Maggie's Farm

I haven't thought about this old-timey Yankee diner dessert for many years, but someone brought it up the other day, and I am now hungry for one.

As I recall, the last time I had a slice of one was at a diner with my grandfather. Cannot think about the pie without remembering that polo- and poker-playing, shootin', fishin' slacker gramps of mine, who preferred shopping for horses, and dealing in sailboats and Elco yachts (leaving his real business to others) to regular work - and who died way too young of a series of MIs, at 63.

Boston Cream Pie is Yankee-simple, unfashionable, unsophisticated, and darn tasty, and it's a cake, not a pie, with potent if short-lasting anti-depressant properties.

You can make it yourself if you can't find it in stores. Easy to do.

How anybody can drive up Route 91 through Vermont without stopping at Curtis' place (just west off the Putney exit, next to Ron's gas station) for some authentic Mississippi barbecue is beyond me. Curtis is a Mississippi-born and bred barbecuemaster, but he spends spring to fall in Putney, VT (of all places), cooking over hardwood smoke all day long, with his pet pigand dog following him around the smoky pit. Now he sells his own Curtis' Root Beer and Barbecue Sauce too - but only at his place.

He is a busy old codger, but he will chat with you if you have anything worth saying to him.

You do not see many places like this in New England.

Best Road Burger in the Northeast

I know folks who will drive 40 minutes to the Red Rooster Drive-In on Route 22 in Brewster, NY, when they get a jones for their burgers, fries, and onion rings - all made to order, the old-fashioned way. Slow food. Good hot dogs too. Worth a trip from Great Falls, or Phoenix. 

Is it over-rated? Maybe. I love it, though.

The place is unchanged since the 50s. There is really no seating, but lots of picnic benches outside. Or eat in the pick-up and drip juice and ketchup on your shirt in the manly American-style.

Pic is a crowded Cape Cod beach - the bay, at Wellfleet. Duck Harbor. You can walk it for hours, if you bring enough water. Can take dogs there, off leash of course. Do dogs love that? Guess. At low tide, it is dog heaven.

I have all of these books, and love them:

Beston: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

Richardson: The House on Nauset Marsh: A Cape Cod Memoir

Schwind: Cape Cod Fisherman

Henry David Thoreau: Cape Cod

Schneider: The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket

Mitcham's Provincetown Seafood Cookbook. His Kale Soup and Haddock Amondine, along with all the rest of his Portuguese-influenced recipes - are immortal, but his Baked Stuffed Cod is the best. The whole Cape area has lots of Portuguese descended from the visiting Cod fishermen (Emeril, from Fall River, is one.) Interesting fellow, Mitcham. Highly productive in his life; rarely, if ever, sober from what I heard. Dead now, at 77.

I have a few other out of print Cape Cod area history books that I won't link because even Abe's doesn't have then.

I am gonna make us some. Maybe some Margaritas too, if I can find my lost shaker of salt...

A fairly long life has taught me at least one thing: make your Margaritas on the weak side and life will go better. Especially with bathtub-sized ones like the above, in Cabo this March.

Here's a good ceviche recipe. (It is "ce-BEE-chay.") All I would say about it is to make it 1/2" to 1" cubes, add some chopped garlic to the mix - not too much - and forget the parsley. It has to be fresh cilantro. Red onions, not white. Some carrot slivers are fine, too, to add some crunch but no cucumber, please. Avocado and orange slices for garnish, and definitely a bowl of chips. 2-4 hours marinating in the fridge - no more, no less.  Some people quickly -20-30 seconds - blanch the seafood first, but it certainly is not necessary and I never do it. My local fish market has the freshest.

My family and I could live on this stuff, in the summer. Fork, and a spoon to finish off those delicious cool fishy juices.

What fish? Well, as I reported in March, Spanish Mackeral (Sierra) is the best for ceviche but you have to go out and catch that yourself. However, any salt-water firm-fleshed (ie not sole or things like that which would turn to mush) white-fleshed fish will do, as long as very fresh. Bay or Sea Scallops are a good addition, and I have had it made with just scallops. I don't think it needs shrimp, but a few whole shrimp in the mix works fine for a garnish. It's supposed to be about the raw fishiness. Too much hot pepper distracts from that, but too little is no fun at all.

Mahi Mahi, Fluke, Shark, Sea Bass all good. I've heard of ceviche-starved Yankees using Cod and Haddock. Maybe I'll give it a try because I love that Cod.

For an appetizer, you can put it in a little bowl on some lettuce like a normal seafood salad, but I like it as a meal. There are very few cold dinners tastier than this.

Got a favorite ceviche? Let us know.

Few summer drinks are more refreshing than the Cape Codder.

I think it tastes best with a little lime squeezed into it, like this recipe. (Come to think if it, most things taste better with a little fresh lime.)

Try a Cape Codder today.

When you add some grapefruit juice, that's a Sea Breeze. Healthy. It would probably be just as tasty without the vodka, but what would be the point?

My mixology research revealed that the Cape Codder is one of a family of cocktails known as "New England Highballs." I didn't know drinks had formal categories. I am still learning about the world.

The real cocktail of Bermuda:

2 oz Gosling's Black Seal rum
4 oz ginger beer
Lots of ice and a twist of lime

Best consumed on a Bermuda beach or the veranda of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club after sailing down from Newport.

Often it's more fun for me to learn about things after experiencing them, than before. You have a reference point, and something tangible to tack information onto.

Weissbier is one example (aka Weissbrau or Weizenbier or Weizen or Hefeweizen or White Beer or Wheat Beer or Wheat Ale - technically an ale). It's an ancient brew, and there are several styles of it. What we sampled in Bavaria was the Southern German style. Never had a better brew, fresh and unpasteurized. Bready, fruity, and just bitter enough. Low alcohol content, so you can have some more if you're thirsty. It's a summertime beer. Here's the Wiki entry.

Blue Moon's Belgian White and Harpoon's UFO are the closest I've seen to it in a supermarket bottled beer in the US - but it's no match and has more ethanol than the fresh German stuff. Beer is not about booze unless you are in college. These beers are good with an orange slice to squirt into them, although they don't seem to do that routinely in Germany.

Wiki has a pretty good overview of German beers, which begins "Beer in Germany is a major part of German culture." No kidding.

Have no fear, readers. I will never let myself become a beer snob, although my taste buds have already priced me out of the wine market altogether. I am fortunate to have a pub in town which gets fresh draft beers weekly from Germany, but I do not get there often enough because I work.

Photo: Weissbier is typically tasted from tall 0.6 L. slender glasses or tall slender mugs. Sometimes I like beer in a mug, sometimes in a glass, sometimes from ye olde long-neck bottle.

From Coalition of the Swilling:

I like this guy's cooking method. And ditto to him re the ribeye - it's the best cut of a dead cow. Those thick Costco ribeyes are dynamite. Have to be rare, though. If I'm just making one, I do it on a max-heat cast iron pan on the stove, and open the door so the smoke can try to exit. Why bother with the grill for just one fairly small steak?

I like crust on the outside, raw in the middle. You can throw them in the pan frozen, and it's easy to get that result in 20 minutes but you might have to cover it for a few minutes.

Gin for the martini, not vodka - and three olives - not one. After all, that's your vegetable course.

Here's a fine Umbrian meal we were served (and split between us) in the dining room at the Abbazia, all with a hearty 2006 Sagrantino:

Fava Bean and Pecorino Puree

The rest is below the fold -

The Mediterranean Bay Laurel (Laurus nobilis), known in Italy as alloro or lauro, is a common flavoring for Mediterranean meats and fish (also used to decorate the heads of victors). It's sometimes called True Bay, True Laurel, or Sweet Bay. Most Italians have one growing near their house, for cooking (and for hedges). It's used mostly fresh, sometimes slightly dried or dried, and is evergreen.

It is not related at all to the California Bay (Umbullularia californica), which is the common supermarket or farmer's market "Bay Leaf" in the US.

The flavor/fragrance profiles are quite different, as these commenters note. In my view, each is good but definitely different. To my American taste, the Med True Bay has a foreign, kerosene-like flavor which takes a little - but not much - getting used to.

Here's how Italians use Laurus nobilis. The excellent Tuscan steaks are always cooked with it, and grilled meats in general.

We wanted our trip to be as much off the beaten path as feasible, and to try to soak up Italy instead of tourist Italy (which I term Disney Italy - been there, done that). After using our delightful tenuta outside Todi as our base for a few days, we headed up over the hills and through the vineyards towards Bevagna in the Valle Umbra because Mrs. BD knew, during her planning, that I wanted some time based in a little old, non-touristy town to walk around in.

On the way there, we stopped by the hilltop walled village Montefalco, where we did the most shopping on our entire trip: She could not resist the famous tessuto artistico - the textiles of Umbria - tablecloths and linens - and I could not resist their heavy Umbrian olive oils and wines. Sagrantino di Montefalco, in particular:

Montefalco is know almost exclusively for its obscure and powerful wine, know as Sagrantino. Sagrantino is a dark bruiting red wine made from the indigenous Sangratino grape that is grown only around Montefalco. For centuries it was produced as a passito, a fortified dessert wine, but today Sagrantino reaches its pinnacle as a earthy and dry table wine.

Well, also known for its Umbrian textiles. She bought a yellow tablecloth with some pattern in it or whatever, taking well over 1/2 hour to do so while I explored around. (It is against my religion to enter clothing stores, shoe stores, or textile shops).

This is a pic of a pic on the wall in one of Montefalco's many vino and olio shops.

 Lots of pics below the fold -

As I mentioned earlier, in Italy you order your sides - vegetables, salad, etc - separately, if you want them at all, and they come in separate dishes so as not to contaminate the flavor of your Secondi dish (in contrast to how Huck Finn would like his dinner prepared).

Italians like their flavors separate. The taste of food is very important to them.

My favorite Italian sides are Spinach with oil and garlic (to accompany any secondi), and oven roast potatoes (cut up a little bit, olive oil, a hint of rosemary, salt, high heat like 425 or 450 until brown and crunchy on the outside and creamy inside, turning occasionally in the oil during the roasting - getting it right is an art but I have figured it out over the years. Generally, at home, Mrs. cooks half of our dinners, and I cook half these days - except for abundant Thai take-out).

A little sprinkle of parsley on those roast potatoes is optional. They go with meat.

Turnip greens are done the same way as the spinach, and are at least as tasty. We ordered "turnip" at one place (I like turnips), and was happily surprised to be served delicious turnip greens in oil and garlic. Of course, any idiot should have known that turnip root is not available in May or June. Italian food, outside the big cities, is local, seasonal, and there are no supermarkets.

Sometimes people order a side insalata misto too, with their secondi or mainly to follow it (salad never before a main course), but at some point it just becomes too much food to eat, especially if you have an antipasto first.

Sometimes we would break all the rules at lunch, behave like barbarian Americans, and just share a primi with two salato mistos on the side. Mrs. BD, who has some paisan blood, believes it is an insult to good food to serve rabbit food before a nice meal: i primi should be i primi except for an antipasto, and salato misto is not antipasto.

The very best olive oil should not be wasted on cooking (in my view, the best stuff is only for salads or for bread-dipping where you can fully appreciate it but some would disagree with that), but it should be used for this simple spinach recipe where the oil fragrance is part of the deal.

We make both simple recipes at home, often, but they taste much better in a ristorante in Italy.

We stumbled by accident into a little ristorante in the dreary (and definitely not touristy) medieval hilltop village of Amelia around 2 pm, and found the place in the otherwise dead town packed with jolly Italians chowing down and drinking wine.  We were the only foreigners there. The Hosteria dei Cansacchi. A simple neighborhood place with a simple menu: you order either the Mare or the Terra. I ordered the Mare, Mrs ordered the Terra, and halfway through lunch we had to "stop the menu." However delicious, it was just too much. That's when we decided we needed to share meals.

Here's their menu - no choices - they just bring it all, one course after another. The English translations in the fine print are imperfect, eg "Wild Board."

Typical Umbrian food:

Still working on figuring out which travel pics to post, so a little more background first - Photo above is our lunch antipasto course in Norcia, famous home of the pig and the cinghiale - and the Black Truffle. The cheese is the hard, aged Pecorino from sheep milk. I was tempted to smuggle a wheel of it home. A fantastic cheese.

In America, Italian food used to mean things like spaghetti and meatballs, veal scallopini, Lasagna, Penne with red sauce, tomato-meat sauce, Prosciutto with melon, and pizza.

North of Rome, in Umbria and Tuscany in particular, the main foods are the below, generally without any tomato except in a salad misto and with no spaghetti to be found (unless you count their regional pasta, Stringozzi and, sometimes, Pappardelle). Tourist towns will offer spaghetti with red sauce for the confused Americans who expect it, but the locals do not eat it (those north of Rome have an incredible snobbery towards southern Italian culture - language, food, and etc. Indeed, Mrs. BD gives me Italian hell when I use a Calabrian or Neapolitan accent in Italy - and I am not even Italian at all. English-American Mayflower-type, with pizza parlor Italian at best. My German is better, and it is terrible too. My French is OK.)

Risotto
Roast Potato
Gnocchi
Veal, roasted rare
Steak, grilled with allora
Lamb, always with Rosemary
Trout and Tuna
Dandelion greens
Turnip greens
Chard
Spinach
Polenta
Porcini mushrooms, and black truffle
Pork and Cinghiale
Sausages and preserved meats like Pancetta and Proscuitto
Lentils
Bean soups and stews
Fava Bean
Peas
Rabbit
Guinea Fowl - chickens are mostly for the eggs
Asparagus
River Crayfish
Eggplant
Italian Artichoke (they are small, lack the fuzz inside, and are usually oiled then grilled, and you eat the whole thing)
Fennell
Zucchini
Melon and Watermelon
All sorts of unsweetened or minimally-sweetened pastries and cakes

The best known wines of Umbria are the light and crisp Orvieto and the weighty and fragrant (and relatively expensive, ie 25-50 Euros/bottle) Sagrantino di Montefalco. Italian beers are, well, what they are. Drinkable, when you want a beer or two.

The most common cheeses seem to be aged Pecorino and aged Ricotta. Both are wonderful. Also, Parmesan of course.

They use both wine and balsamic vinegars. They sometimes use balsamic as the base for a meat sauce. Yummy. Except in ristorantes, women cook and men eat - and then go out for smokes and drinks with their pals. In ristorantes, mostly men cook.

Olive oil is, of course, the basic ingredient of almost everything. Umbrian oil is green, fruity, and thick - maybe not to everybody's taste but fine with me. I carried home some Umbrian oil, some truffle sauce, some Sagrantino, and some Montefalco Rosso. Also, a good supply of Stringozzi with which to feed my friends. (The sad result was to make my luggage go over the limit. My fee for that indiscretion was 50 Euros. Ouch. It will not happen again.)

On our trip, we had some of all of the above. We ate a ton of food but, with all of our hours of walking, hiking, and exploring, we both came home with a welcome weight loss!

Best Secondi I had? Roast guinea hen with liver/wine sauce with sage and cooked Prosciutto. I love their chicken liver sauces, on pasta or on anything. Best Primi? I cannot chose. Mrs. BD definitely would chose a Gnocchi with Sagrantino sauce we had in a Mom and Pop ristorante in Bevegna. Fluffiest gnoccis I ever ate.

Below, a fine rabbit stew we had in a great restaurant in Montefalco. In Italy, they do not mix foods on a platter. You just have the thing you ordered on the plate. If you order a side vegetable (we like their spinach or turnip greens cooked in oil and garlic, and their roast potatoes), it will come on a side plate. I have always been fond of Italian rabbit stews.

A proper Italian dinner (whether at lunchtime or suppertime) consists of an antipasto, a primi (carbs), a secondi (meat), and maybe a dolce. Mostly, people skip the dolce, and maybe grab a gelato later while strolling around town. Restaurant portions are generously-sized. After one day, Mrs. BD and I decided to only order one antipasto, one Primi, and one Secondi, and to share them. Sometimes we ordered two primis and no secondi. That all worked well, and the waiters seemed accustomed to that request. Nobody speaks much English, but the waiters know "to share". 

One has to remember that, if you want a Risotto as a Primi, they make it for you right then so it takes at least 1/2 hour to be served. Worth waiting for, if you aren't starving. How does a Risotto with black truffle and Pecorino sound to you?

This is a primi of polenta with black truffle sauce, in Spoleto. That sauce is all truffle. Polenta is often served on polenta boards. Should have bought one. You can see why we share courses:

And bread, of course. Umbrian bread is not very tasty, however, because they use no salt in it. Why not? Because the Pope imposed a punitive tax on salt in Umbria in 1540! The "Salt Wars" were like the Boston Tea Party. They still use little salt, and do not put it on the table. 1540 wasn't really all that long ago, and the vengeful Italians have long memories of real, perceived, imagined, or even justified offenses. Taking offense and carrying grudges is an Italian cultural specialty, and even Popes are not spared.

Photo below is just some random cafe menu sign. Odd for the sign to be in English. They probably found the sign in a flea market in Cincinnati.

The good Balsamic Vinegar comes from Modena (home of Ferrari, Maserati, and Lamborghini), where they have been making it for a thousand years. I have some days when I hunger for some Balsamic.

It's called "balsamic" because it was thought to be a good balsam, or balm, for pain and disease. Our North American Balsam Fir was thought to be good for diseases too, hence its name. The Romans viewed vinegar as a balm and a medicine - hence the Roman soldier kindly offering Jesus vinegar on the cross.

They make it from boiled-down Trebbiano grape juice. Balsamic Vinegar is not a wine vinegar.

The aging process seems to be key. As the volume shrinks over time and the vinegar becomes more syrupy, it is moved into smaller and smaller wood casks made of different woods until ready. Juniper is the final cask. 15 and 25 year-old Italian Balsamic Vinegars are readily available, and there are 100 year-old ones. The 15 year-old one in the photo is $70/bottle. Unlike a bottle of wine of that price, however, you only have to use a few drops at a time.

Northern Italians would never touch our supermarket stuff, nor would any really good American restaurant. However, the available quality is getting better and better.

The old story Marcella Hazan relates is about the old Northern Italian guy who ran down to the cellar when the Americans began bombing. Then he remembered, and ran up to the room where his precious small casks of very old Balsamic were stored and rushed them down to the cellar. Then he realized that he had forgotten one more thing: His wife.

Ever tried a good Balsamic on strawberries? It's a classic Italian dessert. It's equally good on fresh fig halves with a touch of honey or sugar. Just make sure you use the good stuff.

Preparing Easter feast for after church tomorrow for my in-laws and all the kids we can collect.

Two of my sisters are going to tend to the old folks this weekend while we finally seek some serious home help for them. I think I was in denial about their decline: it is painful to face as they have always had so much adventurousness, vitality, and work-and-study ethic.

Our menu is Butternut Squash Soup with nutmeg with a dollop of sour cream and my special homemade crouton, Arista (bone in, with garlic and rosemary - Arista is pork loin-rib roast, Tuscan-style), roast potatoes, stuffing with apples, apple sauce, roast parsnips, and Brussel Sprouts with garlic and oil. A nice Cote Roti.

For dessert, Wheat Pie, Rice Pie - and a Bunny Cake! With my good Mexican coffee. A multicultural Easter feast.

Next year, I want to make an Italian Easter Pie - Pizza Rustica.

We had a late St. Patrick's Day dinner Friday night, so as to be able to include my Irish father in law.

I happen to be one of those people who love that Irish boiled dinner, with lots of potatoes in there. You just cook the heck out of the meat, for hours, until it almost falls apart. Lots of whole peppercorns, Allspice, and garlic in the pot.

The carrots are optional, in my view - and the cabbage is the best part.

A pot of mustard on one side, and a pot of beer on the other side. Great peasant eats.

One day last week we drove an hour or two north to Todos Santos. Todos Santos is an artsy oasis village in the desert, with a rare fresh water lagoon a few miles east, just behind the beach. Some Americans and Europeans move there to truly get away from it all for good. Like that retired CIA spook on NCIS.

Our little group had lunch at Posada La Poza, a tiny boutique hotel out in the boonies with a rooftop restaurant. We requested that they make us a mixed seafood platter of whatever they had on hand. They brought us Tuna Tostados, grilled marinated shrimp, fried scallops, and grilled Sea Bass which they cooked rare - as good fresh fish should be cooked. Salad too, with peas and corn in it. Real Mexican food. Margueritas, of course (for the Vitamin C), which they mixed on the strong side:

Here's the outside of Posada La Poza, where they have to turn many people away for lunch despite its remote location. They only have 5 tables for lunch -

Lots of fun pics of that side trip below the fold -

At 6:30 in the morning the Mrs. was down at the gym while I quietly enjoyed the view from our terrace with my idea of a good breakfast: Mexican coffee, a Cuban Romeo y Julieta, and a little tropical fruit, including avocado.

We ate very well in Mexico. These were seafood enchiladas with a creamy wine sauce, a relish of chopped raw vegetables marinated in lime juice, and some fried plantain chips. The green salsa with the brown corn chips was tomatillo, cilantro, onion, and chilis.

Also, the necessary daily Marguerita or two, to ward off scurvy and to prevent dehydration.

(This nice lunch was at the Cilantro Restaurant, next to the Pueblo Bonito Rose resort on the Cabo San Lucas harborside beach. That's not the hotel where we stayed but it's a good one if you like to be around a lot of activity.)

I'll do a few more Mexican food posts this week.

I like to make this for dinner guests:

3 cups fresh blueberries
3 cups fresh raspberries
Cup of strawberries, cut up
3 cups fresh blackberries or boysenberries
peel of a whole lime, cut into strips
peel of a whole lemon, cut into strips
1 cup of fresh mint leaves

In a saucepan, combine 3 c. of water with peels and bring to boil. Remove from heat, add mint leaves and steep for 30 minutes.

Strain, then put liquid back in saucepan with the sugar until boiling and sugar is fully dissolved.

Remove from heat again,  cool or chill until at least room temp, and add about a tablespoon of juice from your lime and the lemon.

Gently mix liquid with the berries and chill in fridge for a few hours.

Best garnish? Sugared mint sprigs (easy to make, and amazingly tasty).

Got any Woodock left in the freezer?

The USA is unusual because wild game meat can not be sold in stores. All "game" meat sold in the US is farm-raised, whether venison, quail, pheasant, duck, or whatever.

That is the correct and righteous legacy of the devastating, 12 month/year market hunting of the past which devastated the seemingly endlessly abundant American wildlife populations.

There is no bird as special for the table as Woodcock, but you have to get out and shoot them yourself. One way to do justice to this diminutive bird (smaller than the European Woodcock) is a ravioli dish I learned from my Cordon Bleu chef friend.

Take a few Woodcock, and cut all of the meat off them - breast, thighs, etc. Chop the meat into roughly 1/2" pieces. Throw in a bowl and mix with a bit of sauteed very finely-chopped shallots and carrots, salt, pepper, a bit of fresh thyme and parsley and a little bit of truffle oil.

Take some wonton squares and brush some whisked egg on the edges as glue. Put a teaspoon or two of the mixture inside, then seal the squares tightly to eliminate any air inside, and place carefully into gently boiling water until done. It only takes a few minutes.

Serve two or three raviolis drizzled with somewhat reduced gibier sauce, with a few shavings of black truffle on top.

Can't be beat.

This is a re-post:

Here's the menu for the sort of 1890's-style dinner our Ducks Unlimited commitee serves annually. Our Chef for this special annual Game Dinner was making Rillete de Lapin since he was a kid in France. Yes, it is generally Black Tie out of respect for the chef and/or the host.

What's the deal? Our Ducks Unlimited Committee sells this dinner for twelve for significant bucks (usually $10-20,000 - and worth every penny) in our charity auction, provides the game, helps the Chef, and serves. When lucky, we're invited to join the dinner table. Otherwise, Chef and his sous chef feed us well in the kitchen, and we help consume the wines.

All the host has to do is to light the fire, and buy the wine and ceegars. With all of the loins and breasts, this is one sexy menu, and mighty filling:

Cocktail hour hors d'oevres:

Game terrine, grainy home-made mustard, gherkin slices, and toast

Rillette de lapin, capers, toast

Pate of Wild Duck Liver with cognac, toast

Dinner:

Roast Country Pigeon with green and white asparagus, mache salad, truffle vinaigrette

Woodcock ravioli with celeriac flan and wild mushroom sauce, with Black Truffle garni

Pheasant breast, braised red cabbage, lardons, with cognac jus

Satueed breast of Redhead or Canvasback with wild rice and roast figs, jus de gibier

Port and juniper berry sorbet with Rosemary garni

Roasted rabbit loin, homemade tagliatelle, basic cream sauce, and crispy shiitake mushrooms

Marinated loin of venison with roasted parsnip and salsify,  fondante potato and huckleberry jus

Dessert

Pear Trio: Pear Almond Tarte, Poached Pear, and Pear William Sorbet

Cheese

Imported cheese board, dried fruits, nuts, assorted homemade breads

The wines to accompany the courses:

De Meric Cuvee Catherine de Medicis Brut Champaigne 1996

Voignier La Place 2004

Chateau Margaux 1991

Barolo Bartolo Mascarello 1970

Chateau D'Yquem 1997

Port, Cognac, and cigars in the library for the gentlemen

There are two edible parts of a duck, whether wild or farm raised: the breast, and the leg and thigh.

Some people like to roast the whole bird, but I prefer just to remove the breast and the leg, and then use the carcass for gibier or duck stock.

Duck breasts, generally, are cooked by scoring then searing the skin side in a hot skillet for a few minutes, sizzling the meat side briefly, then roasting at 400 for 5-10 minutes. It should be rare-medium rare. (I once ate a whole raw, warmed Bluebill. Sushi. Wasn't too bad, but a bit fishy. I wanted to take "rare" to the limit.)

Then comes the sauce. Here are a few of my favorite ideas:

1. I like a cherry sauce, like this one (which was meant for venison), or this one. Here's a fancy Sweet Cherry Sauce.

2. This pomegranite sauce would be good for venison too.

3. Caramelized figs are a classic with duck breast.

4. Emeril does a simple pan roast. Trouble with that for me is the danger of overcooking.

5. I also like a sauce made with a gibier base, with some halved cherry tomatoes and chopped Italian olives and a little vinegar.

Duck legs are another matter, because they are tough and stringy like pheasant legs. Both do very well for confit, if you want to take the trouble. An alternative is to braise the legs. Some ideas:

Wine-braised duck legs

Braised Duck Legs for idiots

"Bob Benchley first introduced me to Ballantine Ale.  It has been a good companion to me ever since.  You have to work hard to deserve to drink it.  But I would rather have a bottle of Ballantine Ale than any other drink after fighting a really big fish.  We keep it iced in the bait box with chunks of ice packed around it.  And you ought to taste it on a hot day when you have worked a big marlin fast because there were sharks after him."

- Ernest Hemingway

I remember when we used those green 40s for .22 target practice down at the farm's dump pile standing up at 40-50 yards. Not so easy to find tasty beers in green glass 40s these days. Shooting glass is more satisfying than shooting tin cans, and the big bottles are a little easier to hit.

I have always liked this ale - or whatever it is. Classic label, too. Give it a try, and think of Hemingway. It's cheap and good, if you can find it.

This is an annual re-post. We'll post more game recipes over the next few weeks to help our hunters with their bursting freezers -

With hunting season over, it's time to get cooking what we have in the freezer. It all begins with the sauce:

Uncle Bill's Jus de Gibier (mixed game) sauce, aka Brown Game Stock, aka Clean out the Freezer Sauce

This will be the tastiest sauce base, or sauce, you have ever had in your life, for chicken, game birds, turkey, venison, pork, veal, pasta, ravioli, etc. It's an ideal base for pheasant, chicken, venison or goose bourguignon. It has an earthy richness to it which is remarkable. We like to make a woodcock ravioli with black truffle, and this sauce is essential for that.

Gibier refers to mixed game, but we do it with mixed meat too, but not beef, which would overpower the subtler flavors. It is the best use of freezer-burned game and other stuff in the freezer. It's fun to make (but it takes a while), and you can clean out the freezer and the fridge at the same time. I freeze the used carcasses of Thanksgiving turkey, ducks, goose, random deer bones, etc. to use when I make this, once or twice a year, along with freezer-burned chicken, pheasant, etc. You could do this with entirely store-bought stuff if you lack a hunter in the family. The more stuff, the better.

You need a 10-12 (or larger) quart pot to make this, if you have a lot of stuff to use, but it freezes fine when made. It's good for a few months, at least.

Bake in oven until browned (not necessarily cooked-though) your saved carcasses and freezer-burned game meat and meat, especially pork and pork bones are good, and veal bones, (even if they have already been cooked). Yes, you bake the bones too. Do not burn them in the oven. I tend to use freezer-burned venison, pork chops, all my game bird carcasses, venison bones (cracked with a mallet), a bunch of veal bones and veal scraps if I can get them nowadays (it doesn't hurt to hit up the butcher for some stuff for this), turkey carcass, woodcock carcasses, and a pile of chicken wings. Chop this stuff roughly with a cleaver into 3-6" chunks and toss in the pot. Try to crack the bones.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

WS, Richard II

I wasn't able to join Mrs. BD and friends to hear the great Yale and NYU Prof Harold Bloom talk about Shakespeare Monday night at the Classic Stage Company (a theater company she loves and supports) just off Union Square.

She reported a few random things Bloom said, paraphrased:

"Lear is Shakespeare's greatest work. I don't know how a human could have written it."

"I am not a Shakespeare scholar. I give no credence to any Shakespeare scholar."

"Shakespeare used a 22,000 word vocabulary in his writing. No other writer has ever come close to that. And he probably invented 1000 words, many of them now part of ordinary English."

"He wrote Othello, Macbeth, and Lear within 14 months. How could that be done?"

"He may have died of Syphilis."

Mrs. and Co. had supper at the Blue Water Grill. With the Union Square Cafe, The Gotham Bar and Grill,  the Blue Water Grill, and Toqueville (which my daughter loves), Union Square has come a long way since I sort-of lived on University Place. Back then, the cops would stop by to pull dead guys out of the bushes in the morning. ODs, mostly.

Now it has a dog park and an open air bar with live music, and I guess most of the old addicts and drunks are dead.

From our archives:

Cassoulet

As you may know, cassoulet is basically French baked beans with meat. It is country home cookin, but it can be great stuff. Dutch oven cooking.

It's a good way to cook some wild game meat, especially the less-desirable parts.

Any meat, but not beef - strong red meat is too strong for cassoulet. We have, over time, used mixes of duck, snow goose, chukar, venison, chicken, pork, wild boar, and pheasant. Mix the meats - it adds to the flavor. There should be some source of pig fat in it. Always some venison sausage, or any sausage, because it is a necessary traditional ingredient. The meat-to-bean ratio is supposed to be fairly high - 30% - but I like beans and prefer a much lower ratio. I think every village in southern France has its own recipe and method. I figure roughly one hunk of sausage and one or two hunks of meat per person.

A few tips about Cassoulet:

1. Make it the day before. Like beef stew, it improves overnight.
2. Serve with salad, toasted garlic bread with a pile of stinky and gooey cheeses on the side, and then fruit for dessert. And always a Cote Rotie or Cotes du Rhone.
3. You need to use large white beans, ideally French haricot beans. They should be intact when served - not mushy.
4. Make sure you push the bread crumbs down into the surface of the mixture when baking.
5. Sprinkle chopped fresh parsley on top when done - it looks better that way.

It's worth reading a few approaches to get the general idea. Here's an easy American version. Here's one French version. Here's another.

Went to a very enjoyable and festive Chinese New Year party last night. It's the Year of the Bunny Rabbit, I was told.

The special cocktail of the evening was the Lychee Martini. I don't think I had ever had a Lychee before, much less a Lychee Martini. Delicious and refreshing.

Lychees are tasty fruits, flavor somewhere between a pear and a grape.

This is an annual re-posting.

The global cooling we are experiencing inspired me to consider some truly fine cool-weather all-white breakfast eats which are not easily found in Yankee-land. The good stuff that sticks to your arteries ribs and warms you from the inside.

Creamed chipped beef on toast is the fine old Yankee version of the southland's biscuits 'n gravy. Both have done wonders for warming the hearts and narrowing the arteries of generations of American boys. Add some potatoes and you have the perfect meal for a lumberjack or hunter.

While apple pie is an old-time Yankee breakfast staple, it has been replaced long ago by eggs, toast, and bacon, maybe a chunk of fruit, and preferably home fries with ketchup on them. Not Heinz 57, though - it's not my job to feed John Kerry.

Some people eat cereal for breakfast. Why? Because Dr. John Kellogg, a health-food charlatan in the 1800s, told them to. Zero nutrition. Breakfast cereal is a fraud and a scam, unless it's plain grits or cream of wheat or oatmeal. The crunchy granola stuff? Well, I thought the guy who discovered that you could sell people plain water was a genius, but the people who decided to sell guinea pig food to humans was his creative equal.

(At Maggie's Farm, we are also fond of fish for breakfast, like the Brits. Kippers. Or a lighty sauteed trout someone has caught early, sprinkled with parsley. Or left-over broiled salmon.)

The chipped beef was always a boarding school standard, and half loved it and half barfed to look at it. It does look like vomit, but it's great stuff. It's a gourmet's delight, but nobody makes it anymore.

When I did my time south of the Mason-Dixon, a local favorite was hot dog gravy on biscuits. Grits on the side, of course. Everything white. Not a refined breakfast, just gravy made with supermarket hot dogs instead of sausage. A truly revolting flavor unless you grew up in the hills and hollers, but it will fend off hunger for hours. I prefer my Sabretts on a bun at Yankee Stadium. But other sorts of southern gravy, made with ham or sausage, are just fine. I won't presume to offer a biscuit 'n gravy recipe, because every Southern Mom has her own. Well, here's a Virginia one from someone's Grandma.

Biscuits 'n gravy, and grits. Serious food for the soul.

Image: New Hampshire chipped beef on English muffins - with home fries. They don't do grits up north (except in Italian homes and restaurants, where they like to call grits "polenta") and it's a damn shame. Good stuff.

Some call it Red Flannel Hash. With two eggs sunny-side up on top, and some ketchup or some hot sauce, it can't be beat for a winter breakfast.

This recipe is good, if a bit too complicated. Here's a simpler Southern version, with gravy of course (in the South, they even put gravy on top of gravy).

I don't mind the canned version at all, fried first in butter. Yes, it smells (and looks) a bit like canned dog food, but I am part dog.

Ethnic dining? A bit of England in New York City: Tea & Sympathy.

A re-post - not snowing here today.

Cold, snowy day up here. It makes you want mashed potatoes and meat and stuff.

I have some nice big white onions left over from making my onion pies this weekend. Some onion fritters would be good with last night's left-over roast. It's really sort of like a spidery mess of onion rings.

I never bother with the deep oil frying, though, for fritters. I just fry them in some canola oil, and it works fine. Best if you sautee the onions lightly first (with some chopped garlic) before mixing the onions with the batter. That way, they are certain to be sweet.

It's nice to have a little dipping sauce for them. A chili-garlic-soy sort of thing with chopped chives is good. Lime, as pictured, is interesting too.

People who know me know that I am a cheese nut. My favorite dessert in the world is a cheese board, loaded with pears, apples, assorted cheeses, walnuts, grapes, and dried fruits. Maybe some sliced baguette and flat bread or crackers, but I prefer my cheese on very thinly-sliced fruit, or plain with knife and fork with some fruit on the side. Some like cheeses on bread or crackers, but I don't if there is a choice.

This Christmas I was given an assortment of specialized cheese knives, along with some Christmas Gouda, real Alsace Munster (no relation to American Munster), and some French cheeses from Murray's (which has a shop in Grand Central). Nobody gave me an interesting, exotic Blue this year. Boo hoo.

The gals and I sampled them all on very thin Gala apple slices after everybody else went to bed last night. We let them come to room temp, and had them sans wine, being partied out over the past couple of weeks.

For sheer luxurious flavor, the Epoisses won our tasting contest. We checked it out, and it turns out it was Napoleon's favorite.

Pic is a Langres. We had that one too, but did not pour Champagne over it. All good stuff. I hate to say it, but most American cheeses are for sandwiches or for melting on top of stuff, not for dessert. Tasty cheeses are rightly a Savoury, for after a meal or after a dessert course, with a Port or a dessert wine or, in our case, with nothing at all except Christmas cheer.

Never serve or eat cheese before a nice dinner. You can quote me on that basic rule of civilized hospitality.

My favorite Christmas cookies are either Ginger cookies, or those plain Christmas cookie-cutter cookies with some sprinkled colored sugar on top, and maybe red-hots for the eyes in the reindeer.

Here's a good basic Ginger cookie recipe.

Here's the plain basic Christmas rolled cookie recipe. They should be thin, I think, and not very sweet. Not soft - crunchy.