Musings on Starters, Mains, Desserts and Second-Helpings…
The heavens have cleared here in NYC, finally. After over twenty straight days of clouds and/or rain, we celebrated the welcoming warm and sunny weather with something light and bright. Before this week, bathing suit season seemed very, very far away – then the heat and sun came and getting into a bathing suit began […]
Posted in butter, crimini, easy, egg, Europe, French, Italian, Jacques Pepin, Jeffrey Steingarten, mushroom, mushrooms, quick meal, Recipe, Recipes, truffles on May 3rd, 2009
In several of his well-known paeans to Provence, Peter Mayle describes, both lyrically and at great length, his love affair with the black truffles of that region. Sometimes couched as a cloak-and-dagger chase involving bizarre and nervy rendez-vous’ along dimly-lit back roads, or illicit dealings with “men with dirt under their fingernails and yesterday’s garlic […]
Posted in Italian on Jan 29th, 2009
So, class, welcome to your first day of Cooking 101. Today’s lesson is sauces. First sauce, velouté. What is a velouté you ask? Well, don’t ask a Frenchman because they’re likely to laugh in your face, spit on you for your ignorance and then leave you without any pride or dignity (or answers either). Velouté […]
Posted in America, appetizer, baking, butter, cheese, comte, delicacy, fish, French, herbs, Olive Oil, parsley, souffle on Jan 12th, 2009
Perhaps the day that both our teams (Manchester United & Philadelphia Eagles) won unlikely decisive victories in the realm of competitive sports, is the best day to dwell on the recent personal glory of our seafood soufflés staying up. However – even if (quite sensibly) you don’t give a rat’s ass about sports – anyone […]
Posted in appetizer, butter, capers, fennel, France, French, Recipe, Recipes, salmon on Jan 4th, 2009
It’s been a nice, long and relaxing break. We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! It’s good to be back, but it’s difficult to write about food when all you can think about is avoiding it for a bit to detox from the holidays. This holiday season we ate like kings, we drank a lot […]
Posted in butter, Canada, cornichons, cream, death, dining, eating, embarrassment, Food Commentary, French, fried, fritters, indulgent meal, Montreal, mushrooms, offal, Restaurant Review, spinach, tongue, tourism, travel, trotter, unhealthy, vinaigrette on Oct 21st, 2008
Gentle readers, please sympathize with me, for I, like a man who’s been dining exclusively on centipedes, have the bitter taste of defeat in my mouth. That this humiliation and defeat arrived, to twist a metaphor, at the hands of nothing more sinister than a pig’s foot, has only served to exacerbate these feelings of embarrassment and self-loathing. Those of […]
Posted in alligator, America, blood, boudin, braised, Cajun, Canada, corn, eating, Food Commentary, French, grilled, hominy, lentils, Louisiana, offal, pigs, Recipe, Recipes, sausage, shrimp, tradition, unhealthy on Aug 28th, 2008
A few months ago I was contacted by a representative of a site called cajungrocer.com. He offered to send us some Cajun treats if we would do a bit of a write-up on their products. Well, what else could I say but “Hell YEAH!”. We had our choice to sample crayfish, turducken or boudin. It […]
Posted in baking, dessert, French, holiday, Recipe, Recipes, tart on Jul 4th, 2008
It’s always fun to be with my British husband and celebrate the 4th of July. Some of his favorite questions he been asked many times since moving to America to be with moi is, “So, Jonny, what’s Thanksgiving like in England!?” or “How do you guys celebrate the 4th of July in England!?”. Such silly […]
Posted in advertising, alcohol, alcoholic drink, culture, drink, French, French-ness, Provencal on Jul 1st, 2008
For this month’s drink, I considered writing about several summer classics, and was nearly persuaded that a paean to my proletarian love — cold beer — might suffice in both the “pure sunshine in a glass” sense, and because it’s typically my leading beverage in terms of volume consumed between June and September. The problem […]
Posted in Bastille Day, Carcassonne, culture, eating, Europe, festival, Food Commentary, France, French, french fries, French-ness, fried, grilled, grilling, history, holiday, patriotism, podcast, sandwiches, sausage, street food, summer, tourism, tradition, travel, unhealthy on May 6th, 2008
Download WNF Podcast #2: Sandwich de Merguez A few summers ago we were very fortunate to spend a long vacation traveling through northern Spain and southwestern France. It was our first real vacation alone since Amy and I had met, and was especially well-deserved because we had spent the previous 12 months going through the […]
Posted in America, bay, braised, bunny, capers, chicken stock, delicacy, dining, diversity, Easter, eating, flour, game, healthy, hearty, lower fat, Meat, mustard, olives, onions, parsley, podcast, Provencal, rabbit, rosemary, savory, slow cooking, thyme on Mar 27th, 2008
It’s the Thursday after Easter and most people out there are still picking the candy and chocolate out of their teeth having just gorged themselves on all manner of Easter Bunny-shaped confectionery. Ever the destroyers of convention, we have been doing something altogether more real and, some may say, sinister. Yes, friends, cover your children’s […]
Posted in baking, chestnuts, Christmas, cognac, cream, custard, dessert, easy, French, holiday, nuts, pastry, pie, Recipe, Recipes, sugar, vanilla on Jan 15th, 2008
During the cook-a-thon that was the weekend before Christmas, in which my wife and I got our first real glimpse of just how hard professional chefs have to work, I turned out something of a rarity for me, and thus far, unique to this blog – a dessert. Touring the food blogosphere (hmm, starting to […]
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