A Meal for Thanks

Thanksgiving marks the start of the holiday cooking season for me, and much like Christmas, means an entire day spent in the kitchen--but with rewards well worth it when all the loads of dishes have been done and the leftovers stowed away in the fridge.  And Thanksgiving truly makes for a meal of thanks when shared with family.

This year's menu included several new dishes along with traditional favorites; without further ado, here's what we served at Chateau Papillon for Thanksgiving 2010:

Home-baked garlic, herb, and cheese bread--the first dish I prepared, as I fired up the oven at 8:30am to warm and proof the dough, with the loaves going in around noon.  Other than needing to measure the ingredients by weight, this is an easy bread for any kitchen, and one which can be tinkered with to no end (for example, I change the herbs, add cheese, and replace some of the flour with whole wheat flour)

Fresh green beans, blanched and served in olive oil and salt.  This was the quickest dish to prepare; just snap the ends off the beans, dump in boiling water for 5 minutes, strain, and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt (kosher salt's big flakes work best).

Sweet potato casserole.  This was one of my "experimental" dishes for the year, despite the traditional theme: in addition to the mashed sweet potatoes, I added a banana, a half pound of cream cheese, a beaten egg, brown sugar, a bit of flour, and seasoned with vanilla, curry powder, garam masala, cinnamon, freshly-ground nutmeg, and allspice... all topped with some marshmallows.  I have to say that it came out fantastically well--the banana and the curry really worked.

Stuffing: the only mostly-store-bought course, as I used a blend of dried cornmeal croutons and cranberry stuffing mix, with the added flavor of a splash of chicken broth and Irish whiskey.  (Everything is better with a little Irish whiskey.)

Baked apples: layers of butter alternated with Granny Smith apple slices, each topped with cinnamon, allspice, Chinese five spice powder, and a dash of cayenne pepper--and with ample brown sugar to keep it sweet, and just a splash of Meyer lemon juice to keep the apples from browning.

Skin-on mashed garlic and goat cheese red potatoes.  Nothing else to be said, really--just good eats.

Brined roasted turkey.  I only get real, homemade oven-roasted turkey twice a year, and look forward to Thanksgiving for the eleven long months after Christmas.  This year, I brined in a mixture of apple cider, kosher salt, brown sugar, candied ginger, black mustard seed, cloves, allspice berries, and peppercorns, then stuffed the turkey with apples, onion, cinnamon, along with some rosemary and sage straight from the garden and a bit of thyme from the supermarket--and a few springs of our curry plant.

The turkey drippings went straight into the saucier my mother-in-law P.A.T. gave me earlier this year, stirred into a butter-and-flour roux with a bit of salt, pepper, thyme, and a splash of Irish whiskey (remember what I said about Irish whiskey a minute ago?).  This was hands-down the best gravy I've ever made.  Let me share a secret to gravy making: start with a roux--melt 2-3 tablespoons of butter and whisk in 2 tablespoons of flour, then cook the resulting paste briefly.  The darker the roux, the more the flavor... but the less the thickening power, so for something with a lot of flavor to begin with like turkey gravy, cook only until the butter develops a nutty aroma.  Then, gradually whisk in the turkey drippings, season, and keep whisking until thickened--you'll let it come to a boil and cook on for a few minutes, then cool.  No canned gravy at Chateau Papillon, and no broth needed with such fantastic turkey drippings.

Chubb Mom made a course of her grandmother's rolls--yes, we already had bread, but rolls are a tradition, and I insisted.

For our resident fish-eating-vegetarian, I baked some Chilean Sea Bass--a course we've had three times in the past week (!!) but nonetheless an absolutely fantastic dish, and one of the simpler ones to make.  Put the fish, skin-side down, into a baking dish, top with mango sea salt and a few pats of butter, and roast at 390 degrees for 35 minutes or so until nice and golden on top.  Voila!

Finally, for dessert, I took advantage of Costco having both Meyer lemons and Cara-cara blood oranges.  In one of the more involved dishes of the day, I  baked a homemade graham cracker crust: I used a package of stale, broken grahams, tossed in the blender with some vanilla sugar and an unhealthy bit of butter--then pressed into the pie pan and baked for 10 minutes or so.  Ten or twelve lemons juiced and zested went into the custard base, along with a half dozen eggs, a lot of vanilla sugar, cornstarch, and some butter for richness... all then put over the bain marie until thickened sufficiently to go into the crust and bake until set.  After it cooled, I topped with homemade whipped cream (heavy cream, vanilla sugar, and Grand Mariner liquor) and blood orange segments.  The orange wedges made a big difference and added a light, juicy texture to each otherwise-heavy bite.  In the end, the pie tasted a bit like a good key lime pie, taking advantage of the Meyer lemon's cross between lemons and tangerines.

My mom put together no-bake pumpkin turtle pie as well at my dad's request, using a store-bought (blasphemous!) graham cracker crust, canned pumpkin, Cool Whip (I offered to fold in my real whipped cream--to no avail), vanilla pudding, caramel sauce, and pecans.  I did, however, manage to slip in some extra seasoning, including Irish whiskey (!), allspice, and Chinese five spice powder.  I couldn't find the mace, or that would have gone in, too.

Overall, I used the better part of six sticks of butter and did five (soon to be six) loads of dishes as I cleaned up as I prepped and cooked throughout the day.  But it was worth it--Thanksgiving does come only once a year, after all.

Weekend Scones & More Cuisine de Chateau Papillon

Poppyseed Cake with Caramel Orange-Apricot Rum Glaze: YUM!

As long-time readers of this blog know, we have a tradition at Chateau Papillon for "weekend scones": breakfast or brunch at least once a week involving home-cooked treats to be enjoyed with a leisurely mug of coffee or espresso.  The sweets need not actually be scones (though cherry-vanilla scones are amongst my favorites); anything from donuts to tea cakes to bagels count, so long as they're homemade.

Our busy schedules had precluded much more than convenience cooking (pasta and sauce, for example) and take-out the past several days, but this weekend I made sure to take the time to put together a new "scone": a poppyseed cake served with a caramel orange-apricot rum glaze.

The cake recipe followed loosely one from my favorite baker's cookbook, Bo Friberg's Professional Pastry Chef.  The basic, very rich batter consisted of egg yolks (5), sugar (a lot), butter (2 sticks), sour cream, cake flour, leaveners (both baking soda and powder), and poppy seeds (nearly an entire jar, and at that half what the recipe called for!).  Add to that, via folding-in, a meringue base of beaten egg whites (6), vanilla, and more sugar. We often lack some of the more esoteric pans Friberg calls for (e.g. a Gugelhupf) and make do with an old but tried & true tube pan--which is actually what this recipe called for.  Friberg's recipe did claim you could also make muffins from the batter; I suppose he's right, though thanks to the creaming method of "assembly," the finished consistency is somewhere between a traditional cake and a muffin--more moist and dense than what I expect when it comes to muffins.

For finishing, Friberg called for a basic orange glaze, which I used as a suggestion in name only and improvised significantly: one cup of orange juice, a cup of sugar, a cup of apricot preserves, and a generous helping (say, 1/2 cup) of dark rum, boiled and reduced in the saucier my mother-in-law sent as a "no particular occasion" gift a few weeks ago to about a cup of caramelized goodness.

I still prefer Friberg's walnut cream cake, but the poppyseed was a nice change of pace, and certainly did not go to waste uneaten at Chateau Papillon!

The weather was so nice over the weekend that we not only had our breakfast out on the patio, but our dinner as well.  With the earlier-every-day sunset, I didn't get a good photo of the fruits of our Sunday supper efforts, unfortunately, so my description will have to do.  For the main, I roasted some fresh wild-caught sockeye salmon with a bit of olive oil, sea salt, and dried dill--simpler and easier than even the grill-smoked salmon we typically enjoy over the summer.  I combined the leftover sour cream from the morning's cake batter with some potatoes, goat cheese, and garlic to create one side; the other was an interesting squash we came across at the grocery store, sliced in half and baked with a sprinkle of salt and some olive oil.  We'd never had "buttercup squash"--butternut, yes, but this looked more like a larger acorn squash than anything else--and I have to say that it was exceptionally well-named: the baked vegetable tasted like it had been richly buttered through-and-through, despite having only a touch of olive oil and not even a hint of dairy applied.

Celebrating Five Years with Five Courses: Anniversary Dinner at Chateau Papillon

The Summer Solstice brought an important anniversary to Chateau Papillon: five years of marriage to my sweet Kookikins, Beth.  We've enjoyed some great anniversary dinners in the past, at restaurants like 2941 (our favorite) and Hook (a sustainable-seafood place in Georgetown where I had barracuda), but this year, we decided to eat in with a five-course home-cooked meal in honor of our five years of marriage.

We pulled out a dozen or so cookbooks in planning dinner, though I can honestly say no recipe outside the bread--a walnut-onion loaf from my much-used copy of The Professional Pastry Chef--was "by the book"; instead, I used the dishes we perused as inspiration to design several very different courses which would nonetheless work fairly well together.  After checking off the ingredients we had on hand, it was off to Costco and Whole Foods to collect the rest.

To start, I prepared an Emerald Soup of watercress, spinach, onion, and pear, which I served at room temperature in wine stems.  The watercress really balanced the pear, resulting in a smooth, savory blend.  Soups can be all-day affairs in their preparation, or fairly quick courses; this one was the latter, requiring simply chopping the ingredients, sweating the onion, boiling in some stock, and cooking until everything was soft--finished with the immersion blender.  I'd meant to serve smaller portions of the soup as an amuse-buchee, but it was too tasty for that--and the wine glasses I used larger than I thought, too.  As I'd cooked so many different soups for Beth when we first dated that she suggested I start a soup restaurant one day, this course was a necessity with dinner tonight!

For an appetizer course, I sautéed shrimp and served them chilled with grill-roasted fresh corn and red peppers, dusted with coconut and lime juice.  Avocado tossed in a garlic oil and coconut vinegar dressing made for a fresh take on insalate tricolore, which featured three basils from our garden.  As our own tomatoes aren't quite ripe just yet (give them a month or so more), these were vine-ripened chunks from Costco, along with the Bufala Mozzarella cheese from Italy by way of our favorite warehouse store.

The main course I adapted from a recipe in Fast Fish.      The original called for black cod; I opted for Chilean Sea Bass (yes, yes; I'm evil--but I did go with MSC-certified fish which is supposedly sustainably-caught). With a title including vanilla, walnut, and butter, you can't go wrong!  To prepare, I skinned and de-boned the sea bass fillet (incidentally, this was the boniest cut of fish I've ever gotten from Whole Foods--boo to the fishmonger on that, and boo to me for being too distracted to check it more closely while at the store), then rubbed it with a paste I mixed up from pure vanilla extract and the seeds scraped from a vanilla bean.  A few grinds of pepper and a dash of salt, and into the oven the fish went for about 15 minutes, surrounded by a generous helping of butter.  The toasted chopped walnuts went on once the fish was cooked, and I ladled on a bit more melted butter for tasty goodness.

Sides included a sweet potato gnocchi served with a garlic-sage butter reduction (using sage from the garden) and an ouzo dish with fresh mint (yes, from the garden), basil, red onion, feta, and grape tomato halves.  Going with all of this was fresh baked bread, which I'd started and let rise twice during the rest of dinner prep.  I have to say that aside from the fish, the fresh bread--a walnut-onion loaf--was the biggest hit of the night.  Next time I make that particular bread, I do think I'll go with a bit more onion (I already had exceeded the recipe's called-for quantity by 25%) for an even more intense flavor.  The bread came out a bit like pain de campagne, thick and dense and oh so hearty.

Dessert made use of the dozen nectarines I picked up from Costco last week; after parboiling and skinning them a few days ago, I reserved the nectarine pieces in the fridge, then today pureed them with a bit of lime juice.  This mixture went into a standard cream and egg custard mix, albeit one I made with vanilla sugar for the extra flavor (we've never a shortage of used vanilla bean husks with which to infuse a bit of sugar around Chateau Papillon).  I actually started this dish earlier than anything else on the menu, given that after cooking the custard had to chill first in an ice bath for a couple of hours and then in the ice cream maker before finishing up in the freezer proper.  Getting the custard properly chilled before putting it into the ice cream maker is a critical step; ideally, the fridge or even freezer assists with that intermediate step, but an ice bath (ice cubes + kosher salt) works nearly as well in a fraction of the time.  Unfortunately, the ice cream machine is on its last legs and froze up (or, disregarding the prior pun, burned up) during the process--maybe it's time for a unit with an integrated refrigerator instead of the pre-frozen churning tubs?  Anyway, to accompany the nectarine ice cream, I roasted a pineapple on the grill alongside some peach poaching sauce left over (and frozen) from my birthday dinner--mmm!

When Beth and I were first dating, I prepared several dinners which included printed menus, a tradition I returned to in preparing our dinner.  Having a printed menu took a lot of extra work, but it helped me keep straight the dishes--without it, I'd have left something out at least twice during the five hours I spent in the kitchen!--and made for a really nice touch accompanying the meal.

If it hadn't been pushing 11:00pm when we finished up in the kitchen, I'd have spent a bit more time choosing the wines, with a separate wine per course.  As it was, I went with a Washington State white for the amuse-bouchee and appetizer courses in the 2008 Chateau St. Michelle Chardonnay, followed by a real treat in the 2005 Penfolds RWT Shiraz.  Australia's Barossa Valley is really Beth's and my favorite wine region in the world, and the RWT is one of the best out of Penfolds, second only to their Grange.  A splurge ($68) to be sure even purchased at Costco, but not only was this a special occasion, but that $68 would have hardly bought better than a grocery store red at many restaurants (for example, I saw a $20 retail Thorn-Clarke Shiraz at 2941 being sold for $60/half bottle--a 600% markup over retail and probably well over 1000% over the restaurant's wholesale cost!).

Overall, despite spending all evening in the kitchen--we had to defer opening our anniversary gifts!--this made for a fantastic dinner experience at Chateau Papillon.  Unfortunately, I've created a monster: Beth said we should frame the menu "every year" for comparison, implying that I'll be on the hook for topping the meals of the past each anniversary!  I think I managed to convince her that we can still eat out on the solstice sometimes; in fact, I wouldn't mind trekking over to the UK and going all Druidic one anniversary with a visit to Stonehenge.  There is, after all, an Indian restaurant in nearby Salisbury which to this date is one of the best values and best meals I've eaten...

Mushroom & Cheese-filled Pesto Ravioli with Garlic Herb Bread at Chateau Papillon

Travel so often inspires me to cook, and the recent visit to Italy had yet to see expression in my cuisine due to a busy schedule--until this evening, that is, with a homemade meal of pasta and bread.  Today's cuisine de Chateau Papillon: Homemade pesto ravioli filled with mushrooms & cheese, with garlic-herb bread and, appropriately, Chateau Le Paws wine.

I started with a basic semolina pasta dough, made with eggs, bread flour, semolina, oil, and water, flavored with a bit of the last batch of last year's homemade pesto (which froze very well--now it's time to plant more basil in the Aerogarden!).  The dough had sat in the fridge for a couple of days, after providing some linguine the other night.  Lacking a pasta press, I rolled it out into thin sheets and gummed the edges with an egg wash--but I'm getting ahead of myself.  For the filling, I sautéed some finely-minced onions and mushrooms (or funghi, as the Italians would say) and then used the residual heat to melt in a blend of bufala Mozzarella and soft goat cheese, along with a tablespoon or two more of the homemade pesto.  This mixture went into the ravioli dough and then a pot of boiling water.  I served it with extra virgin olive oil, grated Parmesan, and some fresh basil out of the garden--the simple sauce let the flavors stand on their own.

The bread came from one of my most-used cookbooks, Bo Friberg's The Professional Pastry Chef, and thus required as all professional baking recipes do measurement of ingredients by weight.  30 grams of finely-minced garlic (about 5-6 cloves), several tablespoons of dried basil and oregano, egg, flour, a lot of salt... and several hours of rising.  Beth thought I bought the bread--apparently I don't bake fresh bread often enough!--and when I explained that no, I had in fact baked the three loaves of bread, she wondered how I'd gotten the "professional" slits on the tops of the loaves (just a sharp knife before the second rising).

Chateau Le Paws was the wine for the evening, one of our favorites and though not Italian (it's from California, if I recall correctly), it's very good and works with just about anything.

Weekend Scones Report: Breakfast In... the Laundry Room?

At Chateau Papillon, we have a tradition we call "weekend scones," where at least one of the two mornings I bake up something special for breakfast.  It doesn't have to be scones proper: in the past, I've made donuts, muffins, cookies, cakes, tarts, and all sorts of other tall-glass-of-milk-worthy confections.  This weekend's dish: Walnut Cream Cake.  This weekend's cafe locale: the laundry room.

Yes, that's right: we had our breakfast in the laundry room this morning.  We finally replaced my old washing machine--on which I'd replaced the drive coupler three times over the years and into which I put a new clutch a couple of years ago--thanks in large part to Uncle Sam, the so-called "stimulus act," and its energy efficiency rebate funds.  No more clanking-transmission on the old machine, and to boot, we have an Energy Star model which uses less water and electricity and gets our clothes cleaner than the old one.

Though the new washer was delivered on Friday afternoon, we didn't have the laundry room quite ready for it yet: we still had tile prep work (floor leveling, mostly) to complete under the old washer and the dryer, and of course tile to lay in that same area.  We'd been putting off those last few bits of work as we turned our attention to the outside at Chateau Papillon and got our early spring gardening chores in, but with a new washer to install, it was time to get moving on the tile.

We had a marathon tile laying session Friday night, wrapping up around 11:00pm and emptying out around three more cartons of tile--we've still got around 15 more to go to finish the hallway and parts of the storage area in our "water closet."  Late Saturday afternoon, we grouted the entire area done to-date, then sat back to let things dry so we could replace the appliances this morning.

After maneuvering the washer into place, getting all the connections set up, and the washer leveled, we tossed in a load of dirty clothes to try it out and make sure everything was properly in place.  That's why we had breakfast in the laundry room, mind you; we may be kooky, but not so much so a morning in front of a new washer is "entertainment."

Chance pronounced the new washer properly leveled as he tested it out for vibration on its inaugural load.  We still have my old dryer, which though 12 years old really hasn't seen that much use (none, in fact, from 2004 through late 2009); I didn't see a good reason to replace it yet, particularly since there aren't any energy rebates offered on dryers at present.

We've still got a little bit of rebate funds available; between the furnace last fall, an energy audit, and the 20% rebate we'll get back on the new washer (on top of the sale price + 10% additional off at Home Depot), we should have around $200 to put toward either a new water heater (ours is 15 years old and rather cranky) or else an Energy Star-rated French door to replace our sliding patio door.

Recapping Some Recent Cuisine de Chateau Papillon

My mother in law P.A.T. always claims that being in the kitchen energizes me creatively.  It certainly pays not to argue with one's mother in law--particularly when she's right.  I enjoy building upon culinary inspirations from many sources, be they travel (like the Mozzarella di Bufala bruscetta I baked after our trip to Italy); cookbooks (sometimes I even follow the recipe); or even lack of a dinner "plan," when I rifle through the pantry and fridge and build a whimsical dish from whatever I have on hand.

This past weekend, the fantastic weather had Beth and me eating out on the patio each morning, enjoying the sounds of springtime.  Thus, I spent a pretty fair amount of time in the kitchen and put together a couple of dishes I'd like to share.  First, for Sunday, I baked a vanilla-orange buttermilk pound cake; I wanted to make a breakfast/brunch item which would take advantage of fresh fruit, could be enjoyed with coffee, and was something different than the scones and pancakes I so often cook on the weekends.

After flipping through my baking staple cookbook, The Professional Pastry Chef by Bo Friberg, and scanning several fairly exotic quick bread, muffin, and cake recipes, I decided on pound cake--but Bo's recipes are typically scaled for the restaurant kitchen, so rather than dig out my calculator and multiply all the metric ingredients (real chefs bake from measurements by mass, not volume) by 40% to account for the smaller pans, I consulted another of my favorites, Alton Brown's baking text, I'm Just Here for More Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking.  Then it was time to tinker.

Most people will say you can't mess with recipes for baking, but I'm here to say that so long as you know what you're doing, you most certainly can (Beth, though, might still refer to it a "tampering" with the recipe instead of my preferred "tweaking" or "tinkering").  I wanted a denser, finer texture than Alton's pound cake, so I swapped half the all-purpose flour out for cake flour; the lower protein content of the cake flour would result in less gluten linking in the finished product.  (Incidentally, I note Alton's online buttermilk pound cake recipe on Food Network's site uses cake flour and an extra egg, among other differences from the one in his cookbook.)

I also used dehydrated buttermilk instead of fresh--we never use all of a container of fresh buttermilk before it goes bad, so we now keep plenty of powder on hand and just reconstitute it as needed.  And, of course, the flavoring: two vanilla beans, their insides scraped and added to the batter, along with about 4 tablespoons of fresh orange peel I'd grated myself as a byproduct of the hand-squeezed OJ we've enjoyed of late, and finally about 2 tablespoons of Grand Marnier, the definitive orange-flavored cognac every cook should have on hand.  As for that orange peel: just use a Microplane grater and skim off the outermost rind; use it fresh, or spread it in a thin layer and allow to dry, and store in an airtight bottle.  (The greenie in me must also note that the leftover rinds, chopped finely, go into our compost pile afterwards.  No wasting here!)

After baking in a bundt pan, I served the cake with some homemade whipped cream (with a quart of heavy cream going for $2 or so at Costco, no reason ever to use canned stuff!), sweetened with a bit of vanilla sugar.  (One more "waste not, want not" note: the vanilla pods I scraped out go right into a cannister of plain old sugar, where they infuse it with fantastic vanilla flavor for coffees and baking!)  Fresh strawberries finished the cake off--and a cup of espresso.

On Saturday morning, we'd already had some leftover cookies which I'd baked earlier in the week, so for late breakfast I wanted something a bit more savory.  I had several mushrooms getting near the end of their culinary lives in the fridge, just begging to be used, so I sautéed them and incorporated the fungi into a couple of omelets.

There's something of a skill involved in cooking up an omelet verses something simpler, like scrambled eggs, particularly when nonstick cookware is verboten (due to the potentially-deadly fumes when overheated; we have several birds at Chateau Papillon, you may recall).  The key is in getting the pan properly lubricated--I used a mix of canola-based cooking spray and fresh butter--and at the right temperature.  I scrambled a couple of eggs up with a pinch of salt; a fork does wonders for scrambling an egg with much less mess than a whisk, I might add.  When the pan's at the ideal temperature, the eggs will "set" on the bottom very quickly when poured into the pan, so during those first few moments, it's critically important to keep the pan moving.  If done properly, the eggs will set up on their bottom but not stick (remember, move the pan around, shaking it in a slightly circular motion)--and then it's time to quickly add any fixings before the omelet cooks through!

I had the mushrooms ready, along with a few grinds of black pepper and some crumbles of goat cheese; these went in, and then with the assistance of a spatula, I flipped the omelet over in half and let it cook a few seconds more--then off onto the plate.  Voila!  Mine also included some prosciutto, something off-limits to pescetarian Beth; had we a bit of smoked salmon, she'd have gotten that.

The Locavore's Dilemma

Back in grammar school, you probably learned the terms herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore, but I'm betting your teacher never said anything about "locavores."  Quite simply, a locavore eats food grown as close to home as possible.  Still, there's a bit of a dilemma for the gourmet cook, for though locally-grown food offers a lot of opportunities and flavors, sometimes that imported cheese or out-of-season produce is a necessity for the menu.  And the ingredients for locavore cuisine are typically more expensive, too.

Beth and I try to practice local food buying when possible.  More and more grocery stores are identifying locally-grown foods, with some, like the Whole Foods chain, often identifying the distance from the store to the farm or producer.  And, of course, there are farmers' markets and local co-ops--not to mention the ultimate in local food production: growing the food in your own back yard, using local materials and natural practices (no trucked-in $4-a-bag mulch or fertilizer: use free local compost, for example).

Locavore culture is what the "organic" food craze should have really been about, even before the corporate megafarms got into the "organic" gig and drove the term into meaningless vapidity.

Locally-produced foods have the obvious benefit of reduced carbon footprint: they don't require the carbon investment of extensive transportation, first of all, and additionally were and likely were produced with less mechanized processes and with less petrochemical-intensive pesticides & fertilizers.  Beyond the carbon advantages, though, locally grown/raised food has several other benefits:

• Supports local farms and businesses, which often (but not always, depending on where you live) tend to be smaller, individually- and cooperatively-owned, vs. the mega-agribusinesses that produce so much of our food.
• More flavor: because they don't have to be shipped long distances or stored for long periods, the varieties of produce grown locally tend to be much more flavorful. Consider a typical heirloom tomato from the farmer's market compared to a megamart beefsteak tomato: one is almost good enough to eat as a meal on its own, the other a bland pap bred to survive picking by machine, rough handling, and shipping across the country or continent.
• More varieties: megamarts and big agribusinesses want to sell a lot of a very few sorts of produce and to offer the same products everywhere.  Local growers plant and harvest what works for the local conditions and often have a much broader selection which never darkens the shelves of the neighborhood megamart.
• More natural: if buying foods which grow or occur naturally in the area (and in-season), that is--something which is more likely with locally-produced foods.

All those benefits aside, though, as I said earlier and as the title of this piece suggests, being a locavore isn't always the easiest or best option.  Locally-produced foods are typically available only in-season, and though formulating a seasonal diet (vs. simply taking advantage of seasonal foods) is laudable in and of itself, it's also quite a challenge--more of one than I have time to tackle despite my culinary creativity.

Some foods simply aren't available locally regardless of the season; Virginia isn't exactly brimming with citrus growers, for example.  And there are regional specialties not available (or not with the same defining characteristics) except from their native production areas; think of the French appellation d'origine controlee, or "AOC," and similar systems.  Even absent the regulatory strictures legally linking a particular food to one region, imitations from elsewhere often lack the distinctive something which one can't simply replicate locally (consider, for a moment, the French notion of terroir, which is at its heart the fact that the land from which a particular grape, tea, or coffee grows in imparts a specific, characteristic quality to that foodstuff).  So though one can likely find a local substitute for Parmesan cheese, Champagne, or proscuitto di parma, it simply won't be the same.

I do, however, have to say as a cook I do enjoy the challenge of recreating regional specialties with locally-available ingredients, and I love the inspiration of regional cuisine even if not working with the specific ingredients.  But then again, though a local chevre soft goat cheese is something I've used quite successfully in bruschetta in the past, it simply doesn't compare to an imported bufala Mozzarella from Italy at that culinary task, either.  So the occasional taste of non-local food shouldn't be considered in inexcusable sin for the environmentally conscious, should it?

Finally, there's the financial cost aspect.  Locally-grown food can be cheaper, but in my experience, rarely is, and in some cases, can be significantly more expensive for the consumer than the fruits of a carbon-dependent, far-flung transportation grid.  We bought a huge container of seedless red grapes at Costco last weekend, imported from Chile... for $7.  Domestic grapes at the grocery store ran more than that for less than half the quantity, and were of inferior in quality (and local grapes aren't available right now, either; even the domestic ones have been trucked from California).  And heresy of heresies: the Tuscan blood oranges we picked up for $9 at Costco are far superior in taste and convenience than the Florida oranges we bought at the grocery store.  But some local food is comparable in price; farmers' market produce typically beats megamart prices, at least around here; meat from a local farm or slaughterhouse--if bought in bulk--is much cheaper than at the supermarket; and that gallon of local milk we got at Whole Foods was within a quarter of what the stuff trucked in from out of state and sold at the grocery store cost.

I guess, then, it's good that we're at least aware of the financial costs (overt and hidden) as well as the environmental trade-offs involved in buying and eating non-local foods.  That we're even cognizant of the issues of locavore cuisine and the unsustainable life our civilization is pursuing full-speed-ahead and damn-the-torpedoes is a step up the green ladder from the vast majority of consumers.

But it's still a dilemma nonetheless, and not one I'm willing as yet to solve wholeheartedly and completely on the local side.

Cooking Up Some More Tastes of Italy

When we visited Michael and Sam in Italy, we had some really great meals, and as someone who spends a fair amount of time in front of the range myself, I found good inspiration from the cuisine we enjoyed abroad.  Last weekend, I put together some homemade pasta; today while out grocery shopping, I came across some "Bufala" Mozzarella, and decided to bake up some bruschetta.  (It's amazing, really, what you can find at Costco.)

I started with some halved flatbread rolls--normally, I'd make my own crusts, but I was on a constrained schedule. The bread went into the broiler for a few moments, followed by a rub-down with a half a clove of garlic when out and just toasty.  Then, a thin layer of tomato sauce (maybe 1-2 tablespoons each), topped with some sautéed onion and mushrooms (or "funghi" in Italiano).

A layer of fresh Mozzarella topped the bruschetta, followed by some of the Bufala Mozzarella, which has a creamier, "fluffier" consistency.  I added some prosciutto di parma (thank you, Costco) to mine, and finished each with a few grinds of pepper before putting them under the broiler again.

I also prepared a bit of breakfast ahead of time, juicing several oranges by hand to be chilling overnight in the fridge.  Costco has had some fantastic Sicilian Tarocco oranges--yes, we're not being very good localvores right now, I know--which are very sweet and often have the distinctive "blood orange" flesh that gives some extra color to our morning glass of OJ:

And, of course, we had espresso.  It wouldn't be an Italian meal without some Joe.

Brewing Up a More Authenitic Cuppa

Beth and I are both coffee-heads, so we definitely appreciated the fine coffee on our trip to Italy--and, by comparison, realized just what a poor job of producing espresso our combination coffeemaker did.  Thus, atop our list of priorities once back stateside was tracking down a good espresso maker, one which would yield proper "crema" on each and every cup.  (That light foam atop my cup in the photo to the left isn't milk or added cream; it's the crema of the coffee itself.)

A bit of online research really helped unmuddle the waters; we needed something more than a basic steam-driven espresso maker (like the one built into our drip coffee machine) because the steam-driven units simply don't generate enough pressure to produce truly good espresso--and certainly no "crema" on top.  High-end, fully-automated units would certainly fit the bill, but we weren't about to spend $1000+ on an espresso machine, either.

So we settled on the Jura-Capresso 121.01 Ultima, which several sites reviewed as being nearly perfect within its price range.  A pump provides 18 bars of pressure (most models in the sub-$500 range only manage 15 bars), yielding nice crema each time, and the machine manages tamping the grinds for you.  Surprising was that no one seemed to stock the machine locally; I checked Bed Bath & Beyond (they do sell it online), Macy's, Williams Sonoma, Sur la Table, and several department stores fruitlessly before giving in and ordering it from Amazon as I should have originally.

The machine came in yesterday afternoon, and though I don't typically go for caffiene in the evening, I had to try it out by making a couple of cups of espresso for Beth and myself to celebrate.  Excellent results, I must say--though I've yet to put the frother/steamer to the test for a milk drink.  (This weekend, perhaps.)  At any rate, we're now well-equipped for good coffee, between the French press Michael & Sam gave us a few years ago and the new espresso machine... plus our not-so-bad drip coffee maker for the big pot of Joe when family comes to town.

Cooking Up Homemade Pasta

After some fantastic pasta eating in Italy, I decided it was time to put my six-plus-year-old pasta plates for my stand mixer to work and craft up a homemade batch of noodles.

The absolutely most fantastic dish I had during our brief Italian vacation was a "gnoccietti" in garlic cream sauce with mushrooms and pancetta.  Readers may be familiar with gnocci, the small potato dumplings cooked like pasta; gnocietti are small gnocci, though they may be made from wheat flour instead of potato.  I decided to emulate at least the gnocietti--if not the sauce, at least not this evening with a weekend of hard labor at the garden and laying tile in the basement behind me--and whipped up a batch of basic pasta dough, which I flavored with some of my homemade pesto:

• 1 cup bread flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup ground semolina
• 3 eggs
• 3 tbsp basil pesto
• pinch of kosher salt
• water, as needed

I beat the eggs and added them to the flour and salt, mixed, and then added in the pesto and a couple of tablespoons of water to bring the dough together, then it was time for the Kitchen Aid to take to kneading the dough and putting the gluten in the flour to work.  After about 7-10 minutes of kneading, the dough went into the fridge while I prepped the boiling water and got my pasta extruder set up.

I tried a few of my pasta plates out, making some serviceable linguine before switching over to the fine meat grinding plate to create 1/4" solid tubes of dough, which I cut into 1" long pieces as they came out of the extruder.  After a bit of boiling, I drained and plated the gnocietti.

The sauce came out of a jar, though I did juice it up a bit with a decidedly non-Italian touch: a splash of Irish whiskey to bring out the tomato flavor.  Service included some grated Romano cheese, and a nice Petit Syrah (I've still enough congestion from my cold I didn't want to crack open an Italian wine, yet), accompanied by some rosemary sea salt bread.

Cooking Up Turkey Soup for a Cold

After a visit to family in West Virginia over New Year's, Beth and I both came back with the sniffles, an unfortunate side effect of spending the holiday with a family of teachers and young children, both of which seem to bring home every single bug floating around.  You know that bit about chicken soup helping treat a cold?  I'm hoping turkey soup works similarly, because that's what I've got cooking at the moment.

Back at Christmas, I saved the stripped turkey carcass from my holiday dinner, freezing it along with a portion of turkey meat and gravy for future use.  As with just about any set of bones and related cuttings, it's a fairly simple matter to cook up a stock--basically a broth, but so much better due to the gelatin proteins so-contained.  Even nicer is the wonderful aroma of turkey that fills the house as the stock cooks down at just under a simmer for hours on end.  That stock then serves as the flavorful base for a soup; cooked up with some diced onions, celery, carrots, some pasta, and some of the leftover turkey meat.

I'm looking forward to a bowl already, and hope it helps clear up this cold that much more quickly!  Though I've had worse colds (and have my fingers crossed that the worst part of this one has passed; I'm now in day six of knowing I was sick), this one has been particularly annoying coming when it has, right before Beth's mom and friend Joy come to visit us (last time they were here, incidentally, I had a nasty cold, too).

Christmas Day Is Here (and Cookies, Too!): The Many Days of Christmas, Day Four

Christmas Day is here at last--and to be honest, a few days too soon given the state of our holiday preparations (with decorations still unfinished, many a gift yet to be wrapped, and even some family presents sitting unmade and on the proverbial drawing board). But here nonetheless, and in-between visits from friends--Gina and Todd dropped off a bit of holiday cheer and had coffee--and trips over to a couple of the neighbors to deliver some edible gifts, we managed to unwrap a few more of our own presents.

We're very focused on the garden and landscape here at Chateau Papillon (a fact of which if you've read this blog from the springtime onward you're probably quite cognizant), so several of the items on my Amazon "wish list" had a garden theme to them. Books, yes, of course, and those already have Beth and I dreaming of warmer weather and the yard tasks ahead once Old Man Winter passes along his way, but also some practical tools, like the Fiskars hedge shears which filled that tall box I'm pictured with to the left, a gift from Beth's mom which will be put to great use.

I also opened another of the presents from Beth, which was beautifully wrapped in rice paper she'd been saving for years from her grandmother. Inside were many equally-beautiful gifts, all of them brassy little yard implements for the fairy-mansion-to-be, like a little picket fence; watering can; several miniature pots; and a birdhouse, bird bath, and planter all on little stakes to go around the fairies' yard.

We also finally got to the making of a batch of Christmas cookies, though using a box of vanilla sugar cookie mix via Costco instead of the scratch recipe in our family cookbook (the latter requires the dough chill for several hours before working). The Costco mix, though very tasty, isn't the best for cutting & baking shapes, but we did end up with several Papillon-shaped cookies (both dogs and butterflies), a Dachshund, Christmas trees, snowflakes, dog bones, and for the daydreams of a more tropical holiday, a palm tree and pink flamingo:

We also finally opened the gifts from Beth's brother, sister-in-law, and their kids, Ferris and Amelia, revealing two hand-decorated plates from the kids:

Also, we did at long last sit down to watch It's a Wonderful Life, a holiday tradition we both enjoy (and one which I introduced Beth to; growing up, we typically had it on while baking our cookies on Christmas Eve). I'll have to do a separate post about the film, which despite my non-religious perspective I find to be one of the most inspirational (and in fact, among the best overall) films made.

Christmas Dinner (Three Days Early): The Many Days of Christmas, Day Two

Day Two of the Christmas cheer at Chateau Papillon kicked off with more presents and our traditional Christmas dinner, only three days ahead of schedule.

Since Beth is a vegetarian and I do most of the cooking at Chateau Papillon, it's not that often that I get to enjoy a holiday treat like turkey, stuffing, and gravy, so understandably I look forward to the holiday feast-days, and with them the scent of turkey in the air and dreams of days of turkey salad, turkey soup, reheated turkey and gravy, and so forth. I'm like the dad in A Christmas Story, and we even have our own "Bumpus Hounds," albeit pint-sized versions of them--Didi did manage to snag a chunk of turkey breast two years ago (she got to the turkey even though it was sitting at counter-height!).

When it comes to cooking at Chateau Papillon, Beth is my she's my sous-chef, if one who can't be trusted with typical sous-cheffery like prepping the vegetables due to my fears she'd lop off a fingertip with her knife "skills." Nonetheless, she's invaluable in providing an extra set of hands--don't let me sell her short.

Together, then, we prepared our feast. Actually, I started the day before, brining the turkey by a method based on Alton Brown's recipe. Believe me, brining makes for the absolute best turkey by far, much better (and safer) than methods like deep frying. After defrosting the bird, it goes in a cooler with a mixture of salt, vegetable broth, sugar, several seasonings (allspice, ginger, peppercorn, etc.), and this year, apple cider. This stands overnight (at a minimum!), kept well-refrigerated, then after rinsing off the brine, I stuff the turkey's cavity with apples, onions, rosemary, thyme, sage, and a cinnamon stick or two, and into the oven it goes.

After roasting, the turkey drippings come out and form the basis of a fantastic gravy--and if you know how, gravy is incredibly easy to make: you simply start with a roux of melted butter stirred and lightly cooked with an equal portion of sifted flour, then gradually whisk in the turkey drippings and cook until thickened. I like to finish the gravy with a splash of good cream sherry or perhaps some Irish whiskey, but the drippings themselves are so flavorful there's no need to add additional seasoning.

For Beth, I prepared a fillet of Chilean Sea Bass (MSC certified for the sustainable fishing folks amongst us) by pan-frying it after crusting with some panko and Parmesan cheese, then finishing it in the oven until cooked through. Yes, the vegetarian eats fish... though it took me years of wheedling and a Faustian bargain to myself eschew fois gras to accomplish that culinary upgrading. As sides, we had goat cheese and garlic mashed potatoes, fresh French-style green beans with a splash of olive oil and pepper, a sweet potato casserole I made up on the fly, and stove-top (not the brand, but the method) stuffing. Normally, I'd bake up some rolls from scratch, but due to time constraints, we went with a loaf of ciabatta from Whole Foods.

A nice muscadette from California (a fairly sweet white wine) finished things off.

Before I get into Round Two of presents, let me pause to point out the photo opening this post, which shows Beth enjoying the fimo clay owl figurine I brought back from Denver International Airport earlier this fall. Now, onto a second night of presents being unwrapped: above, you'll see me and Mr. Parker with a big, heavy package from Beth, which turned out to be a laptop stand--basically, a tray table designed for use with a laptop; quite a nice and very thoughtful gift indeed!

Beth's presents from me included an aged brass night light cut with a butterfly (or Papillon, if you will) design, which I picked up at the Elkhorn Slough gift shop out in the Monterey area earlier this year while birding. I also gave her a DVD of Point Break, a film Beth had mentioned as a favorite every time she watched Hot Fuzz (recall the many scenes where Nick Frost's character quotes American action-cop films, even reenacting the shooting-into-the-air scene from Point Break at one point...).

Onward the holidays march--what gifts might we unwrap next?