Priscilla

While the menus vary in complexity and seriousness, tablesetting and service standards remain the same. All cloth napkins, all the time. Occasional tablecloth, although it's usually just the scrubbed butcher-block tabletop. Candles, always. There is certain to be brief discussion about which dishes, which linen. While all this predated his arrival, the now-14-year-old has been setting the table since he was really little. He also likes to serve, French-style, when the meal suggests it, and his father has trained him in dressing the salad, although that job still falls to the Old Man most nights. We determine service by the particular menu -- pre-plated, or at table French style, or the dread family style, depending. TV Dinners, as we call them, are a sometime guilty pleasure, and distinct from dinner at the table. Table-setting standards remain, cloth napkins, proper silverware & glassware. Pizza & movie nights get the same treatment.

Hee I was dreaming about lamb shanks up there in 100-degreeish July, and prepared them last week, the first such braisey dish since. Nice Icelandic shanks from Whole Foods, in the style of osso bucco. A balm, just hauling out the proper-size Descoware.

Wow, Schnitzel, beeyootiful muffins. I have depended upon Jane Grigson's recipe in English Food for years with good results (there is a egg in hers, the main diff btwn. it and ED's which Adam cited). And I always bake them on a griddle. Not to mention being a neophyte sourdougher. However I think I'll be trying the sourdough/oven combination right quick here! The only decent so-called "English muffin bread" I've ever had was from a very good bakery, Gayle's, in Capitola on California's Central Coast, where Gayle's husband Joe Ortiz is the baker (Gayle is pastry), and it was very very good, as are all his breads. Not a muffin, obviously, but slices were nicely pocked with little holes that did what one wanted them to do after toasting.

Wow what a great run of great-looking, delicious-sounding dinners. And, I am SO making my own ricotta just as soon as Elie posts his recipe. Last evening, chicken butterflied and stuffed under the skin with sauteed onion, lowly boughten ricotta, fresh cooked spinach, hit of Parmigiano, s & p, breath of cayenne & nutmeg. Oh, breadcrumbs and an egg in there too. Basted with schmaltz while roasting, and then removed to rest and cubed parboiled potatoes put in the pan to take advantage of the drippings while crisping up a little. A little bacon cooked, sliced crimini mushrooms cooked in the bacon fat, nice little head of organic frisee from Whole Foods coarsely chopped and turned in the mixture briefly over heat, s & p, hit of Balsamic. Seedy flatbread I'd made earlier. Sangiovese the guy at the wine store had recommended for Thursday's braised lamb shanks and saffron risotto. The rich leftover sauce from those shanks is intended for tonight's pappardelle, followed by little rib chops fried in Parmigiano crust as per Marcella Hazan and a nice salad. At least that is the plan, unless the pasta gets hexed by this premention. Seedy LBB baguette. Nero D'Avola.

Mussels seem like a great idea -- both simple and gratifying to cook, a good combination. Plus, Chufi was going to too, this week. But, will you have to wash your own dishes?! Don't seem right, somehow. Blog on!

Last evening late TV Dinner, excellent pizza two ways, one with a thin layer of whole-milk ricotta under a slick of pesto made with basil from the garden, and the other with bacon and a thin-sliced tomato from the garden, which had blown off the vine during high winds last week and ripened by now on the counter. Both with mozz. Romaine salad with Bob's Bleu Cheese Dressing. Nero D'Avola from Trader Joe's.

Cashew is very cute. Can one assume that is his own blanky? But, is he really 3' tall?!?!?!? Blog on!

Last evening four ribs from the large end of a standing rib roast. Creamed spinach with bacon and onion, and mashed potatoes. Ciabatta from the Japanese French baker.

My maternal grandmother was a English-American emigrant, and was a fabulous wonderful incredible cook -- my first and most important cooking role model.

NY strips broiled very rare sliced fanned drizzled with teriyaki sauce. Sashimi-grade tuna diced and mixed with a little Kewpie and a little Sriracha after the style of sushi-bar spicy tuna. Radish sprouts tucked in around the tuna. Extra-good extra-fermenty dregs of my own napa pickle (bought a big new napa yesterday for a new batch). Marinated soybean sprouts, fresh green beans blanched & dressed with the essential sesame dressing Torakris provided the recipe for, made for the first time in my suribachi, because I finally found the size surikogi I wanted. (Heretofore I'd make the sesame dressing in my granite mortar & pestle, but wow the suribachi is SO where it's at for this prep of course.) Nice rice from the cooker. Cold CA sake, and Sunday-night Japanese drama, Gokusen just now.

Yeah, I found a great piece of sunburst Descoware at a yard sale a few months ago, but it had really crazy damage to the enamel on the bottom, a couple of deep gouges. After a couple of hours trying to figure out what to do, I had to toss it. Haven't tried dolma yet with the leaves, but... preserves? With the grapes? That would require canning, right? Isn't that a really scary thing? ← Nah. A little fussy-fiddly, but sometimes, often, the results are worth it, esp. if your grapes are an intensely flavorful variety like Concord, as you suspect. Also with the grape leaves, Elizabeth David (ferget which book it's in at the moment) has a method for using them to line a cooking vessel for regular old mushrooms that end up tasting almost like wild mushrooms, due to said leaves. So good. EBay is a good source of Descoware, I think. Gouges are fatal, it's true, but mere discoloration is not.

Thanks for asking about this, Priscilla. Andrea and I share a real interest in a very particular period (mid-century modern) and related other elements that happen to share design styles with some very functional dinnerware, kitchen equipment, and so on. Our everyday dishware is, as you mention, Blue Heaven; our drinkware is also from that period. A lot of the other items in the kitchen -- ice crusher, juicer, bread box, ice buckets, etc. -- are also from that period. In addition, basically all of our furtniture is the real deal: Heywood Wakefield, some Eames chairs, a George Nelson bubble lamp, that sort of thing. Some people see our stuff and think it's leftover from college, but most folks realize what we've got. As for incorporating it into my cooking, I'm not sure how to answer that. The stuff we have we use, but most of the stuff I use to cook -- my knives, pans, that sort of thing -- isn't really vintage. The only vintage cooking gear that can take the hard use my normal cooking dishes out (!) is old enameled cast-iron Descoware from the 1950s and 60s. I have several pieces, including a skillet that my Mom bought when she got married in 1955 and passed along to me some years ago. And after I'd had it a while already my Mom found the skillet's matching lid in a thrift shop -- it'd never had a lid of its own all those years. I have added in a few more Descoware pieces as they have crossed my purview -- they really perform. I especially like the integral handles on the oven lids -- no Le Creuset-like breakage problem. And the heavy lids on the skillets are so great at controlling evaporation during braising. Descoware has an old pleasantly dull lemony-buttery yellow that would perfectly complement your tile and KitchenAid and so forth. Just a thought from someone who spends a little too much time contemplating such things. In re your grapes, ever tried to make preserves with some? What about dolma with the leaves?

Chris this is a wonderful chronicle. What a lot of hard work, not only in what you've shown us in your blog, but in what you do for your family every day! And SO worth it, I daresay! I remember Pawtucket RI on the Mr. Potato Head of my childhood. Visiting friends years ago in Lincoln RI I realized that that was the name on my Cross pen! RI, little but mighty. Your blonde wood table & chairs are very nice -- I love the shape of the chair backs. Maybe before you wrap up you could address briefly incorporating vintage stuff into daily, serious cooking ... as for your Ice-O-Mat, if it ever breaks on you I have its minty-mint twin. However the Blue Heaven saucer which I'd been using as a spoonrest for 20 years finally chipped and had to go, just a few weeks ago.

Very very cool photo essay, Adam. I have always believed one could tell a lot about a country by its supermarkets (as differentiated from other types of markets). Isn't that black root the black radish of Eastern European cuisine?

The vitamins listed are just those that are added to what is called "enriched" flour here in the U.S. (Years ago I would buy "unenriched" organic flour from Kansas Mennonites for breadmaking, in case the added chemicals were affecting outcome. Now I just stick with King Arthur Flour, which is enriched.) Vitamin enrichment is an FDA requirement, I believe. I like LBB bread. It is not the same every time, which to me is a sign that it is actual living, breathing bread. But the depth of flavor is definitely there, and it is dependably good if not 100% consistent. In CA, as RJ Wong cited, Costco is a good source, and Trader Joe's's got many more varieties, and some supermarkets, too.

For a single volume, my fundamental is Madeleine Kamman's The Making of a Cook. The gigantic reissue is good, too, but I suppose I am sentimentally attached to the original. Craig Claiborne's four-volume Favorites was as important to me; his collected NYT columns, often featuring a major chef of the day (1970s), or a stone classic preparation, (and the occasional American Southern dish), all with Pierre Franey's trustworthy chefly supervision. I didn't appreciate until years and years later what a good combination a cooking-oriented writer and an actual chef make, for the transmission of information and inspiration. Time-Life's The Good Cook series is fantastic, but for whatever reason did not cross my purview until maybe 10 years ago, and then it was an immediate where-have-you-been-all-my-life. So glad to have it now, however, and consult it regularly. I think beginning cooks of today are lucky to have the likes of The Cook's Book as a fundamental. I could never get behind Joy of Cooking as an actual cookbook, although I admire its stealthily ambitious personality.

Jackal is correct, this is a stupendous book. Dan Lepard's contributions are especially inspiring, but there is much else as well. The large format is a bit bulky to heft around in the kitchen, but my one manufacturing wish would have been for a couple of placeholding ribbons. Wouldn't have minded a DVD as Jackal suggests, either, even better than ribbons!

Last evening nice little chicken which had been butterflied and salted & peppered and left in the fridge for a few days, then cooked in a hot oven, a little bastage. Spring mix salad bracingly dressed for the chicken to land upon, and baguette from the Vietnamese baker. Rose of Bergerac. The night before, late, everybody ravenous, perfect time for cheeseburgers ground from tri-tip, which makes excellent, minerally-juicy burgers. Tomato from the garden, thin-sliced onion, the rest of the usual suspects. Honey-Dijon Kettle Chips. Stray word edited out.

I love this sort of donation. It is good to see it going on all over the place! We auctioned off a dinner as part of a fundraiser benefitting the PTA of the little neighborhood elementary school. I don't remember its winning bid exactly, something over $200, a respectable amount considering the general modesty of the event. Luckily some neighbors we like bought it, and we had a very good time putting it on. It took place at our home, (the weather allowed for eating outdoors), and we supplied all materials and labor. Our son, who was then 11 or 12, did a fantastic job serving. The guests were so impressed he got his own separate thank-you note afterwards. We had to appeal to a variety of tastes and eating levels, and ended up with a menu of chicken saltimbocca, mushroom risotto, asparagus prepared some way, butter lettuce salad with grapefruit vinaigrette. I know there were individual peach tarte-tatin-type tarts served with Alain Ducasse's sour cream sorbet, only we infused its simple syrup with basil. Italian mineral water and nexpensive wine throughout, and our homemade arancello for afters. All in all an extremely pleasant way to support a local cause.

MtheC, I was thinking you could cut it yet thinner lengthwise, either butterflied or in two separate slabettes, and stuff and roll, or roll and stuff, before braising. My Mom used to do something like this with flank steak -- course there is no guarantee if not prepared in a flame orange Descoware oval oven or a Presto pressure cooker. That said, the pinwheel slices are pretty and delicious pan sauce is easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Well this is going to be exciting. And what a cute, ladylike kitty! My votes are for: Parsi cuisine, Indian cuisine, and Philadelphia cheesesteaks, but of course I will have nothing to complain about regardless of the outcome. Percy, do you have any contact with a Zoroastrian community where you live?

Wow delicious-looking quail in your mixed grill. Susan this blog has been a treat!

A lovely manicure, indeed. I had to laugh reading of the talk turning to food during your spa afternoon -- the other week getting my toes done I left unread a massive, juicy W mag to eavesdrop my way into a nice conversation with a German woman leaving the next day to visit family in Germany and the Vietnamese-American proprietess, about, guess what, German food and Vietnamese food. Had some things affirmed and some things I learned anew. Your indoor picnic looks very good. How was the rosemary in the potato salad dressing? It can so easily become overpoweringly resiny. Blog on!

I'm not sure about it's origin, Capri comes as news to me. It is quite common to call "alla Siciliana" pasta dishes that have the combination of fried aubergines, tomato sauce and cheese of some sort, which goes back to the fact that aubergines were introduced by the Arabs in Sicily and spread from there to the rest of southern Italy. My recipe is quite simple: I dice my aubergines, 1cm dice, and shallow fry them in olive oil. You could salt them before, as many do, but I personally like the slightly bitter and piquant taste of the aubergines at full power. Once golden I drain them on plenty of kitchen paper and reserve a tiny bit of the frying oil to prepare the sauce. In Italy you find some great canned cherry tomatoes nowaday, so I usually use these, otherwise use quartered raw cherry tomatoes. Once the sauce is ready -I don't use times just taste, you have to lose that raw tomato note- I add the aubergines back in and a few basil leaves and let the flavours blend together while the whole simmers for 5-10 minutes. You could add extra basil on top as chiffonade but you really need to add some to the sauce too to get a good strong basil aroma in there. The pasta i use is any "pasta corta" I have at hand: penne, ziti, tortiglioni... clearly ruote would be fine too. The shape you use is really a matter of personal preference. Once the pasta is dressed in the sauce I tham add about a handful per person of finely chopped mozzarella or provola, i.e. smoked mozzarella. It's important that the pasta is still piping hot when you add the cheese and that you mix really quickly otherwise the cheese won't properly melt, in the first case, or build a gigantic lump in the second. ← Thank you, Albiston. This is so similar to the one I was given by my coworker, down to the specifying cherry tomatoes and smoked mozz ... intriguing! His directions add the basil chiffonade to the dressed pasta while mixing in the cheese, and the heat activates its aroma nicely. However I think I will make sure basil gets in the quick tomato sauce next time, too! And, your little boy is adorable!

Wonderful photos, Albiston. The pink swordfish is just mouthwatering, both raw and in the pasta dish. The aubergine reference piqued my interest especially, as your description of aubergine with cherry tomatoes and mozzarella fits an excellent pasta recipe given to me several years ago by an Italian who told me it was from Capri. I'd never seen the particular combination before, and now your report leads toward a possible regional affiliation. Would you, if you have a chance, elaborate on your preparation? My Italian coworker specified ruote pasta for his dish, which also includes chiffonade of basil.