Birthdays Birthdays Birthdays!

Back in October, when I wrote about my mom's 65th birthday and Dixon's 8th birthday, I mentioned that around here, fall is birthday season. And is it ever - especially when you let "fall" stretch into early winter. 

Since those first two September birthdays, we have been in full-on celebration mode. This is just a taste of the fun.

October: Patsy, Cail, Xander and Bill

Clockwise from top left: Chicken tortilla soup; Chickens at the Stambaughs; Cail's cake in progress; Stambaugh chili; Cail's cake, the final product.

Cooper's mom's birthday celebration was low-key this year but Cail's was a little less so. My parents and I went down to Richmond to visit for the weekend and Cail's parents and her brother came up from New Orleans.

My brother threw Cail a surprise party in the private room at a cute wine bar called Secco and Cail's dad, who has made her birthday cake every year forever, outdid himself with a gorgeous pink and turquoise "drama queen" concoction. Mr. Moran is an architect and very artistic - watching him work was super cool.

Later in the month, we celebrated Nathan and Liz's son's birthday up at their house in the country. It was a gorgeous day to roam around their yard, checking out the chickens and eating their awesome food - including chili, hatch chili queso and root beer braised brisket. Oh, and apple pie moonshine. Because that is how they roll.

To wrap up October, we celebrated Bill's birthday on a Sunday afternoon at our house. I made a big batch of chicken tortilla soup, since it was starting to get chilly...and Bill likes Mexican food. It was one in a long string of fall Sundays that we spent at our house, surrounded by friends and delicious food. I could do that every day.

November: Mike

Seafood tower; Mike and I with our gifts; Stacy's first oyster.

In mid-November, Mike turned forty, giving us a great excuse to head to Thames Street Oyster House, where our friend/neighbor Teresa proved once again why she is one of the best servers in the city.

Bill was out of town but Stacy came down from New York, so with the Swartses, we were a group of seven. We did our best to order everything on the menu, including tons of oysters (and Stacy's first oyster ever!) and a suckling pig special that came with a side of oyster and butternut squash dressing. Ridiculousness.

I loved my monkfish entree but my favorite part of the night was a quail appetizer accessorized with chestnuts and quince puree. I absolutely couldn't stop thinking about it. They are so good at what they do there.

The night was funny, too. Alicia asked us each to come up with a story or two to roast Mike. Which...we did. I created a "strengths and weaknesses" roundup that was quite funny, if I do say so myself. I keep telling my friends that I'm funnier than they give me credit for. I stand by that.

December: Cooper, Tom and Me

Clockwise from top left: Cooper and Dixon at Parts and Labor; Corn fritters at Shoo-fly; Clay Davis mug from Patrick and Amanda; Me with Suzanne and Alison at Alison's party.

December is an especially busy month around here, with not just Christmas but also Cooper's birthday, Clark's birthday (the same day as Cooper's), my birthday and my brother's birthday.

We didn't celebrate with Clark this year (he was in DC, we were in Baltimore) but we did manage to have a bunch of good meals out. For Cooper's, he and Dixon and I went to Parts and Labor, which was just as good as everyone said it was. Tons of meat, beautifully cooked, in a super cool space. We'd already been to the butcher shop a few times, so we knew what to expect...and we're looking forward to going back

December birthdays are tough, since it's such a busy month. But it's also so much fun. Since we're in celebration mode, I usually get to see friends from all over the place either right before, on, or right after my birthday.

This year, my birthday was on a Monday but the celebrating really started on Saturday night with a party at my friend Alison's house. She's my high school friend and old roommate (from our Canton days) and her husband is one of Cooper's college friends. So the party was full of people I love.

The next day, I made my annual trip to McGarvey's, where a bunch of high school friends came to celebrate with Cooper, Dixon and me. We ate oysters and crab dip and burgers and crab cakes and drank a bunch of Aviators. Just like last year and the year before and many, many years before that.

That night, we came back up to Baltimore and got to hang out with Patrick and Amanda, of Paris fame (they have since moved back to Denver). They came over for crab soup and general revelry - and brought us an awesome Clay Davis mug made by someone they work with. We loved it and it was especially timely, what with the re-release of The Wire.

Finally, on my actual birthday, Dixon and Cooper and I drove through Hampden in the rain, then went to Shoo-fly for dinner and I remembered that I can't get enough of their corn fritters. They come with spicy honey and are just so good.

After Christmas, Tom, Cail, Erin and Clark all came up and stayed with us for a couple days. The 27th is Tom's birthday, so we met my parents at Clementine, where we got to have one last big family dinner before everyone returned to their respective homes.

Some of the Waskoms had been to Clementine for lunch or brunch, but not for dinner - and Cooper and I were happy to introduce them to some of our favorites, like the charcuterie and the basil-lime elixir. We all loved our meals, ending a big visit on a high note.

January: Kyle, Bert and Matt

Top row, left to right: Kyle's birthday at the Waterfront Hotel; Dinner in Deep Creek; Pear and bourbon cocktail. Middle row: Dixon at Wisp; Bert using the sabre; Puzzled in Deep Creek; Bottom row: The table at Matt's party; The entire Deep Creek crew; Matt and his "40" glasses.

We took a break for dinner at our house on New Year's Eve, then jumped right back into the birthday celebrations. Kyle's birthday is on January 4th - a Saturday this year. Immediately after our great dinner for Mike's fortieth, Kyle announced that he wanted to go back for his birthday. So we did.

Once again, it was fantastic. Alicia got the porgy, which is served standing up and is crazy good. Mike kept it simple with a lobster roll (outrageous) and I ordered against type, getting tuna, which was also delicious. The quail, again, was a show-stopper, as was the octopus, which I can never resist.

After dinner, we went to the Waterfront Hotel to watch the Ravens beat the Steelers (much to Mary's chagrin), finishing the night on an extra-sweet note.

A few weeks later, Cooper and Dixon and I headed off to Deep Creek, to celebrate our friend Bert's fortieth with a bunch of people I've known since high school or longer. (Bert's birthday is in December but we couldn't get it together to go away until January.)

It was four days of so much fun. We ate and drank way too much, did a bunch of puzzles, played some Cards Against Humanity, hung out in the snow, watched our kids bond and retold stories about stuff that happened two decades ago. And, of course, I got sentimental about how lucky I am to have so many great friends from high school and even elementary school.

Last Saturday, we got to celebrate with even more of those high school friends, when we went to a party for another fortieth - this one for my friend Matt. It was at his parents' house, near Severna Park, and was gorgeous. Matt's mom works at a flower shop; she and a friend often do flowers for weddings and they are so good at it. The party was catered by Mission BBQ, so the food was awesome, and was tons of fun, all the way around.

But the celebrations really aren't over. Because this is the year my high school class turns forty, we are in for a year full of parties and big nights out. Which is busy, it's true. But wow is it fun.

Updates on My Life and a Semi-Restaurant Review: Verbena

For the two or so of you who are interested in what's going on in the life of your humble blogger...this week has been a big one. At 6:30 this morning, Cooper and Dixon and I finally returned home, after nearly a week in exile while our floor were finished. They look nice, though they have a little more of an olive undertone than I'd like - I'm not sure how I feel about them with the cherry cabinets, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. Whatever the color, we're just happy to be home. Especially Dixon. He took a nap about 4 hours earlier than usual today, and I think it was just because he was psyched to be in his own crib.

For the past few days we've been flitting in between my parents' and Cooper's parents' houses, with a quick trip to Richmond (sans Dixon) thrown in. Tom and Cail (aka my brother and his girlfriend) live in Richmond and we don't get down there to see him nearly as much as I'd like to. It's only a couple of hours, but planning-wise, it might as well require a day-long flight. It's hard to coordinate.

Richmond was fun, though, and we ate well while we were there. As soon as we arrived, we headed to Tom and Cail's local, Can Can, for drinks and a snack. Mussels for Cooper and Cail and me, and quiche for Tom. And frites all around. Delicious, crispy, hot frites.

A few hours later, we met some friends for dinner at a new place called Verbena. It's only been open since the first of February, but Tom and Cail had been a few times already and one of the friends we met for dinner is tight with the owner (I think Tom's friend is the owner's lawyer), so we had high hopes, despite the newness of the spot.

The space was very cool - simply decorated, a fantastic and shiny copper (?) ceiling and cool little alcoves in the walls displaying wine bottles. It was a touch on the loud side, and it seems that they may not have worked out all of their scheduling issues (we didn't wait, but we ran into some people who had to wait for over an hour, despite their reservation), but on the whole it was a fun meal, the food was good and the wine list was both solid and reasonably priced. I had quail with brussels sprouts and wild rice and enjoyed the whole mess of it (though I do wish the sprouts had come whole or halved, instead of flaked).

However, for those who like drama with their meals, we had some. After dinner, we were lingering in front of the restaurant, saying goodbye to the friends who were heading home and coordinating our next stop with everybody else. The manager came out, looking concerned, and asked if everything was OK. Seems that, despite the note on the menu saying that parties of six or more will be charged an 18% gratuity, our server didn't add one to our bill...and we didn't notice. We'd left some tip, but not that much.

Everyone felt badly (partly for not paying attention more - apparently you could bill us for anything and we wouldn't notice) and we took care of the oversight. Yesterday, Tom forwarded me an email he got from the owner, just making sure that the experience was OK and apologizing for any confusion. Nice, I thought, and smart from a business standpoint, too. Tom and Cail eat out all the time and during dinner, we ran into two or three of their friends, plus one of Cooper's friends from college...Richmond is a small town and I would imagine that word of mouth really matters.

After the drama, we wrapped up the evening back at the bar at Can Can (where I drank a thousand pom fizzes - just pomegranate liqueur and champagne - a delicious headache), then back at Tom and Cail's. Words can't describe how tired I was during our drive home on Sunday morning, even after our obligatory stop at Waffle House and our quick drive through Cooper's alma mater.

Really, I'm glad to be home.

Thanksgiving Recap: In Which Kit & Cail Throw Down, Cocktail-Style

Yes, Thanksgiving was several weeks ago. I'm running a bit late with this post, but better late than never - especially when it comes to shellfish and cocktails, right?

For Thanksgiving, Cooper and Dixon and I alternate years with the Waskoms and the Pollards - one year we go to one house, the next we go to the other house. This year was a Waskom year, which means it was also an Oysters Waskom year. The family masterpiece: Oysters Waskom are my mom's recipe - the oysters are topped with a sauteed spinach and Monterey jack mixture then put on the grill for a few minutes. The recipe mainly lives inside my mom's head (when I've tried to make it, the results have varied) and it's one of my favorite things about "R" month dinners at my parents.

This year, my parents added another shellfish to the mix, making stuffies: This recipe also exists inside my mom's head - but I know that it involves chorizo, which is responsible for all the grease you can see in the pictures.

The stuffies were a new addition and a welcome one. The spicy and savory flavor of the clams was offered a fantastic counterpoint to the lemony, spinachy oysters.

Of course, while we were busy with our shellfish, we were also busy with something else: the first ever Waskom Fall Cocktail Throwdown. I was inspired by Alicia and Mike's family throwdown (it involved cranberries), so I suggested that we do something similar, but with cocktails, not food. In the end, only Cail and I participated, which was probably for the best, since both of us created cocktails that were, um, a little boozy.

My sister took on the tough task of judging. Here she is, holding Cail's cocktail:
Cail's drink was vodka-based and combined cranberry puree (fall!) with a New Orleansy vibe (Creole Shrubb). The menu - topped with a homemeade cranberry and orange scone:

The drink was good - refreshing, interesting and seasonal. It was also totally different from my drink, which was a combination of bourbon, honey bourbon, pear liqueur, a pear cider and rosemary reduction, and ginger beer:

Bourbon was an admittedly risky choice for me, since most of my family doesn't drink much of it (as an aside, there's not much major mixology in the Waskom house anyway - most drink mixing involves little more than adding tonic to gin). Fortunately, I was able to browbeat Erin into judging the cocktails not on what she personally liked, but on what "people like."

In the end, that browbeating worked and I was the big winner, though everybody also agreed that Cail's drink is the one they'd order in a restaurant.

And then we went inside and ate way too much fried turkey, oyster stuffing, butternut squash casserole, mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts with bacon, followed by a rousing rendition of kids vs. parents Trivial Pursuit. I'm sorry to say that this year, the parents won (even though there are only two of them and at this point, with Cail and Cooper, there are five of us).

Oysters to start, then competition. Then turkey and more oysters, then more competition. A truly Waskom Thanksgiving all around.

Restaurant Review: Corduroy

After a long week of not eating very well, thanks to my cold, I was thrilled to wake up on Saturday morning with only a minorly stuffy nose. I didn't want anything to get in the way of our Saturday night plans: dinner in DC with my brother and his girlfriend.

Our drive down to DC was rainy and otherwise typically miserable, but as we parked the car outside Cail's building, the clouds parted and the rain subsided, if only for a minute. Unfortunately, when we left for the restaurant a few hours later, it had picked back up. By that point, though, I didn't really care. I'd been eating cheese and heart of palm (GOD, I love heart of palm) for a few hours and was on my way to Corduroy.

Located in a decidedly unsexy part of town and in an even more decidedly unsexy Four Points Sheraton, Corduroy is an unlikely hot spot. It's a favorite, though, of WaPo restaurant critic Tom Sietsema and has gotten great reviews all over the place. At the very least, worth a shot. (Cail and I really want to go to Minibar, but figured that might be a little too precious for the boys to deal with.)

Anyway. As the hotel location would suggest, the decor is...unsexy. It looks like a hotel restaurant. However, most of my hotel restaurant experiences have been less than satisfactory on the whole: mediocre fancy-ish expensive food served by an indifferent waitstaff.

Not at Corduroy. It was really, really good.

First, the service. It was just about perfect. Prompt and understated and detail-oriented.

And then there was the food. Some bits were better than others, of course, but overall, our meals were great.

To start, Tom selected a very nice, very reasonable wine from the Languedoc and we moved in on the bread, which was warm, crusty and yeasty. An excellent introduction.

Then we really got started with a simple Caesar salad (Cooper), a salad of goat cheese and beets (Tom), oysters on the half shell with apple mignonette sauce (Cail) and the buffalo mozzarella porcupine (me). Everyone was pleased, though it took us all a minute to figure out where Tom's goat cheese was (in a thin layer on the bottom of the salad) and Cail wished her sauce had come on the side, instead of already on her oysters.

I ordered the porcupine (which, no, is not actually porcupine) in part because DCFoodies said it was great and in part just because I was curious. I really wasn't sure exactly what to expect. When it arrived, I wasn't surprised by it's look -it was a large ball of fresh buffalo mozzarella that had been (I think) rolled in grated Parmiggiano and fried. It was served with a pale red sauce outlined by a pale green sauce, both of which I think were tomato sauces. Definitely tomato in some way, but the taste was subtle.

I realized, then, that I was eating fancy fried mozzarella sticks. Which was just fine. We're not talking about Applebee's fare here.

Anyway. Entrees. Cail and I both ordered the scallops, which were just as amazing as we'd hear they would be. Five perfectly pan-seared scallops, each presented on a small pillow of (amazing, smooth, perfect) garlic mashed potatoes and a rich, sauteed shiitake mushroom. The scallop scultpures were surrounded by a rich, savory, mushroomy brown sauce streaked with a lighter green sauce. I couldn't get a good read on the green sauce by itself - it was beautiful, but between the brown sauce and the potatoes, it was hard to distinguish the flavor. Overall, fantastic.

The boys each opted for meat, but not of the traditional red sort. Cooper ordered lamb, which arrived perfectly pink and accompanied by creamed spinach so perfect we all agreed it might've been the best we'd ever had. The cream-to-spinach ratio was just about ideal, and it didn't lose it's heat (which is always Cooper's biggest spinach complaint.) He was very happy.

Tom ordered the pork belly with cabbage, which was absolutely enormous. It looked good - if daunting - and he liked it...but mentioned that he might not have ordered it if he'd realized it would taste so much like pulled pork and sauerkraut. Not that he dislikes pulled pork and sauerkraut, but there are lots of great places for barbecue near his house in Richmond. No need to go to a white tablecloth restaurant for that.

So Tom's was the disappointment, and even that wasn't really disappointing.

After dinner, we were stuffed, but what kind of food blogger would I be if I didn't order dessert? Tom passed on dessert, citing his need to maintain his girlish figure, but the rest of us dug in. Cail had a delicious-looking pistachio bread pudding and I had a perfectly tart-sweet Alsatian apple tart and both came with a scoop of incredibly good, rich, smooth vanilla ice cream. Cooper also ordered dessert - I'm not sure what his was called, but it was so chocolatey after one bite I could barely speak. Good...but way too rich for me.

And following all of that, we retired to the tiny, very hotel-ish bar to gather up the courage to head back out into the cold (and to eavesdrop on the Sex and the City wannabes at the table behind us. None of us have any self-control when it comes to listening in.)

Oh - and I should've mentioned the cost. The quality of the meal and the service (and the city) would suggest a super pricey meal. But it wasn't. It wasn't cheap, but it certainly didn't break the bank. That was definitely a nice surprise.

Verdict: I'd go back. It would be a great location for a dinner with parents and grandparents -it has the right sort of gravitas without being dull.

At the same time, DC has so many great restaurants. As someone who only makes it to the big, powerful city occasionally, I'll have to try something new on my next trip. Something new like Minibar...

Not-So-Trendy Monday: Homecoming (also Restaurant Review: The Ironhorse)

Is there anything less hipstery and "cool" than spending a rainy Saturday celebrating Homecoming listening to a cover band in a KA house in the middle of Virginia?

Probably not, but I've spent a lot of weekend days under similar circumstances, including this past Saturday. This year was Cooper's 10-year reunion at Randolph Macon, so we drove down on Saturday morning and hung out at the (really humid, kind of miserable) reunion tent during the game, and at KA for a little while afterwards. Tom and Cail drove up from Richmond to meet us (making Tom probably the only Hampden-Sydney alum in the reunion tent).

It wasn't an ideal day for a football game - it rained all day - but at least it wasn't cold. In any event, the rain didn't ruin Dixon's day. Not only did Cail take him outside the tent to watch "the real Thomas" (a giant CSX train), he also got to show off his dance moves at KA, and roll around in a mud puddle (not on my watch). Also not on my watch, he managed to convince Cooper to feed him the following:

- a keg cup full of water mixed with Old Bay (I know, so disgusting, right?)
- a giant cup of red Kool-Aid (mostly ended up on his white shirt)
- cookies
- Hershey bars (OK, I was complicit in this one, too)

Not surprisingly, after that much sugar, plus the dancing and some extra, sugar-induced jumping, all of the Kool-Aid ended up back on his shirt. I think he was the first "drank too much" casualty of the party.

After all of the excitement of the afternoon, Dixon settled into a really nicely timed, outrageously late nap - he slept from 6 to 8 while Cooper and Tom and Cail and I had dinner at the Ironhorse Restaurant.

The restaurant is practically on campus, so Cooper had eaten there a number of times in college. It's probably the nicest place in Ashland - white tablecloths, a pretty bar, seasonally changing menus, good service. We were all a little damp and scraggly from a day in the rain, but I think our waitress understood (by the time we left, half of Cooper's pledge class was in the bar).

The food itself was really very good, too. We started with the shrimp and grits, plus the chevre plate and a plate of roasted garlic knobs and blue cheese. The cheeses were excellent and though I like my roasted garlic a little more done, it was still delicious.

For dinner, Tom and I both had the braised lamb shank, which came with sweet and sour kale (and, yes, several "sweet and sour Cail" jokes were made) and mashed potatoes. The lamb was literally fall-off-the-bone tender and had great flavor. My only complaint was that there was way too much of it.

Cails scallops looked great, too, and she was really happy with how perfectly they were cooked. And Cooper's Brazilian strip steak was topped with a really fantastic and fresh chimichurri.

The wine list was nice, too, and we had a very good, but not expensive bottle of Pinot Noir (Hob Nob). Overall, dinner was fantastic and it was a nice way to relax after the craziness of the afternoon (also nice to get to talk to Tom and Cail without a band in the background. Not that I don't love a band, especially one playing covers from my high school and college years.)

Of course, then we had to get back in the car and drive home to Baltimore, which was exhausting. And I got up yesterday morning for brunch with my high school girl friends at Garry's Grill in Severna Park, and then I went sailing with my dad. It was beautiful out, but I was so tired by the time I got home that I could've gone to sleep around 5.

So that was it - my highly un-trendy weekend. And now we're on to Halloween week which, apparently, is going to be an exciting one in our house.

Birthday Babies

I am so behind in posts. Trust me, I'm feeling the anxiety, as I look at the photos I haven't shared and the recipes I haven't written about.

But it's been a busy few weeks - not least because we had back to back birthday weekends. First, my mom turned 65 and we celebrated by throwing a small party for her, at her house. My brother and sister and I collaborated (with help, of course, from Cooper, Clark and Cail), making way, way too much food and having a lot of fun.

Then, this past Monday, Dixon turned eight. Over the weekend, we had two parties - a boys-only get-together featuring a video game truck, lots of pizza, and a boatload of Nerf weaponry, followed by a tamer Sunday party with our little group of friends and a lot of cheeseburgers.

The parties:

Clockwise, starting at the top left: My brother's perfectly cooked tenderloin (#nofilter!!!); Dixon just before school on Monday morning; Cail's very simple, very delicious crab; the inside of the video game bus; the singing of happy birthday; a monster antipasto platter; Erin's homemade cheese straws at my mom's, 

At my mom's party, we started with a cocktail, dubbed "The Medicare Eligibility Elixir" - it was a combination of vodka, sparkling clementine juice, ginger beer and pomegranate juice. To eat, we had the crab, antipasto platter (lots of hearts of palm, which we all love), cheese and crackers, cheese straws, heart of palm dip, and parmesan and celery stuffed dates. THEN we had cider-braised pork with caramelized onions and Cooper's barbecue sauce, Tom's grilled tenderloin, Cail's garlicky mashed potatoes and a really bright cucumber and cabbage slaw by Erin.

At Dixon's party, the menu was not quite as fancy. Pizza from Pizans and some chips. 

They were equally well-received.

And of course, at both parties, there was cake:

For my mom, my sister made a chocolate hazelnut cake with buttercream frosting, topped with candied hazelnuts (Hazelnut and chocolate are my mom's go-to flavors. If she had a blog, it would be called Chocolate and Hazelnuts.) It was awesome, both flavor-wise and texturally.

For Dixon's birthday, he and Alicia collaborated on the main cake - for the fifth year in a row! This year's extravaganza was a camo cake made using Duff's cake mix (which I made), with buttercream frosting and silver sprinkles, topped with a giant Xbox controller made out of rice krispie treats and covered in fondant. It was impressive.

For Dixon's party #2 - the Sunday friends and family celebration - AKB made vanilla bean cupcakes with buttercream frosting topped with purple Ravens sprinkles. Some of her best work yet.

Two big weekends, back to back, can be exhausting. And it's not over yet! Yesterday was Cail's birthday and next Monday is Cooper's mom's. It's birthday season chez Pollard. Good thing we always have room for cake.

Year Ends, Year Begins

Unsurprisingly, we both ended 2014 and started 2015 with a lot of great food and fun and laughter. As busy as December always is for us, it's also stacked with family and friends.

And food. And booze.

Speaking of food and booze, the above is just a small taste of our Christmas festivities. My brother and sister, plus Cail and Clark, were all in Maryland for Christmas - it was the first time we were all together for the holiday. For logistical reasons, Bill didn't go home to his parents' until after Christmas, so he was there, as well.

Dinner at my parents' house was festive and fun. Oysters, prime rib dry-aged by my parents, cheesecake and lots of cookies. We came home and Bill spent the night and even made breakfast for us in the morning (Taylor pork roll!). That night, we went to Cooper's parents for red meat round two and more Christmas cheer.

The day after Christmas, Tom and Cail and Erin and Clark and Dixon and I had lunch at Carrol's Creek Cafe in Annapolis, then everyone came up to our house for post-Christmas festivities with our friends.

Tom and Cail gave us a sabre for Christmas, so we spent the whole week following the holiday knocking the tops of champagne bottles. Fun stuff.

A bunch of that sabreing took place on New Year's Eve, when, like last year, we had the Bargers and Kennedys and Swartses - and their kids - over for dinner.

Before dinner, we drank pomelder prosecco punch and ate Alicia's hot pimiento cheese dip, which was so good, in an old school sort of way, and a bunch of oysters (both raw and grilled).

With the reasoning that if it ain't broke, don't fix it, we stuck with last year's menu of tenderloin and crab imperial, plus cauliflower puree that is seriously so good. Alicia made chocolate and peanut butter cupcakes and we drank a couple bottles of Brunello that we've been saving...and more than a couple bottles of Montebuena Rioja. Plus, the champagne.

Kids had nuggets - with Dixon's special nugget sauce - and about six hundred candy canes. Dixon put himself to bed in the middle of the party (typical) and everyone else got to play with sparklers. It...was better for some than for others.

Last year, nearly all the kids held on until midnight. This year, there were meltdowns all around when 11 hit, so the only people who made it were the Swartses (and even then, Eva passed out, face down on the sofa, before midnight rolled around).

It was such a great way to kick off a new year - surrounded by friends and family. And eating such good food.

I hope everyone else's 2015 started out on such a great note!

Food and The Wire: More

I missed last night's episode - I went to bed early, so we'll watch it tonight. But over the weekend, I had a long conversation with my brother's girlfriend, Cail, about the role of food in The Wire. (earlier posts here, here, and here)

Cooper and I have Directv, so we don't get the "on-demand" episodes, so I haven't seen the older episodes in a few years. Tom and Cail, on the other hand, refreshed themselves by watching the whole series over the past few months. As a result, Cail has a much better recollection than I do of every time food plays a role in the show.

Over dinner on Saturday night, she listed several - from the contest-winning kids going to the fancy restaurant last season to a Brodie/McNulty exchange over takeout lake trout. There was a common thread between all the instances, and it's not a surprising one: they all highlight the class tension that is one of the show's underlying themes.

Not surprising at all, and this still demonstrates the core tonal difference between The Sopranos and The Wire. Especially since, as I mentioned last week, for as segregated as this city is, you could easily tell a Baltimore food story that highlights commonalities rather than differences.

But that would be a very, very different show...

Entertaining Friday: Miami Recap

If we learned one thing from Top Chef this week, it's that a bachelorette party is entertaining, right? Right?

Well, maybe not, but Cail's bachelorette party, held last weekend in Miami, really was entertaining. So entertaining, in fact, that I realized this morning that I took exactly two pictures, and they were both with my Blackberry. So glad I charged my camera battery for the trip.

As a result, I have only one picture from our snack at Nobu, and I don't have a single picture of our Friday night dinner at Yuca, where I loved the empanadas and the Asian-influenced sauce on the tuna. Or of our adventures later that night, which mostly involved champagne at the outdoor portion of the hotel bar.

Fortunately, Cail took lots of pictures, like this early-morning of the lounges at the pool at The Shore Club:The Shore Club, as previously mentioned, was a great hotel and the pool was outstanding. We spent all day Saturday sitting on those chairs and swimming in that corner of the pool, while we drank frozen drinks and gossiped with the other guests and the pool staff about all the famous people in our midst. Famous people that included Vin Diesel (very low key), several Carolina Panthers (as low key as professional athletes can be) and the owner of Penthouse, accompanied by 10 of his "pets," all in town to shoot a "film" (not very low key at all). I have never seen anything like that show in my entire life, and I don't expect to see anything like it again.

Dinner on Saturday night might have been my favorite part of the whole weekend. Based on several recommendations, we'd made reservations at Casa Tua, a pretty restaurant tucked into a prettier hotel, all hidden behind tall hedges, several blocks off the Collins Ave.

We started dinner with champagne, a surprise courtesy of Cail's parents, then moved into shared appetizers, including this tomato salad with burrata - possibly the creamiest, most fantasic mozzarella I've ever tasted:All of the dishes had the same simple look and feel, but they all also packed a huge punch, flavor-wise. In addition to the salad, we shared lightly fried zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta and mozzarella (why go easy on the cheese?) and a salad of crab, melon and proscuitto that was so light with just the right amount of savory.

For dinner, I had seared diver scallops (perfect) with a fennel gratin that reminded me of a more flavorful potato pancake. I also stole a bit of Erin's ravioli stuffed with quail, served with mushrooms and truffle. It was exactly as heady, intense, and amazing as it sounds.

We skipped dessert that night to head off to LIV, where we had a table waiting. Hours and hours later, we returned to the hotel, where I slept for a couple of hours, then got up to begin one of the worst traveling days of my life.

But worth it.

Dispatches from Italy

Tom and Cail have just returned from their ten day honeymoon in Italy, where they traveled a little and spent some time in Rome. Cail's already gotten her photos up online and, unsurprisingly, a ton of them are of food.

She very generously said that I could post some of them here. So...in no particular order:

Just looking at that mozzarella makes me want to book a plane ticket, tout de suite.

While the above photo isn't really food-related, I like it because it is sooo like my brother: Blackberry in one hand, wine (white) in the other.

Hello, beautiful seafood!

Apparently Halloween occurs in Italy, too.

Aren't these plates gorgeous?

Yes, you can also order bruschetta and pizza at Bertucci's. But somehow I'm guessing it's not quite the same.

Pretty artichokes and prettier tomatoes!

Equally pretty lemons.

Fishies! I love visiting markets when I'm traveling. The only thing that always bothers me is that I see so many perishables - like fish - that I'd love to buy, but I can't because I have no nearby kitchen. This is why I need an apartment in every city, right?

And...dessert.

Welcome home, Tom and Cail!

Entertaining Friday: Congratulations, Tom and Marcail!

We're in New Orleans right now, for Tom and Cail's wedding, which takes place tomorrow night. The reception is at the house in the photo - it's also where Cail's dad grew up. I can't wait to see the inside.

I also can't wait for the food. Cail's super into food and it's no secret that New Orleans is an amazing food city. We've got a lot of eating in front of us (and behind us) and I'll have a lot to report on when we get home.

Festive Fall Fun: HSC-RMC Tailgate

We've had such a fun fall, filled with the sorts of activities that make for good movies: a rainy wine tasting weekend, super fun Halloween and a great cocktail party at our house. In fact, we've been so busy for the past couple of months that I haven't actually blogged about any of it at all - until today.

This first "festive fall fun" post is all about the trip we took to Richmond two weeks ago. Here's some background: my brother went to Hampden-Sydney, a tiny college in southwestern Virginia (it's also one of the only all-guys colleges left in the country). Cooper went to Randolph Macon, which is just outside of Richmond and which also happens to be Hampden-Sydney's biggest rival.

Every year, the HSC-RMC football game is a big deal. Not so much for the game itself as for the tailgate. Both schools breed a certain sort of student: the kind that is great at tailgating.

So that's how we found ourselves driving to Richmond on an early, but bright and sunny, morning two weeks ago, with a car packed full of food and tailgating gear. And here's what happened:

Dixon played football with anyone who would entertain him - mostly Cooper and my brother (that's Tom in the picture).

Cooper spent a good $75 at the RMC bookstore, on things like a lovely camo RMC hat for himself and a way-too-big shirt for Dixon. Also, a giant yellow foam finger with "Go Jackets!" written all over it. It's hot.



The food! Between me, Cail and two of Tom's college friends and their wives, we had enough to feed an army. White chicken chili, little Cubans, shrimp sandwiches, and pimiento cheese sandwiches, cheese and crackers, sweet potato salsa, deviled eggs - and cupcakes. Oh yeah, and fried chicken. Lots of fried chicken. And bacon vodka bloody marys to wash it all down. The food was amazing...so good that we actually saw someone steal some from us! And not just a college kid, either - it was a woman in her thirties!



It was breezy and our tent might have broken a few times. But it was worth it to watch my brother apply his lawyer skills to a mechanical problem.

 After the game, we went back to Tom and Cail's, where the festivities continued:

There were guns...

And glowsticks.

Actually, guns and glowsticks is probably a pretty good description of how things often shake out at a Waskom-Pollard party.

Besides the toys, there was more great food at Tom and Cails, including endive cups with bleu cheese, walnuts and grapes, duck proscuitto (so rich! so good!) and foie gras, sauteed and sprinkled with truffle salt.

And yes, that was as good as it sounds.

Oh - and that game? This year, Randolph Macon won, but it didn't totally matter, since HSC had already won the conference. We didn't make it to the game itself, anyway. Too busy socializing and, of course, eating.

UPDATE: I can't believe I forgot to mention this: all of these pictures were taken by Cail. Since I didn't even bring my camera!

January Is Excess: Restaurant Review: Les Folies

I can't believe that in the two and a half years I've been writing here, I've never reviewed Les Folies. I've been there a million times, both for lunch and for dinner, usually with my grandmother and various other family members. I know I've mentioned it here, but I've never written an actual review.

Time to remedy that.

I'll start at the end: Les Folies is a fantastic restaurant. I don't think I've ever had a bad meal or bad service there. Whether it's lunch for two or dinner for eight, the kitchen and staff are consistent and strong.

This past Saturday, Cooper and I had dinner there with my parents, sister, brother and his girlfriend (no Dixon - it's not a place to take kids). We were celebrating my brother's 30th (only a few weeks late). Our reservations were for 6 pm, and we'd gotten them just the day before. By 7 the room was full.

Service was quiet and extremely competent, as always. You won't find an overly familiar waiter with "how are you guys doing?" gum-snapping enthusiasm at Les Folies. It's understated, to say the least.

We each started with an hors d'oeuvres or salad. Cail (my brother's girlfriend) and I got the escargots (which comes with the eyelash curler-like utensil, unlike at Petit Louis). I've had it before, and it's very good, though it might actually be a little too garlicky for my taste. I'd just eaten the same dish at Petit Louis a few weeks before, and I like PL's slightly more subtle interpretation better. But still, great.

Unfortunately, I can't remember everybody's starter. My mom and brother, I think, just got Caesar salads and my dad ordered something that involved endive and blue cheese that looked good, but that I thought I could make at home. I convinced Cooper to order the foie gras special - and we were all glad he did. A thick slice of foie gras checkerboarded with (I think) duck mousse, it was served with an amazing brioche. It was way too rich for one person, really, but everybody at the table enjoyed a bit of it.

My dad and brother won dinner. My dad ordered the wild boar special (listed on the menu as "wild board" and if the waitress wasn't sick of that joke by the time we left, I'm SURE she was by the end of the night) - I didn't taste it, but it looked crispy and gamey and perfectly sauced. Tom ordered the rabbit special, which involved rabbit cooked about five different ways - including a little tiny presentation of the ribs still on the bone. His plate looked like crazy modern art.

Actually, my mom also did well with a poussin in hazelnuts special with a delicate sauce she totally gushed about.

Cail and Erin ordered safe bets from the main menu - the lamb for Cail and veal in cream sauce for Erin. I've had them both (I've had the veal like 10 times) and am never disappointed.

Unfortunately, Cooper and I both were a little disappointed with our entrees. Not because they weren't good - they were - but because we should have ordered more adventurously. We both got steak frites. I'm not sure why - I rarely order something so simple I could make it at home. And it was good - the frites, especially, were perfectly crisp and salty - but again, we could have that any night.

We got over it, though, with dessert. We all had souffles - some grand marnier, some chocolate. You have to order the souffle with your meal, so they have time to cook, but it is well worth it to make the decision early. The grand marnier souffle (my preference) comes with creme anglaise and is light, fluffy and decadent all at once.

Overall, a great meal.

But a few notes on the experience and ambiance, some good, some bad. First of all, the location sucks. Annapolis is a beautiful town, but the spot where Les Folies is located is, well, not. It's on Riva Road, just off 97 and next to a farm supply store. Seriously. Parking gets tight and you're not supposed to turn left to leave the lot (which is what everyone wants to do). I wish they'd move downtown, where parking is also tight, but at least the area has charm. No offense to Bowen's Farm Supply, but, well, it's not charming.

And the overall feel. As I mentioned, the service is pretty much flawless - and very quiet, which is how I like it. It also happens to be how my grandmother likes it. Along with thousands of other grandmothers. All of whom go to Les Folies. This IS your father's French restaurant.

The decor is sort of upscale brasserie, kind of Toulouse Lautrec-ish, and the menu is some brasserie, some a little more upscale than that, and some Meditteranean (paella's on the menu). There's something of an emphasis on seafood. But all the messages are a little mixed, so it ends up just feeling "Frenchy" - which is fine.

What's not fine, though, are the plates. They're horrendous - white with weird 80's Art Deco designs. I'm still trying to figure out the aesthetic motivation behind them.

But here's the real problem with Les Folies: I can't help but compare it to Petit Louis. The food is certainly comparable, though Les Folies might have a little more variety and it also might be a little more expensive. I think the wine lists are also comparable. But to me, Petit Louis feels like a younger person's restaurant.

This isn't entirely fair or rational - Petit Louis is full of its fair share of blue-hairs every time I go there. But there are younger people, too, and some children. Those are a rare sight at Les Folies.
These detractions, though, aren't fatal. Les Folies is still one of my very favorite restaurants and I will never turn down a meal there.

But I wouldn't be upset to see them by the dock...no, not at all.

Friday Night Wine Bar Fun

By Friday night, all of Thursday's tryptophan had worn off, and I was full of energy. My sister and brother and his girlfriend, all in town for the holiday, came up to Towson to hang out with Cooper and me. We gathered up some friends who weren't traveling for Thanksgiving and headed to the wine bar at Belvedere Square.

We arrived early - around 6 - to take part in the Square's holiday tree-lighting and midnight madness festivities. But once we arrived, we got a little sidetracked by the food and the wine. And, oh, was there a lot of both. The wine bar has a smallish menu, mostly made of up hors d'oeuvres that complement wine. However, because the market was open late (and the wine bar opens right into the market), we were also able to bring in some food from outside.

Tom and Cail ordered a pretty antipasto, though as Cail pointed out, it was a little light on the meat:


antipasto
Originally uploaded by Kit Pollard.

The peppers were all very vinagry (which I like)...and everyone was a fan of the proscuitto wrapped around artichoke wrapped around blue cheese. I was a fan of the whole platter for it's aesthetics alone.

Cooper bought some kimchi from the Asian seafood market. It was tasty...but maybe too flavorful. There was so much garlic in this that one bite made my eyes water. All nine people at our table couldn't even put a dent in the pint Cooper ordered:


kimchi
Originally uploaded by Kit Pollard.

The wine bar offers about five different tartes flambees (a fancy name for interesting pizza). Alicia and Mike had the vegetarian and Erin and I ordered the chevre and leek:


tarte flambee
Originally uploaded by Kit Pollard.

The crust was light and flaky, the chevre was appropriately tangy and the leeks added a nice crunch and some flavor balance, countering the intensity of the chevre. Alicia learned from the bartender that the tartes are a fairly new addition to the menu - the owner of the bar just purchased the little oven they're cooked in. Apparently there was a bit of a learning curve early on - they were a little too flambee. It's hard to blame the bartenders, though, as they're not chefs (and they do fix a mean drink). At any rate, it seems that the kinks are all worked out. Our tarte was perfectly cooked. No charring anyplace.

In honor of my Belvedere Square tradition, Mike visited the smokery and ordered a slice of the savory cheese pie, which arrived all melty - ugly, but true to it's name, very savory:


melty savory cheese pie
Originally uploaded by Kit Pollard.

Finally, after about eight courses accompanied only by wine, we turned our attention to the fancy drinks. Cail had a bellini, the boys started ordering their Bitburgers, and Alicia had a metropolitan, which is sort of like a cosmo, but involves champagne:


metropolitan
Originally uploaded by Kit Pollard.

I stuck with my trusty red wine, until we left the bar to retire to the Bargers house, where I did Alicia a "favor" by helping finish an already open bottle of champagne.

All in all, despite my excessive thirst and nasty Saturday morning headache, an excellent holiday season kickoff.

Trendy Monday: Still a Culture of Lifestyle

Last night, I finally finished The United States of Arugula. What a really, really good book. I am wildly jealous of the talent and store of knowledge posessed by its author, David Kamp.

As I mentioned last week, Kamp addresses the rise of the concept of "lifestyle" in the mid-seventies. Towards the end of the book, he brings the subject up again, noting a resurgence in "lifestyle" as an important entity (of course I can't find the exact quote this morning). It was interesting to me to read about a "resurgence" - since I didn't realize that "lifestyle" ever left, at least as a marketing tool.

But then I thought about it a bit. Over the weekend, my parents and Tom and Cail and Erin came up to celebrate my dad's birthday. My dad didn't want to actually sit down to eat, so he suggested we have a bunch of appetizers instead. My mom brought some pate she got from a new shop in Severna Park, and I made scallops wrapped in bacon, mussels in a red sauce (that I'll write about later - I'll be reviewing the book they were in), my go-to potato chips with chevre, red pepper jelly and bacon, and the usual cheese and crackers.

At one point, the conversation turned to the difference between how I cook and how my mom cooks. Cail is also into food, and she has her own, third way of cooking, but it's probably more like mine than my mom', and I think that's a generational thing.

My mom learned to cook not from her mom (who is really good at making reservations) but, like many women her age, from Julia. Her copies of the Mastering the Art of French Cooking books are worn down, dog-eared and faded. She didn't spend her early years slaving over aspics and terrines, but there's something about the way she cooks and what she cooks that owes and obvious debt to Child. It's difficult to describe, but I think there's an emphasis on process and product that she may not have had if she'd learned to cook today.

Not that I reject process or end product, but I think that I could be described as more of a lifestyle cook than my mother (even though I use a lot of her recipes). Certainly today there's more of an emphasis on the original ingredient, and the way you shop has everything to do with lifestyle.

But beyond that, I think there's a different emphasis on how the food comes to the table. I'm having a hard time articulating this, but with lifestyle cooking, the way things look matter, as does they way they're eaten. Making dinner starts at the store and it ends with cute placemats from Crate & Barrel that match the teakettle that matches the art on the walls. And this, on a random Tuesday.

I think, maybe, the cooking process used to be more compartmentalized and today, it has more flow. Not surprisingly, really, when you consider the way the compartments have broken down across our lives. I work from home, stealing a couple of minutes here and there to edit copy or do some research analysis, all while Dixon's playing or napping (and, of course, while I blog).

We live fluidly, so why shouldn't we cook the same way?

I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this, except to say that I've been thinking about it. I'll end, though, on a more practical note. I've got a couple of big posts coming up - some book reviews and an essay I've been working on for a bit. Unfortunately, sometime during the night on Saturday, my laptop decided it had had enough of this world. Right now I'm writing on Cooper's computer, while Best Buy transfers my old hard drive to the new computer I bought yesterday. So I don't think I'll be doing a whole lot of posting until I get the new computer back - I just don't work well on a non-laptop.

Not fluid enough, I guess. Too compartmentalized.

The Local-Global Pendulum Meets Southern Cuisine

A couple weeks ago, my whole family got together at my parents' house to celebrate my dad's birthday. We were talking about food (because what else do you talk about?) when the conversation descended into a  "Who's on first?" style mess. My sister-in-law asked me if I'd ever been to Charleston, commenting that after reading the recent Washington Post article about Woodberry Kitchen, she got the impression that WK is a lot like Husk.

I haven't been to Husk, or to Charleston, but I had read the article and, based on what I've heard about Husk, I told Cail I thought she was right. Then my mom chimed in with a confusing comment about a neighbor who doesn't really care for Charleston because she thinks the food is "too rich" and my brother expressed surprise that I'd never been to Charleston - but I was sure he knew I hadn't been there.

As it turns out, he did know I'd never visited Charleston - the city. Cail and I were talking about the Holy City, while my mom and brother were talking about Cindy Wolf's famously fancy and, yes, rich, restaurant here in Baltimore. (Though I haven't actually been there, either.)

All that talk about Charleston and Husk and low country flavors in Baltimore - topped off by a late-night viewing of Shag - got me thinking. These days, Southern cooking is on quite a pedestal. And Southern flavors are steeped in so much history that it's easy to forget that not so long ago, regional cooking - in the South or anyplace else - wasn't exactly front-page news.

Back in the early days of M&G, I wrote a handful of posts lamenting the demise of regional cuisine (most notably here and here). The first post I wrote was triggered by my sister's college graduation dinner at the Southern Inn in Lexington, Virginia...which, despite its name, was not very southern at all. The dinner was OK, but I was disappointed that it lacked any regional distinction. I could've eaten the same dinner in California, New York, or the Midwest.

I wasn't the only person concerned back then, either. A year after my post,  an essay by Salma Abdelnour called, "The Insidious Rise of Cosmo-Cuisine," appeared in the May 2007 issue of Food & Wine. Abdelnour observed that the best chefs of the day lacked a culinary connection to their hometowns, with menus borrowing from cities all over the world, but not necessarily from their own backyards. That essay got a lot of attention; it also appeared in Best Food Writing 2007.

At that time, eating locally was a hot topic - "locavore" was the OED word of the year for 2007 - but that was more about where to buy ingredients vs. flavor profiles. In those days, the most celebrated food in the world was coming out of Spain (specifically, out of Ferran Adria's head), but it wasn't lauded for its Spanishness so much as its edginess. Technique was king. Top Chef viewers were talking about Hung's knife skills and Blais' wild ideas and careful execution, but not nearly as much about how their backgrounds might have influenced their cooking choices. Local food was on the rise, from a logistical standpoint, but from a creative perspective, we were all thinking global.

And then something shifted.

Today, El Bulli is no more and the Top Chef judges have seen waves of regionally-focused cheftestants. The Southern Inn, which inspired my first post on the subject, touts fried chicken and country ham all over its menu. And Charleston's Husk, described on its own website as "a celebration of Southern ingredients," is widely considered the country's best restaurant.

What happened? Something natural and cyclical, I think - though I don't know that we're experiencing a resurgence of American regionalism so much as a burst of interest in Southern flavors in particular. Here on M&G, the first mention of Charleston - which seems to be at the heart of this Southern food revival - was in April of 2009, when I wrote about Elle Decor's profile of the city.

In July of that year, the Baltimore episode of No Reservations aired and one of the show's (few) bright spots was Bourdain's smart identification of Baltimore's southern culinary roots, on display via lake trout and pit beef.

In November 2009, I considered pimento cheese super trendy and the following month, I sang praises for Kevin Gillespie's mission to cook food that "has a sense of place" (that place being, of course, the South). A rise in Southern flavor profiles was one of my predictions for 2010. By May 2011, when Garden & Gun (which launched in April 2007) won the National Magazine Award, the Southern revival was so firmly in place on a national level, the magazine could launch a semi-regular blog all about finding the South in New York City.

A few days after my father's birthday dinner, Alicia gave me a magazine her parents picked up on a recent trip to Charleston (Alicia's dad, Big G, is a Citadel alum). The magazine, called The Local Palate, bills itself as covering "food culture of the South," though it's mostly about food in Charleston vs. the region as a whole. Either way, its mere existence goes to show that regionalism is alive and well, at least in certain pockets of the country. The cover refers to "The Second Coming of Southern Cuisine" and on the inside, one of the most intriguing pieces, "Southern Revival" by architectural historian W. Barksdale Maynard, carries the lofty subtitle, "Living in the Golden Age of Southern Cuisine."

I can't find the article anywhere online (the rest of the issue is here) and that's really a shame because Maynard does an excellent job tracking the peaks and valleys of popularity experienced by Southern cuisine. His conclusion is that, "the long decline is over: traditional Dixie cuisine is back," and he quotes revered Southern food historian/champion John T. Edge, poo-pooing those who fret that the South has grown less "Southern" thanks to homogenization and Northern migration. Edge insists, "That concern is cyclical and maybe even permanent, this notion that Southern food is in peril." In other words, every generation worries, but the world keeps on spinning.

I suppose I should take those words to heart, too. After all, it was only five or six years ago that I was dramatically mourning regional cooking. And look where we are now: regional cooking, in the South at least, has risen again.

Trendy Monday: POM + Prosecco

Today's trendy Monday isn't actually all that trendy. Or, rather, it was trendy, just in 2005. But I'm still pretty taken with the pomegranate juice cocktail.

A couple of years ago, during a visit to Richmond to see Tom and Cail, I was introduced to the "Pom Fizz" - a cocktail of champagne, pomegranate liqueur and cranberry juice that's a specialty at Can Can (one of their favorite restaurant/bars). It was sparkly and a little tart and very delicious. At Can Can, the drink has since been renamed The Marcail, in honor of Cail (they spend a lot of time there) and in Baltimore, a simpler version has become a staple among my friends.

My version is even lighter and easier. Fill a champagne glass one-third full with pomegranate juice (preferably POM Wonderful - who also just sent me some free juice!) and fill the rest of the glass with prosecco. Voila! A light and tasty cocktail that is also enormously heart-healthy (as I am fond of reminding everyone when I'm on my 5th. But really, they are very light and easy to drink.)

Plus, what an excellent anytime drink. Light enough for brunch, perfect with a salad for lunch and fancy enough for dinner. The ideal cocktail? Yes, I think it just might be.

Hugh Acheson's Hot Sauce Beurre Blanc

A few weeks ago, Tom and Cail went to a wedding in Atlanta. While there, they ate at Hugh Acheson's restaurant, Empire State South. I love when they visit new restaurants because Cail always sends me a barrage of texts, with pictures of menus and little notes like, "Holy Gawd. My pork loin was smothered in lardo."

About a week after their trip to Atlanta, I got a wonderful surprise in the mail: They sent me Acheson's new cookbook,
A New Turn in the South!

I immediately read it, cover to cover. Acheson is a great writer - so approachable and friendly - and he has a warm story to tell. The book is about food, but it's also about community and about his own family. It's a good book to read, even if you'll never cook a dish.

But I will cook a dish - a few dishes. Many of the recipes are quite home cook-friendly.

I started with the grilled mahi mahi with hot sauce beurre blanc - a meal simple enough for a weeknight. Since none of my local stores had mahi mahi in stock, I swapped that out for Chilean sea bass from Conrad's.

The fish itself is simple - rubbed with olive oil, seasoned with sea salt and grilled.

It's served over a salad of thinly sliced cucumber tossed with equal parts olive oil and lemon juice, salt and parsley:

 

If I made this again, I'd jack up the lemon juice and maybe add some rice vinegar to the marinade. It's a matter of taste - we tend to prefer cucumber salads with a little more acid.

The key to this whole meal, though, is the sauce:

That picture certainly doesn't do it justice. Acheson's combination of butter, cider vinegar and hot sauce is amazing and works beautifully with a firm white fish. I think it would be equally lovely with chicken. It's a great example of how down-home flavors (hot sauce, yeehaw!) can make magic with fancy French technique.

And really, when have hot sauce and butter steered anybody wrong?

Buy the book - really. But in the meantime, here's the recipe (paraphrased):

Hugh Acheson's Hot Sauce Beurre Blanc

Ingredients

- 1 shallot, minced

- 1/2 cup cider vinegar

- 1 tablespoon lemon juice

- 2 tablespoons Louisiana-style hot sauce (such as Texas Pete's; Acheson warns against using Tabasco, saying it's too hot)

- 1 stick of cold unsalted butter, cubed

- Salt

Directions

1. In a 1-quart sauce pain, combine the shallot, vinegar and lemon juice. Over medium heat, reduce until there is only about 2 tablespoons of liquid.

2. Add the hot sauce (it'll seem like a lot!) and reduce to a low simmer.

3. Begin whisking in the cold butter, a cube at a time. This will take a while. Your arm may ache.

4. Once all the butter is incorporated, season with a pinch of salt - and you're ready.

If you need to keep the sauce warm while you finish other parts of the meal, place the pot in a water bath to do so.

And enjoy!