Looooove the Black

Ok so my mom just totally rocks!! So she calls me two days before my birthday and says "what do you want for your birthday". I said, really, you don't have to get me anything. She said well, there's this chocolate place.... Um Hello Well Yeahhhh!

I got the chocolates in the mail today and OMG!! Norman Love Confections Black line (take a look). The box was sleek and gorgeous and inside, 15 perfect, beautiful chocolates. There are five kinds, gorgeous in shiny colors, each color representing a different chocolate from a different country with different types of cocoa. Just gorgeous.

Thanks Mom!!!

Pining for Provence

I haven't been to France in (wait, counting on my fingers) Oh my god, 5 years and am missing it. So when I read the article on dining in Provence with Picasso in the New York Times this morning, I totally missed it. The article is a joy and reads like a summer picnic. While the tablecloths in Sanary-sur-Mer, where I spent my days in Provence were green and peach, they still had the paper cloth on the top and you could still look out over the Med., smelling the briny depths as I tasted them in my moules marinières and brandade. Oh yum. Time to pull out my Elizabeth David Cookbook again.

Camel's Hump

A few photos from the walk up Camel's Hump. We got a sub from the new deli in Moscow and took the BIG BAG of potato chips. Boy were we lucky we did. 'Twas cold up there. As you can see, the walk was through the stream.














The views were
spectacular from the top

Vermont Weekend

We had 5 lovely days on our annual pilgrimage to Vermont. Understand that Vermont for me means cooking and eating and leaf and tourist peeping. Attached are a few photos taken by Tam that express some of the delightful experiences I had in VT.

Sheep Being Shipped for Slaughter

Yes we had lamb on Saturday night for dinner.... mmmm tasty. Tam grows her own potatoes and they seem to have an addiction to my feta mashed potatoes, so good with lamb!!! Pair that with the growler of Brewer's Art Resurrection that we hauled up there from Baltimore and we were in 7th heaven.

The water buffalo from whence came the caprese salad (lunch today)

After stopping to get the buffalo mozzarella and stocking up on small batch maple syrup we headed to Singleton's store for the best bacon in the world. Cob smoked bacon, 25 lbs from the surly Vermonters that work there. Yes Josh, you'll get your share next weekend.

Plymouth Cheese (nasty nasty stuff)

Next time we're sticking to the Cabot and Lazy Lady cheese while in VT, but this cheese maker (Frog City Cheese) was located on the Calvin Coolidge homestead so we tried it. They are purported to be using one of the oldest cheese recipes in the country. The landscape was gorgeous gorgeous, the cheese, nicht ser gut! We tried to find 3 other cheese places, but nothing is very well marked in Vermont. Yes we did have to haul our butts up Camel's Hump to work off some of that food. Oof!

More fall foliage photos:

Carmel Pear Terrine

I bought my first Martha Stewart Living Magazine last week. We went to the Barnes & Noble to hang out and drink coffee in the rain and I got stuck. There was this wonderful looking recipe for pear terrine which just sounded fantastic. (BTW here's the recipe) I borrowed Chris' mandoline (yes, yes, we'll get one soon) and got started.

I love when you have to coat the bottom of a pan with caramel. You swirl in this beautiful deep amber syrup and the hard candy shell is like making glass.

She says to use a charlotte mold. I used a souffle pan instead and thought it worked great. She also calls for it to be served with blue cheese. Since we were bringing this to Jake and Mandy's for dessert we decided to give people a choice and I brought along some stilton and my sweetie made homemade ginger, fireweed honey and toasted pecan ice cream. The girls chose the cheese, the guys the ice cream (well, the girls actually chose both). While this recipe took quite a while to make, it was definitely worth it. Make sure the pears are still slightly green as mine were too soft and we had to reduce the cooking time by about 20 minutes. We also boiled the syrup for 20-25 minutes instead of the five she called for as we wanted the syrup to be very viscous. The carmel pear taste was intense.

Nath's Tomates Farcis

I had a ton of tomatoes that we picked before the hurricane so I decided to make stuffed tomatoes like Nathalie used to make when I lived with her in France.

Not remembering the recipe I pulled out my French cookbooks and proceeded to peruse. I found multiple recipes but I wanted NATH's! Luckily she was on IM so I made her send me the recipe. They were deeee-lish. Here is exactly what she said if you feel like translating (or comment and I'll send it to you my translation in English with metric converted too). There was lots of leftover farce, I mixed it with a bunch of rice and put it in the oven.

Recipe starts:

Actually I don't have a recipe for Tomates Farcies because to do the "farce" you can put almost anything and most of the time, I do it with leftovers. But here is how you should do it:

8 tomates moyennes ou grosses

150 g d'échine de porc (ou roti de porc ou jambon ou bacon)

300 g de boeuf cuit (restes de pot au feu par exemple)

2 oignons

persil (note- I put in herbes de provence)

2 oeufs

1 c à soupe d'huile

sel - poivre

un tout petit peu de cumin en poudre : facultatif

Si tu veux que ta farce soit moins riche, tu peux ajouter un morceau de pain rassi et un peu de lait ou quelques courgettes cuites et bien essorées. (did not do this)

Lavez, essuyez les tomates, découpez un chapeau. A l'aide d'une petite cuillère, videz l'intérieur et le gardez pour le mettre dans la farce. Hachez tous les ingrédients (suffisamment pour que les morceaux de viande ne soient pas trop gros mais pas trop pour que ça ne fasse pas de la soupe).Répartissez le contenu du bol dans les tomates, couvrez avec les chapeaux. Posez les côte à côte dans un plat à four huilé. Mettez à four moyen (thermostat 5/6, 180°) pendant 30 minutes.

(Avant de mettre la farce dans les tomates, tu peux aussi ajouter une cuillère à café et demi de riz cru au fond de la tomate. C'est ce que je fais moi mais il faut savoir qu'ensuite, ça fait moins de jus, mais ça grille mieux).

Voilà, j'espère que ça te conviendra. Have fun doing your tomates farcies and bon appétit.

Dove bites and salt

I had bought Dove minature ice cream bars to share when we had company the other day. They were on a diet so poor us we were stuck with the whole box of ice cream bars. We had just finished eating dinner last night so I had my minibar and put it on my plate that I had just eaten roast beef from. (just on the corner mind you). There was an Australian pink salt crystal sitting on my ice cream when I picked it up. I shrugged, bit, and WOW!!! I highly suggest eating your Dove bars with Pink Salt. MMMMMMM