Chufi

I agree.. The Hospices de Beaune is one of the most magical places I ever visited. I've been there 2 times and if I was ever in the area, I would go again. We were at Ma Cuisine 2 years ago and loved it. I had the pate then too! great trip report Arne. We have done hiking trips like that all over Europe (where your luggage is transported, and all you do is hike from one place to the next) and it's a great way to explore a region. And, after walking about 20 kilometres, dinner and wine taste soooo good

Made the end-of-summer green beans today and they were fantastic. Even my husband who doesn't really like green beans loved them. They braised for an hour and were really sweet and succulent. I followed the recipe exactly except .. I used fresh thyme instead of dried oregano. I did have to boil quite vigurously at the end to concentrate the sauce. A keeper!

I was so intrigued with this twist on a Dutch classic that I had to make it right away! I didn't have chocolate chips though, so I just added 2 heaping tablespoons of Dutch cocoapowder to the dough. Thank you so much Nishla for this idea. It's really good!

Danielle, I am very much looking forward to this week. Chicago is very high on my list of 'places in the US I want to go' (I have to admit that this has something to do with a major ER addiction, I've watched the first 4 seasons at least 4 times ), so I'm thinking this blog will be great for future reference! Do you like the city after living there since August? What do you miss about Toledo, foodwise?

Eden that was amazing. I am especially impressed that everything looked so beautiful, I know from experience that when you are cooking for large numbers, garnishing can suffer. You did a terrific job and should be really proud of yourselves! Now go and play with the ferrets and then put your feet up!

Mette, it looks great, especially the bar.. beer marshmellow, mmm.. I would be very much interested in seeing pictures of the ingredients such as this and this.

Porcini misfortunes, part II. so, yesterday I was at the market and passed a vegetable stall (one I never go to because they sold me some bad stuff in the past). And there they were, right next to eachother: the King Oyster mushrooms (or whatever they're called) mentioned above, and something that looked, suspiciously, like the Real Thing. I asked how much is the porcini? (using the Dutch word, eekhoorntjesbrood, which means squirrelbread, which is of no significance to this story, but just some interesting porcinitrivia) "you want the real ones or the fake ones? both are 2,50 euro per 100 grams". "uhm, okay, I'll take the real ones please" I was very happy. These porcini were going to end up on my 'sort of Umbrian gourmet pizza', together with a jar of trufflepaste. I could already smell the delicious autumnal aroma that was going to waft through the house on Sunday afternoon. Just now, prepping for dinner, I opend the paperbag with the mushrooms. Yes, they are there, but what's also inside, are maggots. Not just one fat one which I could have flushed down the sink. Dozens of tiny white maggots, happily eating their way through my Real Porcini. We're having crackers with wild boar-truffle pate (made by my organic butcher) right now, as an appetizer, which is, at least, sort of in tune with Umbria. Then there will be eggplant & chorizo pizza for dinner. I hope to do better, Umbrian-dinner wise, later in the week. edited to add: thanks to Pontormo, I found a number of posts about worms in porcini (doesn't 'worms' sound better than 'maggots'? Apparently these are very common and you can still eat the mushrooms. Hm. I threw them out.. there were so many of them.. can't say I'm sorry!

Nishla, what a great idea! I'm going to steal that!

krupuk gnocchi foufou ratafia

Wow Tammy that sounds like an amazing dinner! I hope your 'guests' appreciated it.. and now you should get some well-earned rest! those Nanaimo bars look very good, they are on my to-make-soon list now!

And here I am with another question. I'm doing a pizza dough experiment this weekend and want to make pizza on Sunday. What would Umbrian pizza have for a topping (don't say 'porcini'or 'truffle' )

Thanks guys.. I think I will talk to the people at the market.. mind you, this is the stall that had a sign that read 'red shark' (in english!) above their bunches of baby red chard And that wasn't meant to be funny.. They mean well, but could use some vegetable education...

congratulations Elie.. The cake looks very festive! I made a sort of Umbrian dinner today. But first a question.. Is this fresh porcini?? My market sells it as such.. but I have to say I was really underwhelmed by the flavor.. it was quite bland, I expected something much more earthy and woodsy.. and if this isn't porcini, then what is it? salad (baby spinach, parmezan) was still good though. lentils with sausages. My sausages did not have the fennel flavoring so I added some chopped fennel and some crushed fennelseeds to the lentils. Oh and then my husband wanted to pile everything on to his plate and I said no, you can't, your food mustn't touch

Eden, this is utterly fascinating. Please write as much as you like about the historical backgrounds of this dinner and your interest in food history, I'm sure lots of readers are interested! The dinner sounds like an enormous undertaking. Lots of good luck and thanks for taking on blogging as well to share all of this with us, it's hard work! edited to add: that saba stuff has popped up in 3 different places the last week. I wonder if this means something! I should go and buy some (not that I know where to get it..) edited to add something else: that really is a very cute ferret. I hope the sick one is alright now?

One of my Chinese co-workers brought mooncake to work last week and I was so excited! All my other (Dutch) co-workers were completely puzzled what this thing was, I'm so thankful for the education of eGullet.. and the piece of cake I had was delicious!

spaghettti, wow, glorious poffertjes! And I'm pleased to see that big knob of butter melting on top.. that's how it should be! mikeymike, that's an interesting variation with the wine and cream. It's so rich to begin with, I would never have thought of adding more fat , but I'm sure it tastes great! DragonflyDesserts, I'm glad you like this thread! Your maiden name, Kruid, means spice, did you know that? If you decide to make any of the recipes, please report back and let me know what you think!

no. The porcini sign was up there, but below it were bunches of ridiculously expensive, yet sad-looking asparagus . I hope I'll have better luck later in the week!

thank you, Judith, for a truly wonderful week.

I forgot about this thread! And I made such a wonderful soup today! I posted it in the Dinner thread but I should have posted it here...

I have a bunch of beautiful red, yellow, orange and ruby chard stalks in the fridge. is there anything typically Umbrian I can do with them for dinner tomorrow? I can get porcini at my market.. or something that looks like them anyway.. would they go together?

hathor, this is such a great blog, as far as I'm concerned, one of the very best ever... your pictures are gorgeous but the best part for me is your writing.. so evocative and you really know how to capture your audience! I am completely hooked! Every post is a story. Beautiful.

It is basically this recipe for Dutch applepie: Click except, instead of raisins and candied citron, I used chopped prunes and some grated marzipan for flavorings. Also, I had scaled down the recipe for my small springform pan (trying to bake small pies so we won't eat as much ) and then I did not have enough dough to make the lattice crust, so I made a quick crumble by mixing together some oats, sugar, butter and flour. The prunes were really good in the pie!

click here and you'll see they're selling it on line. here's the cheese in context of other dutch cheeses they sell. i mean, i'm no gouda expert, but dibruno's is a reputable store so i have no doubt that what they're selling is what they say it is. the phone number is there on the page i linked--why not give them a call and ask if it bothers you? ← I contacted them (via e-mail). I will report back when I hear from them.

Made the chicken with soy sauce, star anise and orange today. I always have good, thick syrupy ketjap manis in the pantry, so I used that instead of the soy sauce and sugar. I do feel that soy sauce and sugar is definitely not the same as ketjap manis, so if you can find ketjap I would highly recommend using it for this recipe. I used a fresh hot chili, chopped up, and before thickening the sauce with cornstarch I strained it because I wanted a smooth sauce. The chicken came out very tender and flavorful, and the sauce is fantastic.. I wanted to spoon it up like soup. Beautiful flavors from the anise and the orange.

Applepie Season is here! this one is made with Bramley apples, chopped prunes and bits of marzipan, and oatcrumble on top.