Delicious trio: Scallops with Smoky Chipotle Butter, Tomato Salad and Cornbread

Scallops with Smoky Chipotle Butter, Tomato Salad and Cornbread is actually three separate recipes. All are good on their own, but together they’re a restaurant-inspired, restaurant-worthy meal. Recipes below.

A few weeks back, I had to go to New York City on business. It was two days of intense meetings that actually turned out to be productive and valuable. At the end of the first day, we all went to dinner together. Someone in the New York office chose the venue, in part because it was near the office: Bobby Flay’s Bar Americain. I thought great, another giant midtown eating hall. But you know? It was terrific. Everything was delicious. Everything was interesting. The room was handsome, and the waitstaff was knowledgeable and invested. I had a ball. It was a delightful evening with great colleagues, really a treat.

What did I have? Skate with smoked chile butter, served with a small tomato salad heaped on a circle of crispy hominy. Continue reading “Delicious trio: Scallops with Smoky Chipotle Butter, Tomato Salad and Cornbread” →

Refreshing the taste of comfort: Pork Meatballs with Juniper Berries

Juniper berries add a subtle, light freshness to pork meatballs. Wine, sherry and sour cream create a simple sauce. Recipes below.

This weird and messy winter just won’t quit us. Today it is a pleasant 50 degrees, and sunny, and all our windows are open. But Saturday was cheerless and frigid, and not that far in our future is “damp and raw,” “periods of rain” and even a nasty “wintry mix.”

The term wintry mix always sounds so dull and industrial. And it always makes me remember Sonny Eliot, a “weathercaster” in the Detroit of my youth, who brought the spirit of playfulness to TV reporting. Continue reading “Refreshing the taste of comfort: Pork Meatballs with Juniper Berries” →

Tangy, rich, delicious: Chevre Cheesecake with Hazelnut Crust and Fruit Compote

Chevre—mild goat cheese—and lemon juice give this cheesecake a tangy flavor note. The hazelnut adds a rich, nutty crunch, and the fruit compote a lively tart finish. Recipes—and substitutions—below.

Cheesecake was not a part of my life as a child. The first time I had it was as a teenager, at some party or another, and everything single thing about that event has fallen away except that it was the first time I tasted cheesecake—this time-stopping moment in which the dull clouds parted to reveal this sweet, rich, suave, glowing nexus of perfection. Continue reading “Tangy, rich, delicious: Chevre Cheesecake with Hazelnut Crust and Fruit Compote” →

Inspired by lunch at Eataly: Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Wilted Kale

Sweet potato gnocchi are quickly sautéed in butter, giving them a beautiful color and a lovely, nutty flavor. Then they’re tossed with kale cooked with garlic, shallots and red pepper flakes. Recipe below.

Last weekend, our family plans fell through, leaving us with two marvelous open days of no plans at all. We were cheerfully meandering around town when we realized that we had not yet been to Eataly Chicago. All those stories of long lines and frenzied crowds had kept us away—during their first week in early December, they had a stunning 120,000 visitors. By the time of our visit on Saturday for lunch, it was bustling, but not as frenetic as the smaller New York store has been every time we’ve visited. And everywhere we looked, people were relaxed and happy, having a wonderful time and glad to be there.

We lunched at La Piazza, standing at a tiny communal table. Bread and olive oil appeared almost immediately, followed by glasses of Italian wine—a chardonnay for Terry, a prosecco for me. We shared three small plates—a salad of roasted beets, olive tapenade, sea salt and mozzarella (made there daily, and so fresh and light); a half-dozen oysters representing both coasts; and supplì, deep-fried balls of creamy risotto filled with Cacio di Roma, a sheep’s milk cheese. It tells you everything about the cheerful, friendly atmosphere that strangers stopped to ask us about the supplì, and then about the oysters, and then told us about what they were having and what they were doing in Chicago. Everything was convivial and everything was sublime. Which of course got us talking and thinking about Italian food. Continue reading “Inspired by lunch at Eataly: Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Wilted Kale” →

Classic Mexican cut of meat meets French technique: Braised Costillos de Puerco

Mexican pork short ribs are given a classic French comfort food treatment, oven braised with aromatics, herbs and wine. Recipe below.

Our neighborhood is rich with little Mexican groceries, each with a small produce section and dairy case (that shuns anything low fat), aisles of canned goods and imported candy, and—no matter how tiny the store—each with its own fresh meat counter, presided over by a living, breathing butcher.

The other night, during one of the rare breaks in the snowfall, I was walking around looking at stuff in the neighborhood and remembered we were out of, well, everything fresh. So I clomped across Diversey to the store we now like the best (it is “the one that is kind of across the street”—our immediate ambit also includes “the one around the corner,” “the creepy one by the El,” and “no, five blocks west is too far”). Continue reading “Classic Mexican cut of meat meets French technique: Braised Costillos de Puerco” →

Homey, healthy Braised Red Cabbage

Red cabbage is quickly sautéed in butter and oil with onion, apple, pear and bay leaf, then braised with red wine, vinegar, cloves and sugar for a delicious, healthy side. Recipe below.

RED CABBAGE WAS ONE OF THE REGULAR CULINARY PARTS OF MY CHILDHOOD—I loved it and I still do. I am not saying that red cabbage is my madeleine, but when I am assembling this recipe, and when we dish it up, it never fails to give me a cozy sense of the comforts of home. Especially in winter, when the nights have drawn in, I love to have a pot simmering on the stove, on its way to being served alongside something simple and true like a roasted chicken or as a beautiful part of a vegetarian meal, alongside a savory socca pancake and steamed green beans, or a portobello sandwich. Continue reading “Homey, healthy Braised Red Cabbage” →

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies Two Ways

Whoopie pies go seasonal, with pumpkin cookies and two different cream cheese fillings—lemon and maple nutmeg. Recipes below.

WHEN I TOLD MY FRIENDS THAT FOR THIS WEEK’S POST I would be making whoopie pies, no one said, “Making what?”

Pretty much everybody in the United States these days knows what a whoopie pie is. A cookie sandwich with an icing filling, it’s simpler than cake, a happy intermediate between a cupcake and a sweet bread. Whoopie pies emanated from the American Northeast—Maine (where it is the “official state treat”), Pennsylvania and Boston all vow they invented it. Wikipedia reports that the world’s largest whoopie pie was made in South Portland, Maine in 2011. It weighed 1,062 pounds. This is a real thing, that happened. Continue reading “Pumpkin Whoopie Pies Two Ways” →

Seattle and mushrooms, part 3: Halibut with Lobster Mushrooms

Sautéed halibut fillets are served on a bed of lobster mushrooms, corn, shallots and cherry tomatoes—and topped with whole coriander seeds. Recipe below.

As I said on Facebook the other day, if we lived in Seattle, I would be eating all the time. I mean it—all the time. And I would be fine with that. Super-fresh, super-local, super-delicious food is so readily accessible that I would not give one good god damn about my arteries or my cholesterol or my waddling or any of that.

For the last couple of weeks, Terry has been talking about the vast amount of amazing food we had on our recent trip to Seattle. I don’t think we had anything less than amazing. And the most special evening was the one we spent at Sitka & Spruce, which was a surprise to us in many ways. Continue reading “Seattle and mushrooms, part 3: Halibut with Lobster Mushrooms” →

Pure summertime: Blueberry Cake with Buttermilk, Thyme and Lemon Zest

Blueberries, buttermilk, thyme and lemon zest combine to create a delicious cake—and memories of childhood summers in Michigan. Recipe below.

Most of this summer, the blueberries have been terrible—tiny, sour and disgruntled. But suddenly, they have become gorgeous—Michigan blueberries big as marbles, sweet, full of flavor and the most beautiful dusty blue. We’ve been having them on cereal, tossing them in salads (making a vinaigrette using the very pretty blueberry vinegar from Canter-Berry Farms in Washington state) and just plain eating them out of hand.

Ordinarily, I don’t bake in the summer. Even this year, which here in the Midwest has been mild and delightful, I just don’t hold with turning on the oven in July and August. But yesterday—which, natch, was the first really miserably hot day in quite a while—I got the craving. Blueberry cake—we had to have it. Continue reading “Pure summertime: Blueberry Cake with Buttermilk, Thyme and Lemon Zest” →

Simple, savory and versatile: Korean Kimchi Pancake with Chicken

Savory, crunchy and often spicy, pickled kimchi is the Korean national dish. It’s also the delicious heart of this weeknight-quick pancake. Recipe below.

Kimchi is a living thing—beautiful, colorful, naturally fermented cabbage, rich with garlic, red pepper, fiber and vitamins. When I opened the jar of kimchi to make this pancake, it began bubbling around the edges of the liquid in a very satisfying way.

We first thought of making this pancake a few weeks ago, when we were passing through Rochester, New York and had dinner at Young’s Korean Restaurant. And if you ever happen to be in that part of the world, get your GPS to take you there (and you’ll need it). Young’s is cozy and welcoming, but it is located kind of beyond a dreadful strip mall hell, in the confusing middle of an office park, in what looks like a warehouse on: Mushroom Boulevard. It is just wonderful. Everything we had that night was delicious, the banchan were crunchy and fresh and the humblest dish of all was this simple pancake. It was so unassuming, and yet so flavorful, that I just had to give it a try. Continue reading “Simple, savory and versatile: Korean Kimchi Pancake with Chicken” →