Xine's Profile
Cooking with sage
I love sage. My two favorites are: making a brown butter/sage sauce for tortellini or gnocchi as people have already mentioned, or saltimboca: pound veal very thin, and assemble small pieces with sage leaf on top, prosciutto on top of that, and a toothpick to hold together. They cook in butter in about a minute per side or less. Delicious!
$100 limit. Nine people. Help.
This may be too late, but I'm as carnivorous as they come, but I have a suggestion for how to deal with your concern about not omitting all meat due to small number of vegetarians: let the meat be the side dish instead of the entree. For example, i actually prefer cheese lasagna with tomato sauce over one made with meat, but then I serve it with a side of meatballs or sausage. The vegetarian skipping a side dish doesn't feel excluded, and the people who want meat get it, and your budget saves because the meat isn't the main dish.
Advice for reheating hors d'oeuvres?
I usually entertain at dinner parties for 6-12, and have my system down for having things finish cooking when it is time to serve them. But now I'm hosting a cocktail party with heavy hors d'oeuvres for 30 people, and that's not possible -- not just because of the larger quantity, but because people will be eating at different times over a few hours. I don't mind spending 20 minutes in the kitchen at the start of a dinner party, but I certainly don't want to be camped out there all through a cocktail party.
Now for the cold bites or room temperature ones, that is easy to manage, but what do I do about the hot dishes? I would like to be able to cook in advance, and then re-heat in a couple batches over the course of the party. We were going to serve lamb lollipops and chicken satay as our two meats -- easy to eat standing up -- but I am worried about the meat drying out if we make in advance and re-heat. Any suggestions? I've only ever reheated things like stews or casseroles where there is plenty of liquid in the dish so it's not going to get dried out.
Anyone made Marcella's Roast Pork w/Vinegar & Bay Leaves?
I love this recipe! I have only made it as a variation with thick boneless pork chops rather than a whole roast, but I have never found it too acidic. And done with individual chops instead of a whole roast, I can even cook this on a work night, since the cooking time is less
Chic hors d'oeuvres
The Jamón serrano crisps sound great. How much cooking to crisp the ham? And do they sit on top of any cracker or bread, or can you just pick up the ham and that will support the quince jelly and manchego?
Cooking Rut Solutions?
I think you mean "Cooking With Julia" - or something like that -- it came out a year or so ago, and is written by a woman named Julie who decided to cook through the original Julia Child cookbook in one year. She wasn't famous until she wrote about her experience.
And that brings me to what I do when I'm in a rut: I don't look at cookbooks, which can make me think more about the work involved, but I read something (or see a movie) in which food is described in loving and inspirational detail. I might flip back through Under a Tuscan Sun and get the urge back to cook Italian, or Chocolat and put some time in on my baking. And reading Cooking with Julia (or maybe the title is Julie and Julia?) made me think about trying some more challenging recipes than I usually do, though perhaps not many she described.
Best delivery to Church St/Chambers
I'm going to be spending the month of June transplanted from DC for work, with few opportunities to get out to the many great restaurants I read about here. Many late nights working are in my near future, but I still gotta eat. SO, what is the best delivery food (esp. looking for good pizza, Chinese) that will deliver to 55 Church St?
Thanks for any suggestions
Using non-food items for food-related uses?
Depending on how broadly you define "food related" . . . I raid the power tools -- drills with a variety of bits and dremels (sp?) with a variety of attachments -- to carve my Halloween pumpkin with.
Secrets to good meatballs?
I stick to beef and pork (about 2/3 beef and 1/3 pork) because I don't think the veal adds much to the flavor. I agree with other posters who have said that bread or breadcrumbs are a good thing as long as you don't overdo it. Likewise, you can't make good meatballs if the meat is too lean. Lastly, and the comment on browning above made me think of it, I think the best meatballs I've eaten were cooked in the drippings left by Italian sausage It added to the flavor, and definitely kept them from sticking to the pan.
The perfect Foodie Wedding--what would you do?
From the Feb 23 1993 Chicago Tribune:
8" cake pan, line with wax paper or parchment, butter the bottom and sides of pan and dust with flour; preheat oven to 375
melt 8 oz German sweet chocolate and 1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter in a heavy pan on low heat; stir till smooth
beat 3/4 c sugar with yolks of 4 large eggs; add to the melted chocolate and stir till blended
remove from heat and stir in 1/4 c of cake flour [original recipe called for 2 Tb of ground almonds as well; since I'm allergic to nuts, I leave it out, but add maybe 1 extra Tb of the cake flour]
beat the 4 egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff; add some to the chocolate mixtrure to lighten, then fold the chocolate mix all back in to the egg whites
pour in the pan, bake for 25-30 minutes; let the cake cool before you remove from the pan
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the icing is really simple -- melt 4 oz German sweet chocolate in 3 Tb water over low heat, then when melted remove from the heat and add 4 Tb unsalted butter and mix till fully incorporated. The original recipe says to pur on top of the cake, but it's pretty messy at that point. I often let it cool a bit, stirring occasionally, so that I can spread it rather than pouring it. If you pour it, the top looks beautiful, but the sides don't get done properly.
Either way though, making this as a single layer cake is not the most beautiful desert to look at, but it is to eat. Oh, and a dollop of whipped cream is nice too. Given the butter/egg/chocolate that makes up the cake, the whipped cream is light by comparison.
Merits and demerits of "trying to like" foods
It varies based on the food. There are some things that have an unpleasant aroma that makes me feel a bit nauseated, just like (though not as strongly as) I often feel if I get a wiff of vomit.
There are some flavors I find unpleasant, but they don't make me gag or anything (coffee, beer). But then there are things like seafood (anything aquatic, including seaweed), that even if I swallow so quickly that I don't taste it (like bits of seaweed in a soup), once it hits my stomach, if not before, it induces immediate reverse peristalsis. This is not quite an allergy (no hives or anaphylactic shock as I get with tree nuts), but is strong enough and consistent enough that my doc suggested I may have a sensitivity to something in seafood; a friend of mine with a similar reaction was told that she is hyper-sensitive to mercury which occurs in seafood.
To try to get a sense for what people mean by "just don't like" (as opposed to "it makes me violently sick") -- what do you think of the taste of the average cough syrup? I have no problem getting it down when needed, but I wouldn't want to drink something that tasted like that as an aperitif! Actually, while every once in a while I try a sip of my husband's scotch to see if my tastes have changed, every time I do, it reminds me of cough syrup.
Merits and demerits of "trying to like" foods
It depends on the item. If it's something that's not a particularly healthy food, I figure it it's great that there's something bad for me that I don't like. If it's something that is particularly healthy, I try again every once in a while, particularly if it's in a new preparation that I might like better. And if I think that the reason I didn't like something is that it wasn't done well, then I try again when I have the chance to eat it at a place known to prepare the food in a better way. For example, the first time I had Mexican food and the first time I had Indian food, I didn't think they were that good. But it wasn't that I don't like that type of food, it's that the restauarants I first ate at weren't the best representation of that food genre.
And if it is something that I don't like the idea of eating at all (bugs) I think trying once is one time too many.
Tipping in restaurants [moved from Pennsylvania board]
I heartily second your last point: at cheap places, 15-20% can be miniscule. I remember my dad emphasizing this particularly for breakfast, which is often inexpensive, but often involves many trips to refil coffee. His pet peeve is people who don't tip the breakfast waitresses enough.
Restaurants in/close to Herndon, VA?
I like Tortilla Factory for an inexpensive family-friendly meal (and excellent service -- I've been seeing the same waiters there for 10 years now, and these folks are pros). It's not authentic Mexican, it's not exquisite, but I think it's fun. And definitely inexpensive.
While I usually avoid Town Center because the restaurants are generally chains that cost more and deliver less than alternatives in the area, I went to Basura, a Thai place, last month and had an excellent meal.
The Tavern on the Lake at Lake Anne (the original center of Reston) also served me an excellent meal this fall, though I haven't been back since real winter set in -- one of the best things about eating at Lake Anne is sitting outside by the lake. That's a notch up in price from Tortilla Factory or Basura, but still not horribly expensive.
Finally, a new Indian place opened up this month on Elden St. in Herndon, directly across from the shopping center where Tortilla Factory is. I forget the name, but we were very pleased with our first meal there.
Do you have never-fail last-minute pantry dinners? Here are mine...
My two favorites: spaghetti aglio e olio (if I don't have olive oil and garlic in the pantry, something is truly wrong) or with pesto sauce -- I make up batches of pesto in the summer and freeze it
Where to celebrate a 40th birthday?
I've just finished celebrating my 40th birthday here in DC, and my dear friend and college roommate will celebrate hers in a few weeks. In between, I'm headed to visit her in NYC and want to take her out for a great birthday dinner for us both. She lives in Manhattan so always picks out places when I visit. I'd like to make the plans this time and make this a birthday treat for her. Neither of us eat seafood, but other than that I'm open to suggestions. Bonus points for any place with particularly good chocolate deserts. And, given the timing, some place where they don't laugh at you for calling only two or three weeks in advance for a reservation would be helpful. Thanks in advance for your suggestions!
"Ladies Menu": no prices on it -- where do you see it?
I have seen such menus twice in Washington DC. Once back in 1993 at (IIRC) the Lion D'or, now closed, and once only a couple of years ago at Palena. My impression was that at the Lion D'or they automatically gave "blind" menus to the women in the party. At Palena though, a woman who frequents the restaurant a lot was hosting, and I think she requested them for the rest of the party. While I don't like restaurants assuming they know who will pay for dinner and who should know the real prices, I think having it an option for guests if the host requests it is nice. There are occasions I think they would be useful, particularly with parents who may have notions about how much things should cost that were set in stone 20 years ago, and whose notions about the possibility of their children having more money than they do are only slightly more up to date.
What Etiquette Do You Expect of Your HOST?
Wow, it makes me wonder what your MIL has left to do herself. Actually, in my mom's family, which is quite large, many people do participate in hosting duties, not just those at whose house the gathering happens to be, but no one pretends it is a "dinner party" at which some are guests and some are hosts -- it is a family gathering at which all family participate in cooking or washing up or taking care of the little kids while others are doing the cooking, etc. Personally, I love those gatherings. But if it is a dinner party at which most attendees are treated as guests, then it's wrong to invite you and then treat you as household staff.
Chocolate or cheese?
Chocolate. I'm pretty sure I eat more ounces of cheese than chocolate in the average week, but I could replace the cheese with other foods. Chocolate is 95% of the sweets that I eat (though the other 5% are all cheese based: cheesecake, tiramisu, cannoli), so if I gave up chocolate I wouldn't have the alternatives like I have with giving up cheese. But mostly, I can't give up the only food product so potent that just a 1/2 oz can transport me to a stress free, happy place even if I'm having the worst day.
Tuscany:Restaurants in a beautiful country setting or with a great view of the countryside...
One of my favorite meals of all time was at Ristoro di lamole, sitting on a table outisde on the veranda watching the sun set -- both the setting and the food were sensational. But it is pretty far off the beaten track (we were staying at La Locanda outside Volpaia, and I don't think the road were paved half the way between Volpaia and Lamole), and might not be the easiest for you to get to from a wedding ceremony in Sienna.
I also really love the restaurant at Badia Coltibuono in Gaiole that someone else mentioned, and it seemed closer to major roads.
While I've enjoyed several meals at La Bottega di Volpaia while staying near there, I don't think either the food or the view compared to either Lamole or Badia Coltibuono.
Whatever you pick, you've got great options, and it sounds like it will be a lovely wedding!
ROME RESTAURANTS
If you'd consider giving Vineria Il Chianti another try, I was there in May 2006 and had excellent service as well as wonderful food. We also enjoyed Dal Bolognese, which I particularly remember because Bologonese style is usually my least favorite among Italian cuisine, we went there because my husband really likes it, and it really won me over.
We had a very good pizza at Gino in Trastevere on via della Lungaretta, but I don't know that it was so good that I'd go out of your way to be there, we'd just been walking through the Trastevere a while, and that ended up being a good place to stop.
I would go out of your way to visit the geletaria San Crispino on via della Panetteria if you like gelato. We only got there three times during our week in Rome, and it wasn't enough for me. Their zabiglione flavor was my favorite.
The perfect Foodie Wedding--what would you do?
I don't know if this was perfect, but we got a lot of complements from our guests, and we were happy. When we married, my husband was a vegetarian, so we planned the menu and the service around the fact that not everyone was going to like everything, but we should have good food that would cover most dietary restrictions. Our menu started with a cocktail hour with a selection of Italian cheeses, crackers and warm focaccia with garlic & rosemary (this is when we finished up some photos, though we did most before the ceremony, so this was the only part of the meal I missed). For dinner, we didn't have designated "appetizer" and "entree" because different people were eating different things -- we had all the food passed on platters, so people could skip what they wouldn't eat and have extra of what they loved. There was bruschetta with tomato and basil, caesar salad, cheese tortellini in a pesto-cream sauce, saltimboca, stuffed mushrooms, and stringbeans.
We didn't have room for a buffet, and while a lot of the food we picked would tolerate buffet service well, there was no way I wanted saltimboca sitting in a chafing dish. Because the food wasn't in "courses" everyone who wanted saltimboca got it fresh and hot, just a few minutes from the kitchen, even if some ate it after their tortellini and some ate it before. We had just 80 people, this may have gotten a lot harder to pull off if we had any more.
This style of service also meant that I didn't have to either let a plate of food go cold at my place or skip saying hello to any guests until after eating. I'd visit for a bit, then flag a waiter down who was circulating a platter of something I wanted, and sit down with hot food on my plate for a few minutes
While the food was really good, the part that still has people talking eight years later is the desert. Our cake was Simca's El Diablo -- a nearly flourless chocolate cake recipe I had clipped from the Chicago Tribune about 6 years before I even met my husband, and which I had only ever made as a single layer cake, delicious but not beautiful. I got turned down by at least 6 "wedding cake" specialists who refused to attempt making this cake for 80 people, and was on the verge of trying to make a lot of small cakes myself when I found a pastry chef who catered deserts and did not focus on weddings. The cake was absolutely fantastic -- and looked quite elegant, even if not like a typical wedding cake. Years later, among people who were at the wedding, if I offer to bring a desert they always ask for me to make "wedding cake."
Maida Heatter - How to cook an elephant omelet
I have Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts and I love it for the great chocolate recipes and clear directions. It's got brief notes about each recipe, some involve short anecdotes (i.e. the FBI Cake her mom made for Hoover), but it's not chock full of anecdotes, if that's what appealed to you from the interview. And no elephant meat in any of the recipes (thank goodness!)
Need Advice on Lasagne
I'm with you -- if we were freezing lasagne it wasn't baked first, and I think it tastes better that way. But that was to feed the whole family. If you want individual portions at the time the lasagne is going to be reheated/cooked, you can't do that before lasagne is baked or after it is frozen, so if you're going to do it, I think you need to bake, portion, then freeze. I guess you could get tiny foil pans and cut noodles into shorter pieces to fit, but it would be pretty difficult
ricotta cheese help
Hey - New Year's is when we make our canolli too! I make the dough and and form the canolli, and my husband is in charge of actual frying, so I may be missing something, but he uses a cast iron pot, which only holds two canolli shells at a time. After each batch comes out, he checks the temperature and adjusts and waits if it seems to be varying before putting the next ones in. I've noticed that because the canolli are so thin and they are wrapped around a metal form, which retains some heat going from one batch to the next, that the temperature does not drop as much when adding canolli to the oil. Thus, we more often end up scorching a few than getting soggy ones.
Suckling Pig
These sound delicious! Where can one ordinarily obtain a suckling pig? Not something you see in the grocery store.
Pizza Stone Corn Meal Question
For what it's worth to those interested in tossing the pizza dough, the dough I make is essentially this same recipe, but I don't coat it with olive oil before it rises. I used to, but my husband can actually toss pizza quite nicely, and he says it's a lot harder to do if the dough was coated with oil during the rise (though I still put a good amount of olive oil in the dough). So if you really want to toss, you might try omitting that step.
ricotta cheese help
I've found that whipping the cream first, then folding that in to the ricotta (with sugar and vanilla) gives a better texture than mixing them and then whipping. And while I've made canolli shells from scratch, I'll eat the left over filling by the spoonful. It's good with miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips.
