FrogPrincesse

How did you guess? Would love to have more details on this dish, please!

Are these frog legs? Edited to add: Nevermind. Just saw your description which was included between your pictures.

A few years ago, I had a chance to visit a great exhibit at the Mingei museum in San Diego, Eva Zeisel: Extraordinary Designer at 100. We have a few of her designs from the Classic Century line at home. Really beautiful pieces.

I just found a picture that my husband took of the soup I served for the Christmas dinner: Root Vegetable Soup with Apples and Duck Ham from Think Like a Chef (Tom Colicchio). It's a very harmonious blend of butternut squash, parsnip, carrot, leek, fennel, and Granny Smith apple. My favorite part is the green apple and duck prosciutto garnish.

Beautiful cocktail, mukki. I never had much chance with egg cocktails - I probably need to work on my shaking technique to achieve such a nice result. Tonight I tried the Rio Bravo: Cachaça, lime, orgeat, and muddled ginger. Really fresh and an excellent vehicle to showcase homemade orgeat!

Jose Andres' restaurant Zaytinya may be another source of inspiration. It features modern twists on the cuisines of Greece, Turkey and Lebanon, with an extensive selection of mezze (small plates).

Baklava and kataifi are the first desserts that come to mind. Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Tonight's soup is a Cream of Parsnip Soup from How to Pick a Peach (Russ Parsons). It is said to be a simplified version of a Jeremiah Tower recipe which is finished with shaved white truffles. Unfortunately white truffles were nowhere to be found in the house.

I tried a few variations on the Old Fashioned tonight. The American Trilogy: equal parts bonded Applejack and rye (I used Rittenhouse), orange bitters. This cocktail was introduced to me by a friend. I read that it was created by Richard Boccato and Michael McIlroy from Little Branch in 2007. Then I tried the same cocktail with Calvados instead of the applejack. It was not quite as good but I suspect that my Calvados is not quite up to par. Then this cocktail on the Bittermens website caught my eye: The Conference (attributed to Brian Miller at Death and Company, 2007) with 1/2 oz each rye, bourbon, Calvados, Cognac, 1/4 oz demerara, Angostura and mole bitters, lemon and orange twists. It's a fun cocktail with a little bit of everything!

Here is a recent interview with Anthony Schmidt where he talks about being mentored by Sam Ross from Milk and Honey, and how he approaches his job.

How was it? I haven't tried any of the cocktails with grenadine as I don't have a good one and have ruined several cocktails with the one I have...

For the sake of completeness, I would like to note that Blanca unfortunately closed last year. Chef Gavin Schmidt said he would be moving to the Bay area later this year.

You could add lemon juice and Angostura for the Intro to Aperol.

One of my favorite twists on the Manhattan: The Red Hook. Rye, Punt e Mes, maraschino, brandied cherry.

Risotto with egg... That sounds really decadent. Last night we had local white seabass with a dill beurre blanc, and sugar snap peas.

We had a few days of cold weather in San Diego last week, so I made a soup with beet greens that I usually throw away. I used a mirepoix base, and a few potatoes. The beet greens had a pleasant sour taste which was reminiscent of sorrel.

Your questions are way beyond my ken, but I did catch the 'lead contamination' bit. Three of my crockpots are old and I'd like to know where they stand in this issue. Please. Don't leave us all hanging. Thanks. Here is a link with detailed information about the Rival crock pot recall. I just realized mine was affected. http://www.rivalrecall.com/

Last night's dinner: Linguine with Clams

Buffalo Trace is a good choice (great in cocktails too!). Here we can get it for ~ $20 a bottle.

It's a nice book; I don't think that you will regret your purchase. Some recipes use esoteric ingredients but there are a lot of cocktails that are accessible too. This is what I made last night: May Daisy cocktail with Cognac, Chartreuse, lemon, and simple. I was almost tempted to grate some nutmeg on top. It tasted like a very fancy punch. There is a good amount of Chartreuse in it, but it was really toned down by the Cognac. I am not sure if that is a good thing or not (I love Chartreuse so I would rather taste it!). Anyway, it was a very enjoyable cocktail.

Last night's dinner, inspired by the low temperatures and rain in San Diego: roasted chicken with Ozette potatoes from my CSA. I used the method from Tom Colicchio's Think Like a Chef for the chicken: brown on its side in an oven-proof skillet on the stove, then transfer to the oven and baste a few times.

Thanks rotuts, I am glad that you enjoy reading this. The Galette des Rois is actually pretty simple to make if you use purchased puff pastry, which I did. Maybe not quite as photogenic as the Galette, here is a dish I made a couple of days ago with the Sauce Bordelaise à la Crème (shallot sauce with white wine and cream) from page 217. I was looking for a twist on the classic beurre blanc that I enjoy with fish a lot. With Sauce Bordelaise, red wine is what first comes to mind. This version is made with cream and white wine. Compared to beurre blanc, it's much more robust since it contains flour. A big advantage is its stability. It may not be as refined as beurre blanc, but it is a very good option for a winter meal. The fish was black rock cod served with pencil asparagus from my CSA. The recipe is visible here on Google books.

Here is a link to the piece on KPBS with Anthony Schmidt.

I also made a classic Bijou using the exact recommendations from PDT: Tanqueray, Dolin rouge, Chartreuse, orange bitters. I really enjoyed it. I had tried the Bijou before with a different gin/sweet vermouth combo (same ratios) and thought that it was too heavy on the Charteuse. With these ingredients, this cocktail really came to life for me.

Here are a few other cocktails from the PDT Cocktail Book that I made in the past couple of weeks. Left Hand cocktail: bourbon, sweet vermouth, Campari, mole bitters. An excellent Manhattan variation. Talbott Leaf. That one had an intriguing ingredient list: bourbon, lemon, Chartreuse, Cynar, mint, strawberry preserves (!). It was actually delicious. There is only a touch of the preserves so you can't really tell that they are there. But they blend nicely with the other ingredients, especially the mint and Chartreuse. Harvest Moon: rye, Lillet, Chartreuse, apple brandy, bitters. It was very good and smooth. I am not a big fan of the apple brandy, but there was only enough to add some interesting background notes without dominating the drink. Applejack Rabbit: bonded apple brandy, orange & lemon juices, maple syrup. Very nicely balanced and the apple brandy paired well with the maple syrup. I liked it (despite the apple brandy!). Hanky Panky (based on Harry Craddock): Tanqueray, Carpano Antica, Fernet I was not completely sold on that one. Despite loving all things bitter (Campari, Cynar, etc), I have a hard time with the intense herbal notes in Fernet. I much prefer a classic Negroni. The last one I did not care for at all. South Slope : gin, Aperol, Lillet blanc, curacao, lemon. The combination of Lillet and Aperol which works in the Unusual Negroni, for example, didn't work here for me at all. It was very sweet and strange, almost like a bad piece of candy. And the color didn't help for sure!