way back in the spring of 2002. I'm not sure I made much from the book back in those days, but upon a reread, I realized that I've internalized a lot of Oliver's approach (fresh, seasonal, etc. etc.). On Saturday, I made his salsa verde, which is a chimichurri-esque combination of mint, basil, parsley, anchovies, mustard, bread and butter pickles, capers, red wine vinegar and olive oil. He uses it for a variety of foods - I used it to make a warm potato salad to serve with corn and crab cakes. Perfect for this time of year and perfect with the crab.

Then, on Sunday, I took his advice again and topped boiled asparagus with a compound butter made with anchovies, lemon, and red and black pepper. It was surprisingly subtle and a nice alternative to lemon and olive oil or hollandaise.

7. I like Gwyneth Paltrow again:

Back in the late '90s, when Gwyneth was winning Oscars and loving Shakespeare, I was loving her. Sometime after that, though, the love faded. I don't know if it was the macrobiotic diet or the $300 yoga pants in GOOP or what, but something about her turned me off. I know I'm not alone in this.

So it was with some trepidation that I opened the June issue of Bon Appetit, which has Gwyneth's smiling face on the cover. The magazine got a lot of pushback on that cover - and I get it: it's a food magazine, not US Weekly. I also get, though, that a cover featuring a controversial movie star, who also happens to have some genuine food credentials, will a) generate a lot of buzz for a new editor and a magazine that's clearly trying to update its image and b) sell a hell of a lot of that magazine. It's controversial, but I think it was a good call.

Anyway, the magazine arrived while I was in NYC for the weekend with Alicia, visiting her friend Stacy (more on that one day). When I got home, Cooper had already read the whole thing. His response to it was simple: "I like Gwyneth again." I reserved judgment but you know what? After reading it for myself, I liked her again, too. Especially after I made her roasted tomato and anchovy oreganata pasta (above). I made one small adjustment - I pureed the sauce because Cooper doesn't really like whole tomatoes - but otherwise, I followed the very simple recipe exactly. And it was great. Easy, tasty, cheap.

Then I bought her book. And it is just as good as the few articles in the magazine (I've already made the cacio e pepe and it was also super simple).  Plus, as the book is called My Father's Daughter, it focuses on stories about the food memories Gwyneth shared with her late father, Bruce Paltrow, who died from cancer in 2002. There are tons of pictures scattered throughout the book and stories that are both heartwarming and sad. The end result is that Gwyneth comes across as a real person - and someone who is funny and genuinely likable. As in, I would want to be her friend. Even if she was wearing a $150 tank top.

So there it is, all the things I've learned recently, from gougeres to Gwyneth.

Recently Cooked: Hits and Misses

I've been cooking up a storm lately, even though I haven't been writing about it much (or remembering to take many pictures). I have, however, been taking notes, especially when it comes to recipes I've pulled from Bon Appetit, Food & Wine and Food52. Some have been great and others...not so much. Here's a rundown (with links to the recipes at the bottom of the post:

THE HITS:

Gingery carrots

Honey-roasted onion tart

Asparagus and mushroom tart

Shrimp pad thai

Tagliatelle with proscuitto (Note: I added way more meat to this dish than recommended - and I'd do it again. Also, I know the whole orange juice pasta thing sounds weird - but it works. Really it does.)

THE MISSES:

The bacon burger idea didn't come from a recipe specifically, but it was inspired by a recommendation in Bon Appetit. Don't follow that recommendation!

Salted caramel "squares"

I Heart Jonathan Adler

I love him anyway, but this, from August's Bon Appetit, makes me melty (even though he's not actually from Maryland):

"Are there any foods that remind you of home?

"Steamed crabs. I'm from southern New Jersey, near the Chesapeake Bay, and we always had them with Old Bay seasoning."

Trendy Monday: Peru

Guess who's power just came back on?

It went out AGAIN sometime around 5 this morning. After several phone calls (and no acknowledgement that I scheduled an emergency visit last week), BGE finally got somebody out here to fix whatever was wrong. So now I can read my email in peace.

Unfortunately, I've got a lot to do today, all of which has been pushed back in my wait for the repairman. So you're just going to have to take my word for it that Peruvian food is hot right now. Well, my word along with Food & Wine's (there's an article in the new issue, but it's not online yet), Elizabeth Large's and Bon Appetit's...

Thomas Keller's Fried Chicken Must Be Really, Really Special

The September Bon Appetit arrived on Wednesday (I know, right? It was still JULY.) Yesterday afternoon I read a bit of the magazine - the annual restaurant issue. Good recipes, interesting Molly Wizenberg, some food porny photos and...something that stopped me in my reading tracks.

It wasn't an unusual article, really. Pretty much standard BA fare: a backyard dinner with Thomas Keller and Joel Gott and their friends and families. Simple food, including Keller-made fried chicken and chocolate and peanut butter milkshakes that look as delicious as they sound easy.

Nothing out of the ordinary, right?

Except that a little deja vu-ing voice in my head kept telling me that something was wrong. That I'd read this article before. And that I should be really, really thankful for the internet because it saved me from hunting through stacks of old issues of Food & Wine because it only took me about five minutes to find this article in which Thomas Keller visits some winemaking Napa friends for a casual outdoor dinner...and makes lemon-brined fried chicken.

It was in the October 2007 issue. October 2007! Less than a year before the Bon Appetit article appears? I can't be the only person out there who gets both of these magazines, right? I get that Keller is busy promoting his menu at Ad Hoc, where apparently the chicken is a star. But still. Doesn't anybody at Bon Appetit read their competition?

The Green Issue

We just got home from dinner and drinks with some of Cooper's cousins and I have settled into the sofa, glass of wine in hand and the brand new February issue of Bon Appetit on my lap.

I wasn't planning on doing any blogging tonight, but I couldn't even get past page nine of the magazine without dragging my laptop over to my, well, lap. And what's on page nine, you ask? The list of contributors.

I'll get into this a little more on Monday, but for the past week or so, I've been entrenched in "trends" and "hot for 2008" type lists. I can't say I've been wildly surprised by what tops the lists - meat, not meat, eco-whateverism, seasonal, local, local, local. What did just surprise me was that each of the five contributors profiled in BA represent one of those big, huge trends - and not much else.

Really, Bon Appetit? After a couple of years of having Michael Pollan and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall shoved down our foodie throats, your "feel good food" issue offers just more of the same? Not to make light of Pollan's and Fearnley-Whittingstall's contributions to the conversation, or to suggest that any of the articles aren't interesting and relevant (I haven't read them yet, obviously), but can't you give us something new?

Then, after reading the profiles, I had a hunch, so I flipped to the cover. Yep, right next to "Feel Good Food", there it was: "The Green Issue".

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for doing what we can to treat the environment with respect. Go Earth! Really. But it seems to me that every issue of every magazine I pick up is dubbed "the green issue". Why not just go green overall and skip the puffery? Add a little leaf to the corner of each page to remind us that you're printing on recycled paper or whatever, and feel free to include a regular column that focuses on eco-cuisine or -design or whatever-your-subject-is, but please, spare us "THE GREEN ISSUE".

I'm all worked up now, when all I wanted to do was have a drink and a little bit of a relaxing read.

Honestly, though, it's not that I don't want to read about local food or the glories of meat or the environmental benefits of vegetarianism (OK, maybe not that last one so much...). It's just that I'd really, really like to read something new, too. Bon Appetit is a good magazine. I guess I just shouldn't count on it for the truly cutting edge.

UPDATE: I've just been reminded, via the comments, that I meant to post an update this morning. I did read the whole magazine last night and, while I stand by my initial "not REALLY new enough" and "seriously, GREEN AGAIN?" frustrations, there were a couple of great articles and a ton of really fantastic-sounding (and approachable recipes). Most notably, Molly Wizenberg (aka blogger Orangette) debuts a monthly column, this one called "Why I'm Not a Vegetarian". It's funny and interesting and really solid and will probably be the first thing I read in the next issue. And I can't say it doesn't warm my heart to see a really good blogger get the props she deserves.