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A slog, some fog, and a wonderful dog

cookie1a.jpgI worked longer than the expected four hours Wednesday, but less my typical nine, which threw a wrench into Gil’s big plans for holiday baking. He went all Woody Allen on me: “Can I leave the butter out on the counter long enough to pick you up at the train station? Will it meeeelt? Should I keep it in the fridge until we get home and start the whole process later? I don’t want to poiiiison anyone.” I don’t know a LOT about baking, but I figured that unless our kitchen counter spontaneously combusted, the butter couldn’t possibly get too soft for a standard cookie recipe. So he stopped the handwringing long enough to make the trek to Fair Lawn, then came home and baked his famous chocolate chip cookies Wednesday night. They garnered the expected “oohs” and “aahs” at our potluck Thanksgiving dinner, as well as knowing winks that I’ve managed to turn him into a baker. “Ha!” I say thee, “Ha!” I provided the recipe, but he didn’t learn baking from me, since I usually make with the burning.

Oh, and speaking of burning … !

Wouldn’tcha know it? I learned a wonderful […]

Happy Thanksgiving

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Brussels sprouts, by request

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Our invitation to Thanksgiving dinner came with a request this year — “Want to make that great brussel sprout recipe you sent me?” How could I say no when I spend so much time proselytizing about the virtues of this neglected sprout? And so armed with the recipe I first tried last year, I set out to recreate and, if possible, improve upon it last night. The aroma wouldn’t be an issue since Gil’s out of town, and I couldn’t take the chance of bringing a substandard dish to this most sacred of American food holidays.

While I loved the original, I thought there was definite room for improvement there. It was maybe too uniform and needed another layer of flavor, so I took my friend Mew’s suggestion and added pearl onions to the mix. Now that I was on a roll, I thought surely a dusting of pecorino romano couldn’t hurt anything, not after using so much heavy cream already. Next time I might try it topped with bread crumbs for extra crunch, but I’m happy enough with this version to serve it to a bunch of hungry friends and probably a […]