plum tart

Sunchokes are indeed a pain to peel. For years I made a recipe of Jacques Pepin's which combined chicken and jerusalem artichokes in a cream sauce. It is a kind of braise. You don't peel the artichokes. This method draws out the nutty flavour of the sunchokes and is very tasty. I haven't made it recently because of it is rich but I used to make it at least once or twice a year. I have not found any other recipe that works quite so well as this one.

For years I used a manual toaster - it was the only way I could control the degree of "toastedness". I still have that toaster - they don't wear out. I have never been happy with pop up toasters. This year however, I felt like a change. I bought a toaster oven - the Cuisinart brick oven model which I now use - it does a good job but I still watch like a hawk. My favourite way to make toast is to bake the slices of bread in the oven at about 275-300 degrees. I find the flavour of this baked toast is deeper and wheatier. I don't bake toast for breakfast - I usually make it to accompany soup. Sometimes I butter it first. Yummm!

Red zinger tea from Celestial Seasonings if I have a cold - love the color and the flavor. I always add lots of lemon juice and honey. For chills and flu, I drink a mild black tea clear - darjeeling or keemun if I have them.

I live in Canada where we have only KFC and Popeye. Popeye arrived very recently and I wasn't impressed with either the chicken or the biscuits. The biscuits were hard little hockey pucks with no flavour whatsoever. The chicken was just ok. I will not be ordering from Popeye again. KFC has been in Canada for years and I crave it (lacking any alternative) about once a year. However, I have always found it too salty and the spices too ersatz so after my first drumstick I peel off the skin. Also their sides aren't all that great any more. Mostly I make my own (using Lori Colwin's recipe )which I like much more and I can have the biscuits fresh from the oven. I was in North Carolina for Christmas and my host swears by Bojangles. We had it 2 or 3 times for lunch. The biscuits are delicious especially since they serve them just out of the oven and the chicken was moist and tender with a crisp crust and a reasonable addition of salt and spice. They have sweet biscuits too which were good and a country ham and egg biscuit sandwich which my hostess loves. So, in my humble Canadian opinion, they are the best and I wish we had Bojangles in Canada.

My Life in France - Julia Child Letters to a Young Chef - Daniel Boulud A Meal Observed - Andrew Toddhunter Tender at the Bone nd its 2 sequels- Ruth Reichl Monsoon Diary - Shoba Narayan Feeding a Yen - Calvin Trillin Mouth Wide Open - John Thorne Risotto with Nettles - Anna del Conte Raw...Anthony Bourdain Animal, Mineral, Vegetable - Barbara Kingsolver This was a hard list to write and there are several more titles that I would have liked to include. This is a highly personal list. I collect fook writing and like it to evoke the pleasures of life and of eating. I like it to be well written and humorous, opinionated and personal and not too academic. I like it to transport me and deepen my understanding of food and its preparation in other cultures as well as my own. I like it to make me hungry and eager to cook.

yes, nutmeg is lovely with truffle tagliatelle.

When I have a white truffle I always grate it over tagliatelle with butter and parmesan with just a touch of cream. The combination is divine.

I prefer to serve ragus with paparadelle for all the reasons you have given. It is a better vehicle for the sauce and is more satisfying taste-wise and also in terms of mouth feel and texture.

Years ago, my husband and daughter and I had a cottage near a sugarbush south of Owen Sound Ontario. Every year in spring break or when the sap was running we would make maple syrup. We didn't want to spend a lot of money on equipment - so we bought taps and used them but we collected the sap in green plastic garbage bags (these were my husband's favourite container for just about everything). We did the initial reduction outside over a fire using my very large stock pots since we didn't have an evaporator, and I would do the final finishing off reduction indoors. That still involved a lot of boiling. You really need to do the initial reduction outside since you have to boil a large volume for a long time to get anywhere near syrup. The farmers next door who made maple syrup every year using a huge ancient evaporator and tending the fires all night, recommended old long johns as a filter. We were somewhat dubious but tried them. Our syrup was pristine - clear and pale and sweet. The farmer's syrup was dark and smokey. We loved them both.

Years ago my husband and I were invited to dinner at colleagues of his, in the television business. Both Alan and I had reputations as adventurous and curious cooks so our hosts had determined that they should cook us something exotic and foreign. They decided to cook meloukhia, an Egyptian soupy stew made with fresh jute leaves, a variety of spices and sometimes chicken. I don't believe they had eaten the dish before, nor that they had a recipe for it. In any event what we sat down to at dinner was a grey green tasteless muck with no chicken or spices to be found. The erstwhile cook was very pleased with herself. Unable to find fresh meloukhia leaves she had searched out and found boxes and boxes of dried meloukhia leaves, and with the addition of water and nothing else she had made our meal. There were no accompaniments, just the pasty sludge that went by such a lovely name. We had a terrible time choking it down - it had no flavour and a ghastly texture and I recall not being able to finish it. In addition, the couple and several cats - 4 or 5 which they allowed to roam on the table while they were dining. The cats wandered here and there (they certainly weren't interested in the meloukhia) and were fed meat tidbits. I was actually envious of them - they ate better than we did. However, I did not appreciate their presence and their food on the table with ours. It was an appalling evening and we never visited again. Maybe we weren't sufficiently appreciative guests (I didn't ask for the recipe) but even now I can't think of that "meal" withoug gagging.

Thank you so much for the recipe. It sounds incredibly delicious. I will make it soon! Yumm

I have always covered the pots lightly with foil in order to prevent the crust and it has always worked well, however I think I will try a sheet pan, next time - it is easier and not so fiddly. I don't recall pock marks and I have made hundreds over the years. I'd keep the water bath though to keep the texture silky. I agree the oven temperature should be lower.

How did you make your broth? A student that lived with me once make it out of some powdered mixture that she bought at the Chinese grocery store. Frankly, it was revolting. I have tried recipes from some of my Chinese cookbooks but haven't been entirely satisfied. Could you recommend a recipe or a method?

I ordered Darina Allen's book after Snadra's post and I received it the next day from Amazon. It is a lovely gentle cookbook, and I am enjoying reading it. While I won't slaughter pigs, or defeather chickens I will cook from it. And as Snadra says it is lovely to know there is a country in the world where people still cook the traditional way!

My daughter and her partner are great outdoor enthusiasts. They hiked the west coast trail ov Vancouver Island last summer. It was supposed to be a 3 week hike but halfway into it they realized that they were running out of food, so they supplemented their diet with a lot of huckleberries and other kinds - salal berries, blackberries etc. They had gorgeous looking breakfasts of a mixture of all sorts of berries but Suzanna says that the huckleberries were the best. She's going to hunt them down next summer and make pies.

My copy of "A Platter of Figs" was appropriated by a highly respected Canadian chef. He couldn't put it down so I let him keep it. He cooks in the European style you refer to.

I loved Platter of Figs and this one sounds wonderful as well. I will be buying it soon for sure.

Thanks for the review of Fortune Cookie Chronicles. I have been eyeing it for a while. Now I have a reason to buy it!

Pasta with fresh pasta clams - pancetta browned in olive oil, lots of garlic, parsley, and a couple of Turkish dried peppers added, then the clams. Poured in some white wine and the juice of a lemon. Steamed the clams until they opened (they ALL opened!) tossed it all over the pasta and added some more fresh parsley. I toasted bread crumbs to sprinkle on top. An excellent quick meal. Good with an arugula salad lightly dressed.

Oh I agree. I looove Laksa and was planning to make myself some this weekend, paste and all if I can get some fresh turmeric. I have a fabulous recipe with all sorts of garnishes. It is my favourite soup of all! Even better than my borscht. Yummm

My favourite kind of food story! Please keep on with your ritual - it might evolve, it might not. We will be kept guessing.

I am very envious of your lunches So much fun and so delicious!

I had a Christmas lunch with colleagues at Le Select Bistro yesterday. I hadn't been to their new location and it is lovely and jam packed with eaters celebrating the Christmas season. I had a kir to start, followed by braised cokscombs and mushrooms in a wine sauce. They were delicious and interesting at the same time, mild in flavour and gently chewy. This was followed by skate in brown butter with a lovely Alsatain reisling. The skate was impeccably fresh with the flesh removed from the wings and annointed in brown butter. I enjoyed it. My colleagues had French onion soup which Andy, a serious francophile says is the best in Toronto. Andy followed with choucroute garni, the chef's specialty and Maggie had the duck confit in a gorgeous jus. For dessert we shared rum baba and iles flottant. We lingered over dessert and coffee until about 3 pm. The restaurant emptied and became peaceful with only a few hangers on at the bar. The food was very good at Le Select and I am surprised that Toronto Life doesn't list them in their guide. I know there are many bistros in Toronto now, but Le Select prepares the bistro classics well, it is not expensive and the service is better than in many trending spots. It was a good beginning to Christmas dining.

Started yesterday to make a large pot of borscht. Combined methods and ingredients from 2 recipes - Ukranian borscht from Time Life Russia and the same from The Good Cook Soups edited by Richard Olney. Used a ham bone, brisket, beef shank, salt pork and beef short ribs for the meats; grated beets, carrots, parsnips, celery root and some fresh horseradish in addition to onions, garlic, cabbage. i didn't ferment the beets so used vinegar from my pickled beets, a squirt of lemon juice, some liquid from some kosher pickles, and some sauerkraut wine juice. Yesterday, the soup was a beautiful clear ruby; today somewhat muted but still beautiful. Took hours to braise the meat, make the stock and then cook the vegetables very briefly. I debated as whether to eat the meat as a separate course but instead cut some of it up in very small dice and added it back to the soup. Ate it with sour cream of course, with a beer and my Danish rye bread. Great for a day that is 14 below zero. And I have 6 quarts so can freeze it for the deep winter days in January and February. The house smells beefy and beety with whiffs of vinegar. Lovely. I can rest now.

Love your kitchen - so compact and cozy. And I love the green - my favourite colour.