Dairy | Gourmandistan

Spuma spurs slight civil unrest in Gourmandistan.

February 26, 2013 by Steve

Mutterings of dissent can still be heard every time the refrigerator opens and the speckled, pinkly pale jar of spuma is spied. Its funky, fatty taste did not please Michelle’s palate at all. Despite Steve’s insistence that ceviche, salami and sun-dried tomatoes prove the world agrees that “cured means cooked,” Michelle could not get past the idea she was eating “raw bacon.” Steve’s admission that he’d happily sampled “raw” bacon as a child further sickened Michelle, who had already decided […]

Categories: Appetizers, Cheese, Cooking, Cured meats, Food, Recipes

Boiled custard, the gossamer thread to Nanny’s Christmas Eve

December 22, 2012 by Steve

For a Christmas Eve treat, Michelle’s paternal grandmother always made a Southern tradition, boiled custard. After that, things get a bit hazy. Boiled custard itself can be confusing, especially to someone like Steve who has sketchy (and Yankee) Christmas traditions. While both eggnog and boiled custard arise from the mists of Anglo-Saxon odd drink traditions (along with wassail, posset and caudle), the former is often made with raw eggs, while the “boiled” custard popular in the Southern U.S. cooks eggs […]

Categories: Beverages, Christmas, Cooking, Dairy, Family, Food, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Soft-boiled eggs, soldiers and slightly overdoing Michel Bras

December 2, 2012 by Steve

We first found the Relais & Chateaux resort hanging above the Aubrac plateau in 2004, as we fled the food desert known as the Minervois that had been our lovely home for almost a month on our first annual “let’s spend our mythical child’s school tuition” flex-time sojourn to France. While we were utterly charmed by our house, we were almost equally devastated at the discovery all French folk did not necessarily look at food the way Patricia Wells had […]

Categories: Cheese, Cooking, Eggs, Food, France, Recipes, Restaurants, Vegetarian

Impulse to action via Roasted Plum Frozen Yogurt

August 13, 2012 by Steve

We have been talking about fresh plums all summer long. When we finally spotted them at a recent market, we (OK Steve) couldn’t resist snapping up a bagful without bothering to ask the vendor anything regarding variety, locality or organicity. When we returned home all we knew was they were big, very purple and seemed very, very unripe. A few days later we also discovered they were very, very sensitive, as almost half of our purchase “ripened” into juice-weeping balls […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Ice cream, Plums, Recipes, Vegetarian, Yogurt

Topinambour-ing to you!

January 26, 2012 by Steve

We’re always trying to vary our limited winter veg choices, so we’ve been happy to see tiny bags of Jerusalem artichokes available at our currently-only-on-Saturdays local farm store. Known as sunchokes, topinambours and more, these gnarled sunflower tubers are great pan-roasted, or thin-sliced and sautéed with garlic. (Then again, just about anything is great sautéed with garlic.) Looking for another way to use the tasty tubers, Michelle discovered a tart recipe in Ottolenghi: The Cookbook and decided we could wing it […]

Categories: Cheese, Cooking, Eggs, Food, Jerusalem artichokes, Kale, Recipes, Vegetarian

Are you smarter than a four-year-old?

April 18, 2011 by Steve

On a recent prowl through an antique shop Michelle spied a copy of The Cooking of Provincial France, a 1968 Time-Life “Foods of the World” edition. Initially Michelle thought it would be a nostalgic and campy romp, but then she noticed that the author was M.F.K. Fisher. Fisher’s spirit hovers over all food writers (except those obsessed with airplane meals, the McRib, Peeps, etc., who are driven by much scarier spirits). Fisher’s prose is marvelous, her joy in food transparent. […]

Categories: Breads & Crackers, Butter, Cooking, Food, France, Old cookbooks, Radishes, Vegetarian

France, Southern style

September 8, 2010 by Michelle

We invited our British neighbors-for-the-week over for drinks and hors d’oeuvres this evening, a reciprocation for their including us in poolside drinks on Monday. Initially, we planned on an assortment of sausages, cheeses and perhaps a tapenade to accompany bottles of local wines. Then Michelle had a moment of genius. Instead of serving French food to British people vacationing in France, why not instead serve them Southeast U.S. classics made with Southwest French ingredients? Thus were born two marvelous appetizers: […]

Categories: Appetizers, Cheese, Cooking, Duck, Food, France, Recipes

Butter: I can’t believe it’s not harder

July 24, 2010 by Michelle

Butter churning had been in the back of our minds for several years, but we’d never taken the plunge. Steve read an article in the New York Times around the same time that genius baker Bob Hancock (of Blue Dog Bakery) told us he’d made his own butter using his mixer and a lot of plastic wrap. We came close when our Hazelfield Farm friends Raphe and Teresa gave us fresh milk, but that never had enough cream to skim. […]

Categories: Butter, Cooking, Food, Recipes