This project is getting pretty big pretty fast, and I couldn’t be more pleased. Starting in September, I’m going to have a blog-doc-short episode featuring each of the following biggest and brightest talents in local artisan food production – and the list is growing daily: Sunworks Farm, Nature’s Green Acres, Smoky Valley Goat Cheese, En Santé Winery, Serben Free Range, … Read More
Poultry-nomics: Peck & Berry Acres vs. Hutterite supply
I have, by most standards where I live anyway, an unusual meat supply. I’m not trying to be special or exclusive. I’m just trying to be sensible. Wine tasting my butt off for a few years taught me two important lessons that I now apply to meats: ‘Quality/Price’ ratio, and ‘love thy small producer’. So I choose a small local … Read More
Use Whatcha Got [just make sure whatcha got is good]
Every year I marvel at how early and quickly spinach bolts, and the last couple days of heat did it. So my spring crop of spinach has ended in a glut. And I had a chicken in the fridge – I’m test-running a new source of local poultry. And there was some spare Sauvignon Blanc from Friday’s wine tasting. Add … Read More
Christmas Chicken and Custard
Family, friends, food, wine, repeat – what’s not to like about the holiday season?! I figured I should slam up an unfocused post during the holidays. Unfocused because 1] I am successfully in holiday mode and 2] there are a myriad of food prep duties and social occasions speckling my days. This year’s Christmas dinner menu: Oven-dried tomato with goat … Read More
Meat-versification
A recent commitment to myself has been to diversify the meats I cook and serve, as the ready supply of game makes the menu around here a little…game-centric. When was the last time I served duck for example? Last Christmas – afterwhich I barfed my guts out all night with the flu. Which may explain that one. But that’s not … Read More
4 Garden-Inspired-Courses and a Guest
garden lettuce w belle farms olive oil and riesling vinegar vinaigrette soup: garden beets, lovage, chard, carrot, red onion, parsley herbes de provence roast chicken with garden kennebec, norland and yukon gold quickie moelleux with quickie garden raspberry jam The Wines:2007 Chateau de Lancyre Rose, Luberon France [88-91 pts]2003 Chateau de Carles, Fronsac, France [91-93 pts]
Canette au Vin – more Burgundy…
Important facts: this was my first trip to France where I had a kitchen nearly the whole time I was resolved to cook classics [ex, coq au vin was on my list] the french have so many options for poultry, it will make your head spin A ‘canette’ is a young duck, so this was a rich dish that was … Read More
More Burgundy: Poulet de Bresse
Ever since reading Jacques Pepin’s memoires about cooking chicken in his home-region of Bresse, I’ve wanted to try one of the birds myself. And long before leaving for France, acquiring and cooking a Bresse bird was firmly on my list of things to do while in Burgundy. AOC chicken. I had to try it.Admittedly, I wasn’t aware that buying such … Read More
Chicken Provencale Revisited
I actually did it. I actually went back to the store, in -35C temperatures [-47C with windchill], bought another chicken, and tried yesterday’s chicken dish again. This time, the whole bird. Head, feet and all. The conclusion? It was not a one-off yesterday. I’m in love with this dish right now. The meat is succulent and chicken-tastic. I can’t believe … Read More
Tastiest Chicken I’ve Made. Period.
Yes, a lofty and potentially deluded claim. I buy chickens whole and do whatever we feel like with the parts, using the rest for stock. I don’t know if this was a particularly tasty bird. Was it ‘finished’ well at the farm? Was I just really hungry? Not sure. But I’m gonna write this one down to try it again. … Read More