I’ve had this recipe for so long it’s not true…and also, I have no inkling of the original source. Apologies to the brilliant individual who came up with it! And if that individual is you, please reach out so I can give you proper credit!! 🙌🏻
Ingredients (for 1 serving — though can be multiplied easily for a crowd!) ½ c tequila (yes, you read that right!!) 4 T freshly squeezed juice (I typically start with 4 lemons, 2 limes and half an orange, then add more in increments until I have enough) 2 T honey
Technique Pour the tequila into a measuring cup (I’m usually making a batch of 2-6 of these at a time, so start with a cup size that’s large enough to handle the final liquid amount) and measure honey into the measuring cup to let it get comfortable with the booze. I give it a stir at this point and then turn my attention to the juice — squeeze those lovely little citruses and stir them all together. Going back to the boozy part, stir the honey in with vigor (but no spilling!!) until it’s a nice, golden mixture. Measure the juice in, give it another stir, then pour into a glass and top with a fair bit of ice. And sip away!!
This recipe is both delicious and unusual, can be served hot, cold or warm… and you should make it right now!
Ingredients (for 4 servings) Pasta 4 Tbsp rice vinegar 2 Tbsp soy sauce 2 Tbsp black vinegar 1 Tbsp chili oil (like Lee Kum Kee Chiu Chow Chili Oil) 1 Tbsp shrimp sauce (like Lee Kum Kee Fine Shrimp Sauce) 2 tsp sugar 12 oz Fettuccine (or whatever pasta you have on hand!)
Pork 1 Tbsp oil (I used olive oil, but any mild oil will work) 12 oz pork, minced 1 tsp salt 5 garlic cloves, minced 1 2-inch piece ginger, grated on microplane 4 green onions, light parts finely chopped, green parts reserved for garnish (see below)
Garnish 1 carrot, brunoised 3 Tbsp rice vinegar 1 Tbsp water 1 tsp sugar ½ tsp salt ½ cup cilantro leaves ¼ c Italian parsley leaves 6 radishes, julienned Green onion greens left over from the pork preparation, sliced on the diagonal
For Pasta Make dressing by combining rice vinegar, soy sauce, black vinegar, chili oil, shrimp sauce and sugar in a large bowl. Stir until sugar dissolves and set aside. Fill a dutch oven with water and season heavily so it tastes of the sea. Bring it to a boil and then turn off and cover. When all other components are ready to roll, bring the water back to a boil, add pasta and cook until just al dente.
For Pork Mince garlic, grate ginger (if you use a microplane for this, there’s no need to even peel it!) and chop the light parts of the green onions and set aside. Mince the pork with a sharp knife (a good trick is to freeze the meat for 15 minutes or so and then mince it because that makes it easier to handle), and keep in mind that slightly non-uniform pieces are a good thing, as they add a nice contrast to the final dish. Heat oil in a larger frying pan over medium heat and add minced pork and salt. Cook for about five minutes, stirring occasionally, until pork is mostly cooked through. Add garlic, ginger and chopped green onions and cook for another 5 minutes or so. Taste for seasoning and add more salt if needed, then set aside.
For Garnish To make pickling liquid, stir together vinegar, water, sugar and salt in a small bowl until dissolved. Brunoise carrot, then add to the pickling liquid and let set for 15 minutes (or more!) until ready to serve. Slice green onion greens on the bias, pull cilantro and parsley leaves from stalks and set in two piles on cutting board, then julienne radishes and reserve with the herbs.
To Serve When the pasta is perfect, pull it out of the boiling water and drop directly into the bowl of dressing (I use tongs for this, as I’ll also use them to plate) and toss together until nicely coated. Use tongs to twirl a nice helping of pasta onto a plate or into a wide, low bowl on one side and add pork to the other side. If there’s more dressing in the bottom of the bowl, drizzle that over the noodles (yum!) then drain pickled carrots and sprinkle over pork. Arrange herbs, radishes and green onions over pork and pasta and serve it up!
All plated and ready for someone (like me!) to dig in.
This dinner started with an idea I saw in the New York Times, and quickly became my own!
We recently threw a little shindig at our house. It was kind of a house warming but mostly it was just time to throw a party. I mean, we moved in almost a year ago and have been madly sourcing more furniture and hanging artwork (we upsized…I know. WHO DOES THAT?), working in the yard (we REALLY upsized the yard!) and making good on all the travel we’d planned before we moved into a big ol’ house. So maybe it was past time that we threw a party!
Anyway, we had about 85 people over and I cooked for days, or maybe it was a week. Either way, the point is we had a fabulous time and enjoyed ourselves so much and the food was enough of a success that there are folks who want recipes. Which I am so happy to share! So, I thought I’d just write a quick post with links to the base recipes and notes on the tweaks I use to take said recipes from good to great (there is, seriously, an entire blog post topic right there, so stay tuned for more on that!).
We tried to make sure that we had all the bases covered with the menu so there would be something for everyone — veg-y people, meat-y people, cheese-y people, gluten-free people. ALL the people. And so, the decision was made to have platters of things (by which I mean to say cutting boards, because I almost always use a bunch of cutting boards to set out the food at a party) like meats and cheese and veggies with dip along with baskets of sliced baguette and crackers (with AND without gluten, of course!). Which is also, note to self, a smart set-up for the hostess who wants to do more than just slave in the kitchen for the whole party!
Ready? Here we go…
Cutting Board One — Meat-y Things
Served with cornichons and lots of Dijon mustard (my fav is Edmond Fallot)
Pork Rillettes Recipe: by David Lebovitz (I know I’ve already written about this Rillettes recipe, but it is such a winner that I think I’ll be making it for every party until…well, until there are no more parties). Tweaks: NOPE. None. Not even a one. So good just as it is!
Lentil Walnut Pâté Recipe: (originally) by Dr Andrew Weil, though this links to a ‘reprint’ on an ‘All Things Walnut’ website (and I must say, DO NOT underestimate this gem of a recipe…it may be vegan but it is a winner with everyone who has ever tried it, including diehard carnivores!). Tweaks: 1) Use Puy lentils (also known as French green lentils) instead of plain lentils; 2) Toast the walnuts in the oven at 350° for about 10 minutes before you chop them up; and 3) Be overly generous with the Dijon and the red wine vinegar and salt and pepper — you want to taste all that seasoning!
Cutting Board Two — CHEESE!!
A couple of nice cheeses on one side with a glorious Baked Brie en Croûte on the other. Served with a mass of grapes…we found the most beautiful black grapes at Costco (of all places!) and they set off the cheeses quite nicely.
Cutting Board Three — Crudités & Dips
In an effort to keep it simple, I used green beans (blanched in water as salty as the sea for 4 minutes and then cooled on towels), heirloom baby tomatoes (I may have had a few leftover, which I turned into an amazing pasta dish a few nights later!) easter radishes (so pretty!) and rainbow baby carrots. Served with a bold, herby White Bean Dip (again, thank you David Lebovitz!) and a tangy Thousand Islands Dressing which is a gorgeous Saveur recipe that has earned a place in my secret arsenal of all things bullet-proof.
And because my fella can’t live without Chips and Dip, I whipped up a batch of this French Onion Dip from Bon Appetit and (tweak alert!) tweaked it (just a little!) by sautéing an extra finely chopped shallot (in addition to the raw chopped shallot called for in the recipe) with a few sprigs of thyme until carmelized (at which point I pulled out the thyme sprigs) and then stirring it in with a little extra lemon juice prior to serving with a big bowl of potato chips. YUM!
Last but not least, cookies. Said fella is a big baker and in our house, it’s a toss up as to which cookies are the best…so he makes the kind I like AND the kind he likes. So everyone wins! His favorite is this Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from the New York Times and mine is this Cranberry & White Chocolate Cookie recipe from his mother, Alice share with us by his sister, Heather. You really can’t go wrong with either, and the smart people usually have some of each which I feel is a very fine policy.
Plus, you know, we had sparkling water and wine and gin and vodka (with mixers) and rye whiskey (without!) and friends who brought wine like Tom and Lorrie Wilson from their award-winning Château NoElle Vineyards & Winery and all the other fabulous folks who contributed wine or booze and good cheer and took the time to come on over to sit a spell and share stories with one another.
Which is, as far as I know, the secret to a really good party…it’s the people you know who come and make it wonderful. And on that count we feel very lucky indeed.
I sort of made this one up, so bear with me. This should make 2 with some leftover marmalade for slathering on everything else (for which, by the way, you are welcome!)
Ingredients 1 batch Shallot Cassis Marmalade 2 rounds of cheap and cheerful brie All-butter puff pastry (would you believe, Trader Joe’s has sublime puff pastry in the freezer case during the holiday season!) 1 egg
Technique Defrost the puff pastry. When it’s pliable, beat the egg in a small bowl and reserve. Roll out a sheet of dough, into a square-ish shape.
Place brie round in the center of the square and top with a very healthy serving of marmalade (as much as the top will hold without spilling over!) and then brush the egg wash onto the pastry all around the brie.
At each corner of the square, cut a triangle of the pastry away with the smaller end pointing toward the brie in the center. This will do two things: keep your Brie en Croûte from being too ‘doughy’ and also give you some leftover pastry for decoration. Draw all the points of dough up and overlap them slightly at the top to seal the pastry and marmalade safely inside.
Finally, slice the triangles into whatever shapes you fancy and stick them to the top and sides to make a pretty pattern (be sure that there’s plenty of egg wash on these as well so that they’ll stick!). I simply cut them into strips and overlapped them for a criss-cross pattern.
Bake at 350° until puffed and golden, approximately 25 minutes.
This recipe comes from Alice, my fella’s mother via Heather, his sister. They’re my favorite cookie and being a family recipe makes them extra special!
Ingredients 1 c butter ½ c brown sugar, lightly packed ¼ c white sugar 1 tsp vanilla 1½ cups flour ½ tsp salt 1 tsp baking soda ¼ cup boiling water 2 cups rolled oats 1 c dried cranberries 1 c white chocolate chips
Technique In a large bowl, beat butter and sugars until creamy. Mix in vanilla just until combined.
Stir together flour and salt in another bowl then add to wet ingredients and mix well.
Dissolve baking soda in boiling water, add to butter and flour mixture and mix well.
Stir in rolled oats, cranberries and white chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoonful (for small cookies) or tablespoonful (for large cookies) 2 inches apart on baking sheet lined with parchment paper or silpat.
Bake at 350°; 7-10 min for small cookies and 10-15 for large cookies (you’ll want them just a little underdone in the center). Rest on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack. Try not to devour the whole batch before anyone else gets a taste… 😉
Loads of tomatoes and a few other ingredients make a delicious and speedy dinner!
When you (if you’re me!) buy a pound or two too many organic heirloom cherry tomatoes for the crudité platter at your next shindig, this is a LOVELY way to use them up!
Ingredients ½ c extra-virgin olive oil (plus more for drizzling) 5 cloves garlic, smashed and finely chopped 3 pints cherry tomatoes ½ tsp red pepper flakes (more to taste if you like it spicy! 6 stems fresh thyme sprigs, whole 2 tsp chopped fresh thyme 2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley 1 tsp kosher salt (plus more to taste if needed) 1 lb linguine (or whatever pasta shape makes your heart sing) pasta water as needed for sauce ½ c grated parmesan, plus more for serving
For sauce Heat ½ cup oil in a large heavy pot over low (I used a 14″ skillet so there would be plenty of room to add the pasta to the sauce at the end). Add garlic and cook, stirring, until softened and fragrant but not browned, about 2 minutes. Increase heat to medium and add tomatoes, red pepper flakes, thyme sprigs, and 1 tsp salt. Cook, stirring to coat, until tomatoes begin to burst. As the tomatoes continue to break down, mash most of them with the back of a wooden spoon to release their juices and begin creating a sauce. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce becomes chunky and thickened and most of the tomatoes are completely broken down and just a few remain in tact (these will look really pretty on top of the pasta when serving!). This process took about 20-25 minutes for me. Pluck out and discard thyme sprigs.
For pasta Put water on to boil pasta and season heavily so it tastes of the sea. When sauce is close to being done, boil pasta until it is just under al dente, as it will finish cooking in the sauce.
To finish When the pasta is a couple of minutes from ‘done,’ scoop out a ladle or two of the pasta water and swirl it into the sauce, along with the chopped fresh thyme, chopped parsley and parmesan. Grab the pasta with tongs and transfer into the sauce pan and toss all together, adding more pasta water as needed (I used another couple of ladles full). You’ll want the sauce to coat the pasta nicely and to have a loose (but not watery!) consistency.
To serve Grab a tongful of pasta and twirl it prettily on a plate or in a wide, low bowl (the nice folks at The Kitchn have a primer here if you’re in the mood for reading that sort of thing). Add a few of the whole tomatoes to the top, drizzle with a bit more olive oil, sprinkle with more parmesan, put a little sprig of parsley on the top for good measure…and dig in!!
This sassy bunny is Jean Dau (born Polly Jean Boyles, but she couldn’t stand that first name, so Jean it was), whose 99th birthday would have been today.
She was my one and only grandmother, who we called Gram because as the grandkids started showing up when she was only 50 she would have no part of being a GRANDMOTHER or any such nonsense. I called her Granny Gooch and she called me Nilrad and we got on like houses afire except for when we didn’t. She taught me to ride horses and kick ass and take names and I taught her to swear like a sailor. Peas in a pod, really.
Despite tough times and all the good and bad that go into living on this planet, hers was not a sad story. Hers was a story of a rodeo princess and lifelong horsewoman who became a school teacher and lived the life she wanted to live with no apologies and plenty of grit who even now inspires me to keep putting one foot in front of the other even when I think I’m too tired to ever possibly go on.
At any rate, I digress. Suffice it to say that the only bad thing about my Gram dying at 91 in 2011 is that I don’t get to call her on the phone every Saturday any more. Though I do think I talk to her more often these days, oddly enough. I figure she can hear me better now without any device needed because I’m certain that wherever she is, she’s got her eyes and ears on me.
Every year on her birthday, I try to do a little something to honor the time I was lucky enough to spend with her, which usually involves eating something DELICIOUS that might be BAD FOR ME. Doesn’t that sound like fun??
This year, in honor of GG, I decided to whip up her favorite breakfast of biscuits and gravy and serve it for dinner (as one does). By which I mean to say, tender, fluffy, glorious biscuit pillows soaking up hefty dollops of milk gravy full of sausage and black pepper and served with eggs basted easy in bacon grease. We are, after all, talking about a woman who would sit and eat mayonnaise by the spoonful out of the jar with a look of sheer joy on her face.
I pretty much followed the recipe, with the exception of seasoning the gravy. It calls for sage and fennel, but when I reached into the spice cupboard to doctor it up, I discovered no sage…but I DID spy my little tin of fennel pollen and in a moment of inspiration, used that instead. (Side note here: if you haven’t had the good fortune to bump into fennel pollen yet, it’s worth the time and trouble to track some down. It is truly a little sprinkle of heaven! I found mine on Amazon. And if you get some and don’t know what to do with it, the nice folks at the Escoffier SCA have some ideas to share.) It makes it a little schmancier than the gravy that Gram used to eat, but from the results I can vouch — she would have loved it!
So here’s what things looked like when all was said and done. We drank a toast to Jean Dau and then tucked in to our breakfast for dinner (on the china that Gram gave me, of course!).
Baking powder biscuits, sausage gravy and bacon fat-basted egg
As luck would have it, we’re planning a trip to London and Paris for later this fall (I know, spoiled, right?!) and we’re busily getting various ducks in a row for said trip (or not so busily, because life seems to be zipping by more quickly than ever right now!), and I must say that the best part of the process is reaching out to our friends for recommendations and thoughts on planning.
For some magical reason, I happen to know a lovely and generous couple who hail from those exact places — she’s from France and he’s from England — who are also both in the hospitality industry. I ask you, who better to shepherd us to all the bestest, rightest things to eat, drink and pretty while we’re there?!
When I pitched them with the idea of getting together, they graciously agreed to come over for dinner and share their thoughts, and so a date was set and the planning of a menu was begun and our home was readied for an evening full of all things French and English and delicious.
But, what to serve? Menu planning was a bit of a challenge, as Seattle is currently cusping from Summer to Fall. A particularly problematic, transitional time of year both for getting dressed and for planning menus, as far as I’m concerned: it’s hot, no it’s cold, no it’s windy, no it’s rainy. So hard to find the “just right,” Goldilocks solution to so many things that are so rapidly changing… don’t you think?
At any rate, after much backing and forthing, I settled on this:
Course 1 Rillettes (recipe courtesy of the always amazing @davidlebovitz) with cornichons and dijon
Radishes with a big ol’ slab of European butter and sprinkled with Maldon Salt (if you have the time and are curious, there’s a fascinating little essay you might want to peruse on the history of said salt on the Bon Appétit website!)
Course 2 Daube de Boeuf (a truly “arsenal-worthy” recipe from one of my favorite all time books, Cooking for Mr. Latte by the rockstar @amandahesser, formerly with The New York Times and now helming Food52 ) which requires a bit of time management and planning but is TOTALLY worth it (not even kidding… you may never make any other beef stew recipe again!)
Egg noodles fancied up with some compound butter and lots of fresh, chopped parsley
Course 3 Plum Cake (another “arsenal” recipe that comes from the Deb “the Delightful” Perelman of @smittenkitchen!) served with gently sweetened, softly whipped cream
And wine, of course. LOTS of wine. Our friends brought Schramsburg, which went perfectly with the first course and then we opened a beautiful bottle of Chinon (which I picked up at the très charmant French wine bar Cépaé in Bellevue) to go with the Daube. We finished with the beautiful Plum Cake and coffee, followed directly by crowding around the Top10 Paris Guide they had thoughtfully brought with them and my trusty ol’ Plan de Paris from visits past to trade ideas, make notes and plan notre visite à Paris.
And that, really, was that (unless you count that washing up). So with bellies full and hearts bursting with gratitude, we found ourselves a tiny bit closer to having a proper travel agenda and happily crawled into bed to, as the French so charmingly put it, “make beautiful dreams.”
From the very beginning of who we are, says a friend of mine, we have a motto in our heart of hearts. Sort of a “Life T-shirt,” if you will. At every party we went to in our 30’s, that was her icebreaker question to people she would meet, “What’s on YOUR Life T-shirt?
My original Life Tshirt, from birth I swear, is,”You aren’t the boss of me!”. Which morphed, over the years, into, “I don’t know who you THINK you are, but you’re not the boss of me!”. Sassiness, evidently, increases with age.
And speaking of age, now that I’m (ahem!) a bit older than dirt, I am happy — THRILLED, really — to have discovered that if we’re lucky and paying attention, we might even get to have more than one. So I have added another Life Tshirt to my mental wardrobe. Wanna know what it is? Open up your mind and say AHHHHHHHHH because it’s a really good one, if I do say so myself!
Are you ready for it? It is: JUST. SAY. YES. Three simple little words strung together in a row that can make things turn out even better than you can possibly imagine, no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Just say yes to those you love, to your dreams, to your aspirations, to opportunities that present themselves, to your very own little self…to life. That is it. Just say yes to life.
I am fortunate to be surrounded by lots of ‘pretty’…after all, making the world a prettier place to be is what I do for a living! Every so often I work on a project that comes out so well and makes me feel so good that it’s hard to resist posting about it. So, the short and the sweet of it is that Treveri Cellars is one of the best wineries in Washington state — it’s a family operation making the most delish sparkling wine in the traditional method (you read that right: ALL SPARKLING ALL THE TIME!!). They just happen to be a client at my day job…a favorite client, if the truth be told, and yes we do ‘drink their koolaid’ as much as we possibly can.
Together, we worked on creating a special logo and label (based on the Grieb family crest) for their Reserve Club which focuses on Extended Tirage sparkling wines (if you want to read up on such things, Wine Folly has a great primer on such things here!). To see more great stuff from our work together, you can surf on over and read about a few projects herehere and here. OR, if you’re feeling footloose fancy, free and like a road trip would do you a world of good, skeddadle to their winery in Wapato, grab a bottle of bubs and sit out on their patio and enjoy the view…and the wine, of course!