Thanksgiving, 2013!

The family's all here and ready to eat.

The family’s all here and ready to eat.

A couple weeks ago, Shefali, Kaya and I had the good fortune to spend Thanksgiving with my parents, my sister and her family and Shefali’s mother and sister.   This was our first Thanksgiving since we moved back the West Coast, so it was a real treat to be able to spend it with both sides of our families.  In addition, our good friends, Simon and Jen and their kids, and PK (and his two crutches) also joined us for what proved to be a delicious and nutritious (calories are nutritious right?) feast.

As usual, we spent several hours preparing and cooking the requisite T-Day food – stuffing (sausage stuffing from me, oyster stuffing from my mom), turkey (grilled in record time on the Weber by my dad), mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts (prepared by Cameron and Cheryl) and three different desserts (apple galette and cheesecake from Jen, pumpkin pie from Shef).  Also as usual, the eating/ inhaling food part took all of about 15 minutes and left us all slouched uncomfortably in a haze of culinary  excess. Another year and another successful Thanksgiving.  But don’t just take my word for it.  Watch the two part documentary masterpiece which so compellingly captures our Thanksgiving, 2013!

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Churrasco!!!

Almir’s self rotating meat roaster

A few weeks ago Shef and I embarked on our summer holiday which consisted of a road trip to the Southwest (view photos here) bookended by two weekends in LA.  The first weekend we went to my college friend Ben’s wedding (congrats again to Ben and Maria on a beautiful wedding and amazing food – mmmm hand made tortillas!). The second weekend in LA was for the expressed purpose of attending our friends Jacob and Sari’s eighth annual Brazilian churrasco. Again, Almir Santre brought his expertise and culinary talents to bare and served up delicious grilled meats of all varieties to a lovely and appreciative group of Sari and Jacob’s family and friends (in whose number we thank our lucky stars to be included). For those long time you-food readers (probably numbering in the single digits – sad but true) you might remember the description and back story of Jacob and Sari’s BBQ as written about in Food Weekend in LA.  With the exception that everyone has gotten two years older, not much has changed except that the video you see below you is now in HD which means the juiciness of the meat comes through a little bit clearer.  Sorry, no smellovision or tastovision… yet.

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Memorable Meals, Autumn-Winter, 2009. Part 1

Yes, yet another long lag since my last post.  But fear not.  Though I’ve neglected this blog, I haven’t neglected dear food or my enjoyment of it.  Please enjoy this first installment in a three part (because really, aren’t the best stories  told in trilogies?) account of a few of the more notable meals and food inspired gatherings of the latter part of 2009.  Click on the snouts below for the full story of a delicious weekend in Pennsylvania.

oink?

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Matt’s Wood Oven Pizza!

Okay maybe I should rename this site “Cooking with Matt”.   What can I say?  He’s a great cook, he makes preparing food easy and accessible and he always lets me shoot him cooking.  See that’s all you need to do to be a star on this amazing blog. Alright so we already know Matt’s the Dumpling King.  And in the last post I dubbed him The Earl of Sourdough.  Now I must give him another alias: Pizza Maestro.  Read on for the full story.

Every front yard should have one of these.

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Cassoulet – the frenchiest darned thing in France

Cassoulet for LUNCH!

In my last post, Clarence, I believe I vowed that I live in France but I never eat French food. Well, I’ve been in the south of France for 3 months now and I can now say that my stomach is totally French. I eat an entire baguette every other day. I eat more “patisserie” et “viennoiseries” than I did in all of the 3 years that I worked above 5 bakeries at NYC’s Chelsea Market. I’ve eaten tons of different cheeses (hope do to do a little blog on that soon), and I drink wine every other day. My stomach is un “ballon de foot”.

My French cousin took a look at my recent facebook photos and exclaimed in delight over a “texto” that I’d finally “taken weight”. Dit Quoi?!!!! – I need a salad…and not a french salad because they always like to add sausage or ham!

The above photo is one of my latest favorite things – it is, in my opinion, the most typical of french dishes – The Cassoulet… (read the full story here.)

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