Kitchen Note: repairing Pot Au Feu
Why not start with a nice NorCal flower picture? I was trying to take flower pictures the other day, and this seems like a good excuse to use them. Here’s another. You may be wondering flowers have to with pot au feu, or boiled beef. Nothing. They’re just pretty in…
Brasato after Judy Rodgers
10-7-16. I’d like to take an editorial moment here to thank a friend who notes that after all my hemming and hawing about the pig’s foot, below, I neglect to include it in the braise. Such are the perils of a one-woman show. I only wish I could pay…
Fresh Borlotti Beans
Excuse the quiet over here. Just before Prince stunned the world, John fell ill, necessitating some quality time at the hospital, where we impressed the nurses with our lifting technique. He is home now, rapidly recovering, almost his usual self. As you might imagine, recent events left little time or energy for…
Artichoke Caponata
It is weird to admit you miss people you’ve never met, but I do. That chef Judy Rodgers no longer walks the earth frequently pains me. Fortunately, she left us with a single, perfect work, the Zuni Café Cookbook. The Zuni Café Cookbook, together with Paula Wolfert’s The Cooking Of…
Plain Roast Duck
“Every once in a while, even the most sensible person gets a craving for roast duck.” Laurie Colwin, “The Duck Dilemma.” As I crave duck almost continually, I either lack sense (entirely possible) or was French in a past life (a preferable interpretation). People–and by people, I should specify Americans–tie…
Braised Short Ribs
Braised Short Ribs belong to the important family of stews, braises, and daubes, those heartily earthy dishes of winter. In this discussion, the term “stew” is synonymous with “braise,” signifying a dish requiring long, slow cooking, usually in a low oven. My passion for braising began in grad school, while reading…
Chicken Broth
One of rare disease’s more entertaining aspects is its unpredictability. There’s the gradual dawning that your body works differently than everyone else’s, and that differently doesn’t signify you’re the next Wayne Gretzky or Nadia Comaneci. Next comes the quest for diagnosis. Once you have a name for your special weirdness,…
