FOOD ON THE FOOD

Garlicky Green Beans

Following up on my Mother's Day post, here's a recipe for garlicky green beans similar to the ones we had at Mulan. We love the basic recipe, but there are lots of variations, too. You can add 1 tablespoon of chopped scallions and/or minced fresh ginger. You can add a splash of toasted sesame oil and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Or you can heat things up with a half teaspoon of sriracha or some sliced fresh chilies. It's all good.

Garlicky Green Beans    

The kids used to hate green beans prepared this way, but now they love them. Huzzah!

1 pound green beans or Chinese long beans, trimmed, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon hoisin sauce (or honey)
1 tablespoon rice wine or white wine (or water)
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
Pinch of kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large wok or skillet over medium-high heat, and sauté the green beans, tossing occasionally, for about 7 minutes or until they blister and brown in places but are still crisp-tender, not mushy. Remove the green beans to a plate.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, hoisin sauce, and rice wine. Set aside. Add the garlic to the hot pan and stir-fry for about 20 seconds until fragrant but not browning. Add the beans and sauce, and stir until heated through and the sauce reduces to a thick glaze, 1 to 2 minutes. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.

Mother's Day at Mulan

Mother's Day got off to a great start this year. First, I was treated to a homemade pancake breakfast courtesy of Husband, which included his famous blueberry pancakes, bacon, and fresh fruit. The kids presented me with some sweet handmade cards (I find it interesting that my youngest still draws me with short cropped hair even though it's been down to my shoulders for a while now). We spent most of the day at the park kicking a ball around, and then we decided to go out to dinner at Mulan, the new Taiwanese restaurant that opened in Waltham where the old Beijing Star used to be. It's the second outpost of the original Cambridge location, which had received favorable reviews from Husband and his lunchtime companions.

Things weren't looking too good at first, as we stood on Main St. outside Mulan. The line was long, which always makes Husband antsy, and the kids were requesting things that weren't on the menu. It was starting to look like mutiny. In this case, mutiny would take the form of dinner at the Ninety Nine Restaurant instead. Now, don't get me wrong, I'll take the Kids Eat Free special at the Ninety Nine once in a while when the Red Sox win, but not on Mother's Day. I refuse. So I scolded everyone into submission, knowing that it meant one more strike against a potentially good meal.

But what actually happened is that we got seated within the 20-minute window they predicted. I've never seen anyone so competently manage a crowd as the woman running the hostess station. Friendly is not the word I'd use to describe her demeanor, nor entirely rude, but she got the job done efficiently. When she barked her orders, everyone listened, and that place moved like clockwork.

We got a big table right in the middle of the room, where the kids proceeded to devour the salted peanuts and pickled vegetables set in the center of the table. They sampled the tea, and liked it. Because we ordered our food while we were still waiting outside, the dishes began arriving 5 minutes after we sat down, which meant the kids had no chance to even think about whining. The boys are somewhat adventurous eaters at home (not necessarily by choice), but we haven't challenged them too much when it comes to restaurants. We've gone to a few Chinese or Thai places over the years, but mostly we opt for the typical kid-friendly fare, like pizza at Flatbread or a burger at the Warren Tavern after the 10YO's soccer win in Charlestown. Our thinking boils down to this: When we go out to eat, we don't want a fight. Also: If we're going someplace exotic, let's not bring the kids! On the other hand, they're old enough to try new experiences, and the older one actually seems to enjoy it.

The garlicky green beans arrived first. There were no utensils in sight, so the kids grabbed the chopsticks and started practicing. I feared it would devolve into angry frustration and possible tears, but they always managed to get the food into their mouths somehow. The older one got the mechanics down pretty quickly despite the awkward logistics of a left-hander trying to teach a right-hander how to do anything. The 7YO developed his own style where he clutched the chopsticks down by the tips and kind of wedged the food in between them. It worked just fine. It helped that they absolutely loved the green beans.

Next, in quick succession, came the eggplant with basil, scallion pancakes, chicken wings, crispy salt and pepper pork chops, crab rangoon, and big bowl of noodle soup for the 10YO. (Yes, we ordered way too much, but it was Mother's Day, damnit!) The kids absolutely devoured the chicken wings and pork chops. The scallion pancakes and crab rangoon weren't their favorites. No problem. More for Husband and me. But, aside from the green beans, it was the eggplant with basil and chilies that absolutely blew my mind. I have GOT to try to make this at home. They used the miniature fairy tale eggplants we get in our CSA and it was absolutely fantastic. Even the kids said it was "okay" (the kids have never liked eggplant).

Everyone had a great time, the prices were good, and the kids enjoyed reading their fortunes. Best of all: we had leftovers enough for a whole other meal the next night so I didn't have to cook. Both kids even asked for chopsticks!

Mulan, 835 Main St., Waltham and 228 Broadway, Cambridge (Kendall Square), MA

Tuesday Tease: Carrot Cake

I know we're all getting really sick of cake right about now, but it's either another photo of cake or a minute-by-minute account of my day today, which was mainly spent engaged in a lot of premenstrual moping around.

Cake? I thought so.

Anemone Cupcakes

I had some leftover beet purée from the wedding cake last week, so I made the kids some chocolate beet cupcakes. To continue my education in wedding-appropriate food-styling, I practiced decorating them with frosting flowers: anemones to be exact. 

This is another Martha Stewart special. But unlike the infernal truffle eggs, you don't need rigorous professional training to pull these off. You do need a pastry bag with a special petal tip (like Wilton or Ateco 104), which I just happened to have in my old culinary school baking kit. Watch this video for tips on how to pipe the petals. Surprisingly, I found the petals turned out more delicate and defined when I worked quickly and didn't worry so much about the technique. Now that's the kind of decorating I can really get behind! Then, you let the frosting chill until firm, slice some blackberries into circles, brush a little blackberry juice in the center, apply a blackberry slice smack dab in the middle, and sprinkle with poppy seeds.

Did the boys appreciate my girlish renderings? Of course not. But they ate them anyway!

Wedding Cakes Aren't Just for Weddings

Who got married? Nobody, yet. I'm making a wedding cake for a friend in November and let's just say I need a little practice. I've never made a wedding cake before. I've never had any desire to make a wedding cake before. But you do crazy things for friends, so I thought I'd better do a few test runs so I don't ruin her wedding by mistake. (Sure, she says she doesn't care how it looks—only how it tastes—but take it from the woman who ended up buying two wedding dresses because she thought, who cares about the stupid dress? You WILL care. You'll care a lot.)



Test Run No. 1 was last week's Waltham Fields fundraiser. They needed dessert to feed a crowd and I needed someone to eat 100 pieces of cake—someone that's not me—so it worked out well. Since it was a farm fundraiser, I stuck to vegetable-themed cakes, for which I have many awesome recipes if I do say so myself. The bottom tier was carrot cake, the middle tier was chocolate beet cake, and the top tier was butternut squash cake, all slathered in cream cheese frosting. Waltham Fields donated all the veggies. I donated many, many curse words as I attempted to assemble the whole impossibly heavy thing and then fit it into my refrigerator.



The process of baking the cakes went fine, though six cakes in one day was a new record for me. The assembly is what takes forever. You have to trim the cakes to be perfectly flat and level, shaving off microscopic crumbly layers over and over because you keep making things worse. You have to whip up at least five batches of frosting. Each tier is a double layer cake, so you fill and frost two stacked cakes for each tier. (Some bakers cut each layer in half horizontally so each tier has four layers, but I was suicidal enough as it was. Plus, that's the wrong frosting-to-cake ratio in this case.)



I like to apply a crumb coat to layer cakes, which means you apply a really thin coat of frosting all over to trap the crumbs and then refrigerate the cake until the frosting stiffens to lock them in. Then you can apply a final crumb-free coat afterwards. Sounds easy, right? NOT!!! It's really hard to get the frosting to be completely flat and wrinkle-free. It doesn't want to be that way at all. Every time you lift up your icing spatula, it leaves a mark. And every time you set it down to erase the previous mark, it leaves another mark. It's an endless maddening cycle, but, whatever, I did the best I could.

Here's the real problem, though. Once you get all of your cakes nicely frosted and you're feeling fairly proud of yourself, how the fuck do you then stack 20-pound cakes on top of each other, all perfectly centered, without leaving draggy marks in your nice frosting job as you pull your fingers out from underneath? Can somebody please tell me? Because I'd really love to know.

God.

The other problem was that the finished cake was so heavy, I literally could not lift it. I couldn't do it! You may remember how much trouble I had carrying a regular-sized carrot cake a short distance last year. I've been working out, I swear, but the cakes keep getting bigger. I don't know how much this cake weighed (my kitchen scale doesn't go up that high), but here's a quick estimate based on the ingredients I used: 10 pounds of sugar, 5 pounds of cream cheese, 4 pounds of butter, 4 pounds of vegetables, 3 pounds of flour, 2 pounds of oil, 2 pounds of eggs, 1 pound of nuts, 1 pound of chocolate, and the board weighed 3 pounds. If I know simple arithmetic, that means the cake must have weighed at least 455 pounds. Luckily, Husband is strong. (I'm pretty sure he was sore the next day, but he'll never admit it.)

Here's another thing I learned: disassembling and serving wedding cakes is an unbelievably messy process. There's a reason why they take the cakes in the back to slice them: There's cake and frosting flying all over the place. I think the caterers who observed my amateur cake-wrangling skills were horrified. Once you take the tiers apart to slice them (and you need to do that or else you'll end up with an engineering disaster), the frosting in between the tiers gets suctioned right off by the cake directly above it. That means half the pieces end up with no frosting at all. Mind you, I had a GIANT bowl of leftover frosting back at the house that I could have used, but I didn't think I'd need it. None of my Wedding Cakes for Dummies books I took out of the library mentioned the bald cake part. They were all, bring a little frosting for last-minute touchups!, so I brought my little sandwich baggie of frosting that I then had to smear across 45 pieces of cake in a nearly invisible layer.

This is why you need test runs.

Anyway, all three layers were moist and delicious, and the cake as a whole didn't come out half as hideous as I thought it would be. I went for the rustic, spackled look, as you can see, adding a little texture to the sides to hide imperfections. I should probably practice piping frosting embellishments one of these days, but, for now, I'm just glad I have another 3 or 4 months before I have to do this all over again for Test Run No. 2.

(and, if you're wondering, no, those are not Martha Stewart's stupid truffle eggs. They're Jordan almonds, the ubiquitous Italian wedding favors, which just happen to work perfectly for springtime cakes.)

Parsnip Soup and Righteous Clichés

I have a milestone birthday coming up this year, like many of my friends. And as much as I'll be glad to reach it, I'm also bummed out about this whole aging thing.

You know what I'm talking about. Back in high school, everything is poised to get better. The braces will be pried off soon. The glasses can be traded in for contact lenses, maybe even the kind that turn your muddy eyes a cool shade of aquamarine like a mood ring. You're finally easing up on all the Aqua Net (step away from the can of hairspray, Tammy). The ugly duckling becomes a swan and all that crap. Meanwhile, you're making a little cash throwing together sandwiches on the weekends and you feel real smart with that diploma in your hand.

The world is yours for the taking!

In high school, you can't wait for college. In college, you look forward to getting out of college because all this studying is putting a damper on your social life. Plus, you want a fun job with a decent paycheck. You want a mode of transportation besides your own two feet. Dates at fancy restaurants. A place to live that's not a dump. Vacations. Soon you have some stuff, and you like your stuff, but you want something more. You want love. You want a family of your own. Then you get a family of your own and, for the whole first year, you can't believe what a horrible mistake you've made. No more dates at fancy restaurants. Your place becomes a dump. Vacations take on an entirely new and unwelcome meaning. Sometimes you wish you'd just stayed home.

But then you learn to stop being so selfish all the time and things gets better. Your family becomes your whole life. Does anyone else have kids as awesome as yours? NO WAY! IMPOSSIBLE! And then you realize something. Your kids are halfway through their childhood already. They're going to spend the whole second half hating you. And then they're going to leave.

They say you get better with age, but in what way specifically? Nicer? I don't think so. If anything, I'm getting more crotchety and even less charitable behind the wheel of a car. Wiser? Uh-uh. By my calculations, I'm getting stupider by the day. I've always been a wee bit forgetful, but this is ridiculous. I left my coat somewhere last week. At the library? At Walgreens? Where? How did I not notice my coat was missing? True, it felt colder, but all that ran through my head was: That's New England for you. One minute you're toasty warm in your nice winter jacket and the next minute you're shivering by the parking meters fumbling for change while the icy wind sucker punches you in the spleen and there's no logical explanation for it whatsoever. (I still haven't found it, by the way. My coat. It's puffy and gray with a big hood.)

The other night I looked in the mirror and realized that it's all downhill from here. This is as smart/healthy/attractive as I will ever be for the whole rest of my life. And, I'll be honest, the bar didn't seem very high.

Is this what a midlife crisis looks like?

Spring Parsnip Soup     

This recipe is stupefyingly simple. I don't even use stock anymore, just water. It's silky and surprisingly sweet. Snip a few chives on top and you have something tasty and healthful to warm you up on a chilly spring day when your coat is nowhere to be found.

1 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 medium onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
3 cups water (or veggie stock)
1 pound parsnips, peeled, cored*, diced
Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Sauté the chopped onion and celery for 4 to 5 minutes until soft and translucent. Don't let the vegetables brown. Add the garlic and sauté for 15 seconds until fragrant. Add the water or stock and the parsnips. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the parsnips are soft, 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool and purée in a blender or with a stick blender until perfectly smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Serves 2 or 3. The recipe can be doubled (just be sure to purée the soup in half-batches if using a blender).

*Some parsnips have a woody central core that runs from top to bottom. To remove it, I usually just slice the peeled sides right off the core, which is a slightly different color. (Then chop up the sides and discard the core.) But if you're not sure exactly where or how big the core is, you can also quarter the parsnip the long way. Then you can see it a lot better. Just trim along the interior edge of each quarter with a paring knife to remove it.

Springtime and Rhubarb Crisp

So far this spring, we've had very little in the way of April showers and lots in the way of freezing cold Arctic blasts that take your breath away. But I know you're coming, Spring. I know it because the snow piles have finally receded, exposing all the computer monitors that have been dumped in the woods behind our house, sun glinting off the screens at various times of day. I also know because the turkey vultures have returned to roost back there, as they do every year around this time, lured by rumors of carrion and free wifi.

But it's the appearance of rhubarb in the markets that truly announces warmer days ahead. Nothing says spring like weird pink vegetables. I made this ginger-laced rhubarb crisp for Easter weekend as the mercury inched past sixty degrees. The first real taste of spring!

I'm ready for more.


Rhubarb Ginger Crisp     

Bracing and bright, these two flavors were made for each other. You want fresh ginger here, not ground.

1-1/2 pounds rhubarb, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 Tbsp. minced fresh ginger
1-1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
4 ounces (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Butter the inside of a 9-inch pie plate or 8x8-inch baking dish.

Combine the rhubarb, ginger and 1 cup of the sugar in the prepared dish. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with your fingers (pinching the butter into smaller and smaller pieces) or using a pastry blender until the mixture resembles a coarse meal flecked with pea-sized pieces of butter (you can also do this in a food processor). Scatter the mixture over the rhubarb.

Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the rhubarb juices are bubbly. Remove from the oven and let it cool slightly. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Source: Adapted from The Country Cooking of Ireland by Colman Andrews.

Summer Dreaming

So, what'll you have today, good sirs and madams? 

(Photo taken at Wells Hollow Creamery in Shelton, Connecticut. Their flavor descriptions are here if you're having trouble deciding what you want on your imaginary ice cream cone.)

My Martha Moment

I had a Martha Stewart moment yesterday, however brief. The kids had written a cute poem on the refrigerator door with magnetic poetry, and I wanted to feature it on my blog for Easter. I decided to recreate Martha's blue-marbled white chocolate-covered truffle eggs seen here so that: a) I'd have an artsy image to go with the words; and b) I could eat some decent chocolate on Easter for a change.

However, the eggs didn't turn out so well. I don't know what kind of sweatshop Martha runs over there that produces truffle eggs so perfectly egg-shaped with marbling so perfectly sharp and well-defined yet appropriately whimsical, but I finally understand why her original recipe called for three pounds of white chocolate. You'll need that much or more if you hope to achieve anything even remotely egg-like. Even then, you still might end up with what resemble misshapen lumps of gorgonzola. If you have the patience, dedication, and skill for such a task, I suggest you turn your sights to med school.

Eff that. I coated the rest of the truffle eggs in cocoa powder and called it a day.

Eleven-Dollar Cauliflower

Last year, I went to a restaurant where they charged $11 for a tiny plate of cauliflower. Eleven dollars!

Now before you get all up in my grill, I'm not dissing cauliflower or any of the talented chefs that prepare it. Cauliflower is delicious, and why shouldn't it be trending right now? I know that restaurants have to factor in overhead when pricing appetizers, even inexpensive ones, but still. Eleven dollars? Next time there'd better be some caviar on that cauliflower!

If you too get so blinded by your love for cauliflower that you're tempted to pay exorbitant amounts of money for coaster-sized portions, here's a tip: make it at home. One way to prepare it is simply to roast it in a little olive oil. The secret is in the browning. No pale, waterlogged cauliflower here. Concentrating and caramelizing the sugars brings out the best flavor.

Once you learn how to make awesome cauliflower yourself, you can take those eleven dollars you just saved and spend them on something else on the menu, like a second cocktail or a fancy dessert you'd never make at home. Or a whole bushel of cauliflower at the cauliflower store!


Roasted Cauliflower     

I find it's better to cut the cauliflower into flat slices rather than lumpy florets so you have as much surface area in contact with the hot pan as possible for maximum browning. Cut the cauliflower into half-inch-thick slabs and cut the core out of the middle slices. They will naturally separate into bite-sized pieces while cooking.

2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 cauliflower, sliced into 1/2-inch thick slabs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400° F. Coat a sheet pan with a thin film of olive oil and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper. (You might need two pans depending on the size of your cauliflower.)

Lay the cauliflower in a single layer on the pan. No crowding. You don't want the pieces to sit too closely together or they'll steam more than roast. Drizzle with additional oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast the cauliflower on the bottom rack of the oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until the bottoms turn a golden shade of brown. Flip and cook 10 to 15 minutes more until the other side browns and the vegetables are tender but not mushy. Serve hot.

Magic Pencil Hiccup Cure

Anyone else out there plagued by relentless hiccups? Or hiccoughs, if you prefer? In my younger life, I tried every possible cure: holding my breath, spoonfuls of sugar, having someone jump out and scare the shit out of me. Nothing worked until eventually I'd pass out from exhaustion.

But surely, I thought, surely there must be some way to interrupt the infuriating cycle of spasmodic insanity short of tasering my diaphragm into submission. Lo and behold, in the spring of 1994, I found that solution in the most unlikely place: A hostel in the northwest corner of Spain. There, a stranger noticed my plight (and by noticed I mean she was hideously inconvenienced by it). I believe it was the owner of the hostel, though I honestly can't remember because I dismissed her advice almost immediately. She said to clench a pencil between your teeth while drinking a glass of water and voila: hiccups gone.

I mean, really, what kind of medical advice is that?

Naturally, I assumed it was quackery, but every hiccupping person has his or her breaking point. Eventually I gave in. What could it hurt, right? I located the nearest writing implement and bit down on it as instructed. Then I took a swig from my water bottle. Or tried, at least. It's surprisingly hard to drink water when you're unable to fully close your mouth. Water streamed down the front of me until I burst out laughing, spraying the whole mouthful all over the room.

The hostel owner was obviously in on some kind of practical joke. Is there anything more fun for Europeans than tricking dumb, potentially drunk Americans? Probably not. Or maybe my Spanish wasn't as good as I thought. Maybe she had simply said "drink some water" and had offered me a pencil to write down this important advice. Perhaps the pencil was all in my imaginings. STUPID PENCILS!!!

That's when my friend noticed that my hiccups had stopped. I froze for 15 seconds. She was right! They were GONE!!! I was so happy, she snapped a photo of the momentous occasion:


See the relief in my eyes? And the water-splattered bedspread? (I knew this photo would come in handy someday!)

Over the course of that trip, my hiccups returned a few more times, as they are wont to do, and each time the trick worked immediately (if messily). Since then, I've gotten no closer to mastering the art of drinking water with a pencil in my mouth (or pen or magic marker), but I don't care because it never fails me. I'm sure there's a logical explanation for why it works—something more to do with physiology than fairies—but I'm no scientist. All I know is the past 20 years have been virtually hiccup-free. Not bad for an obscure Spanish home remedy.

Friday Freeze: Snow Cones

This was supposed to be part of my Tuesday Tease series of lazy photo posts, but then it suddenly became Friday. No problem—I changed the title to Friday Freeze. Seemed apt. Then Friday came and went. Now it's Saturday. Saturday Sneeze strikes me as too disgusting of a post title to be paired with a bowl full of yellow snow, so you're stuck with the outdated title (and an image in your mind that you probably wish you didn't have). You're welcome!

In my forthcoming cookbook, there are several recipes for homemade snow cones. And by homemade, I do not mean pouring a package of powdered Kool-Aid over the snow. While the Internet assures me that this is a perfectly delicious way to enjoy snow cones, the Internet disappoints me sometimes. After experimenting with various homemade syrups, I came up with some excellent alternatives using seasonal winter fruits like citrus, pears, and quince (pictured is tangelo). I stored them in jelly jars in the refrigerator and then waited for the snow to come.

And waited and waited and waited. Mind you, this was last winter (2011/2012). The winter before that (2010/2011), we got 80 inches of snow. Last year, nothing. Well, maybe a few dustings here and there, but only enough to make one pitifully small grassy snow cone flecked with dirt and debris. Not appetizing. I thought about driving up to the mountains with a cooler. Instead I pulled out the blender. Bad idea. You can't make snow cones with a blender. Not with my blender anyway. Not unless you like soupy slush cones studded with frequent whole nuggets of ice. Yuck!

Finally, I broke down and bought a cheap $20 shaved ice machine. It worked well for testing purposes, producing an acceptable snow-like accumulation in small quantities. But I had yet to try my syrups over the actual cottony stuff from the sky. Until recently, that is. And, oh, it's such a treat!

A Valentine To Philadelphia

I just got back from the City of Brotherly Love. What a cool place!

Why Philadelphia in February?

It was the site of my dessert cookbook's photo shoot with Philly-based Running Press and Steve Legato Photography. Just between you and me, I wasn't going to miss that experience for all the tea in Boston's icy harbor, snow be damned, Amtrak train cancellations be doubly damned, school cancellations be triply damned. I fishtailed my way down my barely plowed street at 5 am on Monday and flung myself onto the first southbound train that came my way. Six hours later, I woke up in Philly.


This is the view from my little hotel, The Independent, which I loved (wood floors, high ceilings, close to all the great restaurants). I didn't have much daylight to work with for sight-seeing, but I did manage a fair amount of walking before and after the shoot through the Old City and Rittenhouse Square.


Philly reminds me a lot of Boston with its brick and cobblestone sidewalks in some quarters and streetcar rails grooving the pavement in others. The architecture is similar, too, with pretty little row houses lining the streets, but with more brick than brownstone and simpler, straighter lines. The urban vibe seems grittier and funkier than Boston, though, and certainly more diverse. There seemed to be painted murals around every corner. The grid system of an urban plan (roads chronologically numbered in one direction, named after trees in the other) is very easy to navigate by foot, and the drivers don't rev their engines if you're still in the crosswalk when the light is about to change. That was a refreshing change of pace.


My editor treated my agent and I to a lovely dinner at Tria, a wine bar with a welcome emphasis on cheese and probably the friendliest service I've experienced at any restaurant ever. The next night, I dined alone at Fish at the bar overlooking the open kitchen. The food was delicious: seared scallops with chorizo, cauliflower, and Marcona almonds, and monkfish with parsnip puree, lobster butter, fermented garlic, braised fennel, and radish.

The staff kept me well entertained, teasing me for missing all the important Philly sights: the Liberty Bell, Constitution Center, Independence Hall, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the latter of which seemed better known for Rocky's triumphant training scene than any art contained therein. Let it be known, however, that I did get to the Reading Terminal Market housed in an old train station, where I procured colorful farm eggs and an assortment of winter squashes for photography purposes.

But, of course, a large part of why I loved my trip so much was the photo shoot itself. It was amazing. What a fantastic, talented, and welcoming crew! They made even my most unphotogenic recipes look scrumptious, hermits included. Hermits!! The shoot deserves a post all its own, which you will soon get, but first I need to spend a little time with my family.

(To be continued…)

Lifting Your Spirits After the Blizzard of 2013

Know what's good over a shot glass full of snow? This stuff: Sapling. It's a maple liqueur from Saxtons River Distillery in Brattleboro, Vermont. Sweet but not too sweet, it's a nice reward after four hours of shoveling 2 to 3 feet of snow.

In the Boston area, look for it at Gordon's and Maaahty's. Thanks, Neighbors!